Published: June 27, 2009 12:29 am      

EVENING NEWS CHEERS & JEERS: June 28, 2009

CHEERS

... to festival season. We’ve already had JEFF Fest, Borden’s Valley Day Festival, the inaugural Smokin’ on the River barbecue cookoff and other viable excuses to enjoy fun in the sun.

Charlestown’s ninth-annual Founders Day festival wraps up today with fireworks at 10 p.m., and last Thursday’s 4-H Bicycle Rodeo lets us know that THE festival of the summer — The Clark County 4-H Fair — is just a couple of weeks away.

Get out and enjoy the season ... we’re halfway to winter, after all.

— Editor Shea Van Hoy



... to July 1. That’s when an overdue change to Indiana Code will take hold. On that day and beyond, it’s a felony to intentionally injure or abuse a domestic animal.

In the past, the offense was a misdemeanor, no matter the crime against an animal.

As a pet owner, I can’t imagine harming an animal. Maybe the tougher penalties will dissuade someone from doing just that.

— Editor Shea Van Hoy



... to Clarksville Police Department’s Operation Vacation program. Residents there can call up CPD and officers will drive by a home left vacant by vacation a couple of times a day. It’s a bit of peace of mind when Clarksville residents leave town.

Call 812-288-7151 for more information.

— Editor Shea Van Hoy



JEERS

... to the hateful person who ripped an entire row of flowers out of the flower box in front of The Evening News earlier this week. How mean!

My husband, staff photographer C.E. Branham, and I have an expression, “Can’t have nothin’,” that we use in these situations — meaning “You can’t have nothin’ decent because somebody’s going to come along and ruin it.”

And that’s precisely what someone did. Ruined my flower bed and ruined my day.

To add insult, the renegade flower tearer-upper just threw all the plants down along the sidewalk in front of the building. The least you could have done was just take them away. Then I could have held onto a little hope that maybe someone thought they were so pretty they just took them home to plant them in their own flower boxes.

Look, it may not have been a professional landscaping job, but I planted those flowers so there’d be something prettier to look at than the beer bottles and cigarette butts people discard there.

Shame on you, mean person. Shame on you.

— Amy Huffman-Branham, presentation editor just trying to make the world prettier one petunia plant at a time



READER CHEERS

... to the Jeffersonville Fire Department along 10th Street for helping me Tuesday morning. I thought I could take my mother to the hospital, but her breathing got worse. I saw the firefighters washing their trucks and I stopped by for help.

They were quick to our aid and placed my mother on oxygen and called the ambulance for me. You will never know how much I appreciate your help. Thank you so much.

— Candy Wilson, Jeffersonville



... to New Hope Services Inc. for stepping up to the plate and hitting a home run for children with autism — with the opening of its new Park Place Children’s Home.

— Deborah Mann, Jeffersonville



Do you have someone or something to cheer or jeer? Submissions should be sent to Editor Shea Van Hoy at shea.vanhoy@newsandtribune.com or by mail at 221 Spring St., Jeffersonville, IN 47130.