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(06/13/07 9:21pm)
An amazing friend and mentor to all of us here at the Indiana Daily Student passed away Saturday. David Adams, director of student media, died from causes yet unknown.\nHis job title and description cannot begin to describe the many duties this great man did for student media nationwide. As a student press advocate, Dave was a vehement supporter of free student press at all levels of education. As such, he was an outspoken critic in a recent scandal involving the retaliatory firing of the Woodlan Junior-Senior High School newspaper adviser in East Allen County. Lately, we had developed a ritual of sitting in his office together debating the case’s ramifications for the First Amendment. In the precious little time I was privileged to know the man, he instilled in me his tremendous knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of student media, for which I am eternally grateful.\nThe first time I met Dave was while he was investigating the unwarranted firing of Karen Bosley, the adviser at my former college newspaper, the Viking News, at Ocean County College in New Jersey. When the story blew up onto the national press scene, Dave, along with Tom Eveslage of Temple University, came to OCC to investigate her firing on behalf of College Media Advisers. Due in part to Dave’s tireless efforts, Bosley was eventually reinstated by a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge.\nDave met with me and former editors of the paper to ask what we believed to be the true causes for Bosley’s dismissal. Then he proudly provided me a copy of the IDS. When I saw the paper, I was awestruck by how professional it looked. I knew I had to be a part of it. When I told Dave I wanted to apply to IU and write for the IDS, I sensed he was more excited than my own parents would be.\nEven after the investigation was over and Dave released his findings in a report with College Media Advisers, he and I kept in touch via e-mail. He always tried to keep my spirits up, despite the incredibly depressing retaliation I experienced from administrators at OCC.\nWhen two other editors of the Viking News and I filed a lawsuit against the college to address Bosley’s dismissal, Dave found a way to make me feel proud of my decision to go up against that administration. “Certainly, this will be a year you will remember the rest of your life, Alberto, and I’m blessed to have come to know you through this difficult situation, too,” Dave wrote to me in a May 12, 2006 e-mail. “I really, really hope we get to work together next year or in the future.”\nAnd I did get to work with him. He and Bosley pushed me to apply to IU so I could hone my craft and be a part of an amazing staff. But the reason I came here was because I knew Dave would take me under his wing and teach me everything he knew, from student media to First Amendment issues. Unfortunately, at the time of his passing, he had only just begun. \nWhile looking through my collection of e-mails from Dave, I found more words of encouragement regarding my fear of IU – and gosh, I was afraid. But like he did with so many other students, Dave told me to keep my chin up and not to be scared.\n“I do understand your fear,” Dave told me in an e-mail, “but, sometimes, it’s important to walk on through your fears and know that sometimes, fear is often a myth that disables us from doing what we need to do.”
(05/31/07 2:46pm)
According to statistics provided by the Office of Student Ethics, plagiarism on campus has skyrocketed in the past 10 years.\nIn 1995-96, 30 plagiarism cases were reported. By 2005-06, that number jumped to 132 people who have used another's ideas or words.\nPamela Freeman, associate dean of students, said it was difficult to explain some of the increases in plagiarism from year-to-year, but said the Internet has contributed to plagiarism greatly.\nChristine Y. Fitzpatrrick, communication officer within the IU Office of the Vice President for Information Technology and chief information officer, said while dial-in-access to the campus was available as early as 1972, residence halls and classrooms began to be connected in the early 1990s. All the dorms and classrooms were connected to the Internet by 2003, she said. \nIn fact, in 1990-91, of the 63 cases of academic misconduct reported, only 15 of those were plagiarism.\n"Most of what (plagiarism) I'm seeing is from the Internet," Freeman said.\nBut as the Internet is helping some students plagiarize, it is also helping IU faculty and administrators like Freeman catch them as well.\n"More students are caught by software like the TurnItIn software," Freeman said. "But even with a Google search, you can sometimes track down sources."\nTurnItIn.com results, according to its Web site, "are based on exhaustive searches of billions of pages from both current and archived instances of the Internet, millions of student papers previously submitted to TurnItIn and commercial databases of journal articles and periodicals."\nProfessors on campus would have to sign up for it and then students submit their papers to the TurnItIn.com database to see if it matches any works done by a student, said Jim Julovich, University Information Technology Services coordinator and the administrator of TurnItIn.com on the Bloomington campus.\nTurnItIn.com was implemented on campus in January 2003, Julovich said. He said there are 670 instructors signed up to use the software and more than 18,000 students signed up for it through their instructors' accounts. But while it does help catch a plagiarist, Julovich stressed that IU's campus uses TurnItIn.com as a learning tool. \n"We don't look at it to catch someone," Julovich said. "We look at it as something as a learning tool; something to help students to become better writers."