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(03/05/07 5:00am)
Nearly 100 people, all dressed in black, could not hold back tears when a memorial video of Yoon Jang-ho, a 2004 Kelley School graduate who was killed last week in Afghanistan, was shown on a projection screen Friday at a memorial service at the Korean United Methodist Church, 1920 E. Third St.\nPictures of him in front of the Kelley School in his cap and gown during graduation were shown. The crowd cried even more as pictures were shown of Yoon’s parents crying next to pictures of Yoon. When photos of Yoon posing in his army uniform were shown several times, the cries became louder.\nYoon was killed by a Taliban suicide bomber while working his mandatory two-year service for the Korean Army. Yoon was 27 years old.\nThe Taliban bomber was trying to assassinate Vice President Dick Cheney, according to Reuters reports. Cheney was in Afghanistan to discuss security for Taliban attacks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.\nYoon was to serve three more months before being discharged from the army.\nYoon graduated from the Kelley School of Business with majors in accounting, finance and international business. But during his memorial service focused on Yoon’s sincerity.\n“When I think of him, I want to smile,” Junyoup Kim said during the eulogy. “But right now, I cannot smile in this world.”\nKim became best friends with Yoon when they both were freshmen at IU in 1999 and attended the same church.\nWhen Kim came to IU, it was his first time living in the United States. Kim said Yoon taught him the culture of the U.S. and encouraged Kim when he struggled while studying the English language.\nKim, too, served in the Korean Army for two years and left in 2002. He said he remembered what Yoon told him when he threw a farewell party in 2002 for him:\n“Stay well and we will see each other soon.”\nIt was the last time the best friends saw one another.\nKim said he found out about his friend’s death when he read an e-mail from another friend who wrote of the news. Kim said he was still in denial and questioned if the picture of Yoon in a news story about his death was really him.\n“I just didn’t want to believe it,” Kim said. “It could have been someone else with the same name. But when I saw the picture, I mean, I still couldn’t believe it.”\nSae Park, an elder for the Korean United Methodist Church, also delivered a eulogy. Park said Yoon was studying to become a pastor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. But he left in 2005 after only one semester because of his required service in the South Korean Army.\nPark said that, when Yoon graduated from IU, Yoon’s parents wanted Park and the former pastor of the Korean United Methodist Church to give him advice on becoming a pastor. Park said Yoon was a born-again Christian.\nYoon’s parents transported his body from Afghanistan to Seoul, South Korea, earlier this week and plan on burying him there.
(03/02/07 5:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Michael McRobbie had a continuing theme as he spoke Thursday after being selected to be IU’s 18th president – a theme of a “living and learning environment for the 21st century.”\nMcRobbie said one of the first items on his agenda is to set up a task force with both student governments of the Bloomington and IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis campuses by the fall semester. The task forces, which would be student-chaired and -run, he said, would “come up with a vision for student living and learning environments for the 21st century” with recommendations by those task forces to the office of the president.\n“I think that will be one of the more significant things that we will do,” McRobbie said. \nHe was vehement in improving the quality of life for students living in the dorms, saying it was going to be one of his major priorities. He said he knows the dorms are not the best they could be – his daughter, an IU student, lived in the dorms for two years.\n“That, I think, has been an area where we have not maybe invested as much as we need to,” McRobbie said.\nHe said the decision of a better “student living and learning environment” would be for the student-run task force to make.\n“But it may be when we put these task forces in place that what the students come back and say is ‘Well, we really don’t care about that. We care about many more \nresources going into things like the Information Commons in the Wells library” for which he helped fund, he said.\nMcRobbie said he was aware that changes have taken place in higher education since he was in school. He said he noticed, from personal observation around IU, that students like to work “more cooperatively in groups than they did in my day,” and he questioned the implications of \ngroup work.\nInternational studies was another main focus McRobbie brought up. He said students’ having an education with an “international dimension” was going to be more important with time.\n“We live in a global economy,” McRobbie said. “So the kind of education we provide at IU has to prepare students to be competitive in the international community.”\nMcRobbie said he would try to be more visible on campus by attending events “that are critical to student life” on both the Bloomington and IUPUI \ncampuses. \n“Where appropriate, I intend to participate in those,” he said. “My previous positions (interim provost and vice president for academic affairs) have not had a major student proponent. But this one does, and I intend to carry out those duties \nappropriately.”\nDoubling the minority population by the next seven years was a goal McRobbie set his sights on. He listed it as one of eight major priorities for the University.\nHe defended his record on diversity while at IU, saying he was responsible for raising an additional $10 million for such financial aid initiatives as the Twenty-First Century Scholars Program. McRobbie said he and Charlie Nelms, vice president for institutional development and student affairs, will be announcing “some new initiatives \npretty soon.”\nDuring a news conference, Steve Ferguson, president of the trustees, said the search committee looked nationwide “at the country’s best universities and we looked at some extraordinary accomplished people.\n“But we found no one with Michael McRobbie’s unique combination of experience, knowledge and intellect and being a Hoosier already.”
