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(05/03/10 3:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The story I’m about to tell is not easy to talk about. I’m sharing my experience, along with my name and photo, to put a face and a voice to a problem that too often goes unnoticed. I don’t want other women to go through this.My story starts here in Bloomington, in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 7. It was just after midnight and a girlfriend had just dropped me off at home after we danced at a bar. I’d consumed four or five drinks, but had stopped drinking a couple hours earlier. I was headed up the stairs to my apartment when I saw my neighbor standing in the hallway.“What’re you up to?” I asked him.“We’re hanging out over here if you want to come join.”“Sure.”I had hung out with this guy and his two roommates before, and though I didn’t know them particularly well, I’d never had a problem with any of them. They seemed like nice guys.“Do you want anything to drink?” one asked when I walked into their apartment.“No, but can I get a glass of water?”“Help yourself.”I poured myself a glass of water and sat on a sofa chair in the living room. A friend of my neighbors, a man I’d never met, was visiting. He sat down on the arm of the chair, and we introduced ourselves. I expected him to return to talking with my neighbors, but instead he lingered.“Can I be your boyfriend?” he asked, leaning close.“What?” I said.“Am I your boyfriend?”“No.” I laughed nervously. I had never been hit on in such a creepy way, and I wondered how much he had been drinking. Bottles of liquor were scattered across the coffee table.Despite the strangeness of the moment, I stayed for another hour or so, talking with my neighbors and doing my best to ignore their friend. Two of us stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. When we went back to the living room, I took another sip of my water. I noticed it tasted slightly salty but didn’t worry about it. In an apartment of three men, I told myself, the dishes must not get very clean.One of them waved a bong in the air. “Do you want to smoke?” he asked.I took a hit and passed the bong.“Man, I wish I could smoke,” said their friend, still hovering near me. “Yeah,” said one of the other guys, “too bad you’re on parole.”I looked at their friend, wondering exactly what that meant. “Why are you on parole?” I asked.The room fell silent.“Rape,” one of my neighbors blurted out, answering for their friend.“Man, what the fuck?” said the friend.The neighbor laughed. “I’m just kidding.”“No,” yelled the friend. “That’s not cool. This girl is going to think I raped someone now.”My neighbor told him to calm down. But their friend just got madder. An already uncomfortable situation had suddenly become frightening. I had to leave.“I’m tired,” I said. “I think I’m going to head home.”As I shut their apartment door behind me, the last thing I heard was the sound of laughter.I think I was roofiedI was lucky that I left when I did. After I returned to my apartment, I suddenly felt extremely sick to my stomach and rushed to the bathroom and vomited repeatedly. For a moment I thought I had fallen ill from drinking. When I realized I had not consumed alcohol for hours, I wondered if one of the men had slipped me acid.By now it was a little after 2 a.m. As I continued throwing up, I began to fade in and out of consciousness. I felt as if I was caught in the undertow of a wave, trapped and unable to breathe. My thoughts became incoherent. I began to hear voices and see things. Though I am not a religious person, for some reason I could not stop thinking about God. As I leaned over the toilet, I looked into the water and imagined the dark shadow of a face looking back at me. I was certain it was Jesus.My spurts of rational thinking became so few and far between that I was no longer sure where I was or what I was doing. Nothing looked familiar. My vision was severely blurred. Waves of confusion ran through me like static on a television screen.As I felt myself blacking out again, I sobbed. I felt like a failure. Here you are, I told myself, dying alone on the floor of your shitty bathroom at the age of 21, never having accomplished anything you want with your life.I moaned for my roommate. “Liz ... Liz ... Liz ...”When she appeared in the doorway, I was so confused that at first I did not recognize her.“What’s wrong?” she asked.In my mind, I was screaming for her to call 911. But all I could say, over and over again, was “I am not OK.”Liz helped me to her room and told me to sleep. “I’m afraid I am not going to wake up,” I told her.“For work tomorrow?” said Liz. “I promise I’ll wake you up.”“No, forever.”Drug-facilitated sexual assaultAlthough I can’t prove the intentions of the creepy man who apparently put something in my water, I know how vulnerable I was.Unfortunately, experiences like mine are not uncommon.The Journal of American College Health reports that 20 to 25 percent of college women are raped during their college careers, and 82 percent of students experiencing unwanted sexual intercourse in 2005 were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.Though alcohol is the most common drug involved in sexual assault, the number of drugs used has grown over the past 15 years. Reports of drug-facilitated sexual assault have steadily increased since date-rape drugs became prevalent in the mid 1990s. The best known of these drugs are Rohypnol — more commonly referred to as “roofies” — and GHB. Both are sedatives that act rapidly to cause passivity, loss of will to resist, relaxation of muscles, nausea and amnesia in victims.Though these two drugs are most commonly associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault, a Southern Medical Journal article found that at least 20 different drugs have been used in sexual assaults. Many of these drugs, especially prescription drugs like Xanax and hydrocodone, are extremely common on college campuses across the country.Because it’s difficult to find accurate statistics on sexual assault in general, it’s impossible to know exactly how often roofies and other drugs are used in sexual assaults. Victims rarely report assaults, and even when they do, detection of these drugs is difficult. Because date rape drugs are most commonly distributed at bars or parties and have the same symptoms as alcohol, it usually takes time for victims to realize what has happened. This delays or even prevents reporting of the crime.“This is one of the most difficult types of sexual assault to prosecute, because usually when the person wakes up or comes to, they don’t have memory of being drugged. The memory starts to come back in little pieces, and at that time, it’s often too late to do anything about it,” said Kellie Greene, founder and director of Speaking Out About Rape, a Florida-based group that runs national awareness and prevention programs to enhance public understanding of sexual assault.An article published in 2000 by the U.S. Justice Department explains that the lack of national statistics and empirical data makes it impossible to determine how often drug-facilitated sexual assault occurs. This means evidence and understanding of this crime is primarily anecdotal.These anecdotes are shocking, but they reveal something experienced by too many women. This is why I’m sharing not only what happened when I was drugged, but also the events that followed.Bloomington police stationThe next morning I woke up extremely groggy. I didn’t remember what had happened the night before, but as time passed it started coming back to me. “What the hell happened to you?” one of my girlfriends asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “I got really sick last night and started hallucinating.”“Are you sure you weren’t roofied?”I went online and found stories of people who had been roofied and experienced the same symptoms: vomiting, hallucinations, confusion and loss of consciousness. I decided to go to the Bloomington police.Because I was still confused and shaken up, two friends — another girl and her boyfriend — drove me to the limestone station on Third and Washington streets. When the three of us opened the front door, we stepped into a tiny lobby. Another door that led to the rest of the station was locked. A sign on the door directed me to a nearby call box. As I walked over to the box, I noticed two men sitting behind me, talking loudly. Because the lobby was so small, they would easily hear every word I was about to say.This is uncomfortable, I thought to myself. As I pressed the small gray button and waited for a response, the two men behind me stopped talking.A man’s voice came over the speaker and asked how he could assist me. Trying to keep my voice low, I said I believed I had been drugged the night before.“What?” said the voice on the other end.“I think I may have been drugged.”“Okay,” he said. “What exactly happened?”I began to panic. Talking to the anonymous voice while the two strangers eavesdropped was so uncomfortable that I wondered if I should give up and go home.“Is there anyway I can talk to someone in person about this?” I asked. The voice told me yes and said to take a seat. I wondered to myself how much worse this experience would be if I had actually been sexually assaulted.A male officer came to the door 10 to 15 minutes later. “Who’s here about a possible drugging?” he called out. The two men stared at me. I stood and followed the officer into the station, accompanied by my friends.I had expected to give my statement at the officer’s desk. Instead he led us into a small interrogation room and offered us seats at a table. Mounted on the wall beside me was a thick metal chain with a loop at the end. I assumed that when criminals were brought in for questioning, they were probably handcuffed to the loop. The idea was a little intimidating.As I described my encounter with my neighbors’ strange friend, I watched the officer taking notes, his pen jumping across the page. The officer was kind. When I told him that I had taken the one hit of marijuana, he didn’t judge me. He explained he had never dealt with a drugging but offered to go to my apartment to question my neighbors. This suggestion made me anxious. Because I still lived next to the men, I wanted proof before the police accused them or their friend of anything.