Indianapolis, IN
‘God has a sense of humor:’ Allison Melangton’s first grandbaby’s due on Indy 500 race day
INDIANAPOLIS — Allison Melangton knew immediately something was awry. There she was standing in the kitchen learning she’d be a grandmother for the first time, staring at her only son Cameron and his wife Taylor as they revealed the joyful news.
But something didn’t seem so joyful. Taylor was saying the words, “We’re pregnant,” but she and Cameron weren’t effusive or giddy. They seemed cautious.
“Is everything OK with the baby?” Melangton asked. “What? What is going on?”
Taylor finally spit it out. “We’re due on race day.”
Race day. As in May 26, 2024, the day of the Indianapolis 500. To any other family, even diehard race fans, a first grandbaby due on that date could be taken in stride.
But for Melangton, senior vice president of Penske Entertainment, which owns IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, race day is the only square on the calendar circled in bold red. The only day she cannot be anywhere other than IMS.
“Well, God has a sense of humor,” Melangton said. “Really any other day than race day, which is 364 days of the year, any other day works. It’s the one day. That one day.”
And so today, 100 days out from the greatest spectacle in racing, Melangton is hoping her first grandbaby does what most babies do and does not arrive on its due date. But if it does? Well, Melangton has been thinking about that a lot.
“I need to be here race day for sure to get everything going,” she said. “If it’s in the middle of the race, I can leave. If it’s right after the race, I’ll have to get a helicopter.” Traffic would be horrific.
The wheels are spinning inside Melangton’s head as she stood overlooking the track inside the pagoda last week, considering the drive from West 16th Street to Ascension St. Vincent hospital in Carmel.
“It’s going to work out,” Melangton finally says. “That’s how I feel about it. It’s going to work out.”
The rumor about no pants? It’s true
To understand just why her grandchild’s due date is such a big deal for Melangton, people have to understand how seriously she takes her job at Penske and any other job she has held — from being the president of Indiana Sports Corp. to president of Indy’s Super Bowl Host Committee to associate producer for gymnastics with NBC Sports to working at just about every major sporting event that has ever made its way to the city.
Which brings us to the prime example of just how seriously Melangton takes her job. It was 1996 and the Olympic swimming trials were being held at the IUPUI Natatorium. Cameron was three years old and Melangton was senior vice president of Indiana Sports Corp.
“I was working more than full time. I’d been traveling a ton and those swimmers are nuts, right?” Melangton said. “They start warming up at 5 a.m. and they cool down after races until midnight.”
It was the ninth day of the 10-day event and Melangton said she had gotten three hours of sleep for nine nights straight. She left the natatorium, got home at 2 a.m., threw her shorts and event polo in the washer and went to bed ready for the final 10th day.
She woke up at the crack of dawn, less than three hours later, and threw her clothes into the dryer. She had two athletes she was picking up at a hotel to take to a television station for an interview at 5:45 a.m. Melangton took a shower, then started doing her hair and makeup.
When she went to get her clothes out of the dryer, the waistband on her shorts was still wet, so she put on the polo, finished her hair and makeup, put on her shoes, put on her fanny pack and left the house.
Melangton drove all the way to the hotel downtown and walked inside the lobby of the Marriott. She didn’t notice any particular cool breeze. it was hot. It was July. And she had on cotton briefs.
“When I walked in, the bellman came walking very briskly over to me and said, ‘Ma’am, are you OK?’” Melangton said. “I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, I look bad. I’m a little tired, but I’m good.’ And he said, ‘Are you sure?’”
Melangton will never forget what happened next. That bellman’s eyes started at her forehead and slowly made their way down her body and stopped at her waist.
“And I followed his eyes and looked down,” she said, “and I was standing in the lobby in my underwear.”
Melangton rushed out of the hotel and promptly drove home, calling on backup to get her athletes to the station.
“I travel with pants in my car now and I always tell her to have extra pants,” Melangton said, pointing to Taylor.
Race day and the days leading up to the Indy 500, after all, are one of Taylor’s busiest times of the year, too.
A sudden interest in the 500 Festival Princess program
Taylor is the events and communications manager at Visit Indy, a nonprofit that serves as the official sales and marketing arm for Indianapolis and the Indiana Convention Center. She spends race day and the days leading up to the event with clients.
She hosts them, wines and dines them and showcases the city to them in hopes they will bring their event here, too.
It’s a dream job for Taylor, who grew up on the south side of Indy and went to Roncalli. She was an avid race fan long before she met the Melangtons because her mother, Kim Wong, is an even bigger race fan.
Wong spends all her PTO days at the track and from the time Taylor was tiny, she has been sitting with her mom inside the magical raceway of IMS.
