Nudity a way of life; armadillos moving north; needle-in-back case
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Odd and interesting news from the Midwest.
- By DAMIAN RICO The (Northwest Indiana) Times
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MUNSTER, Ind. (AP) — Ceil Noworyta, of Munster, never dreamed of getting a tattoo, let alone getting one at the age of 63. But her mind would quickly change.
Noworyta's dream came true when Sir Paul McCartney pulled her and friend Toni Johnson on stage during his recent One On One Tour show in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
"I couldn't believe it," Noworyta said. "I was not prepared for it. When he called me up there I had nothing to sign so I had him sign my arm."
Her girlfriend held up a sign that read please sign my arm so I can get a tattoo. Sticking to her word, just a couple of short days after the performance, Noworyta headed to The Tattoo Lady in Hammond, to get her Sir Paul's signature permanently on her arm.
"I'm so scared," Noworyta said. "I've never done something like this before. My husband teased that I don't even have his name on my arm, but I told him I did love Paul 10 years before I even met you."
Noworyta, a retired recovery nurse at East Chicago's St. Catherine Hospital and the mother of her own "Fab Four boys," is thankful for her husband, Don, who "is tolerable" of her appreciation for McCartney and his music.
"He says I'm crazy because I'm a 60-year-old chasing, acting like 16-year-old, while chasing a 70-year-old," Noworyta said. "It's all in fun. Paul's the best."
Noworyta recalls her father asking her if she would like to see The Beatles as a young girl. When she said "of course," he took bought four tickets for their entire family to see them at Comiskey Park in August 1965.
"That's what started it all," Noworyta said.
Noworyta took a break from the shows during the late '70s when McCartney was with Wings "because they got too big and were selling out these gigantic stadiums and I wanted to see him up close and not from the rafters."
But she learned the ins and outs of getting better seats.
Noworyta has been to more than 20 shows and takes great pride in belonging to his fan club, often getting premium seats and various opportunities.
On one occasion, her friend Toni and her hopped a flight to New York and saw him at Virgin Records after waiting days in the rain.
"That's the first time I talked to him," Noworyta said. "He is just a kind person and a musical treasure. He held my arm for what felt like an hour."
That's before her arm read "Paul McCartney."
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Source: The (Northwest Indiana) Times, http://bit.ly/2bUpxJa
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Information from: The Times, http://www.nwitimes.com
This is an Indiana Exchange story shared by The (Northwest Indiana) Times.
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CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio woman died in a car crash on Cleveland's east side while leaving her high school reunion party.
Cleveland.com reports (http://bit.ly/2czOtYp) that Shirley Duncan-Barnes, of Maple Heights, was pronounced dead on Lee Road near Cloversdale Drive after midnight on Sunday morning.
Witnesses told the news organization her vehicle was struck by a Chrysler 300 and ran through a brick wall. The driver of the other car also was injured. Police have not released additional details.
Duncan-Barnes was attending the 30th class reunion party for Jane Addams Business Career Center.
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Information from: cleveland.com, http://www.cleveland.com
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SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — A hot air balloon touched power lines after landing during a weekend festival in western Nebraska, but no one was hurt.
KNEB reports (http://bit.ly/2ccby17 ) the incident happened Sunday morning at the Old West Balloon Fest.
Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman says none of the three people on board the balloon was hurt.
The balloon involved is called the Good Morning Sunshine, and its pilot is Royce Clapp.
Colleen Johnson with the balloon festival called this a minor incident. She says a small change in wind can cause problems on landing or takeoff.
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Information from: Star-Herald, http://www.starherald.com
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DETROIT (AP) — Backpacks filled with school supplies will be given to Detroit Public Schools Community District students in kindergarten through eighth grade as the new academic year starts.
The district says 33,000 backpacks will be distributed Tuesday.
Project Backpack was started in 2015 by the Mike Morse Law Firm and has been expanded this year.
The district ended last year with about 46,000 students. Last month, a recruiting fair was held to fill hundreds of teaching positions.
The district still is run by a state-appointed emergency manager but is transitioning back to local control. A new school board will be elected this fall and sworn in in January.
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CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (AP) — Former Ohio Gov. William Allen is coming home to the city of Chillicothe (chihl-ih-KAHTH'-ee).
The Ross County Historical Society has agreed to take the statute of Ohio's Democratic governor from 1874 to 1876, The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/2cqLGz5 ) reported.
Director Thomas Kuhn said details are still being worked out for the transfer of the statue from the state, which will assume ownership after the statue is removed from its spot in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol where it's been since 1887.
The 12-foot-tall, 12,000-pound statue was sculpted by Cincinnati artist Charles Niehaus and is being displaced due to Allen's support of Southern slave owners. But Kuhn said society officials aren't deterred by the reasons behind Allen's removal.
"Historical societies are in the business of preserving history, not hiding it," he said.
Allen served in the U.S. House and Senate before becoming Ohio's 31st governor in 1874. He retired to his home in Chillicothe, where he died in July 1879.
Each state can display two notable figures at Statuary Hall. State officials had decided to replace Allen in 2010 and held a statewide public vote to pick a successor. Inventor Thomas Edison— who's from Milan, Ohio —won narrowly over aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright.
The bronze statue of Edison holding a light bulb will join President James Garfield as Ohio's entrants in Statuary Hall. Sculpted by Zanesville artist Alan Cottrill, the Edison statue will be dedicated Sept. 21 by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Ohio officials.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
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BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (AP) — The start of the school year for a district in southern Michigan is being delayed after mold was found in one school.
Harper Creek Community Schools in Battle Creek announced it decided to postpone the start of school on Tuesday so all students can be on the same calendar. The Battle Creek Enquirer reports (http://bcene.ws/2cf1R0q ) mold was found in Harper Creek Middle School last week.
The school district says it has hired mold remediation technicians to remove carpets from affected classrooms and to clean the rooms. The technicians also took air quality samples. Test results are expected Tuesday.
District officials said consultants did not say they had to close the middle school, but they want to keep the school closed until test results indicate it's safe for students and staff.
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This story has been corrected to change dateline to Battle Creek.
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Information from: Battle Creek Enquirer, http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com
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URBANA, Ill. (AP) — The University of Illinois will spend $3 million in salary increases for about 400 postdoctoral research associates to avoid overtime charges the school would otherwise pay under a new federal rule.
The rule from the Department of Labor taking effect Dec. 1 means the annual salary threshold at which companies can deny overtime pay will be doubled from $23,660 to nearly $47,500.
The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports Sunday (http://bit.ly/2c6iU7F ) that interim Provost Edward Feser told faculty it would be impractical and costly to track researchers' hours and pay them overtime. He says other universities also are adopting the new minimum salary for researchers.
Campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler says the average pay of research associates is $39,600. Kaler says the money for the raises will come from existing research grants in some cases.
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Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com
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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A year after voters approved a post-Labor Day start date for Roosevelt High School, worries that students wouldn't have enough time to study for May advanced placement tests haven't materialized.
Seven out of 10 students in Sioux Falls who took AP exams last spring passed, a slight increase from the year before, the Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/2ckMYJ2 ) reported. But students and teachers said they felt squeezed by the new schedule, and the district saw a drop in AP class enrollment.
Students such as senior Caroline Moriarty say they sacrificed lunch breaks and holidays to prepare for the tests.
"I had to be home doing homework all the time," Moriarty said.
After Murphy Cauble spent his winter break last year immersed in AP chemistry homework, he opted not to take AP physics this fall as a junior.
"A lot of the time that we have off has to be spent doing a lot of work," Cauble said. "I wasn't looking forward to doing that again."
Teachers also had to find ways to fit in extra material during lunch periods and holiday breaks.
AP physics teacher Barb Newitt spent her summer developing three weeks of independent study coursework for students to complete over the holidays. She worries the new schedule hurts students who want to earn college credit but who require more classroom instruction.
"When the conditions are less than ideal, they're probably not going to succeed," Newitt said.
The number of students in Newitt's AP physics class in fall 2015 dropped by almost half compared with the previous year, a trend she partly attributes to the compacted schedule.
Superintendent Brian Maher said the drop in AP enrollment could be caused by anything. AP enrollment fluctuates each year. Last year's numbers were down, particularly for math and science subjects, but they were still higher than two years ago.
"We can't dismiss it (the calendar change) as a contributing factor," Maher said. "But to say it's the cause — we wouldn't have a basis for that."
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Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com
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CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who has lived with a hypodermic needle lodged in her back for nearly seven years has won a $507,000 judgment in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/2bOtCAr ) reports that a St. Louis County jury last week sided with Claudia Ball after a four-day trial.
Claudia Ball in 2011 sued Dr. Catherine Doty and the Allied Physicians Group LLC, which ran the now-closed Breakthrough Pain Relief Clinic in Chesterfield.
Ball accused the doctor of negligence for embedding an inch-and-a-half needle in Ball's back during a 2009 injection treatment for bulging and degenerative discs.
Ball's lawyer says efforts to extract the needle have failed.
A message seeking comment was left Sunday with Ryan Gavin, an attorney for Doty and Allied Physicians Group.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) — A professor at Southern Illinois University has launched a new study investigating the curious case of an armadillo's northern migration.
