Piling up points

Thumbs-up to Crothersville’s Katrina Christian for scoring more than 1,000 points in her three-year career with the Tigers’ girls basketball team. The junior hit that mark during the Jackson County squad’s 56-48 win against visiting New Washington on Jan. 26. Christian, the sixth girls basketball player in school history to reach that plateau, added 23 points in the team’s 63-56 win at home Saturday to Trinity Lutheran to bring her career total to 1,038.

School record

A similar thumbs-up goes to Trinity Lutheran senior Daniel Horton, who broke the school record for most points in a career during the boys basketball team’s 61-43 win against Medora on Jan. 22. The 23 points he scored that night allowed him to surpass the 865 points Chad VanLiew scored during his four years at the Seymour school.

Champs

Thumbs-up to the Seymour girls basketball team for winning the school’s first outright Hoosier Hills Conference title in that sport since joining the conference in 1996-97. The Owls finished the conference undefeated at 7-0 and finished with 18 regular-season wins, a school record.

Legacy of caring

Thumbs-up to Jenny Kent and Sophi Foster for creating the Addyson’s Bench of Caring project in memory of Addyson Engle. The 6-year-old Graham Creek Elementary School student died in a crash along with her cousin, Keghan McCrory-Engle, 10, and her aunt, Kathy Scroggins, 55, on June 11, 2015, on Interstate 65 in Bartholomew County. Kent was Addyson’s kindergarten teacher, and Foster’s son, Alex, was a classmate and friend of Addyson. A related thumbs-up goes to everyone who gave plastic caps and lids to Green Tree Plastics’ A Bench for Caps program. Enough plastic was collected to allow the Evansville firm to make four benches in memory of Addyson and Keghan.

Laying it on the line

Thumbs-up to all of the candidates who found their way to the Jackson County Courthouse in Brownstown or the Statehouse in Indianapolis to file declarations of candidacy for either county, state or federal offices. It’s always good to see people willing to put their name and reputation on the line to run for a public office.

Up for the challenge

Thumbs-up to Brownstown Central senior Conner Burgess, who won the county’s Maverick Challenge on Jan. 21 at the Greater Seymour Chamber of Commerce office, and to Trinity Lutheran’s Emma Wischmeier, Jacob Wischmeier and Victor Hackman for finishing second. The challenge, conducted annually by the chamber, the Brownstown Chamber of Commerce and Jackson County Industrial Development Corp., requires high school students to put together a business plan and show how to make it work. Burgess put together a car detailing business, Burgess Auto Spa, while the Wischmeiers and Hackman put together Wisch-man Canola. Burgess and the Trinity team will compete against other students in the area during the regional contest Feb. 20 at the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.