Participants in the Grant County Rescue Mission’s 20th annual Walk-A-Mile experienced the struggle of living outside in the winter by walking a mile in downtown Marion. 

Those who came to the event had the opportunity to carry a backpack on the walk. Each pack was filled and had a notecard attached to it with a note from someone who was or is involved with the rescue mission

“When you do the Walk-A-Mile you always have the opportunity to pick up a backpack to, I guess, make it a more realistic experience,” said John Cruzan, a Walk-A-Mile participant. “Try to understand for a short time what it’s like to be outside and possibly have everything you own on your back in a backpack.”

Cruzan has been attending the Walk-A-Mile event for three years with his coworkers. He said that carrying a bag and participating in the walk provides a brief glimpse into what life is like for people who have no place to go. 

Megan Swan participated in Walk-A-Mile for the first time, and took a backpack that represented a woman who was living outside last year. 

“One of the individuals came to the Open Heart Women’s Shelter, because she had a relapse, and recognized that she needed a safe place to go and people that she could trust,” said Swan. “So this is kind of representative of the fact that she was out in the cold last March.”

Grant County Rescue Mission Executive Director Brad Terhune said that Walk-A-Mile takes place in February every year so participants can experience what those without a home have to face during the winter months. 

“We walk outside and feel the cold, the chill on our faces, and realize that there are those that have to be out in this,” Terhune said. 

Terhune said that events like Walk-A-Mile provide a space where people who live in the shelter and people who do not live in the shelter can have conversations. 

“Today, we have real conversations,” Terhune said. “We have stories written up on backpacks, people can carry a backpack with them, read the story and hear about homelessness stories, and then people get to leave here wearing a shirt that will remind people life change happens here at the Grant County Rescue Mission.”

LifeWise Academy is a national organization based in Franklin County Ohio that provides optional release time religious education to elementary and middle school students. Public school students are allowed up to two hours per week of religious education as long as it takes place off school grounds, with the consent of a parent or guardian and takes place through a privately funded program. 

School Board Member Andy Horner, said that while the board will still support local organizations, they cannot give their support to LifeWise Academy at this time. 

“I think everybody locally is well-intentioned, well-meaning and they want what’s best for the community,” Horner said. 

The Ark Christian Ministries’s Andrew Hale, the community member who originally presented the plan to the board, was not at the meeting. 

Instead, Hale sent a letter that Superintendent Sheri Hardman read to the board. 

“LifeWise Academy lines up with our vision by using Bible teaching, and we are sad that the school board didn’t agree with us on this program, as we know the impact this could have,” Hale said in the letter. “We do not want to move forward with this program that doesn’t have the acknowledgement of the school board administration as we honor our relationship over running this certain program.”

Hale said that his organization has decided not to take any further steps towards bringing LifeWise into Oak Hill at this time. 

The Ark Christian Ministries planned on providing vehicles to take Oak Hill students to and from the church where LifeWise was going to be held during the school day. 

School Board Member Scott Dubois said that the board is still looking forward to working with Hale in the future despite their refusal to acknowledge the LifeWise plan. 

“When I met with him, I reiterated that multiple times, ‘Andrew, this is not against you, this is not personal or vindictive, anything of that nature,’” said Horner. “So, I think we were in a good place when we were done with our meeting.”

LifeWise Academy is a release time religious education program headquartered in Franklin County Ohio that operates in 12 states across the country. 

The program focuses on teaching the Bible to elementary and junior high students during school hours. The program is permitted by law so long as it is privately funded, takes place off school grounds and parents sign a permission slip for their child. 

The idea of opening a LifeWise chapter in the Oak Hill School District was first presented to the school board during their January meeting. 

Andy Horner, a school board member, said that while board approval is not needed for LifeWise to start a chapter at Oak Hill, one of the 10 steps to start a LifeWise chapter is to get the school board to acknowledge the program. 

“The school board can’t endorse anything,” Horner said. “But LifeWise likes to know and have it on file that the local school board has seen the plan and acknowledges the plan specifically on school letterhead.”

Horner said that he has done personal research into LifeWise, and found some things that stuck out to him as red flags. 

“I think everybody locally is well-intentioned, well-meaning and want what’s best for the community,” Horner said. 

The program would take place off school grounds at Open Door Fellowship Church.

Curriculum 

Lifewise lessons can range anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes or longer depending on the school district and age range.

Lois Stump is a LifeWise teacher in Ohio’s Shawnee school district.

“Some of the classes are super, super short, like 20 minutes,” Stump said. “So sometimes what they do is they try to, if you have a 20 minute class period, on the bus ride over, they start the lesson.”

