Shattered Dreams - 30 Jan. 2007

A simple break-in piece wouldn't be very interesting to our readers, so I wanted to explore what it was like owning a business while going to school. That angle came easily, and so did the awesome quotes from the husband and wife owners.

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Joe Corn got the call in a hotel room. He and his wife Clara had rented the room because his home’s electricity did not work – a casualty of this month’s ice storm.

And if a week without power wasn’t enough, police were on the line.

A burglar had broken the 7 foot-by-6 foot storefront window of RPM Paintball with an apple-size rock.

By the time a patrol car had been dispatched, two paintball guns and the burglar were gone, leaving glass and debris on the redbrick sidewalk in front of his business.

“I was surprised, I wasn’t expecting it. I thought it was a prank call, actually,” said Joe, Tahlequah junior.

But when he arrived, reality set in.

“I was worried about what they took,” he said.

Luckily for the 1-year-old business, the burglar only took two cheap paintball guns, known by their trade name: markers.
His wife Clara, Tahlequah junior, was a little more upset about the Jan. 20 break-in.

“People should really think before they steal from someone,” she said. “When you steal from a small business, it hurts someone. When you first start out, your paying for it to be there.

“I just wish people would think more often.”

A few days after the incident, Joe purchased a security system and installed new locks on the doors.

A spokesman for Tahlequah Police said there are no strong leads in the case.

“We need a break on this one,” said Brad Robertson, public information officer. “We need someone to come forward.”

He said there have been no similar crimes in the area. Statistics show Tahlequah Police arrested and jailed 21 burglary suspects in 2006.

Few students run a full-time business while taking a full-time school load. The balance is stressful, said Joe, but his love of the sport helps.

“It is pretty stressful. You’re trying to organize and work with the schedule of the store,” he said. “On the other hand, I have my own life to take care of. School is what takes the most toll, so I put it in backseat a lot more.”

Playing paintball has exploded in Oklahoma, especially along the Arkansas state line, where the forest terrain supports “woodsball” weekends. Middle-class patrons fuel the sport’s commercial base, buying up markers, compressed air, paint, goggles and accessories at a fervent rate, sometimes building their own “hot-rod” setup.

And since a another business owner opened a paintball field near Tahlequah, those playing “speedball” run through paint and air about twenty times quicker with faster marker rigs.

But Joe seems to care less about the bottom line and more about enabling the love for a game, a love for the hobby he shares with his customers.

The burglary will not hurt his business too much, but if a suspect were caught, Joe said he would only ask for a monetary recoup of his losses.

“I just think they were being idiots. Everybody makes bad decisions,” he said.

And on the success of RPM Paintball, Joe takes a light-hearted approach.

“It was a chance on opening the business,” he said. “I’ve gone through my first year, which is always the roughest.

“Then I get broken into.”

Storm blasts through campus - 17 Jan. 2007

There is usually a big lapse between semesters, so I had a while to get info on this story. Check out the other story I did, though, about the two students in a shelter.

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The first big ice storm of 2007 hit Green Country with devastating force last week, immobilizing several communities and leaving a layer of thick ice on nearly everything.

University officials cancelled classes at all three branches scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Although the roads around Tahlequah were safe to drive Monday, conditions that commuters might face prompted the cancellations.

“A lot of folks don’t have electricity, no water,” said Neal Weaver, vice president of University Relations.

Administrative offices were open, however, including the essential services like campus police and food locations. The Muskogee and Broken Arrow campuses were operating on a “skeleton crew,” said Weaver, because of worse conditions in that part of the state.

“BA is not a safe campus,” he said.

Much of Muskogee faced power outages early this week, and by Tuesday that campus had minimal power resources.

Oklahoma Gas and Electric reported more than 9,000 customers without power in Muskogee, and as many as 24,000 across their system.

An automated message at Lake Region Electric Cooperative mentioned more than 9,000 without power in their system, and those with LREC might go without power until Wednesday night.

Residence halls still had electricity Tuesday, but Housing made plans in case the dorms lost power. Residents were encouraged to “evaluate other accommodations,” and the UC basement was set up as an emergency gathering point.

Emmanuel Griffin, Muskogee freshman, said he has a friend in town with an apartment, but he had planed to stay in the dorms and keep busy during the unexpected break.

“We’re gonna play spades - cards and some board games while the lights are still on,” he said. “We gotta make due with what we got.”
Several events scheduled for this week were cancelled, most notably the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. Organizers have not rescheduled a date yet. Also cancelled Monday was the Faculty Voice Recital.

