Spoon Special Edition

An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890

DECEMBER 9

THURSDAY

Mark Witherspoon retires from Iowa State Daily after storied career Thank you Spoon from all of us After nearly 20 years and countless awards, the Iowa State Daily’s editorial adviser, Mark Witherspoon, is celebrating his retirement.

Under Spoon’s leadership, the Daily reached new heights and established itself as one of the best collegiate newspapers in the nation. Daily alumni went on to make names for themselves individually as well.

Today, we celebrate a legacy that will continue for years to come.

This paper is a collection of some of the most notable stories from Spoon’s time as adviser— stories that won national recognition. These stories are the works of students that were able to achieve greatness with the help of a fearless leader.

Spoon, thank you for all that you’ve done. You have truly left a legacy that can never be undone. While you may not be our editorial adviser anymore, you will always have a special place in everyone’s hearts. Thank you for believing in us and pushing us to be the best we can be.

Enjoy your retirement!

SEP 28, 2001

Taking advantage of

‘war on terrorism’

BY OMAR TESDEL

The United States has called for a worldwide “war on terrorism.” In turn, America has received substantial international support.

Certainly, a topic of international concern is how to prevent and deal with acts of terrorism. Agreed.

We must begin to understand the roots of the problems and find ways to effectively deal with them. Equally concerning, however, is the United States’ issuing of a “carte blanche” to governments around the world. These governments have cleverly clothed their own aggressions against political and religious opponents as a crackdown on terrorism.

America has made it clear that terrorism is not to be tolerated, and rightly so, but we must ensure that these leaders distinguish between the arrest and fair trials of suspects in terrorism and the people whose only crime is ideological opposition to the government.

It has been becoming increasingly apparent that our own inflammatory and vindictive rhetoric has provided an ideal cover for the crackdowns.

These newly revived campaigns may or may not be related to terrorism, but certainly complement the political interests of the current

government. Since the attacks on Washington and New York and subsequent United States statements, there are examples from around the world abound.

According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, which issued a statement Tuesday on this very topic, eight countries are already taking dangerous steps in this direction: Australia, China, Egypt, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malaysia and Russia. Countries have been coming at the United States left and right, presenting their own campaigns in recent times as their own “holy wars” on terrorism, inaccurately using our fervor to justify their brutal campaigns. Here are just four examples from the Human Rights Watch statement.

China - the Chinese government provided its brutal crackdown on independence movements in Tibet and the predominantly Muslim province of Xinjiang as its fight against terrorism. According to Human Rights Watch, the government maintained a campaign that “has led to many arbitrary arrests and summary executions, with little or no due process.”

Egypt - Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Abeid proudly stated after the September 11 attacks, “. maybe Western countries should begin to think of Egypt’s own fight and terror as their new model.”

Unfortunately this “model” we are to

follow is one that has already jailed an activist, Farid Zahran, for “preventative detention.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both have repeatedly condemned the Egyptian government for serious human rights violations, hardly a model to follow.

Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin said, as indicated by Human Rights Watch, “. we have a common foe,” linking the United States’ war on terrorism with Russia’s cruel campaign to quell an independence movement in Chechnya. A campaign that has, according to Human Rights Watch, included extra-judicial executions, arrests and extortion. Perhaps this is not a government that has room to speak.

Israel - According to Human Rights Watch, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Elizer boasted, “It is a fact that we have killed 14 Palestinians in Jenin, Kabatyeh and Tammum, with the world remaining absolutely silent.”

Minister Ben Elizer was referring to the lack of coverage on the killing of the Palestinians.

For the icing on the cake, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, charged in Belgium with war crimes himself, called Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat “our bin Laden.”

By saying this, Sharon hopes to dupe the US in to believing that a more violent crackdown

on the Palestinian uprising is merely part of the fight on terrorism.

All are rather frightening examples of international leaders engaged in public relations campaigns to ally themselves with any worldwide movement to end terrorism. These are public relations campaigns designed simply to use the current fervor to cover and justify their repressive policies.

As a people who stand for equality and inherent human rights, we must not allow world governments to conceal oppressive and unjust actions in the coattails of the current American pro-war frenzy and propaganda campaign.

Do not turn a blind eye to these governments who wish to further their own agendas of injustice in direct violation of international and humanitarian law. These laws of reason and justice make no distinction between national boundaries.

Please remind your representatives in Congress that wreaking terror on fellow human beings, whether perpetrated by governments or extremist groups, is terrorism nonetheless.

Omar Tesdell is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Slater. He is online editor of the Daily.