“Do you have to go talk to them right away?” I asked. “I’d like to figure out for sure if I was drugged or not.”No problem, said the officer. He recommended that I go to Bloomington Hospital to have them test my blood and urine for drugs. He said he’d hold off on taking any action until he heard from me again.I thanked him, and my friends and I left for the hospital. By this point I’d called my mom in Indianapolis and told her what had happened. She was already on her way and would meet us at the emergency room.Protocol and pay for drug testsDate-rape drugs can leave the system within 24 hours, and the best way to detect them is through urine samples collected within 48 to 72 hours of consumption, according to a report in the Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine. This small window of time means response teams must act quickly.Through his work with the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Chad Sniffens said he has learned that victims frequently run into problems if they decide to report the assault. Victims who work up the courage to go to the police get conflicting advice from law enforcement and local hospitals about what to do and where to go for help. Many agencies, Sniffens said, lack a common protocol on what to do in such cases. A great deal of variation exists between how different agencies and hospitals collect evidence and test to see if victims have been drugged. Some don’t test at all. Ross Wantland, assistant director of the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, has created programs to educate students on drug-facilitated sexual assaults. He became interested in the issue after a friend went to the university health center thinking she could be tested for date rape drugs and was denied. Wantland explains that many universities lack the resources to test for these drugs, with cost posing a major problem. The test for GHB alone can be up to $150, a price Wantland said his university was not willing to pay.Kellie Greene, from Speaking Out Against Rape, reports that many law enforcement agencies and hospitals do not properly train their response teams. Many responders do not know how to recognize the signs that indicate someone might have been drugged. The problem is largely ignored because media interest in date rape tends to cycle; no one’s likely to pay much attention until a high-profile case makes headlines. Until that happens, Greene said it’s important for college women to remember that this can happen to any one.“The age group that’s most affected think they are invincible. We want to believe that it would never happen to us,” she said. “But the truth is, these criminals are looking for people that are vulnerable. All of us are vulnerable at some point. These criminals could prey on all of us.”Bloomington HospitalAs I interviewed Greene and the other experts, I kept thinking — this is exactly what happened to me.I had not been sexually assaulted. But I had been violated. As best I could tell, a predator had slipped something in my water, attempting to make me his prey. And when I went to Bloomington Hospital to get help proving what had happened, I ran into exactly the kinds of problems that the experts say are far too common.That Saturday afternoon, after leaving the police station, my friends and I went to the emergency room. My mother soon arrived and joined me and my girlfriend in the exam room. I shifted nervously, ruffling the sheets of my hospital bed. The paper gown scratched against my bare skin.As I waited, the events of the last 12 hours raced through my mind. It seemed like a long, drawn-out dream. My thoughts were interrupted when a nurse practitioner entered the room. She looked about my mother’s age, with long gray curls and glasses that hung against her medical scrubs. She asked me what brought me to the hospital.“I think I was roofied last night,” I said. “I want to get tested.”“You want us to test you for roofies?” she asked.“Yes.”“We can’t do that,” she said without emotion. “I don’t know what you want me to do for you.”I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I told her the police had sent me to get tested. Couldn’t she help me?“Bloomington Hospital doesn’t have any way to test for roofies,” the nurse practitioner continued. “I could test you for drugs like marijuana or ecstasy, but that’s it.” My mother was growing angry. “What do you mean you can’t test for these drugs?”“We don’t have the means to do that kind of a test here,” the woman repeated.“What about taking her urine sample and sending it somewhere else?” my mom said.“I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t know where we would send it.”“There has to be something you can do,” my mom said.The woman insisted there was nothing to be done. She left the room for a moment, and when she opened the door again, I saw the face of a younger nurse looking at me from behind her computer.“I think I found a place online,” the young nurse said while holding up a phone. “I’m calling to find out.”The nurse practitioner seemed irritated. “We might be able to test for roofies,” she said. “But in all my experience with victims who have been roofied they don’t remember anything at all, and you’ve been able to tell me some things.”She seemed to be implying I was lying. As tears ran down my face, she stared past me.Finally the young nurse determined that they could send my urine to a lab, and the nurse practitioner directed me to the bathroom with a plastic cup. After I filled it, I left as soon as possible. I had gone there wanting some proof, an answer, something. Now I just wanted to go home.Follow upAfter leaving the hospital I realized I’d made a mistake. When I researched date rape drugs online, I discovered that while “roofies” is the term loosely used for all such drugs, it is actually the name of one specific drug, Rohypnol. At the hospital, I had asked to be tested for roofies, not understanding I should have been asking them to test for a variety of other drugs. As a result, I was tested only for Rohypnol. I learned that Rohypnol leaves a blue color in liquid, meaning it was probably not the drug slipped into my water, which was colorless. I felt stupid for not having known to ask about other drugs and angry I had lost my chance to determine what had happened.I wrote a letter of complaint to Bloomington Hospital. “I went to your facility with trust and confidence that you could assist me, and I feel as though I was unwelcome and ignored. On a college campus such as IU, I find it hard to believe that my case is an uncommon one,” I wrote. “I only hope that the next time a scared, confused and hurting young woman comes to you for help, you are more willing to provide the services she needs.”A representative from the hospital called me a couple weeks later to apologize. “In situations like yours, we have a test we’re supposed to run for all the possible date rape drugs,” he said. “I don’t know why that test wasn’t offered to you, but it should have been.”I requested my medical records to see what had been documented from that day. The reports didn’t reveal much. The hospital recorded that they had cancelled the normal drug test and requested a test for only Rohypnol, and that I was a “poor historian.”Several months passed without any word on my results. I called the hospital repeatedly but got nowhere. Finally, just last week, almost six months after the test, I went back to the hospital and obtained a copy of the test results, which were sent from a California laboratory. They were negative, but that didn’t surprise me, since they’d only tested for Rohypnol.By then I was disheartened by the whole ordeal. I had hoped for some answers, and maybe some justice, and failed miserably.The neighbors whose apartment I visited that night in November still live down the hall. I’ve stayed away from them because I don’t want to run into their friend, the one I’m convinced drugged me. In the months since that night, I’ve run into him a couple times in the hallway. Both times, I’ve ignored his attempts to start up a conversation.“Oh, it’s the awkward girl,” he said once. I said nothing and quickly entered my apartment, locking the door behind me.Note: Reader comments for this story were disabled given its sensitive nature. To share your thoughts with IDS editors e-mail editor@idsnews.com.
(09/04/08 5:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Monroe County auditor Sandra Newmann held a press conference Wednesday to address a petition requesting a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate allegations of wrongdoings and illegal activity of the Monroe County auditor’s office.Vic Kelson, president of the county council filed the petition Tuesday.Kelson filed the petition after learning that a $350,000 appropriation had been approved by the Department of Local Government Finance despite the fact that council members had denied the appropriation.After learning the appropriation had been approved, Kelson said he went to the State Board of Accounts to ask how to fix the irregularities. They told Kelson to speak with the county prosecutor, who decided the issues needed to be looked into further and contacted both the State Board of Accounts and the Department of Local Government Finance.Chief deputy prosecuting attorney Bob Miller, who filed the petition, refused to comment on both the petition and the investigation.In response to Kelson’s petition, Newmann said it was wrong of Kelson to not talk with the county auditor’s office before filing the petition.“This is not how elected officials should communicate,” Newmann said. “Not through the courts, not wasting taxpayers’ money on ridiculous court actions. Our courts are expensive enough to run without elected officials.”Newmann also said the employee who made the mistake, Kristi Van Pelt, later corrected it as soon as it was found.During the press conference, Van Pelt said she had filed the appropriations in late February after accidentally assuming they had been approved by the county council. As soon as she found the mistake on Aug. 4, the day the appropriations were granted by the Department of Local Government Finance, she filed for an appropriation reduction to correct her mistake.Van Pelt also said it was “simply a clerical error and not any intentional act to disregard the council’s wishes.”“As far as I am concerned, this is not the first error I’ve ever made nor will it be the last, I am sure,” she said.During the closing of the press conference, Newmann said she questioned Kelson’s leadership and felt his actions proved he was not willing to communicate with other county officials and requested he resign as president of county council.Kelson said no one believes any criminal wrongdoings have occurred, and the petition was made only after the State Board of Accounts said a prosecutor should examine the incident and the prosecutor decided the petition should be filed.“This doesn’t mean a crime was committed or anyone thinks a crime was committed,” he said. “It just means we think it should be looked at.”