Stump said that every LifeWise lesson is composed of three elements, called the head, heart and hands. 

“So the head part is the general concept you want them to learn, and the heart aspect is what you want them to internalize and believe,” Stump said. “And the hand aspect is the practical application, like a LifeWise character trait such as trustworthiness and loyalty.”

The curriculum was created in conjunction with the gospel project, a program that Katie Helser, a LifeWise teacher in Ohio’s Allen East school district, said was basically used in churches.

Andy Horner said he is concerned about how hard it was to access this curriculum. 

“Their curriculum is not available online, and the lack of transparency from a group that reports to be teaching character is troubling to me,” Horner said.

Horner said that he filled out a form to access the content where he was asked to enter his name, physical address, email and phone number. He also had to check a box indicating whether he was a parent, community member, church leader or member of the press. 

“To me that means they intend to treat different people differently,” Horner said. 

Horner said that once he got a digital copy of the curriculum, he was allowed to look over the material for 48 hours before he lost access. 

LifeWise settled a copyright lawsuit against Indiana parent Zach Parrish last year after Parrish shared LifeWise curriculum on Facebook. 

Travel and Insurance

Release time religious education programs must take place off school property and must either walk or ride a non-school vehicle to a second location.

Lois Stump said that she personally picks kids up for LifeWise and drives them to the meeting place.

“(Stump) does only for her group because her classes are as small as–  I think her largest class has three students in it” Shawnee LifeWise Director Ruth Ann Stover said. “All the other students that we have are transported by LifeWise buses that are branded for LifeWise and carry additional liability coverage.”

For Oak Hill, Horner said students participating in LifeWise would be bussed to Open Door Fellowship Church using vehicles provided by Ark Christian Ministries. 

Andy Horner said he is concerned about kids getting hurt or getting into an accident going to and from school. 

“One, I don’t want a kid to be hurt, but two, who’s going to pay for that?” Horner said. “Those are the kinds of things as a school board member that I have to worry about.”

Missing Classes

Lois Stump said that for her school district, students are missing study hall at the middle school level and computer or art classes at the elementary level. 

For Helser’s school district, LifeWise is considered an equivalent to a leadership class taught at the fifth and sixth grade level. 

The tentative time for Oak Hill’s LifeWise program is during eighth period. 

“I was talking to somebody who has a kid who has eighth period math, and so if they (the parents) opted to take them out for this, they’re going to miss a core curriculum like math,” Andy Horner said. 

Horner said also the program communicates to kids that it is okay to miss electives. 

“We have such a limited amount of time with kids anyways, that I just don’t want to miss more time,” Oak Hill Superintendent Sheri Hardman said. 

Alternative Programs

While LifeWise is a national company that helps communities take advantage of release time religious education laws, they are not the only option for families looking to give their kids religious education. 

Oak Hill has a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter and Kids Hope, a mentoring program run by Converse Church of Christ. In this program, teachers identify kids who are struggling and pair them with a volunteer from the community. 

In other areas, communities have started their own programs similar to LifeWise. 

Sheena Eickholt started Planting Youth, another Ohio-based release time religious education program, with her husband. 

Eickholt said she was asked to be a part of LifeWise, but turned down the offer because she could not teach from her preferred version of the Bible. While LifeWise emphasizes character development, Planting Youth is more focused on evangelism.

Andy Horner said he is not opposed to a smaller program like Planting Youth, which operates at the local level. 

Sheri Hardman said that after school programs for character development have been available in the past. 

“Probably 10 of our kids that needed it the most went, and they were so excited,” Hardman said. “They did the climbing wall and they taught lessons through those activities, and like those are the kids that come home every night to no one.”

LifeWise, or any similar religious education program, is allowed to meet regardless of whether or not the board votes to acknowledge them.

The next Oak Hill school board meeting is Feb. 10 at 6:30 p.m.

The team recently won their second consecutive NAIA national championship, defending their title in a five-set comeback win over Bellevue of Nebraska.

“I think this is such a big deal as an Indiana Wesleyan alum, and Marion, this is a big deal for us,” Mayor Ronald Morrell Jr. said to the team during the meeting. “I’m super proud of each and every one of you.”

Marion City Council President Nick McKinley said he was very excited to have the team present at the meeting. 

“We’re just so proud of them,” McKinley said. “Indiana Wesleyan is integrated into the fabric of our community, and we should recognize these major accomplishments for any of the teams, whether it’s athletic or academic.”

In addition to the NAIA and Crossroads League championships, many players and both coaches received individual awards.

