Amish in the News

KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- It appears KTVO and our viewers were mislead by man we interviewed earlier this week. Since our story aired Tuesday, we have learned that a local man who had claimed to be ex-Amish is not ex-Amish afterall. As we had told you, Curtis Deierling of Kirksville appears in a couple of episodes of the National Geographic Channel's series, "Amish: Out of Order."

GALLIA COUNTY, Ohio (WSAZ) -- An Amish store was robbed at gunpoint Monday morning. The Gallia County Sheriff's Office says the robbery happened about 7 a.m. at Yoder Lumber in Walnut Township.

On a chilly April morning, Amishman Moses "Mose" B. Smucker joined Mennonite and Evangelical friends, all of them Stoltzfus descendants, to talk of faith and heritage in an unfinished Wyomissing barn. It was a cold barn, smelling of freshly cut wood and earth, not passing for a church or temple but somehow evoking the sacredness of a manger. Thoughts of words in the Bible's 1st Corinthians resonated: "For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

PULASKI, TN (WAFF) - The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation arrested a Pulaski, Tennessee man on several sex charges. Investigators said 80-year-old Maurice Dale "Jimmy" McAllister abused male and female victims over the course of seven years. Residents in Pulaski said they were shocked the allegations happened in their community.

Two collisions that crushed horse-drawn buggies and critically injured two Amishmen in Mercer County this month have renewed attention to the mismatch between fast, heavy metal motor vehicles and slow, lightweight wooden buggies. Most Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities have worked diligently to make their buggies visible at night. The trouble is that new research shows that nighttime isn't the most dangerous time for buggies. Instead it's sun-blindness. And often the problem is not the buggy, but a distracted motorist.

CLEVELAND — A fierce legal battle is heating up between controversial Amish leader Sam Mullet and federal prosecutors over revelations that Mullet is a multi-millionaire. Yet, the shunned sect leader has been represented since last October by a public defender, paid for by taxpayers. Prosecutors said Mullet, 66, declared war on his fellow Amish bishops, after they voted to shun Mullet and his followers, amid allegations that include sexual abuse in a small enclave that Mullet founded in Bergholz, Ohio.

WOOSTER, Ohio – A Wayne County man convicted of causing the death of an Amish girl in a drunk driving accident was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison. The crash happened in August 2011, when the girl’s family was heading home from a produce auction in Congress Township, and their wagon was struck from behind by a pickup truck. Four members of the Amish family were ejected from the wagon, which was outfitted with lights and reflectors. Sarah Zook, 11, was killed, and her brother and sister were seriously injured.

The scene couldn’t have been more idyllic. Four women gathered around a large quilt, intently sewing and averting their eyes from curious gazes. Their plain, black dresses and hair covered in a cap identified them as Amish. Faint strains of German could be heard in their muted conversation. Then a cell phone rang, breaking the peaceful silence. The oldest Amish woman lunged for her purse, dug around for a cell phone and, successfully finding it, screamed “Hello?” into the modern contraption.

CLEVELAND — An Ohio man will plead guilty in federal court to defrauding fellow Amish in 29 states out of nearly $17 million as part of a case the man’s church had hoped to shield from publicity and outside involvement, the government said Tuesday. The attorney for Monroe L. Beachy, 77, owner of A&M Investments in Sugarcreek, filed a recent notice informing federal court of his “intention to plead guilty as charged.”

RIPLEY, N.Y. -- A Chautauqua County Sheriff's Department patrol car collided with an Amish buggy as it was responding to a report of an underage party on Sunday at 7:15 p.m. The Amish buggies were traveling northbound in both lanes of Clymer Hill Road in Sherman, N.Y. when the patrol vehicle approached them, said the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Department.

PARKMAN OH -- A three-year-old Amish girl was found unresponsive under a chicken coop that apparently fell on top of her and her sibling Wednesday afternoon. Lt. John Hiscox with the Geauga County Sheriff's Department says deputies and rescue crews were called to a Bundysburg Road farm Wednesday afternoon.

New York state law enforcement officials say two Amish children are in critical condition after the horse-drawn buggy they were in was rear-ended by a package delivery driver. The auto accident was about 330 miles north of Newburgh in the border town of Massena, in St. Lawrence County.

