HARRISON COUNTY PROSECUTOR, OTTO SCHALK, HAS FILED 2 COUNTS OF NEGLECT OF A DEPENDENT, BOTH CLASS D FELONIES AGAINST DEBORAH VANWORMER.

MS. VANWROMER IS ALLEGED TO HAVE LOCKED HER TWO YOUNG CHILDREN IN HER HOME ALL DAY WHILE SHE TRAVELD TO INDIANAPOLIS.

A PROBABLE CAUSE AFFIDAVIT FOR AN ARREST WARRANT STATED THAT HARRISON COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT WAS NOTIFIED ONCE ONE OF THE YOUNG CHILDREN DIALED 911.

THE PROBABLE CAUSE AFFIDAVIT ALLEGED THAT THE CHILDREN WERE LOCKED INSIDE THE HOME AND HAD NO MEANS OF EXITING THE HOME.

UTILIZING THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WAS ABLE TO MAKE ENTRY THROUGH A WINDOW TO GET THE CHILDREN OUT. INSIDE THE HOME WERE ELECTRIC HEATERS THAT PRESENTED A FIRE HAZARD ACCORDING TO THE AFFIDAVIT.  CALLS AND TEXT MESSAGES SENT TO VANWROMER THROUGH A CELL PHONE LEFT WITH THE CHILDREN WENT UNANSWERED.

“ANY TIME THERE IS A CRIME INVOLVING CHILDREN, WE ARE GOING TO MAKE IT AN UTMOST PRIORITY,” SAID OTTO SCHALK.

AS OF THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE 5-6-2013, DEBORAH VANWORMER HAS AN ACTIVE ARREST WARRANT WITH A $5,000 BOND.

MS. VAN WROMER IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE

The Good Earth Master Gardeners’ 13th Annual Plant Sale will be Saturday May 11th at the Ruler Parking Lot, junctions of US60 and US135.

Chairperson Molly has acquired some very much loved rare plants as well as transplants form many of the wonderful gardens of Washington County. 

The next meeting of the Good Earth Master Gardeners will be Thursday, May 9th, 6:30 p.m. at Terry Cottongim's garden building located on Hwy. 56 East. They will be collecting and pricing plants for this plant sale. If anyone has any plants to donate to the sale, you can mark them at your home and bring them to sale site on Saturday or Cottongim Building Thursday evening at 6:30.

WSLM will air live coverage of the Aaron’s 499 Sprint Cup Series race from Talladega Superspeedway beginning at Noon today on WSLM 97.9 FM, with live streaming at wslmradio.com.

Brad Keselowski is the defending winner.

The MRN broadcast from Talladega, Ala., will be anchored by Barney Hall, Joe Moore and Jeff Striegle.

Shortly after 8:00 a.m. this morning, troopers from the Indiana State Police Post at Sellersburg responded to the Love’s Truck Stop in Memphis in reference to an alleged theft at the travel plaza.

When troopers arrived they talked with the travel plaza employees and then with Joshua Cloyd, 21, from Gary, IN. Joshua Cloyd had allegedly stole women’s socks and cupcakes from the travel plaza. After Trooper John Cain investigated further he recognized the alleged thief as a man he arrested on April 7th of this year for an alleged theft of items at the Pilot Travel Plaza, also located in Memphis.

After talking with the arrested it was determined that Joshua Cloyd would get on a travel coach/bus in northern Indiana and travel the Interstate 65 corridor south on the bus. When the bus made stops for refueling, eating meals, etc. he would get off of the bus and allegedly steal items. When he got to a predetermined destination going south, he would then get off of the bus travelling south and then get on another bus travelling north. He would then use the same alleged method of stealing on the way back north to his home in Gary, IN.

Joshua Cloyd was arrested for Theft, D Felony, (Two Counts), and incarcerated at the Clark County Jail.

Schools are now reporting little if any problems with ISTEP testing after State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz instructed all schools to reduce the number of students testing at anytime by 50-percent. John Newport with Vigo County schools says the district thought there might be problems this year after 2 years of issues.

Vigo County Schools tried to be proactive and had asked the state to postpone the addition of another grade level to their online testing pool for this year. Newport says the school corporation also had concerns about the local Internet connection maintaining the amount of traffic the testing requires. The request for delay was denied and Vigo County suffered problems like man schools around the state.

