This is our White River [music] Adventure Recap. I'm joined by the one, the only cameraman extraordinaire, uh, content associate, Will Hudson, in the podcast [music] seat as we give you a little look, a little peak behind the curtain into what happened out there on the river. [music] Will, welcome in. Thank you. I'm happy to be back. Oh, he's back, baby.
Back and better than ever. And everyone by now should know that our YouTube video dropped last night. It's Friday morning. We're hanging out. Hopefully, you're listening on Friday morning. This is the last day of July, but yesterday, yesterday evening, our podcast dropped.
And we have a fun episode for you today. Will and I are going to debrief on everything White River. We hope you go check out our YouTube video. It just dropped. Please like, subscribe, do all the things. But then after that, we're going to have a a special sit down.
We're talking all news with uh Free Press Indiana News. We're going to talk about some of the biggest stories from a guy that's trying to visit all 92 county fairs to I'm going to say the words. We do dive into a little bit of the news around data centers in Indiana. Don't worry, we don't get into this that. It's it's a good episode. You're going to love it.
Uh we even talk about oh I mean just news across the state of Indiana. And in there are the best deals at the Indiana State Fair. You're going to love this episode. But first, we're diving into our journey 84 miles down the White River. Will, if you had to summarize it in one word, what would you say? Sum it up in a sentence, it would be like extremely informative adventure.
An extremely informative adventure. Yeah, I think that's the best way you could put it. Yeah, I I say enlightening. This trip was enlightening for me. Oh, enlighten. I think you were like in lightning and I'm like, what is that?
We were enlightening. There was a part in the story where we were in lightning. This is true. that happened at the end. It was brutal, but the whole thing was enlightening. It was enlightening about how adversity takes different shapes.
I like running and challenging and you know physical feats. This was not just a physical feat. There was like emotional drain. It was like 5 days of sun up to sun down. You had to be on. We're recording basically non-stop.
There was adversity. There was weather. There was learning. There was there was different personalities and different people's opinions. It it was a true adventure and it was an enlightening experience. Uh I think the number one people question people have asked me is would you do it again?
Would you do it again? I would. I would not. [laughter] Like no questions asked. I do not need to do five days from Muny to Indianapolis down the White River. Go watch the video and you'll find out why.
Now, that being said, I do think a day out on the river, sign me up, a day, two days and a night, I would do. I would go back. I would camp again. Maybe in the early earlier in the summer when it's not as hot, maybe later in the summer/fall when it's not as hot. I would do it for sure. But I just think 84 miles in a boat, 5 days of anything is a lot.
5 days with the same people is a lot of time. It does. Uh we learned a lot. I mean, we started in Muny about two o'clock in the afternoon on a Monday. Tui Park. We drop in there and like it was it was truly an adventure.
And I think the art of adventure is a little bit lost on people. Like I think that today in 2026, not a lot of people go on adventures when the world is so scripted and the world is so everyone wants to be comfortable. Everyone wants to be comfortable. So like it was good. Again, I'm I'm I wouldn't say I I would go back and not do it. If I if I had a time machine, I would go back and do it again.
Like I I would like make sure that I always choose to do it. Type two fun. Type two borderline type three. If anyone doesn't know the types of fun. So type type one fun is you do it and it's fun while you're doing it. Type two is you do it and it's fun after you finish it.
Type three fun is you do it and it's never fun. This was type two and some moments of type three. Like I mean so I'll give you the breakdown. We did 14ish miles day one from Tui Park in Muny to Canoe Country in Daleville. We ended up doing 24 miles day two from Canoe Country in Daleville to Perkinsville to right on an island near Perkinsville. Then [clears throat] from that island on day three, we picked up and we got all the way to White River Canoe Company where there was an Airbnb on the halfway point.
We had to take a real shower, not like a wetnap shower. What exactly is a wet nap shower? A wet nap? You never heard of like a a wetnap? It's like a a little like Oh, you know, usually you get them after you eat chicken wings and you know those little wet wipes. A wet a wet nap.
Never heard about that. Famous Daves or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking more of like locally own spot like Keystone Sports Review where the best wings in Indianapolis are.
But I digress. Then we woke up Thursday and Thursday was White River Canoe Company to Goose Island which is this like hidden island inside of 465. It's amazing. until it wasn't. It was amazing until it never got dark. It was hotter than molasses and it rained.
By the way, I I don't know if I've ever been as dejected like at moments of this trip. Like I was like my spirit was tested. Yeah. I would say I would comfortably say that Friday morning after Goose Island, I was that was the worst I'd felt the whole trip. That's the latest I woke up. And by latest I woke up mean latest got out of my tent cuz I didn't sleep at all.
No, I literally was in my tent and it felt like I was in a sauna. Yeah, same for sure. I was sweating all night like Yeah. Yeah. Which like could be a mixture of like the weather like it rained and then it got super hot and then it's also like an urban area like And you got your rainfly on not breathable. Mhm.
Yeah. It was fine. Like when I had my rainfly off before it started raining, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to sleep under the, you know, stars tonight." Dude, I like opened the door trying to get some air. No air flow. No air flow.
There wasn't even like a breeze either. No, dude. It was I'm not joking. That was like the worst night of sleep I've ever gotten. And then we had to finish it out with 14 miles on the on day five. Day five was fun, though.
I had a great time. Until we didn't. Well, yeah. until, you know, until you get two miles from being done and you get caught in torrential downpours and unpredictable torrential downpours, unpredictable like scattered thunderstorms, bro. Brutal. And before you have a 2 and 1 half hour portage that hasn't been maintained in a decade and you have to unload your boat into thigh high, thigh high mud and figure it out.
Yeah. And you get mud flung on you. All that to be said, I learned so much. I gained a newfound respect for the river, for the people of the river. I really learned three things. One, it I learned about wildlife recreation and and all the life that is around the river.
I learned about the people who never gave up on the river. the the organizations and individuals that like have been working their tails off since the fish kill of 1999, which you're going to learn about in the video. Um, the organizations that are just trying to help people explore this significant natural wonder in the state of Indiana that more people need to be checking out. And I learned just about like outdoorsmanship, you know? Like again, I'm I was like a cub scout back in the day, but like we we did not do a lot of like super duper off-road nature things. Like he didn't he wasn't sitting with like holes in a stick and like, you know.
