Download the PDF version of the program HERE
Car Cruise Sunday, June 23, 2019, at Celestine (Jaycee) Park: 90 N Celestine Rd S, Celestine, IN 47521
Located halfway between Jasper and Patoka Lake campgrounds
Registration at the park begins at noon EST
The cruise begins at 1 PM EST
Will return to the park at approximately 4 or 5
All paved roads
$10 per person
All cars, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, and any other type of vehicle welcome.
We will be giving a ticket to each paying rider for a chance for prizes at the end of the cruise
Download the flyer HERE
Car Show Saturday, June 29, 2019, at Celestine (Jaycee) Park: 90 N Celestine Rd S, Celestine, IN 47521
Located halfway between Jasper and Patoka Lake campgrounds. Registration from 8 A.M. to noon
$15 per vehicle
Dash plaques for the first 100 entrees
Trophies will be given to:
Top 5 2009 & newer
Top 35 2009 & older
Top GM, Ford, & Chrysler
Awards to be given out at approximately 2:30 PM EST
Half pot tickets will be sold all day
Food & refreshments will be available starting at 10 AM.
Call or text Allen for more information at (812) 827-3400
Not responsible for accidents
Download the flyer HERE
Here are the details the to Celestine Super 5k Run/Walk. You can download a PDF version of the entry for HERE.
WHEN: Saturday, June 29th, 2019
REGISTRATION: St. Isidore Parish Center starts @ 7:15 am (Celestine, IN) RACE: Super 5K RUN/WALK– 8:00 am start on the church grounds
Kids Fun Run for ages 8 and under (1/4 mile or less)
ENTRY FEE: $15 if postmarked by June 22, 2019
$20 on race day
MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO COMMUNITY OF CELESTINE INC.
AWARDS: Top 3 Overall Male & Female Awards – Cash Prizes
Male and Female Age Group Awards
COURSE: 4 miles long leading thru town, up and down some nice hills with 2 water stops throughout the course. Finish Line will be on top of the BIG church hill.
Fruit and snacks will be provided after the race to participants.
T-shirts to all participants in race.
KIDS FUN RUN – SIGN IN PRIOR TO 9 AM START – (FREE EVENT)
More information contact: Ben Gessner 812-631-9563
Join the Community of Celestine on Thursday, March 7th at 7pm in the basement of The Happy Hour Sports Bar & Grill for the next public planning meeting for Streetfest 2019 - Saturday June 29.
The meeting will include reports from all chairpersons & areas of the fest.
We welcome anyone to attend to contribute ideas!
Agenda for the March Meeting includes:
SCHEDULE - Review what we believe to be the final schedule so we can begin promoting it to the public
MENU - Reports from the Celestine Park & Knights of Columbus on their proposed menu items
GAMING - Updates on the gaming activities we are planning, we need people to help on this committee
SCAVENGER HUNT - Updates on the latest plans for this event, we need people to help on this committee
ON STAGE GAMES - Updates on the latest plans for this event, we need people to help on this committee
LOGISTICS, SETUP, TEAR DOWN - Updates on the plans in these areas, along with a call for help in these areas
If you are interested in joining these committees or have other ideas please contact Tony Buechler (812-827-8430) or Dawn Schaefer (812-639-1048).
Click the title of this article to read the wrap up report for the Celestine 175 celebration. Click HERE to download the complete report in PDF format that has correct formatting for the number related reports.
Check out this article from the Dubois County Herald about our great town!
https://duboiscountyherald.com/b/the-places-we-call-home-celestine
The Places We Call Home: Celestine
By CANDY NEAL
cneal@dcherald.com
Sense of compassion for one another is a basic component to Celestine’s identity.
The families are generations old, with children and grandchildren and great-grands settling in the unincorporated village.
The people support each other, and are quick to help anyone who has a need.
They welcome newcomers to the community, and make them feel as at home as they feel.
Celestine, which was established 175 years ago, is its own distinct community.
“We’re not an incorporated town. We don’t have a sheriff. We don’t have a town board or a mayor,” said Celestine native Tony Buechler. “But we kind of do, through the leadership groups of the church and the park and the clubs. These groups look after the town, and see to the needs of the town.”
And most of the community is involved in one or more of the different groups, thus giving them an intimate role in taking care of Celestine.
“We are always there for each other. That is the root of this community,” said Glenda Reckelhoff, director of religious education at the St. Celestine campus of the St. Isidore Parish. “We are rooted in that faith from generations and generations and generations ago. With that, it’s about how you serve other people.”
Buechler has been a part of the Celestine community all of his life. He left to go to college, but came back afterward to settle in the eastern Dubois County town and run the family farm. His family has been a part of Celestine for at least 125 years.
“There’s a tremendous sense of family here,” he said. “The faces are all familiar to you, even if you don’t know the person intimately. You may not be super close to them, but you know they are a part of the same community. There’s a real comfort to have that extended family.”