(09/04/08 12:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Monroe County auditor Sandra Newmann held a press conference Wednesday to address a petition requesting a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate allegations of wrongdoings and illegal activity of the Monroe County auditor’s office.Vic Kelson, president of the county council filed the petition Tuesday.Kelson filed the petition after learning that a $350,000 appropriation had been approved by the Department of Local Government Finance despite the fact that council members had denied the appropriation.After learning the appropriation had been approved, Kelson said he went to the State Board of Accounts to ask how to fix the irregularities. They told Kelson to speak with the county prosecutor, who decided the issues needed to be looked into further and contacted both the State Board of Accounts and the Department of Local Government Finance.Chief deputy prosecuting attorney Bob Miller, who filed the petition, refused to comment on both the petition and the investigation.In response to Kelson’s petition, Newmann said it was wrong of Kelson to not talk with the county auditor’s office before filing the petition.“This is not how elected officials should communicate,” Newmann said. “Not through the courts, not wasting taxpayers’ money on ridiculous court actions. Our courts are expensive enough to run without elected officials.”Newmann also said the employee who made the mistake, Kristi Van Pelt, later corrected it as soon as it was found.During the press conference, Van Pelt said she had filed the appropriations in late February after accidentally assuming they had been approved by the county council. As soon as she found the mistake on Aug. 4, the day the appropriations were granted by the Department of Local Government Finance, she filed for an appropriation reduction to correct her mistake.Van Pelt also said it was “simply a clerical error and not any intentional act to disregard the council’s wishes.”“As far as I am concerned, this is not the first error I’ve ever made nor will it be the last, I am sure,” she said.During the closing of the press conference, Newmann said she questioned Kelson’s leadership and felt his actions proved he was not willing to communicate with other county officials and requested he resign as president of county council.Kelson said no one believes any criminal wrongdoings have occurred, and the petition was made only after the State Board of Accounts said a prosecutor should examine the incident and the prosecutor decided the petition should be filed.“This doesn’t mean a crime was committed or anyone thinks a crime was committed,” he said. “It just means we think it should be looked at.”
(06/23/08 1:36pm)
Sixty-two artists came together from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today during the 28th annual Arts Fair on the Square.\nThe Bloomington Area Arts Council organized the fair, which took place outside the Monroe County courthouse.\n“It’s a beautiful place,” said Ed Vande Sande, development and marketing director for the Bloomington Area Arts Council. “We’ve resisted the temptation to move away from the courthouse to include more artists and groups.”\nArtists from all over the country, 127 in total, applied to participate in the event. Among those chosen were artists from South Central Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois and as far away as New Mexico. \nArtwork included painting, photography, woodwork, ceramic, fiber, sculpture and jewelry. \n“It’s a wonderful way to support artists throughout South Central Indiana; the bulk is mostly regional,” VandeSande said. “We’ve got some extraordinarily talented folks.”\nApril Barr and Jennie Todd, both residents of Nashville Ind., said they have attended the fair about ten times. While the two said they have greatly enjoyed every year, they said they enjoyed this year the most because of the perfect weather and the addition of new concepts, such as a smoothie stand, a professional clown and face painter and more booths.\n“It’s a great way to spend an afternoon,” Todd said. “You get to see great art and everyone from the town that you don’t usually see. It’s just a great community outing.”
(06/23/08 12:13am)
Close to 10,000 art enthusiasts walked the streets of downtown Bloomington on Saturday during the 28th annual Arts Fair on the Square.\nThe fair, which took place outside the Monroe County Courthouse from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., offered space for 62 different artists to display and sell art.\n“(The courthouse) is a beautiful place,” said Ed Vande Sande, development and marketing director for the Bloomington Area Arts Council. “We’ve resisted the temptation to move away from the courthouse to include more artists and groups.”\nArtists from all over the country, 127 in total, applied to participate in the event. Among those chosen were artists from Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois and as far away as New Mexico. Though the BAAC organized the event, Vande Sande said they did not choose the artists directly. Instead, a community jury made the decisions, which Vande Sande said he approved.\n“I honestly believe we had the best of the best this year,” he said. “This year was by far the most successful artist booths we’ve had.”\nArtwork included painting, photography, woodwork, ceramic, fiber, sculpture and jewelry. This year a new booth featuring Western art and digital art were added to the fair.\nNew to this year’s Arts Fair on the Square was a nationally recognized clown and face painter, a smoothie stand and an additional 12 booths on Sixth Street, which was closed to vehicular traffic for the day. \nApril Barr and Jennie Todd, both residents of Nashville, Ind., said they have attended the fair about 10 times. While the two said they have greatly enjoyed every year, they said they enjoyed this year the most because of the perfect weather and the addition of new attractions.\n“It’s a great way to spend an afternoon,” Todd said. “You get to see great art and everyone from the town that you don’t usually see. It’s just a great community outing.”\nArts Fair on the Square also provides a one-day venue for artisans to sell their work, Vande Sande said. \nImmediately after the event, Vande Sande said he did not have exact numbers but from the feedback he received from the artists, this year was a good year for sales. Bloomington potter and blacksmith Walt Schmidt said the arts fair is a bright spot in this floun\ndering economy.\n“Momentarily it allows me to continue what I’ve been doing for a period of time,” Walt Schmidt, a Bloomington potter and blacksmith, said. “This is my livelihood, after all.”
(06/21/08 8:48pm)
Sixty-two different artists will line the streets outside the Monroe County courthouse from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. this Saturday during the 28th annual Arts Fair on the Square.\nThe fair, which takes place in conjunction with Taste of Bloomington, offers a variety of media, artists and experiences to the 10,000-plus people who attend each year.\n“Honestly, Arts Fair on the Square has become one of the signature, most anticipated arts events in South Central Indiana,” said Ed Vande Sande, \ndevelopment and marketing director for the Bloomington Area Arts Council. “We draw people from across the country, this year from as far away as New Mexico. It’s an extraordinarily successful event.”\nOne hundred twenty-seven artists applied to obtain a spot in the fair, which Vande Sande said they have purposefully kept small in order to remain in the space outside the courthouse. A community jury then reviewed the applicants and selected 62 artists. \nVande Sande said this year there is a wide mix of types of art, including ceramic art, fabric, sculpture, painting, jewelry and metal work. Though many of the artists are regional, artists from all over the country will attend, including many from Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois.\n“(This year) we have such a good mix of local, regional and national artists and have types of media people are not used to seeing at all.”\nVande Sande said the Arts Fair on the Square started with a small group of artists who approached the Bloomington Area Arts Council to create a display to “raise awareness of the incredible amount of art” in the surrounding area and has grown tremendously since its first year.\n“It’s turned into such a wonderful thing,” he said.\nVande Sande said the event continues to be a place to experience the “rich culture of Bloomington,” and local artist Martina Celerin agreed. Celerin is a fiber artist who creates three-dimensional tapestries and has participated in this particular show since 2003. She has entered a variety of other shows including the Fourth Street Fair; the Broad Ripple Art Fair; and the Penrod Art Fair, where she won best in show. Celerin said the Arts Fair on the Square is one of the smaller shows she does, but the perfect way for her to start her summer.\n“I enjoy it so much because it’s such a pleasant environment and a well-put-together show,” she said. “It’s pleasant from an artist’s perspective and also pleasant from a buyer’s perspective. It’s just a lot of great art from a lot of local people.”\nAlthough the fair originated 28 years ago, this year it has several new concepts. Among these are a nationally recognized clown and face painter, a feature booth on Western art, a feature on digital art and an additional 12 booths that were added after it was agreed Sixth Street would be closed for the event. In addition, Vande Sande said the connection with the courthouse this year is especially important in the celebration.\n“It’s a pretty unique and spectacular courthouse and we take full advantage of that,” he said. “This is the 100th birthday of the Monroe County courthouse, which makes it even a little more fun for celebrating.”\nVande Sande said the event is a year-round effort that takes more than 100 hours of preparation to put together. However, as Saturday approaches, he is confident it will be nothing but a success for all involved.\n“There is a tremendously wide appeal and lots of activity,” he said. “It’s very much a family-oriented event and the fact that we do this in conjunction with a Taste of Bloomington makes for a very wonderful day.”