(03/01/07 5:00am)
A Taliban suicide bomber killed an IU alumnus Tuesday in Afghanistan. He was the first South Korean soldier to be killed in a terrorist attack since troops were deployed to the country in 2002.\nThe Taliban attack was an attempt to assassinate Vice President Dick Cheney, according to press reports.\nYoon Jang-ho, 27, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Kelley School of Business in 2004. He majored in accounting, finance and international business. The attack took place at the front gates of the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, 37 miles north of Kabul, according to Associated Press reports. \nMin Sung Kim, IU Korean Student Association president, said that her organization will hold a vigil for Yoon following a Friday night church service held at Korean United Methodist Church, 1924 E. Third St.. The time and place of the vigil is still undecided, Kim said. \nU.S. spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta said the suicide bomber “never tried to get by any U.S.-manned security checkpoints and instead walked into a group of Afghans outside the base and detonated himself,” according to Associated Press reports. \nYoon was “at the scene to guide two local residents into his unit, located inside the U.S. base, to provide technical education” when the attack took place, according to a press release from the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense.\nA Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the suicide attack was aimed at the vice president, according to The Associated Press. Cheney and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met in Afghanistan to discuss security for Taliban attacks, according to Reuters reports.\nYoon was serving a mandatory two-year military service in the Republic of Korea Army and was to be deployed back to Korea next month and have completed his military service in three months.\nThe Korea Times reports that Yoon’s mother, Lee Chang-hee, 60, burst into tears, and his father, Yoon Hee-sok, 67, shouted upon first knowledge of the news. The couple has one other son and daughter, according to The Korea Times.\n–The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(02/28/07 5:00am)
Hoosier Outdoor Advertising, a Bloomington-based company, has donated billboards to help find missing Purdue student Wade Steffey. The billboards can be seen in Monroe and Tippecanoe counties.\n Steffey, 19, was last seen Jan. 13 while attending a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue. He was not seen drinking or intoxicated, according to friends who attended the party with him.\n Massive searches and prayer vigils were held in pursuit of finding the missing Bloomington resident.\nSteffey’s parents, Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, have been vehement in the search for their son.\n “We need to find him,” Adams said. “Any condition that he is in, we need to find him. It’s not better for us not to know.”
(02/26/07 5:00am)
A bill in the Indiana Senate that would “prohibit the sale or rental of certain video games to children” has rekindled the subject of constitutional violations in the video-game industry.\nSenate Bill 238, authored by Hartford City Republican Sen. David C. Ford and Ellettsville Democrat Sen. Vi Simpson, would impose fines up to $1,000 to sales clerks and video-game retailers for selling certain games to minors.\nThe bill asks that games labeled M for Mature not be sold to those under 17 and for games labeled AO for Adults Only not be sold to those under 18.\nThe Entertainment Software Rating Board, a nonprofit organization that rates most video games sold, rates games from EC (Early Childhood) to AO (Adults Only).\nSally Jefferson of the Entertainment Software Association said she believes the bill is a violation of the First and 14th amendments.\n“The problem is that it will (regulate) the ESRB ratings system, and by doing that it’s unconstitutional,” Jefferson said.\nJefferson said laws in nine states that tried to enact the same regulations as Indiana Senate Bill 238 were struck down on constitutional grounds. \n“The fact is that video games are like other forms of media – they’re protected speech – and nine courts have struck down these laws,” she said.\nBut Sen. Ford said there is a correlation of violent video games and violence among children, and he pointed to studies from researchers at the IU School of Medicine.\nWilliam Kronenberger, a researcher and a clinical psychologist who is researching the effects of violent video games on brain activity, testified to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in 2005 that increased exposure to violence in the media has “negative effects on adolescent brain activity.”\nBut U.S District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly disagreed. Kennelly, in Entertainment Software Association v. Rod Blagojevich, found Kronenberger’s testimony “unpersuasive.” Blagojevich is the governor of Illinois.\nJefferson said that last Monday, when the Senate Economic Development and Technology Committee passed the bill 5-2, the same research Kronenberger cited was used in favor of the bill.\nJefferson said that because the ESRB is not a government entity, its ratings system cannot be regulated by the government. But Ford said the problem Jefferson and the Entertainment Software Association have with the bill is it will affect the sales of video games purchased by minors.\nFord said their arguments are “inconsistent” because, when testifying before the committee last Monday, ESA representatives said they would threaten to sue for damages if the bill were passed.\n“My feeling is that they are hiding behind that, frankly, because all the bill does was say that the industry should enforce its own standards,” Ford said. “If their parents wanted to buy (video games) and give (video games) to minors, they can do that. But it was just to prevent them to selling directly to minors. And the industry comes in and says, ‘Well, we don’t do that anyway, so what’s the problem?’ And yet, we know that they do.”\nJefferson refuted claims by the Indiana senator that her association’s opposition to the bill was because it feared a loss in sales from minors, and she pointed to figures by the Federal Trade Commission to back that up. \n“The average age of people that play video games is 33 years old now,” Jefferson said. “And the average age of people that buy games is 40 years old.” \nDavid Hudson of the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., has written several books on First Amendment issues and has followed video game bills across the U.S. He has written about the topic of video games and the First Amendment on www.firstamendmentcenter.org.\nHudson said the laws are “politically popular” and would be surprised if it did not pass. \n“So far these type of bills have fared very well in the legislative branch but very poorly in the judicial branch,” Hudson said. \nHe also said that because the issue of video game bills is always defended on constitutional grounds, many of the cases are challenged on the federal court level. \n“There is a very strong likelihood that it will be challenged by the groups that challenge these laws,” Hudson said, “and there’s a fair chance that it won’t survive constitutional review in federal courts.”
(02/22/07 5:00am)
Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County is renovating the Campbell House, 213 E. Kirkwood Ave., to be used as its new relocated offices. First Christian Church is leasing the Campbell House next door.\nFirst Christian Church is letting Habitat use the house for 20 years in exchange for some much needed renovations, said Kerry Thomson, executive director for Habitat for Humanity.\n“Our mission remains the same,” Thomson said. “We build simple, decent, affordable houses in partnership with families in need and we sell those houses with interest free mortgages.”\nHabitat for Humanity is a nonprofit Christian housing ministry that seeks to “eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world,” according to its Web site. The organization builds houses for poor families across the United States.\nThomson said some of the requirements to get a home would include a family living in a substandard home which includes living in an overcrowded, unaffordable or dilapidated home. A steady, reliable source of income would have to be proven as well to be able to pay the utilities and mortgage on the home, she said.\nThomson said the new offices on Kirkwood Avenue will be an advantage. Habit for Humanity will be closer to campus, and she is hopeful the closer location will bring in more student volunteers.\n“In our old location, it was really pretty difficult to get students to come out, because we were hard to find and you had to transfer buses to get there if you didn’t have your own transportation,” Thomson said.\nThe charity’s offices, 1119 N. Lindbergh Drive, will be sold to pay for the renovation costs at the Campbell House, Office Manager Sean Price said.\nPrice said they expect to start packing up supplies at the old office by March 6 and move from the old location by March 13. He said the reason for the relocation was because when they first bought the building on Lindbergh Drive, the area was considered in city limits. But because the city rezoned Habitat for Humanity’s current location to a residential zone, the organization needed to move to a commercial zone, Price said.\nPrice said the Campbell House will be the charity’s main Bloomington headquarters. He said volunteers will meet there to discuss issues involving Habitat for Humanity’s causes. Committee meetings by the managers and employees will also take place at the Campbell House.\nTina Jernigan, office manager for First Christian Church, said the congregation did not want the Campbell house to be “just another business,” but something of use for the church and the community. Some, Jernigan said, were asking to tear the house down and make it a parking lot.\nBut in the end it was decided that the purpose for the Campbell House, which was once the church’s parsonage and also a women’s boarding shelter, would have to be something that would help people.\n“We wanted to do something as a mission,” Jernigan said, “and we wanted to have somebody in there that would be a ministry, not a business. ... That was our main focus.”\nVolunteer for Habitat for Humanity in Monroe County must be at least 16 years old. You can contact the main office by phone at 331-4069 or by e-mail at volunteers@monroecountyhabitat.org. Interested IU students can e-mail the IU Habitat for Humanity chapter at habitat@indiana.edu.
(02/19/07 5:00am)
The stage was set and the roles were in place on Friday. But when it came time to test Monroe County’s disaster services in Bloomington, the public felt dead in the process – literally. \nThe mock disaster scenario was planned months in advance, said Valerie Luchauer, emergency management agency director for Lawrence County. She was one of nearly 100 mock victims that volunteered to play roles of dead or hurt victims at Bloomington High School North on Friday night.\nLuchauer said the mock disaster exercise, which included Brown and Bartholomew Counties as well, was the “very first 24-hour, full-scale exercise that ever was done in the state with three counties simultaneously.” \nLuchauer said 500 to 1,000 people, including responders and mock victims, volunteered from all three counties. The drills were funded by a $770,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Homeland Security.\nThe majority of volunteers had fake blood on them with the occasional screw glued to their foreheads and other parts of their bodies. It was all to simulate a dirty bomb that was to go off in the school during a basketball game in Bloomington High School North’s gymnasium.\nThe volunteers seemed excited and ready to act out the roles given to them on cards that were hanging around their necks telling them what symptoms they had. Tim Kinzel, an IU sophomore in Delta Sigma Pi, had a screw glued to his forehead. The symptoms on his card included pain inside his nose and burns on his skin.\n“It seemed kind of cool, like something neat to do,” Kinzel said. “Like a once in a lifetime opportunity.”\nBut 35 minutes after officials from the high school called police to inform them of a “mock explosion in the school” police, firefighters and other emergency management departments had just arrived and were still parked outside without entering the building as the mock victims were moaning in “pain” on the gymnasium floor.\n“We have all come to the conclusion that if this is a huge failure ... we had better be prepared for our own dead butts,” said mock victim and Ivy Tech Community College student Lisa Anderson after waiting for nearly three hours in the high school’s gymnasium.\nBy then, four Bloomington police officers were “killed” from a chlorine gas cloud and three firefighters were “shot” to death in addition to one firefighter being held hostage by a terrorist.\nAll of this occurred as first responders were staged outside near command centers and were still figuring out if the school was safe to enter. \nMindGent Security Solutions, an Indiana-based consulting firm that specializes in “table-top and full-scale exercises” to test counties’ responses to similar “attacks” such as Bloomington High School North’s, was on hand monitoring the progress of first responders, said director Rick Ball.\n“We know we might make mistakes,” Luchauer said before the exercise. “But why not make the mistakes during the exercise so that we can realize what can we do to improve so if it happens in real life, we’re better?”\nBut Anderson said she was “really discouraged” about the slow response time.\n“We shouldn’t go to things where we have large amounts of people because if something happens, it’s every man for himself because people aren’t organized,” she said.\nDeb Rayl, a custodial supervisor for Bloomington High School North who helped in directing people where to go during the exercise, said she thought a lack of communication between responders contributed to the slow response.\n“I don’t think that (the exercise) failed,” she said. “It just didn’t go the way that they wanted it to. ... If we had a (real) emergency, the response would have been better.”
(02/15/07 1:14am)
A bill that would make it easier for missing persons to be found by making them a "high-risk missing person" is scheduled to be introduced into the Indiana House of Representatives on Thursday.\nRep. Dave Cheatham, D-North Vernon, and the author of Bill 1306 which some call "Molly's Bill," said when a missing person is labeled a "high-risk missing person" more resources are available from the state to help locate them.\n"We wanted to have conditions that would be reasonable for local and state law enforcement to go and proceed with the high risk assessment," Cheatham said. \nMolly Dattilo disappeared July 2004 while attending summer classes at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Her case is unsolved. Two of Dattilo's cousins have been pushing to get similar bills passed in other states through message boards on the Internet.\nThe bill would require "a law enforcement agency that receives a report of a missing person to take certain steps to locate the missing person and requires a coroner having custody of unidentified human remains to take certain steps to attempt to identify the remains."\nUnder the proposed bill, there are 13 qualifications that would classify a missing person as a "high-risk," such as if he or she is less than 21 years years old or if they have been missing for more than 30 days. A person needs to qualify under only one of these provisions to be eligible for the "high-risk" status. \nThe proposed bill would require DNA sampling to be taken and put into a database that would make it easier for national DNA services to access permitted information. Local law enforcement agencies would also have to notify state law enforcement of a missing person.\nDale Steffey and Dawn Adams, the parents of Wade Steffey, a Purdue student missing since Jan. 13, said they will testify in favor of the bill.\n"Our experience has made us realize that this is a very important problem and it's very difficult for families when something like this occurs," Steffey said. "Police are really your most important ally when this happens, and it's important that families working close with police have an understanding of what the procedures will be. ... It will raise enough of an alarm as soon as possible," he said.\nMarilyn Behrman said she felt strongly for anything that could be done to help match up remains that are found from missing people. Behrman is mother of Jill Behrman, an IU student who went missing in 2000 and whose remains were found three years later.\n"It's not just a help to the family but also would save in the long run a lot of investigation time and probably tax-payer dollars," Behrman said. "If somehow a database would help do some of that work on a regular basis, it would save time and … it would help identify perpetrators faster"
(02/12/07 5:32am)
Nearly 200 people were in attendance Saturday at Evangelical Community Church at a vigil held for missing Purdue student Wade Steffey.\nSteffey, a Bloomington resident, was last seen in the early hours of Jan. 13 while attending a fraternity party at Purdue. He was reported missing three days later after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.\nBefore the vigil, a white banner was placed on a table outside the sanctuary area so that friends and family could write messages to the Steffey family.\nRoy Hughes, an ordained pastor, challenged the audience during the vigil to support Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, Wade's parents.\n"How much can it be for us as the friends or family of Dawn and Dale to be that support," Hughes said. "Let's do it as a group. Let's do it as a community. Let's do it as their family and their friends and help them because they need strength. They need support. They need comfort. They need encouragement in this setting. And we want to help them with that to find Wade," he said.\nAs messages from rabbis and pastors were completed, the crowd was asked to form a circle around the sanctuary area of the church. As the lights were dimmed and candles were lit in a moment of thoughts and prayers, Jonas Schrodt a Bloomington resident sang "Brand New Day" by Van Morrison while playing his guitar.\nShelley Sallee, youth and family camp director of the Monroe County YMCA, met the Steffey family when she instructed Wade Steffey and Adams at Monroe County Martial Arts. Sallee came up with the idea for the vigil. She spoke at the podium with tears in her eyes and a crackled voice as she told Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams not to "hesitate to call" for any help they needed.\n"I knew candles were a symbol of hope and that's what we wanted to portray and it also gives such a sense of community, I felt," Sallee said after the vigil. "To look around and see this circle of hope, I thought it was beautiful. It meant a lot."\nDale Steffey and Dawn Adams held each other in tears as the music played.\n"A lot of what was said up here spoke about the candles and all the people in the community and the support of the community and the good parts of the world and not the scary and bad parts that we have to wrestle with every day," Adams said after the vigil. "That's something to look to and focus on. I think that's going to be, in the days to come, a big help for us," she said.\n"I think it was pretty important for Dawn and Dale to know that there are a bunch of us out here that really care."\nAdams, family and friends said the continuing coverage of media was an important factor to pressure someone who knows what possibly happened in the disappearance of Steffey.\nEric and Marilyn Behrman, who were also in attendance, said it is "so important" the media continue to cover the Steffey story. Their daughter Jill was an IU sophomore who went missing in May 2000 and whose remains were not found for another three years.\n"The (media) needs to know the community and (Steffey's) friends are still very much concerned," Eric Behrman said, "and that people are asking questions and not letting it get to a cold case and it has to be continued on."\nBrooke Baker, Wade Steffey's half sister and an IU student, said she felt that someone knows what happened to her brother and asked for that person to come out and speak.\n"My thoughts and prayers right now are really focused on hoping that the person who knows what happened to Wade will come forward," Baker said. "We really need that to happen for our family"
(02/12/07 2:45am)
Nearly 200 people were in attendance Saturday at Evangelical Community Church at a vigil held for missing Purdue student Wade Steffey.\nSteffey, a Bloomington resident, was last seen in the early hours of Jan. 13 while attending a fraternity party at Purdue. He was reported missing three days later after the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.\nBefore the vigil, a white banner was placed on a table outside the sanctuary area so that friends and family could write messages to the Steffey family.\nRoy Hughes, an ordained pastor, challenged the audience during the vigil to support Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, Wade's parents.\n"How much can it be for us as the friends or family of Dawn and Dale to be that support," Hughes said. "Let's do it as a group. Let's do it as a community. Let's do it as their family and their friends and help them because they need strength. They need support. They need comfort. They need encouragement in this setting. And we want to help them with that to find Wade," he said.\nAs messages from rabbis and pastors were completed, the crowd was asked to form a circle around the sanctuary area of the church. As the lights were dimmed and candles were lit in a moment of thoughts and prayers, Jonas Schrodt a Bloomington resident sang "Brand New Day" by Van Morrison while playing his guitar.\nShelley Sallee, youth and family camp director of the Monroe County YMCA, met the Steffey family when she instructed Wade Steffey and Adams at Monroe County Martial Arts. Sallee came up with the idea for the vigil. She spoke at the podium with tears in her eyes and a crackled voice as she told Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams not to "hesitate to call" for any help they needed.\n"I knew candles were a symbol of hope and that's what we wanted to portray and it also gives such a sense of community, I felt," Sallee said after the vigil. "To look around and see this circle of hope, I thought it was beautiful. It meant a lot."\nDale Steffey and Dawn Adams held each other in tears as the music played.\n"A lot of what was said up here spoke about the candles and all the people in the community and the support of the community and the good parts of the world and not the scary and bad parts that we have to wrestle with every day," Adams said after the vigil. "That's something to look to and focus on. I think that's going to be, in the days to come, a big help for us," she said.\n"I think it was pretty important for Dawn and Dale to know that there are a bunch of us out here that really care."\nAdams, family and friends said the continuing coverage of media was an important factor to pressure someone who knows what possibly happened in the disappearance of Steffey.\nEric and Marilyn Behrman, who were also in attendance, said it is "so important" the media continue to cover the Steffey story. Their daughter Jill was an IU sophomore who went missing in May 2000 and whose remains were not found for another three years.\n"The (media) needs to know the community and (Steffey's) friends are still very much concerned," Eric Behrman said, "and that people are asking questions and not letting it get to a cold case and it has to be continued on."\nBrooke Baker, Wade Steffey's half sister and an IU student, said she felt that someone knows what happened to her brother and asked for them to come out and speak.\n"My thoughts and prayers right now are really focused on hoping that the person who knows what happened to Wade will come forward," Baker said. "We really need that to happen for our family"
(02/10/07 10:29am)
A prayer vigil for missing Purdue student Wade Steffey will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Evangelical Community Church, 503 S. High St., in Bloomington.\nSteffey, a Bloomington resident, was last seen in the early hours of Jan. 13 while attending a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue. He was reported missing three days later, after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Ben Buckner, his roommate and childhood friend, came home from Bloomington to find Steffey's laptop still powered on.\nRobert Whitaker, senior pastor at Evangelical Community Church, said his congregation has prayed in prior services several times for Steffey, his family and friends. Whitaker said he hopes the vigil will encourage family and friends to not lose hope in the search for Steffey.\n"I would like for them to receive hope so they can encourage the family and offer their concerns," Whitaker said.\nRoy Hughes, a Bloomington resident and member of the church, is helping to organize the vigil. Guests have not been finalized, Hughes said, but he expects a rabbi to speak and a friend of Steffey to "play a special song."\n"I want the family to be encouraged by the folks in Bloomington," Hughes said. "(I want the vigil) to encourage them to not give up on the battle so they walk out a little more energized -- and I hope it energizes the search as a whole."\nWade's parents, Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, said they will be attending the vigil and are "really thankful for the community of support."\nA volunteer search effort took place last Saturday in West Lafayette. Searchers looked for clues along the Wabash River and in nearby fields and woods to no avail. Freezing temperatures forced police to end the search efforts earlier than expected. \nIn an effort to raise money for the Wade Steffey Reward Fund, Buckner is selling "Have you seen Wade?" T-shirts for $12. Shirts can be purchased by sending an e-mail to wadeshirt@purdue.edu.