Yeah, I never did that. But I did start a fire with flint and steel, which you'll see in the video. Yeah. Come on now. So, all in all, it was a learning lesson. All in all, I think you're really going to like it.
I think that you're I'm not gonna shove what you should or should not believe down your throat. We're gonna present our journey to you and you get to make your decision on what you think about the White River. So, I encourage you go check it out. Um, you know, 20 minutes or less on YouTube, Nate Spangle. Go check it out. We've put a ton of time ever.
I think my my humble opinion, it's better just as good if not better than our Indy500 video. Uh, Will, any final words of wisdom from your time on the White River? Go into the video with an open mind. Not going to force anything. Yeah. But definitely go in with an open mind because I think it'll shock a lot of people.
I think there are some shocking part and like as someone who you get to see a lot of realness. Like usually for my videos, it's like you get me fresh and it's like I get to be full of energy and life and happy and like this is great. And like I had to turn up the the volume at some part of the video. Some parts of the video I had to turn up the volume because you almost couldn't hear Nate. It It was It was It was kind of scary. I was It was a different kind of hard.
It was a different kind of hard and I'm I'm very eager for y'all to see it. Uh it was an adventure. Let us know what you think. Please, if you can like it, comment, share with people. Help us get that out to the masses. Uh two, if you would be ever so kind to maybe leave us a review on this podcast.
Let us know what you think. Let us know what our next adventure should be. there's comments uh or there's emails natnates. com. Go in there, let us know what you think, and please enjoy our dive into uh local news across Indiana. Hey Indiana, if you've been thinking about putting your money to work or you just want to earn more on the cash you already have, let me point you towards Elements Financials High Yield Savings Plus account.
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Membership required, rate subject to change, federally insured by NCUA. [music] Now, let's get back into the episode. Now, we've got a special interview with Lindsay Erdodi. She is the editor-inchief of Free Press Indiana News, a statewide nonprofit newsroom launched by Free Press Indiana this summer. Now, Lindsay built this newsroom from scratch and has assembled a team that covers stories that matter most to Hoosiers across all 92 counties. Today's episode will look a lot like our past variety shows where we talk about some trending news stories here in Indiana, except we're going to focus on the stories that Free Press Indiana News has been covering.
I'm really excited to dive into this. It's an awesome follow on Instagram if you haven't done it yet. Lindsay, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. We are honored to have a true Indiana journalist. Like we always say, we're storytellers, not journalists, but like you, your team, everything you guys have built, you are true journalists covering rural Indiana, like all 92 counties, and it is awesome.
Yeah, we're excited to do it. I mean, so what everything launched kind of this summer, but how long have you been working on it? Uh, I started with Freeress Indiana in March. And so Freeress Indiana is kind of like our support organization that also helped launch Mirror Indie in Indianapolis uh back in 2023. Yeah. And if anyone doesn't know about Mirror Indie, they do awesome like I say like nonbiased like great reporting and like the whole model is it's not like a um a forprofit entity for journalism.
Like that's the whole stickick, right? if I'm if I'm like hitting that right, like I know I've gotten the pitch like several times, but it's like you think of any of the biggest news outlets from any city across Indiana, they have to sell advertising, they have to make money, like there's a business model behind it, right? With what you guys have done from Free Press Indiana is really leaned into this like nonprofit arm that people are interested in journalism still, but in the nonprofit sector. Correct. Right. Yeah.
So, we're funded um from foundations to donations from regular people, whether that's even just like a $5 one-off gift or a monthly recurring gift. Um Mir Indie and and Free Press Indiana News will have some advertising, but that's just like one part of our, you know, kind of funding model right now. So, it's kind of all all three of those sectors. I love it. Okay. And your background has always been in journalism, correct?
You we won't hold it against her, but you're from the Mitten State. Yes. But you [laughter] did graduate from AU Bloomington, correct? Right. And so from there then, did you just get into news and journalism? And have you always been in the state of Indiana since then?
Uh, pretty much. Yeah. So I graduated from IU in 2012. And uh the summer right after that, I was in Phoenix at the Arizona Republic. I did a fellowship out there. And then my first job was actually in Frankfurt, Kentucky.
And the fun fact I I love to share about that town is it is the capital of Kentucky, but is the fourth smallest capital. Or at least it was when I lived there. So someone fact checks me and I'm wrong. Yeah. I always I always love to ask people like, "How do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky? Is it Louisville, Lewisville, or Louisville?"
And they're always like, "It's Louisville." And I'm like, "No, it's Frank." Frankfurt. [laughter] And it gets people every time. It's so great. Okay.
So from there, then then you came back to Indiana. Yeah. So then I came back to um the Herald Times in Bloomington actually uh was my second job. Went there and covered uh city government and kind of some state government, some state politics mixed in with that and then uh moved to Indianapolis in 2015 for a job with the Indianapolis Business Journal. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's so fun.
Uh I I know Felman uh pretty decently well. And uh the IBJ is I would say as far as business journals go like they're pushing the envelope of being innovative and doing events and all sorts of of fun things. So yeah, and the great thing about them so many of the business journals around the country are uh corporateowned and and kind of in this corporate ownership group, but being locally owned for so long makes IBJ I I think really cool. Um like you said, you you know the owner Nate. Yeah, absolutely. Which like everyone does and like kind of uh it is better in my opinion than one of these large like PE conglomerate, you know, whatever these faceless faceless journalism, you know, big big newspaper.
Yeah. If you've got an issue with IBJ, you know who to go to. Exactly. [laughter] Like he'll see your email or your Facebook comment or whatever it is. Okay. So then spend time at the IBJ and then you Axios, right?
Yeah. Um so I I left IBJ and spent a year at WFYI actually. Um yeah, I was a digital editor for them. uh kind of did a little bit of everything. Even did um edit some audio pieces. Um really got to try out a lot of different things.