Associate zoology professor F. Agustin Jimenez says there are 23 species of armadillo in the southern hemisphere. Only one of them, the nine-banded armadillo, is moving northward. They've even been spotted in Mount Vernon in south-central Illinois.
Jimenez tells the Southern Illinoisan (http://bit.ly/223MqOF ) that "warmer and shorter winters" might have facilitated their survival in the northern hemisphere. Scientists originally thought the migrating armadillos would die in the cold winters. But, now, armadillos are being spotted in early spring.
With no natural predators in this area, Jimenez said their populations are increasing rapidly.
Jimenez's own study specifically looks at the types of parasites the armadillos are carrying into the region.
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Information from: Southern Illinoisan, http://www.southernillinoisan.com
- By MARGARET STAFFORD Associated Press
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SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — Fifth-grader Bella Bartlomi sits at a table full of circuits and small robots, trying to connect the right circuits to make a small wheel spin. Instructors are standing by in the room, called a "makerspace," but let the students at the suburban Kansas City elementary school figure out things by themselves.
Eventually, she finds the right combination, showing off the spinning wheel with a big smile. "It makes me feel smart," she said. "I made it work. I tried to figure out how to make this move and I did it, by myself."
The "maker movement" that's reached K-12 schools across the United States during the last two or three years encourages collaborative, creative, student-driven education, and many educators have enthusiastically embraced the move away from the traditional classroom, in which teachers are "the sage on the stage" dispensing information.
But there are concerns that already-busy teachers will have trouble incorporating a counterpoint to schools' increasingly test-based curriculums that emphasize reading, writing and arithmetic. Plus, some of the makerspaces are being instituted in school libraries, where the quiet, reading-oriented space can be disrupted by the sometimes noisy creation process.
The Shawnee Mission, Kansas, School District, where Bella's Bluejacket-Flint Elementary is located, is converting rooms at several schools to makerspaces. The room where Bella recently worked houses a wide range of materials, including a 3-D printer, building blocks, a sewing machine and baskets of old toilet paper rolls, yarn and buttons.
"When you give kids the opportunity to work with their hands, and to go and show it from start to finish, they become so engaged, that they can talk with passion about it," said Christy Ziegler, the district's assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment. "The days of standing up and rote reporting because it was assigned to me is changing."
It's difficult to quantify the maker movement's growth nationwide because research on such spaces in schools has barely begun, said Stephanie Chang, director of programs for the Oakland, California-based Maker Education Initiative. She noted her nonprofit has "been busier each year (since the group started in 2012)."
The transition for teachers from lecturing and testing to facilitating students' self-discovery can be daunting, because they must also meet curriculum and educational mandates, such as the multi-state Common Core and Next Generation Science requirements. Plus, most states have significantly changed how teachers are evaluated since 2009, with test scores are becoming a more important component, according to the Center of Public Education. Forty-one states require or recommend that teachers be evaluated not only on test scores but on other measures, such as observations of their classes.
Chang said her organization constantly gets questions about whether students will do well on tests if instructional time is devoted to maker education. Data isn't available yet to answer that question but she said teachers can "absolutely" use makerspaces to integrate content required for testing while also developing "hard skills," such as hammering or computer coding, and "soft skills," such critical thinking and collaboration.
"Coupled together, that makes for a more holistic learner as opposed to memorizing and regurgitating facts," she said.
Heather Moorefield-Lang, an assistant professor with the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina, notes that makerspaces "aren't for everybody."
"I tell folks all the time that you have to look at the school's culture, at the community, and ask 'Is this the approach for your faculty, your staff, your community?' These places don't work if there is no buy-in," she said, adding that there is little formal training for the maker movement.
The American Association of School Libraries is concerned about reports of some schools replacing credentialed librarians with innovation specialists who are not certified in library sciences, according to president Audrey Church. But she stressed the organization strongly supports the movement.
"As librarians, our mission is to help students become critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skillful researchers and ethical users of information," she said. "Certainly, makerspaces fit really well within both the association and the mission of librarians."
Angela Rosheim created a makerspace at the library at Lewis & Clark Elementary School in Liberty, Missouri, about three years ago. The teacher-librarian said she and the district overall work hard to maintain a balance between traditional and makerspace education. She emphasizes reading, taking notes, using citations and being responsible users of information, supplementing those lessons with maker projects.
"Keeping with my curriculum hasn't been a problem for me," she said. "It does require some research, some trial-and-error and a lot of flexibility. But I figure out a way to make it gel so it works for me and my kids."
- By BEN JACOBSON Telegraph Herald
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NEW VIENNA, Iowa (AP) — They have a favorite saying at Willenborg Lawn Ornaments.
"We do everything," said longtime owner Carol Willenborg. "Anything from a mouse to a moose."
Though, she noted, the moose now have to be ordered special.
The Telegraph Herald (http://bit.ly/2bDnnwy ) reports that for 29 years, Willenborg and husband, Dennis, have operated the quirky business on Iowa 136. From April to December, the self-proclaimed largest such outlet in northeast Iowa connects homeowners with just about any lawn decoration imaginable.
There's something for everyone, according to Willenborg. Whether you're looking for a concrete giraffe, lion, zebra or even a mythical sasquatch, they've got it or they can make it.
"We've got elephants," she said. "We've got Bigfoot. I think he's a little weird."
The business started as a way for Willenborg, the mother of a then 6-year-old daughter, to earn money while preventing her child from becoming a "latchkey kid."
"I bought seven little gnomes," Willenborg recalled. "I started painting from there and now I've created a monster, it seems like it."
In the ensuing three decades, Willenborg creations have gone global, she said.
"We're in all but Hawaii (and) I think we're still not in New Hampshire yet," said Willenborg, whose husband began charting the destinations of lawn ornaments years ago. "But we're in England, Spain, France ... Iceland and Germany. And we're in Mexico and Canada."
Willenborg and her family have accumulated hundreds of concrete molds through the years, and always are willing to work on a custom order. The business prepares many personalized memorial pieces, such as benches or steppingstones.
The big sellers tend to vary from year to year, though the months around Mother's Day and Father's Day tend to be the busiest.
This year, eagles were in high demand, Willenborg said.
"Last year, it was a run on skunks," she said. "We couldn't keep skunks in stock."
Whatever shape customers choose, they can take pride in knowing their lawn ornaments have a personal touch.
"That is our specialty. We hand-paint," said Willenborg. "We only use an air gun for trim on animals. All of our other pieces are hand-painted."
Two of Willenborg's eagles welcome visitors to New Vienna. They were acquired and installed by the New Vienna Garden Club this spring to spruce up the city's welcome sign.
Kathy Boeckenstedt, one of the club's co-leaders, said the eagles replaced a pair of aging angels.
"They had been there for 20 years," Boeckenstedt said. "They had taken a little wear and tear on them."
With the Willenborgs being a New Vienna institution, they were a natural choice to help update the city's lawn decor, Boeckenstedt said. And the eagles, which stand guard in club-maintained flower beds, have been well-received.
"We're real pleased with them," Boeckenstedt said. "They look real nice. ... We've had a lot of comments on them."
Business is booming, Willenborg said, noting that she takes online orders and even sets up appointments with customers during the offseason. But she and Dennis might be about ready to hang up their paintbrushes.
"We want to celebrate our 30th year, but after that, I think we will be phasing out of it," she said.
Not that northeast Iowa's largest selection of lawn decorations will be going anywhere anytime soon. Willenborg is preparing her granddaughter to take over the business.
In the meantime, Willenborg will keep working to keep up with whatever customers are clamoring for.
"Dogs, this year, are driving us nuts almost," she said.
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Information from: Telegraph Herald, http://www.thonline.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Telegraph Herald
- By JOHN CARLISLE Detroit Free Press
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NORTH ADAMS, Mich. (AP) — The elderly newcomer wanted to make friends, so he took off his pants and waved hello.
Gloria Wright was going about her morning, talking with her neighbors outside their trailers, when this gray-haired visitor drove inside the campground, stepped out of his truck and stood in the hot sunshine before them wearing nothing but a red T-shirt and flip-flops, the Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/2cmGPR2 ) reported. And everyone just yawned.
This is what sometimes passes for an icebreaker at the Cherry Lane Nudist Resort in North Adams, secluded among farms on the state's south side, where adults can wander naked and free, like overgrown babes in the woods. The resort is like a typical RV campground where people can swim, barbecue and hang out. Only difference is, everyone's naked most of the time.
"It's just a wonderful place," said Wright, 63, a retired education consultant from Lima, Ohio. She first came here in 2002 with a now ex-husband who wanted freedom from a life of Pentecostal shackles. He left, she stayed, and she now lives at the resort half the year in a trailer with an expansive deck that overlooks a shaded valley in the woods.
"We just have all groups of people, all the way from truck drivers to lawyers . a lot of nurses and teachers, and everybody finds their own little niche and has a really nice time," said Wright, who was wearing a light summer dress. Nudity isn't required anywhere here except the swimming pool. But like the bold, geriatric visitor who dropped his pants as soon as he arrived, people who are drawn here don't usually need encouragement to get naked in front of others.