Severe weather was not enough to keep away the Oklahoma Blood Institute or its donors - 38 showed up Monday - but the cancelled Battenfield-Carletti Distinguished Entrepreneur Lecture has not been rescheduled.

Families are first residents in new jail - 16 Jan. 2007

This is why I love being a journalist. The story about the ice storm was OK, but it needed more. I had heard about a temporary shelter being set up in a brand new jail - just one day before all the county prisoners were to be transfered there - and wanted to see if there were any NSU students taking refuge. And between arguing with the Red Cross and jail workers over whether I could interview the refugees, and despite a little objection from the subjects involved, I finally got to sit down with them.

The interviewees were non-traditional students, both in their 40s and toting kids and grandkids, were a little afraid of being interviewed. These were poor folks, trying to make their lives better by going to college, and both had a past that they were somewhat embarrased about. The reason this made me love my job: ingenuity worked, perserverance paid off and the story turned out great.


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Families are first residents in new jail

Students Judy Vail and Roberta Gilliam and their families have felt the crush of last week’s ice storm more than most. Both fled to shelters Sunday after the lights and heat went dead, leaving their homes cold and dangerous.

A tree fell outside Gilliam’s house and pulled the electric cable from its mooring on the outside wall.

“The police told us we had to get out. We had no choice,” said Gilliam, Tahlequah junior.

The risk of fire was too much for her two daughters and grandson, so the family gathered up and moved into the Cherokee County Detention Center, a temporary shelter set up by the Red Cross and emergency management personnel.

“I don’t have to worry about this place catching fire and burning up,” said Gilliam.

Vail left a family shelter, Hope House, with her husband and soon after their home lost power.

“No power, no heat, no nothing. We froze,” said Vail, Tahlequah freshman.

She first tried a hotel, but the electricity failed there, too. Vail said staying in the Detention Center is a little awkward, and that moving from the family shelter was hard.

“We had to take what we could and leave. It was too cold,” she said.

The refugees, who numbered more than a dozen, slept in jail cells that will soon house county detainees. Gilliam said the conditions were comfortable, even thought the lights remained on throughout the night.

“We’ve had almost no sleep,” she said. “At least we’re warm and we get fed.”

Neither Vail nor Gilliam know when they can return home.

“[Hope House] is home to me. I really want to go back,” said Vail.

The Detention Center officially opens Thursday, so the shelter is being moved to the First Methodist Church. President Bush ordered federal emergency resources to the hardest hit areas of the state, but it is unclear whether any federal help will come to Tahlequah.

Until then, or until the lights come back on at home, Vail and Gilliam will weather what’s left of the storm. A local emergency management official said jailers volunteered to watch over the refugee families - the first residents of the 150-bed jail intended to alleviate the strain on the current, overcrowded 35-bed jail.

Fire breaks out in Wyly - 14 Nov. 2006

As luck would have it, I and a group of my reporter buddies were coming out of a meeting one night and saw fire trucks lined up outside a university residence hall. I grabbed one of them, a photographer, found a notebook and ran to the building. This was the most breaking news I had done - go adrenaline!

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Wyly Hall was evacuated after a fire erupted in the men's quad Thursday night.

University Housing said Friday the cause of the fire was from a lit candle in a room on the first floor of the east wing. Officials were unsure if the resident was in the room at the time the fire began.

Don Weston, assistant director of Housing, said the dorm's fire alarm sounded automatically, prompting other residents to evacuate. Campus police then arrived and searched room-by-room until the fire was discovered.

The fire department contained the fire to one room in the men's quad.

Eli Rhoades, Sallisaw freshman, lives in Wyly.

"I came out because of the fire alarm and I saw my RA [resident assistant] running," he said. "Smoke was billowing from the quad."

Rhoades said he did not take anything with him during the evacuation. He said the fire department arrived about 10 minutes after the alarm sounded.

"We had very minor damage because of a fast response," said Weston. "We are very proud of that."

After the fire came under control, resident assistants allowed five residents at a time back into the building to gather linens and personal effects. Housing provided linens to those whose sheets were damaged from smoke. Students were also provided water, and the on-campus convenience store Essentials stayed open an extra hour.

About 30 RAs came on scene to assist with the logistics of supplying Wyly Hall residents with accommodations.


"We set up a big operation to make sure students had a place to go, linens and everything they needed," said Weston.

He said the evacuation "couldn't have gone better." Sometimes, he said, not all students will leave their rooms when an alarm sounds.



