Border town lives in double-time

Straddling the Ohio-Indiana line brings time zone confusion for the residents.
COLLEGE CORNER, Ohio or Ind., depending on where you're standing (AP) -- Union Elementary School Principal Dan Shepherd straddled the imaginary state line that runs smack dab down the middle of the school's quaint, 80-year-old gymnasium and shared a bit of local lore with a couple of out-of-towners.
"Back in the old days," he said, "before the whole school embraced Eastern Standard Time, it was possible to launch a long shot from the Indiana side of the basketball court at 3 p.m. and the ball wouldn't find the net on the Ohio side until an hour later."
For more years than most of the 4,000 or so people who call College Corner home can remember, the town has been a rather schizophrenic place when it comes to the time of day.
Two time zones
Because the community, like the local school, is split in half by the Ohio-Indiana line, residents must deal with two time zones for much of the year.
While those on the Buckeye side of State Line Street are governed by Eastern Daylight Time, their Hoosier counterparts on the other side of the two-lane ribbon of concrete step to the beat of Eastern Standard Time.
Though many College Corner businesses and residents on both sides of the line already embrace Eastern Daylight Time, because it is convenient for their customers, they say the double standard still results in plenty of missed doctor's appointments and botched dinner dates.
For a while, it looked as if that might change after the Indiana General Assembly completed two readings of House Bill 1034, which would have moved the entire state to Eastern Daylight Time.
That ended earlier this month, when the bill died for lack of support. It could be reintroduced, but according to an assembly spokeswoman, the earliest that could happen is when the assembly adjourns on April 29 -- 23 days after Eastern Daylight Time again kicks in in Ohio.
Time for a change
Many College Corner residents had been confident the time-change bill would pass, and many said they were looking forward to it.
"I don't see any problem with going to daylight-saving time," said Rick Stevens, 48, a College Corner native and a member of the local volunteer fire department for 22 years. "Having two time zones really doesn't have any effect on the fire department, but having just one might make planning activities a little easier for some people."
Vickie Massey, 44, a waitress at Tina's Country Kitchen Restaurant on the Indiana side of town, agreed.
"One good thing about having one time zone would be people would quit asking, 'Is that Ohio or Indiana time?' whenever they hear about an event that's going to take place around here," she said.
Scott Cline, a bartender at Deano's College Corner Tavern -- one of two Indiana watering holes that sit side-by-side a scant 20 yards from the Ohio-Indiana line -- is satisfied with Eastern Standard Time.
"We like it," he said, "because it allows us to stay open an hour longer every day. But if they change things and we have to start closing down at 2:30 a.m., well, that's OK, because you gotta go with the flow."
Gary Gayhart, weekend disc jockey at Deano's, recalled the first time his oldest son played a junior high school basketball game for the Union Trojans.
"It was about 15 years ago," he said. "Gary scored some of his points in Ohio and the rest in Indiana. It was crazy."
Even if time-change legislation is eventually approved, College Corner will retain enough oddities to make it unique.
The U.S. Post Office would continue to have two ZIP codes -- one for Ohio, the other for Indiana -- and local motorists would continue to buy different license plates depending on which side of State Line Street they live on.
And, as always, a woman residing on the Ohio side of the street who wants to telephone her Indiana neighbor would still have to dial the area code first.
Local landmark
Those seeking a symbol of College Corner will find it at the boxy, red-brick schoolhouse that began life as a high school and now serves as a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade facility.
Fittingly enough, the building, with its wood floors and trophy cases filled with dusty reminders of yesterday, boasts two front doors: One is marked with an Ohio flag; the other with an Indiana flag.
"The school opted for Eastern Standard Time long before I got here because of the many activities that take place here," said Shepherd, who has been the school's principal for three years. "And whenever we schedule something, we always make sure to remind people the time is Indiana time."
He paused, then added: "Except for an occasional minor problem, I think it's working out pretty well. We recently invited some dentists to come to the schokto care for the dental needs of a few students. We even reserved a room for the dentists on the Ohio side of the building. That's when they reminded us they are licensed to practice only in Indiana. So we found them another room."