South Bend
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5/18/2006
South Bend was a trading post along the St. Joseph River in the early nineteenth century. The local native American community are the Potowatami, after which South Bend's small zoo is named. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the city was a center for the manufacture of cars and farm equipment. The Studebaker mansion is now the home of Tippecanoe Place, one of South Bend's better restaurants; and Copshalholm, the Oliver Plowworks family home is now open to the public as part of the Northern Indiana Center for History. The city is home to the University of Notre Dame, the South Bend branch of Indiana University, and Ivy Tech, a community college whose courses reflect the job market of the city -- health care, technical fields, service, etc. The city has a public school system of four high schools, in addition to intermediate schools (grades 5-8), and elementary schools, including an intermediate school exclusively for honors-level students. Like with any bureaucratic system, reaping the best the South Bend school has to offer may require some research into who are the best teachers and persistence in securing admission to their classes, but the effort is well worth it. My own high school, John Adams has distinguished itself through the success of its Mock Trial program, and the work of many of its students in independent science research. (This success of course would be impossible without the efforts of its many extraordinary teachers.) There are several private schools spanning the range of pre-school through high school, both religiously affiliated and non. A hallmark of the city is the East Race, a human-make kayak run. In June, the city hosts the Sunburst Marathon. The South Bend Regional Airport includes flights, mostly to larger airports like Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago, as well as the SouthShore train, which is part of the Chicago above-ground train system. (It's about a two-hour ride into the Chicago city-center.)
Anna | South Bend, IN