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SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP — Residents and their children got a chance to positively interact with law enforcement Tuesday night, as area departments celebrated National Night Out.

Fire bells rang out over New Bremen streets as people lined up their cars decorated in vegetable and grain products. The New Bremen parade immediately dispersed as participants and onlookers rushed to the accommodation barn of St. Paul’s church. After they put out the flames, the parade commenced. Not even a fire diminished the crowd’s enthusiasm for the New Bremen Farmers Picnic in 1920.

WAPAKONETA — Sticker shock in the grocery store is nothing new to families throughout the region. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the costs of many food staples have continued to rise, including ground beef prices in the Midwest up 8.4 percent compared to prices in June 2023, bread costs up 11.2 percent and eggs up 26.1 percent over the same time frame. That shock felt by individual families is also felt by other food shoppers, including schools looking to procure food for cafeteria meals.

Transportation safety has made incredible progress in recent years we now take it for granted. Yet, there was a time (and not that long ago) when even the most straightforward trips carried risks for passengers. Just 110 years ago this summer, one such disaster rocked the country. Forgotten today, it’s worth revisiting.

VAN WERT — Judge Martin Burchfield of the Van Wert Common Pleas Court denied all but one motion to suppress Tuesday in a case for a Rockford man charged with the murder of a Van Wert resident.

During these final weeks of summer’s last full month, I’m in the mood to talk about trips, starting with one from my friend Michelle Rice that details a 2014 trip that she, husband Jason, and their daughters Cameron and Avery, then 15 and 13 respectively, took. Michelle told me the tale after she asked me about my summer travel plans late last May while we were visiting our friend, Joyce Zerante, a resident of The Greens at Lima Convalescent Home. When I told Michelle of my intention to see three national parks in a week’s time on a 4,200-mile driving trip in mid-June, one of which was Yellowstone that would necessitate a two-night stay in Cody, Wyoming, the closest town to the east entry point to the massive park, it triggered her memory.

Some people are drawn to social media apps — I’m drawn to weather apps.

DELPHOS — Recreational marijuana sales will now take place in Delphos after a proposed prohibition of commercial cultivation and sales failed to garner sufficient votes from city council members Monday.

LIMA — The music of Badfinger is still alive and is coming to Lima this weekend.

Kansas in Concert