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Robert Hinds succeeded Stanley Arnold as superintendent of the Indiana Veterans Home.
The controversial city-industry contract, dating to the 1940s and last renewed for 12 years in 1966, expired. Renewal negotiations failed. On Jan. 6 city officials began filing annexation actions. All but five of 27 industries agreed later, however, to a six-year extension. ALCOA refused, was annexed, and filed suit to void the action.
A storm some called the "blizzard of the century" devastated Indiana, almost identical to one in the same week of 1977. Barometric pressure fell to near 28 inches, lowest recorded in Lafayette. Wind reached 50 mph. Snowfall totaled 11 inches, running the December-January accumulation to 42.5 inches, also believed to be a local record.
Bitter cold and a nationwide coal strike forced orders for reductions of electrical power consumption. On Feb. 28, data showed that the month had been the coldest on record for Lafayette. Average temperature over the four weeks was 12 degrees. The old record, set in 1885, had been 14.7 degrees.
Fred Schaus resigned as men's basketball coach at Purdue. On April 7 Purdue named Lee Rose as the new coach.
Lafayette School Corporation offices moved from space in Jefferson High School to the new J. Russell Hiatt Center on Cason Street, near Murdock Elementary School.
A survey by professional educators recommended closing six Lafayette School Corporation schools. Superintendent Kessler, however, formed a 31-member task force of citizens to study the situation further.
St. Elizabeth Hospital dedicated an $8 million addition.
Lafayette School Corporation dedicated the new Oakland School, replacing the 1895 school soon to be demolished nearby.
Cathy Pickett, Linden, became the first and only graduate from Lafayette Baptist High School which opened in the fall of 1977 on Kossuth Street. There were 25 other students in the school's first academic year.
Ivy Tech announced plans to build a $2.5 million complex on the old Ross Annex grounds being leased from the county.
The City of Lafayette accepted the gift of the Mars Theater, and, per the donor's request, renamed it Dennis Long Center for the Performing Arts.
Three West Lafayette High School students died in a one-car crash on "dead man's curve" on Indiana 43 north of the city limits, a curve where one-third of the city's traffic deaths had occurred since 1955.
Congressman Floyd Fithian lost an attempt to get Congress to "deauthorize" the Wildcat Reservoir project, considered dead because of local opposition, lack of funding and a state legislative resolution opposing it. Fithian deemed it unfair to make landowners in the affected area wait until the end of the usual eight-year deauthorization period.
Republicans swept all Tippecanoe County elections for courthouse jobs. But Democrat Congressman Fithian won his third straight term, and State Sen. Mike Gery and State Rep. Stan Jones, both West Lafayette Democrats, won re-elections to the legislature.
Purdue University's football team,which won 8 games, lost 2 and tied one under second-year coach Jim Young and sophomore quarterback Mark Herrmann, accepted an invitation to play Georgia Tech in the post-season Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Ga. It was Purdue's second-ever bowl appearance, first since 1967. [In the Christmas Day game, Purdue won 41-21 on national television.]