"It's a sense of freedom that you normally don't get. I mean, if you were meant to be naked you'd have been born that way," said the Rev. Dennis Bevis, Cherry Lane's 66-year-old longtime owner and dispenser of wry slogans. "And so it's going back to nature, basically."
On top of his managerial duties, Bevis also is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. "As a holy man I cannot only provide you with a place to sin, but also absolve you of said sins at the end of the weekend if you so desire," he reassures people on the resort's website.
Many members of Cherry Lane say being naked in public is just innocent fun, a way to move past self-consciousness while also enjoying the sensation of the warm sunshine and the cool breeze on their bare skin.
"It's free and open here," said 83-year-old Floyd Hoover, who's been a member of the resort for a quarter-century. "You run around without any clothes on. You've got a beautiful pool, you can lay out and be yourself like nature intended. Kind of like a Garden of Eden thing."
Well, except for all the swingers.
Cherry Lane started back in the freewheeling late '60s, when nudist resorts were springing up all over the country.
It was founded by Bevis' parents, who'd tried nudism and liked it, but grew tired of the resort they'd been attending in mid-Michigan. Too uptight, they thought. So the family converted a small farm they owned in the little village of North Adams into their own public nudist camp.
Back then the resort was barely more than a few tents and trailers. Fifty years later, it's become an 80-acre community with high-end campers, a clubhouse, a performance stage, a swimming pool, utilities, amenities and security. It's one of seven nudist resorts left operating in Michigan, set in conservative Hillsdale County, of all places. Membership costs up to $1,800 a year.
The crowd here skews distinctly older. "We're starting to get a younger group now, but there's a lot of people between 50 and 75 that's from that Baby Boomer commune generation," Wright said. "But we're starting to get a younger, maybe 40 to 50-ish group in here. And you have the occasional 25-year-old girl who comes in with some old, rich man who wants to show her off."
There's lots to do here, from naked volleyball tournaments to nude painting classes to Saturday night dances in a clubhouse — usually with a theme, like '70s night. There are a dozen or so minibars that residents set up in front of their campers, and on weekend summer nights there often are bar crawls from one camper to another for bouts of naked drinking.
They've also got pudding wrestling. Blind golf-cart races. And the annual "Shave-a-Thon," when people take razors to each other's most tender parts in broad daylight by the pool, memorialized in a graphic photo display in the clubhouse.
There are rules galore here: Visitors have to be buzzed in at the gate and must register with the office. No children are allowed at any time. Cameras are prohibited. Drugs are forbidden. "And 'no' always means no," Wright said.
Most people here on a given day are dues-paying members who leave their campers here year-round. Though, since nudism requires good weather, the resort is closed to all but the die-hards from October to April every year.
But it's open in the summer to visitors, who can hang out during the daytime and sample the nudist life. It's a way to attract new members. It's also a way to draw creeps. Residents call them "pay per views" who often come to leer. Some try to sneak in past the front gate. Everyone watches out for them. They've earned the scrutiny over the years.
"You wouldn't believe the people that come in here," Wright said. "They automatically believe that everybody's naked all the time, everybody's screwing everybody all the time. I mean, those are the kind of questions you get all the time."
Wright remembers sitting outside having coffee and donuts one morning with her 83-year-old neighbor when a lone, male visitor walked over and asked them to expose themselves. "And he's like, 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours,'" Wright said. And he did just that. The women were uncharmed by the move.
"People that are vanilla about this automatically think just because you're a nudist that you must go along with everything else," said Lisa Klingler, 52, of Windsor. She and her husband Joe, 65, have a camper parked here permanently, and spend an entire month here every summer. To them, nudism is a social activity. They like to throw naked dinner parties for their neighbors.
For them, public nudity is simply liberating. Especially, she said, for women.
"Because we sit there every day of our lives, we have to put our masks on, we gotta put our makeup on, we gotta put our uniform on or our scrubs on," she said, seated topless on a stool at their camper bar, known as Lisa and Joe's Bar and Grill. Her naked husband was nearby, building an outdoor covered kitchen next to their camper as she spoke. It was her birthday present.
"There's no fashion show here," she said. "We come in all shapes and sizes. My favorite line is, 'If it don't droop, sag, drag or jiggle it's not all real.' And you become real. You just become real with it."
And yet, when you get a bunch of naked people together, things are going to happen.
"I don't care what nudist camp you go to, be it traditional or whatever, there are swingers there," Bevis said.
It's not obvious, though. There's no public sex allowed here. Arrangements are made quietly, privately.
"Sometimes two people will disappear from the dance for 30 minutes and they show back up," Wright said. "Every couple has their own rules."
Since most people here are longtime residents, there aren't many anonymous encounters to be had. But that just adds to the charm of the resort, some members say.
"It is kind of different than a swing club here. It's more personal and you build more of a friendship, as opposed to just going to a swing club and hooking up and you go home," said Carina Travis, 46. She came originally to swing with her now ex-husband. "You get to know people and make friendships. I would do anything for them and they'd do anything for me, which is really cool."
The closest thing to a public swinging spot here is a place called Fantasy Land, which people swear with a wink doesn't actually exist. It's a large, screened tent hidden in the woods and stocked with tables and benches.
"Pretty much anything goes out there," said Bevis, noting that he never visits that part of the resort. "I don't really get too much into the details. If people are swingers or nudists I really don't care."
And even if they're neither, some people come here for a visit anyway — not to participate in anything, but just to immerse themselves in the sexually charged atmosphere for thrills.
"We get this whole range of people, and even people who aren't swingers who come out here and who aren't even nudists," Bevis said. "There's a certain amount of excitement about the possibilities, you know, the potential and all that thing. So it adds a little spice to their life, even if they don't participate, per se."
Night had fallen, and the little strands of lights on the campers and trailers were twinkling in the dusk. The resort was quickly coming to life again, as residents got off work and came back to their alternate world.
Three dozen shot glasses filled with candy-flavored liquors were lined up on table at Connie and Daryl's bar, located in front of their camper. Karaoke was set up under an adjacent canopy, where tipsy guests could launch a massacre on their favorite classic rock songs. It was Friday night, and it was time to party.
"Would you like to see my Twinkie?" a 43-year-old woman named Lexi asked a newcomer during a break between songs. This could've meant anything.
But she was referring to her ancient camper, a tiny 1976 Airstream Argosy, nicknamed by the resort's regulars for its shape and color. She first brought it here 13 years ago, when she came as part of a swinging couple with a now ex-boyfriend. She stays in it on weekends with her current boyfriend.
She calls herself Lexi when she's here because like many members, she's got a job and a life outside this remote campsite, and as much as times have changed and social mores have relaxed since the resort was founded half a century ago, being branded a nudist — or worse, a swinger — can still wreak havoc on a life.
"There's families that will disown. You'd be amazed," Travis said. "I always find it amazing how judgmental people are in this world."
Because of that fear, discretion is paramount here. "We protect people's privacy out here to the nth degree," Bevis said. "We don't want to bust anybody. A lot of these people, we don't even send mail to a lot of them, like their bill and stuff, 'cause their kids open their mail."
Among all the lawyers and nurses and teachers here, members say there's also a small-town judge and at least one politician from a neighboring state. Pretty much everyone who's not yet retired has something to lose. And that shared need for secrecy has created an unusual, tight-knit community based on trust.
"These people party together, they cry together, they laugh together, they have a good time together, and they form these lifelong bonds," Bevis said. "It's almost like a family thing at some point, you know?"
Indeed, he'd just returned from a six-hour round trip to Flint to see a longtime member of the resort who was on her deathbed. She had cancer, was in hospice, and had no family other than her adoptive one here, led by the Rev. Bevis, godfather of the nudists.
"It's my second family, and it's fun," Travis said. "I get to be somebody that I'm not in the real world. You always have to be something proper and everything else there, and here you just come out and get to relax, be a kid in a sense, an adult kid, and do things you don't get to do at home. Like being naked."
The party grew larger and the clothes started coming off and the shots were downed and the songs were shouted. At the end of the weekend, everyone would scatter to their boring jobs and their loving families and their stifling wardrobes. But for now, everyone got to be someone they weren't outside of here, and the possibilities the good reverend spoke about hung temptingly in the night's warm air.
"When you're here, the whole rest of the world doesn't exist," Bevis said. "The only world that exists is right here."
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Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Detroit Free Press.
- By DUSTIN DUNCAN The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan
- Updated
GOREVILLE, Ill. (AP) — While many high school juniors spend their summers working, relaxing or volunteering to beef up a college application, Ashlyn Darnell was also training for the rest of her life.
Darnell, who just turned 18 earlier this month, has recently returned from Fort Jackson in South Carolina where she completed Basic Combat Training for the Army. She will complete her senior year at Goreville High School and then report for Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in May.
Even though she is a two-sport standout in basketball and volleyball, she said sports aren't going to be her future. She said the military gives her the opportunity to not only serve her country, but to travel the world, pay for college, and become more physically and mentally tough.
"I wanted to challenge myself," Darnell said.
She was able to attend basic training this past summer because of a program called Split Training Option. It allows students who wish to join the military to report to basic training during their junior year of high school — return to school for their senior year — then report to AIT after graduating.
In Darnell's case, she has plans to complete individualized training next summer, then attend Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She plans to enter the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), and pursue a degree in nursing. She will remain in the Army Reserves during her college career.
