Mike Wolanin | The Republic Bartholomew County Councilwoman Evelyn Pence is retiring from local politics. She is not seeking reelection for the county council seat she has held since 1968. She is pictured in her home in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, March, 14, 2024.
The local politician who who has maintained the same elected office longer than any other local official in modern history is retiring from politics.
After nearly half a century on the Bartholomew County Council, Evelyn Strietelmeier Pence has announced she will not seek another term.
Pence has been the subject of some water cooler talk in county government. A few government officials say they believe Bartholomew County Surveyor E.R. Gray III has been in office longer than Pence.
But the truth is: it isn’t even close.
Only after the death of Gene Darnell in the spring of 1984 did GOP precinct committeemen ask Gray to fill out the rest of Darnell’s term. Like Gray, Evelyn Pence was also asked to finish someone else’s term.
But she was called in several years before the surveyor.
Farm values
For seven decades, Evelyn Pence has maintained a reputation as a steadfast fiscal conservative. She says much of that came from her father, Carl Strietelmeier (1901-1994).
“My dad was always very interested in politics,” Pence said. “Being raised on the farm, you are more conservative because the food on your table are things that have been raised (by your family).”
Her mother, Elsie Zurbruug Strietelmeier (1903-2005), was active in her church and a member of the Bartholomew County and Indiana Farm Bureaus. She was also a member of a home economics club and a sewing circle.
Pence recalled that, with one exception, her family didn’t take vacations. But the children convinced Carl to take the family to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, because Elsie had never traveled outside this region.
“I thought it was a neat little time, but Pop said he couldn’t see anything special about Gatlinburg,” the councilwoman said. “He was always happiest working in his fields.”
Growing up in a family where everyone worked seven days a week, including holidays, is likely behind her concern about giving county employees too many paid days off. Pence was also taught to use her time efficiently in her childhood, as well as working as a group leader for what is now Cummins, Inc. So it’s no wonder she has remained a strong advocate of Six Sigma certification for county employees, which is used to improve business processes by reducing defects and errors, minimizing variation, and increasing quality and efficiency.
After high school, Strietelmeier attended IUPUI in Indianapolis and would later graduate from the National School of Aeronautics. She would also serve as vice president of the Bartholomew County Young Republicans, second only to the future Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton.
Despite her youth, Evelyn decided before her high school’s 10-year reunion to make her first run for office.
First election
It was 1966. Ronald Reagan had just become governor of California, studio owner Lucille Ball green-lit a show pitched as ‘Wagon Train in Space” (later called“Star Trek”), and a 1957 Columbus High School graduate became one of seven Republicans vying for three at-large seats on the Bartholomew County Council.
“The first time I ran, I didn’t know I was supposed to campaign,’ Pence recalls. “I didn’t even know the job paid anything. That was not my purpose.”
In 1966, the annual salary for a county council member was $1,200. Adjusted for inflation, that is $11,423 in 2024. While council members have benefit options, their 2024 salary is only $9,835, county Auditor Pia O’Connor said.
During the 1966 primary, the three GOP candidates that moved on to the general election were Ross Crump, Loyd Reece and Roy Marshall.
But the young Strietelmeeier was only 10 votes shy from defeating Marshall. She garnered more support than three older men: Cummins employee John Evans, banker Donald Porter and insurance salesman David Stine.
The close race between Marshall and Strietelmeier was something that then-Bartholomew County Republican Central Committee chairman Virgil Scheidt did not forget.
Two years later, Marshall resigned from the council due to poor health. On Aug. 5, 1968, Strietelmeier became her party’s unanimous choice to fill out his term with the support of both Scheidt and Crump. The group leader for what was then Cummins Engine Co. would serve on the council until the end of 1970.
The late 60s
While still learning the job, Strietelmeier became involved in one of the era’s largest controversies: open, unsanitary and unsightly garbage piles spread throughout the county, as well as the dumping of waste into the East Fork White River near the downtown area. The situation was repeatedly described in The Evening Republican, predecessor to The Republic, as both a crisis and significant health threat.