Head coach Candace Moats and assistant coach Dan Bergren received the Crossroads League Coach of the Year and Assistant Coach of the Year awards, respectively. 

Junior outside hitter Eva Joldersma was named Player of the Year by the NAIA, AVCA and the Crossroads League. Junior setter Abbigail Porter was named Setter of the Year by the NAIA, AVCA and the Crossroads League. Graduate outside hitter Martina Demarchi and junior middle blocker Marissa Mullins earned AVCA All-American Honorable Mention.

Defensive specialist Elly Grenda said that associate athletic director Jeffrey Reyes arranged the city council appearance. 

“(Reyes) was following us for our full season, and came with us to nationals, and then wanted us to come here,” Grenda said.

Grenda is currently a senior at IWU. She said this past season was a great end to her college volleyball career. 

“Now, having two national championships, it’s bittersweet because I ended it on, like, the best way I could have, but then I’m leaving such a good group of girls,” Grenda said. 

The Wildcats are 75-2 in the last two seasons and return four starters next year as they look to be the first NAIA school to three-peat since Fresno Pacific University won four in a row from 2007-2010.

The proposed budget for the project is $160,000 and would come out of Marion’s general fund. 

“So, the city building was built in, I believe, 1980, and the majority of the furniture is still the same furniture we had from then,” Morrell said. “So we have a plethora of desks and chairs that are quite frankly falling apart over the years, and now it’s time to upgrade the city furniture.”

City Council President Nick McKinley also said that a lot of the city furniture is long overdue for an update. 

“A lot of this furniture, if it gets moved one more time, it’s going to fall apart,” McKinley said. 

Gary Fordyce, the vice president of City Council, said that he agrees that the furniture needs to be replaced, but that it is too expensive to replace everything this year. 

“I think we need to do it in stages in the next couple years, and that that would be a more adequate spending as far as I’m concerned,” Fordyce said. 

McKinley said during the meeting that he was concerned about the price of some of the items included in the plan. 

“I don’t know if the math was right, but it seemed like the average price of the conference room chairs was like $500,” McKinley said. 

Fordyce said that some of the city furniture had already been replaced by the previous administration. The budget for that replacement was less than half of what Morrell proposed.

“I’m not 100% sure on what needs to be replaced because I haven’t gone into every exact office and looked at every desk and every chair and everything but I think I need to see that,” Fordyce said. “You know, some departments need it worse than others and I think we should just prioritize it to a point and make sure, you know, the tax dollars are spent to the best, responsible way that we can spend them.”

Morrell said that if he moves forward with the plan, the bid will have to go through three readings with the City Council. 

“If all goes well it will be (approved) the first meeting in March,” Morrell said.

Across Grant County, small-town citizens discuss what makes their communities legendary and what the future of these towns may look like.

Establishing Grant County

Grant County Historian Bill Munn talks about the history of Grant County:

Bill Munn (Photo Credit: The History Center at Marion Public Library)

Expanding community

Since the gas boom that originally brought many people to Grant County, the population of many small towns in the county has been on the decline.

Remy Locke, a Ball State University student studying Urban Planning, has been helping with revitalization efforts in the town of Swayzee, a town with a yearly population decline around 1%.

“If you look at the rate of decline in population since like 1970, it’s remained consistent since then,” said Locke. “There’s a loss of about like eight to 10 people per year, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but the community is only about 1,000 people.”

Compared to the surrounding counties, Grant County has a smaller population, especially when compared to Allen County, home to the city of Fort Wayne.

Grant County’s population is mostly white. The county’s Black, Asian, Native American and Mixed Race communities make up 12.5% of the population combined.

Due to differing populations, Marion and other towns in Grant County do not have as many parks as bigger cities. However, a handful of new parks and green spaces have opened in Grant County in the past year.

Tim Voss, owner of Voss Landworks, said that parks help to fill the space left by abandoned buildings that have been torn down.

“As businesses kind of leave, you have these downtowns that have some empty lots,” Voss said. “And so coming back and taking that, you know, property, and reclaiming it and building a beautiful green space is bringing some life back into the downtown.”

Voss said that he can not talk specifically about all the projects that his company has planned for next year, but that more parks and community spaces are in the works.

Rebuilding

Several communities in the county have begun revitalization efforts to make life better in their community. 

Don Thompson is the president of the newly developed Swayzee Economic Development Corporation. 

“We started (the corporation) last September, so we’re about one year into it,” said Thompson. 

Thompson said that the town of Swayzee is not a part of the Grant County Economic Growth Council. The Swayzee Economic Development Corporation provides the community with a way to improve the town in ways that county resources are not able to help with. 

