Legal Aid will be holding a free Legal Aid Clinic by phone for residents of the agency’s eight-county district on Tuesday.

The Legal Aid Clinic uses local volunteer attorneys, to offer free legal consultations to low-income individuals. You can expect to receive a brief consultation over the phone to answer general questions, to offer legal information, or to receive other assistance or advice.

The district includes Bartholomew, Brown, Decatur, Jackson, Jennings, Johnson, Rush, and Shelby counties.

Although the clinic will be from 3 to 5:30 p.m., you must first register between noon and 2 Tuesday afternoon, by calling Legal Aid at 812-378-0358.

Columbus Clerk-Treasurer Luann Welmer is taking on a new role as chairwoman of the Bartholomew County Republican party.

County Republicans chose Welmer and her slate of officers in a caucus meeting on Saturday. That includes Josh Burnett as vice chair, Leah Beyer as secretary, and Liana Lienhoop as treasurer.

In January, long-time party chairwoman Barb Hackman announced that she was stepping down from the position she has held since 2013.

Welmer has been elected clerk-treasurer in 2011, 2015 and again in 2019 and has also served as the Bartholomew County Republican Party treasurer for eight years.

Over two Fridays later this month, Exhibit Columbus will be unveiling the virtual first look at the 16 installations that will be created at Columbus landmarks as part of the 2021 build year for the group.

Exhibit Columbus alternates a symposium year of discussions and lectures with a year of installations, where architects and designers come to Columbus to create projects inspired and interacting with the city’s landmarks.

Anne Surak, director of Exhibit Columbus, explains:

The overall theme of this year’s installations will be New Middles.

The online presentations will be Friday March 19th and March 26th. There will be four two hour presentations, broken into themes of Ecologies, Geographies, Visibilities, and Possibilities.

The installations will open to the public on August 20th.

You can get more information and sign up to participate at exhibitcolumbus.org.

The Seymour Chamber of Commerce is making plans for a mural on the side of its offices in the downtown Farmers’ Club Building.

The building has housed the chamber offices since 1985 and overlooks the Burkhart Plaza Park. The chamber put out a request for proposals for the mural project this week through the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the Indiana Public Art Network. The hope is to have an artist selected by mid-summer and to finish the project by the end of October. Seymour Decorating Center has agreed to donate the paint for the project.

According to the chamber, a group of community leaders, stakeholders and art students is giving guidance to the project and there will be public forums to engage the community. The first is set for 7 in the evening on March 31st at the Burkhart Plaza Park.

For more information you can contact the chamber at 812-522-3681.

Sunday is College Goal Sunday for college-bound students at Indiana colleges and universities. The free program assists Indiana students in filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is required for students to be considered for financial aid including grants, scholarships, and student loans.

For the second year, this will be a virtual event. It will start at 2 p.m. on Sunday at collegegoalsunday.org.

Students who attend College Goal Sunday and submit a completed evaluation form will be entered in a drawing for one of tive $1,000 scholarships.

The Anderson Community Center on the east side of Columbus will be holding a fund-raising fish fry today.

The center will be holding the fish fry from 11 to 2 today. It will be a drive-through event and your meal will be brought to you.

The cost is $8 for a meal that includes fish, baked beans and coleslaw. Proceeds will go to benefit programs at the center.

The Anderson Center, formerly known as the America and Roby Anderson Community Center and prior to that as the Eastside Community Center, is at 421 McClure Road.

You can get more information at theandersoncommunitycenter.org

Some local residents with friends or family in the Bartholomew County Jail have become victims in what authorities are calling a cruel scam. Callers are pretending to be a jail sergeant and claiming that the loved one has died in custody.

The calls appear to Caller ID as if they were coming from the jail, but they are not.

So far, the callers have not asked for money from those they contact, but the sheriff’s department urges you not to give out any personal information to the scammers. If you have any questions about whether such a call is legitimate, you should hang up and call the jail directly.

Authorities stress that no inmates have died recently at the jail. They say that the scammers are causing anguish to those being contacted.

With the state about ready to pass the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic starting here, Bartholomew County remains in the yellow or moderate advisory level on the Indiana State Department of Health color-coded map of COVID-19 spread.

According to Thursday’s figures released by the state, Bartholomew County has a spread of 115 new cases per 100,000 people and a seven-day positivity rate of 7.17 percent. That would have to drop to less than 10 new cases per 100,000 residents and below a 5 percent positivity rating for the county to move back to the blue.

In our area, Brown, Johnson, Decatur and Jackson counties are now in the blue, while Shelby and Jennings counties continue in the yellow.

Statewide, Indiana saw 962 new cases of the disease and 32 new deaths reported Thursday. Shelby, Johnson and Brown counties each had a single new death reported in our area.

Health officials confirmed Indiana’s first case on March 6th of last year. Since then, 664,446 people in the state have tested positive for the virus and more than 12,231 people have died from it.

The vast majority of people who tested positive, nearly 98-percent of them, have recovered.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated

A Columbus mother is under arrest after an investigation into a January crash that killed her 10-year-old daughter.

Kaydence Mings of Columbus was pronounced dead at the scene of the Jan. 17th crash on East 25th Street, west of County Road 650E. Her cause of death was massive traumatic injuries according to the Bartholomew County coroner’s office.

She was a rear-seat passenger in the single-vehicle crash of a westbound SUV driven by her mother, 29-year-old Katelyn Mings.

Her mother, Webster Gilcrease, and an infant were also in the vehicle. Mings and Gilcrease were injured in the crash and first taken to Columbus Regional Hospital and then to IU Methodist Hospital for treatment.

After an investigation by the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department, Columbus Police Department and Indiana State Police was completed, the report went to the Bartholomew County prosecutor’s office. On Tuesday, Mings was charged with causing a death while operating a vehicle while intoxicated and operating a vehicle while intoxicated while endangering a person less than 18 years old.

A warrant was issued and she was arrested by Bartholomew County deputies at her home.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated

Vernon has re-elected the town’s mayor for his 11th term, in the only election this year in Indiana.

Our news-gathering partners at Network Indiana are reporting that Mayor Dan Wright won an 11th term with 62-percent of the vote. 86 of the town’s roughly 300 residents cast ballots.

Vernon elects the mayor and town council to two-year terms instead of four. Vernon also reelected its town marshal and a town council member in the only contested council race.

Councilwoman Shelly Davers is a Republican, but the rest of the town’s officeholders ran as independents.