The casual mention of “the house where the lady with the TV show lived” led to a search to find out more about Marcia Adams, a colorful and accomplished former resident of Winona Lake.

My vocation (almost 41 years and counting altogether) sometimes involves the following paraphrased dialogue. “Chip, I see one of your sites’ operating costs are higher than usual,” they’ll ask. “So have you addressed concerns about this?”

This week, I took my son, Will, back to Bloomington for his sophomore year at IU. He is the youngest of my four boys, and I feel like we have been paying college tuition for a long time. It’s always a struggle, and it can compete with other financial priorities, like saving for retirement. I am 55, so retirement, which once seemed so far away, is getting closer and closer. Some folks get to this age and wake up one morning to realize they are 55 and haven’t saved anything for retirement. It happens more often than you might think. Maybe college tuition has eaten up your nest egg, or maybe unexpected medical expenses, or a job loss or bad investments. It doesn’t really matter how you ended up there; the important thing is to take action.

The Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams is a research and education center based at Grace College in Winona Lake. The organization helps landowners and businesses by recommending lake-focused best-practices, based on thorough research, and it helps local families and businesses adopt those practices.

I spent the early part of the week doing a lot of bellyaching at work and at home, more than usual in fact. Suddenly, while listening to one of Colin Cowherd’s The Herd segments available on Spotify, he remarked about avoiding toxic people as much as he can.

With Christmas falling a week from today and New Years Day the week after that, this will be my final column of 2025. I will return for the NFL playoffs with a column on January 8. With this being my final piece before the holidays and new year, I figured I’d try to combine the two and have some fun this week. 

Man, this Colts season sure took a turn for the worse, didn’t it?

When Sol Dickey purchased Spring Fountain Park from the Beyer brothers in 1894, the deed included a 55-acre peninsula that jutted out from the eastern shore of the lake. It was flat, marshy and infested with rattlesnakes and muskrats. Al Cuffel, who was employed to help clear the vegetation, recorded killing 22 rattlesnakes in one day.

College football is troubled, but - like in Monty Python’s “bring out your dead” scene in Holy Grail - it’s “not quite dead yet.”

I'd like to talk about the best football team in the state of Indiana. The one that plays in Bloomington.

You guessed it, I am angry.

Hundreds — perhaps thousands — of evangelical churches used Ken Anderson films for ministry during the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. The films were shown in Sunday night services, at youth rallies, at New Year’s Eve watch parties, and more.

My uncle and I, at least twice, revisited the comment I made in one of last year’s columns I celebrated the four PAC-12 defectors (Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington) as contributing so much to watchable Big Ten football games that we would never see Indiana and Purdue battle for the Old Oaken Bucket on a major network telecast.

We are often asked, “What can I do to be a better investor?” There are many simple steps that you can take to improve your investment results. Many of these tips are topics which we devote an entire radio show or newspaper article to.

Well folks, we’ve finally reached the tipping point. 

For a couple of weeks now, Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin’s name has been right where he wants it—on the lips of every media member in the country.

My brain has been more tired than usual, and around 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk – the last person in one of the plants where I work – unable to formulate a thought nor begin another task.

Most of us have heard of the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) and know that it has a role in setting interest rates, but many are unaware of what the Fed is and what it actually does.

Regardless of your world view or what your everyday outlook on life might be, it’s universally accepted that positive people are easier to be around than negative people.

The endless polarization, shouting and zero-sum battles dominate our news and social media feeds. While the country is drowning in destructive rhetoric, a powerful antidote is being championed right here.

Owen Orson Wiard was looking for a place of safety and anonymity. As a highly effective detective in western Pennsylvania, he helped shut down a branch of the notorious Black Hand gang of the Mafia. He feared for his safety.

“Nothing like us ever was” comes from poet Carl Sandburg’s work, “Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind” – a four-part poem published in 1922. He illustrated a great city, its complacent people, its downfall, and the rats and lizards eventually ruling it.

Now that Thanksgiving, Black Friday and holiday shopping are just around the corner, you can almost hear people in stores saying to themselves, “This year, it’s going to be different. This year, I’m going to keep my holiday spending under control.”

Alec Penstone, 100-year-old veteran, was recently honored on Good Morning Britain for his service. 

SYRACUSE — Mark your calendars and bundle up for one of the most heartwarming holiday traditions in northern Indiana.