Swayzee has also partnered with students from Ball State University’s Urban Planning Department to put together a comprehensive plan to make improvements to the town. 

“As was the case with Swayzee, they called me and asked that we help them prepare a comprehensive plan,” said Dr. Michael Burayidi, a Ball State professor and the faculty adviser for this project. “In the last seven years my classes have prepared over 15 comprehensive plans across Indiana, and so they may have heard from other communities about what we are doing in the department.” 

Kayla Ferguson, one of the Ball State students working on the project, said that the team did research on the community’s assets and public services.

“We looked at, like, the infrastructure, the sidewalks, the road systems and just got kind of an idea of what they had,” Ferguson said. “And then we also had a community meeting to hear their input which was really interesting.” 

The students individually surveyed every piece of land within city limits and put together a census that was filled out by almost 200 members of the community. 

“People are very, very helpful,” said Remy Locke, another Ball State Urban Planning student. “The people of Swayzee are obviously very passionate about the place that they live, and that’s really good for us, because they’ve been very forthcoming about, ‘here’s what’s great, here’s what we need to keep, but also here’s what’s wrong,’ because they want to help their town.”

Several new parks and other amenities have also recently opened in the county. 

Tim Voss, owner of Voss Landworks said that his company tackled several landscaping and parks projects in Grant County and the surrounding areas. 

“Down in the Marion, Grant County area we did three parks; one in Matthews, one in Jonesboro and one in Marion,” Voss said. 

Voss’s company does a lot of projects in the Fort Wayne area, but he is originally from Upland. 

“Connection is everything in business, you know, relationships,” Voss said. “So, we have a lot of relationships down here.”

Cayla Duckwall, owner of the Van Buren small business Mama Duck’s said that local businesses and organizations provide meeting places for people in the community.

Duckwell’s shop opened in 2022 and provides a space for local vendors to sell their crafts.

“We’re continuing to build and trying to just bring stuff to this area because we live in the middle of nowhere,” said Duckwall, “Just getting those community members together is a big deal.”

Leaving a Legacy

Keeping the history of the town in mind, residents of Grant County are looking to the future while trying to preserve the town’s legacy. 

Andy Horner, a Converse library director who has served on several boards for town and community organizations said he thinks that Grant County has made a legacy for itself through local sports. 

“High school sports are such a big part of small town life,” said Horner. “You see whole communities rally around whatever sports team happens to be on fire that year.”

Muareen Dalrumple of Swayzee said that sports is also something that is a big part of her community’s legacy. 

“It’s the only Swayzee in the world, with nine basketball overtimes, which is a part of my history,” Dalrumple said. 

Horner said that generational families also add to the community’s legacy. 

“Especially in our case where rural agriculture is concerned, we see lots of families that have third, fourth, even fifth and sixth generation farmers,” Horner said. “They farm this land, their parents, their grandparents farmed this land, and that’s a huge legacy because it means that they’re putting money, time, effort, roots down into a community, and then staying.” 

Horner said the reason he is so involved in his community is because he feels a strong sense of civic duty and enjoys engaging with the people in his town. 

“One of my favorite things here as the library director is I get to watch our kids grow up” Horner said. “They come into the library as kids, and I watch them move from young readers just starting out, to elementary kids to high school kids.”

“You can wish you had a better community, or you can do something to make it what you want.”

John Bryan, Swayzee Volunteer Fire Department

This election season all five of Grant County’s local school boards had representatives up for re-election, and vacant spots that needed filled. 

Below are the election results for the Eastbrook, Madison-Grant, Marion, Mississinewa and Oak Hill school districts. 

Eastbrook

District Four Incumbent Patrick Pinktertin ran unopposed and was re-elected. 

Christopher Duckwall won the At-Large election by 57% in Eastbrook’s only contested school board race. 

“I believe I bring fresh ideas and new perspective to the school board,” said Duckwell. “Comfort and routine can sometimes bring complacency and my goal is to break us out of that cycle and push Eastbrook forward.”

Madison-Grant

Incumbent David Whybrew was re-elected for District One Grant. 

District Six Incumbent Amanda Kelich was also re-elected. 

“I want to bring not only top quality education, but job-ready skills and experiences to our students,” Kelich said.  

No candidate was filed for the District Five position. 

Marion

Sarafina Salamo was uncontested, and has been re-elected for District Three. 

Gabe Delgado won the At-Large District Four seat over Todd Nicholson with 66% of the vote. 

There is no candidate filed for District Two.

Mississinewa

Kyle Speakman was elected as the District One Representative. 

Two seats in Mississinewa’s District Four At-Large were up for re-election. These races were won by Chris Cunningham and Jarrett Richards, who earned 33% and 28% of the vote respectively. 