(06/15/08 11:48pm)
As rain fell on Friday, June 13, about 30 high-school students performed what some described as “most excellent” within the walls of the Wells-Metz Theatre.\n“The performance engaged the audience,” attendee Clark Whitlow said. “Afro-American music – it’s a participatory music, that’s the ultimate compliment. What they made me feel, so naturally, was alive.”\nCamp S.O.U.L, sponsored by IU’s Office of Community and Schools Partnerships, brought together underrepresented high school students from around Indiana to participate in a five-day camp, which ended in the performance. The sixth annual summer music program focused on the historical, theoretical and performance dimensions of African American music and culture, according to a press release. \n“The camp has been, first of all, musical because it engages students in Afro-American music and also, and most importantly, allows them to experience the college and university environment,” said Tyron Cooper, the founder and director of the program. “I hope it strikes their curiosity to attend college and motivate them.”\nParticipants, who were chosen through an audition process, attended the camp from June 8-13, where they worked from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day on music and choreography, as well as watched various professional performances, including a jazz combo and classical violinist.\nCamp counselor Chris Bates said the camp was more than just a place for participants to express themselves musically and to be around other kids who are as talented and driven as they are. \n“There’s a lot that goes on that will benefit them later on in life,” he said. “It’s really all about discipline because that’s the main thing that carries people on through life.”\nHowever, in addition to providing support for participants, Bates said working for Camp S.O.U.L. provided him with a great experience of his own.\n“This is one of the most positive experiences I’ve had in my own life. It is good to be able to affect someone in a positive way and allow them to take it with them,” he said. “It was good to use my life experiences to help them get through theirs.”
(11/05/07 4:37am)
Filled with phrases in all languages, meanings and colors, the 20-foot wall that occupies space throughout both the IU campus and Bloomington provides a place for passersby to write down opinions using various artistic mediums.\nThe project, “Writing on the Wall,” is part of IU’s Moveable Feast of the Arts Program and ArtsWeek 2008. It asks people to consider two questions: What is democracy and what does it look like? The walls are a collaborative project led by Betsy Stirrat, artist and director of IU’s SoFA Gallery, local artist Joe LaMantia and IU’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research.\n“Doing this wall will make people start thinking about what democracy really is,” LaMantia said. “(The word democracy) is used so much, I feel it has lost its meaning. This gives definition to the word or experience of democracy.”\nLaMantia said that he has received no negative response from the community, and has had about 400 people write their thoughts on the wall.\n“I am overwhelmed with the response given to this project, from both the students and the people in the community,” LaMantia said. “The stories people have told me in what they write are just amazing.”\nIn addition to having a large number of participants, LaMantia has received a vast variety of responses. Many languages fill the wall, including Korean, Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Arabic and Hebrew. Sophomore Madeline Wolfe, who volunteered to help with the wall, said the variety of languages have encouraged others to write because messages in their native languages inspire them to write something in response. \n“There’s a varying amount of perspective from people from different cultures,” said junior Jeremy Doyle, who also volunteered to help with the project. “It should broaden (people’s) horizons. If one person says something and another person feels the same way, then a loosely associated bond can be formed. A bridge of the gap can be made.”\nThough the campus-located wall has recently been removed from the Herman B Wells Library, it will reappear at the Kelley School of Business from Nov. 12-28 and the School of Education’s indoor atriums from Dec. 3-14. A second wall is located in front of City Hall.\nIn addition to involving the two walls located within Bloomington, the project will involve walls located at each of the IU campuses. LaMantia said it will also include panels created by five local graffiti artists from IU-Bloomington and the community, which when combined will form a 40-foot by 8-foot mural.\n“In belonging on the wall, you’re one part of a big puzzle or story,” LaMantia said. “That’s the beauty, working with a lot of people, doing something together. It’s empowering.”
(10/16/07 9:16pm)
About 50 Bloomington residents and IU students joined last night at Max’s Place, a local pizza parlor located at 109 S. Walnut St., to share and learn about 2008 Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul.\nThe event, “Ron Paul: love him or hate him?” was organized by IU Students for Ron Paul and a group of local residents. They invited those in favor, against and unaware of Paul to discuss his policies. The three-and-a-half hour event included speeches given by supporters of Paul, videos of Paul’s public appearances and performances from four local bands.\nOrganizers said they hoped to inform people who didn’t have an opinion on Paul so they could learn about his platforms on key issues such as the war in Iraq, his position as anti-abortion and his dislike for the Patriot Act. \nSophomore Jesse Gross said she attended the event without having any strong feelings for or against Paul. After watching clips of Paul’s public appearances, she said she understood why Paul has gained so many supporters. \n“I have been looking into him,” she said. “I usually vote democratic, but the candidates this year aren’t really up to par with what I think our country needs right now.”\nGross said she, however, still has objections to Paul’s stance on foreign policy, particularly his caution in providing aid to foreign countries. \nAccording to Ron Paul’s Web site, he expresses concern on providing aid to foreign countries who’s governments he says are “despised.”\nDan Forslund, a Bloomington resident who helped plan the event, said the event wasn’t planned to be perfect, it was planned to get people informed about Paul. \n“We all kind of feel the time ticking and name recognition seems to be his campaign’s biggest obstacle,” he said. “We felt a sense of urgency just about getting his name out there.”\nPaul has gained increasing popularity in the last year with his campaign, a “Hope for America.” In July, his Web site reported that his fundraising surpassed that of Sen. John McCain’s.\n“He believes in freedom,” senior Jared Schneider said. “There’s so much voter apathy these days, and it’s not because people don’t want to get involved in politics. It’s because they don’t think there is a candidate who can represent them. \n“Finally there is a candidate that can do just that. He (Paul) doesn’t find his logic and reasoning from the pages of the bible, or the party lines. He finds it in the Constitution.”\nSchneider feels that other candidates are more likely to pursue military conflict with Iran, which Paul has said he’s against. Schneider also supports Paul’s platform against the war on drugs and of decreasing the control of the federal government.\nAccording to his Web site, Paul argues against the war in Iraq, favors lowering taxes, holds an anti-abortion sentiment, wants to withdraw from the U.N. and hopes for a reform of social security. Forslund said he hopes people will better understand where Paul is coming from with his hope to reform social security and said that support given to the poor causes the federal reserve to take from money they do not have, causing debt.\n“First and foremost, it’s all about sound money,” Forslund said. “If you are going to talk about helping poor people out or anybody at or below the poverty line, you have to address the monetary issue. It’s about time.”\nThe group hopes to have more events as the election draws nearer.\n“He definitely hasn’t gotten a lot of help from the mainstream media,” said Andrew Sharp, president of IU students for Ron Paul. “That’s kind of what I think drives his supporters to help. We realize he’s not going to be able to do this on his own. He needs our support.”
