Home Care In Osceola, IN

JIM McKEE For the Lincoln Journal Star

As settlement in Nebraska moved westward, the earliest inhabitants coined being “the first” in numerous fields, with John Mickey among them.

John Hopwood Mickey was born in 1845 on his parent’s farm near Burlington, Iowa. Mickey joined the Union Army as a private serving under Gen. Sherman and as a soldier was able, under a special law, to vote at 19 for Abraham Lincoln for president.

After the war Mickey finished high school at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, then studied for two years at Iowa Wesleyan University. After teaching for two years, Mickey and his wife moved in 1868 to the 1-year-old state of Nebraska. Deciding on land in Hackberry Precinct in then-Butler County, he became the first homesteader to be issued land at the U.S. Land Office in Lincoln and became the first homesteader in what was to become Polk County.

Circuit rider Rev. James Query delivered the first sermon in the county at Mickey’s cabin in May 1869 and that fall, as other families settled, Mickey was elected school treasurer.

Polk County finally split off from Butler County in August 1870, with the county seat established at a point named Osceola. John Mickey was named the county’s first treasurer with his home becoming the de facto courthouse.

The following October the question of moving the county seat to a more central location arose, and, by a 14-vote majority, settled on a site just three miles to the west. Mickey was then chosen to head a committee to pick 40 acres within the newly designated area for the county seat. This new site, again named Osceola and in the new Osceola Precinct, was then surveyed and platted by Mickey.

In 1872, Mickey moved to the new Osceola site, built one of the first three houses and was later appointed General Agent for the Union Pacific Railroad Land Office in Polk County.

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Evan Mickey, John’s son, was born Jan. 26, 1874, the first birth in Polk County.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Fleharty floated the concept of establishing a Methodist “conference school” in Osceola and was immediately joined in the project by Mickey. The school, named Nebraska Wesleyan University, opened in September 1879 with 11 students and four teachers, but closed two years later with the school’s foundation “destined to become the base for the county courthouse.”

Mickey opened the Mickey Bank on the south side of the square in 1879 as the first bank in Polk County with a capitalization of $5,000. The bank was incorporated in 1881 as the State Bank of Osceola, with C.H. Morrill and Albinus Nance as partners and Mickey as president.

Mickey was elected to a one-year term in the lower house of the Nebraska legislature in 1881. Two years later Mickey built the large frame house at the south end of then Hawkeye Street, now State Street, at what would be near the southeast corner of today's State and Beebe streets.

Although the extant house is noted on its nomination to the National Register of Historic Places as being built in 1883-84, a steel engraving of the house appears in Andreas’ History of Nebraska which was written in 1881 and published in 1882. As Mickey is noted as having built the first frame house in Polk County and the present house has admittedly been added onto a number of times, it is interesting to ponder if its origins may date to the 1870s.

When Mickey's wife, Marinda, died in 1886, John married Flora Cinderella Campbell and later was elected to the Board of Trustees at Nebraska Wesleyan University in University Place, Nebraska, becoming the board’s president. Mickey’s tenure at Nebraska Wesleyan was long and fruitful and, in 1901, when the school’s chancellor was paid $1,000 a year, Mickey pledged $6,000 to enable the school to pay salaries, debts and taxes.

Mickey was elected Nebraska’s governor in 1902 and served two terms. Although the terms were considered successful and generally positive, his tenure is most often remembered for his granting 12 pardons and issuing 65 commutations “amid charges that he abused the pardon and parole system.”

Mickey, cited as being one of the largest land holders in Polk County, died in Osceola on June 2, 1910, after a protracted illness. He also was one of three governors who lived in Osceola. Albinus Nance, a business partner of Mickey’s, served two terms beginning in 1879, and Ashton Shallenberger, who grew up in Osceola, became governor in 1909.

