When the University of Vermont tips off in its home basketball opener tonight, one of its prized recruits — 6-foot-7 freshman forward Josh Speidel from Columbus — will be on the court.

But the Columbus North standout will be in street clothes instead of basketball gear.

Speidel has made significant progress during his recovery and rehabilitation from a severe brain injury that resulted from a Feb. 1, 2015, auto accident near Taylorsville.

With many accomplishments already checked off on his recovery to-do list, being ready to play for a major college basketball program is just one more challenge Speidel must work to overcome.

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Speidel won’t play in Vermont games this year, but he was granted a special waiver by the NCAA to participate with the basketball program without losing one of his four years of athletics eligibility.

“Obviously, I have a long way to go, but I’m a lot closer than what I was,” Speidel said.

Speidel’s story is well-known in Columbus, where he became North’s all-time leading scorer in boys basketball before the late-season accident during his senior year left him hospitalized and his future in doubt.

The community rallied on his behalf, and Speidel physically rallied himself — released from medical centers in time to graduate with his senior class that June.

That was the beginning of his climb back to normal activities.

Keeping his commitment

Vermont coach John Becker flew to Indianapolis after hearing of Speidel’s car accident, and spent time with him and his family during his early days of hospitalization in Indianapolis when the teen’s prognosis was uncertain.

Becker made it clear that the university would honor its scholarship offer — no matter whether Speidel would ever play on the team.

Due to hard work and dedication, Speidel was able to enroll in college at Vermont this summer and now attends practices and travels with the Vermont team, which has stuck with him every step of the way during the past 21 months.

You can spot Speidel in the team photo on the Catamounts’ basketball website. And you can click on his bio, just like you can with all of the other Vermont players.

But unlike the other players, Speidel still has much to do before he can return to the court in game conditions.

Trainers and the team physician take him to medical appointments and go to therapy appointments with him. The therapist comes to the gym and designs physical therapy workouts for Speidel to do on the basketball court.

Becker said at the start of the summer and fall semesters, staff would help Speidel get to the right buses and find his way around campus to his classes.

Becker said Speidel has made great progression since he arrived there in June and has become completely independent.

“Basketball-wise and school-wise, it’s going as good as I think it could be,” Speidel said. “I’d say my biggest struggle is keeping that good attitude. It’s going to take awhile, but I’m on this journey.”

After spending most of last year as a classroom instructional assistant at Brown Elementary in Seymour, where his mother Lisa is assistant principal, Speidel is back taking classes himself.

Speidel took six hours this summer at Vermont, earning B’s in both an online class, Geology, and a lecture class, History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

This fall, Speidel is taking 10 hours. His classes include English, statistics, a healthy brain class and a student-athlete success class.

“It’s been tough, but a good attitude through this is going to work out in the end,” he said. “When I think of what I want the end result to be, that just makes me work hard.”

After a year of rehabilitation at home, his family concluded that he was ready to live on his own 1,000 miles away.

While it was once a struggle to complete everyday activities such as dressing himself or brushing his teeth, those days are behind him.

Speidel continues to work toward his goal of one day playing basketball for the Catamounts.

And he gets to talk basketball every day with his roommate and and teammate, Evansville native Everett Duncan.

“We are just continually blown away by Josh’s continued progress,” Lisa Speidel said. “His recovery, his healing — he continues to defy all the odds. His overall demeanor, his attitude, his spirit is ‘I’m beating this. I’m going to do what I love.’ There are times he has every right to have a terrible attitude and be mad at the world, and that’s not what he decides to do.”

Driving is one thing Speidel cannot yet do on his own, but freshmen at Vermont can’t have cars on campus anyway.

Speidel has an academics coach who helps him get things organized, lay out his week in advance and lets him know what he needs to focus on and study. Tutors also are available.

“I love class now,” Speidel said. “Having taken a year off, you sort of miss homework and teachers and learning. I hadn’t been in an actual class for about a year. Vermont is great — just meeting the professors and new people and new friends.”

Back to basketball

While he was recovering at home last year, Speidel would shoot baskets in his driveway. His father Dave would rebound for him.

Since arriving at Vermont, Speidel has been working on dribbling, shot form and other basics with athletics trainer Eugene Santos.

Athough he still experiences tremors on his left side, Speidel now can dribble the basketball up to 50 times with his left hand. Dave Speidel said his son was able to dribble only about three or four times with his left hand before he left for college.

Speidel also has started to walk backwards while dribbling. Santos has him doing drills where Speidel will throw the ball off the wall and catch it with one hand.