"In this case, it went great," he said. By Friday, risk managers and campus police were still investigating the fire.

One RA went to the hospital Friday complaining of an irritated respiratory system.

The dorm reopened Friday afternoon to most residents. Those living in the affected areas of the dorm will not return until Monday, Weston said. According to Housing records, 91 students live in Wyly.

Wyly Hall Manager Sarah Slott said Thursday that residents gathered in Leoser Hall until officials could secure other accommodations.

"All over, wherever there are spaces," she said of the effort.

Weston said the displaced residents were assigned to "empty beds" in the Housing system.

Housing policy states candles, incense, oil lamps and other open flame objects are prohibited from resident halls. Weston said the penalty for burning a candle in a dorm room varies by the situation. A resident could watch a fire-safety video or be assigned to counseling. One might also face counseling and a fine for leaving a lit candle unattended, he said.

"This situation really demonstrates how dangerous this really is," said Weston. "This could have been a tragedy."

Housing asked the resident's name and room number be kept confidential. Weston would not disclose any penalties levied against the resident, but according to Housing policies found online, burning a candle can warrant a $250 fine, cost of repair or replacement and being placed on Residence Halls probation.

A professional firm from Tulsa has been contracted to clean the quad and remove the smell.

With the Cards' win, does St. Louis stand a chance? - 31 Oct. 2006

ST. LOUIS – Nothing brings home together like a World Series win.

Nothing like St. Louis’ underdog victory last week breaks down divisions of social status, race and wealth.

Nothing – because after the Cards won Friday, everyone in the streets not from Detroit celebrated with each other: businessman and bum, black man and white, paunce from the box seats and brasher from the bleachers.

Aside from living in the same city, they all had another connection of the heart; they were Cards fans.

Baseball’s popularity is declining, but everyone’s a fan when his or her team makes postseason play. It happened with the Sooners, the Red Sox and every major league football team who wins the Super Bowl. It happened with me last week, too.

The last time I followed baseball with any conscious effort, Nolan Ryan still played for Texas. For some reason, however, I watched St. Louis nearly sweep the Mets to win the National League pennant. Then, I realized the World Series would be in town during my visit to a journalism conference.

My hotel was within a few block’s distance from Busch Stadium and after Adam Wainwright struck out Brandon Inge in the ninth inning, fans poured out of bars, hotels and downtown restaurants to swarm the stadium. The game ended at 10:30 p.m., but five hours later, fans still shouted from the sidewalks, drivers still honked loudly and the Detroit Tigers had all but cried themselves to sleep.

Cards fanatics now know their team is the best. In some way, that means the city is best. It also means the citizens of this city are better than most. For a few hours that night, they were all equally better.

STL natives will be lucky if the cohesiveness lasts more than a week. Even though everyone here is on the same page now, the challenges of living their socioeconomic status will come creeping back soon.

Maybe too soon.

Numbers released yesterday rank St. Louis as the most dangerous city in the United States. The report, compiled by Morgan Quinto Press, looks at 371 cities and their crime data as reported to the FBI. St. Louis was at the bottom of the list of safest cities, Tulsa was 335 and as a comparison, Broken Arrow listed at the 20th-safest.

And according to USA Today, St. Louis has pumped millions of dollars into urban renewal projects – even the building of the Gateway Arch was hoped to bring the city together – and even still, crime keeps rising.

There is a lot of pride in this city, though. People here know who they are and what they want – probably from the Midwestern mentality dug deep into the slums that echo neighborhoods in New York and Chicago. To the west of St. Louis is conservative rural America, and towns to the east quickly become metros of the East Coast.

I guess expecting this city to now rebound and work together is pie in the sky. A simple sports victory, in all its complications, is still just a sports victory. A few people get richer, a few more get bragging rights. But the rabid crowd gets no substantive reward, no trophy to take home besides maybe a red hat. They have no reason to better their lives. And with no reason comes no hope.

Old Science Building renovation moves forward - 14 Aug. 2006

This is a news/feature mix. The most important part is Board of Regents notes about the renovation, but I found an older gentleman walking around the science building snapping pictures, so I got his story, too. Great way to turn a dry-as-toast story into something significant.

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Among the boxed-up chemistry experiments, empty wooden shelves and equipment as old as the old Science Building, Dr. Don Bowman walks through his laboratories with a digital camera.

Bowman taught chemistry here for 33 years and retired from the university in 1999.

The pictures, he said, are partly for personal memory and partly for a former student, who is now a college-level chemistry instructor.