\nBonnie Brownlee, associate dean for Undergraduate Studies and associate professor in the School of Journalism, said the most common excuse she hears from plagiarizers is bad time management. \n"We usually hear excuses like, 'I ran out of time. I was under pressure. I knew it was wrong but I took a chance,'" Brownlee said.\nJack Dvorak, journalism professor and director of the High School Journalism Institute, said he does not like to use the TurnItIn software.\n"I never found any problems and, frankly, I felt uneasy doing it," Dvorak said. "I don't like it. I won't use it in the future."\nDvorak said while his perspective might be naive, he believes it's better to "operate out of a positive environment than from a negative one."\n"I think using something like TurnItIn.com is simply telling the students 'Look, I know you're dishonest and I'm going to catch you at it.'" Dvorak said. "I don't like that philosophy as a teacher, as a professor and as an educator."\nBut Turnitin.com claims to have had such success that "institutions using our system on a large scale see measurable rates of plagiarism drop to almost zero."\nFreeman, who also disciplines plagiarizers at IU, said while it might sound like a good idea to the plagiarizer's mind at the time, "a grade earned is much better than a grade received for misconduct."\nBut even though plagiarism is increasing, Dvorak said it's still a "miniscule problem" when you compare it against the 38,000 plus students at IU.\n"The vast majority of students are honest and will do their own work and get credit for it," Dvorak said, "which is one of the reasons I don't use TurnItIn"
(05/31/07 2:24pm)
Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams sit in their living room as they talk about their missing son. Wade Steffey, a Purdue freshman, has been a missing-person case since Jan. 13, and his disappearance has the hearts of his family and friends torn.\nThe story has been told and updated in the local and national news media.\nBut who is Wade Steffey?\nWade went missing after attending a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue. Police say two calls were made to two friends after Wade left the party to retrieve his jacket.\n"It's amazing how a child opens up your life," Dale Steffey says, taking deep breaths to hold his composure, "and brings so many people into your life and has his own people in his life too."\nAcademically accomplished\nSteffey is a 2006 graduate of Bloomington High School South. He was an exceptional student while in high school. So good, in fact, his father explained how much confidence he had in his son when it came to his educational standards.\n"We were pushing him, telling him he could go anywhere in the country if he wanted," Dale Steffey said. But Wade chose Purdue, where he received a full-ride scholarship. \nPerfection in his son's academic accomplishments could be seen early in his life. The parents tell of a time in the eighth grade when Wade came home to reveal a B he earned in his art class. It was ironic; his parents are both artisans.\n"He didn't like that," Adams explained with a deep laugh. "He wasn't quite sure he deserved that B. And he's never had a B since."\nAdams described how she taught her son to read when he was 6 years old. She would stay up with her son every night for a half-hour to teach him.\n"When it came to reading the words 'a,' 'the,' 'some,' I'd elbow him and he'd tell me what they were," Adams said. "So he learned to read kind of easily."\nLike many children, Wade was interested in team sports including baseball and basketball. But as he grew older and entered high school, his parents said he became more focused on individual sports. He joined his cross-country team his freshman year in high school.\nLarry Williams, Wade's cross-country and track coach during his four years of high school, called Wade an athlete with a great heart. \nWilliams coached IU student Jill Behrman when she attended the same school. Behrman, too, went missing when she was 19, as a sophomore at IU. Her remains were found a few years later by hunters.\nAn athlete with heart\nBy all measures, Williams said, Wade wasn't the greatest athlete on the team, but his heart made up for what he did not have physically. Nevertheless, Wade still earned a spot on the team to go to sectionals in track. And when they went to compete, Wade earned points in the pole-vault competition on the way to a team win.\n"Tight-knit group" is how Williams explained Wade and his fellow runners. You could see that the day before a planned vigil at Purdue. A group of his friends met in a Super Wal-Mart parking lot in Bloomington to carpool there.\n"I wish he was found," said Dane Lockhart, an IU freshman and friend of Wade's. They ran together on the cross-country team in high school. It was hard not to notice Lockhart's purple-and-white varsity jacket. The jacket meant more than being a member of the team at that moment. It somehow signified that tight-knit group.\nJosh Murphy, a junior at Bloomington High School South, was Wade's teammate when Murphy was a freshman and Wade was a junior at Bloomington South. \n"He actually was one of the top upperclassmen that would actually talk to the lowerclassmen," Muphy said. "He was a big part of the team but was just a regular guy."\nEventually, the vigil in West Lafayette turned into a blanket search for Wade's cell phone. Verizon Wireless was able to determine in what vicinity his phone could be -- a good lead at possible clues.\nBut the phone was never found.