Although a fire in 1895 destroyed all of the businesses on the south side of the city square except A.P. Mickey’s Hardware and Mickey’s 1892 bank building, his house on the south side of the city is extant. After his death the house was converted into a hospital, then in 1956 returned to a residence and in 1967 became the home of the Polk County Museum and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The 'Mean Girls' star also shared that he's finding married life — he and Osceola tied the knot in June 2023 — "exciting" and "very nice"

Jon Hamm and his wife Anna Osceola missed an important date on their calendar in December!

While walking the red carpet at the New York City premiere of Mean Girls on Monday, the 52-year-old actor revealed that he and Osceola, who tied the knot in June 2023, completely forgot their six-month anniversary.

However, Hamm was quick to note that they had a good excuse. "There was a lot going on — it was Christmas Eve," he told Entertainment Tonight, blaming the holiday hustle and bustle for the oversight.

The Fargo star also spoke about how he's enjoying married life with Osceola, whom he reportedly met on the set of Mad Men after she had a small role in the final episode of the series. "It's exciting, you know, it's very nice," he said.

The couple wed at Anderson Canyon in Big Sur, Calif. — fittingly where the Mad Men finale was filmed — with several of their celebrity friends in attendance, including Paul Rudd, Tina Fey and Billy Crudup.

Related: Jon Hamm Opens Up About His 'Exciting' Wedding to Anna Osceola: 'It Was a Perfect Day'

Months later, Hamm opened up about his "perfect" wedding day during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in November.

“It was very exciting,” he told host Jimmy Kimmel of his and Osceola's nuptials. “We did it this summer in beautiful Big Sur. It was a perfect day."

Hamm shared that they opted for a small guest list. "It was very sparsely attended, by our decision; it was small. And man, it was great," he recalled.

He also joked about getting married at the age of 52. “It only took me half a century but I figured I might as well get it right, so there you go," he quipped.

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As for the special connection the couple had to their wedding location, Hamm said it was a “full-circle moment" for them.

“It came all the way around,” he noted.

Kimmel, 56, couldn't resist asking if Hamm's Don Draper connections came in clutch when the bill was drawn up.

“I don’t know why, but the first thing I wonder when I hear a story like that is did they give a discount?” he jokingly asked.

“Yes! It was great,” Hamm replied with a laugh. “It had changed hands since the time [of the show's finale] — this was about nine years ago, so it had changed hands. But it's still a beautiful piece of property, right on the Pacific Ocean."

He jokingly added, "We got married on a cliff and we chose to walk the correct way after we got married!”

Related: Jon Hamm Says the Holidays Are 'Doubly Nice' After Marrying Anna Osceola (Exclusive)

In addition to their six-month anniversary, Hamm and Osceola, 35, celebrated their first holiday season together as a married couple. The Bridesmaids star told PEOPLE last month that he and his wife were excited to start some new holiday traditions.

“The best part of it is just being together. That's really it,” he said. “And it's doubly nice that we're married now and that's really fun, but hopefully that continues on and you start creating new traditions with your family and all of those things, and that's the best.”

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It’s not quite the linear park envisioned by city planners some 15 years ago, but the Osceola Trak, christened on Thursday, will fulfill many of the original objectives.

The O Trak, as it’s also called, stretches from Southeast Third Street near the Ocala Downtown Market to Northeast Fifth Street near the Magnolia Art Exchange in the historic Ocala Union Station just west of Tuscawilla Park.

The swath includes wider sidewalks to accommodate pedestrians and bicycles. Osceola Avenue also will continue to allow car and train traffic, though parking is not allowed along the path. The project cost $1.1 million.

“This has been going on for quite some time. ... We’re expecting big things from this and are very happy this has happened and look forward to the continued success of downtown,” said Mayor Kent Guinn during a ceremony inaugurating the trak.

Originally, plans called for closing Osceola Avenue to traffic along the entire route to create a pedestrian and non-motorized vehicle trail. Wooded areas, perfect for picnics or just sitting, were part of that plan. Early plans even called for a footbridge over Silver Springs Boulevard.

But state and federal regulations made the footbridge idea too expensive. The railroad also worried about residents getting to close to the tracks and wanted to put up fences to avoid accidents. Downtown businesses also balked at banning vehicles along the route.

