One of the biggest surprises – and announcements – from Mayor Tom Henry’s State of the City address had little to do with city government at all.CANNELTON – Fifty years ago next week, a plane flying at 18,000 feet broke apart and hurtled at 600 mph into a southern Indiana bean field. All 63 people aboard were killed.
A stone monument built soon after the March 17, 1960, crash has long marked the site near this Ohio River town where a Northwest Airlines plane crashed en route from Chicago to Miami.
But the community this weekend will hold its first large-scale commemoration of the Lockheed Electra turboprop crash that left a smoldering 50-foot-wide crater and scattered debris and body parts for five square miles.
The weekend includes a memorial today and screenings of films about the crash at two museums. Family members of a dozen victims will attend a reception at the town’s community center this afternoon.
A church service Sunday in Tell City will honor victims.
Experts later blamed the crash on weakness in the plane’s metal coupled with turbulence. One wing and part of the second had come off in midair.
INDIANA
With his goal met, state official quits
Tim Rushenberg, director of the state Department of Local Government Finance for the last 15 months, resigned effective today.
He sent a letter to county officials saying he achieved his mission to move most Indiana counties back to on-time billing of property taxes. An announcement on a replacement is expected Monday.
IU Foundation idles 18 as value sags
The Indiana University Foundation has laid off 18 employees from the staff at its Bloomington and Indianapolis offices.
Foundation spokeswoman Barbara Coffman says the job cuts were needed because the administration fee it receives has declined along with the market value of its endowment, now at $1.3 billion.
The IU Foundation says it ranks among the 15 largest endowments for public universities in the country.
OHIO
Defendant guilty of slaying 2 girls
A jury in Cincinnati has convicted an Ohio man of killing two teenage girls and burning their bodies.
Jurors deliberated for about 3 1/2 hours Friday before finding 41-year-old Anthony Kirkland guilty of aggravated murder and attempted rape in the slayings of 13-year-old Esme Kenney and 14-year-old Casonya Crawford.
The jury also found Kirkland guilty of aggravated robbery and gross abuse of a corpse in each slaying.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