(05/21/07 12:50am)
SPENCER, Ind. – Citizens concerned with the White River’s water quality and flooding problems gathered Wednesday at the Spencer United Methodist Church, 95 W. Franklin St., for a fact-finding meeting.\nNearly 40 citizens were on hand to speak with officials from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the state and county governments.\nSaundra Johnson, who has lived in Spencer since August, went door to door to inform other citizens of the meeting.\nSeveral citizens said that in 2005, a massive flood destroyed houses, costing citizens thousands of dollars in damages. After the flood, many citizens found sewage from the White River, which surrounds Spencer. And with the sewage came many unhealthy surprises.\n“It’s polluted,” Judi Sturgell, 32, said. “You find sticks, Tampax, Kotex – you find anything.\n“The last flood that we had, they weren’t swimming in it,” Sturgell said, referring to children playing in street floods. “They were playing in it (this time) in the streets because the water was coming up in the streets... They ride their bicycles in the dirty water.”\nSturgell said she found fecal matter in the water and had to call police to get the children out of the water.\n“I don’t even want to walk in the grass when the backwaters have went down, let alone when the water is up,” Sturgell said. “There’s a smell when (the water) goes away.”\nState Rep. Richard Bray, R-Martinsville, said the problem is from upstream cities and towns. \n“The river is very attractive at times, but when I hear Indianapolis is dumping 60 million gallons of raw sewage in there, that bothers me, and it should bother everyone,” Bray said. “And I understand that it’s going to cost an awful amount of money for Indianapolis to solve it, but for a long time they stuck their head in the sand and weren’t doing anything.”\nBray said a possible solution to the flooding would be to separate the storm sewers from the sanitary sewers.\n“To separate it, you’re going to have to tear up some streets to do it,” he said.\nCouncilman Anton Karl Neff, D-Owen County District 2, said it was possible to see polluted waters in the streets of Spencer during the floods.\n“When we had the big flood a while back, when that water receded, I wouldn’t be surprised to see things like that among other things,” Neff said. “There could very well have been sanitary pads, diapers, toilet paper and sewage from further upstream, but I have not seen it.”\nMarylou Poppa Renshaw, watershed planning branch chief for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management Office of Water Quality, said Spencer was second on a project priority list for small communities.\nRenshaw said while there is nearly $7.2 million in loan money available for improvement of a wastewater treatment plant, citizens’ sewer rates would go up if such a project is undertaken. \nShe said some treatment plants have certain capacities, and when the sewers and the street catch the rainwater and send it to the wastewater treatment plant, they may exceed their capacities and overflow with leftover, untreated raw sewage.\nRenshaw recommended to Spencer citizens that their town make sure its wastewater treatment plant is the proper size to accommodate the town’s water needs. \nBut while officials did offer some solutions, citizens were still left in the dumps about their flooding problems.\nState Rep. Vern Tincher, D-Riley, said citizens were going to have to explore the possibility of raising their homes’ foundations so that water doesn’t destroy their property. Tincher said this suggestion was feasible, but that it would require the use of federal funds, which would take years to procure.\nDon Pope, 64, said the flooding would get fixed if the town government did something about the problem.\n“The thing of it is there is nobody involved in doing anything involved with it... the town council needs to get involved,” Pope said. \nPope said flood insurance estimated damages to his home to be $5,000 – $1,500 of which was paid for by his insurance company.\nBarbara Hendricks, 48, has lived in Spencer for 18 years. She said when her home was flooded, she paid a $1,000 deductible for a $4,500 job to replace her furnace and water heater.\nDuring the eight days it took to repair her flooded house, she had to stay in a hotel and eat out.\n“I didn’t get any of that back from my flood insurance,” she said.\nBut Micael Powell, who has lived in Spencer 37 of the 38 years in his life, had to tear down his home because of flood damage and rebuild it. He said to raise his home as Tincher suggested would cost him $15,000. Powell said he would rather just move to another part of town where flooding does not occur.\n“I would stay in Spencer no matter what,” he said.
(05/09/07 10:05pm)
Early Friday morning, convicted death row inmate David Leon Woods was executed in Michigan City, Ind. Woods killed Juan Placencia, 77, stabbing him 21 times during a burglary in 1984. \nDavid Placencia, according to the Associated Press, said he cannot forgive Woods for killing his father. \n“I’m not one to forgive,” Placencia told the AP. \nBut while forgiveness was not a theme with the Placencia family early Friday morning, that was not the case outside the Monroe County Courthouse in Bloomington where 19 protesters against the death penalty were holding a vigil for Woods.\nGlenda Breeden of Spencer was one of the protesters.\n“Murder is murder,” Breeden said, “whether it was when David Woods killed his neighbor when he was 19 years old, that was wrong. It’s just as wrong that the state is killing him. In our opinion, that’s murder too.”\nBreeden said she and the other protesters representing the Bloomington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty were not just holding a vigil for Woods and his family, but for the victim, Juan Placencia, and his family.\nBreeden is wholeheartedly against the death penalty, saying it has flaws that profile prisoners through race and social class.\n“Poor people end up on death row,” Breeden said. “People who have money can get the better lawyers and can buy their way out of things, but people who have no money are the one’s who end up on death row.”\nBreeden said an acceptable alternative to the death penalty is life without parole.\nMarge Steiner of Bloomington said she too was against the death penalty.\n“The victims’ families I know will tell you that execution does not bring closure; it does not bring healing,” Steiner said. “It merely satisfies a lust for vengeance.”\nBut that was not the case for Gene Placencia, brother of Juan Placencia, who told the AP that the execution of Woods gave him peace.\n“I have closure. I can finally get on with my life, raise my kids, run my business and love my family,” Placencia told the AP.\nOne of four students present at the courthouse, IU sophomore Abby Mack, was crying when it was announced that Woods was likely being executed at the time.\n“I’m here to mourn this situation and just the situation that our society is in as a whole,” Mack said. “Think about the amount of blood (that) is on the hands of our government. It’s sad.”\nOnce the vigil concluded, Mack and her friend, sophomore Megan Hart, sobbed loudly while hugging one another. Mack and two of her friends walked up the street, holding hands and consoling each other.\nNone in attendance said they knew Woods or defended his actions.