02

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

Iowa State Daily Thursday, December 9, 2021

APR 28, 2003

FEB 5, 2009

Danny Peterson’s

life and death had a profound effect on his loved ones

BY DAN NGUYEN Daily Staff Writer Editor’s note: This is the first in a five-part series about the life and death of former ISU student Danny Peterson and how he impacted his family, friends and the detective who pushed everything aside to solve the case.

Chris Peterson, freshman in business, had a face tattooed on his shoulder in October.

Chris remembers the needle being especially irritating as the artist scraped his skin over and over to draw on the hair and detailed shading, but the result is a face drawn to lifelike exactness. The face almost appears to be Chris’ own. When he went home, he was nervous what his parents would think.

“Are you upset?” he asked Pat, his mother.

She replied with a smile. “How could I be?”

His father, Tim, was almost speechless, leaving Chris confused about what he thought. But Tim later confessed to Pat that he barely could stop himself from going out and getting the same tattoo for himself.

More strangers than usual saw the tattoo during spring break in March when it wasn’t hidden by a shirt sleeve. And sometimes someone, after a few drinks, would casually ask Chris, “Who’s that on your arm?”

“He was my brother.”

Chris sometimes couldn’t go much further in talking about Danny, his older brother by three years, a former ISU student and the closest friend he had in life. The memories come so fast that he practically chokes on them.

“When they ask you, you’re not ready,” he says. “It’s hard to talk. You’re about to cry. It’s just hard to say everything you want to possibly say.”

Under the tattoo of Danny’s face are the dates “Feb. 28, 1981” and “June 8, 2002.” The first was when Danny was born. The second is when he died in the hospital, six days after he was hit from behind while walking to a friend’s party on a warm Minnesota night. The car

didn’t even slow down. Danny’s death would remain unsolved for the entire summer.

Danny “didn’t think of himself as an extraordinary person,” his parents would say at the sentencing hearing of the driver who hit him.

He would not have thought almost a thousand mourners would come to his funeral and wake.

Or that his face would be seen everywhere: on televisions and newspapers across Minnesota.

In a picture frame hanging in the office of a detective who had never met him. On his younger brother’s arm.

Danny would not have imagined his death would leave such a void to everyone who loved him. Or that his life would inspire them so well to carry on past the tragedy.

Brothers by more than blood The Peterson children, Mark, Laurie, Danny and Chris, grew up in Deephaven, a quiet suburb west of Minneapolis. Their home is in the kind of secluded corner where afternoons could be spent in the woods searching for baseballs hit a little too hard.

The siblings were all generally close, but Chris naturally paired better with Danny, who was closest in age. As long as Chris can remember, Danny was there for him. When Chris was a toddler, he had a speech impediment that made him almost impossible to understand and sometimes the butt of jokes. Danny, though, became his translator to the rest of the world, somehow being able to understand Chris when no one else could.

The two were often confused as twins, perhaps a physical symbol of how well they got along. Chris sometimes even wore Danny’s clothes, much to Danny’s annoyance. When Danny went to Iowa State to study operations management and transportation logistics, Chris almost envied the many new brothers that Danny had at the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

“I would’ve never thought to come [to Iowa State] if it wasn’t for my brother,” says Chris, 19. “Every time I came I had a lot of fun. I liked the campus. I liked the people. I liked the fact that my brother was here. He was always telling

me stories, and I thought it would be awesome if I was with him.”

Ben Bergherr was in Danny’s pledge class at Alpha Tau Omega, 2122 Lincoln Way. Now a senior in finance, he would have been Danny’s roommate this year. When Ben came back from a study abroad in Wales last summer, Danny waited for him at the airport along with Ben’s family. The two were inseparable. They were known for doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions together. Ben never did them in Wales because he felt dumb doing it alone.

But Danny’s creativity and carefree enthusiasm could make any joke funny. Ben, who lived about half an hour east from Danny in Eagan, was looking forward to that summer.

“We just got along perfectly,” Ben says.

“It kind of seemed we were meant to be best friends.”

Danny’s final day awake was Saturday, June 1. The night before, Danny, Ben, and another fraternity brother, Joe Kliegl, paid a visit to the University of Minnesota’s ATO chapter. The trio joked half-seriously that they had been so rowdy that they wouldn’t be welcome back.

Danny was still acting a little giddy Saturday morning, as if he hadn’t fully recovered, but he still managed to get a full day in, Chris remembers. He played pool with Tim — the first time in a long time — and beat his old man. Then he went out and threw the Frisbee and football with Chris while they chatted about what they would do that evening.