After obtaining a college degree, she wants to enlist in active duty.
While in basic, Darnell said she was promoted to a private E2 — one of four out of 218 soldiers training.
"To complete basic on a good note, you have to stay low," Darnell said. "You don't want to be on the drill sergeant's radar the whole time."
The four-year, two-sport varsity basketball and volleyball starter said it was a bit of shock when she first arrived because she is a teen. However, the military treats its soldiers like adults regardless of their age, so they have to get used to it pretty quick — if not, she said, they get punished.
"I am so used to getting treated like an adult now, it is an adjustment coming back to high school," Darnell said.
Although the travel and free college is a big selling point for the Goreville senior, the act of serving her country isn't lost on her.
"I would love to serve my country. That is a big deal to me," she said. "People worked and sacrificed to have the freedom that we do have, and I want to be a part of that."
Ashlyn's father, Matt Darnell, said this is a decision he fully supports.
"She was always clear she didn't want to skip her education, but still wanted to serve her country," Matt Darnell said. "We just wanted to help her make an informed decision.
"Ashlyn has always been very decisive and she knows what she wants. This was something that she was confident that she wanted to do."
Darnell's parents had to sign the consent forms to allow her to sign up for the reserves. Matt Darnell said while he and his wife have the fortunate ability to help pay for college, they have always encouraged his children to seek out and take advantage of the opportunities available to them — whether it is athletic, academic, or through the military.
Ashlyn recognizes that her parents would be able to help her financially, but she wants to do it on her own.
"I don't want all that on my back several years down the line," she said. "I would be able to go John A. (Logan) and play basketball, but it feels good to know that I have earned it and not have my family pay for it."
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Source: The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan, http://bit.ly/2bjGJH6
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Information from: Southern Illinoisan, http://www.southernillinoisan.com
This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan.
- By JENNY MCNEECE Vincennes Sun-Commercial
- Updated
VINCENNES, Ind. (AP) — Over the last nine years, Jim Osborne, curator and founder of the Indiana Military Museum, has watched the number or re-enactors drawn to the annual Salute to Veterans of World War II steadily grow.
This year, he said, more than 100 men and women have signed on, the largest group in the event's history.
"Word is still spreading," he said. "The more people hear about it, the more they want to know about the museum and the event itself. It's a lot of word of mouth. People go back, tell others.
"And all of it is starting to add up."
The 9th annual Salute to Veterans, an event honoring the heroes of WWII, will take place this weekend at the museum, located at 715 S. Sixth St. And with a possible record number of re-enactors on the way, Osborne has expanded the weekend's lineup of activities.
"We've added a whole other battle to each day," he said excitedly. "We'll have the main battle at 1 p.m. both Saturday and again on Sunday, but we're adding another skirmish, you might say, at 3 p.m. each day.
"And the reason for that is we've got a fairly large (unit) of Russians coming," he said in jest.
Osborne is thrilled to welcome this year a new unit of Russian re-enactors living, primarily, in Illinois, he said. They're bringing with them their own Russian Jeep and will make camp next to a Russian WWII tank museum volunteers are currently working to restore.
"They'll be fighting the Germans during that 3 p.m. battle," Osborne said. "And during the other battle the Americans and British will be fighting the Germans.
"Either way, the Germans are going to lose," he said with a chuckle.
The Salute to Veterans will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Festivities include beloved favorites like WWII veteran Leighton Willhite's tales of battles on Iowa Jima, scheduled for 11:45 a.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. on Sunday, as well as a military fashion show at 11 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
There will also be weapons demonstrations, a parade of war vehicles preceding each battle, and the Memory Lane swing band will perform at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday on the main stage.
Events also include a variety of wartime talks, including ones on Japanese culture and U.S. battalion medical aide stations, as well as a kids military drill and parade at 11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.
"And the weather report looks great," Osborne said of the forecasted near 80-degree weather.
But of all the events, Osborne's favorite part of Salute to Veterans has always been visiting with the WWII veterans themselves. But as the number of re-enactors swells each year, the number of veterans, unfortunately, declines.
"We had 30 that registered with us last year," he said. "This year, we just don't know. We won't know until they show up.
"But this event is about them. We want them here. We want to hear from them. We'll have a complimentary meal for them and a guest. And we'll recognize each one on stage if they're able."
Osborne said visitors come each year not only to see the re-enactors and shop with their favorite vendors but also — and perhaps more so — to visit with the veterans as well. It's a chance for the public to thank them, Osborne said, and for youngsters to shake the hand of a true hero.
"And maybe they'll hear a story or two," he said.
Osborne also expects several food vendors for this weekend, and volunteers continue to receive calls from artifact vendors wanting to book a space.
"We'll have lots of those, too," he said. "We'll have book sellers, one guy that specializes in making World War II wooden toys, things like Jeeps, tanks, airplanes, that kind of stuff. So that portion of the event will be really interesting for visitors as well."
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Source: Vincennes Sun-Commercial, http://bit.ly/2bSdpJC
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Information from: Vincennes Sun-Commercial, http://www.vincennes.com
This is an Indiana Exchange story shared by the Vincennes Sun-Commercial
- By MIKE ANDERSON Rapid City Journal
- Updated
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — In May 2015, Leroy Broken Nose's childhood home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was pummeled by hail the size of tennis balls.
The same storm caused extensive flooding and destroyed hundreds of homes on the reservation, the Rapid City Journal (http://bit.ly/2c2OUqD ) reported. President Barack Obama declared it a national disaster on Aug. 7, 2015, marking the first and only time a sovereign Native American tribe independently requested and received a formal disaster declaration from a president.
In the weeks that followed the storms, Broken Nose's battered roof leaked and rotted out, collapsing in certain sections.
Although it took almost 11 months, the 62-year-old disabled man now has a new home on a small plot of land south of Oglala Lake.
"It was a long waiting game," Broken Nose said Wednesday while sitting at his new kitchen table. "But it's here, so I'm happy."
Broken Nose's new roof was provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has spent more than a year repairing and replacing households damaged during a series of storms in May 2015.
As FEMA finalizes that work, a larger undertaking by multiple federal agencies lies ahead: to continue improving the overall conditions on the reservation.
Since December, FEMA has installed 196 manufactured housing units like the one Broken Nose now occupies. The last was installed on July 11. FEMA has also repaired an additional 107 homes, and another 13 are scheduled to be repaired before FEMA closes its eight disaster recovery centers scattered across the reservation in mid-September. All of the repairs and replacements were provided for free by FEMA, or contractors hired by the agency.
Having spent more than a year away from his wife, FEMA coordinating officer Gary Stanley is ready to return to his own home, but he harbors no illusions that the work on Pine Ridge is finished.
"What we did here in terms of disaster response is a very small part of what the need is on the reservation," Stanley said.
According to Stanley, FEMA determined there is a shortage of at least 4,000 livable homes on the reservation. "It was imperative that we come up with a solution because it's impacting a lot of young children and the elderly," he said.
The people impacted include Broken Nose, who suffered a stroke in 2004 and has been battling cancer and diabetes for many years.
"I beat one cancer," Broken Nose said, "but I can't beat leukemia."
Broken Nose goes to Rapid City once a month for cancer treatment, but doesn't have a car so he takes a bus to the hospital. He gets a ride from his neighbors to Oglala, where the bus picks him up. It won't make the drive to his home several miles south of town, he said, partially because the dirt road to his doorstep turns into an impassable trench of mud when it rains.
This is but one small example of how seriously the reservation's road system is in need of upgrades. FEMA's workers discovered this first-hand while trying to find certain homes, many of which are remote, like Broken Nose's. Often, they don't have recorded addresses and are accessible only by barely maintained, dirt roads that haven't been inventoried.
FEMA may be leaving next month, but a disaster recovery team will stay behind to continue working with the tribe on various initiatives, with roads and housing designated as the primary focus areas. A FEMA coordinator — operating out of the Region 8 office in Denver — will be joined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture Rural Development, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Federal Highway Administration, according to a FEMA press release.
Some progress has already been made under FEMA's direction, with more than 460 miles of tribal roads assessed and inventoried. The results will be entered into a Geospatial Information System map. Similar efforts are also underway to better catalog the true extent of the housing needs on the reservation.
Broken Nose's original home was torn down after the storm, and he now lives in a manufactured housing unit provided by FEMA. It has a handicapped accessible ramp, three bedrooms, air conditioning, and is furnished with a couch, bed, and full array of standard kitchen appliances.
While it serves his needs well, Broken Nose worries the housing unit's energy costs will be too high. He hasn't received his first bill, but people living in other FEMA-provided units have complained of high electricity bills.
FEMA has heard these concerns as well, and as a result created a program to reduce energy expenses by teaching low-cost weatherization techniques. Other efforts are also underway to educate tribal officials on strategic planning and grant application processes for future infrastructure improvement initiatives.
"There's a lot of need on Pine Ridge right now," Stanley said. "I would like to think part of what we did was help focus folks on what those needs are."
According to Stanley, the housing units are designed to last at least 20 years, provided they are well-maintained.
Broken Nose hopes his new home will be around for his grandson to live in someday, but he has already seen evidence that it might not.