And then from there I went to Axios and was with with Axios for uh almost four years. Um and I uh was with the local side of Axios and worked with um when I left I was working with Indianapolis, Chicago, and Minneapolis. But during my time there worked with cities in Texas, worked with cities in Ohio. um all all sorts of stuff. So, that was really neat to get to meet and work with reporters and journalists all across the country and and just like learn about different places um that I hadn't even been before. Now, okay, this is really interesting.
So, Axios local, this is like a byproduct of what was it called? The Charlotte Agenda. like you know like the whole backtory behind the I had I got on a call with I think it was Ted Williams the guy and he was he did a I think it was a daily business or no a daily local newsletter for Charlotte back in like 2015 or something like that and it got really popular really it was an awesome business I actually paid $200 to get a one-hour session with Ted cuz I was just so I was just fascinated by local journalism and it's like it was I mean $200 isn't cheap but it wasn't like $1,000 dollar consulting session, but he just wanted people to be like actually bought into whatever they were doing if they were going to like reach out and ask him. So, I paid the 200 bucks. I think it went to charity or something. And I got on there and we just talked for an hour and it was really cool to hear.
So, Charlotte, this the Charlotte agenda gets acquired and he kind of gets put as the GM or whatever over Axios local. And that's when they like really put a bunch of money into starting up these local kind of chapters of that in the the Axios like newsletter model. Yeah. Yeah. along that same time like the 6 a. m.
city that they also out of South out of South Carolina, the other Carolina. I think that started in Colombia where uh the University of South Carolina is and then they like raised money and built that up and started to go through and and again it's it's interesting because uh both of those have like you know iterated in different ways but there does seem to be this thirst for local journalism where it's like I want to make sure that it's not just someone in Chicago with AI writing my news putting it out on Facebook Like I want to know that there are faces in people. That's why people love I I like to believe they love what we put out because they know that we have people in like there's a face like you're gonna see somebody. It's not this faceless thing that could be written by AI from New York City or wherever. Yeah. Exactly.
And that's you know I think why in the Axios local newsletters you'll see at the bottom there's little outros from the reporters in town that's like I'm doing this this weekend or you know like you get to know the reporters. Um, at the same time, one of the things that we regularly heard from people we had to kind of, you know, push back against was they did think since Axios was a national company that we weren't local and that we didn't have people in these communities. And so we had to be like, no, like we actually are here, you know, this small little team like in Indianapolis, it's Erica Herren and and Justin Mack doing the thing every single day for people. Wow. So, what was enticing about making the jump to Free Press Indiana? Uh, it was such a cool opportunity to really get to build a newsroom from scratch.
It is really not that common that someone will give you that chance. And personally, I think the nonprofit business model in journalism is kind of where we're headed long term. Um, just because we know people don't really want to pay for subscriptions. it is hard to get ads on things and and get that traction. And so if you can mix it with foundational support and and make, you know, donations an option for people, but share your content for free, um I think long term that's just going to be more of a winning strategy with it. It seems like you there's like a fork in the road.
It's like you go your route where it's nonprofit foundation like people who believe that journalism news needs to exist for the betterment of society or you go the nonjournalist storyteller route like what we're doing where it's like it's all about you know getting people to read the stories that you're saying and some people choose to do that in I mean kind of like the old school traditional way to get is like talk about crime and stuff that scares people and wants them to look at or the route that we're going where it's like how do you tell these stories in inspiring ways that get people jazzed up but it's not journalism like I'm not factchecking sources or doing it's like we tell stories about cool things that are happening in Indiana. So, it does feel like though, you know, a lot of these newsletters are written in that like morning brewesque style where it's like, you know, you write it and it's not necessarily going deep long form journalism where some of the mere indie pieces are so good, but you just have to like love more uh rich, you know, reading journalism, you know, which is important.
And I think that uh it's super cool. I'm really excited. You guys are only a couple weeks into Free Press Indiana News. Yeah, we launched the website on July 15th. We launched our socials actually before that on June 15th um to kind of, you know, think about doing things differently a little bit. We know people are on social.
That's where they're getting their news and so we're making sure that we're there. And then yeah, the website launched July 15th. Well, I want to know before we dive into the topics of the day, I want to know like what does building a newsroom from scratch look like? Like where do you start? It's like you get hired, you get a budget, you're like, "Okay, we need [laughter] to bring in we need to bring in people that also have to cover 92 counties." This is again I also I'm going to keep like making some parallels here, but it's like what people like about I think what we put out is we will go like I just got back from Whiting.
I was up at the perogi festival in Whiting where they serve over 1 million perogis. October I'll be down in Evansville. We'll go up to Fort Wayne area like tomorrow. We're going to go to Evansville too for See you there. The fall festival. Let's go.
Have you been? No, I [laughter] have not. And it's been on my list for years. So now this is my excuse to go. It's insane. Like one, I tell everyone from Evansville this the brand.
It'sund and something years old. So they are never going to change the branding of fall festival. It is such a discredit. It's like street fest junk food of Palooa. It is delicious. It's like 120 different food booths.
It's the biggest fundraiser in their community. They have like a $2 million 50/50 pot. It's insane. I was I showed up for the first time last year and cuz everyone was in my comments. You need to go. You need to go.
You need to go. When I will go back frequently. It's amazing. So, we'll see you down there. Yes. Back to the the story at hand.
When you're building a newsroom from scratch, where do you start? What is our mission? What are our values? What is our content strategy going to be? What products do we want to put out? And at the same time, I'm I'm working on all of that.
I'm hiring for reporter positions. Um and so one is a rural communities reporter and then we have two civic accountability reporters and they all joined right around um beginning of June, late May, early June uh all the reporters were on board. It doesn't sound like a lot, but you know that and then layer on working on building out the website, right? So, we had to get a logo made. We had to have meeting after meeting in terms of like, okay, you know, this is what the design of the website might be, what do we like, what we don't like. And you know, we were very intentional about things like one part of our website um which you guys actually also have is like a regional section where you can filter by region and that was uh a big priority for me because I know that you know I I think all our stories are relevant to everybody but sometimes they just want to come in and see like okay uh I just want to know about the news from southeast Indiana.
