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From Wilson Football Festival's Punt Pass & Kick to national finals

This past weekend PPK USA hosted their national punt, pass and kick contest in Tampa, Florida, including competitors advancing from the Made in Ada Wilson Football festival regional event. 

Jamarcus St Laurent is now the National Champion 1st place overall ages 8-9 and Kamden Sampson placed 2nd overall ages 6-7. See additional phots on the Ada Area Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.

Also advancing from the local competition were

Brody Donley, Bluffton

Aubree Fischer, Delphos

Tanner Hirsch, Bluffton

Trace Hirsch, Bluffton

Dash Torres, Lima

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A book reviewed during a storm

By Robert McCool

After a spell of ill health, I find myself back at the books and the keyboard during a winter storm, ready to talk about a book I wanted to hate, but couldn't.

Barbara Kingsolver is a great writer who presents her stories as plain-faced as a tale can be. This leads to some unpleasant topics sometimes when a story absolutely must be told. Such is “Demon Copperhead” ($34.50 ISBN:987-0-06-326746-6), an Oprah's Book Club 2022 selection.

The book is all about a boy (Daemon) with red hair (Copperhead) growing up up in the Apalachicola South, with all its poverty–which means plenty of teen mothers and drugs, among other things like high school football, drinking excessively and having not much future to look forward to. On the other hand, family is tight and most important in life.

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BHS boys basketball nipped in 2-OT by P-G

By Cort Reynolds

The visiting Bluffton High School boys basketball team lost a double-overtime thriller to Pandora-Gilboa 58-56 Saturday night.

The Pirates knocked down 11 three-pointers, but came up just short in the annual non-conference rivalry battle.

Bluffton fell behind 17-6 after the first quarter, but rallied in the second stanza to be down only 21-18 at halftime. 

The Pirates inched within 34-32 heading to the fourth period.

Bluffton drained four triples in the final stanza to tie it up 44-44 at the end of regulation.

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Bluffton in the 1890s: A horse drawn economy

By Fred Steiner
www.BlufftonForever.com

Can you guess the number of horses in Richland Township and Bluffton 128 years ago? Try 683. That’s nearly 1 horse for every 5 persons here.

That interesting statistic is one of several uncovered in an assessment of Richland Township and the Village of Bluffton in 1895.

Most of the details relate to agriculture, simply because our American society was agriculturally based at this time.

The Bluffton News reported the assessor’s 1985 finding. We’ve posted these directly from the News story, that follows:

Assessor J.W. Steiner made his report to the county auditor last Friday, after having put in 31 days in gathering the usual statistics and data for the township and corporation. 

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Bluffton University professor to discuss ‘new’ tools for student learning

Dr. Walt Paquin, professor of social work at Bluffton University, will present the Colloquium, “Developing 'New' Tools for Student Learning,” at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3 in Centennial Hall’s Stutzman Lecture Hall. 

This presentation focuses on the projects that Paquin has explored over his 2021-22 sabbatical. Paquin has significantly revised the ‘Learning in Community’ course to increase student engagement in the Lima community. He also discovered ways to enhance student engagement and “learning activities” throughout the Social Work curriculum at Bluffton University.

Hancock Park District hosts "Going Nuts: Open House" at Litzenberg Woods

FINDLAY--Mast producing trees, like walnut and hickory, were important to the McKinnis family and their neighbors. Not only was the wood used in many of their structures, the nuts of the black walnut, shagbark hickory, shellbark hickory, and butternut hickory were used in baking and making ink. Join Mrs. Boylan, a neighbor of the McKinnis family, in the kitchen as she shares samples of her walnut cookies and hickory nut bread to all who stop by.

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