Even though it's new, Broken Nose said, some of the siding has already begun to break off and blow away.
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Rapid City Journal.
- By DAMIAN RICO The (Northwest Indiana) Times
MUNSTER, Ind. (AP) — Ceil Noworyta, of Munster, never dreamed of getting a tattoo, let alone getting one at the age of 63. But her mind would quickly change.
Noworyta's dream came true when Sir Paul McCartney pulled her and friend Toni Johnson on stage during his recent One On One Tour show in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
"I couldn't believe it," Noworyta said. "I was not prepared for it. When he called me up there I had nothing to sign so I had him sign my arm."
Her girlfriend held up a sign that read please sign my arm so I can get a tattoo. Sticking to her word, just a couple of short days after the performance, Noworyta headed to The Tattoo Lady in Hammond, to get her Sir Paul's signature permanently on her arm.
"I'm so scared," Noworyta said. "I've never done something like this before. My husband teased that I don't even have his name on my arm, but I told him I did love Paul 10 years before I even met you."
Noworyta, a retired recovery nurse at East Chicago's St. Catherine Hospital and the mother of her own "Fab Four boys," is thankful for her husband, Don, who "is tolerable" of her appreciation for McCartney and his music.
"He says I'm crazy because I'm a 60-year-old chasing, acting like 16-year-old, while chasing a 70-year-old," Noworyta said. "It's all in fun. Paul's the best."
Noworyta recalls her father asking her if she would like to see The Beatles as a young girl. When she said "of course," he took bought four tickets for their entire family to see them at Comiskey Park in August 1965.
"That's what started it all," Noworyta said.
Noworyta took a break from the shows during the late '70s when McCartney was with Wings "because they got too big and were selling out these gigantic stadiums and I wanted to see him up close and not from the rafters."
But she learned the ins and outs of getting better seats.
Noworyta has been to more than 20 shows and takes great pride in belonging to his fan club, often getting premium seats and various opportunities.
On one occasion, her friend Toni and her hopped a flight to New York and saw him at Virgin Records after waiting days in the rain.
"That's the first time I talked to him," Noworyta said. "He is just a kind person and a musical treasure. He held my arm for what felt like an hour."
That's before her arm read "Paul McCartney."
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Source: The (Northwest Indiana) Times, http://bit.ly/2bUpxJa
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Information from: The Times, http://www.nwitimes.com
This is an Indiana Exchange story shared by The (Northwest Indiana) Times.
CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio woman died in a car crash on Cleveland's east side while leaving her high school reunion party.
Cleveland.com reports (http://bit.ly/2czOtYp) that Shirley Duncan-Barnes, of Maple Heights, was pronounced dead on Lee Road near Cloversdale Drive after midnight on Sunday morning.
Witnesses told the news organization her vehicle was struck by a Chrysler 300 and ran through a brick wall. The driver of the other car also was injured. Police have not released additional details.
Duncan-Barnes was attending the 30th class reunion party for Jane Addams Business Career Center.
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Information from: cleveland.com, http://www.cleveland.com
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — A hot air balloon touched power lines after landing during a weekend festival in western Nebraska, but no one was hurt.
KNEB reports (http://bit.ly/2ccby17 ) the incident happened Sunday morning at the Old West Balloon Fest.
Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman says none of the three people on board the balloon was hurt.
The balloon involved is called the Good Morning Sunshine, and its pilot is Royce Clapp.
Colleen Johnson with the balloon festival called this a minor incident. She says a small change in wind can cause problems on landing or takeoff.
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Information from: Star-Herald, http://www.starherald.com
DETROIT (AP) — Backpacks filled with school supplies will be given to Detroit Public Schools Community District students in kindergarten through eighth grade as the new academic year starts.
The district says 33,000 backpacks will be distributed Tuesday.
Project Backpack was started in 2015 by the Mike Morse Law Firm and has been expanded this year.
The district ended last year with about 46,000 students. Last month, a recruiting fair was held to fill hundreds of teaching positions.
The district still is run by a state-appointed emergency manager but is transitioning back to local control. A new school board will be elected this fall and sworn in in January.
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (AP) — Former Ohio Gov. William Allen is coming home to the city of Chillicothe (chihl-ih-KAHTH'-ee).
The Ross County Historical Society has agreed to take the statute of Ohio's Democratic governor from 1874 to 1876, The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/2cqLGz5 ) reported.
Director Thomas Kuhn said details are still being worked out for the transfer of the statue from the state, which will assume ownership after the statue is removed from its spot in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol where it's been since 1887.
The 12-foot-tall, 12,000-pound statue was sculpted by Cincinnati artist Charles Niehaus and is being displaced due to Allen's support of Southern slave owners. But Kuhn said society officials aren't deterred by the reasons behind Allen's removal.
"Historical societies are in the business of preserving history, not hiding it," he said.
Allen served in the U.S. House and Senate before becoming Ohio's 31st governor in 1874. He retired to his home in Chillicothe, where he died in July 1879.
Each state can display two notable figures at Statuary Hall. State officials had decided to replace Allen in 2010 and held a statewide public vote to pick a successor. Inventor Thomas Edison— who's from Milan, Ohio —won narrowly over aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright.
The bronze statue of Edison holding a light bulb will join President James Garfield as Ohio's entrants in Statuary Hall. Sculpted by Zanesville artist Alan Cottrill, the Edison statue will be dedicated Sept. 21 by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Ohio officials.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (AP) — The start of the school year for a district in southern Michigan is being delayed after mold was found in one school.
Harper Creek Community Schools in Battle Creek announced it decided to postpone the start of school on Tuesday so all students can be on the same calendar. The Battle Creek Enquirer reports (http://bcene.ws/2cf1R0q ) mold was found in Harper Creek Middle School last week.
The school district says it has hired mold remediation technicians to remove carpets from affected classrooms and to clean the rooms. The technicians also took air quality samples. Test results are expected Tuesday.
District officials said consultants did not say they had to close the middle school, but they want to keep the school closed until test results indicate it's safe for students and staff.
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This story has been corrected to change dateline to Battle Creek.
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Information from: Battle Creek Enquirer, http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com
URBANA, Ill. (AP) — The University of Illinois will spend $3 million in salary increases for about 400 postdoctoral research associates to avoid overtime charges the school would otherwise pay under a new federal rule.
The rule from the Department of Labor taking effect Dec. 1 means the annual salary threshold at which companies can deny overtime pay will be doubled from $23,660 to nearly $47,500.
The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports Sunday (http://bit.ly/2c6iU7F ) that interim Provost Edward Feser told faculty it would be impractical and costly to track researchers' hours and pay them overtime. He says other universities also are adopting the new minimum salary for researchers.
Campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler says the average pay of research associates is $39,600. Kaler says the money for the raises will come from existing research grants in some cases.
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Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A year after voters approved a post-Labor Day start date for Roosevelt High School, worries that students wouldn't have enough time to study for May advanced placement tests haven't materialized.
Seven out of 10 students in Sioux Falls who took AP exams last spring passed, a slight increase from the year before, the Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/2ckMYJ2 ) reported. But students and teachers said they felt squeezed by the new schedule, and the district saw a drop in AP class enrollment.
Students such as senior Caroline Moriarty say they sacrificed lunch breaks and holidays to prepare for the tests.
"I had to be home doing homework all the time," Moriarty said.
After Murphy Cauble spent his winter break last year immersed in AP chemistry homework, he opted not to take AP physics this fall as a junior.
"A lot of the time that we have off has to be spent doing a lot of work," Cauble said. "I wasn't looking forward to doing that again."
Teachers also had to find ways to fit in extra material during lunch periods and holiday breaks.
AP physics teacher Barb Newitt spent her summer developing three weeks of independent study coursework for students to complete over the holidays. She worries the new schedule hurts students who want to earn college credit but who require more classroom instruction.
"When the conditions are less than ideal, they're probably not going to succeed," Newitt said.
The number of students in Newitt's AP physics class in fall 2015 dropped by almost half compared with the previous year, a trend she partly attributes to the compacted schedule.
Superintendent Brian Maher said the drop in AP enrollment could be caused by anything. AP enrollment fluctuates each year. Last year's numbers were down, particularly for math and science subjects, but they were still higher than two years ago.
"We can't dismiss it (the calendar change) as a contributing factor," Maher said. "But to say it's the cause — we wouldn't have a basis for that."
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Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com
CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who has lived with a hypodermic needle lodged in her back for nearly seven years has won a $507,000 judgment in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/2bOtCAr ) reports that a St. Louis County jury last week sided with Claudia Ball after a four-day trial.
Claudia Ball in 2011 sued Dr. Catherine Doty and the Allied Physicians Group LLC, which ran the now-closed Breakthrough Pain Relief Clinic in Chesterfield.
Ball accused the doctor of negligence for embedding an inch-and-a-half needle in Ball's back during a 2009 injection treatment for bulging and degenerative discs.
Ball's lawyer says efforts to extract the needle have failed.
A message seeking comment was left Sunday with Ryan Gavin, an attorney for Doty and Allied Physicians Group.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) — A professor at Southern Illinois University has launched a new study investigating the curious case of an armadillo's northern migration.
Associate zoology professor F. Agustin Jimenez says there are 23 species of armadillo in the southern hemisphere. Only one of them, the nine-banded armadillo, is moving northward. They've even been spotted in Mount Vernon in south-central Illinois.
Jimenez tells the Southern Illinoisan (http://bit.ly/223MqOF ) that "warmer and shorter winters" might have facilitated their survival in the northern hemisphere. Scientists originally thought the migrating armadillos would die in the cold winters. But, now, armadillos are being spotted in early spring.
With no natural predators in this area, Jimenez said their populations are increasing rapidly.
Jimenez's own study specifically looks at the types of parasites the armadillos are carrying into the region.
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Information from: Southern Illinoisan, http://www.southernillinoisan.com
- By MARGARET STAFFORD Associated Press
SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — Fifth-grader Bella Bartlomi sits at a table full of circuits and small robots, trying to connect the right circuits to make a small wheel spin. Instructors are standing by in the room, called a "makerspace," but let the students at the suburban Kansas City elementary school figure out things by themselves.
Eventually, she finds the right combination, showing off the spinning wheel with a big smile. "It makes me feel smart," she said. "I made it work. I tried to figure out how to make this move and I did it, by myself."
The "maker movement" that's reached K-12 schools across the United States during the last two or three years encourages collaborative, creative, student-driven education, and many educators have enthusiastically embraced the move away from the traditional classroom, in which teachers are "the sage on the stage" dispensing information.
But there are concerns that already-busy teachers will have trouble incorporating a counterpoint to schools' increasingly test-based curriculums that emphasize reading, writing and arithmetic. Plus, some of the makerspaces are being instituted in school libraries, where the quiet, reading-oriented space can be disrupted by the sometimes noisy creation process.
The Shawnee Mission, Kansas, School District, where Bella's Bluejacket-Flint Elementary is located, is converting rooms at several schools to makerspaces. The room where Bella recently worked houses a wide range of materials, including a 3-D printer, building blocks, a sewing machine and baskets of old toilet paper rolls, yarn and buttons.
"When you give kids the opportunity to work with their hands, and to go and show it from start to finish, they become so engaged, that they can talk with passion about it," said Christy Ziegler, the district's assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment. "The days of standing up and rote reporting because it was assigned to me is changing."
It's difficult to quantify the maker movement's growth nationwide because research on such spaces in schools has barely begun, said Stephanie Chang, director of programs for the Oakland, California-based Maker Education Initiative. She noted her nonprofit has "been busier each year (since the group started in 2012)."
The transition for teachers from lecturing and testing to facilitating students' self-discovery can be daunting, because they must also meet curriculum and educational mandates, such as the multi-state Common Core and Next Generation Science requirements. Plus, most states have significantly changed how teachers are evaluated since 2009, with test scores are becoming a more important component, according to the Center of Public Education. Forty-one states require or recommend that teachers be evaluated not only on test scores but on other measures, such as observations of their classes.
Chang said her organization constantly gets questions about whether students will do well on tests if instructional time is devoted to maker education. Data isn't available yet to answer that question but she said teachers can "absolutely" use makerspaces to integrate content required for testing while also developing "hard skills," such as hammering or computer coding, and "soft skills," such critical thinking and collaboration.
"Coupled together, that makes for a more holistic learner as opposed to memorizing and regurgitating facts," she said.
Heather Moorefield-Lang, an assistant professor with the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina, notes that makerspaces "aren't for everybody."
"I tell folks all the time that you have to look at the school's culture, at the community, and ask 'Is this the approach for your faculty, your staff, your community?' These places don't work if there is no buy-in," she said, adding that there is little formal training for the maker movement.
The American Association of School Libraries is concerned about reports of some schools replacing credentialed librarians with innovation specialists who are not certified in library sciences, according to president Audrey Church. But she stressed the organization strongly supports the movement.
"As librarians, our mission is to help students become critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skillful researchers and ethical users of information," she said. "Certainly, makerspaces fit really well within both the association and the mission of librarians."
Angela Rosheim created a makerspace at the library at Lewis & Clark Elementary School in Liberty, Missouri, about three years ago. The teacher-librarian said she and the district overall work hard to maintain a balance between traditional and makerspace education. She emphasizes reading, taking notes, using citations and being responsible users of information, supplementing those lessons with maker projects.
"Keeping with my curriculum hasn't been a problem for me," she said. "It does require some research, some trial-and-error and a lot of flexibility. But I figure out a way to make it gel so it works for me and my kids."
- By BEN JACOBSON Telegraph Herald
NEW VIENNA, Iowa (AP) — They have a favorite saying at Willenborg Lawn Ornaments.
"We do everything," said longtime owner Carol Willenborg. "Anything from a mouse to a moose."
Though, she noted, the moose now have to be ordered special.
The Telegraph Herald (http://bit.ly/2bDnnwy ) reports that for 29 years, Willenborg and husband, Dennis, have operated the quirky business on Iowa 136. From April to December, the self-proclaimed largest such outlet in northeast Iowa connects homeowners with just about any lawn decoration imaginable.
There's something for everyone, according to Willenborg. Whether you're looking for a concrete giraffe, lion, zebra or even a mythical sasquatch, they've got it or they can make it.
"We've got elephants," she said. "We've got Bigfoot. I think he's a little weird."
The business started as a way for Willenborg, the mother of a then 6-year-old daughter, to earn money while preventing her child from becoming a "latchkey kid."
"I bought seven little gnomes," Willenborg recalled. "I started painting from there and now I've created a monster, it seems like it."
In the ensuing three decades, Willenborg creations have gone global, she said.
"We're in all but Hawaii (and) I think we're still not in New Hampshire yet," said Willenborg, whose husband began charting the destinations of lawn ornaments years ago. "But we're in England, Spain, France ... Iceland and Germany. And we're in Mexico and Canada."
Willenborg and her family have accumulated hundreds of concrete molds through the years, and always are willing to work on a custom order. The business prepares many personalized memorial pieces, such as benches or steppingstones.
The big sellers tend to vary from year to year, though the months around Mother's Day and Father's Day tend to be the busiest.
This year, eagles were in high demand, Willenborg said.
"Last year, it was a run on skunks," she said. "We couldn't keep skunks in stock."
Whatever shape customers choose, they can take pride in knowing their lawn ornaments have a personal touch.
"That is our specialty. We hand-paint," said Willenborg. "We only use an air gun for trim on animals. All of our other pieces are hand-painted."
Two of Willenborg's eagles welcome visitors to New Vienna. They were acquired and installed by the New Vienna Garden Club this spring to spruce up the city's welcome sign.
Kathy Boeckenstedt, one of the club's co-leaders, said the eagles replaced a pair of aging angels.
"They had been there for 20 years," Boeckenstedt said. "They had taken a little wear and tear on them."
With the Willenborgs being a New Vienna institution, they were a natural choice to help update the city's lawn decor, Boeckenstedt said. And the eagles, which stand guard in club-maintained flower beds, have been well-received.
"We're real pleased with them," Boeckenstedt said. "They look real nice. ... We've had a lot of comments on them."
Business is booming, Willenborg said, noting that she takes online orders and even sets up appointments with customers during the offseason. But she and Dennis might be about ready to hang up their paintbrushes.
"We want to celebrate our 30th year, but after that, I think we will be phasing out of it," she said.
Not that northeast Iowa's largest selection of lawn decorations will be going anywhere anytime soon. Willenborg is preparing her granddaughter to take over the business.
In the meantime, Willenborg will keep working to keep up with whatever customers are clamoring for.
"Dogs, this year, are driving us nuts almost," she said.
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Information from: Telegraph Herald, http://www.thonline.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Telegraph Herald
- By JOHN CARLISLE Detroit Free Press
NORTH ADAMS, Mich. (AP) — The elderly newcomer wanted to make friends, so he took off his pants and waved hello.
Gloria Wright was going about her morning, talking with her neighbors outside their trailers, when this gray-haired visitor drove inside the campground, stepped out of his truck and stood in the hot sunshine before them wearing nothing but a red T-shirt and flip-flops, the Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/2cmGPR2 ) reported. And everyone just yawned.
This is what sometimes passes for an icebreaker at the Cherry Lane Nudist Resort in North Adams, secluded among farms on the state's south side, where adults can wander naked and free, like overgrown babes in the woods. The resort is like a typical RV campground where people can swim, barbecue and hang out. Only difference is, everyone's naked most of the time.
"It's just a wonderful place," said Wright, 63, a retired education consultant from Lima, Ohio. She first came here in 2002 with a now ex-husband who wanted freedom from a life of Pentecostal shackles. He left, she stayed, and she now lives at the resort half the year in a trailer with an expansive deck that overlooks a shaded valley in the woods.
"We just have all groups of people, all the way from truck drivers to lawyers . a lot of nurses and teachers, and everybody finds their own little niche and has a really nice time," said Wright, who was wearing a light summer dress. Nudity isn't required anywhere here except the swimming pool. But like the bold, geriatric visitor who dropped his pants as soon as he arrived, people who are drawn here don't usually need encouragement to get naked in front of others.
"It's a sense of freedom that you normally don't get. I mean, if you were meant to be naked you'd have been born that way," said the Rev. Dennis Bevis, Cherry Lane's 66-year-old longtime owner and dispenser of wry slogans. "And so it's going back to nature, basically."
On top of his managerial duties, Bevis also is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. "As a holy man I cannot only provide you with a place to sin, but also absolve you of said sins at the end of the weekend if you so desire," he reassures people on the resort's website.
Many members of Cherry Lane say being naked in public is just innocent fun, a way to move past self-consciousness while also enjoying the sensation of the warm sunshine and the cool breeze on their bare skin.
"It's free and open here," said 83-year-old Floyd Hoover, who's been a member of the resort for a quarter-century. "You run around without any clothes on. You've got a beautiful pool, you can lay out and be yourself like nature intended. Kind of like a Garden of Eden thing."
Well, except for all the swingers.
Cherry Lane started back in the freewheeling late '60s, when nudist resorts were springing up all over the country.
It was founded by Bevis' parents, who'd tried nudism and liked it, but grew tired of the resort they'd been attending in mid-Michigan. Too uptight, they thought. So the family converted a small farm they owned in the little village of North Adams into their own public nudist camp.
Back then the resort was barely more than a few tents and trailers. Fifty years later, it's become an 80-acre community with high-end campers, a clubhouse, a performance stage, a swimming pool, utilities, amenities and security. It's one of seven nudist resorts left operating in Michigan, set in conservative Hillsdale County, of all places. Membership costs up to $1,800 a year.
The crowd here skews distinctly older. "We're starting to get a younger group now, but there's a lot of people between 50 and 75 that's from that Baby Boomer commune generation," Wright said. "But we're starting to get a younger, maybe 40 to 50-ish group in here. And you have the occasional 25-year-old girl who comes in with some old, rich man who wants to show her off."
There's lots to do here, from naked volleyball tournaments to nude painting classes to Saturday night dances in a clubhouse — usually with a theme, like '70s night. There are a dozen or so minibars that residents set up in front of their campers, and on weekend summer nights there often are bar crawls from one camper to another for bouts of naked drinking.
They've also got pudding wrestling. Blind golf-cart races. And the annual "Shave-a-Thon," when people take razors to each other's most tender parts in broad daylight by the pool, memorialized in a graphic photo display in the clubhouse.
There are rules galore here: Visitors have to be buzzed in at the gate and must register with the office. No children are allowed at any time. Cameras are prohibited. Drugs are forbidden. "And 'no' always means no," Wright said.
Most people here on a given day are dues-paying members who leave their campers here year-round. Though, since nudism requires good weather, the resort is closed to all but the die-hards from October to April every year.
But it's open in the summer to visitors, who can hang out during the daytime and sample the nudist life. It's a way to attract new members. It's also a way to draw creeps. Residents call them "pay per views" who often come to leer. Some try to sneak in past the front gate. Everyone watches out for them. They've earned the scrutiny over the years.
"You wouldn't believe the people that come in here," Wright said. "They automatically believe that everybody's naked all the time, everybody's screwing everybody all the time. I mean, those are the kind of questions you get all the time."
Wright remembers sitting outside having coffee and donuts one morning with her 83-year-old neighbor when a lone, male visitor walked over and asked them to expose themselves. "And he's like, 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours,'" Wright said. And he did just that. The women were uncharmed by the move.
"People that are vanilla about this automatically think just because you're a nudist that you must go along with everything else," said Lisa Klingler, 52, of Windsor. She and her husband Joe, 65, have a camper parked here permanently, and spend an entire month here every summer. To them, nudism is a social activity. They like to throw naked dinner parties for their neighbors.
For them, public nudity is simply liberating. Especially, she said, for women.
"Because we sit there every day of our lives, we have to put our masks on, we gotta put our makeup on, we gotta put our uniform on or our scrubs on," she said, seated topless on a stool at their camper bar, known as Lisa and Joe's Bar and Grill. Her naked husband was nearby, building an outdoor covered kitchen next to their camper as she spoke. It was her birthday present.
"There's no fashion show here," she said. "We come in all shapes and sizes. My favorite line is, 'If it don't droop, sag, drag or jiggle it's not all real.' And you become real. You just become real with it."
And yet, when you get a bunch of naked people together, things are going to happen.
"I don't care what nudist camp you go to, be it traditional or whatever, there are swingers there," Bevis said.
It's not obvious, though. There's no public sex allowed here. Arrangements are made quietly, privately.
"Sometimes two people will disappear from the dance for 30 minutes and they show back up," Wright said. "Every couple has their own rules."
Since most people here are longtime residents, there aren't many anonymous encounters to be had. But that just adds to the charm of the resort, some members say.
"It is kind of different than a swing club here. It's more personal and you build more of a friendship, as opposed to just going to a swing club and hooking up and you go home," said Carina Travis, 46. She came originally to swing with her now ex-husband. "You get to know people and make friendships. I would do anything for them and they'd do anything for me, which is really cool."
The closest thing to a public swinging spot here is a place called Fantasy Land, which people swear with a wink doesn't actually exist. It's a large, screened tent hidden in the woods and stocked with tables and benches.
"Pretty much anything goes out there," said Bevis, noting that he never visits that part of the resort. "I don't really get too much into the details. If people are swingers or nudists I really don't care."
And even if they're neither, some people come here for a visit anyway — not to participate in anything, but just to immerse themselves in the sexually charged atmosphere for thrills.
"We get this whole range of people, and even people who aren't swingers who come out here and who aren't even nudists," Bevis said. "There's a certain amount of excitement about the possibilities, you know, the potential and all that thing. So it adds a little spice to their life, even if they don't participate, per se."
Night had fallen, and the little strands of lights on the campers and trailers were twinkling in the dusk. The resort was quickly coming to life again, as residents got off work and came back to their alternate world.
Three dozen shot glasses filled with candy-flavored liquors were lined up on table at Connie and Daryl's bar, located in front of their camper. Karaoke was set up under an adjacent canopy, where tipsy guests could launch a massacre on their favorite classic rock songs. It was Friday night, and it was time to party.
"Would you like to see my Twinkie?" a 43-year-old woman named Lexi asked a newcomer during a break between songs. This could've meant anything.
But she was referring to her ancient camper, a tiny 1976 Airstream Argosy, nicknamed by the resort's regulars for its shape and color. She first brought it here 13 years ago, when she came as part of a swinging couple with a now ex-boyfriend. She stays in it on weekends with her current boyfriend.
She calls herself Lexi when she's here because like many members, she's got a job and a life outside this remote campsite, and as much as times have changed and social mores have relaxed since the resort was founded half a century ago, being branded a nudist — or worse, a swinger — can still wreak havoc on a life.
"There's families that will disown. You'd be amazed," Travis said. "I always find it amazing how judgmental people are in this world."
Because of that fear, discretion is paramount here. "We protect people's privacy out here to the nth degree," Bevis said. "We don't want to bust anybody. A lot of these people, we don't even send mail to a lot of them, like their bill and stuff, 'cause their kids open their mail."
Among all the lawyers and nurses and teachers here, members say there's also a small-town judge and at least one politician from a neighboring state. Pretty much everyone who's not yet retired has something to lose. And that shared need for secrecy has created an unusual, tight-knit community based on trust.
"These people party together, they cry together, they laugh together, they have a good time together, and they form these lifelong bonds," Bevis said. "It's almost like a family thing at some point, you know?"
Indeed, he'd just returned from a six-hour round trip to Flint to see a longtime member of the resort who was on her deathbed. She had cancer, was in hospice, and had no family other than her adoptive one here, led by the Rev. Bevis, godfather of the nudists.
"It's my second family, and it's fun," Travis said. "I get to be somebody that I'm not in the real world. You always have to be something proper and everything else there, and here you just come out and get to relax, be a kid in a sense, an adult kid, and do things you don't get to do at home. Like being naked."
The party grew larger and the clothes started coming off and the shots were downed and the songs were shouted. At the end of the weekend, everyone would scatter to their boring jobs and their loving families and their stifling wardrobes. But for now, everyone got to be someone they weren't outside of here, and the possibilities the good reverend spoke about hung temptingly in the night's warm air.
"When you're here, the whole rest of the world doesn't exist," Bevis said. "The only world that exists is right here."
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Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Detroit Free Press.
- By DUSTIN DUNCAN The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan
GOREVILLE, Ill. (AP) — While many high school juniors spend their summers working, relaxing or volunteering to beef up a college application, Ashlyn Darnell was also training for the rest of her life.
Darnell, who just turned 18 earlier this month, has recently returned from Fort Jackson in South Carolina where she completed Basic Combat Training for the Army. She will complete her senior year at Goreville High School and then report for Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in May.
Even though she is a two-sport standout in basketball and volleyball, she said sports aren't going to be her future. She said the military gives her the opportunity to not only serve her country, but to travel the world, pay for college, and become more physically and mentally tough.
"I wanted to challenge myself," Darnell said.
She was able to attend basic training this past summer because of a program called Split Training Option. It allows students who wish to join the military to report to basic training during their junior year of high school — return to school for their senior year — then report to AIT after graduating.
In Darnell's case, she has plans to complete individualized training next summer, then attend Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She plans to enter the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), and pursue a degree in nursing. She will remain in the Army Reserves during her college career.
After obtaining a college degree, she wants to enlist in active duty.
While in basic, Darnell said she was promoted to a private E2 — one of four out of 218 soldiers training.
"To complete basic on a good note, you have to stay low," Darnell said. "You don't want to be on the drill sergeant's radar the whole time."
The four-year, two-sport varsity basketball and volleyball starter said it was a bit of shock when she first arrived because she is a teen. However, the military treats its soldiers like adults regardless of their age, so they have to get used to it pretty quick — if not, she said, they get punished.
"I am so used to getting treated like an adult now, it is an adjustment coming back to high school," Darnell said.
Although the travel and free college is a big selling point for the Goreville senior, the act of serving her country isn't lost on her.
"I would love to serve my country. That is a big deal to me," she said. "People worked and sacrificed to have the freedom that we do have, and I want to be a part of that."
Ashlyn's father, Matt Darnell, said this is a decision he fully supports.
"She was always clear she didn't want to skip her education, but still wanted to serve her country," Matt Darnell said. "We just wanted to help her make an informed decision.
"Ashlyn has always been very decisive and she knows what she wants. This was something that she was confident that she wanted to do."
Darnell's parents had to sign the consent forms to allow her to sign up for the reserves. Matt Darnell said while he and his wife have the fortunate ability to help pay for college, they have always encouraged his children to seek out and take advantage of the opportunities available to them — whether it is athletic, academic, or through the military.
Ashlyn recognizes that her parents would be able to help her financially, but she wants to do it on her own.
"I don't want all that on my back several years down the line," she said. "I would be able to go John A. (Logan) and play basketball, but it feels good to know that I have earned it and not have my family pay for it."
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Source: The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan, http://bit.ly/2bjGJH6
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Information from: Southern Illinoisan, http://www.southernillinoisan.com
This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan.
- By JENNY MCNEECE Vincennes Sun-Commercial
VINCENNES, Ind. (AP) — Over the last nine years, Jim Osborne, curator and founder of the Indiana Military Museum, has watched the number or re-enactors drawn to the annual Salute to Veterans of World War II steadily grow.
This year, he said, more than 100 men and women have signed on, the largest group in the event's history.
"Word is still spreading," he said. "The more people hear about it, the more they want to know about the museum and the event itself. It's a lot of word of mouth. People go back, tell others.
"And all of it is starting to add up."
The 9th annual Salute to Veterans, an event honoring the heroes of WWII, will take place this weekend at the museum, located at 715 S. Sixth St. And with a possible record number of re-enactors on the way, Osborne has expanded the weekend's lineup of activities.
"We've added a whole other battle to each day," he said excitedly. "We'll have the main battle at 1 p.m. both Saturday and again on Sunday, but we're adding another skirmish, you might say, at 3 p.m. each day.
"And the reason for that is we've got a fairly large (unit) of Russians coming," he said in jest.
Osborne is thrilled to welcome this year a new unit of Russian re-enactors living, primarily, in Illinois, he said. They're bringing with them their own Russian Jeep and will make camp next to a Russian WWII tank museum volunteers are currently working to restore.
"They'll be fighting the Germans during that 3 p.m. battle," Osborne said. "And during the other battle the Americans and British will be fighting the Germans.
"Either way, the Germans are going to lose," he said with a chuckle.
The Salute to Veterans will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Festivities include beloved favorites like WWII veteran Leighton Willhite's tales of battles on Iowa Jima, scheduled for 11:45 a.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. on Sunday, as well as a military fashion show at 11 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
There will also be weapons demonstrations, a parade of war vehicles preceding each battle, and the Memory Lane swing band will perform at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday on the main stage.
Events also include a variety of wartime talks, including ones on Japanese culture and U.S. battalion medical aide stations, as well as a kids military drill and parade at 11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.
"And the weather report looks great," Osborne said of the forecasted near 80-degree weather.
But of all the events, Osborne's favorite part of Salute to Veterans has always been visiting with the WWII veterans themselves. But as the number of re-enactors swells each year, the number of veterans, unfortunately, declines.
"We had 30 that registered with us last year," he said. "This year, we just don't know. We won't know until they show up.
"But this event is about them. We want them here. We want to hear from them. We'll have a complimentary meal for them and a guest. And we'll recognize each one on stage if they're able."
Osborne said visitors come each year not only to see the re-enactors and shop with their favorite vendors but also — and perhaps more so — to visit with the veterans as well. It's a chance for the public to thank them, Osborne said, and for youngsters to shake the hand of a true hero.
"And maybe they'll hear a story or two," he said.
Osborne also expects several food vendors for this weekend, and volunteers continue to receive calls from artifact vendors wanting to book a space.
"We'll have lots of those, too," he said. "We'll have book sellers, one guy that specializes in making World War II wooden toys, things like Jeeps, tanks, airplanes, that kind of stuff. So that portion of the event will be really interesting for visitors as well."
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Source: Vincennes Sun-Commercial, http://bit.ly/2bSdpJC
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Information from: Vincennes Sun-Commercial, http://www.vincennes.com
This is an Indiana Exchange story shared by the Vincennes Sun-Commercial
- By MIKE ANDERSON Rapid City Journal
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — In May 2015, Leroy Broken Nose's childhood home on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was pummeled by hail the size of tennis balls.
The same storm caused extensive flooding and destroyed hundreds of homes on the reservation, the Rapid City Journal (http://bit.ly/2c2OUqD ) reported. President Barack Obama declared it a national disaster on Aug. 7, 2015, marking the first and only time a sovereign Native American tribe independently requested and received a formal disaster declaration from a president.
In the weeks that followed the storms, Broken Nose's battered roof leaked and rotted out, collapsing in certain sections.
Although it took almost 11 months, the 62-year-old disabled man now has a new home on a small plot of land south of Oglala Lake.
"It was a long waiting game," Broken Nose said Wednesday while sitting at his new kitchen table. "But it's here, so I'm happy."
Broken Nose's new roof was provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has spent more than a year repairing and replacing households damaged during a series of storms in May 2015.
As FEMA finalizes that work, a larger undertaking by multiple federal agencies lies ahead: to continue improving the overall conditions on the reservation.
Since December, FEMA has installed 196 manufactured housing units like the one Broken Nose now occupies. The last was installed on July 11. FEMA has also repaired an additional 107 homes, and another 13 are scheduled to be repaired before FEMA closes its eight disaster recovery centers scattered across the reservation in mid-September. All of the repairs and replacements were provided for free by FEMA, or contractors hired by the agency.
Having spent more than a year away from his wife, FEMA coordinating officer Gary Stanley is ready to return to his own home, but he harbors no illusions that the work on Pine Ridge is finished.
"What we did here in terms of disaster response is a very small part of what the need is on the reservation," Stanley said.
According to Stanley, FEMA determined there is a shortage of at least 4,000 livable homes on the reservation. "It was imperative that we come up with a solution because it's impacting a lot of young children and the elderly," he said.
The people impacted include Broken Nose, who suffered a stroke in 2004 and has been battling cancer and diabetes for many years.
"I beat one cancer," Broken Nose said, "but I can't beat leukemia."
Broken Nose goes to Rapid City once a month for cancer treatment, but doesn't have a car so he takes a bus to the hospital. He gets a ride from his neighbors to Oglala, where the bus picks him up. It won't make the drive to his home several miles south of town, he said, partially because the dirt road to his doorstep turns into an impassable trench of mud when it rains.
This is but one small example of how seriously the reservation's road system is in need of upgrades. FEMA's workers discovered this first-hand while trying to find certain homes, many of which are remote, like Broken Nose's. Often, they don't have recorded addresses and are accessible only by barely maintained, dirt roads that haven't been inventoried.
FEMA may be leaving next month, but a disaster recovery team will stay behind to continue working with the tribe on various initiatives, with roads and housing designated as the primary focus areas. A FEMA coordinator — operating out of the Region 8 office in Denver — will be joined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture Rural Development, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Federal Highway Administration, according to a FEMA press release.
Some progress has already been made under FEMA's direction, with more than 460 miles of tribal roads assessed and inventoried. The results will be entered into a Geospatial Information System map. Similar efforts are also underway to better catalog the true extent of the housing needs on the reservation.
Broken Nose's original home was torn down after the storm, and he now lives in a manufactured housing unit provided by FEMA. It has a handicapped accessible ramp, three bedrooms, air conditioning, and is furnished with a couch, bed, and full array of standard kitchen appliances.
While it serves his needs well, Broken Nose worries the housing unit's energy costs will be too high. He hasn't received his first bill, but people living in other FEMA-provided units have complained of high electricity bills.
FEMA has heard these concerns as well, and as a result created a program to reduce energy expenses by teaching low-cost weatherization techniques. Other efforts are also underway to educate tribal officials on strategic planning and grant application processes for future infrastructure improvement initiatives.
"There's a lot of need on Pine Ridge right now," Stanley said. "I would like to think part of what we did was help focus folks on what those needs are."
According to Stanley, the housing units are designed to last at least 20 years, provided they are well-maintained.
Broken Nose hopes his new home will be around for his grandson to live in someday, but he has already seen evidence that it might not.
Even though it's new, Broken Nose said, some of the siding has already begun to break off and blow away.
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Rapid City Journal.
Faculty concerned about changes to U of A admissions policy