“I wanted to show him the lab hasn’t changed much since he was here,” Bowman said before moving on to the next room.

It has not changed much at all. Vice President Kim Cherry said no record of any prior renovation exists.

And since construction on the new Science Building approaches completion and students prepare for classes there, the university will spend millions to renovate the 44-year-old facility.

The governing board for Oklahoma regional universities approved the renovation request in July – one day after Bowman spent the lunch hour snapping photos.

“I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner, when I was here,” he said.

The board of regents, now known as the Regional University System of Oklahoma, met at the Branscum Alumni Center to weigh in on budget and project requests, and NSU brought two big items to the table. The first was a request to negotiate and make offers on three tracts of land near the university.

The second was the $6 million renovation project, which also includes a $100,750 line item for removing hazardous waste from the basement and tile flooring of the old Science Building.

Cherry said the waste removal has already begun and the renovation will include new paint, new flooring and furniture and an upgrade in technology.

The building will contain mostly classrooms and offices, with a few low-tech laboratories. She said about 85 percent of science labs are built into the new Science Building.

“A lot of this you couldn’t do in the old building because of the codes,” said Cherry.

By the week of the regents’ visit, almost all the classrooms and offices had been cleared out. The few that remained belonged to either summer classes or to the instructors teaching them. In some laboratories, boxes of equipment sat stacked on tables. Machines that looked decades old waited for relocation or, possibly, the trash heap.

In parts of the hallway sat empty shelving next to dusty and stale-smelling rooms while the steady hum of Coca-Cola vending machines remained.

All but four instructors had moved to the Annex on the last day of summer class. Classes this semester are spread across campus, with some even in the University Center.

The old building is expected to be empty by Aug. 18 and should reopen in one year.

Bowman said the science faculty tried for years to update the facility. However, he said, the money just was not there. With the passage of last year’s $500 million capitol bond issue and returns on revenue bonds, universities have garnered the resources to renovate old facilities and build new ones.

Mandatory compliance issues stretch university resources - 13 Dec. 2005

This 1,500 word monster was the largest project I had undertaken, and I still consider it one of the best reporting pieces of my career. We had gotten frustrated about the university’s lagging compliance of a federal statute that required that they report crime stats, so I went to check it out. I worked on it for a month – mainly because the police chief and administrators were so tight-lipped about the issue. Eventually, about the time the article was ready to be published, they began to follow the rules better.

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As an office worker with the NSU Campus Police Department, Billie Mills has more responsibilities than the typical university secretary.

For instance, Mills helps to ensure that NSU’s Department of Public Safety is in compliance with several federal and state regulations. One of those regulations, the Clery Act, mandates that a university and its public safety organ must publicly provide information about campus crime.

Among this is a crime log, which contains offences that happen on campus or are reported to the campus PD; it must be current to two days. Also, a university must keep three years of crime statistics and present them to the public by Oct. 1 of each year. The annual report contains statistics of select major crimes, some of which are broken down into subcategories.

However, for several months this year, DPS did not keep the daily log of crime reports current. Within the last month, the department has worked to bring that up to speed, and as of Dec. 8, the crime log updates met the 48-hour grace requirement. However, the annual statistics report was posted on the DPS Web site 18 days late and without the required subcategories.

The delays are due to the other functions of her job, said Mills. As a secretary, she works on the log and the reports while fulfilling other secretarial obligations. But because of her knowledge of the function of DPS and how to handle emergencies on campus, she sometimes puts the paperwork aside to handle those urgent police situations.

“Emergencies have to take precedence,” said Mills. “But we try to get (the daily log) out as soon as possible.”


Legislation for Jeanne

The Clery Act is an amendment to the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act. It is named in honor of Jeanne Clery, a Lehigh University student who was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986. After Jeanne’s parents found out that dozens of violent crimes occurred on Lehigh’s campus in the three years before their daughter’s death, they helped push the original bill through Congress.

NSU reports zero instances of criminal homicide since the year 2000, with a majority of crimes centering on theft-related occurrences. Although the law allows for public inspection of crime stats, the intent of the bill is to provide information to future NSU associates.

“It’s a tool that we have to abide by and that we use,” said Clint Vernon, chief of Campus Police. “I think it’s great as far as getting the word out … to the students, faculty and staff.”

He said compliance is an issue his office deals with daily, and because of a police officer’s role in protecting the public, he must sometimes gauge precedence.

“Different things take priority, but it’s some thing that we work with every single day,” said Vernon. “We dropped the ball, sure, but were not going to do it again, and were doing a better job at (complying).”

