HANCOCK COUNTY — Pieces of history, some from more than 200 years ago, were placed carefully on tables inside the New Palestine Intermediate School library. The items were taken out of two New Palestine time capsules — one from the early 1800s and the other from 1920.
The historical artifacts were being shared with the 25 newest members of the Leadership Hancock County class by the Southern Hancock Community School Corporation, which keeps the time capsules and their items in safe storage. The visit to the school was just one of multiple stops by the group, which embarked upon a “History Day” around the county to get a better feel for the area.
“For you to come out here and see these things, you’ll be looking at and touching a piece of our history,” New Palestine historian Becky Gaines said to the group.
Leadership Hancock County is an annual program introduced by Greenfield Chamber of Commerce in 1996 to identify and prepare the community’s existing and future leadership resources. The program’s mission is to support current and emerging leaders by helping them develop skills, creating community awareness and building understanding of the impact of global events.
The “History Day” lessons started first thing Wednesday morning when this year’s leadership class loaded a school bus and began a county tour.
Leadership chairpersons Jane Barton, Amy West and Ryan Nasby lead the group, which started its day with a visit to the Hancock County Historical Society, then went to Chapel in the Park followed by a tour of the James Whitcomb Riley Museum.
From there the group visited Kingen Round Barn before a lunch break at Kinsey’s Italian Café. After lunch the group visited the Octagon House, where they went on a tour before loading on a bus and heading to New Palestine Intermediate School to check out a time capsule there.
The idea behind the “History Day” was to give those taking part in the Leadership Hancock County program to get a real feel for the county.
“It’s very easy to live in Hancock County your entire life but not know more than just what you can see,” Barton said. “It’s important to get out and get a perspective about all parts of our county because they are all important.”
Barton said that taking the leadership classes out into the county and letting them get an encompassing view of the area can be enlightening for those who are taking a class to learn more about leadership.
One of the class members is Ryan Fennell, who works in the marketing department of the Hancock County Library and said History Day was incredibly interesting.
“I learned about about the county that I had no idea about before,” Fennell said. “The real benefit is we all tend to kind of have our own narrow view of our part of whatever it is we do, but something like this allows us to branch out and really get to see other things that make up our county that we might have never had any contact with.”
Fennell noted that he enjoyed and was surprised at how much he learned at the Riley Museum and the Chapel in the Park.
“That was pretty cool,” he said.
Shanna Agner works for Ninestar and is a part of the leadership class. She said “History Day” was quite educational.
“I learned a lot,” Agner said. “I didn’t know anything about the Octagon House, and I had never been inside the round red barn. Just driving around and learning the community and some of the things that happened in our county definitely made for an interesting day.”
Agner, like many in the leadership program, feels that Hancock County is a wonderful place to live and getting to know more about it makes the area even more interesting.
“Any chance you get to become more involved in a place like Hancock County, I think you should take advantage of that opportunity,” Agner said.
Suzanne C. Woodland, the Chief of Police for the Cumberland Metropolitan Police Department, is a class member this year and is glad she signed up.
“There was a lot for me to learn here,” Woodland said. “I’m not originally from here, Hancock County, so I’m really glad I did this, yes.”
When the group visited the Kingen Round Barn not only did they get a tour of the largest round barn in the state and heard about how the barn was nearly destroyed during a tornado, they also had the opportunity to climb to the very top, something one of the leadership chairpersons (Amy West) did and signed her name on one of the pieces of wood along with the Leadership Hancock County’s initials, LHD.
“Jane (Barton) and I we graduated from the same leadership class years ago and we took our experience from the class and tried to make it different,” West said. “We wanted the participants to get out there and see the county because I was born and raised here, and there are still things I’m learning and didn’t know about.”
Barton summed up the “History Day” by saying that even class members who have lived in the county their whole lives say they learned something during the tour.
“The chairs have the liberty of creating an agenda for the class, and we did that after taking in some feedback from the past couple of years,” Barton said. “After Covid, we were more or less meeting and learning things while sitting in a room, so we were anxious to get back into the community and explore and let the people immerse themselves in Hancock County.”
For more information on being a part of the Leadership of Hancock County program email [email protected].