(02/06/07 4:31am)
You just left a late-night party and you want to walk the short way home. Do you take the easier, quicker path, or do you take the longer, safer way with lights?\nIt is a question many ask themselves when they walk home at night. Many know about prevention methods, but dealing with an assault once it is already occurring is a different matter.
(02/05/07 10:24pm)
WEST LAFAYETTE -- Hundreds of volunteers concluded their Saturday search for missing Purdue University student Wade Steffey early because of freezing temperatures and high winds.\nSearchers, including those on horses, all-terrain vehicles and foot, trekked through brush and wooded areas along the Wabash River while temperatures were in the low teens with subzero wind chill.\nDale Steffey, Wade's father, joined the foot search with his brother Rex Steffey by his side. Dale Steffey later told reporters at a press conference what his motivation was in the search for his son. \n"Today it's anger, actually," Steffey said. "I've come to learn one of the five stages of grief. It's a pretty powerful feeling to run on."\nSteffey, during his search, looked at a tall tree that seemed to look hollow and was cut in half, then questioned if he should climb it to look inside. \n"I'm trying to decide if someone could have pulled themselves up inside there," he said.\nOnce he and his brother felt they searched everywhere they could, they walked back to the area alongside of Route 231 where their car was parked and drove back to the volunteer center. Dale Steffey continued to search on the way back, breaking thin ice with his boots to see if anything was underneath.\n"You never know," he said.\nWhile walking back, Steffey's older brother Rex explained what it was like for him to go back without finding anything significant.\n"It's frustrating," he said. "All the search is (frustrating) so far until we find a clue or something. This is an awful big area, not just this but the whole vicinity is a really large place."\nBack in the End Zone Cafe, also named the Wade Steffey Volunteer Center, almost 300 searchers came group by group to sign and document where they searched and if they found anything. \nAnna Hirst, a coordinator of the volunteer center, was holding the clipboard where volunteers were signing in.\n"They've been to the areas where the police department have directed them to," Hirst said. "Some have been on ATV, a lot of them have been on foot," she said.\nTravis Merkel, an Ivy Tech student, who said this was his first time volunteering to search, said he was motivated to join the effort because he saw the media reports and kept telling himself he would find some time to come out to help. He said he searched on foot for almost two hours.\n"You never know what you're looking for or what you're going to find out there," Merkel said. "When I was out there I was trying to go through any brush piles and in the back of my mind I thought, 'I might find a body out here.'"\nBefore the press conference, Tippecanoe County Sheriff Tracy Brown said while it would be impossible to search the hundreds of miles in the county, the Sheriff's department was there to help.\n"We're dealing with very, very cold temperatures and the flooded Wabash River with a lot of ice in it," Brown said. "That was our concern so that everyone could conduct their search and come back safe."\nWade's mother Dawn Adams emphasized that while they were feeling anger, they weren't blaming anyone and just wanted their son back.\n"We need to find him," she said, clutching her heart. "Any condition that he is in, we need to find him. It's not better for us not to know."\nWhile one of the main search areas is the Wabash River, Brown said that's not because of any particular leads in the case.\n"There's no specific information why. But, Mr. (Wade) Steffey has vanished," Brown said. "We don't know where he's at, so you want to start ruling places out."\nWhile the search found no new evidence according to numerous police officials, Capt. Tim Potts of Purdue University Police Department said it would not be the final search.\n"We didn't get all the area that we had hoped to search," Potts said. "It's not going to stop us. We're going to continue until we get all those areas searched."\nPotts remained optimistic about finding Steffey and said he would not be calling off future searches.\n"I don't see that point coming," he said. "The resolve is high with this community that we are going to find something that's going to lead us to bring Wade home."\nA prayer vigil for Wade Steffey will be held Saturday at Evangelical Community Church, 503 S. High Street in Bloomington. The vigil will take place at 7:30 p.m.
