Client News
ELLETTSVILLE, Indiana – Broadband Communities magazine recognized Smithville in 2025 as a national top 100 fiber broadband provider, marking the company’s 17th consecutive national honor. The recognition places the 103-year-old Indiana company alongside industry giants like Google Fiber, AT&T, and Starlink for its work in expanding rural broadband and transforming local economies.
Quarter of a billion dollars in private investments
“Smithville has invested upwards of $250 million to build and upgrade its fiber network, deploying more than 3,000 miles of fiber across Indiana alone,” said Brad Randall, editor of Broadband Communities. “The company’s recent network upgrades are particularly impressive—their infrastructure now supports connectivity ranging from 1 Gbps to 100 Gbps, with capacity to scale to 200 Gbps in the future.”
Knox County entered 2025 with an ambitious vision: become a region where talent wants to live, businesses want to invest, and opportunity thrives. By year’s end, we can look back, not at isolated achievements, but at a coordinated endeavor that touched every sector of our county.
(This column also appeared in the Vincennes Sun-Commercial and on KnoxCountyIndiana.com)
From groundbreakings to global partnerships, from homegrown innovators to international connections, 2025 demonstrated what happens when a community decides to work together toward shared prosperity. Here’s what unfolded.
Building a home for talent
The year brought fresh, tangible momentum in an important sector: a $35 million market-rate apartment complex rising in Vincennes. This wasn’t just another construction project. When Simplified Developments LLC broke ground on 240 new apartments last summer, they were answering a question every growing region faces – why should talent come and stay here?
The front-page article in a recent Wall Street Journal summed it up: “The stars are lighting up again.” The coverage chronicled how pop stars and several recent movies in 2025 were effectively eroding “a years-long decline in U.S. smoking rates” by displaying smoking as an acceptable social element, essentially promoting its use. As one health care expert warned about the power of popular role models in today’s society, “I find that concerning – glamorous, attractive people smoking cigarettes.”
Why should people be concerned about this? Is smoking really all that bad?
As a long-time practicing physician in southern Indiana, I emphatically agree – smoking is really not a good habit or option for people of any age, but especially for young people.
(This column also appeared in the Clarion News)
Fortunately, strong efforts are underway in our healthcare service area – a region known in the past for unhealthy tobacco and related use – to educate and warn our people about the dangers of smoking and tobacco use.
What an EMT sees on the job
Stephen Parrott, a certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) with 28 years of experience, is bringing his high-voltage “Tough Talk” to the area, recently speaking to high school students in Crawford, Lawrence, and Orange Counties. Five years ago Parrott – whose day job is serving as a field supervisor for the third largest ambulance service in Kentucky – started presenting programs about drug awareness in local high schools in Indiana and Kentucky, based on his personal experience of treating teens who have overdosed or are addicted. Here are some excerpts of his key messages:
Rural Indiana stands at a pivotal moment. While headlines often overlook rural communities, the data reveals a different story: rural America contributes $2.2 trillion to the nation’s GDP, and rural residents demonstrate more stable economic mobility than their urban counterparts. For Indiana’s rural counties, the path to sustained prosperity runs directly through entrepreneurship – and thanks to emerging initiatives like Indiana’s new Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the resources to ignite this growth are experiencing greater accessibility.
(This column also appeared on Inside Indiana Business and on KnoxCountyIndiana.com)
The Entrepreneur Advantage: how our communities can compete – and win
Recent McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility research confirms what rural leaders have long sensed: rural communities possess distinct advantages that, when combined with entrepreneurial energy, create powerful economic engines. From the agricultural heartland of northern Indiana to manufacturing corridors across the state, entrepreneurs are the catalysts who transform local assets into competitive advantages. Read more
BICKNELL (Indiana) – The city of Bicknell’s strategic push to transform available properties and upgrade critical infrastructure is accelerating housing development and attracting commercial investment, according to a January 2026 profile in Business View magazine.
The Civil Municipal section feature, titled “Small-town pride, Big-Momentum Progress,” highlights how city leadership, the Knox County Redevelopment Commission, and the Bicknell Bulldog Development Corporation partnered to acquire and remediate downtown properties, creating “development-ready sites” that are now fueling residential and commercial activity. A coordinated infrastructure program—including corridor upgrades and highway improvements—has enhanced both the city’s functionality and its visual appeal along primary commercial corridors.
Southern Indiana Community Health Care invites Orange County and surrounding communities to join a supportive 12-week wellness journey and meet health goals—free classes, mentorship, and motivating prizes available.
PAOLI, Ind. – Southern Indiana Community Health Care (SICHC) will launch “Stronger Every Day,” a free, 12-week community exercise and wellness program designed to help residents achieve their healthy-living goals in 2026 in mid-January, with registration open immediately. Running formally from January 17 through April 11, the program welcomes participants of all ability levels and provides the motivation, community, and resources needed to build lasting, meaningful change.
Rural communities don’t often dominate economic headlines, but they should. Rural America contributes more than $2 trillion annually to the nation’s economy, and research continues to show that rural residents often experience stronger economic mobility than people in many urban areas.
Here in Knox County, that story is real—and growing. One of the most powerful drivers of our future economy is entrepreneurship. Many established businesses in our county once were small start-ups, building their companies and making their way toward success. Today, as evidenced by local startups and participants in our Knox County CEO high school program, we have an exciting new generation of entrepreneurial activity coming to the fore.
Every October, the colors of autumn light up southern Indiana with vibrant reds and golds. Yet mixed in with these hues, another color takes center stage: pink. From ribbons to T-shirts, “Pinktober” is more than a seasonal campaign—it’s a reminder that breast cancer awareness saves lives.
As a physician, I know that the very word cancer can trigger fear or even denial. But avoiding the subject does not make it go away. One in eight women will face breast cancer in their lifetime, yet the outlook is far brighter than many realize. When found early, most cases are very treatable. That is the heart of Breast Cancer Awareness Month: awareness leads to action, and action can lead to better outcomes.