Having that extended family comes in handy. Both Reckelhoff and Buechler mentioned, as an example, the tornado that came through Celestine in 2011 and severely damaged several homes.
“There was a tremendous outpouring of people that next day,” Buechler said. “People were standing on the damaged property of those they didn’t know intimately, people they weren’t close friends with. But they were out cleaning up the debris. And they were happy to help. They wanted to contribute. That’s the extended family.”
And the involvement isn’t only during a time of crisis.
“People get involved with the Celestine Community Club, and with the church and the school, and with Celestine Park,” Reckelhoff said.
The Knights of Columbus is heavily supported, as is the Celestine Volunteer Fire Department, Buechler said. There is also Celestine Inc., which does community projects, like the annual Celestine Streetfest.
“There is definitely a structure and a collectivity of the community that goes back to the Catholic church, and the community was founded by Father Kundek,” Buechler said. “We are now a multi-denominational community; we are not the mono-religion that it would have been 50 years ago. I think the church side of things led to a bunch of other things that unite the community.”
Celestine was founded by Father Joseph Kundek, who platted the area in 1843 and named it and the parish after Rev. Celestine Rene Lawrence de la Hailendiere, the second bishop of the Vincennes Diocese. The town’s early history is noted in the St. Celestine Catholic Church’s history, as the two are very much linked. Many of the town’s first inhabitants, including those who came from Hesse province in Germany, are recorded in the church history.
Two books have been published documenting the community trek through time. The first history book was printed in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the community, in 1993, and contained the community’s history up to that point. The second book continued to today, and was printed this year in conjunction with the community’s 175th anniversary celebration. Both books are available at the church.
It is through the church that Joel Johnson and his wife, Sharon, became involved in the community when they moved to Celestine from northwest Indiana 17 years ago.
“We knew absolutely nobody,” Joel said.
The two attended and got involved in the church. “I wasn’t Catholic at the time,” Joel said. “Sharon was a devout Catholic, so she started going, and I went with her.“
What he found through the church was an extended family. “They were all very pleasant and welcoming to us, especially me, not being Catholic,” Johnson recalled. He ultimately converted to Catholicism and got more involved.
Along with working as a groundskeeper for a number of years, he served on the parish council for three years, one of those as president. Sharon worked at Dubois Elementary for a few years; she also served as president of St. Anne’s Solidality. They’ve also been involved in the “Save the Jeeps” campaign, and support different activities and events in the community.
Their daughter, son-in-law and three grandsons live here, too, moving to the area about five years after the Johnsons.
“There are two main things that impressed me about this community,” Joel said. “One is the openness of the people. They welcomed us with open arms. The other is the giving spirit, which is different from northwest Indiana. Everyone up there is so fast-paced, going here, going there. We got down here, and it’s like if someone here needs a hand, the community just pulls together. That was something to see. It opened our eyes; it really did.
“We are blessed to be here.”
Celestine is their home, Joel said.
“We’re not German. Sharon is Croatian and I’m Swedish. But that didn’t matter,” he said. “They took us in. We are part of the community, and that’s due to the warm, welcoming feeling we get from the people here.”
Service to each other and the community are the elements that have helped Celestine last, thrive and stand the test of time.
“There’s a power to being a small community,” Buechler said.
Learn more in the video below about the Celestine 175th history book documenting the history of the community from 1993 to 2018 along with the Beyond the Calendar perpetual calendar, photo book, and recipe book.
Copies of the Celestine 175th History book, the 1993 history book and the Beyond the Calendar book are available at the St. Celestine Parish Center.
Cost of the 175th history book is $25, cost of the 1993 history book is $15, and a bundle of both books is $35.
The Beyond the Calendar book has a collection of monthly snapshots taken at various Celestine locations, a nice collection of recipes submitted by people from the Celestine area, and a perpetual calendar for each month. It is for sale for $15.
These books also are available for purchase at Chocolate Bliss, Illusions, Hoosier Office Supply and the Dubois County Museum in Jasper.
The history and culture of Celestine Indiana has been documented in two new books created to celebrate Celestine’s 175th birthday in 2018.
These books make great gifts for those who hail from Celestine and neighboring areas. They document the history and culture of not only the Celestine community but also Dubois County at large as well as the development of the Catholic faith in the area by the German Heritage immigrants who settled the area.
These books make a great gift idea for that hard to buy someone in your life who appreciates the blessing that the community of Celestine Indiana has been for the past 175 years.
History Books
“Celestine, Indiana A History: 1993-2018” is 363 pages of information on Celestine, acting as a sequel to the 1993 published book “Celestine, Indiana: A Sesquicentennial History.” This 2018 book continues where Father John Boeglin left off when he wrote the 1993 book.
The history book committee for 2018 tried to cover stories that happened in the past 25 years and more. The table of contents lists 18 parts to the book, from Our Community with Township Trustees; current landowners; Celestine Community Club and Celestine Park history information; significant events, such as local fires, Celestine damaged by tornado and the Avian flu outbreak; to our humbled dead; to histories of farms 100 years and older; to special interviews with the community’s elders age 80 and older; to faith journey and the forming of St. Isidore Church.