One year, when she was just a little girl, Taylor went to the 500 Festival parade and saw the princesses. “I’m going to be a princess one day,” she said to Kim. While she was in college at Ball State that dream came true and who was assigned to be her program mentor? Melangton, of course.
Before Taylor came into the picture, Cameron had shown zero interest in the 500 Festival Princess program. But suddenly, he was going to its events. He was going even when Melangton couldn’t be there.
One night, after Taylor stood up and gave her pitch on why she should be the queen, talking about running the Mini Marathon, nothing too deep, Melangton got a text from Cameron. “Our princess this year is amazing,” he wrote. “She did the best job of anybody.”
Eventually, when it was appropriate and Melangton wasn’t mentoring Taylor any longer, Cameron asked her out. And from there, the two’s love story began.
And it began to become ever more intertwined with IMS.
‘August? That’s safe, right?’
They didn’t mean to get married on qualification day. When Cameron proposed to Taylor in 2019 in Maine on a rock by a lake where he and his grandfather used to fish, they set a date of Aug. 15, 2020.
“August? That’s safe right?” Melangton said, laughing. “The only weekend there was nothing going on at the track.”
The couple sent out invitations, booked everything for their August wedding and then COVID hit.
“Then the whole race was moved. Everything moved. I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Melangton said. “There’s like two days a year I can’t be at a wedding, and this is one of them.”
But Roger Penske and Mark Miles agreed. This was a day Melangton could be at a wedding, her son’s wedding. Miles took over her duties and showed up for the wedding after qualifications were finished.
And now, their baby is due on race day.
Of course, the worry about the due date isn’t really that serious. The entire family, both sides, are ecstatic for the impending birth. The baby will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family.
“Everybody’s over the moon,” said Taylor.
But the due date has brought with it a lot of jokes and suggestions. Many have told Cameron, a financial investment analyst, and Taylor they should go to the race and have the baby at the IMS medical center. Others have said whenever the baby is born, its middle name should be the name of the winning driver.
Others are predicting that because Takuma Sato won the Indy 500 in 2017, when Cameron and Taylor met, and again in 2020, when they were married, that he will definitely be the winner of the 2024 race.
“I like that it’s a full circle moment in our story. It’s fitting,” said Taylor. “We were definitely like, ‘Oh crap,’ but also we just think it’s amazing.”
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com
The Indianapolis Colts signed Philip Rivers from their practice squad to their 53-man active roster on Saturday, clearing the way for the 44-year-old coach of the St. Michael Catholic High School football team to start their NFL game against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday afternoon.
Nearly five years after his most recent NFL appearance, the former Athens High School star and eight-time Pro Bowl quarterback answered the Colts’ distress call this week and, after three practices with the team, will be eligible to lead Indianapolis against the NFL’s No. 2 scoring defense on Sunday. NFL Network and ESPN reported the Colts would have Rivers in their starting lineup.
Rivers’ comeback began by signing with the Colts’ practice squad on Tuesday. Each NFL team has a 16-player practice squad. Its members do everything that the members of the 53-man active roster do except play in games.
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On Saturday, the Colts announced they had signed Rivers to their active roster. Indianapolis had an open spot for the quarterback after it placed former Auburn All-American Braden Smith on injured reserve. The Colts’ right offensive tackle came out of the previous game with a concussion and a neck injury, and he was not able to practice this week.
At his Friday press conference, Colts coach Shane Steichen declined to name a starting quarterback, saying the coaching staff would work toward that decision now that Rivers had completed his preparation on the practice field for Sunday’s game.
During the week, Rivers took snaps with Indianapolis’ first-team offense, as did former Fairhope High School star Riley Leonard.
“He’s got great command in the huddle,” Steichen said of Rivers’ practices. “He was throwing it well. So, yeah, we’re excited for it. I mean, he’s fired up for the challenge, obviously, getting back into it, getting back into the fold. Feeling the pass rush, got some good work in that, just moving around seeing the defense. It was good. …
“I mean, a guy that hasn’t been out there in five years, to go out and practice the way he did this week was pretty impressive to watch.”
FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE
The Colts lost starting quarterback Daniel Jones to a season-ending Achilles-tendon injury in Sunday’s 36-19 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars and finished the game with Leonard at quarterback. The sixth-round rookie completed 18-of-29 passes for 145 yards with no touchdowns and one interception and ran two times for 5 yards and one touchdown.
In reaction to Jones’ injury, and with backup quarterback Anthony Richardson on injured reserve with a fractured orbital bone, Indianapolis stunned the football world by signing Rivers, who made the most recent of his 256 NFL appearances at quarterback on Jan. 9, 2021.
