More than a statistic

At first Sean McKinney laughed when he approached his house and saw friend Ross Greathouse\'s car still parked in the driveway. Although Greathouse lived in an apartment of his own, he usually spent several nights a week at the house shared by McKinney and several other friends. \nOn the way back home after classes last Tuesday, McKinney and his roommates had stopped by Greathouse\'s apartment looking for him. They discovered he wasn't at home. Now they approached the driveway and saw both Greathouse\'s car and two other friends standing on the front porch. It was there that they told McKinney bad news that he still has trouble believing. \nRoss Greathouse, a senior, died last Tuesday of what police said was an apparent drug overdose. He was 21. \nAlthough a toxicology report has not yet come back, Steven Chambers, detective captain with the Monroe County Sheriff's office, said all indications are that Greathouse took a combination of cocaine and heroin sometime early Tuesday morning. \nLess than a week later, Greathouse's wood-paneled Jeep still sits at the end of McKinney's driveway. Inside the house, he and other friends sit together in the living room telling stories about Greathouse, laughing, crying and trying to understand why this happened to the friend McKinney described as being "full of life and love." His friends knew that Greathouse had used drugs before. But they remember the friend who called himself "Old Dad," a strange nickname that stuck. They remember the person who always made an entrance when he came over. They remember that he attended and enjoyed his classes, that he spent time with friends and family and had hobbies that ranged from juggling to playing Ping Pong to cooking. \n"It was a shock. It was a surprise," McKinney, a senior, said. "It wasn't like we saw him spiraling downhill."\nAbout 18 percent of full-time undergraduate college students use drugs, the same rate for students aged 18 to 22 not enrolled in college, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, a report from a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Postsecondary Education, a division of the U.S. Department of Education, reports that 147 IU students were arrested off-campus for drug-related citations in 2000.\nIn other words, Greathouse was not alone in his choices. \nDee Owens, director of IU's Alcohol Drug Information Center, said the number of people who use drugs is "more than we would like to see," but not close to the number of people who abuse alcohol.\nOwens, director of IU's Alcohol Drug Information Center, opposes the term "recreational" in connection with drugs because she feels it condones using illegal substances.\n"It's not recreational if one of your possibilities is being dead," she said.\nGreathouse's cousin Cy Greathouse last spoke with him at Christmas and remembered that "everything was going good," for the cousin who used to live with and work for him in the summer.\nAlthough Greathouse's family and friends can sit and remember thousands of good times with their friend, Petra Slinkard, a senior who dated Greathouse since freshman year and ending this summer, worried that outsiders will simply remember him as being the stereotype of anyone who uses drugs. \n"One thing I want people to know is drugs don't make him who he is," she said. "It was something that he did." \nOwens said what happened to Greathouse doesn't just happen to those whom people would define as "drug addicts."\n"It happens to anybody and everybody if they make uninformed decisions," she said.\nWhen talking about Greathouse's death, the same refrain keeps coming up among his friends: What happened to him could have happened to anybody. \nMcKinney said, "There's a million kids on this campus who don't remember going to sleep last night," who party and don't remember what happened the next day. His friends say Greathouse didn't party more or less than anybody else. But the last time he didn't wake up.\n"Unfortunately, I think if I look at it realistically, he could have been anybody on this campus who made those choices," Slinkard said. "He could have been anybody. He had great friends, he had a great family, he had pets, he kept his apartment clean. He could have been anybody." \nSlinkard met Greathouse during their freshman year when they both lived in Collins Living-Learning Center. They dated from that April until June of last year. He was her only boyfriend through college and she was his only girlfriend. \"He had a great smile and the most beautiful eyes," Slinkard said. "They changed like the sea from blue to green to gray."\nLast Tuesday, Slinkard and a friend who also knew Greathouse were getting ready to go on a walk. While her friend was returning another call, Slinkard\'s roommate called looking for her. Her roommate asked if Slinkard was sitting down.\n"As soon as (she) said that I knew it was him. I knew something had happened. I didn't expect that to be the reason. Then I think I puked," she said.\nAs far as I know he had never done heroin and he always told me he never would. But he had done coke before. I was surprised and angry and really frustrated."\nConflicting feelings aside, Slinkard easily described the things she remembered about Greathouse. \n"He was incredibly funny and he always wanted to have fun," she said. "He was really kind of goofy. He was extremely tolerant and patient."\nMany of the friends gathered at McKinney's home knew Greathouse since they were all kids together in North Vernon, Ind. Sami Ezzo, a sophomore, met him when they played soccer together and he and McKinney used to skip lunch in school to play endless games off foosball. Growing up, he lived in a house that was over 100 years old and would spend his time fishing in the nearby Muscatatuck River and swimming in the "Blue Hole." His family had a hardware store in the city's historic downtown. Greathouse's grandfather, father and mother all ran the store and he used to work there as well. \n"He knew all about appliances and tools," Cy said. "He could talk hardware for hours."\nHe attended the Indiana Academy, a Muncie school with accelerated programs in math and science. Although Greathouse had several passions, the number one thing all his friends and relatives remember was his love of maps and travel. \nTom Evans, an assistant professor in geography, had Greathouse in one of his classes last semester. He remembers Greathouse, who was a geography major, as being interested in the course and a person liked by the other students in the class. \nHis favorite place was the Geography and Map Library on campus. Slinkard said he would often bring her there and specifically remembered being there on a day when the library was having a big sale.\n"He was appalled they were going to throw away all these big, beautiful maps, so he bought them all," she said. "He gave some to his mom but they were like wallpaper in his apartment."\nLast week, Cy Greathouse took those maps down from the wall. He said all of them are now spoken for and that any memorials Greathouse's mother, Phoebe Greathouse Greemann, received from people were donated to the geography library.\nHis favorite regions of the world were Central America, South America and the Carribean. \n"He was in love with that flavor," Slinkard said. \nCy remembered taking a trip to Puerto Rico with his cousin, camping, traveling and watching Greathouse entertain young children with his juggling skills.\nGreathouse was still the entertainer when hanging out with his friends in Bloomington. He wasn't afraid to make a fool out of himself but when he did, "it would be the coolest thing," friend Thad Struck, a senior, said. \nPeople who had only met him once would recognize his name when it was mentioned months or years later. His friends describe him as confident and spontaneous.\n"He had a chicken strut like nobody else," friend Neil Murrman, a senior, said.\nEzzo said Greathouse's death has brought his group of friends closer together.\n"We've all been so close," she said. "I don't know what I'd do without my friends right now because you know they know what you're going through."\nLosing their friend has also forced them to think about changing their own lives.\n"I feel like I have to live every day for Ross," Cy Greathouse said.\nFor Neil Murrman, losing Greathouse has given him new resolve to make at least one of the plans they made together -- plans that included moving to Budapest and driving to Alaska in a bus -- a reality. Struck said the experience has left them all with one important thing in common.\n"You appreciate all the things he gave you," he said. "We all realize what we had and we all have that in common."\nWhen asked what she wanted Greathouse to be remembered for, Petra Slinkard said she hoped one thing people can learn is "when to say no; that there's a time for everything." She sat back in her chair, smiled then looked serious when asked what she wanted him to know.\n"I guess if I wanted him to know anything, what I hope he knows now, one that I love him," she said. "And, two, that I don't think he ever realized how many lives he touched"