MANSFIELD OH -- One teenager who recently left his Amish community to live and work in the city was killed and two others were hurt in a single-car wreck early Tuesday, according to the Mansfield post of the Ohio Highway Patrol.

How do Americans deal with religious zealots? In the case of the Amish, many take bus tours through their compounds, buy their goods, take snapshots of their kids from afar and make a weekend trip out of watching their spiritual direction.

PENN YAN — The Penn Yan man at fault in a July 19 crash that killed six Amish farmers, and brought hundreds of mourners to the town of Jasper, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and other charges Wednesday in Yates County Court. Steven A. Eldridge, 42, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault, both felonies, reckless driving and driving while ability impaired by drugs. Eldridge will be sentenced to 12 to 24 years in state prison on the homicide charge as part of the plea.

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- In a high tech world of iPads and smart phones, an old-fashioned Amish man showed that pen and paper remain effective communication devices.Jacob Gingerich wrote 138 simple, heart-felt letters to lawmakers in Frankfort. The letters are being credited for the Senate's quick passage of a bill that would allow Kentucky's Amish residents to use reflective tape on their horse-drawn buggies instead of bright orange triangular signs that some object to on religious grounds.

The FDA has won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh, raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington region, after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines, and he told his customers he’ll shut his farm down altogether.

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VIROQUA, Wis. -- An Amish man serving time for sexually assaulting young members of his family is back in jail for allegedly sexually asasulting another child. 26-year-old Isaac Yoder of rural Hillsboro told his parole agent he had assaulted the Amish juvenile in the Town of Union and violated rules for his electronic monitoring bracelet, Vernon County Sheriff John Spears tells News 8.

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Two horse-drawn buggies were struck from behind by hit-and-run drivers in the past two days, police said. A young woman was injured early Monday when a vehicle struck the back of a horse-drawn buggy in Paradise Township, state police at Lancaster said.

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KOSCIUSKO COUNTY – Police arrested 46-year-old Darrin Ray Gibbs at his home in rural Warsaw Thursday after they say he exposed and touched himself in front of several Amish children at a school located just southeast of Nappanee, in Kosciusko County. According to police, Gibbs pulled up to the school in his van and took off his pants last Friday at around 8:30 in the morning.

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“There are two ways to leave the Amish — one is through life and the other through death,” writes author Saloma Miller Furlong, who grew up in an Amish community in Ohio. “To leave through life, one has to deliberately walk away.” Furlong tells how she made this difficult break in her memoir, “Why I Left the Amish,” she will tell her story on PBS’ upcoming “The Amish,” which is part of its “American Experience” series. The show premieres Feb. 28, at 8:00 p.m. EST/ 7 p.m. CST.

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In many ways the Miller family is as Amish as the people they left back home in Wisconsin 10 years ago, carrying on the traditional ways. Father Harley, 40, is a master carpenter who has constructed the sprawling, ski-lodge-style house the family now lives in. Mother JoAnna, 40, with the help of her nine children, ages 8 through 21, cooks, sews, tends a garden and the family's large flock of goats and teaches the younger children their school work. But in so many other ways the Miller family is helping to define a new generation of Amish people who dress in regular clothes, work outside the home, use computers, cellphones and DVDs and drive cars.

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While Dr. Patrick Quillin cautions that his book Amish Folk Medicine is not intended to replace the personal care of a physician, he says he was simply looking for wisdom from people who historically have lived closer to nature and done well. He found that aboriginal groups kept record of helpful natural remedies out of the need for survival, and it obviously worked for them.

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MAYFIELD, KY. — On Jacob Gingerich's farm in Western Kentucky, there is no phone or electricity for his family of 12 children. He even sees putting an orange safety triangle on their black horse-drawn buggy as as violation of the simple and pious life his Amish faith requires. He and other Amish men in rural Graves County have become scofflaws for not using the reflective signs, ignoring state law, disobeying orders from a judge and even going to jail for not paying fines.

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Wally the Walmart horse is looking for a new home. That's the nickname given to a 9-year-old standardbred horse that a humane society says was left at a northeast Ohio store by an Amish teenager more than two months ago.

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2011 Amish in the news

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Amish in the News 2007