“You guys should come to Fletchers,” Chris said to Danny. It was one of the last things he remembers saying to him. Fletchers is a restaurant and bar on Lake Minnetonka where Chris worked. But that night Danny, who had been home just once since turning 21, had already made plans to go to Maynards, another restaurant and bar on the lake where the over-21 crowd usually gathered.

“I wish I knew the last thing he said to me,” Chris says, his voice breaking into a sob. “You

DANNY

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FEB 5, 2009

MEN’S BASKETBALL:

All for nothing

BY CHRIS CONETZKEY Daily Staff Writer Craig Brackins versus Sherron Collins — the Big 12’s No. 3 scorer versus its No. 2. One winner.

JOSH HARRELL/IOWA STATE DAILY Iowa State’s Craig Brackins heads to the bench at the end of the game against Kansas on Sat., Jan. 24, at Hilton Coliseum. Brackins scored a career-high 42-points. The Cyclones lost to the Jayhawks 82-67.

Brackins won the battle. Collins’ Jayhawks won the game.

Despite lighting up Hilton Coliseum, Brackins’ nearly Big 12 record-breaking 42-point performance wasn’t enough to knock off the Jayhawks, who overshadowed Brackins with an 82-67 win Saturday.

“I told Sherron Collins after the game, ‘Good news, bad news,’” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “‘You played great, but no chance for Big 12 player of the week. That’s already been decided.’

[Brackins] is as good as any player in America today.”

The first half might as well have featured the two playing one-on-one.

Brackins and Collins battled shotfor-shot en route to 22- and 18-point first-half performances respectively.

Collins hit two threes to open the game, which put the Cyclones on their heels and the Jayhawks on the verge of running away. Brackins didn’t let that happen.

Although Brackins stayed sizzling in the second half and almost willed the Cyclones to victory, Collins went ice cold thanks to Sean Haluska’s defense. The difference in the game?

Their teammates.

Brackins outscored Collins in the second half 20-8, but every Cyclone not named Craig Brackins combined for just nine points. Collins’ teammates scored 30.

“It just proves that this is a team game. You can have someone have an

MBB

pg7

PHOTO COURTESY: RUSTY BISHOP Rusty Bishop, an ISU alumnus in finance and owner of Gong Fu Tea, hugs Trinity Durham, a girl he saved by donating bone marrow. Bishop chose to stay awake during the procedure to remove his marrow instead of being put under because he wanted to experience the process. The Durham family met Bishop a year after his donation and he said it was one of the most amazing experiences of his life. Photo Courtesy: Rusty Bishop

Racing for

Trinity

BY JAMES PUSEY Daily Staff Writer Trinity.

That was her name. His heart pounded as he approached the Holiday Inn, an oversized teddy bear tucked under his arm.

What would she look like? Would she be afraid of him? Would she even know who he was? These questions had been racing through his mind for a year, and as he came closer to the glass doors, he saw a small face pressed up against the glass.

There she was — Trinity, the 2-yearold girl who would be dead if not for him.

The life-saver Rusty Bishop, an ISU alumnus in finance and the owner of Gong Fu Tea, 414 E. 6th St., in Des Moines, is visibly athletic, but you would never guess he’s capable of running 150 miles across a desert by looking at him.

He’d always been pretty fit, but never ran more than six miles until 1996, when he was 26 years old. He ran his first marathon that year as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in-training program, and he’s been pushing his physical limits ever since.

“Once I ran a marathon, it changed me a lot. It’s like anything else, you put a lot of time and effort into it, then you finish it and you’re looking for something different,” Bishop said.

Four years later, Bishop found himself in the Sahara desert, participating in the French-sponsored Marathon des Sables, a week-long, 150-mile footrace through rocks, sand and 130-degree heat. Runners were provided with enough water to get them through each day and a tent to sleep in, but they had to carry everything else on their backs.

“If you put on a 30-pound backpack right now, and you had seven days to get to Kansas City, that kind of gives you an idea of the distance and the challenge right there,” Bishop said.

At the beginning of each day, runners were given a briefing of that day’s stage and a compass heading to guide them to the next checkpoint. The third day of the race was a dune day, and Bishop said he ran across some of the largest sand dunes in the world, some up to 10 stories high.

The sand was hot enough to burn skin, so Bishop had to dig deep down into it whenever he sat down to rest, just to find something cool. To make things even worse, he exhausted his water supply for the day much quicker than he should have, due to a case of mistaken identity with a Club Med tourist tent.

Bishop made it to the end of the stage, but it was a close call.

“You know your uvula that comes down in the back of your throat? It was so dry it was actually sticking to the side of my throat. I started going in and out of consciousness a little bit,” Bishop said.