Vernon and Tim Foutch, assistant vice president for administration, acknowledge that a larger staff of workers might improve the university’s ability to meet regulations, but Foutch questioned the use of understaffing as a justification for non-compliance.

“We can’t use an excuse that we’re underfunded or understaffed as the reason why we don’t meet the requirements,” he said. “If people come and look at our compliance with the Clery Act, their first question isn’t going to be: ‘do you have enough staff to do it?’ They’re gonna want to know if we (comply) or if we don’t, and they’re going to investigate our non-compliance, if that’s an issue.”

He repeated that the department is staffed to “what we think is adequate to their obligations.”

“It might be cumbersome,” said Foutch. “It might be inefficient ... but the fact is that we gotta get it done; we don’t have a choice on that.”


The Process

To cut down on confusion and to create a uniform reporting style, only one student worker is assigned to type the crime log, said Mills. That student works just three days a week, so when a crime occurs during the weekend or late Friday, a lapse of three days is nearly assured.

But that’s not the only thing standing in the way of timely reports; the current process includes at least two stops before reports are made public. When an officer logs an occurrence with the department, that officer, or another full-time staffer must “break things down” for the designated student worker. Then, only after vital information such as personal ID numbers and other sensitive facts are filtered can the student type a short synopsis of each occurrence that day.

That, along with personnel shakeups in the last couple of years, has exposed a need for change, or said Foutch, a realization.

“We have to establish a responsible process (in compliance),” he said. “Now we know that process and we have since caught up.”

Chief Vernon said last week that his offi ce and university computer gurus are working together on a new program to facilitate easier public reporting.

Foutch likened the new technological advancement of police reporting to the budget-clashing notion of hiring or assigning one person to deal with Clery Act issues.

“We’ve got to be clever about how to create a process, regardless of what the staff has time to do,” said Foutch. “We’ll let that technology we have today be that other person. We’re going to build a process that is not determined by human error or human availability, to the degree that we can.”

As the chief of police, Vernon takes on the large role of protecting students, faculty and staff. As an employee of a government-funded university, he must also take steps to abide by regulations and mandates set forth by entities at the federal and state levels. But he said there is a priority in his work and if more money is budgeted to the DPS, major thought must go into where that money will go.

“The most important thing to me on this campus is to provide a safe environment. That’s No. 1 to me,” said Vernon. “Sure, I’d love to have more money, sure I’d love to have a bigger budget, sure I’d like to have more staffing, but I don’t. I do the best that I can with what I got.”

In agreement, Foutch said Vernon does very good job with the resources at hand. He also said that if DPS falls too far behind in its reporting duties or needs assistance with clerical work, trained personnel can be temporarily relocated handle the problem.

“If campus police doesn’t have the staff, (my) office will provide people to do it,” said Foutch.


Compliance in good faith, and what’s next for NSU

Observance of the Clery Act is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education. In cases where regulations are not met, the DOE may levy fines up to $27,500 per infraction and participation in federal financial aid programs may be invalidated. Of the 13 “focused program reviews” conducted by the DOE in the last 10 years, the most extreme case of violation was that of Salem International University. The school, facing a laundry list of charges, agreed to pay $200,000 in a settlement last April.

In interviews with NSU employees during The Northeastern’s investigation, a “good faith effort” was mentioned repeatedly in regards to the then-current situation and the possibility of action by the DOE. There may have been confusion, however, to the clause in the bill stating schools are required to make a reasonable, “good-faith effort” to obtain statistics from outside police agencies to supplement their own statistics.

Foutch cleared this up, saying that non-compliance in good faith still means non-compliance. It might minimize a fine or eliminate the need for a fine altogether, he said, but he is not worried about possible repercussions of tardy crime reports.

“If somebody came in here and said ‘you guys aren’t cuttin’ it,’ we can show them all the things we are doing and convince them that we’re trying to be responsible, that were doing our best to comply,” said Foutch. “And if we recognize that were not, we’ll do everything we can to get there.”

A university spokesman also said there is no danger of NSU being fined.

So, Mills continues to conduct her daily routine: answering calls, filing paperwork and assisting her police coworkers, all the while keeping regulations in mind. Although the Clery Act is just one of several, it still holds a lofty place in the litany of rules.

“It’s not just that it’s a federal mandate, but it’s also critical that we communicate vital data like that to everyone who interfaces with our campus,” said Foutch. “We can’t even image the value that it provides.”