Local News

You have an opportunity to recycle your Christmas tree, among other things. The Vanderburgh County Solid Waste District and the Wesselman Nature Society will conduct the annual Holiday Recycling Day on the back lot of the Civic Center from 8:00 AM until noon today. You can get your real tree grounded into mulch. If you want to keep the mulch, take along a container for it. Other materials will be recycled, including gift wrap, greeting cards, newspaper, household paper, magazines, catalogs, cans, glass containers, and No. 1-though-7 plastic containers.

The Evansville Emergency Food Pantry Consortium is selling holiday ornaments to help support its seven food pantries.  The ornaments are in commemoration of Evansville's Bicentennial and cost 10 dollars each, available at the city's three G.D. Ritzy restaurants and drive-thrus.

Evansville's new trash and recycling pickup schedule begins in January. Along with trash collection taking place five days a week instead of four, residents will receive two 96-gallon bins: one for trash and one for recyclable items.  Special collections will continue, including heavy trash pickup in the spring and fall and a leaf pickup from mid-October through mid-December.  Letters will be mailed out soon to notify residents about their weekly pickup day and when their new bins will arrive.

A local author is donating almost 1,900 copies of her book to third graders. Angie Karcher wrote her book "Where the River Grins: the History of Evansville, Indiana" specifically to donate to students in the county as part of this year's Evansville Bicentennial celebration. The book is now in classrooms across the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. 

Santa Claus, Indiana is getting a special visitor, in addition to Santa Claus himself. The Travel Channel will visit the town to film its annual Santa Claus Christmas Celebration for a new special called "Christmas Showdown." Producers for the channel plan to visit the 22-foot Santa Claus statue and Santa's Candy Castle, both of which opened in December of 1935. The town's three-week Christmas Celebration includes a fruitcake-eating contest at the castle, Dinner with Santa, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, and more. Travel Channel's "Christmas Showdown" will air next year.

Evansville's Station 14 firefighters are ready to move back into their fire house. The Willow Road Station has been closed for more than a month while crews replaced the roof, put in new countertops and cabinets, and spruced up the house with fresh paint. Part of these renovations were paid for with county option income tax money, repaid by the state after an accounting error. The Station 14 firefighters have been staying at Station 16, so they are glad to move furniture back in this weekend and finally stay the night at their own Station House on Monday. 

Henderson students are donating their time to pick out gifts for local families in need. Colonels' Corner Bank raised over $5,600 during its Turkey of the Year fundraiser and is using the money for an Adopt-A-Child program. Henderson County students will shop Monday, December 10th for 49 children from 20 different families at the local Wal-Mart. Colonels' Corner Bank and the Volunteer Information Center work together each year to organize this community service project. 

Kansas City linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his 22-year-old girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, then drove to the Chiefs' facilities at Arrowhead Stadium and took his own life in front of some team employees, including coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli, on Saturday morning.

A 13 hour telethon in Evansville raised $50,000 for superstorm Sandy relief efforts.  The Tri-State Gives Back telethon took place yesterday at the local Red Cross headquarters, with Mayor Lloyd Winnecke, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Eric Williams, and other prominent local figures taking phone calls for donations.  Old National Bank matched $5,000 from callers and set up an account to accept donations at any branch location.  Donations can also be made at the Red Cross website or the local headquarters on Stockwell Road.

If you're looking for a job and want to help victims of Superstorm Sandy, you may want to call Custom Staffing Services of Evansville. The company is hiring 104 workers for AmeriQual to help produce Meals Read to Eat. The company is best known for making MREs for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you're interested, you should act quickly. Custom Staffing hopes to fill the temporary jobs paying $8 an hour before Monday.