(10/15/07 5:13am)
Ron Paul supporters and critics – as well as those just curious about him – will come together for a political debate about the 2008 Republican presidential hopeful from 7 to 10:30 p.m. today at a local restaurant.\nThe event, “Ron Paul: Love Him or Hate Him,” will be held at Max’s Place, located at 109 W. Seventh St. Though Max’s Place is usually closed on Mondays, the pizza restaurant will open its doors to invite people of all ages to the event. Doors open at 6 p.m., and music starts at 7 p.m. Four bands will perform, including local group Radio Friendly: Songs by American Pirates. In addition to the musical entertainment, videos about the Congressman, as well as speeches and literature, will be provided in order to encourage discussion. \n“I don’t think a lot of people know about Paul because he is not exactly a front-runner of the Republican candidates, but a lot of people in America, especially young people, would really like his ideas,” said Elli Travis, one of the grassroots organizers for IU Students for Ron Paul. “People need to be informed about the candidates in order to make an informed choice.”\nThe event was planned by a group of Bloomington residents who support Paul and IU Students for Ron Paul, which has been working to spread awareness about the candidate around campus and the city.\n“Our candidate is unique, our event is unique, with both music and political debate, and the fact that a student group has organized it is unique,” said Andrew Sharpe, president of IU Students for Ron Paul.\nThe student group, which meets at 7 p.m. every Thursday in the Indiana Memorial Union’s Redbud Room, has yet to sponsor an event as large as today’s. Members said they are eager for students – whether they love Paul, hate him or know nothing about him – to come together to discuss and learn more about him. \n“People should come out because it’s just one more event where they can have their voices heard and hang out with people who actually care about the election,” Sharpe said. “Meeting other people, talking to them and finding out how they heard about Ron Paul, how they got interested in him and what they’ve been doing (is enjoyable). You meet some really interesting people and have some awesome conversations.”
(10/11/07 4:00am)
Only a 30-minute drive from campus, Brown County provides at least a full day's worth of activity. From hearing local residents performing on guitar and bagpipes along the street to strolling through nature, WEEKEND did its best to experience the best of Brown County.\n1. Brown County State Park: Fresh air and the great outdoors make for a day of natural beauty.\n"Pretty much anyone that enjoys the outdoors would enjoy this park," said Debbie Dunbar, director of marketing and communications for the Brown County Visitors Bureau. "Absolutely, (visitors' favorite parts are) the views and the vast expanse of greenery. It's pretty much been left in its natural state."\nThe park is the largest in the state and offers horseback riding, a seasonal pool, a 20-mile mountain-bike trail, hiking, man-made overlooks, lodging and a restaurant. \n"They love the serenity of it, they like the scenery and they are in awe of how big it is and how much it has to offer," she said.\n2. The Muddy Boots Cafe: Locals fill the tables of this bright and colorful family restaurant. \nThe smell of homemade desserts and the sound of friends and family enjoying this spot make the place feel like home. \nThe cafe, which opened two months ago, offers an extensive breakfast menu, along with desserts, fruit smoothies and blended espresso drinks and juices, such as their well-known lavender lemonade, which is infused with real lavender flowers. Employees said the most popular items on the menu include "the king" and "the queen," which are chocolate- and vanilla-flavored blended espresso drinks. In addition to food, the cafe offers live music Saturday nights.\nTyra Nickel, who opened the cafe with friend and Nashville resident Roberta Myers, said the cafe has done even better than they expected, thanks to the great support locals have provided.\n"Every town needs a local cafe," she said. "We just kind of tapped into a niche."\n3. Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park and Campground: Barefoot, shirtless and free-spirited music lovers of all ages can be found wandering around the 55-acre campground. \nColonies of tents extend for miles, and campers wear little more than overalls and a smile. \nFor the most part, festivals and activities at the site tend to be geared toward bluegrass lovers. At the Bill Monroe Memorial Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival, banjo picking and guitar strumming can be heard for days. But interesting characters, events and entertainment can be found year-round for those looking for a music-filled retreat. \n4. Schwab's Fudge: The smell of chocolate and sugary treats will taunt your sweet tooth right off the bat in this shop. Mouth-watering samples make it impossible to enter without buying something, such as the chocolate-pecan fudge, which employees agree is the most popular buy. \nWatch sweets being baked, molded, cut and packaged right before your eyes. Though Nashville has quite the selection of sweets and treats, locals seem to agree that Mr. Schwab's is the place to go for fudge and caramel corn.\n5. Schooner Valley Stables: The crispness of fall air, the calming effect of vast, open space and the liberating feeling of nature sailing by as you ride on the back of a beautiful stallion creates an unforgettable experience. Debbie Dunbar, diretor of marketing and communications for the Brown County Visitors Bureau said Brown County offers three horseback-riding stables, all of which offer similar terrain. \n"It's getting the opportunity to get out on horseback and view the countryside from a different perspective," Dunbar said.\nRiding at Schooner is $20 per hour. More information can be found at www://schoonervalleystables.homestead.com/. \n6. Brown County Playhouse: The venue's quaint, colorful decor, along with the intimate feel of the small auditorium, make this site appealing even before seeing any of the performances. Special pricing for ages 25 and under allow for the theatrical performances to be affordable entertainment for the average college student. Now playing at the BCP is Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite." \n7. Yesteryear Tintype: Visitors take a step back in time upon entering this photo studio. Cowboys, mountain men, dance-hall girls and flappers come together to create an experience that cannot be found in Bloomington. The bright-red bodices, ruffled skirts, feather boas and rifles and pistols allow customers to become a variety of characters. Tintype boasts the largest costume selection in Brown County and offers a large collection of backdrops.\n8. Men's Toy Shop: Row after rows of cigars, pipes and various flavors of tobacco join civil-war chess sets, pool sticks and NASCAR and Beatles paraphernalia within the walls of the Men's Toy Shop. Men of all ages come together inside this small store found in the center of Nashville, Ind.. This shop is definitely geared toward a specific type of customer, but the average male college student will probably find some form of entertainment in this store.
(10/03/07 4:29am)
A $1 million grant given to sexual health researchers has provided them an opportunity to greatly expand their work through the development of the new IU Center for Sexual Health Promotion.\nThe Patty Brisben Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to benefit women and sexual health, awarded the grant to the Sexual Health Research Working Group, created by Michael Reece, associate professor of applied health science and the group’s director. The Center will be given space in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.\n“It was very exciting because it’s taken what we’ve been doing together for a while to a whole new level,” said Brian Dodge, associate director for the center. “It is part of an evolutionary process towards broadening the scope and really keeping IU on the map as sort of the place to do work related to sexual health.”\nThe Sexual Health Research Working Group, which Reece founded five years ago, works to advance the field of sexual health through research, education and training initiatives, according to its Web site. The group has six core research areas, including innovative venues and tools for sexual health promotion, women’s sexual health, men’s sexual health, psychological health and care seeking following HIV or STI diagnosis, strengthening theoretical and conceptual approaches to sexual health research and international sexual health research. The group also offers various opportunities for students to learn more about sexual health, like a seminar set to take place Nov. 29 titled “Black Bisexual Men and HIV: Time to Think Deeper.” \nDodge said the new center will become not only a physical space where researchers involved in sexual health can come to work, but it will provide a place for researchers from all over to come together and share ideas. He also said the development of the center will make it easier for the Sexual Health Research Program to gain support, grants and contracts.\n“Our goal with this center is for it to be a unifying place, where people who are interested in sexual health research and training can collaborate,” Dodge said. “It is also one of the first centers of its kind that is at a university focusing specifically on sexual health issues.”\nThe center will officially open Oct. 22, when it hosts the 2007 Sexual Health Summit. Dodge said the summit will bring together leaders from various organizations to discuss and debate the current standing of sexual health in Indiana and to set goals and make plans for the future of sexual health education and research.\nThe grant will last from 2007 to 2013, and is part of a collective $1.3 million that the Patty Brisben Foundation has given IU since 2004.\n“At IUB we have a very strong tradition now in sexuality related work,” said Stephanie Sanders, associate director of The Kinsey Institute. “This is just a reflection of this growth. It strengthens this campus for a center for this growth.”\nWhile researchers await the center’s official opening, Dodge said many are eager for the opportunities it will provide.\n“Overall, it’s a very exciting time for us, but also for other people who are involved and who have been involved in sexual health researching here at IU and all over,” Dodge said. “Hopefully, the center is going to help facilitate partnerships and collaborations that before wouldn’t be possible.”\nFor more information on the Center for Sexual Health Promotion or the Sexual Health Summit, visit the Center’s Web site at www.sexualhealth.indiana.edu.