A girl in need Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City, Jamie Durham also found herself in an exhausting trial, but in far more serious circumstances.

TRINITY

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SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

Thursday, December 9, 2021 Iowa State Daily

03

NOV 15, 2011

After mother’s overdose,

daughter finds strength in loss

KELSEY KREMER/IOWA STATE DAILY Amber Connett, senior in agricultural and life sciences education, holds up a photo of her mother and father from when they first began dating. Connett’s morther died in 2008 from misuse of perscription medication. She carries that photo with her every day in her wallet.

BY KATHERINE.KLINGSEIS @iowastatedaily.com Amber Connett keeps a faded black-andwhite picture inside her wallet at all times.

The picture is of her parents, smiling in a photobooth in a time when big hair and trucker hats were in style.

Connett said she doesn’t know the exact details of where or why the photo was taken.

But to her, that doesn’t matter. The significance of the photo is derived from what it represents: a time when her parents were both alive and in love — before her mom was addicted to prescription drugs.

Decades after the photo was taken, Connett, senior in agricultural and life sciences education, sat in a wooden chair in a secluded section of Parks Library. She reached into her back pocket to pull out her wallet and removed the photo of her parents.

“It’s from when they first started dating,”

she said. “I don’t get it out much because it’s pretty old and about to fall apart.”

Connett flipped the photo over to reveal a message from her mother to her father. It read: “Donnie, I love you dearly and I hope we’re together till death do us part. Love, Jennie August 22, 1987.”

Donnie and Jennie Connett were together until Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008. On that day, Jennie died from a drug overdose.

Beginning of an addiction Amber said her mom told her that her prescription drug addiction began soon after Amber was born. She said she did not notice her mother’s addictive behavior until her grandmother’s funeral in 2003.

“Going to the funeral, she was kind of out of it,” Amber said. “I just thought she was depressed, but right there afterward, I started noticing more and more and more.”

Jennie was normally a fun-loving, “crazy” person, Amber said. When she was on prescription drugs, Jennie was distant and spacey, Amber explained.

“After she got the medicine — if she was on it — she just wasn’t there,” Amber said.

Few people in their hometown of Reasnor, Iowa, knew of Jennie’s addiction, Amber said.

She explained that the situation was “hush, hush.”

While Jennie’s addiction was kept out of the public eye, signs of her addiction were ever-present in the Connett household, Amber said. She said she even witnessed exchanges her mother had with people to buy or trade pills.

“I would be in the car, but I couldn’t do anything about it,” she said. “I would just let it happen.”

Getting worse Amber said her mother’s addiction became significantly worse when Amber was a senior in high school. At that point, Amber’s sister Jessica, now 23, had just moved out and Amber had been talking about moving away to go to college. Amber said she thinks her mother’s downfall may have been linked to her mother

DEC 8, 2015

having the “empty nest syndrome.”

“I don’t know if she just panicked and thought she was going to be alone,” Amber said. “I was almost afraid to go to college. I thought maybe I should go to DMACC and stay home to take care of mom.”

Amber said she knew that if she went to college, she would have been the first to do so in her family. So she decided to take the leap and apply at Iowa State.

“My mom was so proud when I was accepted,” she said. “She became a diehard Cyclones fan.”

As Amber was settling in at college, Jennie was quitting her prescription drug habit, Amber said. However, her sobriety didn’t last and she eventually relapsed.

Dying day On Dec. 9, 2008, Amber was sitting in a lecture class at Curtiss Hall when she received

STRENGTH

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SEPT 28, 2016

Pat Miller:

A legend in lectures

COURTESY OF PETE TEKIPPE PHOTOGRAPHY Ruth Buckels has been a foster parent since 1988 and legally has 19 kids, a combination of biological and adopted, and eight of whom currently live with her.

Where the traffic stops

BY DANIELLE.FERGUSON @iowastatedaily.com Ruth Buckels doesn’t tell her children she loves them very often, because, to some of her kids, love is a dangerous term.

The word love, Buckels says, could be a trigger to her foster kids whose previous guardians or biological family members told them, “I love you,” as a way to manipulate, abuse and even sell to a third party.

“They have to come to their own conclusion on what love is because most of my kids have been abused by the word love,” Buckels said. “I use, ‘I think you are incredible.’”

Buckels, 50, of Story City, started as a foster mom in 1988, and has since housed at least 90 teenaged foster children, in addition to raising four biological kids.

Buckels was 23 at the time of her first placement. The first child placed with her was 13.

Flash forward to Nov. 14, when she officially adopted two more kids into the family, and she now has a combination of 19 adopted and biological kids, eight of whom currently live with her on her farm north of Ames.

Though Buckels loves all of her kids, one can’t go through 27 years of being a foster parent without a few bumps in the road.

Over her years of involvement in foster care, Buckels has had at least two teens swallow a handful of pills in an attempt to end their life, multiple who have tried to run away and some on whom she’s had to call the police. All of this occurred before she met any of the six who were at some point in their life trafficked into sex work. Of those six, five were sold to a third party by their own families, most of the time to pay bills.

“I don’t say, ‘I love you,’ because that could be a trigger for something one of their abusers or one of their traffickers said to them,” she said.

But her kids know she loves them. She shows them by believing in them.

“Most of these kids have never had someone believe in them,” Buckels said.

Buckels has worked at Youth and Shelter Services in Ames since 1988 and says she has a passion for teenagers.

“Every child needs a parent,” she said.

COURTESY OF PETE TEKIPPE PHOTOGRAPHY Pat Miller is the Director of the Iowa State Lectures Program. She is responsible for over 130 speakers per year.

BY AUSTIN.ANDERSON @iowastatedaily.com Pat Miller ate insects with Jay Leno, kept the ashes of Gloria Steinem’s final cigarette, and after 35 years, produced one of the country’s most successful lecture series ... all on only five hours of sleep a night.

Nineteen hours after a lecture on polar bears and 18 hours after a lecture on the Arab Spring, Pat Miller slowly leans in and squints at the computer in front of her.

She could be examining a number of different things. Potentially finalizing details of one of the over 120 speakers she helps bring into the lecture series each school year as director of the Lectures Program. Or she may be making sure the cookies she ordered for the first livestream of the first presidential debate will be in the Great Hall on time.

“People have no idea how much goes into these lectures,” Miller said.

It’s 2 p.m. on a Friday. There are no lectures for the next 77 hours, a rare break for the lecture series but far from a break for herself.

Miller sits in her office at her desk across the hall from the post office in the Memorial Union.

Her office isn’t big or elegant by any means, but the character it displays is obvious. A far cry from the English faculty office she started out in over 35 years ago.

When Miller took over the lecture program within a year of graduating from Iowa State, 38 lectures filled the calendar. Three and half decades later, that number has more than tripled.

The history of those decades fill the shelves.

TRAFFIC

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MILLER

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04

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

Iowa State Daily Thursday, December 9, 2021

MAR 7, 2019

KATLYN CAMPBELL/IOWA STATE DAILY Attendees of Nicholas Fuentes’s speech ask questions and debate during a Q&A portion at the Free Speech Zone at Iowa State University on Wednesday, March 6.

Students protest white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes, supporters outnumbered

BY EMILY.BERCH @iowastatedaily.com More than 50 students and activists sat in Carver 205 Wednesday night waiting for white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes to speak. Twenty minutes after he was slated to arrive, the group decided to switch gears.

KATLYN CAMPBELL/IOWA STATE DAILY

Anthony Labruna of College Republicans and Alexis Holmes of the Black Student Alliance (BSA) began leading a discussion meant to bring the attendees together.

That is until 10 minutes into the discussion when Labruna announced Fuentes was in East Hall, and attendees fled to find him.

An hour and a half later, after Fuentes delivered a speech blaming immigrants, “globalists,” and people of color for America’s problems, he stood toe-to-toe with local activist Javier Miranda.

Miranda said Fuentes pointed out his yarmulke and stopped just short of calling him an anti-semitic slur.

“You know what I was going to call you,” Fuentes called back to Miranda as the Iowa State Police Department escorted him into Parks Library and out through the back, ending Fuentes’ time at Iowa State.

to oppose Fuentes.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m., with more than 50 people in attendance and no sign of Fuentes, Labruna and Holmes stepped to the front of the room.

“We just wanted to go ahead, and, since we’re all gathered and since everyone is full of a whole lot of emotions and feelings and thoughts, we thought it would be important for anyone who is in the right spirits and right emotional level to have dialogue with each other,” Holmes said.

Ten minutes later, Labruna paused the session to announce Fuentes’ arrival in East Hall. Labruna said he was enjoying the discussion and thought he was learning more from the other students than he would by listening to Fuentes.

Holmes and Labruna invited students to stay, but the majority left quickly.

Anticipation Labruna and another member of College Republicans arrived in Carver around 6:30 p.m., while two Iowa State police officers guarded the room. The officers entered and told the pair they were not allowed to enter since the space was not reserved. Labruna asked why they weren’t allowed to sit in the room, and the officers allowed them to stay.

More people began trickling in, and by 7 p.m., approximately 40 people — a mix of supporters, protesters and people who were “just curious” — had arrived.

Jonathan Hall, the National Panhellenic Council (NPHC) liaison for BSA served as the spokesperson for the NPHC, BSA and NAACP coalition at the event and said he “found comfort” in the amount of people who showed up

Changing locations Fuentes was waiting for the crowd in Room 0211 of East Hall. As they entered,

PROTEST

NOV 10, 2021

pg7

FEB 9, 2017

Iowa State will not administer Johnson & Johnson vaccine at vaccination clinic

‘This is not America:’

BY KYLEE.HAUETER @iowastatedaily.com

BY DANIELLE.GEHR @iowastatedaily.com

Amid national pauses in the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Iowa State University said they will not be distributing that vaccine at the mass vaccination clinic slated to begin April 19.

Sinan Al-Rubaye feels like he’s been running his entire life.

Iowa State originally announced in a campuswide email April 6 that they would be holding a two-week vaccination clinic to vaccinate students with the one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.

With the end of the semester rapidly approaching, the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot provided an efficient way for colleges to get students vaccinated before they leave campus in May. O n Tu e s d a y, t h e F o o d a n d D r u g Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out a statement urging vaccine providers to pause the Johnson & Johnson vaccine distribution after a rare blood-clotting condition was discovered in six patients who received the shot.

“As of April 12, more than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson ( Janssen) vaccine have been administered in the U.S. CDC, and FDA are reviewing data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the J&J vaccine,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said in the statement.

All six cases were reported in women between the ages of 18 and 48, and symptoms of the clotting occurred six to 13 days after vaccination.

One woman died and one is in critical condition.

According to the statement, the CDC and FDA are currently investigating the cases and assessing the cause and potential significance.

“Until that process is complete, we are

per day is likely going to change in any way, you know, I think that was part of the message that went out was, we know that variability is going to happen and it's kind of a week-by-week basis that we find out what the supply chain looks like and then what's available for Iowa State,” Erin Baldwin, associate vice president for student health and wellness and director of Thielen Student Health Center, said.

“But yes, we are still planning to have the mass vaccination clinics, it may just look a little different [based] on the number of doses that we're getting from day to day,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin also said their Johnson & Johnson allocation arrived at the end of last week.

“We'll hold on to the Johnson & Johnson until we get direction from the CDC and the Iowa Department of Public Health. But in the meantime, what we have available right now is Pfizer vaccines, so we'll be using Pfizer vaccine for the clinics this week, and then it looks like

Born in Iraq, the Iowa State pre-business student, fled his home with his family to Qatar, a country that would not have welcomed them if it wasn’t for his father’s business.

With no future in a nation that restricts jobs to only its natives, Al-Rubaye came to the United States to get an education.

After finally feeling that his life was on track, President Donald Trump gave an executive order placing a travel ban on seven Middle Eastern countries.

Now, Al-Rubaye feels that he’ll be forced to move once again, only this time, he doesn’t have any place to run.

He is one of 115 students along with four faculty members at Iowa State affected by this ban.

“We’re now on a list because of things we didn’t choose. I didn’t choose my nationality, I was born there. It’s not my fault,” Al-Rubaye said. “I’m on the run, actually again because of something I didn’t choose.”

Al-Rubaye last saw his family in July and is unsure at this point when he will see them again. Because he is not native to Qatar, he will lose his residency if he doesn’t return by July.

If he loses his residency there, the Qatar’s strict border control laws will make it nearly impossible for him to ever return to see his family. The immigration ban would also keep him out of the Untied States if he decides to leave.

At this point, he’s not sure if he will be able to see his family until his graduation in 2020. When he finishes school, he’s not

COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER GANNON/IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY Senior Yoong Tsin Ong of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, receives his vaccination from vaccinator Kori Grooms at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at State Gym on April 2.

recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution. This is important, in part, to ensure that the health care provider community is aware of the potential for these adverse events and can plan for proper recognition and management due to the unique treatment required with this type of blood clot,” the statement read. “Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare.”

People who have received the vaccine and develop a severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath within three weeks of their vaccination should contact their health care provider.

Joining all other 50 states, the Iowa Department of Health advised providers to stop administering the Johnson & Johnson shot.

Iowa State is still planning on holding the mass vaccination clinic but will be administering the two-dose Pfizer vaccine instead of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“The volume of vaccines that we're getting

International students express threatened status in United States

VACCINE

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AMERICA

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Thursday, December 9, 2021 Iowa State Daily

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

Goodbye Spoon!