“We reshaped the project several times, and what we have now is a multi-modal trail,” said Sean Lanier, the city’s director of engineering and water resources.

The city did close a portion of the road to vehicles from Southeast Third Street to East Fort King Street. They hope to add more landscaping elements to the trail to give it more of a park feel. Instead of the footbridge, the intersection at Silver Springs and Osceola includes a wide pedestrian “refuge” in the median, as well as a pedestrian-activated signal to allow safer crossings.

Guinn hopes the trak will spur more development on the north side of downtown, known as midtown.

He said he envisions a day when an industrial production plant near Tuscawilla will one day become apartments and hopes to see a trolley run from the historic train station to downtown.

“We want to continue to develop this area and have a reason for people to walk over here,” Guinn said.

Also on Thursday, the city officially unveiled the historic Ocala fire bell installed at the intersection of Osceola and Southeast Broadway Street.

The bell, weighing in at nearly a ton, is almost 130 years old. For more than 80 years, from its dedication on July 4, 1889, it was part of the firehouses that stood on the block where the city’s parking garage now stands. The bell sits on a brick-lined pedestal in the median of Broadway.

Historically, the bell rang to signal fires, in celebration of holidays and in mourning after the deaths of prominent citizens. It also served as the lunch bell for the city and rang to signal the start of the day and the end of business.

But the bell eventually cracked either in the 1940s or the 1960s and never rang again.

Contact Carlos E. Medina at 867-4157 or [email protected]

You can decide if you believe that “it takes a village” to raise a child, but Junior Achievement and Osceola High School are banking on a collaboration of the school district, business partners and Junior Achievement helping to educate them. Collaborative-effort curriculum is new to Osceola County.

Welcome to 3DE by Junior Achievement!

Over the summer Osceola High implemented this school model engineered to accelerate student engagement, and in turn academic outcomes, in traditional public high schools. JA sees the 3DE program as a way to “re-engineer high school education,” as presented to a visiting panel to OHS on Tuesday.

A program created by JA as a “catalyst for change,” Case method teaching and learning is at 3DE’s core. All of students learning centers on evaluating a real-world challenge facing a corporate business partner. All learning in core classes pertains to solving that problem. Students work in groups to draw conclusions and present solutions, while filtering out the “noise in the system.”

It’s debuting at OHS exclusively with the freshman class, and they take four core classes and a 3DE elective in the same building, creating a “school within a school”.

You can decide if you believe that “it takes a village” to raise a child, but Junior Achievement and Osceola High School are banking on a collaboration of the school district, business partners and Junior Achievement helping to educate them. Collaborative-effort curriculum is new to Osceola County.

Welcome to 3DE by Junior Achievement!

Over the summer Osceola High implemented this school model engineered to accelerate student engagement, and in turn academic outcomes, in traditional public high schools. JA sees the 3DE program as a way to “re-engineer high school education,” as presented to a visiting panel to OHS on Tuesday.

A program created by JA as a “catalyst for change,” Case method teaching and learning is at 3DE’s core. All of students learning centers on evaluating a real-world challenge facing a corporate business partner. All learning in core classes pertains to solving that problem. Students work in groups to draw conclusions and present solutions, while filtering out the “noise in the system.”

It’s debuting at OHS exclusively with the freshman class, and they take four core classes and a 3DE elective in the same building, creating a “school within a school”.

We look forward to working with our regional and national business partners to create opportunities for students to engage in learning that will expand and diversify the local talent pipeline.

Dr. Nia Campbell

Principal, Osceola High School

The freshmen are engaging with some pretty big companies: Arby’s, Delta Air Lines, Jackson Health Care, SunTrust and imec, the Belgian nanotechnology outfit working at NeoCity and opening eyes about the high-end technology work going on right in our community.

A current case study is with Walt Disney World; the students are attacking how to communicate the rollout of a new software tool to front-line “cast members” and manage the change from its old tool.

And, all learning works toward solving the problem. In an English class, students may work on translating “Romeo and Juliet” from Shakespearean-speak to new-world English; they use those translation skills to break down the problem into easier-to-understand pieces.