(01/31/07 3:59am)
The search for 19-year-old Purdue freshman Wade Steffey still continues as investigators search for more clues.\nPurdue University spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said two officers from the Purdue Police Department spoke with some of Steffey's friends in Bloomington.\n"As part of any investigation you talk to people that know the principals in it," Norberg said. "They're just gathering information."\nSteffey's parents, Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, have asked police to visit their home in Bloomington to search Wade Steffey's personal belongings for any additional clues. They asked police to look in his bedroom where there was a computer in his room that he used until he got a laptop last summer, Dale Steffey said.\n"We're just trying to give them as much as we can that might help them do their job," he said.\nYesterday, searchers with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and a fourth boat from the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Department searched nearby Wabash River in the morning and again in the afternoon, Norberg said. This marks the second day in a row the river has been searched. When Steffey first went missing, past attempts found nothing.\nNorberg said there were no leads or clues in why the river was being searched, but it was "just an obvious place to look," Norberg said.\nNorberg also said the Tippecanoe Sheriff's Department searched the river from the air Friday. \n"We expect the state police to provide a helicopter that will fly over the river," Norberg said. "We're really interested right now because the water level is low," she said.\nInvestigators plan on searching a "retention pond" with a police dog team to conduct a sonar check of the area this Saturday, according to a news release.\nMore than 150 tips on the case have been received, Norberg said. \nSteffey, a National Merit Scholar majoring in aviation technology, was last heard from in the early morning hours of Jan. 13 after attending a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue.\nFamily and friends of Steffey say he was not intoxicated and was not seen drinking much. Steffey's father told Fox News that his friends saw him have one drink. Steffey is a resident of Bloomington and graduated from Bloomington High School South.\nSteffey's parents have established a reward fund being administered by Fifth Third Bank in Central Indiana. The reward is for anyone who can give tips where their son is located.\nSteffey was last seen wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with light blue stripes and light-colored jeans. He is white with short, brown hair and brown eyes. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. \nAnyone with information is asked to call the Purdue University Police Department at (765) 494-8221. Anonymous callers can contact the police at (765) 496-3784.
(01/29/07 5:04pm)
About a dozen IU Students, most of them freshmen, joined tens of thousands of protesters against the war in Iraq in a demonstration on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Saturday.\nThe rally was peaceful, according to Associated Press reports, but about 300 protesters attempted to rush the U.S. Capitol chanting "We want a tour" and "Our Congress." Police scuffled with some protestors, and set up barricades along the front of the building.\nFreshman Brian Barberio said he went to the rally because he does not agree with the war, and said he believes there is a lot of "apathy" toward the war. He believes a majority of people disagree with the war but do not seem to be making an effort to try and make a difference.\nFreshman Laura Bult agreed with Barberio.\n"People can sit and complain about what's going on all they want, but their physical representation and their time is really important to show your disapproval," Bult said. \nThird-year graduate student Josh Bloom said he went to a protest in Washington, D.C., in 2003, before the war began. He said that, while there were many people there in 2003, this year's protest was substantially larger. \n"Some people estimated it to be 400,000 people," he said.\nSophomore Evan Copelly estimated a crowd of "hundreds of thousands" that spanned from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. He said he was "really excited" about the turnout. \n"It was really inspiring and invigorating," he said.\nFreshman Benjamin Akselrad said he felt it was important to let the government know some of its citizens feel that it is time for a change of strategy in Iraq. He felt it was time for the U.S. government to realize their position and begin to remove themselves from a "stagnant situation that does not seem to be getting better."\n"Support our troops" signs were posted in front of the Navy Memorial by about 40 counter protestors. Walter Reed Army Medical Center soldiers being treated there were among the group, according to the AP.\nFreshman Crissy Turino said she attended because she does not want any more troops to be sent to Iraq.\n"You have to realize how much destruction we've left behind and take that into consideration," she said. "I think it's a really hard issue."\nCollectively, the IU student protestors said they do not want the government to arbitrarily pull troops out of Iraq without a plan to help rebuild the "destruction" the U.S. has done to Iraq.\n"It depends on the context in which it ends," said sophomore Nick McNaughton. "You have to take into account all the destruction we've left behind ... we're between a rock and a hard place," he said.\nThe protest was sponsored by United for Peace and Justice, a group dedicated to protesting the Iraq war, according to the organization's Web site. The group said intense interest in the rally occurred after President Bush announced he was sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, according to the AP.
(01/24/07 6:53am)
President Bush spoke to the nation Tuesday night in his annual State of the Union Address, discussing issues of economy, Social Security, education, immigration and the environment.\nDavid White, chairman of IU College Republicans and a first-year law student, said Bush made "a productive speech towards what can effect change in America."\n"Here we have the president with an approach to try and make a change and have a productive year," White said.\nJunior Amanda Jenkins, president of the IU College Democrats, said she felt Bush's speech was safe.\n"It was a very safe speech," Jenkins said. "He couldn't be as right-winged as he liked. He was really trying to stay in the middle. I felt it was one of his better speeches."\nWhite said that nothing from Bush's speech was surprising and that it was the same agenda as years past.\nIn his speech, Bush said unemployment is low, but wages are rising. He said the way to continue to achieve employment goals is to balance the federal budget. \n"We can do so without raising taxes," Bush said.\nBush also proposed a plan to eliminate the federal deficit within the next five years.\n"I think it's good news for IU students to know that the market is increasing and it's strong," White said. "I think both parties can get behind that goal." \nBush then spoke on the topic of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, mentioning that the government was failing in its duty of keeping the programs "permanently sound."\nJenkins agreed with White, saying she felt bipartisanship was the answer to the debate over the programs.\n"As far as health care goes, the Democrats want to pay for the expensive health care and Republicans are asking why is it so expensive," White said. "(Republicans) want to find the causes of the expense."\nBush asked Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, proposing that children who are doing well but are in bad schools should have the choice of choosing better schools to attend.