All aboard for train and railroad enthusiasts!
Powell
Gene Powell, President of the Board of the Nickel Plate Heritage Railroad, which operates as Nickel Plate Express (NPX), based in Noblesville, will be the distinguished guest speaker at the Cicero Kiwanis Club breakfast meeting this Saturday. He will share a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the latest activities of the Nickel Plate Heritage Railroad and its impact on the community.
An Indiana native, Powell is a Ball State University graduate and member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the College of Communications, Information, and Media. He is a founding editor of USA Today, retired in 2020 as president of the Freedom Forum Institute, part of one of the nation’s largest non-profit education foundations, and remains Senior Scholar for the First Amendment at the Foundation.
He serves as secretary of the Board of Trustees of the First Amendment Museum in Augusta, Maine, and on the Board of Indiana’s Friends of the Lincoln Collection, based in Fort Wayne.
An adjunct faculty member of the Department of Communications at Winthrop University, he attended the Nashville, Tenn., School of Law, and is a certified journalism educator by the Journalism Education Association. An avid bike rider, he and his wife Kathleen, a retired educator, live in Cicero.
The Nickel Plate Heritage Railroad is a charitable nonprofit that operations the historic Arcadia Depot and offers entertainment and educational excursions on historic train equipment out of Forest Park in Noblesville. The Nickel Place Heritage Railroad is the operator of the Nickel Plate Express program which runs on 12.5 miles of track between Noblesville and Atlanta. This section of track is owned by the Hoosier Heritage Port Authority.
About the Cicero Kiwanis
The Cicero Chapter of the Kiwanis International as a part of a non-profit global organization with members who are dedicated to changing the world, one child and one community at a time. In the greater Cicero-area community, the Cicero Kiwanis provide scholarships to local high school students, support local schools through donations to various programs and manpower, provide food and assistance to local food pantries, support families and individuals in need or in crisis and help the community-at-large through donations to Riley’s Children’s Hospital. Weekly meetings begin at 7:30 a.m. on Saturdays at the Red Bridge Community Park Building in Cicero.