(07/29/07 9:06pm)
Graduate student Betsy Uschkrat breathes a sigh of relief as a tight blonde curl falls from underneath her brown wig. What has been for most students a night no different than any other, has been Uschkrat’s escape to another world.\nUschkrat and her cast mates have spent the evening entertaining an auditorium of eager ears with the second opening night of the Jacobs School of Music’s most recent opera “The Elixir of Love.”\n“It’s very whimsical and fun, but it’s a love story,” Uschkrat said. “It’s a real upbeat show.”\nThe show is playing July 27 and 28 and Aug. 4 and 5, with two casts alternating between shows. It is an Italian opera that tells the tale of a young boy and girl who fall in love but are too scared to profess their love to one another. \nWhen the girl Adina agrees to marry a sergeant stationed in the village in order to make her true love Nemorino jealous, Nemorino is left with no choice but to buy the love potion being sold by a “doctor” passing through their village. Both Adina and Nemorino fight to gain the other’s love, according to the event Web site.\n“I have a comedic role, and I am one of the only real comedic characters in the opera,” said Carl Dupont, who plays the doctor on July 27 and Aug. 4. “It’s just great when you can make people laugh and act a fool and have people appreciate it.”\nUschkrat said the cast has been preparing since February, when auditions took place. She said she immediately started studying the language, her lines and the notes and movements on stage. Practices with the conductor took place for a week, followed by staging rehearsals with the director, Uschkrat said.\n“I think (the most enjoyable part) was learning a new style and a new language and absorbing as much information as I can,” she said.\nMany audience members had positive reactions to the opera.\n“The set design and the lighting and the chorus, all of the minor details were paid attention to well,” said Chad Reagan, a Denver resident in attendance. “Musically it was outstanding, and dramatically it was very good as well. It was the best collegiate performance I’ve ever been to.”\nReagan attended the performance in support of a friend who was in the chorus and said he attended both nights and both were equally enjoyable, with each character displaying different strengths.\nAlice McKinley, whose granddaughter was in the chorus and traveled from Louisville to see the performance, said it was one of the best she had seen at IU and that Uschkrat and Alan Dunbar, who played the doctor, were two performers she looked forward to seeing again on stage.\n“The quality of the performance was excellent,” she said. “It was just fun and engaging with the audience. The characters could really bring the audience into the performance.”\nLana Bode is a senior who works as an usher for the show. She said though the number of audience members is smaller now than during the school year, there is still a large number of people attending the summer event.\n“(The audience) has liked it. It’s a comedic opera, so they’ve been laughing a lot,” Bode said.\nUschkrat said the cast has not only been receiving positive reinforcement from the audience but from their teachers and directors as well.\n“(The reaction has been) very positive,” she said. “I’ve gotten a lot of support in trying all these new styles. On the night of my dress rehearsal, the director came in and told me I really was Adina up there on stage.”\nThe performance is wrapping up the Jacobs School of Music’s 2007 summer festival, which showcases various faculty and students from the school of music. Tickets are $12 for students and $20 full price and can be purchased at the Musical Arts Center Box Office or online at ticketmaster.com.
(07/26/07 12:47am)
While getting paid to stare at pictures for three hours might seem like an unlikely summer job, the Biobehavioral Alcohol Research Laboratory is making it a reality with its project in attention-biases and hot cognition in drug dependence.\nAccording to its Web site, the laboratory is conducting research to investigate attention biases to reward stimuli in drug-dependent individuals and how the biases are associated with personality, anti-social traits and learning.\n“We ask people to call us if they are interested in participating, and we administer a phone screening,” Laboratory Director Jesolyn Lucas said. \nThough the grant given to the study allows for 400 to 500 participants, the program now has about 150. However, this number tends to be even lower during the summer, when Bloomington is home to fewer young adults. Lucas said that in the summer, testing slows down to somewhere between a quarter and one-third of its usual participation level. \nMartin Rickert, a research scientist and scientific director for the laboratory, said the decrease in participants does not have a negative effect on the study, because scientists focus on other things during the summer, such as writing manuscripts, examining results, creating new experiments, data entries and hiring new assistants.\n“Things slow down,” he said, “but that kind of works into the course of the project.” \nRickert also said experimenters target different parts of the sample, depending on what is available. He said that during the summer, members of the group that do not have a dependence on any kind of substance might be recruited more.\nThe four major groups the study is interested in testing are: individuals who do not drink or do drugs, individuals who show a dependence on alcohol, individuals who show a dependence on marijuana and individuals who show a dependence on multiple drugs.\nIn order to take part in the study, participants take part in three sessions for three hours each with a $10-an hour-compensation. During these sessions, participants do things such as interviews, questionnaires and eye-tracking.\nEye-tracking is an advanced form of technology that allows the scientists to map the participant’s line of vision to determine a reaction to a series of photos. The pictures may contain a variety of stimuli, including alcohol, marijuana, gruesome scenes or everyday occurrences. Lucas said participants with a substance abuse problem may have difficulty looking away from photos of their substance of choice.\nThe study is being funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Awareness and is taking place within the IU psychology department. \nRickert said, however, that it is not a reflection of IU students but rather substance abusers as a whole.\n“The study is a targeted sample that is representative of the population at large,” he said. “(IU) is just where we get our sample.”\nFor more information on the experiments, or becoming a participant, visit the study’s Web site, subsci.org.
(07/26/07 12:21am)
After nearly two months of preparation, the IU Opera will premier Gaetano Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love,” also known as “L’Elisir d’Amore,” at 8 p.m. Friday in the Musical Arts Center.\nThe performances will be held July 27 and 28 and Aug. 3 and 4. This event will wrap up the Jacobs School of Music Summer 2007 Music Festival, which began June 17. The festival is meant to showcase various internationally renowned musicians along with Jacobs School of Music faculty and students.\nThe opera, according to the event program, is about a young Italian country boy who is trying to win the love of a well-to-do young farm owner, but is too shy to act upon his love. A doctor arrives in the village offering the “elixir of love” that can solve all of the town’s problems, and a comedic plot unfolds.\nThe cast consists of five main characters and about 30 chorus members, although the casts for the July 27 and Aug. 4 performances will be different than those for the July 28 and Aug. 3 performances.\n“My colleagues are all students, but they have been really talented, and it has been a pleasure working with all of them,” said Carl DuPont, who is playing the role of Dr. Dulcamara for the June 27 and Aug. 4 performances. “The conductor was very knowledgeable, as far as style. In a case like this, there are a lot of stylistic things that aren’t written in \nthe music.”\nDuPont said in order to prepare for their roles, cast members were sent through various stages of preparation, including language classes with an Italian language instructor from Rome, voice lessons and learning stage directions.\n“It’s exhausting trying to get everything just right,” DuPont said. “ But at the same time, it’s very thrilling. When it does come together, it’s palpable and you are able to see (the audience’s) responses.”\nGuest director Andrew Sinclair has been working with the cast to perfect the performance. Sinclair won an Emmy Award at the 1989 International Television Emmy Awards.\n“Andrew Sinclair has been a lot of fun to work with. He’s giving us, his actors, a lot of freedom, which has been really great,” DuPont said. “He’s really inspired some good drama from us.”\nWhat sets this particular opera apart from most others is its comedic plot, something that has proved enjoyable for the performers.\n“I have a comedic role, and I am one of the only real comedic characters in the opera,” DuPont said. “It’s just great when you can make people laugh and when you can act a fool and have people appreciate it.”\nGeneral admission tickets are $20, and student tickets are $12.
