Reflecting on his experiences with interviewing survivors and others affected by the Indiana State Fair tragedy in August 2011, executive editor Evan West speaks today with 93.1 host Steve Simpson. Audio from their conversation appears here at right. Simpson himself was one who reacted quickly on the ground to report the stage rigging collapse on August 13, 2011, just before the country band Sugarland was to take the stage.
Honestly, I didn’t pay that much attention while reading Slaughterhouse-Five in high school English class. Even though it was short compared to other required books—I’m looking at you, Crime and Punishment—I didn’t fully understand the themes. So when assigned to check out a public media event for a new exhibit fashioned by Ball State University students for the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, I was a bit apprehensive. My Vonnegut knowledge was slim. Yes, I knew that he was from Indiana and that I should be proud of that. I also knew that he had one heck of a mustache. And that’s about it. So when I walked into the KVML yesterday, I was a clean slate personified, although my soul felt dirty for the Slaughterhouse-Five crime.
WTHR-TV will be honored for its broadcasts with two National Edward R. Murrow Awards on October 8. The coveted prizes recognize outstanding “electronic” journalism at the national level and in TV and radio markets both large and small. Representatives from the station will receive the awards at a ceremony in New York City.
Dozens of intriguing six-word essays peppered the Indiana Statehouse lobby on Monday, penned by anonymous Indiana students and parents speaking to the best attributes of a number of Hoosier teachers. The brief and sometimes emotive and/or hilarious posts came from all corners of the state.
I. The Vonneguts were here (and still are). The new Kurt Vonnegut mural along Mass Ave has made the likeness of Indy’s most famous author a permanent fixture of the cityscape. And the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, opened in 2011, allows visitors to lay fingers on the very typewriter keys the giant once tapped (and […]
Attendees who signed up for ExactTarget’s upcoming Indianapolis conference hoping to see pop-culture icon Stan Lee are in for a big disappointment, Circle Citizen has learned. Last month, the interactive marketing company, headquartered next door to Circle Citizen’s 40 Monument Circle offices, announced in a splashy
Gusty conditions have delayed the return of “Victory” to the top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument for the last three days (including today), creating what optimists might call a “wind-win” situation as passersby have scored some extra face time with the iconic statue for the first time since she was created 118 years ago.
Editor’s Note, Nov. 7, 2012: Despite outspending his opponent, Glenda Ritz, by a 10-to-1 margin, Tony Bennett was unseated as Indiana’s schools czar on Nov. 6. Here, our September 2011 feature profile on the man who catalyzed a lot of visceral responses—both for and against him
Maybe it’s just those of us who work on the Circle who noticed, but the big red crane that has been nesting downtown seemed to turn yellow a few days ago. In fact, the Indiana Department of Administration swapped them right under the Circle Citizen’s nose. The larger 500,000-pound crane returned to R.H. Marlin on the south side, and the smaller yellow machine was brought in to install some light drainage fittings atop the Monument. Water infiltration, after all, was a major cont
Nothing gets Mayor Greg Ballard’s attention like a cycling event. Toward the end of the lunch hour today, Ballard stopped by the Circle to chat with Indiana police officers promoting a 1,000-mile fundraising ride that starts on Monday. The ride, Cops Cycling for Indiana, lasts 13 days and circumnavigates the state. Proceeds benefit the Indiana chapter of Concerns for Police Survivors, a support system for survivors of officers killed in the line of duty.
Amid national news last week that federal funding for bike trails is in danger of coming to a screeching halt, Indianapolis announced progress in the other direction. The Indy Bike Hub YMCA, including the city’s first commuter facility for bikers, is on track to open in August.
Had the pedestrians and shopkeepers of a less-enlightened metropolis complained about aggressive panhandling (as they did in Indianapolis a few years ago), their leaders might simply have opted for rousting the offenders. Not here. In 2008, we also got donation boxes on downtown sidewalks for the benefit of the homeless. They seemed an admirable symbol of compromise: While pledging to keep an eye on problem beggars, the city also acknowledged that combating homelessness is a cause worth raising money for. Even the boxes’ signage echoes the compromise, managing to scold (“No one should be bullied to give a handout”) and implore (“Give Real Help”) all at once.