(05/04/07 4:00am)
Since 1927, Nick’s English Hut, 423 E. Kirkwood Ave., has served in creating many fond memories for IU students and Bloomington locals.\nWith the favorite game “sink the Biz” created by the popular hangout, Nick’s has become a staple for the student and Bloomington communities alike. \nNiles Hall, a shift manager at Nick’s, has worked there for two years and said the game was “something that the tradition of Nick’s created.”\nHall said the game was thought up by owner Richard Barnes. Hall said Barnes found the idea was reminiscent of when old taverns and saloons used to serve beer buckets. These businesses would serve the beer in buckets for children to carry back to their grandparents or parents when the children were sent to bring the beer home, Hall said.\n“Sink the Biz” is played with a bucket filled with beer, Hall said. A 5-ounce glass gets slipped into the bucket with the weight of some beer on the bottom of the glass. Everyone playing then takes turns pouring beer into the glass. Sooner or later, the weight of the beer being poured sinks the glass into the bucket of beer, filling the glass to the top. The “loser” must drink the beer.\n“That’s the thing about ‘Sink the Biz,’” Hall said. “Everyone’s a winner or a loser.”\nAnother tradition at Nick’s is the “Nick’s Bricks” located on the sidewalk in front of the pub. Hall said “Nick’s Bricks” started in the early 1980s, and any bricks bought go directly to the IU Student Athletes Scholarship Fund, a fund administered through the IU Alumni Association. \n“It’s something we allow to do to be part of the tradition,” Hall said.\nHall said Nick’s English Hut also contributes to a local farm where they purchase many of their goods. He said all the food purchased is “all-natural with no hormones.” \n“All of our beef comes from local farms,” Hall said. “Anything we can get from a local grower, we do.”\nHall said IU graduates and returning students should be on the lookout for a changing menu and look. He said people should make sure to stop back in the fall semester when Nick’s is redoing the upstairs bar and opening the space for more room, Hall said.\nHall said not to worry about the changes though.\n“People have established a lot of fond memories at Nick’s,” Hall said. “No matter how much it will change, it will always be Nick’s.”\nSenior Isaac Day said “Sink the Biz” is the main reason he goes to Nick’s, as well as the mature atmosphere. He has been going to the pub since he turned 21 last year, he said.\n“Nick’s is like ‘Cheers’ to me,” Day said. “Everyone knows your name. It has a kind of English oldschool rustic feel to it, and the different setting makes it delicious.”
(05/04/07 4:00am)
Indiana governor Mitch Daniels signed a bill into law in late April that would make it easier for a missing person to be found by classifying them as a “high-risk missing person.”\nHouse Bill 1306, or “Molly’s Bill,” as it has been dubbed, is named after Molly Dattilo, who went missing July 2004 while attending summer classes at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Her case remains unsolved. The Dattilo family has coped with the idea that Molly is no longer alive, Keri Dattilo, a cousin, said.\nThe bill would require state police to collect DNA evidence from people who are missing and from unidentified bodies.\nUnder the bill, there are 13 qualifications that would classify a person as a “high-risk missing person” case, such as “a person who is missing as the result of abduction by a stranger” or “a missing person who may be at risk due to abduction by a noncustodial parent.”\nKeri Dattilo, who pushed for the missing person’s bill to be passed into law, said she believes her cousin’s legacy has helped create the momentum that culminated in Daniels’ signing of the bill into law on April 26.\nIt took six weeks for police to begin investigating Dattilo’s case when she was reported missing. By that time, there was little evidence to determine what happened to her.\n“When someone goes missing, (who) do you turn to? You turn to law enforcement,” Keri Dattilo said. “You think law enforcement is going to do the job. And that is not always the case.”\nHouse Enrolled Act No. 1306, or “Molly’s Bill,” will go into effect July 1, just five days short of the 3-year anniversary of Molly’s disappearance.\nKeri Dattilo said she found a passage in Molly’s journal that summed up a lot of what this new law was meant to do, she said.\n“It said, ‘I truly want to do something to better the world.’ With the Molly Dattilo Law,” Keri Dattilo said, “she has done just that.”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
