From the Files of the Kosciusko County Historical Society

Editor’s note: This is a retrospective article that runs a few times a month on InkFreeNews.

Information for this retrospective series is courtesy of the Kosciusko County Historical Society.

March 1988 — At least four area infants won’t be celebrating their first birthday until 1992, having the distinction of being born on leap year day. Kosciusko Community Hospital reports three girls and a boy were born on the day that comes around only once every four years — Joshua Paul Stahl, Emily Kunish, Elizabeth Renee Kiser and Ashley Marie McLin.

March 3, 1979 — For the second time within a week, Warsaw Community School Corp. has been charged in a lawsuit with violation of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and the press.

Two Warsaw Community High School seniors, Anne Summe and Jeri Grisso, sued Warsaw School Board, Superintendent Dr. Charles F. Bragg and high school principal Ray Green for an order in U.S. District Court, South Bend, to resume publication of the student newspaper.

The suit alleges school officials are violating the First Amendment rights of the students by refusing to permit publication of the student newspaper, Kontac, and reviewing student contributions to the “Tiger Alive” news pages published by the Times-Union.

On Friday, Feb. 23, a former high school business teacher, JoAnn DuPont, sued the school corporation over her firing by the school board last spring. One part of DuPont’s suit also claimed that school officials had violated her First Amendment right to free speech by firing her after she spoke out and wrote a letter to the editor of the Times-Union about textbook censorship.

March 4, 1965 — Damage of at least $35,000 was estimated today in a fire that destroyed a Milford manufacturing firm, damaged another and posed a serious threat to the entire downtown area for a time Wednesday.

The blaze, which broke out about 1:30 p.m., destroyed a building housing the Syr-Web Manufacturing Co. and also damaged the adjoining Turf Bar. The Syr-Web firm manufactures canvas awnings and is operated by Jack Hickman of Milford. The building is owned by Mrs. Glenn Neer, Rt. 2, Pierceton.

– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels