Couch ban
Couches, armchairs and futons are among the traditional indoor furniture banned from Bloomington front porches.
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Couches, armchairs and futons are among the traditional indoor furniture banned from Bloomington front porches.
Couches, armchairs and futons are among the traditional indoor furniture banned from Bloomington front porches.
A month into his doctoral studies, Martin Law learned his department would be merged.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS — A young man on his usual morning walk early Tuesday morning was attacked, shot and left bleeding from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.Nathan Trapuzzano, 24, collapsed in the front parking lot of Tron Tire Shop on the 3500 block of W. 16th St. and died at Eskenazi Hospital soon after. It was another murder in an already busy year. In a 40-hour period starting Sunday, five people were shot and killed in Indianapolis.By 9 a.m., tire shop worker Gerareo Barraza was covering the dried blood with gravel and bits of dirt. “Cars will park here on it,” he said. Only small rust-colored patches in the gravel hinted at the chaos of hours earlier. “We preferred to cover it. It’s just respect.”Police are still investigating Tuesday’s shooting, as well as two shootings Sunday that killed four people. The particularly bloody weekend in Indianapolis was the most active period since eight people were shot and killed Feb. 20 through 21. As of March 29, there were 33 criminal homicides, an increase of 10 percent from the same point last year, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The recent violence brings this year’s total to at least 38. All build on 2013, the city’s most active year for criminal homicides since 2006. “We have seen a recent uptick in homicides that is not easily explained,” IMPD Sergeant Kendale Adams said in an email. “There are a number of factors that contribute to our recent uptick. Some obvious and some not so obvious.”The shootings come after a number of efforts in March to address violence in the city. A multi-organization initiative to reduce black-on-black crime, “Your Life Matters,” was announced in mid-March by city leaders. On March 20, the mayor led a meeting at the Indianapolis Central Library to engage community members in tackling the problems that lead to violence. Just last week, community groups released their Citywide Crime Prevention and Reduction Plan, a nearly eight-month effort that lays out a blueprint for reducing crime.Reverend Charles Ellis of the Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based organization seeking to reduce violence in and around Indianapolis, said the recent homicides are cause for concern, he said context is important. “You’d say, ‘Oh my gosh. What’s going on?’” he said of the cluster of murders. “But you have to look at it with a little bit of balance. There is an ebb and a flow.”The recent cluster of violence started with a series of non-fatal shootings beginning late Saturday night and into early Sunday morning.Then, Sunday afternoon, in a strip mall on the city’s east side, a shoplifting at a clothing store turned violent, claiming the life of Ho Shin Lee, 36, of Noblesville, Ind. Lee was shot in the head and later died at Eskenazi Hospital during surgery. Detectives believe he was not a regular employee of the Body Gear store at 2816 E. 38 St. but was a family friend helping out the owners that day. Lee was shot, witnesses told police, when he attempted to stop a number of suspects from stealing. Diamond Slaughter, 19, of Indianapolis suffered a gunshot wound to the leg. She was taken to the hospital in good condition. Deaundre Graves, 18, and a 17-year-old boy have since been arrested following the Body Gear shooting. Investigators are still looking for other suspects that entered the store with Graves and the 17-year-old, Adams said. Later that day, about 11:30 p.m., police found one man with gunshot wounds outside a far eastside apartment complex on the 9500 block of Shoreland Court. They also found another man and a woman, both with gunshot wounds, in an apartment. James Czajkowski, 59, Stephen Herold, 58, and Martha Zuluaga, 53, were pronounced dead on the scene.Adams said drug paraphernalia was found inside the apartment. “There’s probably a nexus between the drugs and the victims and the suspect,” he said Tuesday evening. With no suspect in custody, the triple killing investigation continues. Like other big cities, Ellis said, Indianapolis has work to do. “I think what we have to do is not look at homicide as a daily running scoresheet,” the reverend said. “We need to look at the people and figure out how to get them out of that life.”In the most recent murder, the death of Nathan Trapuzzano, police are asking for the community’s help in catching two suspects. The first forced the victim in between two businesses while the other served as a lookout, according to police. The first suspect struggled with the victim before Trapuzzano was shot, after which the suspects fled in different directions. Barraza said he hears gunfire in the community every so often. But when the dead body arrived in front of his workplace Tuesday morning, it caught him off guard.At about noon, Barbara Avila walked past the tire shop. She was getting off her shift at the McDonald’s just blocks away. “This used to be a nice neighborhood,” Aviles said shaking her head. “But then, I don’t know what happened.”An eight-year resident of the area, Aviles said violence in her neighborhood has seemed worse in recent months. She doesn’t see a clear reason behind the violence, she said. “It just gets worse and worse.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It was humbling, cleaning other people’s messes. She pushed her cart down the halls of the Bloomington Courtyard Marriott, running through her mental checklist. In every room, she made the beds, changed the towels and checked to make sure the Bible was still in the dresser drawer.In her old life, before the state took away her nursing license, Judy Stall had been entrusted with the care of veterans and post-surgical patients. Now she scrubbed toilets.At 57, she was starting from nothing. Years of drinking had robbed her of herself. Home, nursing career, husband, two sons — all lost to the disease. With no friends, no family and few possessions to her name, she was working back toward some kind of life.This is the way it has to be, she told herself. At least for now.Sometimes, when she cleaned up after guests who had left behind empty bottles of wine or liquor, the clinking of the bottles in her cart would taunt her. Other days, she would walk into a room and find unopened bottles of beer. Heineken had always been her weakness, and in these moments, she would debate whether she should take the unopened bottles.They’re too good to waste, she thought. I could just stick them in my sack and find someone to give them to.That was when Stall would close her eyes and pray. If she could steady herself and resist the temptation for 15 minutes, the urges would pass.With her checklist, she found order. Room by room, she was making things right. * * * The addictions of the moment — heroin, methamphetamine and prescription painkillers — currently hold the nation’s attention. Yet alcohol remains the most abused drug in the United States. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more than 17 million Americans suffer from alcoholism or exhibit harmful drinking habits.In many ways, Judy Stall’s story is familiar. But in Bloomington, a college town that celebrates youth and excess drinking, she is almost invisible.Stall came to Bloomington in July 2012 after spending nine months behind bars at the Hancock County Jail. She had already lost her family and had been convicted several times of DUI.Her recovery began inside a muted yellow house that sits just off the B-Line trail downtown. The Amethyst Women’s House, a not-for-profit halfway house, helps women recovering from drug and alcohol abuse.Amethyst House Executive Director Mark DeLong said Bloomington is atypical compared to other Indiana towns in its number of social support resources. From substance abuse to housing to employment services, Bloomington is a Mecca for those in need of a hand up.Stall had her pick of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to attend. There are about 50 AA/Narcotics Anonymous meetings each week in Bloomington. “You need to start from day one thinking what your life’s going to look like,” DeLong said. “Where are you going to live? How are you going to reconnect with your children? There’s so much on the table to figure out.”When Stall arrived, she joined more than a dozen other women trying, like her, to reclaim their lives. The Amethyst program keeps the women in the home for at least six months, but many stay longer, some up to two years.For Stall, structure was key. Chores and curfews. Her job at the Marriott, her evenings in AA meetings and intensive outpatient therapy sessions. No deviations. She knew her program. She knew her triggers. She understood the fragility of her recovery. Each day was a test.Her nursing license remained folded in her wallet — worthless until she could get off probation. Before her jail term, she had cared for patients for more than 20 years, employed at a number of hospitals. She also traveled across the state as an agency nurse, a freelancer moving from hospital to hospital and working with pediatrics to geriatrics. The job paid well, but the money supported her addiction. Her responsibility for her patients fed a God-like sense of power.“Kryptonite couldn’t bring me down,” she said.Before the addiction took over, Stall says, she had two grown sons from her first marriage, both IU graduates, and a loving new husband. They lived in Zionsville, Ind. She had struggled with alcohol for years, particularly after the death of her father, but felt like she was in control when she remarried in 1999.She told herself she could handle it, but soon she was bingeing. The marriage lasted until 2006, when her second husband could take no more and left.The divorce kicked off a six-year spiral into oblivion.“I tried to kill myself,” she says, stretching out her arms to show the thin white slashes that covered her wrists. When that didn’t work, she tried overdosing. Twice. “I hated myself.”She hoped for death. There were days that slipped away, lost to a booze-soaked sleep. Sometimes when she awoke, she was sad to still be breathing. She had racked up multiple DUIs and lost her driver’s license.Almost nine months in the Hancock County Jail broke her down to her most basic needs. She can still remember the chill of the mattress and the threadbare sheets. The wailing of other inmates filled her ears as she attempted to sleep each night.When Stall was released, not a single family member was waiting to welcome her back. Her adult sons, Tom and Mike, were embarrassed and hurt and fed up with her. They had largely cut off contact. She last heard from her younger son, Mike, in an email laced with foul language. She kept a print-out and would sometimes read it to remind her of the pain she had caused her children.Even now, when she walks through town, she sometimes makes eye contact with college students and sees younger versions of her sons looking back.“The memories start flooding and I’ll start to cry,” she said.She can’t afford to linger on these feelings. She doesn’t know when she’ll see her boys again.But if she doesn’t stay sober, they’ll never allow her near them.* * * Stall’s six-month anniversary in Amethyst was Feb. 7, 2013. Though she graduated from the program that day, she wasn’t ready to leave. She re-upped for three more months. “I want to get grounded before I make that move because I don’t trust myself,” Stall said. “I’m a little nervous about being alone.”Support was plentiful, but true understanding was harder to find in the house, which was populated mostly by younger women whose perspectives on recovery were different. Stall’s one good friend in the program was 52-year-old Janeta Kimball.Kimball noticed how much Stall had changed from the broken woman who had arrived six months before.“She was weary in her spirit. She was weary physically,” Kimball said. “Now because she can see the personal achievements she’s made, there’s a brightness to her. There’s a lightness in her spirit.”That February, Stall talked about how much she wanted to return to nursing. Her plan was to eventually ask the state board to reinstate her license.In three months, she said, she would see whether she felt strong enough to leave Amethyst. Maybe she would get a dog and settle into an apartment.“I don’t belong any place else,” she said.All of her plans depended on her avoiding a relapse.“That’s always a possibility, because I’m an alcoholic,” she said. “I’d love to sit here and say to you I’ll never do that again. I can’t say that.”Someday, she said, her boys would see the change in her. Maybe they would forgive her. She fantasized about picking them up, going for lunch, whatever they wanted to do. She would ask them about their lives. The day would end with them telling her they loved her.“That would be my perfect day,” she said. “And then I could die.”* * * One day that winter, a family emergency briefly brought Stall and her older son together.Stall’s brother went into the hospital with severe pneumonia, and she feared the worst. She was at the hospital ready to tell him goodbye when her son, Tom, walked in the door. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him, standing just feet away. Almost a year and a half of silence separated mother and son. It filled the room.Her brother had told her Tom would come. But now he was here. Her boy was before her.“I was just drinking him in,” she recalls. “I kept staring at him.”Her stare broke when their eyes met, and she realized he was uncomfortable. He was icy and reserved. But she saw it as a start.Stall offered to take Tom back to see his ailing uncle. He accepted.“How’s it going?” she remembers asking.Tom turned the question back to her. “How are you doing?” he said. “Are you being good?”“It’s coming up on a year I’ve been sober.”“Are you taking your medications and everything?”“Like a big girl.”They reached the door of the uncle’s room.“Can I have a hug?” she asked.Begrudgingly, he allowed it. His body was tight, tense. She knew to not linger.Before entering the room, visitors were required to put on medical gowns. Tom pulled the sleeves up his arms, grabbed the string straps and attempted to tie them behind his neck. Stall motioned to help him tie.“I can do it,” he said.Flashes of a determined toddler trying to tie his shoe filled Stall’s eyes. “Me do it, me do it” echoed in her head. She fought back the lump in her throat.Tom continued to fumble with the straps.“Here, I can help you,” she said, then waited.“Go ahead,” Tom said.She slowly tied the knot. This is my son, she thought, looking at the back of his head. My son.* * * Tom’s 38th birthday was two months later, early that March.Stall decided to risk a call. At that point, she says, her sons still avoided her. Tom wouldn’t tell her where he lived or share his cell number. But he had given the number to his grandmother.Stall dialed it, and Tom answered.“It’s mom,” she said. “I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”“How’d you get my number?”“My mother gave it to me.”“Goodbye.” Click.* * *Spring 2013 passed in a flurry of AA meetings and therapy sessions.Stall got a promotion at the Marriott to a better-paying job as a server in the hotel’s breakfast area. She took a part-time job at the Dollar Tree, working the register. That May, she finally felt ready to leave Amethyst.She moved into an apartment at Woodland Springs, a no-frills housing complex on Bloomington’s southwest side. She placed a figurine of the Virgin Mary on the sill of her living room window. She still wore the rosary around her neck.More months went by, and she settled into a new routine. Around Thanksgiving, she took a third job, this one at Hobby Lobby. She wanted to keep busy. She was eager to repay a cousin and brother who had funded an inpatient recovery program years ago, before she served her nine months in Hancock County. She did not work on Sundays, preferring to reserve that day for reflection. She would wake and attend an AA meeting, then head to St. Charles Catholic Church for mass and confession.As she approaches her 60th birthday this September, she is yet again recalibrating. She no longer aspires to reenter the nursing field that would frown upon her record. Earning back her driver’s license is a new goal, though insurance costs with her background would be hard to swallow, she said.She adopted a little black dog, a 9-year-old Papillon, from the pound. She named her Bella.Stall debated replacing the tiles in her kitchen and fixing the showerhead in the bathroom. She wanted the place to feel like home — her home, her way. Order.* * * Today, she passes Amethyst every weekday morning on her way to work at the Marriott.Every time, she says a prayer. Of gratitude for what the house did for her. Of strength for the women still inside.She prays, too, for the women who succumbed to their drinking. “I could have been one of those numbers,” Stall says. “You’re forgotten and your disease says, ‘Yes, I got another one.’”She hasn’t seen her son Mike in two years and hasn’t seen Tom since that day at the hospital. She understands why.“I realize that I hurt those boys, and this probably serves me right,” she says one evening this month, sitting on her sofa. “But still ...”She pauses.“ ... it’s still hard to take.”Crying, she takes another moment to collect herself.“I’ve caused them nothing but grief and they don’t want someone like me in their life. And that’s OK. That’s OK.”She is coming to understand that she might never talk with them again. If she does get the chance to be near them, she’ll know not to push. She would like to see them, even from a distance. If she can look at them, she says, she’ll at least be able to tell if they’re happy.“That’s all I need to know.”Tom’s 39th birthday is this Monday, March 3. She knows not to call him again. She plans to contact him through their father. Her ex-husband will allow her to email a message that he’ll pass on to Tom.She’s not sure what she’ll write. She’ll likely keep it simple. Maybe just “Happy birthday, Mom.” She doesn’t know if she should risk closing with the word “love.”On Monday, she’ll decide. She’ll hit send. Then wait.This story was reported intermittently since September 2012.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>All these years later, he remembers the chills that crawled down his spine each time he stepped onto the court. He can still see the gymnasium lights beaming overhead. He hears the chant of the crowd booming from the bleachers. Whenever he played, his worries vanished and his mind honed to the thump of the basketball. On the court, he was home. No. 22 Shane Schafer, then 16, often played guard. He wasn’t the best. It was a fight to earn his spot on the powerhouse team at Andrean High School in Merrillville, Ind. But it was all he wanted. That passion was sidelined when sickness shelved his junior-year season.When he asked the Indiana High School Athletic Association for that time back, they said no. When Schafer filed suit and the judge allowed him to play, the IHSAA countered with another rule to keep him off the court. As judge after judge sided with the Schafers, the IHSAA filed appeal after appeal to justify its exercise of power and maintain they were in the right. For 22 years, the legal case dragged on, like an overtime that wouldn’t end. “They couldn’t admit they were wrong,” Schafer said, now 39-years-old. “They couldn’t let go. They had to fight ’til the bitter end.”Today, after another ruling in December, the court battle is nearing a resolution. * * * The court to court saga has been a battle of wills and endurance. It stands as the longest legal battle the IHSAA has ever fought. A series of judges railed against the governing body through the years. Early courts found the way the IHSAA applied its rules to Schafer to be “arbitrary and capricious.” It characterized the IHSAA’s decades-long defense as “frivolous, unreasonable, and groundless.” Multiple court opinions questioned the IHSAA’s motives, wondering aloud if its tactics were meant to intimidate challengers to its power. C. Eugene Cato, then the association’s commissioner, was asked in court why the IHSAA insisted on fighting the case.“I don’t know why,” he said.The love of the game, the beating heart of small towns across the Hoosier nation, was threatened by the very organization entrusted to “encourage and direct wholesome amateur athletics in the high schools of Indiana.”The power play shadowed Shane Schafer as he graduated from Andrean, then through his college years, his wedding and the birth of his two daughters. Though he admits the case made him bitter, his memories of playing still bring a smile to his face. Earning a spot on the Andrean High School basketball team was a matter of pride, and it became part of Schafer's high school identity. Teammates became best friends. They hung out outside of practice. Before games, the friends would eat dinner at Schafer’s house. They felt the pulse of early 1990s rap in the locker room as they readied themselves to play. “The fulfillment of just being with that team,” Schafer said, “was just greater than anything else for me.” He worked his way to the varsity team his junior year. He was positioned for a successful senior year, and who knew, maybe college play? As winter hit, so did chronic sinus pain that eventually forced Schafer off the court, away from school and into the hospital for surgery. The recovery was complicated and lengthy. Schafer missed so much school that Andrean allowed him to re-do his junior year.When he wrote to the IHSAA to ask for another year on the court, the governing body refused. IHSAA rules prevent students from playing more than eight consecutive semesters. Again the family appealed. Again, the IHSAA said Schafer was ineligible for the year in question. But this time the organization cited another rule that banned him from half of the only year he had left. The IHSAA’s refusal sparked Shane’s uncle, attorney Timothy Schafer, to step in and file suit. They took the case to a Lake County Superior Court in November 1991. “I felt that because we chose to appeal that first ruling, they were going to show me,” Shane Schafer said. “They were going to find a rule to apply to me to knock me down even further.”The Lake Superior Court ruled that Schafer “appears to be entitled to take part in athletic competition” during the second semester of his junior year, according to court documents. Teammates, coaches and family rallied around Schafer. He even received an encouraging handwritten letter from a former coach. “It was inspiring for me to keep up the fight,” Schafer said. At the request of the IHSAA, the case was moved to the Jasper Circuit Court, where Judge Raymond Kickbush ruled on the case in January 1992. He concluded IHSAA rules were “overly broad, overly inclusive, arbitrary, and capricious and do not bear a fair relationship to the intended purpose of the rules ...”The same court characterized the IHSAA’s defense as frivolous, unreasonable and groundless. The court system eventually allowed Schafer to take to play that month, almost one year after the sinus problems benched him. He still remembers that first time back on the basketball court. Teammates drowned him in a sea of high-fives as he made his way through the locker room. As the second quarter neared its end, Schafer hit a half-court shot. “I felt like I could be me again,” Schafer said. “I felt like I was in high school again.”The IHSAA tried again to bar Schafer from playing — this time during the 1992-93 school year — appealing up to the Indiana Supreme Court, which chose to not hear the case. Schafer would be allowed to play his senior year, though he fell and broke his hand midway through that season, dashing his dreams of senior year glory. And though Schafer was again off the court, the legal fees absorbed by Shane’s uncle had grown to the tens of thousands. The Schafers requested a hearing, wanting the IHSAA to foot the bill. More courts would see the case concerning legal fees and its appeals for years to come. Schafer had no idea the final ruling on those damages was still 20 years away. * * * For the Schafers, basketball is a family affair.Shane's Uncle Timothy, the lawyer, played on IU’s freshman team back when there was more than just the single collegiate team. His younger cousins and brother played the sport, too. Cousin Todd Schafer was the state’s leading scorer in high school basketball during the 2002-03 season. Schafer started sports young. The number 22 has covered his chest since he was 12-years-old. He chose to focus on basketball in high school, and eventually worked his way onto the highly competitive varsity team.Former Andrean Coach Bob Buscher remembers coaching Schafer, as he remembers many of the hundreds of students he has coached in his 36 years. “He was a hard worker," Buscher said. "He did what I asked him to do. He was coachable on the court.”Andrean, a Catholic high school, attracted some of the best talent from the region. Students planned their Friday and Saturday nights around basketball games, which often drew a full house that always included Schafer’s parents. A certain aura surrounded the season. “It’s Indiana basketball,” Schafer said. "It’s a brotherhood.” * * * Even now, two decades later, Schafer can’t explain why the IHSAA continued its fight against him.Current IHSAA Commissioner Bobby Cox inherited the case from past commissioners. In a recent interview, he said the motive behind the decades of appeals was not the question of Schafer’s eligibility. Rules were rules. “When we make decisions,” Cox said, “we have a duty and an obligation to uphold our rules.” And as a private organization with a voluntary membership, Cox pointed out, the IHSAA had every right to appeal for as long as it did. Schafer’s case about legal fees made its way through a few different judges and courts before a special judge ordered the IHSAA to pay $86,231 to the family in 2003. The IHSAA appealed the ruling, and in 2009 that appeal was denied. Schafer’s uncle kept him in the loop with each new legal motion. Schafer’s cousins — pre-teens when the case began — worked on the case in recent years as members of the family law firm. “It just didn’t make sense that they would spend all that money and resources to file appeal after appeal,” Shane Schafer said. The IHSAA appealed yet again. Then, on December 17, Randall Shepard — former chief justice on the Indiana Supreme Court — handed down a ruling for the Court of Appeals. “We are not the first appellate court to take notice of the IHSAA’s arbitrary and capricious decision-making toward the Schafers,” Shepard wrote. “Such decision-making can result in substantial harm to the individual student-athletes the rules are intended to serve.”The court sided with the Schafers and again ordered the IHSAA to pay the family — this time $139,663.Finally, the case that wouldn’t end appeared to be wrapping up, though the IHSAA still had the option to appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court. The case, Schafer holds, was a power struggle all along. In 1992 Judge Kickbush in the Jasper Circuit Court said the IHSAA’s conduct in the litigation “degenerated to a goal to determine who would own the ship and who would paddle the oars.” A September 2009 trial court opinion disapproved of the IHSAA tactics used in Schafer’s and other court cases, including suggestions that the organization was motivated to run up fees and expenses to warn parents and students against challenging a ruling. In the most recent ruling in December 2013, Shepard's opinion cited another suit brought against the IHSAA. He noted, “The importance of this case...lies in the fact that students learn at the hands of the IHSAA some of their early lessons about what constitutes fair play in decision-making. "Unfortunately, students acquainted with the IHSAA’s conduct in this case might reasonably conclude that winning at all costs is more important than fair play.” Though not immediately sure after the December ruling, the IHSAA has decided it will not appeal the case to the Indiana Supreme Court, said current Commissioner Bobby Cox. “We fought that fight, and now that fight’s in my lap, and I’ve determined it’s time to end this fight,” Cox said. “It’s time to move on with life.” * * * Schafer's two daughters, 4 and 7, don’t know about the case. And that’s how their father likes it. If they choose to play sports, he said, he wants them free of the burden and the fear he had in school. Schafer now lives in Valparaiso, just across the lake from his uncle Timothy. He has worked at the Porter County Adult Probation Office since he graduated from Ball State University and now serves as a probation officer. He often thinks about the decades his family has poured into the case. He knows most families wouldn’t have been able to continue a defense against the IHSAA.“They’ve done this to other kids in the region,” Schafer said. “I’m just lucky I had an uncle that’s a lawyer. Their families can’t afford the type of legal bills this type of thing would cost.” Why did they so feverishly pursue his case? He’ll never have an answer. “You sit here and think, 'Jeez, they could at least write an apology letter.'”He’ll always wonder, what if? What if he had played for all of his junior year? What if his family had never been burdened by the case? He escapes these questions on the basketball court, a place he hopes to frequent until his body tells him otherwise. Schafer has kept up his skills, playing regularly since his high school days. “I choose to play when I want to play,” he said, “and no one can tell me when I can’t.” He and his cousins find time for H-O-R-S-E and two-on-two in the backyard. At the Wheeler High School Field House in Valparaiso, Schafer dons his No. 22 jersey to compete in a weekend league and play pick-up games on weekdays. Even on vacations, after the children are asleep and the wife is relaxing, Schafer ventures out to find a court. The crowds are gone. The cheering exists now only in memory. But he still thirsts for the win.Stepping on the court, the old instincts take over. Beads of sweat form along his forehead. His heartbeat quickens. Dribbling the ball, he looks for his next move. Is the lane clear? Is there enough space to shoot the three? The glance toward the net. The shot. He watches and waits. This story was based on court documents and interviews with Shane Schafer, Timothy Schafer, Commissioner Bobby Cox and Schafer's former coach Bob Buscher. Follow reporter Matthew Glowicki on Twitter @mattglo.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When the letter from the government arrived, Cassie Winders panicked. Her middle son, 8-year-old Ashton, brought in the mail that day in late October. She read the notice on the worn pink mattress in her makeshift bedroom in the basement.“Are you kidding me?” she thought. Winders’ benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as food stamps — were about to be cut. Until then, the government had given her almost $500 a month to feed herself and her four children. Come November, the notice told her, she would receive about $50 less each month. Across the county, millions of other Americans receiving food stamps opened similar letters. The November reductions signified the end of 2009 stimulus money that had padded benefits for all recipients. Winders, 33 and out of work, would have $15 a day in food stamps with the reduction — $3 a piece for herself and each of her children. Her food stamp debit card would be reloaded with the new amount on Nov. 10. “Any kind of decrease, with anything, is a big deal right now,” Winders said. Her family was already on the edge. Even before the decrease, the funds would never last the month. On how much less could she still make ends meet?Late at night, when the house was quiet, Winders would lie on the bare mattress and wonder how she could keep the family afloat. She would stare at the wire mobile hanging near the end of her bed. The faces of her children would look back. “What can I do differently?” she asked herself. “Will I lose the house? Can I pay the water bill? Is there enough food to last the week?”She had no clue.* * * Winders doesn’t get the newspaper — too expensive — and doesn’t have cable. Disconnected from the news, she had no idea Congress was talking about her and her children. In Washington, D.C., politicians continue to debate the future of the food stamp program and the work ethic of the 47 million Americans that receive its benefits. Congress has struggled to compromise on details of a new five-year Farm Bill, which includes funding for food stamps. The outcome of legislators’ haggling will determine just how much the program shrinks. U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has argued food stamps ensnare the poor.“I think it’s insensitive to not have a work requirement for food stamps,” he told NBC News. “Our goal in these programs is not to make poverty easier to handle and tolerate and live with. Our goal in these programs ought to be to give people a temporary hand so that they can get out of poverty.” Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., a proponent of slashing the SNAP program, argued food stamp applicants should meet increased work requirements. He said people can no longer sit on their couch “and expect the federal taxpayer to feed you.”Though Winders has not followed the Congressional debates, she does read the posts on Facebook about people on welfare. “It frustrates me,” she said, “because I feel like poor people get a bad rap.” Winders wonders if the leaders in Washington really understand the complexity of her situation."It's easy to sit where they sit and judge others," she said. But she hopes that some of the politicians can relate. "I'd like to think there are some people in the White House and Congress that grew up in a single-mother household or with low income."For Winders, living on little isn’t new. She grew up poor in Oklahoma. Sometimes, no water flowed from the tap. Other times, her family sat in darkness without power. She still cringes at the memory of eating cold hot dogs from the refrigerator. She finished her GED, and got pregnant at 17. “I resented my family,” she said. “I resented my upbringing. I was embarrassed to have my friends over.”She never wanted her children to feel that way. A series of moves and three different fathers of her children later, she landed in Ellettsville where she began working as a patient care technician at Bloomington Hospital. When she was let go in September 2012 for tardiness and missing too much work due to illness, she said, it shook her. “Our whole lives just changed.” Winders took a job at Taco Bell. When the employees from the hospital pulled up to her drive thru window, her stomach would twist in shame.She left Taco Bell and began work in home health care as a caregiver, looking after the elderly. She took up classes in the spring at Ivy Tech Community College to work toward becoming an EMT. But often she wasn’t home for homework or dinner. She slept when her children were at school and worked in the evenings. Many nights she left Eli, 2, and Ashton, 8, in the hands of her two older children, Patrick, 15, and Alivia, 13. When she or the older children couldn’t watch Eli, she hired a babysitter to look after him.Something needed to change. She’d worked consistently for 15 years but never seemed to save enough to escape the cycle. For all the running she did, where had it gotten her? In October, she quit work at the home health care agency and stopped attending classes. She needed to hit pause.“I’m the first person to tell someone to get off their ass and get a job,” she said. “I get that.” In hindsight, she realizes that she shouldn't have quit school and her job at the same time. She regretted the way she left the home health care job. And she knew she needed to get back to work.“I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong,” she said. “I honestly don’t feel like I would have been able to keep going the way I was.”The time off came with a price. In November, just as her food stamps were being reduced, creditors were calling, and the utility bills were piling up, and she was falling behind in her $530 monthly mortgage payment.“I feel like a failure,” she said. * * *Winders pushed the metal cart down the dollar aisle at the IGA grocery store, Alivia and Patrick following. It was fairly early in the cycle, Nov. 18. There was room for choice. Bright orange stickers announced a 68-cent-special on heads of lettuce. She picked up a few, rotating them in her hand before she settled on one. Alivia, her pickiest eater, wanted no part. “There’s nothing wrong with them,” her mother told her.In the meat section, Winders scanned the offerings for expiring meats. But nothing caught her eye. Beef cubes, donated from a food pantry, were already simmering at home. She passed the freezers where a two-layer fudge cake stopped her. Heaven, she thought when eying its smooth chocolate icing. But $15.99? She moved on, stopping at the stand of expiring breads. “I don’t care if it’s buns, rolls, white, wheat,” Winders said. “If it’s on sale, we’re getting it.”In the checkout line, she ripped open a package of chocolate muffins. Patrick was hungry after his wrestling practice. They left with four bags — $18.17 in food stamps. Driving home, Winders lit up a Newport — a habit she knew she should quit. “You know those things are killing you slowly,” Alivia said from the passenger seat. “I wish they’d kill me fast.” * * *Annual costs of the food stamp program have soared from $35 billion in 2007 to $80 billion in 2012, making it a target of federal belt-tightening. Proposed cuts in SNAP spending range from $4 billion in the Senate version to $39 billion in the Republican-controlled House. If the future cuts are made, they will affect the 47 million Americans enrolled in SNAP, a number that has risen nationally 70 percent since 2008. In Indiana, nearly one-sixth of the population receives food stamp benefits. In Monroe County, 8 percent of residents use the program.Winders’ situation echoes across the country. Non-elderly adult women make up 62 percent of all food stamp recipients. Many are single mothers.* * *It was 6:58 p.m., and dinner was still a while away. Ashton took a break from the television — an old purchase at a discount electronics store — to see what mom had brought home. She had been gone for longer than expected.“I’m hungry,” he said, crashing back in his chair in front of the screen.With no cable to watch, the family relies on Winders’ mother to pay for Netflix. Their only game controller broke a few months ago. In place of playing his favorite game, “Minecraft,” Ashton watches tutorials for it on YouTube. “Is your homework done?” Winders yelled from the kitchen. Ashton grunted. Eli had managed to scale the kitchen stool and teetered perilously on its top. His diaper strained, full. He watched as his mom moved about the kitchen checking the burners and the oven. Winders lit another Newport and grabbed the toddler, feeling the diaper’s heaviness. Mouth clenched around the cigarette, she made quick work of the smelly mess. The pantless toddler soon was back on his feet in a fresh diaper, shepherded by Cassie’s boyfriend Kris Korthouse to a small bowl of cheesy noodles, beef and ketchup on the floor. “Hot,” Korthouse warned. “Blow on it.”Ashton and Alivia sat at a patio table, brought in from the balcony after their kitchen table broke last month. Their mom sloshed boxed au gratin potatoes onto Patrick’s plate. For a few minutes, the family was quiet, lost in their meal. * * *There’s no single storyline for those who rely on food stamps. Many recipients are the very young and the very old. Some are two working parent households. Recipients can live for years on the program or rely on it temporarily in times of great need. Feeding America, a national hunger-relief non-profit organization, estimates that 17.5 percent of Monroe County residents are “food insecure,” meaning they lack consistent access to sufficient amounts of healthy foods. Need only seems to be rising in Monroe County. Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, a food pantry, distributed 210 percent more bags of food in 2012 than in 2004. And the Community Kitchen of Monroe County is serving 25 percent more meals than it did in 2009, Executive Director Vicki Pierce said.The need has grown tremendously, she said, particularly among children and the elderly. “Those SNAP benefits really make it possible for children and the parents to eat healthy, nutritious food and stay on track developmentally,” Pierce said. In a tighter financial climate, Pierce has seen more people rely on the Community Kitchen when planning their meals. “Yeah, the economy might be slightly rebounding,” Pierce said. “But if locally the landscape isn’t changing and the minimum wage isn’t rising and if programs like food stamps and federal housing aren’t enough, we’re going to see need rise.”* * *The family's food stamps were spent by Nov. 24.A few days later, Winders couldn’t believe that she had used her two eldest children’s birthday money — $40 — to pay for gas and hamburger. "I've never, ever, ever, ever taken money from my kids," she said. "I felt like a loser."On Dec. 2, with one week left in the cycle, the family ran out of toilet paper. Instead, they used coffee filters.“This month is where it’s hitting me hard,” Winders said. “I’ve exhausted everything I have.” Two days later, still with no gas money, she asked a friend to drive her to Walmart to pick up a $100 Money Gram her sister had sent. Toilet paper, gas, food, laundry soap and cigarettes were atop the shopping list. She treated herself to a soda. “And I know I don’t deserve a Polar Pop,” she said. “But it was like heaven.” She had swallowed her pride and also called her mom, who sent enough to pay the water bill. Winders had not made a mortgage payment since Oct. 1. She figured she was probably in foreclosure. At any moment, she expected the phone company to turn off her landline and Internet. That bill was long past due. She had not felt this desperate in a long time.Knowing she needed to get back to work, she applied to three home health care ads and a restaurant in Ellettsville. There likely won’t be gifts from mom under the Christmas tree.* * *Monday was the last day of the cycle. Winders’ home phone and Internet had finally been shut off. A letter delivered that day was titled, “Final notice before foreclosure review.” There had been no food stamps for 15 days.The evening meal at the Community Kitchen — fresh diced fruit, mixed salad, corn and ham and potatoes — filled Winders, her boyfriend and Eli. Six take-out containers of food awaited Patrick, Alivia and Ashton. Shortly after midnight, the food stamp benefits renewed, and the card worked again. Winders celebrated, like she does every month."My ritual," she called it.She woke Alivia with a light shake. The two of them used a kitchen broom to wipe the freshly fallen snow from their van — the family did not own an ice scraper — and drove the two of them to the BigFoot convenience store down the street.They splurged on a big box of Krispy Kreme donuts, potato chips, a Watchmacallit candy bar for Alivia, Arizona Sweet Tea for Patrick and Cool Ranch Doritos for Ashton.Winders and her daughter opened the snacks and start eating them on the drive home. And with that, the cycle began again. Follow reporter Matthew Glowicki on Twitter @MattGlo.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Media School — the merged units of the School of Journalism and departments of communication and culture and telecommunications — will move forward, IU trustees approved Friday morning. Their vote of support cements the University’s endorsement of the merger and takes the Media School from “if” and “would” to “when” and “will.” The Academic Affairs Committee unanimously approved the proposal after about 90 minutes of explanation and debate concerning the Media School.The full board later voted unanimously to approve the proposal.Provost Lauren Robel, Interim Dean of the School of Journalism Lesa Hatley Major and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Larry Singell presented the proposal to the trustees. The vote is the final step of approval in a long series of events surrounding the merger of the three units.The Media School will officially come into existence on July 1, 2014, and will be located in Franklin Hall, according to a press release from the University. Franklin Hall is expected to be renovated with state-of-the-art classrooms and digital production facilities.The three units and the College of Arts and Sciences share an interwoven, sometimes knotty, history.Their merger has been discussed for about the last decade, but as Robel noted in her morning presentation, discussion intensified in 2009.In her February 2013 State of the Campus address, Robel announced her intention to recommend to the Trustees a merged school to be housed in the College of Arts and Sciences.In the months that followed, affected parties voiced their spectrum of opinions on the merger. The contentious nature of the merger frequently surfaced in the board’s discussion of the Media School proposal.“I’ve learned a lot about journalism in the last 18 months,” Robel said, drawing laughter from the board and audience. Trustee MaryEllen Bishop asked one of the questions at the heart of the merger: Will the “incredible tradition of journalism” be preserved?Dean Singell spoke on his intentions in regards to the future autonomy of the journalism unit in the Media School.“I have no interest in empire,” Singell said. “My objective here is excellence.”Singell announced Friday he will appoint Major to serve as associate dean of the new Media School. A search for a dean is expected to begin next academic year. Major and Robel both emphasized the intent to preserve, if not expand, the legacy of famed World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, the current journalism building’s namesake.“There’s no question, no matter what happens today, that the legacy of Ernie Pyle will be preserved at Indiana University,” Trustee Patrick Shoulders said. Robel noted the current academic programs outlined in the proposal are more an artistic rendering than an architectural one.Looking forward, faculty will largely flesh out the framework laid out in the proposal.Grad student and president of the Graduate and Professional Student Organization Brady Harman voiced support for the plan to form a Student Advisory Board, one of the few established platforms for student inclusion in the post-proposal landscape.Herb Terry, Bloomington Faculty Council president and associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications, voiced a collection of faculty feedback.He touched on the issue of naming the new school, providing adequate space in Franklin Hall and striking a balance between the humanities and professional training.“The faculty of all three units will step up and roll up their sleeves,” Terry said, adding that much work will need to be done to move current academic structures to the vision called for in the proposal.Follow reporter Matthew Glowicki on Twitter @MattGlo.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Couches, armchairs and futons are among the traditional indoor furniture banned from Bloomington front porches. That’s one of the changes the Bloomington City Council approved in the Property Maintenance Code on Nov. 14, 2012.Housing and Neighborhood Development Director Lisa Abbott said she worked on the changes for months. The code’s most recent update was in 2003.“The neighborhoods have been asking for this for a long time for a number of reasons,” Abbott said. She cited neighbor complaints about weather-exposed upholstered furniture that often begins to smell from mildew. Aesthetic concerns about older front porch furniture also played into some complaints, she said.“You can still sit on your front porch and enjoy the great outdoors,” Abbott said. “You’ll just have to use furniture intended for outdoor use.”But more than complaints, the decision was also made out of safety concerns, Assistant City Attorney Patty Mulvihill said.“(Rodents) like the stuffing and the warmness,” she said. “We see a lot of infestation problems coming from the front porches.”Mulvihill also said she wasn’t sure exactly when the Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission members would read through the code changes, nor did she know definitively if the commission would approve or strike the changes individually or altogether.“I think it’s an underutilized resource of the average renter in Bloomington,” she said.The new Bloomington code bans upholstered furniture that would usually go indoors from sitting outside the rental. Some pieces of furniture you can legally enjoy from your front porchAdirondack chair — The rustic recliner made of durable woodBench/arm chair with removable pillows — A cheap frame option with a comfy, interchangeable additionHammock Plastic chair — cheapest, though most uncomfortable, option
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Michael Angle Jr., 28, will spend the next 65 years in prison for murdering Lauren Kahn, 47.The sentence was the maximum permissible under Indiana law.A Monroe County Circuit Court jury found Angle guilty of voluntary manslaughter and felony murder Sept. 6 after about three hours of deliberation and three days of evidence and testimony.Angle stabbed Kahn to death the night of Nov. 14, 2011, when she was working at the now-closed adult entertainment shop Garden of Eden, 756 S. Walnut St.In his sentencing Monday, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Marc Kellams extended sympathy to Kahn’s family and friends and addressed Angle’s actions.“Your acts were monstrous,” Kellams said. “They were beyond the pale of any possible explanation.”Family and friends testified in court Monday afternoon asking for the maximum sentence for Angle. They delivered their statements through tears.“His mental health is not the issue. He cannot be trusted,” said Tara Emery, Kahn’s daughter who lives in New Jersey. “He took her life, and he should pay for it with his.”Kahn’s sister Hillary Roth, who traveled from New York for the sentencing as she had done for the trial, also read a statement, as well as statements from two other Kahn siblings and Kahn’s parents.Kahn’s husband, Brad Westlake, choked up during his prepared statement.“My soul will never recover from the loss of Lauren,” he said. “Those of us who knew and loved Lauren will never be the same.”“It’s a hollow victory as there will never be a right to this wrong,” Kahn’s best friend Kelsy Benckart testified Monday. “Her loss has forever altered the course of countless lives, and this world is a lesser place without her in it.”Others, including Angle’s sister, Heather Odom, testified on his behalf. Angle’s mother, Teresa Montes, testified last.“I lost my son that day, in a different form,” Montes said.Angle made an unsworn statement that began with an apology to Kahn’s friends and family.“No amount of sorry will ever right this tragedy,” he said. “For the rest of my life, I want to live a life that would be an honor to Lauren’s memory.”Angle had entered an insanity defense during the trial, arguing he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his time training for the Army.Angle testified in court he was blacked out when he stabbed Kahn more than 20 times.The prosecution argued Angle was aware of the wrongness of his actions.Chris Gaal, Monroe County prosecutor, presented quotes from Angle’s taped confession to discredit the insanity defense. “I knew that what I did was wrong ...” Angle said during the taped confession. “I knew it was wrong right away ...”Angle was placed into the custody of the Indiana Department of Corrections Reception Diagnostic Center where he will await his prison placement. Follow reporter Matthew Glowicki on Twitter @mattglo.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Provost Lauren Robel today made public a 34-page proposal outlining the possible merger of the departments of communication and culture and telecommunications and the School of Journalism.The Media School proposal codifies previously released details, clarifies speculation and introduces new information for aspects including faculty, academic programs and administrative organization. It also establishes a merger timeframe through 2016.The new Media School was so named as it “... deemphasizes the boundaries that have been repeatedly identified as problematic in this area ...” according to the proposal.The trustees will vote on the proposal during their meeting Oct. 17 and 18 at IU.AimsBroad trends in the proposal emphasize a digital focus given the rapidly changing media and technological landscape. To this end, the proposal calls for increased collaboration between specialties, particularly the School of Informatics and Computing.There’s also focus on improving digital and technological resources, such as top-of-the-line production facilities.The “MSchool” would draw upon “humanistic approaches” from CMCL, “social-science expertise, industry knowledge, and policy analysis” from telecommunications and “professional and industry knowledge and expertise and award-winning international programs” from journalism.Faculty The proposal also focuses on collaboration and connectivity between faculty, resources and production from multiple disciplines across campus.The school would comprise core faculty from all three units and affiliate faculty members with relevant expertise from many schools on campus, including many from the School of Informatics and Computing.Currently, 75 faculty members are employed through the three units, and the proposal identifies more than 200 other faculty members on campus that could be invited as affiliated faculty.Tenured faculty members in the three units whose expertise does not fit under the umbrella of the Media School will be assisted by the College in finding new tenured homes within the College.Fifteen additional core tenure track faculty and nine professors of practice have been factored into the projected budget.AcademicsAcademic programs would emphasize three areas: a broad liberal arts education, professional skills and understanding of the media.Looking three years out from inception, the proposal states a conservative enrollment goal of 1,875 undergraduate majors, which is an increase of 250 students from current totals of the three units.Undergraduate students will earn their degrees through various tracks. Proposed tracks include Communication Studies, Film and Media Arts, Journalism and Advertising and Strategic Communications, among various others. The MSchool will also aim to create concentrations and certificates, in addition to offering BAs and BSs. One such certificate would be a certificate in Digital Media, offered jointly with the School of Informatics and Computing.Additionally, the new school will work on developing five-year combined BA/MA and BS/MA degrees, as well as new Ph.D. degrees. Online master’s degrees and certificates aimed at “midcareer professionals” will also be offered.LocationExisting production space at the Radio-TV Building would act as counterpart to the main home of the Media School at a renovated Franklin Hall. The proposal calls for faculty, media-related centers and programs and most student media — including the Indiana Daily Student, IU Student Television and WIUX— to be housed in Franklin Hall, which has already undergone renovations in part made possible by $21 million of state funding.The proposal notes that even with state funding for Franklin Hall renovation, additional funding for its renovations will be critical.TimeframeIf approved, the MSchool would join the College on July 1, 2014. Academic programs for the MSchool would begin in fall 2015, and faculty would move into Franklin Hall no later than spring 2016.AdministrationThe school will be led by a dean and associate dean, who will report to Executive Dean of the College Larry Singell. MSchool academic, administrative and fiscal matters will fall under the purview of the College.Three boards will be created to boost external visibility and strengthen external relationships. An External Board will comprise alumni and “friends of IU” who have found success in journalism, film and integrated media.Faculty, chairs and directors from various disciplines will form a Faculty Advisory Board.Students, too, will have a voice in the form of the Student Advisory Board. This board would aim to include broadly representative undergraduate and graduate voices.The proposal also referenced “Faculty Groups” that will help form the school’s organizational structure. Led by an appointed faculty chair, these groups will be responsible for faculty recruitment, mentoring and evaluation.The ProcessRobel, along with College and Journalism leadership, began drafting the proposal this summer, following the completion of the Memorandum of Understanding, which established mutually understood guidelines between journalism and the College for the future of journalism in the new, merged school.The proposal went live on the provost’s website Tuesday and has been shared with faculty and members of the Board of Trustees.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lauren Kahn was stabbed to death while working a night she wasn’t even scheduled to work Nov. 14, 2011. Friday, her killer, Michael Angle Jr., 28, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and felony murder. He faces 45 to 65 years in jail. The 6-foot-2 man showed no emotion as the verdict was read.A jury in the Monroe County Circuit Court reached the verdict Friday evening after about three hours of deliberation and three days of evidence, testimony and argumentation.The trial wasn’t about proving Angle killed Kahn.His attorney acknowledged in opening statements that there were clear facts proving Angle committed the murder. Rather, the defense had to prove Angle was insane at the time of the murder and unable to distinguish right from wrong.Angle had entered an insanity defense. He testified in court Friday that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his time training for the United States Army.“I’m not the kind of person who is violent,” Angle said.On the night of the murder, Angle turned himself in to police. He brought with him a bag filled with the clothes he wore during the murder, wet with Kahn’s blood. “I knew that what I did was wrong ... ” he told Bloomington Police Department Detective Rick Crussen during a taped interrogation that evening. “I knew it was wrong right away ... ”* * *“Please hurry. Please hurry.”“Where are you bleeding?”“Everywhere. ... I’m going to die.” Moments passed. The female dispatcher asked Kahn a question. There was no response. Kahn initiated the 911 call, which was played at the trial Thursday. She would not finish it.“Are you still with me?” Silence. Kahn, 47, was working at the now-closed Garden of Eden adult entertainment shop, 756 S. Walnut St., on the night of Nov. 14, 2011, when Angle entered the store.A few hours earlier, Angle was awaking from a day-long sleep in his room at his mother’s home. He had spent much of the last two or three days in his room. That evening, he slipped out of the house to do some Christmas shopping for his army buddies, he said during his testimony Friday.He eventually arrived at the Garden of Eden. The store was empty, save for Kahn working behind the counter.There were glass tobacco pipes among the plethora of porn. One particular pipe caught his interest, Angle testified Friday. He called Kahn over and she came to his side. That’s the last thing Angle testified he remembers before he “came to” and was standing over her wounded body with the bloody Gerber folding knife in hand.A neighbor entered the store moments after hearing Kahn’s screams. Angle chased the man out the door, taking no inventory or money from the shop.Bloomington police were dispatched at 10:29 p.m. Bloomington Police Officer Jeff Rees entered the Garden of Eden to find Kahn face up with fallen DVDs scattered around her body. Blood flowed from Kahn’s wounds, soaking her clothes and pooling beneath her.One stab wound on her left breast nicked her heart. Another on her back punctured the upper lobe of her lung.A trail of more than 20 stab wounds dotted her left side. Her face, neck and arm bore slash marks, some almost an inch deep.“There were too many to apply direct pressure,” Rees testified in court. Kahn was drawing just one to three breaths each minute. As Rees testified, she was “barely alive.”* * * A pastor — that was his vision for his future. Angle attended college twice, working as a janitor and residential assistant, but never graduated because of money problems.Student debt amassing, plus an admiration for the armed forces, drew Angle to enlist in the military. He smiled Friday morning on the stand when recounting his Army training exercises.Just 11 days into basic training, Angle injured his back during a combat exercise. It wasn’t long before he learned he would not deploy with his unit.“I took it really hard,” he said Friday.Angle was honorably discharged from the Army in Aug. 2011. He came to Bloomington and moved in to his mother’s house.His mother testified that he seemed withdrawn and detached. Some of his army buddies who were returning home from battle “ostracized him,” Angle said in court. He had worried about them and had prayed for them. He sought out his father, who advised him to seek help. Angle drove to the VA hospital in Indianapolis only to find it closed.The date was Nov. 11., Veterans Day. Three days later, Kahn would be dead.She was not meant to work the night of her murder, her best friend Kelsy Benckart said. The woman scheduled to work had quit a few days earlier.The Garden of Eden wasn’t her main job. Kahn first worked at the store for a period when the recession hit to make extra money. The medical industry was her passion.At the time of her murder, Kahn had a steady job in radiology and was working toward a medical coding degree.She only returned to the Garden of Eden after its owners, dealing with sudden medical emergencies, asked her to train new employees, Benckart said.And with Christmas approaching, Benckart said, Kahn welcomed the extra money.She had wanted to make it a special first Christmas for her new baby grandson.“She would talk about how children need magic in their lives,” Benckart said. Kahn, or “La-La” as her friends’ children called her, never missed a birthday. She was out in full force on Halloween. If a child told her about a rainbow in a dream, Kahn wanted to know what it looked like.Benckart said Kahn was known as a hard worker who gave selflessly to friends and family.“If I had a lifetime to repay the things Lauren did for me,” Benckart said, “I wouldn’t even come close.”* * *Angle’s mother, Teresa Montes, a blonde woman who sat in the back row of the courtroom for most of the trial, lifted her hands to her lips and sent her son a kiss.Montes testified as a witness for the defense Thursday afternoon. Hours earlier, she wept in the back row upon hearing Kahn’s 911 call, dampening the white napkin scrunched in her grasp.“Were you there for him a lot as a child?” the defense attorney asked.She looked at her son, face contorting, and mouthed a clear, “I’m so sorry.” The first tears of her testimony began to fall.Angle’s parents had divorced when he was 7. Angle lived mostly with his father.During her testimony, she recalled her son on the night of the murder. Covered in blood, he told her and his siblings what he had done.Montes couldn’t believe it, she said. Angle suggested turning himself in to the police. Montes agreed. “I didn’t want to,” she said, “but I knew I had to.” * * * Chris Gaal, Monroe County prosecutor, began his opening statements with a PowerPoint slide showing two quotes.“I knew that what I did was wrong ... ”“I knew it was wrong right away ... ”Gaal used Angle’s quote to discredit the insanity defense, saying Angle was able to judge right from wrong when he murdered Kahn. And differing from his taped interrogation with Detective Crussen, Angle testified at the trial he at no point intended to rob the shop, let alone murder Kahn.He denied remembering any details of the stabbing.During his testimony, some of his statements drew the ire of Lauren’s friends and family. They shook their heads as they passed around a notepad and pen to communicate during the trial.Upon cross-examination, Monroe County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Bob Miller questioned Angle’s changing of his story.Miller noted Angle’s original claim of wanting to rob the store after he realized Kahn was alone.If Angle had blacked out, Miller questioned, how, then, did he display to Detective Crussen how he stuck the knife in Lauren and recall Kahn begging him, “not again”?“I was trying to figure out what had happened,” Angle said. It was “brainstorming” to fill in the blanks in his mind.“I guess you were just lucky that all those facts you just made up turned out to be true,” Miller said, concluding his cross-examination.Two court appointed medical experts testified last and spoke on the legitimacy of Angle’s insanity claims.Psychiatrist Dr. Jerry Neff testified that Angle displayed certain elements of PTSD, but he did not qualify for a full-blown diagnosis. Psychologist Dr. Mark Hickman said he believed there was significant reason to conclude Angle was not completely sane when he committed the murder.Hickman added that in addition to PTSD, Angle was depressed about his inability to serve overseas, his ostracization by friends and his financial issues. But when the prosecution asked about an exact trigger on the night of the murder, Hickman had no answer.“I don’t think the killing makes logical sense.”* * * Kahn’s three siblings had to leave to fly back home to the East Coast before verdict was read. They were in flight when the judge read the two guilty verdicts.Benckart and a few other friends of Kahn were in the front row, as they had been for the entirety of the trial. They sat in the same seats where they had learned the specific, bloody details of the murder that they had waited nearly two years to discover.Angle’s mother was not present in the courtroom.When the verdict was read, Angle showed no sign of emotion. He did not look back as he shuffled his chained feet out the door.Benckart, who also served as a witness in the trial, said her main focus was the trail and the verdict, not the sentence.“I think in a crime like this, no matter what the sentence is, there’s no way to right the wrong,” Benckart said. “No one could ever bring her back.”It has not yet been decided if Angle will be eligible to go before the parole board.But if it happens?She’ll be there. Follow reporter Matthew Glowicki on Twitter @mattglo.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Michael Angle Jr., 28, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, a class A felony, as well as felony murder in the November 2011 killing of Lauren Kahn. Angle remained stoic as the verdict was read, as he had through much of the trial. Between the two charges, Angle is facing 45 to 65 years behind bars. A jury in the Monroe County Circuit Court reached its verdict Friday evening after about three hours of deliberation and three days of evidence, testimony and argument. Kahn was working at the now closed Garden of Eden adult novelty shop on South Walnut Street the night of Nov. 14, 2011, when Angle entered the store. After only a few minutes in the shop, Angle asked Kahn a question, drawing her out from behind a counter. Soon after, Angle began stabbing and slashing Kahn. She eventually bled to death later that evening. About 90 minutes after the stabbing, Angle turned himself in to police and confessed to the murder. Angle entered an insanity defense, claiming to have blacked out during the stabbing murder. The trial, heard by Monroe Circuit Judge Marc Kellams, began Tuesday with jury selection, followed by opening statements on Wednesday. Witnesses for the state and defense continued through Friday afternoon after which the jury left the courtroom to deliberate.Outside the court house, Kahn's longtime friend Kelsy Benckart stood by her car, parked near the doors of the court, just in case she had to sleep in it overnight awaiting a verdict. She's attended almost two years worth of pretrial hearings on an almost monthly basis."You're just waiting for this thing in the future," she said. "Now that it's over, it's such a relief."Sentencing is tentatively set for 9 a.m. on Oct. 7.Check back Monday for further coverage of the trial.Follow reporter Matthew Glowicki on Twitter @mattglo.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Oct. 17-18 Board of Trustees meeting is the earliest a proposal concerning the merger of the departments of telecommunications and communication and culture and the School of Journalism will be ready for consideration, the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President confirmed Wednesday afternoon.College of Arts and Sciences and School of Journalism representatives will work on the new proposal and use a December 2012 merger proposal submitted to Provost Lauren Robel as a starting point.The proposal was not ready for the Aug. 8-9 board meeting at IU Purdue University Indianapolis. If ready by fall, the proposal could be considered by the board at its October meeting on the Bloomington campus. Lesa Hatley Major, journalism interim dean, said the new proposal will be both specific and flexible.It will also be more in-depth than the recently completed Memorandum of Understanding, said Elisabeth Andrews, communications specialist in the Office of the Provost.The MOU outlines safeguards and commitments between the College and the School of Journalism for if and when the merger is approved.The recent proposal for the creation of the School of Global and International Studies is a good example of how the merger proposal will look, in terms of level of detail and type of information, she added. That proposal includes timelines, leadership structure and new degree listings.Provost Robel and President Michael McRobbie will review the revised merger proposal before they submit it to the board.Robel commissioned the December proposal now being used as a starting point. It’s findings were the result of months of work by a committee of faculty members from journalism, telecommunications and communication and culture that was formed as part of the New Academic Directions initiative. The initiative aims to bring together administrative and academic leadership to “review and assess IU’s existing academic structures to ensure they are high-quality, efficient, effective, and aligned with IU’s teaching, research, and service missions,” according to the initiative’s website.If the new proposal were approved, the MOU would go into effect. From there, at least three committees would begin work on key aspects of the new school, including space planning, academics and the legacy of journalist Ernie Pyle.The October meeting will take place on the Bloomington campus. The following meeting is scheduled for Dec. 5-6 at IU East.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Board of Trustees convened at IU-Purdue University Fort Wayne Thursday and Friday to discuss and vote on the University budget and various construction projects, among other things.The next board meeting is set for August 8-9 at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis. That meeting will mark the first time new trustees Randall Tobias, James T. Morris and student trustee Janice Farlow will join the board. All were recently appointed by Gov. Mike Pence. Tobias and Morris will take the place of outgoing trustees Bruce Cole and Bill Strong, while Farlow will follow in student trustee Cora Griffin’s footsteps.1. The budget A $3.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2013-2014 was approved by the trustees.2. Old Crescent upgrades The board approved the estimated $21 million Franklin Hall renovation project, part of a probable merged journalism, telecommunications and communication and culture unit to be housed in the building. Asbestos and lead paint removal, roof upgrades, classroom renovations including new digital equipment and entryway and restroom updates for accessibility will all be a part of the “complete renovations.” The vote for the proposed merger is slated for the next board meeting in August, Board of Trustees Chair William Cast said. “It’s not the notion of the trustees in any way that journalism would loose its self-determination,” he said. 3. Wells Library research areaOld card catalog areas in the East Tower of the Herman B Wells Library will be converted to a research commons for graduate students and faculty, to a tune of $2.4 million, $1.2 million of which was already approved. The project also includes fire sprinkler installation to certain parts of the building. 4. Kelley School of BusinessPhase II of the Kelley School of Business renovations and expansions were greenlit by the board. The $29 million project, funded through gifts and grants, will include Hodge Hall administrative and academic space renovation where aging mechanical systems will be replaced and classrooms will be updated. 5. New degreesA Bachelor of Science in animal behavior, a BS in international studies and a Bachelor of Arts in central eurasian studies will now be offered on the IU Bloomington campus. 6. Repair and rehabilitation Board members approved the 2013-2014 Repair and Rehabilitation Plan. Currently just more than $700 million, the deferred maintenance total will lessen to around the mid-$500 million mark in the next two years. “We’re grateful to the legislature for funding some important items,” Cast said. The temporary repair and rehabilitation fee students have seen on their bursar bill in recent cycles is something of a user fee, Cast said.“It’s a way to keep the legacy of IU going,” he said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>An August proposal to the Board of Trustees concerning the merger of communication units at IU is almost certain now that the Memorandum of Understanding between the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Journalism is nearly complete. The MOU is a five-page document originally drafted by School of Journalism faculty and staff that outlines aspects of the school that faculty and staff would like to see preserved in the merger process. School of Journalism Dean Michael Evans said only slight tweaks were made to the MOU as it passed between leaders of the College and the School of Journalism in recent weeks. The process ended Friday when it was given to Provost Lauren Robel for editing.“I don’t think there will be any issues because the only things that I’ve done have been for the sake of clarifying provisions,” Robel said Sunday of her edits. “There’s nothing substantive in what I did.”Once final edits are made, Robel plans to make the MOU public, likely sometime early next week. Robel said the MOU was the main component needed before she would make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees at the August 8-9 meeting at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, though she does expect faculty to start working on a new document in the summer focusing on academic programming. The proposal will lay out the “substance” of the new school and include proposals for curriculum, degrees and other academic programs. Robel said she would like that proposal by mid-fall to then share with faculty and students.While the MOU will act as an official document of understanding between the College and journalism, its provisions are not 100-percent guaranteed to be adopted when all is implemented.“There’s no ensuring anything, but it’s taken very seriously,” Evans said. He added the document is a way to get all involved parties on the same page before any merging happens, though he said he doesn’t foresee there being any issues in the future.Meanwhile in Ernie Pyle Hall, the leadership transition in the School of Journalism continues following Evans’ recent announcement of his plans to leave the school. Evans said he has left the MOU editing between his school and COAS to Lesa Hatley Major, journalism senior associate dean, and Bonnie Brownlee, journalism associate dean, as they will still be at IU in the fall. Robel said she needed to speak with President Michael McRobbie and the Board of Trustees this week before making her interim dean announcement, currently slated for early next week. Space planningIf approved by the trustees, the new school will be housed next to the Sample Gates, in Franklin Hall.Tom Morrison, vice president of capital planning and facilities, said he expects construction to begin at Franklin within a year, assuming Gov. Mike Pence signs the budget into law and the Board of Trustees and state agencies approve the renovation project for Franklin Hall.“Fortunately, the Indiana General Assembly as part of its budget bill passed (Friday) night authorized $21 million in funds for renovation of the remainder of the building,” Morrison said in an email. Renovations have already been made to the building, including those in Presidents Hall. A new project to build a ramp and elevator in the front of the building is currently underway.Before further renovations can be made, however, Morrison and Robel said space plans need to be developed by faculty and students from all affected units. “In a best case scenario, planning will occur during the 2013-14 year and construction during the 2014-15 year with completion approximately two years from now,” he said.Robel said she is currently assembling a committee that will develop ways to honor Ernie Pyle, the current School of Journalism building’s namesake.“It’s less to memorialize Ernie Pyle than to make his legacy assessable and visible for students in the future,” Robel said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bill Boyd takes in the changes as he walks past piles of his mangled trees. His dust-crusted brown boots reacquaint themselves with the land he once openly walked and his cattle freely roamed. He and his wife, Jan, can’t go on their property on this unseasonably warm, October day. A court order threatens legal action if they trespass, they say. That land now belongs to the state. Part of the Boyds’ land in Bloomfield, Ind., sits in the path of constructing Interstate 69, which will connect Indianapolis to Evansville.It’s been under construction since 2008, though Section 4 of the project, where the Boyds reside, broke ground in April 2012, pushing building forward into Greene County and into the Boyds’ backyard. It’s a process the Boyds say has been marked by negligence by the Indiana Department of Transportation. INDOT, they say, has disregarded state laws in an infuriating push to complete the project, skipping standard procedures. It has created the feeling that they’re among the few voices combating a seemingly untouchable system fueled and corrupted by politics. They want to let the state know they have a dissenting voice, and that despite many legal setbacks, they’re still fighting. As far as the eye can see, the cleared, middle course clearly outlines the future construction. It’s a parted Red Sea of trees, allowing for the future passage of Indiana’s vehicles.The state now can build on the almost 14 acres Bill walks on, leaving him and his wife with about 33. Excavators and bulldozers roar and tick as they morph the land, the clanging of industry filling the usually quiet pasture air. The historic Civil War-era buildings from before the Boyd family ownership began in 1919, as well as other structures built by Jan’s grandfather in the 1940s dot the land, as do family memories. The farm was a weekend escape for Jan and Bill, who live and raised their family in Indianapolis. But more than that, it was a promise of future peace in retirement and a source of continued memories for their children and five grandchildren. “You cannot put a price, you can’t put a value on family history,” Bill says.The state said it can: $51,700. * * *Jan sat on a tightly rolled bale of hay with her eyes trained north on the construction. The bales sit near new metal fencing the state put up to contain its work and the Boyds. She doesn’t playfully jump from bale to bale like her grandkids, who scamper down to the branch for the chance to catch minnows, or if they’re lucky, a real live frog. No, she sits and watches the workers in their yolk yellow machines mold her earth, fill in her ravines and grind her trees to mulch. Before I-69 came, however, the farm rested, removed from urban bustle. It’s a land of front porches lined with fall pumpkins and scarecrows are plentiful. No trespassing signs are as common as the pickup trucks parked on the gravel driveways. The Boyds’ land, which they affectionately call “down-home,” is one of sweeping meadows, hilly inclines and a forested backdrop. Drivers cross a small bridge to pass over the stream that cuts through the land. An unpaved road leads up to the small white house — past the tire swing — where Jan’s grandparents lived out most their lives. When darkness blankets it all in the evening, the stars shine in full force, marred only by a few lights from the nearby county road. It’s a quiet land.Strips of paneling shine freshly white while others toward the top of the house peel, awaiting their fresh coat. It matches the rusting, white painted metal table and chairs in the front lawn. Jan is only midway through her summer repainting work. She hasn’t worked in seven years, and as of just more than a year ago, she hasn’t called Indianapolis her home. She now lives nearly full time on the land she bought from her grandmother. Bill still holds down a job in Indy and drives down on weekends to tend to the land and prepare the latest filings in the ongoing state and federal lawsuits. “Her job is taking care of this place,” Bill said, as well as “keepin’ the contractors in line.”If something strikes Jan as suspicious, she takes out her camera and documents it. They chuckled, knowing her vigilant presence near the border as the crews work, camera in hand, irks the state. She’s defending what’s hers, she said, doing the work most haven’t to challenge the state’s steamrolling land grab. “We are not terrible, mean people,” Jan said. She looked out at the newly torn land. “It’s hard to imagine an interstate behind your home with thousands of vehicles running past your home,” Jan said. It would sit just about 250 feet from her back door. Cars would move quickly through the Boyds’ former land as they speed off to their desired destinations — their presence fleeting. Bill and Jan would look on from the house that predates the invention of the automobile. They’d watch the interstate rainwater runoff trickle down into their lands. They’d see the lights illuminate the nearby sky. Out in the country free of nosey neighbors and prying eyes, Jan leaves her drapes open. She hikes her land alone, lost in the cadence of her walk and the subtle sounds of cooing birds and scurrying chipmunks. Jan feels safe on her land. If all goes according to the state’s plan, the interstate will run through the northern quarter of the Boyds’ land. Looking out the back window of the Civil War-era home, they will be able to see the concrete hulk. “I don’t know if I could live here anymore.” * * *Bill and Jan aren’t alone in losing property to I-69. Hundreds of homeowners sold land or even moved from their homes entirely when INDOT came knocking. The multi-billion dollar construction project threw money at those in its way to clear the path in the name of economic prosperity and increased safety the road could bring. Will Wingfield of the INDOT Office of Communications said the project’s power to strengthen the state is key to understanding its necessity. “The most important reason for the project, more than many others, are the connections from an entire region of our state with jobs and health care that other portions of the state can benefit from,” Wingfield said.The Boyds aren’t convinced, and neither is Sandra Tokarski of Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads, a grassroots organization that aims to preserve the rural character of the southern Indiana region. It’s one of the parties in a federal lawsuit against the state about I-69 construction. “You could probably do a better job tossing $100 bills out of an airplane in terms of really helping the people of Indiana,” said Tokarski, whose Bloomington property is also involved in property condemnation.CARR believes the I-69 project is not just financially irresponsible, but also will be environmentally detrimental to the unity of small, rural communities. “This project is wrong for the state,” Tokarski said. “It has been and continues to be. Yes, we acknowledge we’ve lost Sections 1 through 3. It’s a tragedy. The damage to homes and farms and families cannot be repaired.”The state focuses on what will come and not what the everyman will lose, the Boyds said. Wingfield said INDOT’s goal has always been to amicably purchase land from landowners, when possible. Out of more than 1,000 parcels, just 167 went to condemnation court, Wingfield said, Boyds included. “We’re labeled as difficult,” Bill said. The two laughed, but it’s true, they said. “They probably have other names for us, but ...” he added. “It’s a politically driven process. It always has been. That’s what we’re up against.”With the joint federal lawsuit still in the works, the Boyds aren’t going away silently anytime soon.* * *Unlike in previous sections, INDOT officials approached landowners through “kitchen table meetings,” during which they explained the land acquisition process, often in the very homes to be demolished. Wingfield said 94 percent of impacted property owners in Section 4 agreed to this style of negotiations. Like others in the path of the construction who refused the kitchen table meetings, the Boyds’ land was first appraised. The Boyds were made an offer of $51,700 in April 2011. Early acquisition, the state called it. They refused the offer, uninterested in selling. Moreover, they felt it was too low an assessment and left out the worth of certain structures on the property. They could have accepted that offer. It all could have ended there with the Boyds signing some paperwork and walking away with green-lined pockets. But it didn’t. As fall began to chill the land, a different type of coolness hit the Boyds. A letter of condemnation that essentially transferred possession of the land from the family to the state arrived without warning, the Boyds said. They were losing their land to construction whether they liked it or not.Wingfield said he cannot comment on the Boyds, as their multiple lawsuits are still pending.“What’s unique about the Boyds is how hard they continue to work to expose that the state has done wrong of which there are many,” Tokarski said.It’s not about the money, Bill and Jan said. It’s about standing for the principles they believe the state has sidestepped. Jan crossed her arms as she spoke of the process.“I just feel that nobody holds them accountable.” * * *She remembers following her grandmother outside, basket in hand. Jan was young, in elementary school, but she was old enough to help her grandparents on her spring break. The two would walk down to the brooder house to fetch warm eggs. Basket nearby, Jan would reach beneath the feathery hens and remove the fresh eggs. Sometimes, she would follow her grandmother over to the tractor shed and find runaway hens squatting over more eggs to collect. To Jan, her youth is a collage of farm life with her grandparents. She still feels the cool of the stainless steel milk cartons she’d use when she helped her grandfather milk the cows. Potatoes needed hulling from the potato patch. Water from the spring needed to be drawn and was often done so by her grandmother with a pail in each hand. Grandpa would boil that water to cook the hogs he would shoot and dress, right in front of Jan. On weekends, he’d take out his new turquoise 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air and drive the family into town for the weekly grocery store visit. She’d often go with him when he took his pickup truck into Bloomfield to have his corn ground into feed. After buying the property in 1919, her grandparents slowly moved to a life of agriculture. By the 40s, her grandfather had established a functioning farm, complete with chickens, hogs and dairy cattle. He rotated a variety of crops, from corn to tomatoes, even tobacco. He also built a number of oaken structures on the land, including two that were recently demolished. “They have, you know, memories to us, to me,” Jan said. “I was here on this farm. I’ve been here off and on, here all my life.” Bill entered the picture years later and first visited the farm when he was dating Jan. As grandpa began to age and became less able to cut his grass with his sickle bar mower on his John Deere tractor, he taught Bill his ways. “Bill was a city boy,” Jan said. “He didn’t know anything about a tractor. But he learned and ended up doing a lot of it for my grandfather. I suppose that’s where his attachment to the land really began.”She and her husband lived, worked and raised their children in Indianapolis. Bloomfield was a weekend escape. It was a place to visit her aging grandparents and revisit her own childhood. It was a vision of a quiet retirement, surrounded in wooded, pastured beauty. It was, and is, a stronghold of family. “It was so easy before. It was just so laid back and easy,” Jan says. “Now they’ve made it so difficult.”