Newport says the it is somewhat frustrating and concerning to have to deal with the current issues when they tried to be proactive this year. Newport did give a lot of credit to Superintendent Ritz for understanding the issues schools were facing and extending the deadline for testing to be completed by 5 days.

The up-and-coming stars of INDYCAR got a chance to test out the track Thursday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The drivers in the Firestone Indy Lights Series participated in an open test at IMS less than a month away from the Firestone Freedom 100 on Carb Day.

Rookie Kyle O‘Gara of Indianapolis will make his Indy Lights debut in that race. He says driving at IMS is a dream he‘s had since he was two years old. O‘Gara got the chance to race through a partnership with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.

It‘ll be a busy weekend for him as he graduates from Roncalli High School the day after the race. He says about 600 of his classmates will be cheering him on during the race. Rookie Zach Veach, driving for Andretti Autosport also got the chance to drive at IMS for the first time.

He says it took some time to adjust to the track but he‘s had some help from his teammate Carlos Munoz. Munoz, the current championship points leader in Indy Lights, will be pulling double duty on race weekend. He‘ll also be making his Indianapolis 500 debut for Andretti Autosport, two days after the Freedom 100.

The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles reports that the number of new and used car titles processed by the state continues to rise.

BMV statistics show that during the economic decline from 2007 to 2009, the number of processed titles dropped. However, from 2009 to 2012, the number of titles the state processed rose almost nine-percent from 1.81 million in 2009 to 1.97 million in 2012.

Auto Dealers Association of Indiana Executive Vice President Marty Murphy says dealers have definitely noticed an upswing in recent years. Murphy cites a combination of an improved economy, pent up demand and good, new products.

Murphy says dealers have also become better operators. He says sales are up across the board for all sorts of vehicles, but especially fuel efficient vehicles. Murphy says dealers still have some recovering to do, but they‘re nowhere near as bad as they were during the economic slide.

Jeffersonville-This morning at approximately 12:32 am, The Indiana State Police Post at Sellersburg received a telephone call from 202 River Wood Drive in Jeffersonville. The caller stated that a vehicle had crashed into his home. He stated that the vehicle caused severe damage to his residence and then fled the scene. He described the vehicle as a black Nissan containing two females, with major front end damage.

A short while later the vehicle was located a few blocks away at 121 Webster Boulevard by an officer with the Jeffersonville Police Department. Trooper’s Patrick Stinson and Thomas Basham arrived on the scene and after an investigation of the events Trooper Patrick Stinson determined Shawna L. Fields was the alleged driver of the crashed vehicle and she had also allegedly battered a witness at the crash scene. Shawna L. Fields, 30, of Fort Myers, Florida was arrested and charged with Battery, Leaving the Scene of a Property Damage Crash, Interference with the Reporting of a Crime, Operating While Intoxicated and Operating with a BAC of .15% or Higher. All these charges are Class A Misdemeanors.

Shawna L. Fields was incarcerated in the Clark County Jail awaiting her first court appearance.

The latest surveys have shown that young people between the ages of 18 and 30 have veered away from organized religion.

However, one Indiana observer says that doesn‘t mean young people aren‘t curious about religion. Charlie Wiles is executive director of the Center for Interfaith Cooperation in Indianapolis.

Wiles says even though studies show only 50-percent of young people engage in organized religion, they remain aware about spirituality. Wiles says he sees more young people using their spirituality to address social ills rather than adhering to tradition and rituals of the church.

Wiles says organized religion tends to have a stronger impact on people as they age. He says as more churches of various faiths engage more in the issues and communities around them, it‘s likely to bring more young people back to organized religion.

I-U is home to the fastest university-owned supercomputer in the nation.

A dedication ceremony took place Friday for Big Red II which is 25 times faster than the original, which was acquired in 2006.

The university‘s vice president of information technology, Brad Wheeler, says it can crunch a quadrillion pieces of data per second.

It is fully available for faculty, staff and students on all the campuses of I-U via the state‘s I-light network. Wheeler says I-U is partnered with many parts of the public sector, as well as the private sector who will be able to take advantage of Big Red.