\n"I think that act needs to be reformed so that schools can perform better and continue to strive and provide better education," Jenkins said. "We need to focus on some of the poorer schools, and not so much into the richer schools, to allow reform to happen successfully."\nBush proposed a temporary-worker program for illegal immigrants so overworked border-patrol agents could focus on drug smugglers and other issues.\n"The problem is too many see it as amnesty, and it's not," White said. "It brings them into our tax base and brings them into a legal status."\nWhen the environment was brought up, Bush said the United States' dependence on foreign oil makes the nation vulnerable to terrorists. He said he wants the U.S. to adopt electric power, use solar energy and use "clean, safe nuclear power." He also proposed battery-powered vehicles.\n"What people don't know about Bush is that his ranch has solar power and he recycles his own water," White said. "If he wasn't in the limelight and a Republican, it would be a different story. He really is an environmentalist."\nJenkins, however, felt that the Democrats would be the ones to actually enact this plan.\n"He's been calling for this for seven years now to not rely on foreign oil," Jenkins said. "But I feel the Democrats in Congress with push this through"
(01/23/07 9:13pm)
Two men from Park Hills, Mo., were questioned Monday in the disappearance of missing Purdue University freshman, Wade Steffey. But Purdue police came up with no evidence that the men were involved, after interviewing the former possible suspects.\nCapt. Tim Potts of the Purdue University Police Department, said an officer and two detectives were sent to interview the men and "are as sure as you can be that they were not involved." \nDavid Bradley, 27, and Jeffrey Thurman, 21, were charged in the beating death of a 56-year-old Farmington, Mo., man who had been missing Jan. 12, according to a press release. The man went missing the day before Steffey, a Bloomington High School South graduate, disappeared after leaving a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue. Potts said the only information found was the two men were in the Lafayette area at the time of Steffey's disappearance on Jan. 13.\nWade Steffey's father, Dale Steffey, said he was not informed that the interview was going to take place but was informed afterward.\n"They were telling us they may have had a path to take, but it turned out not to be the path that we needed," Dale Steffey said.\nMeanwhile, Dale Steffey and his wife, Dawn Adams, both residents of Bloomington, are home today after having fears of leaving Purdue.\n"We met with counselors earlier today (Jan. 22) because we were having a lot of anxieties about leaving," Steffey said. "That really helped us a lot emotionally and to talk to Team ADAM and to hear the experience they have, we have a little bit more hope right now than we've had for a few days," said Steffey with an upbeat attitude.\nSteffey said Team ADAM, a search and rescue team from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children interviewed him and his wife for about 1 1/2 hours to explain who they were and what they provided.\n"We also learned today that (Team ADAM) brought in six or eight more detectives from surrounding agencies to assist with the case," Dale Steffey said.\nTeam ADAM is an "on-site response and support system that provides human and technical assistance to local law enforcement agencies," according to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site. It is named after America's Most Wanted host Jon Walsh's son. Adam Walsh was kidnapped and murdered in 1981.\n"We'll definitely be resting in Bloomington tonight. We're really looking forward to be back in Bloomington," said Steffey. "We really love living there. We'll be happy to be home tonight."\nWhile Potts said there were no new leads, he did say that people in the area where Steffey likely went missing, are "paying attention to what's out in the media and they're calling in if they have new information."\nPotts is asking people to call Purdue police if they were out from midnight to 3 a.m., Jan. 13 near north of Third Street on the Purdue campus.\n"Somebody out there right now heard something, or saw something and everyday that goes by their memory is going to get fainter and fainter," he said.\nSteffey is asking anyone who heard a cell phone ring in that area from Jan. 13 to Jan. 17 to call Purdue Police.\n"Somebody could have heard that cell phone ring and thought it was a little odd and kept on going with their business," he said. "But if they could tell the police where they were when they heard that phone, it would really narrow the search parameters down," Steffey said.\n"We're interested in anything they heard or saw," said Potts. "And we'll run that lead out, whether it takes us anywhere or whether it doesn't. But we have to have help from the public."\nAnyone with information leading to Wade Steffey's disappearance is encouraged to call the Purdue University Police Department at (765) 494-8221 or call (765) 494-1089 with anonymous tips. A reward fund, established by Steffey's family and friends, is being administered by Fifth Third Bank in Central Indiana.
(01/22/07 8:44pm)
The case of missing Purdue freshman Wade Steffey has lead police to question two men who were charged in the death of a Missouri man, said Purdue University spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg.\nDavid Bradley, 27, and Jeffrey Thurman, 21, of Park Hills, Mo., were charged in the beating death of a 56-year-old Farmington, Mo., man who had been missing Jan. 12, the day before Steffey disappeared after leaving a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue, according to a Purdue University news release. \nThe body of Ricky Haynes was found 100 miles southwest of St. Louis on Jan. 17, according to the release. \n"We were aware of this arrest and we were aware that due to the Missouri police investigation that they might have been here in this area around the time Wade disappeared," Norberg said. "That's why we thought that it would be wise to go down and check this out for themselves and go talk to these suspects to see if there might possibly be any connection."\nTeam ADAM of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children planned to join the investigation on the Purdue campus Monday to assist university police in finding more clues concerning Steffey's disappearance.\nNorberg said Team ADAM would be a valuable addition to the investigative team.\n"They have expertise in this area," she said. "It's not that they are going to investigate in lieu of the police, but they are going to suggest to the police things that can be done to supplement what has already been done. They're going to come in here to help us think this through and give us a separate set of eyes."\nNorberg said Steffey's parents, Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, have been dealing with new developments in the case.\n"Its very difficult for them right now since they are not coming home with their son," Norberg said. "It's a very difficult time for them right now."\nNorberg said it is not yet known why the two Missouri men were in Indiana.\nFreshman Ben Buckner, Steffey's roommate at Purdue, plans to make an appearance on the Greta Van Susteren show tonight on the Fox News Channel between 10 and 11 p.m. His appearance has not been confirmed, though, Norberg said.\nSteffey is white with short brown hair and brown eyes. He is 5-foot-10 and weighs about 150 pounds, according to the news release.\nAnyone with information leading to Steffey's disappearance is encouraged to call the Purdue University Police Department at (765) 494-8221. Anonymous tips can be phoned in to (765) 494-1089.\nRead Tuesday's Indiana Daily Student for new information.
