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LAFAYETTE, Ind. — LSB Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: LSBI), the parent company of Lafayette Savings Bank, FSB, today reported earnings for the quarter ended March 31, 2008. Compared to the first quarter of 2007, net income was $515,000, down 33.9%, resulting in diluted earnings per share of $0.33. LSB Financial President & CEO, Randolph F. Williams stated, “The current banking environment is extremely challenging, and I am pleased with our recent growth and positive trends. We are starting to see activity in the real estate market and loans were up $7.1 million, or 2.3%, compared to year-end. Deposits also increased over $8.5 million, or 3.7%, during the quarter.”

Williams continued, “Largely as a result of the Fed cutting short term interest rates, an unprecedented 3.0% in just six months, the net interest margin for the first quarter of 2008 was down 37 basis points to 3.11% when compared to the previous year. This translates to a $424,000 decrease in net interest income. While interest rate changes are out of our control, our managers have done a remarkable job of improving asset quality, growing core deposits, and containing expenses. At quarter end, non-performing loans totaled $8.3 million or 2.69% of total loans, compared to $10.0 million, or 3.32%, at December 31, 2007 and $12.5 million, or 3.97%, one year ago.”

Williams continued, “Despite the fact that Tippecanoe County’s unemployment rate has been increasing since year end, we are seeing signs of an improving economy. Our delinquent loans are at a 19-month low, properties are selling at closer to the appraised values and there has been a slowing in the rate of local foreclosures and bankruptcies. Data from March of this year indicates that Indiana is now 11th in the country in foreclosures, with one out of every 538 households facing foreclosure. Last year Indiana was ranked in the top three.”

The Company also announced that it will pay a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 9, 2008 with a payment date of June 6, 2008. Williams stated, “At slower growth times like this, we are pleased to be able to return equity to our shareholders in the form of a higher dividend. This is particularly significant based on the current favorable dividend tax rate.”

The closing market price of LSB stock on May 1, 2006 was $18.00 per share as reported by the NASDAQ National Market.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Oil prices spiraling to a record $119 a barrel will spur businesses to compensate for higher operating costs, says a Purdue University economist.

Businesses will consider ways to cut fuel and energy consumption, along with lowering delivery costs, says Gerald J. Lynch, a professor in Purdue’s Krannert School of Management.

Some may lock in fuel prices with long-term contracts or share delivery shipment costs with suppliers. Lynch says businesses also could cut back on travel in favor of videoconferencing. Rather than increase mileage reimbursements, companies also might purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles for their employees to use.

“In general, people are going to invest the time and effort it takes to save energy because now they’ve got an economic incentive to do it,” Lynch says. “People didn’t install insulation in the 1970s because they suddenly decided they had a patriotic duty to insulate their homes. They did it because the value of the energy saved was greater than the cost of insulating.”

The same incentives will prompt businesses to examine cost-saving measures as the cost of gasoline hovers at what the Lundberg Survey reports is a record $3.47 a gallon average nationally Lynch says.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Vectren Corporation (NYSE: VVC) announced the Board of Directors declared a quarterly common stock dividend of 32 1/2 cents per share, unchanged from the prior quarter. The dividend will be payable June 2, 2008 to shareholders of record at the close of business on May 15, 2008.

Last October, Vectren increased its quarterly dividend by 3.2%, extending Vectren and predecessor companies’ record of increasing annual dividends paid to 48 consecutive years.

About Vectren

Vectren Corporation (NYSE: VVC) is an energy holding company headquartered in Evansville, Indiana. Vectren’s energy delivery subsidiaries provide gas and/or electricity to more than one million customers in adjoining service territories that cover nearly two-thirds of Indiana and west central Ohio. Vectren’s nonutility subsidiaries and affiliates currently offer energy- related products and services to customers throughout the Midwest and Southeast. These include gas marketing and related services; coal production and sales; and energy infrastructure services.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Lafayette has been serving as host to the 2008 Indiana State USBC Open Championship Bowling Tournament every weekend since mid-February and will continue through the conclusion of the tournament on May 19, 2008. The event has brought nearly 5,000 bowlers and their families to the Greater Lafayette area over a 13-weekend period.

The Lafayette area hosted the tournament in 2003 and the numbers increased for the 2008 event, as well as the anticipated visitor spending to the community, which is estimated to be $500,000. According to the Indiana Bowling Association tournament history, no other city has hosted the event twice within a span of 5 years.

“These kinds of sports tournaments are a great fit for the area,” said Jo Wade, President of the Lafayette-West Lafayette Convention & Visitors Bureau, “local residents and businesses benefit financially from having these events in our community as they provide an increase in business and positive exposure.”