* * *Jan was notified in late September 2012 that crews would come soon to demolish the four structures that stood in the way of the construction. There was an equipment shed that Bill and his son built by hand and an old hog house her grandfather built in the 40s. Those and two smaller structures would soon disappear. The Boyds ended their multi-month wait for a court of appeals verdict Oct. 11, 2012. In two sentences, they knew their fate. “None of the Boyds’ claims are reviewable in eminent domain proceedings. We therefore affirm the trial court.” That’s all Indiana Court of Appeals Senior Judge Randall Shepard wrote. They had lost.Soon, contractors moved on the land and started drawing the line between the Boyds property and the state’s land in the form of the metal wire fence. That land is still in the Boyds’ name. They took a final step of filing an appeal with the Indiana Supreme Court to see if the project could be stopped. After it was filed in November, all they had to do was wait. * * * Again, the two walked their land, this time months later on a similarly warm April afternoon. Looking out into the distance, the Boyds can see the bloody afterbirth still swaying from the rear of one of their cows. She just gave birth that morning to a young black calf, which struggled to stay upright as it teetered in the greening field next to its mother and Cinderella, another black cow named by Bill and Jan’s grandchildren. It marks the fifth birth of the spring season. With limited land last year, the Boyds thinned their herd. Jan hopes she won’t have to do it again this year.“I still keep hoping we’re going to win,” she said. “I just think we’re in the right.”After months of waiting, the Boyds’ attorney Rudolph Savich of Bloomington emailed the couple with the news the State Supreme Court would not hear their case. Savich said there are a few options for the future of the state case, but most are unlikely to produce different results. He does, however, see promise in the Boyds’ federal case.“I think that the federal case raised some strong legal arguments,” he said. Though he added that common sense would suggest a judge ordering to tear down an existing highway isn’t the most likely option. Jan and Bill say the defeat at the State Supreme Court level was unexpected, but that despite previous legal setbacks, they are optimistic about the federal court ruling. “You always hope,” Jan added. As Savich noted, their federal case could take months, or even years to reach a conclusion. In the meantime, they have new calves to name and work to do on their land. “I’ve got to get it spruced back up again,” Jan said. Blue painter’s tape frames the doorways and windows of the little white house in anticipation of the second half of Jan’s paint job. Bill has no plans to permanently join Jan “down-home.” The weekends are enough. “It’s mentally challenging to want to do anything down here,” Bill said. There’s a lot of buildings that need to be repaired and a lot of work that needs to be done, but I just don’t have the mental capability to do it anymore because of this up here,” he said, lifting his head toward the construction. “It’s depressing. I don’t even want to be down here.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>School of Journalism Interim Dean Michael Evans is leaving his position for a new role as provost and vice president of academic affairs at Unity College in Unity, Maine. Evans verbally accepted the position Tuesday, though he won’t officially begin his new job until July 1. “I realized there was no way we were going to have a successful internal appointee for the dean of the new unit,” Evans said of his future opportunities in a new merger between the School of Journalism and the departments of Telecommunications and Communication and Culture. At that point last fall, Evans began applying to new administrative positions at different academic institutions. He will now oversee about 40 personnel at Unity College, a private, liberal arts college with an environmental focus. He began his tenure as journalism interim dean in July 2012, replacing former dean Brad Hamm, who left IU to become the dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.Evans served the school as associate dean for undergraduate studies from 2009-2012 and has been part of the journalism faculty since 1995.Provost Lauren Robel, who recommended Evans serve as interim dean to the Board of Trustees, has yet to announce her decision about future leadership of the School of Journalism, though she did ask Evans for his recommendations, he said, and will likely consult the four-person School of Journalism policy committee.Evans has led the school as it continues to prepare for a possible merger.“He genuinely cares about what happens with the School,” said Lesa Hatley Major, senior associate dean of the school. “He really did act with the best intentions of the School of Journalism in mind. The fact that he was open during these uncertain times kept people calm.”School of Journalism Associate Dean Bonnie Brownlee said she’ll remember Evans’ leadership and dedication to ensuring the school retains its national accreditation by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.“He’s brought this faculty back together with a transparency and openness,” Brownlee said. “He was constantly in communication with faculty and staff as discussions were going on. Even with his search for a new job, he was open.”Before he leaves, Evans said he has two main priorities. Firstly, he will see to the completion of a document called a memorandum of understanding. It will outline how the School of Journalism will operate in the College of Arts and Sciences under the current merger proposal, Major said. Evans said he is now sorting through and condensing the findings of various brainstorming teams which assessed areas including journalism programming, curriculum and accreditation and facilities. Once completed, Evans will present the finalized memorandum to school personnel for final agreement before it is passed to the upper administration of the College.Once there, the College will incorporate its own memorandum of understanding to the existing document. If there are differences in thought, points of contention will be negotiated before a finalized document is agreed to by both schools and sent to the provost. From there, Robel will take the memorandum into account as she crafts her proposal to the Board of Trustees, a proposal Evans expects she will make at the August 8-9 IU trustees meeting at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis. Evans’ second main goal before he leaves is to ensure the smooth transition of the new interim dean, who could be appointed by Robel from inside or outside of the School of Journalism. He added that he hopes Robel will act quickly to make the appointment, as he would like to have an overlap period to ensure things are “handed off gracefully.”As an added incentive for the move, Evans will more permanently reunite with his wife, Joanna, who has been working in New York state for the past six years. “We’ve always loved New England,” he said. “Going back will be wonderful for us.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Alumni of the School of Journalism are officially weighing in on the proposed merger of their alma mater.In a recent letter drafted and approved 27-0, the members of the Journalism Alumni Board expressed a number of “deep concerns,” namely about one element of the merger proposal — the idea to move the new merged unit into the College of Arts and Sciences.In addition to alumni, the resolution has been shared with the Board of Trustees, University President Michael McRobbie and Provost Lauren Robel.President of the Alumni Board JR Ross said the purpose of the letter is to voice concern, but final judgment will be withheld until more detailed plans are released.“We want to be critical of things, as we were trained to do, and make sure (questions are) answered in a way to ensure people that journalism will continue to not just survive but thrive for decades to come,” Ross said.The resolution said the current proposal ends the School of Journalism’s independence, thus hurting its reputation as an award-garnering, nationally recognized school, lessening enrollment and donor support.Also in the resolution, Ross noted alumni concern about financial independence of journalism, which, under COAS, would likely lose financial resources to other COAS departments, as opposed to the financial independence the school has presently.Ease of administrative decision-making is another point of concern. New housing in COAS could potentially add bureaucratic layers that would hinder decision-making and inhibit flexibility, the resolution read.“We still have questions, and I think it’s appropriate,” Ross said. “We can still raise questions about COAS governance structure and question in the best way possible. We’re in a much better position than the faculty are. There’s a position among alumni that if faculty make a ruckus against the COAS, they would be hurt by that and lose the ability to argue for journalism.”Among the signers are Marjorie Smith Blewett, BA’48 a retired placement director at IU; Ben French, BAJ’98, director of web products at The New York Times; James Polk, BA’64, senior documentary producer at CNN and Carrie Ritchie, BAJ’08, reporter at The Indianapolis Star.The resolution does note alumni will reassess the proposal as more details are worked out before the Board of Trustees votes on the proposal. The Board will meet in April on the Bloomington campus, though a vote likely isn’t expected at the earliest until the Board meets in June at IU-Purdue Fort Wayne.“We’re at least happy to see it won’t be happening (in April),” Ross said. “Generally speaking, it would be better if it would be done in the fall when students are on campus and more people are more engaged, but I can’t control that stuff.”The formal response resolution comes as the next steps in the merger proposal begin to take shape. As outlined in a discussion between the provost and COAS and journalism administrators on March 4, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Larry Singell and Interim Dean Michael Evans — the only two deans in the mix — will co-author a Memorandum of Understanding for submission to Robel.Evans asked his faculty and staff to contribute to the memorandum “anything that we feel would be essential for the preservation and enhancement of our program and our national stature.”Singell said he is still working on a proposal for the administrative structure of the new school, which will be included in the document, and that any plans or recommendations laid out in the memorandum will need to be approved by the provost. “The Memorandum of Understanding needs to have a clear understanding of how this operation would exist in the College, so I need to be able to determine that,” Singell said. “We need to work out the details and how (the merged school’s administration) will interact in the context of the College.”Singell said the heads of the telecommunications and communication and culture departments won’t co-write the document, as the point of the letter is to help sort out questions regarding the School of Journalism’s potential new placement in COAS, where the two departments already reside.Evans said he and Singell should have the letter finished sometime before early April, after which he, Singell and Robel will meet to discuss the document and future direction.“I don’t think anyone is interested in imposing their will on anybody else, because that’s not the way to get a good, harmonious group together,” Evans said. “I’m sure Dean Singell has ideas about how he would like to see the administrative structure, as we do, too, and that will come out through open dialogue.”Another outcome of the March 4 meeting was the creation of a Franklin Hall Space Planning Committee, which will evaluate the building and assess its ability to deliver on the needs of all three units. It was recommended by Robel in her Feb. 19 State of the Campus address as the optimal space for the new school. All three units will participate in the committee, which is still being formed. Evans said a number of people have already contacted him and are interested to serve.The committee will determine what each unit needs to make the school a leader in communications, Evans said, including not only classrooms and offices, but production studios and student media space as well.“The opportunity of Franklin Hall is deeply exciting,” Evans said. “That, to me, is one of the most exciting pieces of this whole thing.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU Police Department Chief Keith Cash, 50, died this evening due to a heart problem.Cash was taken by ambulance to IU-Health Bloomington around 6:20 p.m. Wednesday evening, according to Laury Flint, IUPD deputy chief. Next of kin have been notified. "We are shocked and deeply, deeply saddened," said Mark Land, associate vice president of IU Communications. "Not only is Keith great at his job, he was a great friend to many people here, around town and on the campus. Our thoughts go out to his family." Cash first started at IUPD as a patrol officer in 1984. He was named chief in October 2010.Flint said no decisions regarding succession have been made at this time.- Matthew Glowicki & Hannah Smith