(07/19/07 12:30am)
Coordinators of the annual Lotus World Music & Arts Festival held their kick-off event, Summer Night of Lotus, on Friday to announce the lineup for the 14th installment of the annual event, set to take place Sept. 27-30.\nTwenty-one artists are currently lined up to perform, though they are subject to change. All but the group Balkan Beat Box are new to the event this year.\nArtists from all over the world, with acts ranging from traditional and modern Slovenian funk to Louisiana old-time music are scheduled to perform during the September weekend.\nEach year, the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation organizes and plans the festival. Director Lee Williams said artists come to Lotus from all over the globe.\n“Not very many of (the artists) are household names for students or members of the community, so people come to the festival to discover artists,” Williams said.\nBalkan Beat Box will be the most commonly known group this year, Williams said. The band will be performing at the festival for the third consecutive year. \nBalkan Beat Box is a group of seven to eight musicians from around the world who use instruments and dance moves to create a performance that, according to their Web site, is “synchronized to keep the audience guessing where the next surprise will appear from.”\nActor and singer/songwriter Jeff Daniels and Balkan Beat Box are the only two performances set for Thursday night, because both will attract such large crowds. Daniels will be performing at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, while Balkan Beat Box can be seen in an outdoor tent.\n“It’s going to be crazy. (Balkan Beat Box) draws a huge crowd. The fact that we only have them for one night, I think is going to bring a lot of people out,” said Michael Valliant, a member of a committee that oversees venue placement and direction.\nPlanning for the Lotus Festival lineup usually begins around February and ends in June, but Williams said work is always in progress for the event and that he is already considering 10 or more artists for the 2008 festival. He said he chooses from a group of 200 to 300 artists each year.\n“When we were first starting out, when no one, not even in Bloomington, knew who we were, it was really hard,” he said. “Lots of people want to play Lotus now because we are so well-established.”\nThough the festival only lasts four days, Williams said it has a substantial effect on the city. Hotels and local businesses see an increase each year in business from attendees. \nTosha Daugherty, director of marketing and communications for the Bloomington Conventions & Visitors Bureau, said that this year the city is expecting a $150,000 economic impact from the performers alone.\n“Much bigger than the economic impact, Lotus makes people smile,” Williams said. “They walk around and just can’t believe how wonderful it is. It’s pretty intense. You are walking all over the place, trying to take in as much music as possible.”\nLast year’s festival had about 6,600 attendees, many of whom were IU students. This year’s turnout is expected to be even bigger. Williams said attendance rises almost annually, sometimes as much as 5 percent. \nThough the large number of attendees means street closings and heavy traffic for a large portion of Bloomington, locals still welcome the event each year. \n“The community is always very supportive of Lotus. It’s not only a great event for visitors, but for locals as well who volunteer,” Daugherty said. “It’s just a really great community event.”
(07/09/07 12:16am)
Come February 2009, IU will become home for one weekend to more than 1,500 attendees of the 15th annual Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender Ally College Conference. \n“I think (the conference) will help open the community up and hopefully provide a greater sense of unity both between gays, lesbians and allies and everybody else, because it will need so much manpower,” sophomore Kadie Dunkel said.\nDoug Bauder, coordinator of the GLBT Student Support Services office, said he and six IU students, including Dunkel and Rob Decleene, director of tourism for the Conventions and Visitors Bureau, made a formal bid at last year’s conference at the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. Coordinators accepted the bid, allowing the group to begin preparation for the 2009 conference “Living Out Loud: Examining our Past to Enhance our Future.”\n“(Last year’s conference) was an amazing experience that offered a very large sense of community while still having a lot of educational opportunities,” Dunkel said.\nThough the conference has not yet been fully planned, Bauder said there will be keynote speakers and individual workshops in various topics ranging from personal issues to political to religion. \nGuest speakers have not yet been chosen, but Bauder said planners are expecting to know who those people will be sometime after this year’s conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.\nBauder also said that, though there tend to be mostly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender attendees, a fair number of straight people attended last year’s convention. He said many friends of gays choose to attend the event in support.\n“Anybody who comes would enjoy it. It’s open to anybody, but it’s specifically geared to people who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, bi or transgender,” he said. “It certainly could be an educational experience for anyone.”\nThe Midwest conference is among the best-attended programs among the GLBT conferences. Bauder said that could be because the Midwest offers more GLBT resources than coastal areas. Bauder also said the size of the conference makes it appealing to performers and entertainers who planners might try to bring to the 2009 conference.\n“There were so many people (at last year’s conference). I was surprised by the number because it is a Midwest thing,” Dunkel said. “I don’t necessarily think of that many college-age Midwestern youth being active enough to go to a three-day conference, and there were people from all over the Midwest there.”\nDeCleene said the city is expecting to make about $400,000 from the conference, and Bloomington’s large gay and lesbian community has led to more of an effort from the Bloomington Convention and Visitors Bureau to appeal to gay and lesbian travelers. Bauder said that Bloomington has a lot to offer in terms of facilities and climate, making it an ideal place to host the conference.\n“We have a large, open and accepting campus,” Dunkel said. “The Kinsey Institute is a perk, and I think Bloomington has the resources that would be needed.”\nEven though the event is still in the early planning stages, DeCleene said the general reaction from the community has been positive.\n“(The community’s) reaction has been fantastic,” DeCleene said. “Our office has received no negative phone calls. I think it will be a very welcoming community and campus for these people for the weekend.”
(07/05/07 4:44pm)
Eighteen undergraduate students recently returned from a 25-day trip to Ghana. The trip ran from May 11 through June 3 and allowed the group to travel throughout Ghana not only to learn about Ghanaian culture, but about the transatlantic slave trade as well.\n“It’s almost always a life-changing experience,” said Kevin Brown, law professor and director of Hudson and Holland Scholars Program. “Certainly for Americans who have never visited a third-world country, it will be an eye-opening experience. \n“Since this has such a strong focus on African transatlantic slave trade, they are forced to think about slavery in a way they never have before. When Americans travel throughout third-world countries, they really run into a lot of people whose desire it is to come to America, so in a way you are experiencing, for three-and-a-half weeks, lives of people who idealize the place you live in.”\nThe trip is run by both the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program, an IU scholarship program that Brown said recruits students to increase the Bloomington campus’ diversity, and the Groups program. The first trip took place in the summer of 2002 and a trip also took place in the summer of 2006.\n“Vice President Charlie Nelms was aware of the fact that I had organized programs to send law students to Mozambique in South Africa, so he asked me to organize a group to send undergraduate students to Africa,” Brown said. “We thought it would be great to have students travel to Ghana to have them learn about the African side of transatlantic slave trade.”\nThe application process was not long, and everyone who applied and could afford the $4,600 cost was accepted, though Brown said that had there been many more applicants a selection process would have been necessary.\nBecause the trip counted for course credit in the African-American and African Diaspora Studies department, the students were required to write a series of three papers. The first paper was due prior to the students’ departure and was about slavery as it relates to America. The last two were due after the students returned. The first was about slavery as it relates to Africa, and the second was a comparison between Ghanian and American cultures. “(The papers) got me thinking on an academic level,” sophomore Dominique McGee said. “They were a great way to make sure I reflected on a lot of the things I saw over there.”\nPrior to their departure, the group of students met for about six weeks, where they learned about slavery, Ghanian culture and the history of Ghana both as a modern country and as an ancient civilization. \n“We had informational meetings every Thursday to talk about the culture and what to do and what not to do,” junior Floyd Hobson said. “A lot of it was beneficial, but as a college student, a lot of it was over your head. I thought ‘It can’t possibly be this bad.’ Nothing was more beneficial as when we got out there and saw it for ourselves. It was a culture shock.”\nHobson said he went on the trip partly to learn about a different culture but mainly to find out about his heritage and ancestors, the reason most of the students also went on the trip.\n“The main reason why I went is because I am really involved in the African Student association. I thought it would be a great way for me to relate to the students in that group,” McGee said. “It also was almost like I was making the trip for my entire family. It was the first of many steps of trying to track back my roots.”\nMany of the students agreed that the hardest part of the trip was the lack of basic necessities readily available in the U.S., such as electricity and running water .\n“Even though it was unfortunate that we didn’t have electricity, one of the after-effects of that was that we had to get creative and a lot of times we would get together as a group and make our own fun. I think it brought us a lot closer as a group because we did not have those things,” McGee said.\nThough the lack of Internet, showers and electricity made life in Ghana more difficult for the group, almost all the students agreed that the experience was well-worth the lack of every day comforts found in the U.S.\n“After the trip I felt like I had learned a lot. The main objective of the trip was to learn about the slave trade, so obviously I learned a lot about that, but I took so much more from it than I was expecting. I thought it would be just a college course where we learn about slave trade, so I wasn’t expecting it to be such an all encompassing trip,” McGee said.
