North Bend Still Up In Air

North Bend Still Up In Air In School Dispute Reorganization Is Under Fire

[From the Sept. 14 issue of The Starke County Democrat, published at Knox]

Although the children of North Bend Township are attending classes in an orderly, routine fashion at the three schools available them. strong undercurrents contention and discord still are manifest within the ranks of the parents of that community.

The dissention has now erupted into court litigation in two forms.

Last week a suit was instituted in Starke Circuit Court which challenges the decision of Trustee Donald Taylor to close the school buildings of North Bend.

Hershel Patrick, plaintiff the suit, seeks a court mandate which would require that Taylor re-open the North Bend buildings. and resume school functions within the North Bend district.

Taylor did not re-open the schools this fall but is transfering all North Bend pupils into the schools at Knox, Culver, and Monterey.

New Petition Challenge

A new court action was filed this week. Sixteen residents of the township have joined as plaintiffs in a complaint which is challenge of the decision to retain North Bend under the jurisdiction of the Starke County School Reorganization Committee.

The suit was filed last Thursday.

The complaint alleges that County Clerk Elmer Anderson has not made a proper certificate under the seal of his office, to show the validity of petitions to release North Bend to the jurisdiction of Marshall County.

Failed To Keep Record?

It further contends that Clerk Anderson failed to keep a record of the certification in his office.

The suit, though it sets out the above technicalities, is actually a challenge of the certification itself.

North Bend residents who were leaders of a move to merge the schools of that township with Union and Marshall, and Aubheenaubbee of Fulton, caused to be circulated petitions which, if supported by 60 per cent of the voters, would force the release of that township from the jurisdiction of the Starke School Committee.

Some Names Withdrawn

There were enough names on the petition, when circulation stopped, to qualify under the 60 per cent requirement of law, but prior to the time certification proceedings were begun in the office of the County Clerk many original petitioners signed subsequent withdrawal notices and the county school committee ruled the petition invalid because an insufficient number remained.

The 16 North Bend residents who are now going to court on a claim that the committees ruling was wrong are:

Mary A. Langlois Ruby F. Torok Ray R. Bennett Paul Klatt Borg.

John Darocsi Jr. Oscar A. Fechner Donald Humes Ruth C. Kamin,

Della Mae Lucas Charmaine Miller. Evelyn M. Overmyer Chestor C. Scott. Sr.

Edward V. Torok Donald Taylor Louise Van Horn and Rosemary O. White.

Starke County Clerk Anderson and the Starke County School Reorganization committee members are named as co-defendants. This committee is composed of Frank Pulver, Donald Peregrine. Ralph Harbison, Arthur Mosher. Carl Raffel. DeLois Awald. Erie Cramer. Mathew Swanson. and Julius Henry.

The Culver Citizen Culver, Indiana Wed, Sep 20, 1961