The public sector asked those working in the private sector to help find a solution. Prominent industries and business groups said they believed that a grinding mill would do the job, Pence said. While the council was apprehensive, Pence said they felt the business executives must know what’s best, so the county constructed such a facility off South Gladstone Avenue next to a small and temporary sanitary landfill.
As the councilwoman recalls, the grinding mill didn’t even come close to solving the problem.
“It was something many of us deeply regretted,” Pence said. “It was a step that we realized was a mistake. But it led us to where we are now.”
The milling was suspended in 1972, and plans to place a complete sanitary landfill on 117-acres east of Petersville were developed in 1974. The current landfill, located off County Road 450S, replaced the Petersville facility in early 1999.
There was something else Pence recalls about Bartholomew County government in the late 1960s.
“Back then, you were hired based on ‘who’ you knew, not ‘what’ you knew,” the councilwoman said. “Thank goodness it’s not that way anymore.”
Hiatus
After completing Marshall’s term in 1970, Evelyn had no desire to seek four more years on the council. She said she wanted to give her employer the attention she they deserved. She would serve on the board of directors of the United Way of Bartholomew County, and remain active at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church.
Pence was also a past president of the Bartholomew County Historical Society, a member of the Republican Ladies League, active in the Bartholomew County Landlord Association, a proud member of the Bartholomew County Farm Bureau, and worked part-time as a property manager.
And somewhere in there, she set aside some time to become the bride of orthodontist Dr. Ben Pence, Jr. on Dec. 17, 1977.
A few years later, two prominent GOP leaders, Scheidt and Crump, convinced Pence to attempt to reclaim her at-large seat on the council. Since she greatly respected the men who asked her to run, Pence felt so honored she couldn’t say no.
In the November 1980 general election, Pence received 15,834 votes – more than sufficient to join fellow Republicans Thomas Harrison (16,506 votes) and Byron Carr (14,689 votes) as at-large council members.
Taj Mahal
One of the largest controversies the Bartholomew County Council has faced since the 1980s was the funding of a new jail and county law enforcement building. The older wings, designed by renowned architect Don M. Hisaka, were completed in 1991 at a cost of $10 million.
But the jail capacity was only 120 inmates. In less than 20 years, county taxpayers had to pay $18.5 million for a three-phase expansion that increased inmate capacity to 250 inmates.
Elected county officials were heavily criticized by constituents who believed they were wasting taxpayer money. During several public meetings held in the 1980s and 1990s, angry residents would complain about perceived opulance and refer to the jail as the Taj Mahal.
Pence says she believes a lot of money would have been saved if elected officials had followed a suggestion by council member Warren Scheidt to build the facility on a 10-acres rural site southeast of Columbus, so it wouldn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing.
In recent years, Pence has repeatedly tried to convince the council to pay off the jail construction bond early.
“I was told it was good business to keep on with the low interest rate we now have,” Pence said. “But we are not a business. We are government and the council is responsible to be the watch dogs for the county taxpayers.”
Raising taxes
In 2009, the county council created a economic development income tax. The next year, three GOP council members were defeated in the primary for increasing taxes during what was called the Great Recession.
But in 2018, after the council voted to raise the county’s local income tax by 40%, there was no recession and little political fallout. After county government received $16.27 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan, Pence said she became concerned the council is spending too much, and would eventually find itself in financial trouble. However, Pence feels her words, as well as similar warnings from councilmen Bill Lentz and Matt Miller, are largely falling on deaf ears.
For the rest of this year, Pence and the six other council members will work with the county commissioners to discuss the future of the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center on Illinois Avenue.
“Although it does need to be updated,the location is convenient to the officers who must make frequent visits to that location,” Pence said. “I have visited other Youth Services Centers, and one comment stands out in my mind where the employees at that particular location told me they had overbuilt their center.
Pence wrapped up her concerns with the same concerns she has given her fellow council members for almost a half-century.
“We will be using taxpayers money, so we must be careful that this is handled correctly,” she said. “I’ve heard people say that, at the rate we are spending now, we will be out of money. Someone on the council said that all we have to do is raise taxes. You can’t do that. It’s just not right.”