Cunningham has been on the Mississinewa School Board for 28 years, and said he ran for re-election in order to help out with an upcoming building project for the district. 

“We have to expand right now,” said Cunningham. “With open enrollment, we don’t have any more room.”

Oak Hill 

Aaron Pinkering was re-elected for District Three. 

For District Five, Adam Thompson, who was originally appointed to the position in 2022 after a board member resigned, has also been elected. 

 “I want our school system to be one of the best in the county, if not state” said Thompson. “I am obviously invested as my children attend school in Oak Hill, but I also want the same for all who follow them after they graduate.”

There was no candidate filed for District Two.

Upward Bound is a national organization that focuses on offering support to first generation college students.

“The benefit for high school students to be in our program is that we kind of help them bridge some gaps, whether it’s academic, financial or just trying to figure out the academic and admissions process in college,” said Assistant Director Erica Farmer. 

Farmer was also a first generation college student and an Indiana Wesleyan alum. 

“When I came to Indiana Wesleyan, I had a lot of support behind me,” Farmer said. “But unfortunately, some of our students don’t have that kind of support.”

Upward Bound has also partnered with Wildcat Summer Academy, a six week summer program where students can learn about different careers and majors. 

“The sixth week we go, like, a week-long trip,” said Shalimar Scott, an Upward Bound student.“But like, for five weeks we’re actually on campus, and we do classes throughout the week, and then we’ll go home during the weekend.”

Farmer said that many of the students figured out what they wanted to major in because of this event. 

“I had multiple students that walked away, that decided right then that they knew they wanted to do music therapy,” Farmer said. “So, that’s a really big piece, you know, of the puzzle sometimes is just our high school students don’t necessarily know, because there’s so many avenues.”

Some Upward Bound alumni were also at the tailgate. Timber Ross is an IWU alum who was part of Eastern Kentucky University’s Upward Bound program. 

“They really encouraged me just to figure out in college what I wanted to do, and if I changed my major it was fine, and just to get life experiences and things,” Ross said. “And so because of that, I’ve been a nurse for 12 years.”

Like Ross, some students who are part of a specific college’s Upward Bound program choose to attend a different university after graduating. 

“I’m a little biased, obviously, as an alum, so I want them to come here (IWU), but the beauty of Upward Bound in general is we find things that fit the student and then we help them get to where they need to go, but they know that being a part of Upward Bound, this is always home,” Farmer said. “It’s kind of like one of the banners in the student center: ‘Once a wildcat, always a wildcat.’”

The IWU chapter of Upward Bound focuses mostly on Marion and Mississinewa school districts, but any student who qualifies is encouraged to apply. 

This project is in partnership with the Swayzee Economic Growth Council.

“So far I think we’ll be able to use this study that will help us go forward seeking out grants,” said Don Thompson, the president of the Swayzee Economic Growth Council. 

The study includes data taken from the United States census, conversations the students had with people living in Swayzee and a survey that the students emailed to members of the community.  

Dr. Michael Burayidi, an Urban Planning professor at Ball State said, as of the morning of the presentation 190 members of the Swayzee community responded to the survey.  

“He’s never had survey results like we have,” said Thompson. “So that tells us the community is ready to pitch our arms in together and move forward, because it is a great place to live and we’re going to make it even better.” 

Topics covered in the presentation included Swayzee’s assets, challenges and the purpose and process of the comprehensive plan.  

“One of the biggest assets we’ve heard of in Swayzee is its people,” said Kayla Ferguson, a Ball State student who worked on the study. “They have very engaged residents and a lot of neighborhood pride, which is really cool to see.” 

According to the survey 49% of people said that they talk to their neighbors at least once a week, while 30% talk to their neighbors daily.  

Ferguson said that Swayzee also has a lot of family-owned businesses and amenities, including libraries, parks and sports facilities. However, the study also revealed that only 6% of people living in Swayzee work in the community, while 94% work remotely or in other towns.  

“They don’t really have a localized economy,” said Remy Locke, another Ball State student who worked on the project.  

The comprehensive plan will focus on providing gathering spaces for the community, growing local businesses, preserving the small-town charm and improving the downtown area in order to take advantage of the traffic coming in from the two state roads that intersect in Swayzee. 

“More than 3,000 vehicles pass through town every day,” said Ferguson. “However, few stop in the town because they have not really been provided a reason for them to do so.” 

The report will need to be approved by the city council before any of these changes can be made. For now, Thompson said that the full study will be available to the public on the Economic Growth Council’s website onlyswayzee.org within the coming weeks.