As Indiana’s bicentennial celebration reaches the crescendo, Willie and friends take a final curtain call on our magical Hoosier history tour.

President James Madison took his pen in hand, and with the stroke of his signature on Dec. 11, 1816, Indiana became the 19th state — as he signed an act of Congress admitting Indiana to the Union.

And the rest, as they say, … is history … and that past is prologue for the present and the future.

Electric co-op mascot Willie Wiredhand says Indiana’s 200 years of history and its future are sooooo bright, he has to wear shades … or “bicentennial bifocals,” as he calls them!