The large number of visitors to the area during the tournament weekends generated visitor spending to many local hotels, restaurants, shops and attractions. “As a hotel, we benefited greatly, the bowlers occupied nearly 400 room nights at our property,” said Brooke Perez of the Best Western Lafayette.

Brad Cohen, owner of Arni’s Restaurant said they certainly noticed additional business in their Market Square Arni’s because of the Men’s Bowling tournament. “This is great additional out-of-town spending that we love having here during those slower winter months and on into the spring. All of us in Lafayette could use more of these events with their spending in our community.”

The Lafayette Bowling Association (LBA) along with the Lafayette-West Lafayette Convention & Visitors Bureau (L-WLCVB) and Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski, partnered to bring the tournament to the area. The L-WLCVB worked closely with the LBA in the bid process, which included everything from putting together a presentation to the Indiana State USBC BA tournament site selection committee, to securing hotel rooms & discounted rates for the teams, arranged site visits, to putting together gift bags from local area merchants and various giveaways. Lafayette competed against Evansville and Terre Haute to host the tournament.

“From the beginning of our bidding process in 2005, to the culmination of the event in 2008, the L-WLCVB assisted in many ways to help in the planning process. We will definitely try to bid for other events like this and the CVB staff made it easier to organize,” stated Tony Peterson, President of the Lafayette USBC.

Mike Aulby’s Arrowhead Bowl hosted the Singles and Doubles events and Market Square Lanes hosted the Team events.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Land use and economic development planning takes time and money - two things few cities and counties have in abundance. Thanks to a free online resource developed by Purdue University and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, money no longer needs to be a limiting factor.

The Local Decision Maker (LDM) is a comprehensive planning tool that provides almost instant data for producing a socioeconomic and environmental community snapshot, as well as a portrait of how that community might someday appear.

There is no charge to use the LDM, located at http://ldm.agriculture.purdue.edu/.

The Web-based resource allows government officials to get more bang out of taxpayers’ bucks, said Richard Farnsworth, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant associate director for Extension in Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources and a LDM project leader.

“Every comprehensive planning process begins with a community inventory and analysis phase,” Farnsworth said. “Inventory and analysis is also expensive, although much of the data is available from public sources. We have discovered that rural communities and counties spend between 60 percent and 80 percent of their limited budgets on inventory and analysis, thus leaving very little for the actual plan.”

Consultants often are hired by cities and counties to collect and analyze the data for comprehensive plans, said Christine Nolan, chair of the Purdue Extension Land Use Team and a LDM team member.

“A comprehensive plan for a small or midsize city or county can cost $45,000 to $65,000,” Nolan said. “Plans for big metro areas and specialized economic development plans, which require very detailed data, can be into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The LDM contains government- and geographic information systems-based data in the areas of population, environment and natural resources; land use and land cover; education; and economy and labor markets.

“The two available geographies are counties and school districts,” said Indraneel Kumar, a regional planner at the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD). “GIS-based data for municipalities and townships are works in progress, as are other elements of comprehensive plans, such as transportation, housing, health and human services, and governance.”

By choosing the appropriate data, the online program leads the user through a four-step community audit (”Inventory/Analysis”), a community goal (”Vision/Objectives”), plan development (”Alternative Strategies”) and plan implementation.

“Planners and government officials will be able to use the Local Decision Maker throughout the entire planning process, from beginning to end,” Nolan said.

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — With more companies conducting business globally, communicating electronically is a necessity for most, but there are several guidelines that can help when working on projects via e-mail or the Internet, says a Purdue University expert.

Michael Beyerlein, a professor and head of the Department of Organizational Leadership and Supervision, says nearly all companies and organizations use “virtual teams,” which he defines as groups that are working together to achieve a goal, but infrequently or never meet in person and instead rely on electronic communication, such as e-mail or videoconferencing.

“The idea of virtual teams has been studied for the last dozen years or so, so it’s a fairly new concept, but one that affects nearly every worker,” he says. “Expertise is spread out around the globe. To complete a project, you have to go where the people are, and it’s impossible to spend the time and money to bring everyone physically together.

“The alternative is to work in virtual teams, and the key is to be aware of their limitations in order to conduct productive interactions and successful projects.”

Beyerlein is one of the editors of “The Handbook of High Performance Virtual Teams:
A Toolkit for Collaborating Across Boundaries,” published in April by John Wiley & Sons. Other editors are Jill Nemiro, Lori Bradley and Susan Beyerlein.

Beyerlein says one of the largest drawbacks to working virtually is the lack of human interaction.

“Nonverbal signals, such as eye contact, are huge,” he says. “Researchers have estimated that about 90 percent of our communication is nonverbal, so obviously working electronically can create obstacles within a team. However, many of the basic meeting management guidelines can help workers get the most out of their virtual team experience.”