Messages from your former students and colleagues wishing you the best MICHAEL DAHLSTROM Director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication

Recipe for journalistic impact: • One INA Distinguished Service Award • Founding of Iowa College Media Association and associated Hall of Fame • Love of the First Amendment to rival James Madison • Dozens of national awards • Hundreds of students advised and guided • Mix with one Texas-sized spoon and bake for at least 40 years.

Thank you for all you have done during your impactful career. We are all better for your presence. Congratulations on retirement.

Michael Dahlstrom, Director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication ANTHONY CAPPS 2006-2011 Entertainment editor, editor-in-chief

Spoon, I didn’t know much about journalism writing when I walked into the Daily, and I knew nothing about how to be an editor and manage people. You taught me how to report and craft a quality story and how to get the same from others. Your guidance helped foster a passion in me for storytelling both past and present. For that, I’m forever grateful. Thank you.

JAMES HEGGEN 2006-2009 Reporter, News Editor, Managing News Editor

Spoon, it’s hard to sum up the impact you’ve had on me, so I just want to say how thankful I am to have you as a friend and mentor.

You have helped me in countless ways as a student, a professional and a person. Thank you for all your support.

CHRIS CONETZKEY Editor-in-chief

2005-2009

You were the first person at Iowa State to believe in me... To challenge my limiting beliefs and help me to think bigger about what I could achieve and give back through journalism. If you had never unlocked that for me with your blind faith in me, I know I couldn’t have gone on to have the opportunities I’ve had. Thank you for the jumpstart that rewired how I thought of myself-and for doing the same for the thousands of students you were there for in your career.

JENNIFER MORRISON 2001-2004 Copy editor/page designer, wire editor, columnist

Spoon always was, and this isn’t redundant, enthusiastic in his enthusiasm for what we were doing at the Daily. He was always ready to offer whatever help we needed. He never held back in his praise for our work (and criticism, when warranted).

He helped me find internship and work opportunities. Thank you, Spoon.

CHELSEA DAVIS News editor, reporter

2009-2011

Spoon, congratulations on your much-deserved retirement! You inspired in countless

students a passion for and commitment to journalism and its power to transform communities. Thank you for doing the same for me. Your advice and constructive criticism helped launch my career and for that I will forever be grateful.-Chelsea Davis BEN VISSER Sports editor

2015-2017

Spoon!

We’ve had many conversations about many different topics — unfortunately, far too many of those revolved around the Cowboys. But one message from my first day of Daily training in the summer of 2015 sticks out to me above the rest, and it’s this: “We can teach you to be a good writer, but the effort is up to you.”

I think you’d agree that most of journalism comes down to work ethic, effort and want-to. When I changed my major from mechanical engineering to journalism, I was worried my writing ability, or lack thereof, would hold me back. But your message always stuck with me and I think it’s true for almost any application in life.

People can teach you the technical aspect of things, but the effort to do it well is up to you. And it’s the effort that will make you great. So I took that message to heart and worked. Within a year of changing my major, I was the sports editor. And within a year of that, I got my job at the Cedar Rapids Gazette before I graduated. You can’t teach effort, but you can inspire effort. And Spoon, you inspire effort Daily.

MATT BELINSON 2018-2022 Sports reporter, Assistant sports editor, Sports editor

Spoon, First of all, I love you. You have made an impact on my life greater than you could ever know. You taught me the joys of journalism and how the process can be just as fun as the end result. Thank you for believing in me and for always being a guide on my journey at the Daily. You’re a great person and an amazing leader. I’m thankful to have worked with you for as long as I did. I wish you all the best.

Love, Matt.

JEREMY GUSTAFSON Sports Editor

2000-2002

As an advisor and teacher Spoon always let us make the choices. He my try to steer us in one direction or another, but ultimately he let us decide-for good or for bad. He let us enjoy our successes and helped coach us through the failures. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Spoon treated us like we were in a real newsroom, not a college paper. The conversations, the strategies, the planning and process. He really had us prepared to go out into the ‘real’ world. Now if only he could have seen where print was headed ... hahaha! Spoon was a great advisor and a valued friend. I enjoyed our talks about newspaper design as much as our talks about the Cowboys. No doubt he’s impacted so many people on his path to retirement. We can all only hope to blaze such a wonderful trail. Congrats Spoon!

ERIC WIRTH 2014-2016 Reporter, Academics Editor, Publication Board Member

Spoon, You molded generations of students into clear, concise communicators.

Whether they became journalists, business professionals, educators, or followed one of the myriad other paths in life, the ability to communicate effectively has undoubtedly benefited them greatly.