Members of the history book committee are Clara (Rasche) Fromme, editor; Denise (Vollmer) Buechler; Margaret (Goebel) Buechler; Jenny (Etienne) Betz; Betty (Fetter) Kleinhelter; Kathy (Schnell) Knust; Carol (Oeding) Dekemper; Julia (Jochem) Hurst; Ruth (Schnell) Gehlhausen; Dorothy Rasche; Sharon (Turich) Johnson; Mary (Beckman) Lampert; Kathy (Brosmer) Bachman; Anna (Breitweiser) Knebel; Emily Fromme; Jill (Hoffman) Kelly; and Joel Johnson.
Beyond The Calendar
Thanks to Kathy Messmer and Girl Scout Teen Troop 60, the community is blessed to have “Beyond the Calendar: Celestine 175,” which captures present-day life in Celestine. Elaina Epple, Courtney Vittitow and Emilee Clark spent hours creating this book by organizing photos and recipes. Their months-long efforts signify their vision of the year 2018. The spiral-bound paperback book is comprised of three elements: photos, a monthly perpetual calendar and recipes.
Photos: Nearly 20 photographers, most of them amateurs, submitted photos for the book. The photos were all taken in and around Celestine, and they typify each month of the year. For example, lots of snow pictures, dormant fields and the bareness of winter dominate the months of January and February. March and April bring flowers, waterfalls and rainbows. May and June feature First Communion, Memorial Day, and green trees and blue skies. Back-to-school days, the firemen’s tractor pull and colorful sunsets over farms enlighten July and August days. September, October and November feature fields being harvested and the colorful leaves of autumn. Christmas in Celestine is featured in December.
Monthly perpetual calendar: A double page spread holds dates for each month of the year. These lines provide spaces for recording birthdays and anniversaries of family members and friends. Since this calendar is “perpetual,” there is no need to rewrite dates onto a new calendar each year. Once the month’s special days are filled in, you can plan to leave the calendar open on your desk, kitchen counter or coffee table and never forget a birthday again.
Recipes: Celestine residents have submitted their favorites. Comfort foods and special family treats are highlighted. Among the contributors are Judy Betz, Holly Epple, Ann Hassfurther, Loretta Humbert, Mary Lampert, Aileen Lueken, Betty Merkley, Dorothy Rasche, Glenda Reckelhoff, Shirley Schmitt, Kay Schroeder, Therese Wessel and Ernie Wehr. This is a book you’ll want to display at your fingertips. Thanks to Girl Scouts Elaina, Courtney and Emilee, their mothers and their leader, Kathy, for a job well done.
“Beyond the Calendar: Celestine 175” - $15
“Celestine, Indiana A History: 1993-2018” - $15
“Celestine, Indiana: A Sesquicentennial History (1843-1993).” - $15
A bundle of both history books is available for $35
Books may be purchased at the St. Isidore Parish Office in Celestine The 2018 history books also are available at these locations. These books also are available for purchase at Chocolate Bliss, Illusions, Hoosier Office Supply and the Dubois County Museum in Jasper.
Sunday, December 2nd - 2018 Community of Celestine Holiday Festivities!
Cookie Walk: 8am - 12Noon ~ St. Celestine Dining Hall Purchase cookies & treats by the pound.
Live Christmas Music Performances: 3 PM ~ Downtown Celestine
Horse & Wagon Rides: 3pm - 5pm ~ Downtown Celestine
Santa Arrives & Tree Lighting: 5:30pm ~ Downtown Celestine
$100 Gift Card Drawing & Refreshments: 6:15pm* ~ St. Celestine Dining Hall *Immediately following Tree Lighting - Must be present to win*
Join us on Thursday, October 4th, at 7pm in The Happy Hour Bar & Grill basement for a Celestine Streetfest 2019 planning meeting. We plan for this to be the last meeting of 2018 with monthly meetings to resume in January leading up to the event on Saturday, June 29th 2019. Items on the agenda include:
2019 Event Goal Setting & Brainstorming
2019 Schedule Review & Brainstorming
2019 Entertainment Discussion
2019 New Event Ideas & Brainstorming
2019 Chairperson & Committee Reports
2019 Openings for New Committees
2019 Open Call for New Ideas & Suggestions
Further Updates on the 175th Celebration
Sponsorship Committee: We have two members for the committee but are looking for a few more members.
Logistics Committee: We want to form a committee of hands on people to take the lead on organizing and tackling things like setup, tear down, rental items etc.
Fun & Games Committee: We have an idea for a series of on stage games and competitions between young and old in the community. Games would be like those that you would see at family reunions, post proms, field days and on the TV show Minute to Win It To Win It. We need a team to help pull it together.
If you are interested in joining these committees or have other ideas please contact Tony Buechler (812-827-8430) or Dawn Schaefer (812-639-1048).