Well, you can filter for that on our website. Um, but building that out, building, you know, thinking about even um the colors of our logo and what what that says, what that represents. Um, you know, one of the cool things about our logo is um it's actually kind of like Indiana if you really look at it. If it's like smooshed down, [laughter] it's probably not something that most people would notice, but it it is there. I will say tough on the uh SEO. We're still working.
We're still working on getting the SEO up. If everyone could go to fpnews. org and like build it up for us, that'd be nice. Yeah. Well, yeah, you gotta get a little bit of there because I was like free press and it keep it kept bringing me to businessite. Uh yeah, which also maybe a link from maybe a link from Free Press Indiana could be a good one, too.
Shout out to the boys. What I want to dive into is a few of the top stories from Free Press Indiana news because they're interesting and they're topics that are timely and relevant and all fun things there. And so I think we just take it from the top and start diving in. And anyone who wants to become a better, more informed Hooser, like this is this is the part for you. The first one I want to talk about is something that we've been hearing for oh my [snorts] gosh, months and months and months, which is talking about electricity, talking about utilities, and why are who's your electric bills going up? And what do people need to know about this?
Turns out it's more complicated than you think. I think there's a lot of people out there that assume, okay, my electric bill is going up because of data centers, right? Like people make that direct connection and just assume that that's what it is. And in some cases that might be true, but in some cases it might not. And there are other kind of factors at play. You know, one being if a utility is investing in infrastructure in that area, that can impact rates.
The other thing that I didn't even know about until my reporter started digging into this. Um I had never heard of it, but there's things called trackers that impact your bill and that can be like the fuel charges uh to generate the electricity and as we also know fuel prices are up right now. So if that tracker is part of your bill then that's also going to increase what you end up paying monthtomonth. And sometimes the trackers are broken out. Depends on which utility you're getting your electricity from. Sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're just like lumped together in one uh line item on your bill. And so you don't actually know what goes into that. I think that one uh the two things that I saw were everyone thought that bills were rising because AES sold to the Black Rockck subsidy subsidiary. I think that's the word. No, as of right now, it was like it got I think it was like announced and then it was like two days later like our our bills have gone crazy. No, which is like again, you know, but at Service you're like, "Okay, Black Rockck, PE, all this stuff."
You're like, they're just going to try to turn and burn profit, which I think, correct me if I'm wrong, is there a governance board? Isn't there someone who controls and caps like how that works? Is that really in play? Like how does that work? the that's the IURC um the Indiana utility regulation commission I believe I got that right any utility has to go before the IURC to get a rate approval uh a rate increase approval um so and anything going before them and so that's you did see AES for example go before the IURC somewhat recently to request um rate approvals and so if you you're someone who really wants to pay attention to like okay what's happening with my utility. Like I would pay attention to the IURC agendas and and what's going on there because that will tell you what you're going to end up seeing on your bill.
Yeah. Okay. And the other one I saw a bunch of people put in my comments. I think it's Centerpoint. That is the one down in Evansville. Yeah.
Like I think a lot of people said like randomly, well they believed it to be randomly their rates had just like spiked like to the tune of like 50 to 100 plus percentage. There were enough people that commented about it that I was like, "What is going on here?" So, did you guys look into to what happened there? Yeah. And I think it's similar things. I mean, cuz it's not it's not just Centerpoint, it's not just AES, it's NIPCO up in uh northern Indiana.
Uh we have five um kind of considered big utilities in Indiana and then you get the rural cooperatives which are a whole another beast. But, um it's similar things happening across the board to to all of them. Um, that was something that I found interesting too because you know we're here in Indianapolis and so you know I've watched my AES bill go up and have heard a lot of complaints about that. But uh you know when I started this job I actually went down to Evansville to meet with some media partners and even from them that's what we heard was like that's the biggest topic the biggest issue down there is their centerpoint bills going up and and not feeling like they're getting specific reasoning for it you know and and like I said you know we've got some of these more generic reasonings for it. Um, but for you know the specifics in each case, it it really can vary. Next, I saw this story and instantly resonated with it.
It was talking about Scholes, Indiana, home of the Jug. Uh, the Jug Rock being the largest freestanding rock formation this side of the Mississippi River. If you haven't been down to Martin County to Scholes to visit it, it's great. So, they lost their only grocery store more than a year ago and are trying to get one back. Uh, Dollar General has filled that void, I think. But like that's not produce and a lot of rural Indiana is are in these like massive food deserts I would say.
So what's happening in Scholes and how common is that story across rural Indiana of losing their grocery store? Yeah. So like you said it's been uh a little over a year now since Scholes lost its grocery store and there is that Dollar General which people told us are is kind of filling the gaps. you know, Dollar General expanded the amount of food that they have at that location at least. Um, but otherwise, you know, it's a 20 30 minute drive for people in Scholes to get a good amount of groceries for the week and some people just don't have the means to do that. you know, one of the um people we talked to um kind of runs like the senior center there and that's hard for some people there and that senior center doesn't have transportation uh to go to some of these bigger cities where there might be a Walmart or a bigger grocery store and you know we use Scholes as this example because there is this effort there to come up with a local solution to get a grocery store back.
They did kind of a um a farmers marketesque solution uh last year to to get people more fresh uh groceries available on the regular. Um they did not end up continuing that this year, but the local leaders there are still looking into, you know, okay, like what else can we do to make this work? And I do think this is happening across other rural communities in Indiana. Um, and that Scholes is really not alone. And that's why, you know, it was nice to focus on this because it kind of shows like, you know, a community can come together and and find some solutions. And I can see that being true in all sorts of small towns across Indiana, you know, that they would want to implement, you know, whatever we end up seeing out of Scholes.
I was just up in LRO, Indiana, which is which is in Wabash County and it's I think the Lro Canal Foundation with help of the community found like a bunch of players have gotten together in this small town of like less than 500 people and are working to put in a grocery there. It's very interesting that like the most urban environments and the most rural environments usually have similar problems along those lines where I mean we had someone talking about the the near northwest side of Indianapolis and it's like they're also in a food desert where it's tough to get like fresh produce and grocery stores and things like that. I don't think any like um capitalist individuals are going in there saying like you're not going to make money on a grocery store in Lro Indiana with 500 residents, right? Granted, there's like a lake that's down there, but it's like at most you're going to work your tail off and break even.
