Cloverdale,
I live about 20 miles west of Fort Wayne. I've only been in this area for about seven years, but since I don't know of anyone else from around here who frequents this board I may (unfortunately) be your best source for information. You don't mention which plant you may be working at, but I'm assuming you mean the GM plant in Roanoke, just south of Fort Wayne. If that's the one, you can't find a nicer place to live than in Aboite Township, which would put you within about 5-10 minutes of the plant. Don't know if you're looking for a house or an apartment, but there are plenty of both in that area. A second option that I would recommend, if for some reason Aboite isn't for you, would be the area around Carroll High School. That's on the opposite side of town, but Fort Wayne is pretty small so it's still a 25 minute drive at most. I'd probably recommend staying clear of the east side of I-69. While for me it's not that bad, having dealt with the wards and barrios in Houston, and East and South Central L.A., the higher crime areas are found in certain sections of that part of Fort Wayne.
The association you should look to join is the North Eastern Indiana Athletic Officials Association (NEIAOA). I am a member of that association. Their web site is located at
NEIAOA.org - (North Eastern Indiana Athletic Officials Association). I don't do basketball, but I know that Ted Garton is the basketball chairperson and Dave Vendrely is the assigner for the Summit Athletic Conference. You should be able to find both their phone numbers and email addresses on the NEIAOA site. If not, let me know and I will forward those to you. For softball, in addition to joining the NEIAOA, I would recommend joining the Fort Wayne Umpires Association. I'm also a member of that organization. They handle softball and baseball assignments for most of the schools in the Fort Wayne area. The contact would be Sharon Boren, who is the softball chairperson for the NEIAOA and also does assigning for the FWUA. You can find her contact information also on the NEIAOA site. In case you haven't looked yet, you might also want to check out
www.ihsaa.org. Apparently we have moved to online testing, and the dates for basketball are from October 12 through November 16.
You don't say if you work anything other than high school. I can't tell you anything about basketball, but if you're also looking to do either ASA or NSA softball, I can give you information on either or both of those. If you do wind up moving down here, send me a message and I'll keep an eye out for you come next softball season.
Hope this helps,
Bob