Students used words like “genuine” (for its real-world application), “engaging” and “amazing” to describe their 3DE experience thus far. Patrick O’Donal came to Osceola from Texas this year to teach Digital Information Technology, where students can earn their Microsoft certifications. He comes from a business background.

“It’s my job to make them understand what kind of expectations this companies have, and get them ready to present (their case study) in that professional style of presentation,” he said. “We make sure they can defend whatever answers or ideas they get.

“Buzz words that teachers have been talking about for years have been ‘critical thinking’, ‘applicable knowledge’, and ‘apply what they’re doing.’ This works so well and why we see the kids develop better is because we actually get to show them how it works.”

Students have and will be able to enter the 3DE program through school choice, or be “shepherded in” by other administrators. This freshman class is making sure the program is being done right on a small scale before likely growing to a bigger scale at OHS.

Kathy Panter, President and CEO of Junior Achievement of Central Florida, said the students have been the biggest marketing tool for 3DE.

“We will no longer have to work to get students in,” she said. “Once word gets out about the program.”

Two beachside schools could be consolidated in the near future as Volusia County Schools explores what updating a 1950s school campus to 21st century looks like.

Osceola Elementary School and Ortona Elementary School both face similar set of issues. Osceola, built in 1955, and Ortona, built in 1951, are small schools — in size and acreage. Volusia County Schools Director of planning and construction Saralee Morrissey said Osceola struggles with moisture intrusion in the interior walls, windows and doors, as well as has an "inadequate" administration building.

“It’s very similar at the Ortona campus with the exception that Ortona has a modern administrative building that was built during the last half-cent sales tax," Morrissey said.

With high costs to fix the issues at both schools — and with the schools being a little over 3 miles away from each other — the School Board decided to look into merging both schools into one campus last June, Morrissey said.

But even that comes with challenges. Both sites are smaller in acreage than what the district looks for today when looking for land for a new school. Osceola is 13 acres and Ortona spans 11 acres. Today, Morissey said the district generally wants 20 acres.

Two meetings will be held to discuss and gather feedback about the possible consolidation. The first is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, March 9, at the Ortona Elementary cafeteria. The second will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 11, at the Osceola Elementary School cafeteria.

The same information will be presented at both meetings, Morrissey said.

School Board Member Carl Persis said that, from an operational standpoint, the consolidation makes sense.

Osceola currently has about 400 students, and Ortona has 200. The new school would still have less students that most elementary schools, he said. Pathways Elementary and Tomoka Elementary are bigger.

“It wouldn’t create an overly large school," Persis said.

He initially was hoping the district could build a K-8 school at the Osceola campus, since there are no middle schools on the beachside, but was told it wasn't feasible.

New schools also have to include drainage improvements, Morrissey said. Neither Osceola nor Ortona have stormwater retention ponds. Also, while Osceola has a small bus loop, Ortona doesn't. Both schools also lack adequate parking and room to stack cars during dismissal.

“Those are parts of a standard elementary school campus that need to be accommodated if we are going to build a new school," Morrissey said. "It’s not just building a school building, it’s also addressing the other attributes.”

One of the biggest questions the district will face moving forward once it picks a campus is this: Should it build on an occupied campus?

That's what it's called when there is a construction project at a school still in use by faculty and students. It's what Morrissey said is currently going on at George Marks Elementary in DeLand and Chisholm Elementary in New Smyrna Beach.

It's also what was done at Ormond Beach Middle School in 2007-2011 when that school was redeveloped. Persis was the school's principal at the time, and while it took four years, he said they felt that was the right decision.

Whether that will be the case for this project is still to be determined.

“There’s just so many questions that need to be asked and answered before we go forward so that we can make a good decision," Persis said.

The alternative of building on an empty campus would take between 12-14 months. However, the district would need to decide where to place the affected school's student population.

“I know that there will be questions and concerns about, 'which campus are you going to build on?' and we don’t have an answer to that question yet," Morrissey said.