“Just from a physical and a mental standpoint, he continues to get better,” Becker said. “It’s really encouraging. He still has a long way to go, but he’s battling and working to continue to get better.”

It hasn’t been uncommon for Becker to come into his office at 6 a.m. and find Speidel already in the gym shooting by himself.

Because he still is dealing with the tremor and some physical limitations, Speidel hasn’t been able to actively scrimmage with the team.

Becker said Speidel continues to strengthen his left side and left hand and do some fundamental work to get his dexterity back.

“Josh has been a joy to have around,” Becker said. “He’s such and inspiration to all of us. Every day, he continues to amaze with his determination and his ability to keep pushing forward. Everyone is taking to him, and it’s been really fun to see.”

Lisa Speidel said she and her husband usually talk with their son about three times a week. They have made a couple trips to Vermont, including a surprise visit for the Catamounts’ exhibition opener.

Lisa Speidel said the family continues to be pleased with how well her son is doing at Vermont.

“There are times when he sits back and says, ‘I want to be out there playing,’” she said. “But he doesn’t let it get him down. He uses it as motivation.”

With a goal of someday playing basketball again, Dave Speidel said the Vermont coaches continue to push his son with that outcome in mind.

“It’s amazing what he’s done so far,” he said. “God keeps blessing him, and we’ll see where this story ends.”

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Name: Josh Speidel

High school: Columbus North

College: Vermont

Year: Freshman

Height: 6-foot-7

Weight: 210

Vermont basketball website: http://uvmathletics.com/roster.aspx?path=mbball

Schedule notes: Vermont’s regular-season home opener is tonight in Burlington against Lyndon State. The will be in central Indiana next month,when Vermont visits Butler on Dec. 21.

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Future commercial development along State Road 58 and industrial growth near the Woodside Industrial Park will be two key areas moving forward tied to a plan to market the area for those uses, officials say.

Indusites Inc., a group of seven local companies that pooled resources to develop industrial land in Columbus, has received approval from the Columbus Plan Commission to rezone nearly 33 acres of vacant land at the northeast corner of County Road 450 South/State Route 58 and County Road 300 West owned by Frank and Karen Fiesbeck. Parcels are located on both sides of International Drive.

Indusites requested to change the zoning designation for the property from industrial-light, or I-1, to industrial-heavy and commercial regional, or CR. The commission voted to recommend the rezoning to Columbus City Council, which has final approval in the matter and will consider the request on first reading Dec. 6.

That location had a similar rezoning request from BBG Realty in April of this year, but the request was withdrawn June 8, according to city documents.

About 15 of the 33 acres would be zoned commercial, while the remaining is proposed as industrial, said Mark Pratt, a partner with Indusites Inc. and president of Breeden Inc.

With nearly 8,000 jobs in the vicinity of the location, Pratt said it’s time to bring the property to the market.

Large manufacturers located in the area include Cummins, Rightway Fasteners Inc. and Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing.

With the number of sales representatives and corporate officials conducting business at companies located in the Walesboro industrial area, additional hotel lodging would be attractive for the area, Pratt said. He also said more commercial services such as restaurants are needed as well.

While there are services and eateries on State Route 46 and Interstate 65, no restaurants are located in the area slated to be rezoned for commercial purposes. However, he expects that to change moving forward.

“We think the restaurant developers, hotel developers and developers of other services will see opportunity to locate in the area,” Pratt said. “The area has shown it would support those services.”

On the industrial side, Pratt said the Columbus market is short of shovel-ready sites, in addition to land not zoned for heavy manufacturing purposes, and believes the rezoning will help spur additional opportunities.

“Where the market is today, there seems to be demand,” he said. “I’m expecting that will get a lot of attention.”

He said officials are seeing more companies seeking to expand — not only locally, but companies in other markets as well. Firms outside the United States seeking to expand internationally have also looked at the Columbus area, Pratt said.

“Like any business, we have to have inventory that appeals to them,” Pratt said.

Breeden has already started pre-marketing efforts in the region by consulting with brokers and site consultants and remained confident that interest would grow, especially since the national economy has improved, he said.

“We feel like we have a sense of the market and we’re very optimistic,” Pratt said. “What we’ve seen in the region is a stronger commercial and industrial market since 2012.”

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The Columbus City Council will consider on first reading during its Dec. 6 meeting a proposal to rezone about 33 acres at County Road 450 South/State Road 58 and County Road 300 West. A second reading would be considered either Dec. 20 or Jan. 3.

