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feb. 24, 2022 high 30°, low 22°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Young mentors
C • Powerful poet
A football team at Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central helped distribute over 400 meals at a food drive and raised over $1,000 for athletic equipment. Page 3
After 15 years, SU faculty member Blackman Preach is back. He will release his third album “12 Years Gone” with help from SU students and alumni. Page 8
dailyorange.com
IN THE PAINT SYRACUSE VS. DUKE FEB. 26
THE ONE
national
Neilia Biden helped smooth out Joe’s edges as he went to SU Law. But that story is often forgotten.
Schumer unveils bill for diabetes By Francis Tang asst. news editor
photo illustration by meghan hendricks photo editor photos courtesy of patricia wojenski and stephanie prekas
By Abby Weiss
senior staff writer
A
s he made his way to the deck of the swimming pool, Joe Biden noticed the blonde woman sitting in a chaise lounge chair. He wasn’t supposed to be there, at the British Colonial Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas. The out-of-place college student had snuck in with two friends that spring day in 1964. He wanted to talk to the woman by the pool. So did his friend. Fred Sears, the impartial friend of the group, proposed they flip a coin. Ultimately, it didn’t matter what side the coin landed on. Biden had made his mind up. He walked over and sat at the edge of the woman’s lounge chair . “Hi, I’m Joe Biden,” he said. “Hi Joe,” the blonde replied. “I’m Neilia Hunter.” She looked up at him with her green eyes and smiled, her face illuminated by the afternoon sun. “Basically I fell ass over tin cup in love—at first sight. She was so easy to talk to,” Biden wrote in his 2007 memoir Promises to Keep. That day, he learned Neilia was from Skaneateles, New York, and she was in her last year at Syracuse University. He learned that she hoped to teach junior high school in Syracuse in September. And most of all, he learned
that she was sincere and always said the right thing, even during embarrassing moments. “That was her special touch, the way she made everyone feel okay about themselves. Nobody ever felt smaller around Neilia,” he wrote. Walking back from their first date later that night, Biden couldn’t shake the thought that Neilia was the one. On the fourth and last day of his trip, he’d admit it: “You know we’re going to get married.” “I think so,” she whispered. “I think so.” The two tied the knot on Aug. 27, 1966, at St. Mary’s of the Lake Church in Auburn, New York. They later had three children: Beau, Hunter and Naomi. Almost 60 years later, Biden has the highest position in the U.S. He doesn’t need to sneak into four-star resorts anymore. And a lot of his early success, he has said, is tied to meeting Neilia. Neilia — who inspired others to see the best in themselves as a teacher, role model, mother and friend — died in a car accident 50 years ago, on Dec. 18, 1972. Those who knew her in Syracuse now remember only bits and pieces about her. Time and again, everyone says, more than anything, she was kind.
Neilia
On the first day of Syracuse’s Bellevue
Heights Elementary school year, 12-year-old Susan Spooner took her seat in the middle of the classroom and glanced up at her teacher, Neilia Hunter. She was wearing brownrimmed glasses and had her hair pulled back. Neilia was the teacher every student wanted to have, Spooner said. She fostered a comfortable space in her classroom and easily connected with her students. Like them, Nelia had grown up and attended school in central New York. She spent her childhood along Skaneateles Lake, where her father owned the Hunter Dinerant in Auburn and managed the Auburn Community College cafeteria. She was the oldest of her siblings, John and Michael. As a student at Penn Hall Junior College and Preparatory School, a boarding school in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Nelia held many roles. She was the president of the international relations club, the photo editor for the Penntonian and a member of the student council, as well as a swimmer and hockey player. Her extracurricular involvement continued at SU, where she joined the university’s chapter of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority while studying at the College of Liberal Arts. While recruiting for the sorority, Neilia would always rave about the potential new see neilia page 4
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced he will call for a Senate vote in March to reduce the cost of insulin from $200-$600 per prescription to a cap of $35 in a Wednesday press conference in the Joslin Diabetes Center at the SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. The bill, which Schumer called the Affordable Insulin Now Act, will set the maximum out-of-pocket costs for anyone at $35 per month regardless of insurance status, Schumer said. He also confirmed the bill is measured in a way that insurance companies cannot pass the cost to consumers in other forms, such as a higher premium rate. In 2019, 37.3 million Americans, or 11.3% of the country, had diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. In New York state, the percentage of adults who have diabetes increased from 6.3% in 2000 to 11% in 2018. Within Onondaga County, the percentage of adults with diabetes was 11.2% per New York State Department of Health data in 2016. Schumer cited diabetes as one of the largest causes of death in the country. “This is the reason we are here,” Schumer said while holding a vial of insulin. “This little vial costs as much as $600, and it’s a lifesaver. This vial represents a crisis … a lifesaving drug, insulin, used by tens of millions of Americans, costs so much that a lot of people can’t afford it anymore.” The drug production and delivery system in the country is so convoluted that it favors the companies and distributors instead of the patients, which is the reason why insulin prices are still increasing each year, he said. “It is the most major disease that we really don’t do enough to combat in a variety of ways,” Schumer said. Schumer said he has had bipartisan support on the bill in the Senate. He confirmed that the bill was originally part of the Build Back Better plan but was separated in the Senate as it needs at least 60 votes to pass. When asked if he’s confident about the bill’s passage in the House of Representatives, Schumer told The Daily Orange a similar one has see schumer page 4