It's almost like a a form of, you know, there's subsidies or ways that nonprofit organizations can get involved and say like the people of this rural community or the people of this urban community need a grocery store in this area. Like that's how these things are going to come and be put together. Yeah. It's not going to be the big corporations. It's not going to be the Walmarts and the Kroger's and the Meyers. like it's it's going to be a a localled solution which similar to food is similar for healthcare like I mean we see a ton of people talking about uh like accessible health care again transportation becomes a thing and you know it's like if you're running any sort of healthcare facility in smalltown Indiana and you and people start to leave town or whatever it's like tough to make a business model work where you're available in all these different locations you guys did a story about that too.
Talk to us about what's going on with healthc care opportunities for hers across rural Indiana. That is another big issue in rural communities. We've seen hospitals close across the state in the last few years and it doesn't seem promising like it's going to get better. Um they are set to receive um a good chunk of funding from the federal government um over the next 5 years. I think it's a little over 200 million in this first year. um which sounds like a lot of money, but when you talk to some of these people running these rural hospitals, they will tell you that funding is going to end up going towards specific programs and not necessarily towards their operating costs day-to-day.
And if they can't cover their operating cost dayto-day, how are they supposed to, you know, implement this new specific program that's meant to to help people in that community? And even, you know, 200 million divided across all the different hospitals that might be eligible for this money, it just ends up not being enough to sustain what they need to, you know, to be able to continue and and offer any sort of programs. And so it's, you know, uh the someone that we had quoted ended up calling it like it's a band-aid the amount. It's it's not going to fix the problem really. Yeah. Are there any rural hospitals that you guys uncovered that were doing it well that are like making making it work?
And was there information on how they're making it work? I don't know that we have a great example of one that's like making it work. Through I was down in Batesville and May just built a new Margaret Mary hospital down there and it's like I think it's like a one ofone location. Like I don't think Margaret Mary is like I don't think they have other locations and he's like well they're building a new hospital out there. one, I'm sure there was some philanthropy or something along the lines of there, but like it it there must be something going on in certain places where it's working. Again, I I don't know anything about anything usually when it comes to this.
I just know what I see and kind of how I have a feel for it. And it seems that like businesses, healthcare, all of the things work in communities that people are proud of. And so it's like I like that's just what I keep drawing it back to. It's like for Batesville for instance, people are willing to be generous there because they love it. Like there's just something about like the way they talk about home, even if they don't live there anymore, they love it. Versus sometimes other places around the state of Indiana, and I can usually tell if I post a video about it and in the comments people are just like, "This place sucks.
Blah blah blah blah. There's nothing good here." I'm like, "Ah, that place." It's like the chicken or the egg. It's like does the government do work for programs that to make things nice to make to like change people's minds or do you have to like build some positive public sentiment around it to get momentum going? Like it is this like ever.
Yeah. And and I think that's a good point because in places where you will see things be successful, whether it's in healthcare or grocery stores or um you know child care, another big issue across the state right now, where the success comes from is like a community leader and the business leaders and maybe some public funding like all kind of coming together not just one entity or the other. Yeah. Like if you are expecting your entrepreneurs or whoever it is to fix the problem, you're probably going to be let down because eventually you're going to run out of steam/money. If you're expecting your government to fix the problems all for you, like you're probably going to run like you're going to be let down because they're not going to do it exactly the way because they're not incentivized the same way that an entrepreneur or capital or whoever, right? Or they won't care enough care the same way that a nonprofit like philanthropic community leader cares about And it's like you really got to bring all three of those together.
And that's the one. Okay, that actually might be it too where it's like when you have a dynamic person leader that is just like set on conquering food insecurity, child care, whatever the thing might be, whether they go the entrepreneurship route, whether they go the government route, or whether they go the like community leader nonprofit route, like I feel like that that is usually the catalyst. And when you run out of those types of people in your community, like no amount of money is going to fix that usually, I would say. Yeah. You need people there to to do it, to follow through with the money, to find to find creative ways to use that money, you know, cuz I I don't know that anyone is ever like, "Yep, that was enough money. We're good now.
We don't need anymore." Which is always so interesting, too, because I just had a conversation with someone this morning about like government funding usually doesn't go to people. it goes to buildings, roads, things like it's like, hey, if we're going to spend x amount of tax dollars on uh childare, let's say that's a problem we want to fix or healthare or grocery stores. It is not paying the people that are going to run that and make it dynamic. It is usually building the actual facility. So that way like whatever it is, it's like, well, we have a we have sticks and bricks that like are representative of where our money went to.
We have a new community amphitheater. We have a new theater that we a story theater that we saved. We don't care about what's going Not necessarily we don't care. That's very negative and pessimistic to say about it. But like you're on your own to figure out what's going on the stage, but like we like the the structure is saved. And largely it's like what you start to realize is you need the most like uh dumbed down version of like how Nate would say it is like you need cool people doing cool things.
Yeah. Like you need motivated people doing motivational things. You need people who care doing the things that people care about. And uh that's usually where I feel like the biggest disconnect is. I could I could ramble on for a long time about this and I won't bore you [laughter] cuz we have a fun story. A fun story I want to talk about is there's a Hooer that's on a mission to visit all 92 county fairs.
Talk to me about how you found this guy and have we have we checked in on his mission and how he's doing? [laughter] Uh well he's not he's giving himself I think it's three years to hit all of them. So he was honest with himself that like he's way smarter than I am. One year can't do it all. Can't eat that many elephant ears. Um [laughter] but I was just searching um on Facebook for some county fair information.
um was looking to um I think it was right around when county fair season was getting started and I was going to mention a couple of them in our weekly newsletter that we have and I came across this guy who I think at the time had maybe been to two but you know was already like yeah I'm going to go to all 92 and I was like that is so cool like I have never heard of someone wanting to go to all 92 county fairs and that is quite the undertaking um to do and so our rural communities reporter Laura Lane uh contacted him and tagged along with him at the Cass County Fair and uh had a had a good time with him that day. And he has like a whole um color-coded map that he's tracking. C County, can you name the county seat? Goberries. #Logensport. [laughter] Yes, Loganport.
