New Whiteland resident Paul Taube, 66, walks through the Franklin College campus.
Daily Journal Archives
News from around Johnson County as reported on Jan. 4 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 112 years.
On this day in 2001, the main story on the front page of the Daily Journal was about local seniors taking advantage of free courses from Franklin College.
“Paul Taube is so proud to be a Franklin College student that he’s ordered a letterman jacket declaring his school’s name across the front,” the story began.
The 66-year-old New Whiteland man said he’d wear it proudly when he and his wife left for a vacation in Colorado.
He took his first college class in nearly 47 years under a Franklin College program that allowed seniors to go to school tuition free. Taube was taking advantage of Franklin’s offer even if it didn’t lead him to a degree.
The former X-ray technician had retired four years earlier and said he wouldn’t have been able to afford the $540 tuition for his class. He noted that his used textbook cost $80.
Taube started the five-mile commute to the college after he attended a church seminar taught by Franklin College Religion Professor Cliff Cain. Through Cain, Taube learned that all he had to pay was a $25 registration fee and the cost of textbooks.
The new student wanted to go back to school to educate himself on the Bible and be a better teacher. But he said the real reason for returning to school was self-fulfillment.
Over the years, he had studied the Bible and each new reading brought new questions to him. His curiosity and passion for his religion urged him to learn more, he said.
He registered for class six weeks before school began and took his two teenage granddaughters with him to prove college was possible for them, too.
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Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day
2002
Local beer retailers were concerned about an increase in prices following the expiration of a state law that allowed them to choose their own distributors.
1999
The weight of accumulated snow and ice caused the roof of Value City Department Store in Greenwood to collapse.
1982
Officials were pushing for the creation of the Johnson County Economic Development Corporation.
