RECTORY TO AIRBNB A new vacation rental property in Batesville has become popular with visitors and is adding to the general fund of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

The parish has been without a regular priest since early 2024 and its rectory at 106 S. Fifth St., had been sitting empty for 10 months. St. Paul's member Fred Krug, who has served on the Batesville City Council for 11 years, saw an opportunity and approached the nine members of church's vestry about turning the 95-year-old home into a place for visitors to stay.

"They had reservations," Krug said last week (we're sure the pun was unintended). "But I told them there were calls every day to city hall from people looking for a motel. A friend of mine at the (chamber of commerce) gets them all the........

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