Uh don't test me like that. Oh, I have See, this is where I've been looking for. This guy might be a um in like in like uh the best way possible. I keep looking for my like worthy Indiana adversary. Like someone who's gone and done enough like things like this where they can just like like this guy is going to probably be it. Like I probably need to talk to him maybe in 2 years when he's like rounding out the last few cuz I'm sure that I'd like to know if he gained a bunch of weight over the years.
You ever seen the show? You know it ended up he ended up being a bad guy or maybe not the best guy but Superersize Me. You ever watch that? Like that is what I am imagining where it's like you go eat at the dairy bar and you eat fair food all summer long for three summers in a row. It has to be like visiting every YMCA in Indiana in your off months. It's like summers are for summers are for county fairs, winters are for YMCA's.
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean he's trying the food, too. He's not just like walking around looking at the animals, you know. We have a picture of him. I think he's eating ice cream in the story.
Um one place he tried something uh with pickles. Uh, the quote from him was, "It was Pickley." It was pickly. Wait, I got to look this guy up. What's his name? Oh, the Pap.
I mean, just the stories you're going to be able to pick up from visiting. Wow. Yeah. The week of July 13th, he's scheduled to visit VGO Park Fountain, Montgomery. So, he's hitting and he went up to Cass. So, he's hitting that west side of the state to start.
Respect. Yeah. When we got him, he had 83 fairs to go. [laughter] Oh, I'm sorry. I said three years. He's He's given himself 5 years.
Oh, that's doable. That's really doable. It really is. But so many of them are stacked up on each other, too, where it's like, you know, uh you got to visit again. He's he's doing a good job. I bet you could like kind of like figure it out where VGO is Terra Hope, Park is Rockville, Fountain uh is just north of there, Montgomery's Crawford'sville.
Like, you're hitting that general area. But I'll be curious to see how many it does per week. I mean 92 divided by 5, that's still 18 fairs a year in usually they're all in the like 6 weeks I would say like the last two weeks of June and all of July cuz then the state fair starts. So I mean kudos to this guy. I can't wait to check back in on that. This episode is brought to you [music] by 1933 Lounge Caramel.
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Now, let's get back into today's episode. As we're kind of uh rounding out this episode of our current events, there is a tense topic that I'd like to discuss. Oh, no. tense being a mild way of putting this I would say. Uh but you guys have had a newsletter covering information news journalism across the state of Indiana for a decent track. Yeah.
They actually they actually started that before I started at Free Press Indiana as a way to share like stories from across the state from other outlets. Yeah. So and it's called the lens. Yep. And it's a newsletter and you guys have been tracking data centers in Indiana for months now. And this I feel like every third again this is like such a an interesting way to explain this but every third swipe I see on Facebook or Instagram is us maybe not third every fifth swipe I see on social media is usually something about data centers typically around the state of Indiana.
There's a few that are still like going through different processes that are different steps along the journey. Yeah. What information has Free Press Indiana news gathered? What's going on? What's the state of data centers in Indiana? They're here.
[laughter] They're coming. Uh they keep being proposed. Uh the thing that we're seeing now though is uh different counties are putting in place different ordinances to regulate where they can go or, you know, how loud they can be or what hours they can do certain things. Um all sorts of little things like that. Um some counties are putting uh temporary moratoriums on new data centers. So you cannot actually go and and build a new data center for a certain period of time in that community.
Some are just outright banning uh data centers because they would just want no no part of it. Um, you know, we did a story um last week, maybe the week before, that had some data that IU had put together, uh, kind of county by county, showing um, you know, where things stood. And even since then, um, yeah, so this this chart says as of June 25th, so a little over a month ago, it's already changed. I've read stories about counties um just uh in in southwest Indiana near Louisville that have considered moratoriums and bans and ordinances. My my home county, Marshall, where Plymouth, Indiana is uh in Burbon where I'm from, they banned them. They were the first uh county in Indiana to ban data centers, which is interesting.
I I don't know enough to say what's right, what's wrong, what's indifferent. Like I'm I'm learning. What I am learning is if done in the least disruptive way, it can be an economic gamecher and there are like significant stories that your tax revenue can go berserk and your community can get a huge influx of cash. Yeah. Trade-off is you have a data center or multiple data centers. Well, and I think it depends too because sometimes communities are offering tax incentives to these data centers to come and and build.
Same thing you would see with really any sort of development in town. You know, community might offer a tax incentive to it, which means you're not actually going to see that tax benefit for however many years that incentive, you know, plays out for. The one that I looked into the most, uh, was one of the early ones, which was Microsoft's build in Leaport. and Microsoft created a companywide initiative or whatever where they they forego any local tax incentives. So the only tax incentives that they're taking is from the state of Indiana. All of the benefit goes to the local government.
So like for them obviously like you know the the crew that uh is you know sitting on the board or the committees or whatever they are the mayor is like you know you're going to take some heat for sure. But like they had a quote that I saw from someone in the city of Leaport that their $30 million annual budget is projected over the next 20 years to to get to between 60 and 90 million. Wow. And so it's like 20 years to triple. Again, you don't like a lot of it is you don't know what's going on, right? You don't know what the effects are, you know, what's going to happen on the data center side of things, but it's like you talk about and and they're like they have the maximum amount of money from that being poured into the schools.
So, Leort communities, the Leaport school system is going to be one of the, you know, I would say from the outside, again, check the math and the facts and do your, again, I'm not a journalist, I'm a storyteller, but from what I read, it's like going to be one of the wealthier uh school corporations for sure in Northwest Indiana and I'm guessing uh with the math there in the state of Indiana. And so like I don't know. It's like you're going to take the heat for sure if you're the mayor there, but like 50 years from now if like all your kids have I don't know Harvard educations, you know, they won't. But like but that's the thing. That's the thing. You have to wait and see, you know, is that does that actually play out or not?