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Staff Reports

Senior citizens lose $36.5 billion a year to scams, according to a 2015 True Link Report on Elder Financial Abuse.

Nila Howard of Columbus, who was on the receiving end of a scam attempt last week, wanted to make sure she wasn’t the next victim.

Howard said she received a call Nov. 9 that showed up on her caller ID as “private.”

“I thought it could have been a family member calling me,” Howard said, so she answered the call.

“Grandma?” a man’s voice asked.

“I said ‘Yes,’” Howard replied.

The caller claimed to be in Miami, Florida, with a friend whose mother had died of cancer — and he was supporting that friend through an emotionally difficult time.

“I knew it was a scam from the beginning because our grandchildren do not call us. They text. Secondly, our children are the type that always keep us informed on what our grandchildren are doing,” Howard said. “I played along because I wanted to find out how they conduct these scams.”

The story then shifted to the boys being at a Miami hospital helping a pregnant woman whose boyfriend had planted drugs in their car.

“We got arrested, and you know we would never do drugs,” Howard quoted the caller as saying. “We’re at the police station. We got one phone call that we could make, and I made it to you.”

Howard said she knew the next request would be for money, and she was right.

“If you’re in trouble, you really need to call your dad,” Howard said she told the caller.

That wasn’t the answer he was looking for, and then asked to talk with “his grandpa,” Howard said.

She replied that she wanted to talk with the sergeant on duty there. If he would provide the phone number to the police station, “I will give this to your father to get this straightened out,” Howard said.

When that didn’t satisfy the caller, about five minutes into the conversation, Howard concluded: “I’m tired of this and don’t appreciate this scam.”

The caller hung up.

Notifying police

Howard said she did end up calling the police department — not one in Miami, but in her hometown of Columbus to report the scam attempt.

Any attempt to defraud someone is a crime, said Lt. Matt Harris, spokesman for the Columbus Police Department.

But getting enough evidence to track the suspect down and prosecute a case can be difficult, he said.

Some of the phone calls are international, beyond the jurisdiction of local police, Harris said.

Home-construction scams — to do roofing or sealing driveways during warm-weather months for example — are easier for local police to investigate because they are occurring in the community, he said.

“A lot of times it’s the elderly where their focus is on. They tend to be more trusting,” Harris said.

Scams targeting older residents are one of the six most popular attempts at financial exploitation, said Candice Rickard, chief risk officer for Old National Bank, which created a free course that outlines how senior citizens can detect, protect themselves against and report financial exploitation attempts.

The most popular scams aimed at seniors are as follows, Rickard said:

Common scams: Grandparent, Sweetheart, Advanced Fee/Lottery, Work from Home, Service Scams.

Social engineering: Leveraging human interaction online to learn more about the victim.

Spoofed emails: Fraudulent emails that appear to be from the victim’s actual account.

Phishing: Sending an email falsely claiming to be a legitimate business in an attempt to dupe the victim into divulging personal, sensitive information.

Pop-ups: These appear on the victim’s computer enticing them to click and download a “fix.” Instead, malware is added to the computer.

Friendly fraud: When someone in a position of trust utilizes that relationship to commit fraud. This type of fraud is sometimes referred to as trust abuse.

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Here are some fraud prevention and security tips for all audiences provided by Old National Bank during International Fraud Awareness Week, which wraps up today.

Protect your device

• Keep your phone or tablet operating system, software and apps up to date
• Set up a password and lock your device when not in use
• Do not install or run any app or program on your device unless it is from a trusted source

Protect your access

• Use a personal firewall
• Set automatic updates
• Install anti-virus software that detects and blocks malware
• Use a trusted computer
• Avoid unsecured wireless networks
• Don’t use the same IDs or passwords for multiple systems

Protect your information

• Always log out when finished with online and mobile banking
• Never store personal or financial information, including user IDs and passwords, on your device or computer
• Don’t click on links or attachments to unsolicited email
• Monitor your personal accounts and financial statements regularly for unexplained activity
• Don’t confirm or provide personal information in response to an email or text
• Don’t write your PIN on your card or keep anywhere in your wallet or purse
• Check your credit reports – for free – every year

For more information about increasing awareness and reducing the risk of fraud during International Fraud Awareness Week, visit FraudWeek.com.

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Consumer protection information is available online through the Office of the Indiana Attorney General. Visit in.gov/attorneygeneral/2350.htm

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Columbus residents who think they have been targeted by scam artists can contact the Columbus Police Department at 812-376-2600. After listening to the information, officers will determine whether local law enforcement can be of assistance, spokesman Lt. Matt Harris said.

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