(01/22/07 8:43pm)
WEST LAFAYETTE -- After no new evidence was found in the search for Purdue University freshman Wade Steffey's cell phone, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children joined the case Sunday. \n"The search is basically wrapped up," said Capt. Tim Potts of the Purdue University Police Department. "We found a lot of articles but we didn't find the cell phone, not yet."\nAfter a prayer vigil that was held Saturday for Steffey, who has been missing for more than a week, hundreds showed up to search for the phone Saturday, in hopes it would provide clues to the whereabouts of the National Merit Scholar, who is from Bloomington.\nSteffey, 19, was last seen at a Phi Kappa Theta fraternity party Jan. 13. He left without notifying any friends, said Megan Priest, who said she was with Steffey before and during the party. Priest said Steffey was not drinking at the party.\nOn Friday, Dale Steffey, the missing student's father, said that "with Verizon's cooperation, they've been able to get an area where his cell phone is likely to be. It's about a half-square mile on Purdue's campus."\nThe search began with Potts notifying the crowd of people who finished praying for help in finding Steffey's cell phone.\nPotts then directed the crowd of more than 200 that he wanted everyone to form a chain-link to do a blanket search of the areas where the phone was thought to be located.\n"If there is a shrub or something in front of you, go through that shrub," Potts said. "Jostle it around a little bit to see if anything falls out. Make your way around the obstacle and resume your course. If you find something, do not pick it up. If it's evidence we need to make sure it's in that state before we touch it."\nVolunteers were spotted looking in holes, ditches, drains and trash containers. Sharon Taylor, a resident of West Lafayette, was inside a trash bin tearing open trash bags for anything of significance.\n"This means a lot to me. I'm a single mom and I just can't imagine the experience," Taylor said. "If it was my daughter, I would want people doing the same thing. So I'm going to give it everything I can for them. I hope we find something, and if we don't, I'll be back."\nAt a news conference in the armory at Purdue, Wade Steffey's parents, Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, both mentioned how they've been dealing with the search procedures.\n"We're getting pretty exhausted," Adams said. "But we had some more adrenaline to run on today, and hopefully we can run on that longer."\nWhile both parents were working on little rest and low energy, they still voiced some optimism in the search.\n"I thought it was a good chance that we could find that phone," Dale Steffey said, choking up. "And it could still turn up today. ... We are running out of steam right now."\nJeanne Norberg, a Purdue spokeswoman, was witness to the outcry of support.\n"The love of strangers has been amazing," Norberg said. "We had a search earlier this week and we put out an alert at 11 o'clock for a 2 o'clock search, and we had 400 people who showed up. We had so many people, we couldn't use any more."\nNorberg said Steffey may have gone back to Owen Residence Hall at around 12:30 a.m. to recover his jacket he left there earlier that night. Steffey's last two calls that were made with his cell phone were to people that lived in Owen, Norberg said.\nPriest said Steffey made two calls at 12:20 a.m. and 12:31 a.m. The first call was to Ron LoBianco, a freshman at Purdue who lives in Owen. The second was to a woman named Andrea.\n"He called me and asked what I was up to, and I just told him that I was still playing poker," LoBianco said. "He was like, 'Oh, you're still there,' and I said yeah, and he said, 'Well, if you're doing anything else, give me a call. If not, I'll just talk to you tomorrow.'"\nLoBianco reported not hearing anything different in Steffey's voice and that the conversation only lasted 15 seconds, according to his phone.\nThe investigation will continue today with the arrival of an expert from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to a Purdue University Police Department news release.\n"It's sort of hard to picture an accidental circumstance, but we're trying to remain open to all possibilities," Dale Steffey said. "... If he's with someone against his will, he could be anywhere. So we hope that people anywhere will look for him and notice people around him and anything unusual. We don't know where he'll turn up or when, but we're going to keep looking."\nSteffey's parents set up a reward fund Friday that is being administered by Fifth Third Bank in Central Indiana.\nSee www.idsnews.com for additional photos, audio and video clips of interviews with Steffey's family and friends.
(01/21/07 1:18am)
A blanket search for Wade Steffey, 19, a freshman at Purdue University, will be conducted Saturday. Verizon Wireless was able to determine to the Purdue University Police Department the vicinity of the missing student's cellular telephone, said Steffey's father, Dale Steffey.\n"With Verizon's cooperation, they've been able to get an area where his cell phone is likely to be," Dale Steffey said. "It's about a half-square mile on Purdue's campus."\nHe was optimistic about the possible finding of the phone.\n"We spent a lot of time with the police the past few days," he said. "The lack of evidence has been difficult to deal with and that would be a really good thing to find it (the cell phone). ... That's a positive development."\nThe search is to be conducted after a prayer vigil Saturday at the bell tower on Purdue's main campus at 1:30 p.m., Steffey said.\n"The more eyes we have looking, the better it will be," he said. "While the focus is in the West Lafayette area, it's been a week since anyone has laid eyes on him. He could be anywhere in the country, too."\nWade Steffey went missing after attending a Phi Kappa Theta fraternity party early Saturday morning.\nMegan Priest, a freshman at Purdue and a friend of Steffey's, went with him to the party.\n"We were hanging out in one of our friends' rooms. We were playing some video games and talking, trying to figure out the plans for the evening," Priest said. "One of our guy friends planned on going to this party and he (Steffey) had an opportunity to play poker somewhere else, but he chose not to go.\n"He definitely was not impaired. None of our friends saw him drinking at the party at all. He definitely was not impaired when he left."\nPriest said Wade Steffey did not tell any of his friends when he was leaving, and no one has reported if Steffey told him when he was leaving.\nHe recently broke up with his girlfriend of one week, his roommate and longtime friend Ben Buckner said, but he and two other friends did not feel the breakup had to do with his disappearance.\n"He wasn't very optimistic of how long it would last," Buckner said. "They actually broke up in the middle of the week. He wasn't upset about it or anything," he said.\nDale Steffey is encouraging people to go to Purdue's Web site (www.purdue.edu) to download his photo to print and hang the flier that is also posted on the Web site.\n"We're urging people all over the country to do that and get these pictures out in rest areas on interstates, truck stops, restaurants and motels, malls and any places where there are a lot of people who can see them," Steffey said.\nDale Steffey and his wife, Dawn Adams, will be interviewed on Greta Van Susteren's show on the Fox News Channel today at 10:30 p.m. for about six minutes, he said.\n"Although his cell phone may be here, we don't know where he is," Steffey said. "He may be with the phone but he may not be."\nSteffey, when last seen, was wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt with light blue stripes and light-colored jeans, according to his missing-person flier. Steffey is Caucasian with short brown hair and brown eyes. He is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds.\nSteffey's parents have set up a reward fund that is being administered by Fifth Third Bank in Central Indiana.\n"The reward would be substantial if anyone can provide information that could lead us to our son, I can guarantee you that," Steffey said.\nAnyone with information about his disappearance is encouraged to call the Purdue University Police Department at (765) 494-8221. Anonymous callers can call (765) 496-3784.