And I think that's why some counties are worried because they don't we don't know. It's right like there's no there's no proof of that, right? There's no proof of that yet. you know, you can I you know, I'm not suggesting any of this is not true, but it's just we haven't seen it happen yet. Um, and so I think that's where some of the fear is coming from. So, like what are you guys finding out from it?
Yeah. Well, I was just going to say the other thing with the jobs is there is some push to to have these because like you said, they create jobs. A lot of that is construction jobs. So you see a lot of like union support for these data centers because they're union jobs um that the people want in their communities, but construction jobs are temporary jobs. So you do have to like keep that in mind. And then the data centers themselves, you know, they do have some level of um permanent employees, you know, that create those jobs.
Um, but it's not if you're looking um, you know, if you're trying to compare a data center project to a different like I don't know like a warehouse project or something like that, it's probably fewer people um, just cuz you don't need as many full-time people there. I just read all the stuff uh, the school system did a podcast like again cuz this was announced back in 2024 and like largely celebrated I would say this was before uh, Indiana this was just before data centers became what they are today. And the other piece is that like uh it's like the hyperscaler. There's a whole like piece about current data centers that like have really gotten people up in arms. And I again I don't know enough about it. I just know that I read like seven articles about this specific one in the court and it was like under a different uh governor.
It was under Governor Hulcom and it was like they're there and groundbreaking. They're like, "Oh my gosh, Microsoft is investing in north in northwest Indiana." and it was like largely celebrated and then data centers turn out to be what data centers are and everyone's like up in our and now it's like so I was like reading these articles and and it was I mean again these are all quotes from there but it's like they're going to be a top 10 employer in the city of Leaport at a data center again it's like I don't know big what are we comparing you know it's like does a 100 employees make you a top 10 or does 500 employees you know like right it's I don't know the answer is we're going to find out people are taking a stance one way. I think that the interesting piece is when you go like the Marshall County route where it's like you're just going to b it's like no one's going to be that mad about banning data centers, you know, people will probably largely celebrate that.
The interesting piece that we're going to find out is are you missing the bus on the like equalizer for rural Indiana? Well, so that's interesting because we did talk to Marshall County and we asked, okay, have any actually been proposed there? And the answer is no. So [laughter] now obviously none are going to be proposed there because you put this ban in place. Um and so that's that's it's that fear right that people don't want it and so they they put these bans um in place and that's why I think you see more of the moratoriums because it's a lot of like people just being like we're just we're not sure about this yet and we just want more information or you know we want to take the time to to put in regulations around it. you know, in Indianapolis, for example, um you know, talking about how far away they'd have to be from a school or, you know, like how the hours that that you could be running the machines and and have the noise coming out of them.
Um, you know, people care about that, but people just hear data centers and and and don't want it anywhere near them. Yeah. What are the biggest qualms? Like, what do you when you guys went out there and put the stories together, like what are the qualms you're hearing from people about data centers? I think it's definitely noise. um noise pollution um and just not not wanting it to take up that much space in their community.
I mean, these are massive. Not not every single one, sure, but like most of them are massive. Why do the lights need to be on all the time? I don't understand why the lights have to be on. I'm with you. I don't I don't know.
I I don't know enough about data centers to know. That's what I feel like uh people just keep I keep seeing which is probably the easiest way to go viral is like go to where a proposed data center is being built and like interview the five neighbors and they're all going to they're all mad about it. They're going to be upset about it and people are going to get behind that. Yeah. The interesting piece I don't know. I just keep going back and forth where it's like if you're sitting in there again, you're the mayor of wherever, you're on the county council, whatever it might be, and it's like, do I take some current heat today to I don't know do like I'm sure that they're going through the pros and cons of like the tax incentive of like what you're going to do to your community's budget.
I don't know. I it's such a hard decision that I'm like glad that other people have to make and I do not. Okay. So, we asked uh in a in a statewide survey we did um with Northwestern's uh Medil where if anywhere should data centers be built in Indiana and 28% said they should not be built in the state. 28% said they weren't sure. 23% said near existing industrial zones.
10% said in rural areas. 7% said near major cities and 4% said in suburbs of major cities. Huh. And then we asked uh how much would you be okay with your electricity bill increasing to support a data center in your community? And one of the options is would never support and that was 60%. So [laughter] that's that's where people's heads go when they think about it.
Um 30% said 0 to 5 would be okay. 0 to five. I mean, yeah. I'm not I'm not probably noticing if my bill goes up 0 to $5. No. Like, uh, it is interesting because it's like travel the state and you do see a lot of industrial spaces that are abandoned.
Mhm. They're empty. And it's like, how can some of those get repurposed to a second life of anything? I'm not saying data center. I'm saying the answer is something has to happen, right? Like there is a lot a lot a lot of industrial space that used to be manufacturing that through some way or another is no longer there, no longer operating.
These buildings are going, they're just decaying. And so like I don't know what the right thing to do is there. I don't know if like there's going to be an Americanmade manufacturing spike in the near future. So I don't know. I need to go back. I don't have a crystal ball, but if you do, let me know.
Amen. [laughter] Okay. Well, this has been fun. Um, are there any other interesting pieces that you have that's like, hey, people need to know about this. People should definitely be informed um about what's happening with housing. I think that's a big thing that impacts all of us um for for better, for worse.
Um you'll see more stories from us on that topic um moving forward. Okay, wait. This is so this is coming out. We also have to talk about you guys did a uh the best deals and discounts at the 2026 Indiana State Fair. Yes, that was Mirror Indie. Uh we published Mirror Indie content on our website occasionally when it makes sense and um they did this story about the best deals um which is relevant to anyone who'd be coming to the state fair.
So So I have to ask, what are the best deals and discounts at the Indiana State Fair? Well, I think part of it is getting your early bird discount for your tickets. Um there's a bunch of different options to do that. Um and then you've got like the different like daily deals, right? You for early bird discounts, you have until August 6th. Yes, you have to get 1159 August 6.
You get a discount and you can get 22% off fair admission, 20% off parking passes, 38% off Midway wristbands, which is that is worth it all on its own. Yeah. Uh 30% off admission if you're doing a family fourpack, which includes one parking pass and four admission tickets. Like 30% off. That's pretty good. And then 30% off admission for a foodie family fourpack.
