The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page B1

Time: 07-01-2007 23:28 User: mmatherly PubDate: 07-02-2007 Zone: IN Edition: 1 Page Name: B1 Color: Bftapbnta Indiaiia POST YOUR PICS ALI CENTER You can post your news Check out the Muham-photos at www.courier- mad AN Center at journal.com. (Click on www.courier-jour- AROUND INDIANA B3 WEATHER B6 DEATHS THINK GREEN Read James Bruggers' Watchdog Earth blog, Joe Taylor, editor 948-1315, phone 949-4041, fax MONDAY "Reader nal.comali JULY 2, 2007 Sewer board to review contract STATE NEWS FROM WIRE, STAFF ANGOLA sewer system to comply with EPA orders, Kochert said, "and that's the course I want to stay on." New Albany remains under EPA scrutiny because of past violations of the Clean Water Act. The board will meet at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room 331 of the City-County Building downtown. Reporter Dick Kaukas can be reached at (812) 949-4033.

Company would work for less By Dick Kaukas The Courier-Journal The New Albany Sewer Board is to meet this week to consider a new contract for En-vironmental Management the company that manages and runs the city's sewer Garner said. But he said the renegotiated agreement will save the city money and require EMC to add services. The company will provide a construction and repair crew to clean and repair parts of the system to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements, Garner said. Yvonne Kersey, a New Albany resident, said she that thinks bids should have been sought for the sewer-management contract and that it's pos sible another company would have asked for less than $3.3 million.

But Garner, who also is head of the sewer board, said service contracts do not have to be bid under state law and there are advantages to sticking with a company that's familiar with the city and its sewer system. Larry Kochert, a board member and head of the City Council, said he wants to retain EMC for those reasons. "We are trying to fix" the system. Mayor James Garner said a sewer board committee came up with an agreement with the company for $3.3 million a year through Dec. 31, 2010, renewable for two years after that.

The city now pays the company $3.6 million, Garner said. EMC has managed the city's wastewater treatment plant since 2001. The current contract expires at the end of December and could have been renewed, Church event honors those who serve Hundreds attend annual service By Christopher Hall Special to The Courier-Journal Hundreds of people flocked to Graceland Baptist Church in New Albany yesterday for Independence Day services honoring the men and women who serve their country. The annual service which attracted members of various branches of the armed forces as well as such civil servants as New Albany Mayor Jim Garner and Floyd County Sheriff Darrell Mills honored current, former and fallen military personnel; police; firefighters, emergency respon-ders; and public employees and disaster-relief workers. For about a quarter of a century the church has held "God and Country" services around the Fourth of July, said Jan Whittenberg, spokeswoman for the church.

It held two services yesterday, at 830 and 10:30 a.m. "This is the heart and soul of 'God and Whittenberg said. "We honor and pay tribute to those that serve our community, that serve our country, that serve the world." She said, "It's ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things, and we want them to know we appreciate it." Speakers made special mention of the first responders in New York City See CHURCH, B4, col. 1 Mayoral candidate going back into Army A 57-year-old Indiana State Police detective is pulling out of the Angola mayoral race to go on active military duty in Afghanistan. Harry Nix, a retired Army major, has offered to return to active duty every year since the Sept.

11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Now, the Army has ordered him to report to Fort Benning, before being sent to Afghanistan for a year. Nix won Angola's Republican mayoral primary in May, defeating Daniel Gagye by 74 votes. He withdrew his candidacy Friday. A party caucus will name a new candidate for the November general election.

"I wanted to be mayor awful bad, but I think right now service to the nation is more important," Nix said. INDIANAPOLIS Clarian will charge staff who don't aim for health Unhealthy habits could cost Clarian Health employees a healthy chunk of money as the company tries to rein in rising health-care costs. Starting in 2009, Clarian will charge workers extra for insurance if they let health risks such as smoking, obesity or high cholesterol go unchecked. Questionnaires and screenings will be used to detect health risks. Workers who fail to measure up in five areas including body mass and blood pressure will have up to $30 deducted from each biweekly paycheck if they can't prove they're working to improve their health.

Workers who smoke will pay $5 extra every two weeks starting next year. The Indianapolis-based health-care provider is not the only company to ask employees to shape up, but it's one of a few that's moving beyond the honor system. CARMEL New art museum has national ambitions The Indianapolis suburb of Carmel is becoming the home of a new museum of contemporary art that hopes to attract a national audience. Work is scheduled to be completed by September on the Midwest Museum of Contemporary Art, which will have 7,300 square feet of exhibit space on the second floor of the Lurie Building. The museum's first exhibit, titled "Backyard: A Look at Suburban Living," is scheduled to open Sept.