Once upon a time, a band by the name of 650North was formed in Osgood, a small rural town on the eastern border of Indiana about 90 miles from Bloomington. \nSince the beginning of this fairy tale, the band members of 650North have since moved from their small country town to Bloomington, where their musical careers have been flourishing into a type of success only few start-up bands live to see. Since the beginning of their success, the band has been seen playing in shows with the likes of Ryan Cabrera, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row and the recently reformed Guns N' Roses. \nBut this fairy tale did not begin yesterday. It has been a continuous work in progress for many years. Chris Bultman, the bassist of 650North, describes the band's feeling of success up to this point in one word: thankful. \n"It's because in this industry, you aren't entitled to anything. You get what you work hard for," Bultman adds. \nBultman reveals that all of the members -- lead vocalist and guitarist Matt Schuerman, lead guitarist Andrew Vollmer, drummer Josh Lohrum and himself -- came together as a band in high school. After forming, the band began writing their first album. He explains that the one-year process for making their first EP was purely democratic. \n"Everyone in the band comes up with their own parts," he said.\nThe band unanimously lists Jimmy Eat World and the Foo Fighters as their greatest influence musically. Schuerman adds that relationships are one of the most important influences of their songs in the lyrical sense. He goes on to explain that he enjoys telling a story. \n"I think a lot of the music is not depressing, but when it is, it's kind of heavy, but there is always this glimmer of hope," Schuerman explains about the content of the band's lyrics. \nVollmer adds, "Right now even, our music is a little bit different than the other (bands). Nothing is too linear in our songs. I think there will always be something new coming from us." \nWith a nine-track self-release of Love and Its Progenies, 650North has been seen touring in many spots throughout the Midwest, including the country of Poland where this past summer they opened up for Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, and Guns N' Roses. \n"We didn't meet Axl. He kind of threw his microphone to his roadie and went to his bus," Schuerman says, laughing. \nSince the beginning of their touring, the band is also starting to see the same faces at each of their shows. \n"The more we play in an area, the more people who start listening to us keep coming back," Lohrum says. \nVollmer adds smiling, "We are seeing old faces and new faces at the same time. When you see the old faces there, they can sing the lyrics back to you." \nLohrum adds that this touring success didn't come easily at first because it was difficult to get people to come out and watch their show. Now with the help of Myspace.com, this difficulty is becoming less profound. \n"Now we can post a bulletin and it's like 'wow, 650North is playing, let's go check them out,'" Lohrum says, explaining the help of MySpace for the band. \nTo this date, 650North's MySpace Web site has more than 50,000 fans and counting. The band members agree that MySpace is helping them out tremendously. \n"While it's there, you might as well abuse it," Vollmer says laughing. \nAfter their many years of touring and writing music, the band eventually signed a deal with Warner Music Group. Yet recently they decided to walk away from the deal after hitting a few bumps in the road with the record label. \nThis fallback is not stopping 650North from looking toward the future as a band. With five more songs written, another album is a current work in progress.\nAll of the band members are hinting that this new album will be recorded within the next few months. \n"We are looking to cut a full length album in Nashville, (Tenn.), with a yet-to-be-named producer in the coming months. Some of the material from our current album will be re-recorded. Things have been changed since then. With some of the songs, we feel we can breathe a new life into them," Schuerman says. \nLohrum also begins to explain future touring plans in Bloomington. \n"Eventually we would like to get back at Rhino's and get into Bloomington a little more." \n"We have a pretty good fan base in Bloomington as far as all the friends we have made," Vollmer adds. \nUp to the present-day success of 650North, fans express their reasons for enjoying the band at a recent show at the Ugly Monkey bar in downtown Indianapolis. \n"I love their sound. Their lyrics aren't like most lyrics out there," says 650North fan Lacie Evans of Rushville, Ind. \nAnother fan, Erin Schuttle of Indianapolis, adds that she enjoys the band's great beat and lyrics. \n"Every show, there is a lot of energy no matter how many people," she adds describing each performance. \nEven 650North's three-year manager Jerry Vollmer, Andrew Vollmer's father, said he believes the band is something special. He gives an explanation of what the band is really like. \n"They are a bunch of well-grounded guys. They seem to have a great business savvy about them. There is truly chemistry between them. It's just like they are brothers. They are truly like brothers between one another. They all grew up together. Here are these four guys with some talent, and it all came together. I always thought there was something there," he said.\n"A producer out in Los Angeles is telling me that with some of the songs he has listened to, if we can get them recorded and get them out there, he said they will be on the horizon within the next year," Jerry Vollmer said.\nAfter all the stories of fairy tales and success stories, Bultman adds that the band wants to perform well and have fun. \n"And play with all of our hearts," adds Andrew Vollmer. \nInformation about 650North can be found at www.650north.com and www.myspace.com/650north.
(04/23/07 4:00am)
Editor's note: This article is the second in a two-part series. The first ran on Friday, April 20.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
Editor's note: Editor’s note: This article is the first in a two-part series. The second will be published Monday, April 23.