Love that. That's parking pass, four admission tickets, and $50 in fair bucks. Yeah, come on. My personal favorite is $2 Tuesdays. It's been my favorite for years. Uh I think it's great.
You can get $2 food options in addition to your $2 ticket. And normally they're like smaller portions, but then like you can eat more from more places. I love that actually. 20 bucks. You're getting your ticket for two bucks and then you have nine food options, right? Is that my math?
$20. $2 ticket plus nine food options. Oh my. Do they have a $2 wheelbarl to roll me to roll me out of there afterwards? Those are great. On August 20th, they show your AAA card.
Again, I see AAA everywhere. And the interesting piece is it's so much more. If you have a AAA card, I think the membership's like 50 bucks. You get like AAA day on August 20th. You get free admission. Uh you get like a fast pass to RU off.
Like there's a whole culture of using your AAA card to just like hack into things quickly. It's great. Get the deals. Indie Star doing a free ticket day. Mhm. Now that's innovative and fun.
Shout out. Good job, Indie Star. We love that. Indianapolis Indians are doing family day. There's a $5 value menu this year at the Indiana State Fair. Free tire recycling at 32 statewide sites.
That's a big deal to the right crew. It is a big deal cuz you don't know what to do with tires. Usually people in rural Indiana end up burning them. That's just how it goes. You probably shouldn't do that. Not good for the environment.
The other thing people do is throw them in rivers. Hate to see that. I did just canoe the entire White River and saw way less tires than you would think. Which was good. So hopefully if you do find any more tires in the White River, you're taking them here. But like I think people think that there's just like tires everywhere in the White River and it was untrue.
So Lindsay, thanks for stopping by. Uh it's been a pleasure chit chatting with you and learning more uh about all the fun stuff. We're going to do this monthly. So people pull back up for our next episode. Keep an eye out. We're going to talk more current events in a month from now.
Uh learning all the fun stuff there. We are going to round out every time we do this cuz you're learning a ton about the state of Indiana. We're going to do all three questions that we ask everybody for this one. Um, and then it'll just be the two because you're clearly going to be uncovering hidden gems and interesting people along the journey. So, my question for you, what is a hidden gem in Indiana? The sculpture trails in Green County.
Uh, I didn't know about this until uh my reporter Laura Lane came to me and told me about it. Um, but it is this cool free uh outdoor kind of sculpture museum, if you will, that you can just walk in like through wooded trails and and see all the artwork. And they have various events through the year, too, where you can go and watch artists making sculptures out there, which is really cool. Um, we've got a whole photo gallery on our website right now. We sent a photographer out um a couple weeks ago or maybe last week uh to check that out, and it's it's really cool. um to to see that.
So yeah, I went and did a whole video on it is it is very very cool. If you're going to go do Sculpture Trails, you're going to get lunch at the Yoho General Store in Salsbury. Uh the Cook Community Foundation like invested in this place, dude. Lunch, great. Ice cream, great. Like it's just a whole vibe.
Yoho General Store. And then you're going to walk the trails at Sculpture Trails, see all the art. It's super cool. I I mean I probably walked I think a mile like it was like if you if you want to make it you can kind of choose your own distance but like there's some really cool like metal works stuff that's poured. They have old school like uh foundaries where you're like they're getting it super hot and then they're like pouring molten iron and stuff. It's it's crazy.
Cool experience. Great hidden gem. Yeah, absolutely. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? someone who's doing big things. Yeah.
So, I want to shout out someone in the journalism world. Um since that's my world that I'm in. And uh Steven Crane in Morgan County. He's the editor and founder of Morgan County Correspondent. Um cool weekly paper um that started because Morgan County didn't have a newspaper anymore. Um or didn't have any reporters at the newspaper, I guess I should say.
Um, and so it's just it's nice to see, you know, other people across the state trying to fill uh news gaps. Yeah, absolutely. I've I've heard about him a few times now. Great work. Love that. Yeah.
Finally, you came to IU. Yeah. That's like your first experience with Indiana and the Hooser State. Left for a bit, but came back. Have been working in journalism in media uh across the state of Indiana. When you close your eyes and think about it, I have to know, what is your favorite Indiana memory?
I think you're going to like this one. I'm It It truly is my favorite memory. Uh it was 2011 when IU beat Kentucky in basketball. The infamous Wattshot. The Watt Shot. Absolutely.
Were you you were there present? I was not in Assembly Hall, but I was at what I would argue the second best place to be, which was upstairs at NYX. And I mean just the whole place goes so quiet as you watch the ball go in the air and then the second it goes in just erupts and people are jumping and screaming. We thought the floor was going to give out. Like it truly felt like oh my god we are the building's going to go down. That is what's happening right now.
[laughter and gasps] Um but you know surrounded by my college friends who I'm still friends with like it's you just can't get better than that. I love that. Like, you know, watching all the videos from Kirkwood this year when we won the football championship and love that for those students because like the watch shot was my memory of that. That was that was your national championship? Yes, it was. [laughter] I love it.
Have you heard about the Little 500 movie that's going to come out? We just had we just had Zach on the podcast and I'm excited for people to get to experience that episode because what they're doing around the first ever women's little 500 and on the back of the 87 national championship with just the popularity of IU right now Indiana it's it's hot. Yeah, it's who knew we're we're you know we were a basketball school but now we're a football school and it's fine. Yeah. Come on now. Oh, hey.
We appreciate you stopping by. We're excited to make this a regular occurrence. Uh, we'll see you in a month. Thank you so much for all the work that y'all are doing at Free Press Indiana and Free Press Indiana News and Mirror Indie, like there is this gap in journalism that you guys are stepping up and filling. If people want to learn more about you, if they want to learn more about any of the different news outlets you guys have, how can they do that? I would suggest going to fnew.
org. You can see it all there. Amen. I love it. Thanks for stopping by. We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks. That's a wrap on our show today. Go check out our YouTube video at Nate Spangle [music] on YouTube. Make sure you follow along. If you could please rate, review, leave us five stars if you can, and have the best weekend [music] of your entire life that you've ever