14. Jeremy Efroymson, former executive director of the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, will lead the new museum. The nonprofit Carmel museum plans to exhibit family-friendly art that includes a mix of media, such as painting, sculpture and video installations. Miss Ball State wins Miss Indiana title too A Plymouth woman was crowned Miss Indiana 2007 Saturday night in Zionsville and will represent the state in the Miss America pageant in January. Miss Ball State, Nicole Rash, 22, won the swimsuit competition and tied for first in the talent phase by singing "Bandito" in Spanish.

Rash will receive nearly $10,000 in scholarships and additional prizes. On Friday, Morgan Jackson, 13, of Jeffersonville was named Miss Indiana Outstanding Teen 2007. Read Indiana news online at: By Christopher Hall, Special to The Courier-Journal Charlie Roberson of Floyds Knobs looked at pictures of Floyd County residents who have served in the military. The display was part of yesterday's "God and Country" event at Graceland Baptist Church in New Albany. THIS WEEK IN Cletus Seifert assembled a cherry coffin at Hurst Cabinets in Huntingburg recently.

Hurst has been building Abbey Caskets since 1999, when the St. Meinrad Archabbey decided to let the public buy what had been made only for the monks. David Pierini The Herald via AP St. Meinrad finds a market for its handmade caskets 10 YEARS AGO 1997 Shortly after midnight, Harold McQueen was executed in Kentucky's electric chair for the murder of 22-year-old Rebecca 0'Hearn, who was a recent Eastern Kentucky University graduate. McQueen was the 163rd person to be put to death in Kentucky and the first in 35 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court effectively did away with the death penalty in 1972 but reinstated it in 1976. Gov. Paul Patton said he did not believe McQueen deserved clemency. "Issues related to the death penalty and clemency are the most difficult issues I have faced as your governor," Patton said.

15 YEARS AGO -1992 The 3.75-acre downtown area of Rabbit Hash, was listed for sale for $639,500 in the June issue of Historic Preservation News. Although there was no urgency about selling the place, owner Lowell "Louie" Scott, 52, was beginning to think about retirement. Comprising six buildings, the crown jewel of the business district had always been the general store. Resident Don Clare, who helped draft the 50-word announcement, said: "Actually we're just kind of fishing. We thought, well, maybe Clint Eastwood would read it and want himself a town.

Somebody independently wealthy and eccentric." In 2002, members of the Rabbit Hash Historical Society bought the town from Scott for $150,000. 20 YEARS AGO -1987 Their family says they're crazy, but Hoosier National Forest officials are crazy about Frank and Elsie Stevanson. In late spring, they leave their comfortable home in Port Lavaca, Texas, to spend about three months at the Indian and Celina lake campgrounds in Perry County. The Stevansons park their 21-foot trailer and set up a brown and white sign that reads, "Campground Host." "They provide information, pick up litter and act as our eyes and ears in the evening," said Ralph Miller, assistant ranger. "In return, we provide them with a campsite and electricity." "The family thinks we're nuts," said 64 year-old Elsie Stevanson.

"But it takes a certain breed of people who like camping and being away from the convenience of home." Compiled by Amy Inskeep, The Courier-Journal Caskets was born in 1999, offering two styles of caskets monastic and traditional. Hurst Cabinets in Huntingburg was given a contract to make the caskets, the design for which originated in Switzerland 150 years ago. "We started out making a lot of poplar and now we make more cherry than anything," Hurst Cabinets owner Jon Hurst, of St. Anthony, said of the caskets, which are priced at $1,275 to $1,975. Urns sell for less than $200.

A monk still makes caskets See CASKETS, B4, col. 1 made wooden caskets or urns. "We try to make people comfortable," she said of the brightly lit six-coffin showroom. "People come to a place like this and see that there's no pressure." When people wander into the showroom filled with caskets and various single- and double-person urns, they often ask about the company's origins, Keller said. For many years, a monk at the archabbey made the coffins strictly for monks there.

Because consumers were interested in the simplicity of the monks' burial boxes, Abbey By Jessica Dyer The (Jasper) Herald ST. MEINRAD, Ind. The Abbey Casket showroom, in the back corner of the Abbey Press Gift Shop at St. Meinrad Archabbey, surprises some people who wander to that end of the shop. Jennifer Keller, associate director of Abbey Caskets, takes many questions from curious shoppers.

She's even had people take photos of themselves next to the caskets they want to be buried in. Most people walk away with information on how to purchase one of the hand LOL'ISVILLE FREE PUBLIC-.