CAM NEWTON: PHILIP RIVERS’ COMEBACK ‘A SLAP IN MY FACE’
Rivers is among the five players in NFL history with at least 60,000 passing yards, 400 touchdown passes and a passing-efficiency rating of 95 or higher, joining Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers.
Rivers also is among the modern-era semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026. By joining the Indianapolis active roster, Rivers is no longer eligible for consideration. Because players must be inactive for five complete seasons before enshrinement, Rivers won’t be eligible for consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame until the Class of 2031, if he doesn’t play beyond this season.
Five players have thrown a pass in an NFL regular-season game after turning 44 years old – Brady, George Blanda, Steve DeBerg, Warren Moon and Vinnie Testaverde.
The Colts and Seahawks square off at 3:25 p.m. CST Sunday at Lumen Field in Seattle. The weather forecast calls for a rainy game.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man has been arrested and accused of killing his 81-year old father and injuring his father’s wife.
Police about 3:30 p.m. Thursday found John Pedigo and his wife inside their home in the 2100 block of South Catherwood Avenue. Police first went to the southeast side home for a welfare check. WISHTV.com first reported Thursday about the discovery.
Neighbors say what happened inside was horrific, and they want to know why it happened. People who knew Pedigo are grieving his loss, and praying for his wife.
Bob Kaylor, John’s friend and neighbor, said, of the gruesome scene, “Beat to a pulp. I mean, blistered, and my assumption was that Bryan probably thought she was dead, knew probably that John was passed, and decided to steal the truck and motor on down.”
Police arrested Bryan Pedigo, 54, for the homicide. Bryan was captured during a traffic stop as he was heading toward Greene County, which is about a 90-minute drive southwest of the home. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said Friday that Bryan’s jail booking photo was not yet being released.
Neighbor and long-time friend James Hicks said he’s known the couple for over 20 years, and said he and John would talk every day. “He was a heck of a guy. We all thought he was a good guy in the neighborhood. We called him ‘the governor’ because their home was the first home built in the neighborhood, and they had lived in it ever since.”
Hicks says John was a Vietnam War veteran and built florescent signs before retiring. Hicks said John had a heart attack a few years ago, and ever since then, the neighbors looked out for each other. “Honest, friendly, and loyal to his friends and family. He was that kind of guy.”
Kaylor said the homicide is something friends had feared for a while. Kaylor and Hicks say the couple had restraining orders against Bryan in the past, and that this was not his first attack against him.
Kaylor said, “How could this get through the ranks? How could does this slip through the system? You only have one life. If you don’t live it free and out of fear, you’re not going to make it, and the fear for them was their son.”
Hicks said, “We had always worried about this guy. I had had issues with him. Bob and I had had issues with their son Bryan.”
Kaylor said, “We all try to raise our kids to the best standards that we can. They did, too. Trust me, they did.”
According to Marion County public records, Bryan has a criminal history. Just this year, he’s been charged with domestic battery with prior convictions, public intoxication, possession of meth, and OWI. Records date back to the early 1990s.
Online records did not yet show a case Friday evening for Bryan following his most recent arrest.
Anyone with information on the case was asked to call IMPD Detective Daniel Hiatt at 317-327-3475 or e-mail the detective at daniel.hiatt@indy.gov.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Latino Expo 2025 Awards Gala will take place on December 12 at La Flaca at The Square in Indianapolis, celebrating the achievements of the Latino community.
This gala marks the quinceanera of the Indiana Latino Expo, celebrating 15 years of recognizing individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the Latino community in areas such as civil rights, health, arts, and entertainment.
“What I love about it, too, is all these people and organizations that are going to be honored, they don’t do what they do for that,” said Charles Garcia with the Indiana Latino Expo. “It’s really an opportunity for you guys to say, hey, we see the work that you’re doing behind the scenes.”
The event promises a night filled with entertainment, delicious food, and inspiring stories, providing an opportunity for the community to come together and celebrate their achievements.
Sponsors for the gala include McDonald’s, Indianapolis Airport, Old National, and WISH-TV, highlighting the support from various sectors for the Latino community.
DJ Rican will be providing entertainment, ensuring a lively atmosphere where attendees can relax, dance, and enjoy the evening.
Charles Garcia emphasized the importance of recognizing the hard work and dedication of those who contribute to the community, often sacrificing personal time to make a positive impact.
The Indiana Latino Expo 2025 Awards Gala is set to be a memorable event, celebrating the contributions and achievements of the Latino community in Indiana. Attendees can look forward to a night of recognition and fellowship, marking the end of the year with a celebration of community and impact.
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