(03/27/07 4:00am)
Dale Steffey set the tone to his son’s funeral Monday morning at Evangelical Community Church, 503 S. High St. \n“This morning’s season is one of celebration and mourning,” he said at a press conference prior to his son’s funeral service. \nDale Steffey’s son, Wade Steffey, who went missing for more than two months, was found dead in a high-voltage utility closet March 19 at Purdue University. His electrocution was ruled accidental after it was discovered he was trying to recover his jacket left inside a dorm. The high-voltage utility closet door in which he entered was unlocked and not labeled as dangerous. \n“Your heart can only be broken if you’re willing to love, and your heart can only be mended if you’re willing to love again,” Dale Steffey said at the press conference.\nThe service began with Rabbi Mira Wasserman from the Congregation Beth Shalom. Wasserman described moments of Steffey’s childhood, which included earning his black belt in tae kwon do, running for his cross-country team at Bloomington High School South and earning his Eagle Scout badge.\n“For all his gifts,” Wasserman said, “perhaps his greatest distinction was of his friendship.”\nBen Frohman, Jonas Schrodt and Ben Schrodt were among the friends that contributed to the funeral. Jonas Schrodt performed Willie Nelson’s version of the traditional folksong “He Was a Friend of Mine” and Ben Schrodt read a poem.\nFrohman recalled traditions in small African villages where people sing to celebrate a birth and said he wanted to celebrate Wade Steffey’s life. His words, mixed with his tears and emotion, had the several hundred people in attendance crying with the sound of sniffles and gasps of breath. Once he finished, Dawn Adams, Wade Steffey’s mother, and Dale Steffey gave an emotional hug to a crying Frohman who was looking into the eyes of Adams.\n“I wanted to ask the young people to take Wade with them into their future,” Adams said. “Their future is a gift and I hope his memory allows them not to be afraid to reach out for their dreams.”\nDale Steffey said it was not too early to think about his son’s legacy. He said that his son’s once local story exploded into a national discussion about the safety of young adults not protected by the Amber Alert.\nWade Steffey’s parents were referring to legislation that is currently in the Indiana Senate that would set parameters on Indiana State Police and other organizations to find missing adults. They have expressed that while their experience with Purdue University Police was good, other families of missing adults have not had the same positive experience. Dale Steffey asserted how important it was for families of missing persons to have the cooperation of police and media together.\n“Those two institutions are probably the most vital ally a family of a missing person can have in the immediate aftermath,” he said, “because you have to have the police aware of the level of concern and you have to have the media get the story out as quickly as possible.”\nThe Steffeys said they hope to set up a “Wade Steffey Foundation” to give scholarships, train police and aid campuses with missing person cases. The foundation originated from the “Wade Steffey Reward Fund” that was set up to help find Wade Steffey while he \nwas missing.\nWade Steffey, 19, was a national merit scholar from Bloomington. He was reported missing by his roommate after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. \nSearch efforts were unsuccessful in the weeks following his disappearance.\nDale Steffey said he and his family will start planting trees in remembrance of Wade.\n“We’ve been able to let go the fear, let go the denial, let go the bargaining,” Dale Steffey said. “Grief and anger remain, but that is for another season.”
(03/21/07 4:00am)
WEST LAFAYETTE -- A body found in a high voltage utility room Monday afternoon in a dorm at Purdue University was determined to be that of missing Purdue student Wade Steffey. According to a coroner’s report released Tuesday, Steffey was killed by high voltage electrocution.\nThe discovery of Steffey, a Bloomington native, comes more than two months after his disappearance and massive volunteer search efforts on campus and throughout Tippecanoe County. Steffey was last seen by friends at a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party in the early morning hours of Jan. 13.\nSteffey, according to police, was trying to find a way into Owen Hall to retrieve his jacket which was left in a friend’s room before leaving to go to the party. He called two other friends to try and get access into the building, but was unsuccessful. \n“He couldn’t get into the hall because he didn’t have a passkey,” said Jeanne Norberg, Purdue spokeswoman at a press conference Tuesday. “So he was trying doors and found this room.”\nSteffey then proceeded to go into the utility room, Norberg said, which was not marked as a high voltage room and was unlocked. It is then, the coroner’s office believes, that Steffey attempted to find his way around the pitch-dark room using his hands. He then tripped, fell and is believed to have died instantaneously when his finger touched a 2400 volt wire attached to a transformer.\n“Actually, these transformers, you can touch them almost anywhere except for the one spot where the wire comes into the transformer and there’s just a small enough space for really just one finger to get there,” Dale Steffey, Wade’s father, said. “But in his blind groping in that room he touched that one spot.”