The Local Best. Chosen By You. From best restaurant to best veterinarian and everything in between - we asked, you nominated and voted your best of sei 2026. Want your voice to be heard and business to be in the running? Best of sei voting will return in July 2027! ★ Best Local Restaurant Janet's Diner facebook.com/janetsdiner Janet's Diner has anchored downtown Dillsboro for years, and it is the kind of place where the food and the people both feel like home. Home-cooked dai

Submitted by the Dearborn County Retired Teachers Association, an affiliate of the Indiana Retired Teachers Association It started with a single pillowcase dress. In 2010, Jeraldine "Gerry" Barber read about sundresses sewn from pillowcases in a United Methodist Women newsletter. She found a pattern online, made one to show the Thursday morning retired teachers' coffee group at the Lawrenceburg Public Library, and asked whether the group could sew a dozen for a mission team h

As told to SEI Times by Tami Sallee-Thomas Some businesses are built on a plan. This one was built on a lifetime of hobbies, a family farm, and a hundred-year-old recipe box. Tami Sallee-Thomas, a retired special education teacher, opened the Split Oak Farm Store in Guilford almost by accident. For years, friends and coworkers had been asking to buy her farm-fresh eggs. Then came requests for her jams, her salsa, her preserves. She started delivering to them. By the time she

Somewhere around 2008, Patriot resident Joey Rider sat down and wrote himself a note. He titled it "Operation Freedom." It was, in his words, a guide, a map toward the one thing he had wanted since high school: to work for himself. He had no way of knowing then that the same drive would one day turn toward saving the town he grew up in. A lifelong Patriot resident, Joey opened Rider Realty in 2020, and its success has quietly funded the community projects that followed. For a

Greendale Marine Tim Foster survived stage 4 cancer and a year of hardship. Then his daughters' nomination to a national veterans campaign changed everything.

A century-old family bakes 256-strand pasta by hand, a night watchman still climbs a 13th-century tower — Beverly Meyer of the Lawrenceburg Review Club reviews "Custodians of Wonder" by Eliot Stein.

Have you ever really explored the back roads of Southeast Indiana? Photographer Rob Stone shares his favorite drives, hidden landmarks, and the forgotten relics that keep pulling him back, one curve in the road at a time.

It's official: Best of SEI is open, and the polls are live now through July 10th. This is your chance to crown the best our corner of the state has to offer. Best floral shop. Best coffee. Best place to grab a bite to eat on a Saturday. Best shop, best stylist, best spot to grab a cold drink on a hot day. You know who deserves it. Now go say so. Voting is quick, easy, and kind of addictive. Pick your favorites, hit submit, done. Then text the group chat and tell everybody to

"Take every opportunity you can. South Africa was breathtaking, and seeing animals in their natural habitat was far more exhilarating than seeing them anywhere else."

At Lawrenceburg's 250th Anniversary Celebration, 100-year-old WWII Navy veteran George E. Klopp, Sr. received an honorary high school diploma, 80 years after leaving school to serve his country.

Nearly 30 years after 120 residents packed a town hall to fight for it, the Dillsboro Public Library is celebrating a major renovation with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Built in 1818 by Lawrenceburg founder Samuel C. Vance, the Federal-style Vance-Tousey House remains one of southeastern Indiana's most treasured historic landmarks.

After 34 years with the Indiana State Police, retired trooper Matt Burkhardt of Lawrenceburg reflects on a career spent policing the Dearborn County community that raised him, answering the hardest calls, working alongside the people he most admired, and learning what it costs to wear the badge for a lifetime in your own hometown.

The South Dearborn Class of 2026 earned nearly $3 million in scholarships before leaving the building. Here's how the community sent them off.

11 students from local high schools are participating in the initiative, which aims to give young people interested in legal careers direct exposure to how the criminal justice system actually works.