Gorbachev Enjoys Dixie Chopper Hospitality on His Visits to DePauw

GREENCASTLE, Ind. -- When former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visited DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., on Oct. 27, he also encountered the creator of the “world’s fastest lawn mower.”

Gorbachev flew into the Greencastle Airport from Indianapolis via the Dixie Chopper corporate jet, greeting Dixie Chopper owner and President Art Evans when he landed in advance of his historic speech at DePauw.

Dixie Chopper Air operates the local airport and has a 12-room hotel and business center on site. Gorbachev used the Dixie Chopper facilities to relax and freshen up prior to his address to a capacity crowd of 3,000 at DePauw that afternoon.

Evans and Gorbachev found they share an interest in the environment.

Gorbachev told the DePauw crowd that the challenges of the future are security, poverty, and the "global environmental crisis.”

As founder of the environmental advocacy organization Green Cross International, Gorbachev said he has been “working on these issues.”

“I know the situation,” he said through an interpreter, “and I believe the situation in the world today is a conflict between man and the rest of nature. We've come to a point where the biosphere is being destroyed ... this is our home. This is the only environment in which we can live, and it is being destroyed."

All Dixie Chopper lawn mowers are made and assembled in Greencastle, Ind. The company, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2005, maintains its corporate headquarters in Coatesville on a piece of ground once part of the Evans family farm.