Published: May 08, 2008 12:54 am            

Unexpected lunch guest

Daniels was en route to Frankfort from Indianapolis.

After finishing a breaded tenderloin with pickles and ketchup, Gov. Mitch Daniels visited with some of the lunch crowd at Sigler’s restaurant Wednesday.

Martha Sigler, co-owner of the restaurant on Indiana 39 just south of Sugar Creek, said the governor is a familiar visitor. He’s stopped at the restaurant before — he was especially pleased that butterscotch pie was on Wednesday’s menu — during his first run for office.

“We kinda knew” Daniels was on the way, said waitress Dawn Shauinger.

Daniels was en route to Frankfort from Indianapolis.

Some diners stopped, stunned, when they saw Indiana’s governor casually chatting with their friends.

Daniels joined Kevin McKechnie and Jay Schaumberg at one table.

“I’m very impressed with him,” McKechnie said when the governor had moved to another table. “He has a businessman’s sense of running things.”

Schaumberg told Daniels he appreciated the governor’s efforts to reduce taxes. “He’s a business person,” Schaumberg said. “That’s what it takes.”

Daniels had come from the north side of Indianapolis — five blocks south of Boone County — where a company had announced it was adding 125 new jobs.

“I am mad at myself,” Daniels said when he joined reporters at the lunch counter.

He was scheduled to speak at Frankfort High School in the early afternoon, he said. Because his itinerary required an overnight stop, Daniels had packed a bag.

“I couldn’t find my electric blue Frankfort Hot Dog golf shirt,” he said. He had looked through “a stack of shirts” without success.

Is the chance to meet the public informally and spontaneously a secret joy of being governor? “Not so secret, but absolutely,” he said. He tries to make stops “a couple of days a week,” Daniels said. “Otherwise, I get restless and grouchy.”

        

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