Beyerlein offers tips for those working in a virtual team:

• If possible, conduct the first team meeting in person. “It gives the group a chance to get to know who they will be working with and establish goals and norms for the project,” he says.
• Use meeting facilitators. Beyerlein says each group should have a leader who makes sure everyone on the team has a chance to be heard, helps the group stay on topic and makes sure any technical problems are solved immediately.
• Celebrate the successes virtually. Beyerlein says just as in-person teams celebrate the completion of a project, so should virtual teams. “Send congratulatory e-mails, glue pictures of your team to your computer, or if you can, get together and go out to a restaurant. If you’re working with people from Thailand, for instance, choose a Thai restaurant to recognize and celebrate part of your team’s culture. These are little things, but they can go a long way.”

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Brenda Combs, a member of the Association of Women Business Owners Board of Directors and owner of Moondance Marketing, will be the featured speaker at the May 13 AWBO monthly meeting. Combs, also a motivational speaker, will discuss “Living Your Positive Life.”

Brenda Combs will speak about “Living Your Positive Life” at the May 13 Association of Women Business Owners meeting.

Women business owners in the Greater Lafayette community are invited to attend the monthly luncheon to hear Combs’ uplifting Mother’s Day message and to laugh and learn how to appreciate all that life has in store.

Founded in 1982, AWBO meets at MCL Cafeteria in West Lafayette at 11:45 a.m. on the second Tuesday of every month to give Lafayette-area women an opportunity to concentrate on the managing and planning of their businesses. Women who have an ownership interest in a business or who file a Schedule C with the IRS are welcome to attend AWBO meetings and investigate membership.

With nearly 100 members, AWBO is the only organization in the area specifically devoted to the networking and support of women business owners.

LAFAYETTE, Ind., — Local artists received information on professional practices and marketing from marketing specialists at Tippecanoe Arts Federation’s “Guerrilla Marketing” workshop.

Artists from around Tippecanoe County learned how to promote the arts to local media and to the public.

Around a dozen artists from throughout Tippecanoe County met with Bob Kennedy, Thom Davis, and Brant Baumann from Indiana Design Consortium to learn how to better promote themselves and their work to the public. Contacts with local media, internet marketing, and networking were just some of the topics covered.

“This is great information… we tend to focus on the creative aspects of our work, but we seem to fall short when it comes to getting that work into the public eye” commented one participant.

The “Guerilla Marketing” workshop was part of an ongoing series of technical assistance workshops provided by the Tippecanoe Arts Federation to serve local and regional artists and cultural organizations.

For information on this or upcoming workshops, please contact the Tippecanoe Arts Federation at 765-423-2787 or rsd@tippecanoearts.org.

Activities of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation are provided, in part, with support from the Indiana Arts Commission, a state agency, with funds from the Indiana General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. –– Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union (PEFCU) has announced the promotion of Emily Truett to mortgage specialist.

Emily Truett

“We’re excited to have Emily as the newest member of our Mortgage Services team,” said Nikki Gaylord, assistant vice president of lending. “Her product expertise and commitment to meeting members’ needs will enhance our member experience, from loan origination through closing.”

Truett, a Monticello native, earned her corporate finance and financial planning degree from Ball State University. Since joining PEFCU in 2005, she has gained experience in auto and second mortgage lending as well as specialized investment licenses. In her new position, Truett will work closely with real estate agents, builders and members in Tippecanoe and surrounding counties, guiding them to successful home ownership through identification of appropriate mortgage products.

Truett also shares her time and expertise with local civic organizations. She volunteers for Junior Achievement and serves on the board of directors for the Friends of Columbian Park Zoo.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Wabash National Corporation (NYSE: WNC) today announced it will conduct a conference call to review and discuss its first quarter results on Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Wabash National is scheduled to release its results on Monday, April 28, 2008, after the close of the financial markets.

The phone number to access the conference call is 877-407-8035. A live audio webcast of the call will be available through the company’s website at www.wabashnational.com. For those unable to participate in the webcast, a recording of the call will be archived at www.wabashnational.com within three hours of its conclusion and will remain available through July 22, 2008.

Headquartered in Lafayette, Ind., Wabash National® Corporation (NYSE: WNC) is one of the leading manufacturers of semi trailers in North America. Established in 1985, the company specializes in the design and production of dry freight vans, refrigerated vans, flatbed trailers, drop deck trailers, and intermodal equipment. Its innovative core products are sold under the DuraPlate®, ArcticLite®, and Eagle® brand names. The company operates two wholly owned subsidiaries: Transcraft Corporation, a manufacturer of flatbed and drop deck trailers; and Wabash National Trailer Centers, a retail distributor of new and used trailers and aftermarket parts throughout the U.S.