\nSteffey’s body was found after a student reported a noise coming from the high-voltage room, Norberg said. A utility worker then proceeded to open the locked door, discovering an odor and Steffey’s body. The room was located directly across from the dorm’s laundry room.\nAccording to the Journal & Courier, maintenance was last performed in the high-voltage room where Steffey was found in June 2006.\nSteffey was last seen trying to enter Owen Hall, according to police. The entrance was 50 yards from where his body was found, Norberg said.\nDale Steffey said he received the phone call about his son being found from Purdue Police Chief Gary Evans between 12:30 and 1 p.m. Monday. Dale Steffey said police told him they could not confirm it was Wade at the time, but did tell him the shirt on the body was similar to the shirt Wade was described as wearing the night of his disappearance. \n“I said ‘How you doing chief?’ and he said, ‘I’m not doing very good right now, Dale’ and he told me what he told me,” Dale Steffey said. “I reached out to touch Dawn when I realized who it was and why he was calling.”\nImmediately after the phone call, Steffey and Dawn Adams, Wade Steffey’s mother, packed their clothes and drove to Purdue.\n“We didn’t have to speed up there at 85 miles an hour like we did the first night because we knew what was going to be waiting for us,” Dale Steffey said.\nDale Steffey said legal action was something being considered against Purdue but would not be pursued immediately.\n“We tried to raise Wade to be a responsible young man,” he said. “That’s one of our strong beliefs that people need to own responsibility for their own actions.”\nKelli Keller, Dale Steffey’s niece, is now the family spokesperson and is also their lawyer based out of Indianapolis. \n“I think it’s actually premature determining whether or not there’s going to be any sort of legal action,” Keller said. “We just want to make sure we want to find as many answers as possible.”\nWade Steffey is survived by his grandparents, Wallace and Nicolina Adams, his half-sister Brooke Baker, his half-niece Layla Baker and eight aunts and uncles.\nFuneral services will be held at Allen Funeral Home,3000 E. Third St. Steffey said he and his wife Dawn are to hold a closed-casket service for their son and will announce the date and time sometime today.\n“Now our searching can cease and everyone else who is thinking and praying for us can have a measure of peace,” she said.
(03/20/07 4:00am)
WEST LAFAYETTE -- Purdue University freshman Wade Steffey died from high-voltage electrocution after accidentally entering a high-voltage room outside Owen Hall on Jan. 13, Purdue spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said at a news conference this morning.\nThe two-month search for the 19-year-old Bloomington native concluded when Steffey’s body was found in the room Monday afternoon. His identity was confirmed around 10 a.m. Tuesday at a news conference after the Tippecanoe County Coroner’s office completed an autopsy Monday night. \nSteffey died instantly after entering an outside door in the high-voltage room, which was unmarked, Norberg said. \nShe said she was told it was not required to have the outside door marked. Steffey couldn’t get into the hall because he didn’t have his pass key, she said. Investigators believe as he tried to open doors around the hall, he found this room. Though the room has two doors, the outside one was unmarked and unlocked when Steffey entered, she said.\n“He tripped and fell behind the transformer and was believed to have died instantaneously,” Norberg said. \nThe room was not searched during several blanket searches of the campus in the last two months because only the building’s utility staff has the key to access it, Norberg said. Though the room was looked into during a search, no one thoroughly searched through the room and Steffey was not visible from either door, she said. Police found the outside door to the room shut but not locked, she said.\n“They would have had to shut off the entire power in the building to go into this room,” she said. \nWade Steffey’s parents, Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams, remained glossy-eyed as they addressed the media’s comments.\n“It’s been an incredible two months,” Dale Steffey said. “It’s been difficult, but we’ve been humbled by the outpouring of support and are just thankful today ... thankful that we have our son.”\nSteffey was last spotted outside the dorm just before he entered the room about 50 yards from where his body was found, Norberg said.\n“Somehow he managed to get his finger in the one spot where he created an arch between the wire and the transformer,” Dale Steffey said. He said they would have to wait until the end of the investigation before thinking about any legal action against the university.\nUtility workers at the residence hall were alerted by someone in the dorm that a noise was coming from the room that was described as a "pinging" or "popping” noise, Norberg said.\n“It’s been what 63, 64 days?” Dale Steffey said “It is heartbreaking. ... But it’s also reassuring that all these other thoughts are not realistic ... those demons can go back where they came from.”\nDawn Adams said she is relieved and grateful the searching is over.\n“Now our searching can cease and everyone else who is thinking and praying for us can have a measure of peace,” she said.\nFuneral arrangements were made with Allen Funeral Home in Bloomington, Dale Steffey said.