(06/13/07 11:22pm)
The twang of a banjo, the pluck of the guitar and the experience of a lifetime is music to the ears of Bill Monroe Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival attendees. Campsites extend for miles, vendors are plentiful and music is always playing, while people from all over the country reconnect and reminisce during the annual meeting.\nJust north of Nashville, Ind., off State Road 135N is Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Memorial Music Park & Campground, a 55-acre tract of land that boasts the world’s longest-running bluegrass festival.\nThe festival, which began June 9 and will run through June 16, is celebrating its 41st year and offers events such as instrument workshops, a bluegrass boot camp for kids and performances from more than 50 bands.\n“Last year there were people from eight foreign countries and 48 states. It’s a cultural experience here. People come from everywhere to Bean Blossom every year,” Event Coordinator Becky Sanders said.\nWorkshops, various vendors, 38 performers and plenty of people to meet are in store for the rest of the week.\nIndianapolis resident Steve Johnson said he has been attending the festival for 30 years.\n“The most fun for me is being with people I’ve known for 30 years and jamming,” Johnson said. \nOne of the festival’s biggest and most well-known performers is Dr. Ralph Stanley, one of the only remaining first-generation bluegrass players, who according to his Web site, is the best banjo picker and tenor singer in bluegrass music and has performed on more than 170 records, CDs and tapes. Stanley is set to play Saturday, and many bluegrass fans have traveled to Bean Blossom solely to see him, according to the festival program.\nOne legend that has been with the festival since 1966 is a man festival goers know as “Chubby.” He has earned the title as the campground’s head of security, but Chubby once drove the tour bus of Jimmy Martin, the bluegrass player known as the “King of Bluegrass” and ambassador of the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival, prior to his death in 2005.\n“Lord have mercy – I feel for that man. He is out of this world, my buddy Ralph Stanley,” Chubby said. \nBluegrass fans of all ages and from all over the country have traveled to the Bill Monroe Memorial Campground this week. Diana Biddle, a campground employee, said not only have people come from all over the country, including Florida, Arizona and California, but from all over the world, with attendees from Scotland, England and France at this year’s festival.\n“There’s no typical demographic here. I have Mennonite families, I have parents with young children, I have older retired citizens. I have a sampling of every type of demographic you could imagine,” Biddle said. “It’s not typical to one group; everybody across the board likes bluegrass.”\nOne of the biggest differences between the event this year and previous years is that this year seems to have even more attendees than usual. During the course of the eight-day festival they will be expecting between 30,000 and 40,000 attendees, and last weekend proved to be the largest opening weekend the Bean Blossom Festival has experienced, Biddle said.\n“It’s more crowded this year, with the amount of time it’s been and the amount of people already here,” Johnson said. “If it holds true for the rest of the week, it will be the biggest it has ever been.”\nOne factor that allows the festival to boast its name as the “Mecca of Bluegrass Music” is the extensive lineup of more than 50 performers, chosen by campground owner Dwight Dillman. He said performers send in a pack with tapes, and the campground negotiates their pay based on how many tickets they believe the performer can sell.\n“We are always interested in local bluegrass bands and trying to give them a chance,” Dillman said. “Everybody’s got to start somewhere.”\nOnce given a chance to play at the festival, most performers agree that it is both a benefit, due to the large number of attendees who come to the festival, and an honor, because of the many famous performers on the lineup.\n“This is the granddaddy of all festivals. It’s a great place to play. It looks good on a resume. It’s kind of like the Grand Ole Opry – everybody wants to play the Bean Blossom,” festival ambassador Karl Shiflett said. Shiflett began playing at the festival in the 1980s with his former band “The Sullivan Family.” He said he currently participates in the festival with his band “Karl Shiflett and the Big Country Show.”\nBiddle said the campground has very limited electricity availability, but self-contained and primitive camping is readily available for those interested. Tickets for the festival can be bought at the campground. Tickets for the festival on Wednesday and Thursday are $25 apiece and Friday and Saturday tickets are $30, prices that many of the attendees feel is a steal for the experience the Bean Blossom provides.\n“It’s wholesome entertainment, family entertainment and a chance to hear a musical art form being preserved,” Shiflett said.\nFor more information on the festival and other events at Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Memorial Music Park and Campground, visit their Web site at www.beanblossom.com.
(06/11/07 12:54am)
Behind the doors of a quaint, single-story tan bungalow in the heart of Broad Ripple lays a world of creativity and color.\nBroad Ripple Art and Design is located on the southwest corner of Winthrop Avenue in Indianapolis. The gallery’s philosophy is to connect consumers to a community of artisans committed to outstanding quality, design, professionalism, customer service and integrity, according to their Web site. \nThe gallery contains artwork from a variety of materials, including wood, stone, metal, paint, glass, water, light, ceramic and fiber.\nBRAD planned an exhibit titled “A Summer Affair” that began June 8 and will run through Aug. 7. The exhibit has a variety of different pieces from Hoosier artists and craftsmen. Pieces ranging from glass, wood and steel furniture, hanging art, ceramics, glass, limestone, wrought iron and concrete can be found amongst the 17 different artisans being featured, with prices ranging from $50 to $3500.\n“There is nothing like it anywhere. We are absolutely unique because we cover all media,” said Doug Arnholter, co-owner of BRAD, who has concrete work of his own being shown in the exhibit. “These are samples. Any piece anyone looks at can be customized. If someone came to us today and asked us to make the Statue of Liberty, we could say ‘OK.’ We have the craftsmen, the artists and the materials to do that.”\nWhat makes this gallery different from others is that instead of simply displaying art for customers to purchase, the gallery offers 45 artists who have the potential to build anything a customer desires. Arnholter explained that various projects such as spiral staircases, floors or swimming pool decks are possible requests from customers.\n“We look at the project and decide who will be good to create it. It’s about synergy,” he said.\nIndianapolis resident Sofia Inger is an acrylic painter who enjoys using different media. She has three acrylic paintings on canvas displayed at “A Summer Affair.” It is her first time displaying art at BRAD. She is optimistic about the results of showing art at BRAD and looks forward to seeing the benefits.\n“They have good designers and craftspeople, and they have an interesting program that they are doing,” she said. “Since I am new to the group I cannot say how my art will turn out there, but I am hoping for some results. This group is kind of a new thing for me.”\nIndianapolis resident Lynn Medsker said she feels displaying art at BRAD has a vast number of benefits. She has been displaying her art, which includes photography, digital art, digital collage and collage on canvas, since the gallery opened this past fall and feels that the exhibit has a lot to offer to the consumer.\n“I loved all the bright colors, and that the space felt so open,” Medsker said. “It was refreshing. I think (people) would be intrigued with it because there are so many different kinds of art there. I also like that it is shown in a home setting so you can envision how the art would look in a home, as opposed to in a big gallery where it would be hard to see what it looks like in a home.”\nHe is not, however, sure what kind of a reaction he will receive from the public, Arnholter is hoping for an encouraging one.\n“We always get a very positive reaction to every show we’ve ever had. People are pretty amazed by what we can do here,” he said. “We look forward to whoever wanders in and to how we can help them create their dreams. You can dream it, we can conceptualize it and we can make it.”\nFor more information on “A Summer Affair’ or Broad Ripple Art and Design, visit their Web site at www.broadrippleart.com.