(03/07/07 5:00am)
In 1999 Tenacious D had a half-hour show that lasted six episodes on HBO chronicling the fake band's inspirations for songs for open-mic night. The songs were hilarious, it was outlandish and perfectly put together on the must-have DVD, "Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks," which had the whole series in addition to a concert, short films and TV appearances. The sad thing is that Tenacious D have been living off their funny skits and subsequent album for a decade and this new film adds little new comedy to the once much funnier duo. \nThe film is a fictionalized history of Tenacious D, an actual band formed by Kyle Gass (KG) and Jack Black (JB). We start with a promising musical intro where JB's dad, Meatloaf, tries to shut down his rock dreams so JB leaves to rock. It starts well but gets dull as we follow the D's journey from KG accepting JB as his partner to their rising fame and attempt to get the magic pick and beat the devil in a rock-off. \nA few parts really work, like KG with a wig pretending to be an already successful rock star to woo JB into being his rock trainee. But for the most part the concepts of many of the scenes in the movie are much funnier in theory than they actually play out. For example, the film plays homage to "A Clockwork Orange" as a gang, wearing animal face masks with white body-length suits equipped with cod pieces to terrorize JB at a bus stop. It has potential to be funny, but there is no punch line and it's just an empty, shallow reference. \nFor a band that totes itself as the greatest band of all time, it would be nice if they could write a decent song this side of millennium. I have found myself humming "Dude, I Totally Miss You," from the soundtrack but longing for classics like "Dio" and "Wonderboy." Sure, the D still has inventive rhymes like the rare triple rhyme "rock" with "sock" and "cock," but for some reason the genius of that delightful rhyme has grown tired. \nSolid guest spots from Tim Robbins, Amy Poehler, Paul F. Tompkins and Dave Grohl made the movie respectable and Ben Stiller is spot-on in his cameo. He is perfect as the mutton chop-covered, long frizzy-haired old roadie doing his "how can I walk with these massive balls between my legs" walk and his guitar store guy is the most fleshed-out character in the whole movie. That's \nembarrassing for Black and Gass, who are playing inflated versions of themselves in fantasy scenarios like hanging out with Sasquatch in a strawberry river. \nThe features are deep and solid, but telling. Twenty-three minutes into entertaining band commentary, Black says, "If you play Dark Side of the Moon right now (dramatic pause) … it's shitty." KG responds, "If you play Wizard of Oz' side-by-side … you'll probably watch 'The Wizard of Oz' more." They also mention that most people will just listen to the band's commentary and ignore director Liam Lynch's, which is probably true. We also get a decent music video, a number of deleted scenes that are worth watching for the reunited trio of Gass, Jason Segel and David Krumholtz from the short-lived but great show, "Undeclared."\nAll in all, it's entertaining worth a rent and the special features are worth exploring, but I'm not going to pay to put "The Pick of Destiny" on my shelf next to "Tenacious D: Complete Masterworks"
(03/05/07 5:00am)
Nearly 200 people were in attendance Saturday afternoon at the Hoosier Room in Memorial Stadium to get acquainted with IU’s newly selected president. \nMichael McRobbie, who will be the 18th IU president, excited the crowd in his opening remarks by taking off his red IU sweater to reveal a blue shirt and red tie, synonymous with IU men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson’s attire.\n“Given that we have a basketball game after this,” McRobbie said, “I want to show you that I have a uniform.”\nMcRobbie thanked the student leaders and athletes, who made up the majority of those in attendance.\n“I must commend all of you for the wonderful roles you play on campus in all the great multitudes of organizations that you all represent,” McRobbie said, “and just how essential you are to the heart and soul of the University through all those organizations which all play such a vital part in the University.”\nMcRobbie reiterated to Friday’s crowd what he said when he was appointed president earlier this week.\n“The University is providing you with a world-class education to face the challenges of the 21st century,” McRobbie said.\nMcRobbie said he was interested in what the “student living and learning environment” was at IU and announced that he will be setting up two student-run task forces through the student governments – one on the Bloomington campus and one at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis.\n“I don’t want administrators telling me about what the students think the 21st century should look like – I want the students to tell me that,” McRobbie said.\nEvan Holloway and Malia Foytich, IU students who represented Youth Advocating Leadership and Learning, were both happy with what McRobbie had to say.\n“He seems interested,” Foytich said. “It’s really cool that he did this for other organizations just to meet us.”\nSoon after McRobbie’s opening remarks, IU cheerleaders led basketball chants throughout the stadium as the pep band played IU fight songs. McRobbie and his wife, Laurie Burns, joined in the chants together while looking at the crowd.\nSophomore Claudia Estrada spoke with Burns and liked that she wanted to get involved and learn more about the different organizations at IU. \n“The more I understand about that, the more I can help him with those sorts of things as he needs it,” Burns said. “I just believe – without knowing specifically – that there are roles that I can play that are supportive with what students are trying to do on campus.”\nEstrada was hopeful about McRobbie’s goal of doubling the minority population at IU within the next seven years.\n“All he needs to really do is support us a lot … If he does follow through with the things he’s said, then yeah, he can do it,” Estrada said.\nMcRobbie said he felt that if the minority graduation rate increased, then the minority population would increase as well.\n“That’s something else that’s on my mind and I’m going to be looking at that as well,” McRobbie said.\nBurns said that she was “tremendously” proud of her husband.\n“It’s just a culmination of so much of what Michael has worked so hard for,” she said.
(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.”