Furthermore, you’ve shown them all how to live a life they can be proud of: being kind to all, having unfaltering humility, calling out wrong for wrong and right for right, standing up for what you believe in, and waking up with a passion for what you do every day.

I’m proud to say I’m one of the many who were taught not just how to be a good journalist and communicator, but how to be a good person, by one of the best.

Thank you, Spoon.

LUKE MANDERFELD 2014-2017 Sports Writer, Sports Editor, Iowa State Way Editor

Spoon, I’ll never forget the first time I met you. It was 2014, and I walked into your Hamilton Hall office asking if I could join the sports desk. From the moment we talked, you were warm, inviting and funny. I was welcomed with open arms.

That personality is what has endeared you to thousands of your students, now spread across the globe. Your influence is felt in journalism, of course, but also in countless other industries, where students use your guidance as a foundation for a successful career. I know I’ll never forget the many, many lessons you’ve taught me over the years — the most important being how to be a good person.

Thank you for everything, Spoon. You are a true mentor and friend.

ZACH THOMPSON 2005-2011 Copy Editor, Copy Chief, Designer, Design Chief, Managing Editor of Production, Editor in Chief

Spoon is one of the best humans I know, and he and the Daily were the absolute highlights of my time at Iowa State. His care for the Daily’s students, both personally and professionally, was impossible to miss.

The time he gave anyone who walked into his office modeled for those of us at the beginnings of our careers a way of showing respect for others in a professional setting, and I’ll forever treasure the many breakfasts we’ve shared at The Grove, lunches at Hickory Park and dinners at India Palace.

In his retirement, I wish him rest — he’s earned it — and every cherry coke with extra cherries and Tutti Fruttis his heart desires.

JAKE LOVETT 2008-2012 Sports reporter, editor and Editor in Chief

I’ve long wanted to be Spoon when I grow up, just without the ponytail and history of drug addiction. If I can positively impact a fraction of the people Spoon has in his incredible lifetime of education and service, mine will be a life well lived. To me, he is the gold standard of what a mentor and educator should be: Unflinchingly loyal, more invested in his students’ success than even they are, and always at the ready with encouragement, a helpful anecdote or critique, illegibly written in bright red ink. I hate to be too sentimental when discussing Spoon, but I would not be the person or professional I am now without the friendship and mentorship he has shown me, not only during my time at Iowa State, but in the years since as well. I’m so grateful to have known him.

EMILY BARSKE 2014-2018 Editor in chief, special sections editor

Spoon, I owe much of what I know about journalism to you and know with certainty that my college experience would have been very different without you. Not only did you teach me, but you helped support me and all of us at the Daily as we grew into independent adults. On a daily basis I refer back to lessons I learned from you. The world of journalism is better because of you.

JACK MCCLELLAN 2020-2021 Beat Reporter to Editor of Academics

Hi Spoon, I know we never got to share a newsroom but you had a huge impact on my decision to pursue journalism at Iowa State and to start working for the Daily. In our virtual meetings, you inspired me to really go for it and I really appreciate that.

MOLLY BLANCO 2020-2021 Diversity reporter, student life editor

Spoon, Thank you for everything you’ve done for the Daily and all the advice you’ve given me in the short time I knew you.

Your words of wisdom encouraged me to find my passion in journalism. I will always remember your pitch to join the Daily during my first journalism class. You said we were chickenshit if we didn’t join the Daily.

I didn’t want to be chickenshit, so here I am. Thank you for the push and for all the support along the way.

TRISTAN WADE Reporter, News Editor

2016-2018

Spoon, I can’t thank you enough so the support and guidance you gave me while I worked at the Daily, and as I continued as a professional with the Media Group. I’m not sure I’d be here today if it wasn’t for some of your wisdom. We miss you a ton in the office and I’m so glad I got to work with you.

Hope you enjoy retirement!

KATE KEALEY Reporter, politics editor

2019-2021

Spoon, I couldn’t be more thankful I had the opportunity to learn from you. Anytime I hollered, you were there with pragmatic understanding of whatever issue I threw before you. Your knowledge is simply invaluable. THANK YOU! NOAH ROHLFING 2017-2019 writer, Senior Sports Reporter, Assistant Sports Editor and Sports Editor

Spoon, there’s not much more I can say than thank you for helping me navigate this brand new world I was thrust into in 2017. You kept me sane during the summer of 2018 when I was out of my depth as a Sports Editor in a chaotic summer full of twists and turns. I will not forget you talking to us constantly about the Cowboys, no matter how bad they were. You always went to bat for us as student journalists and as people, and I can’t think you enough for that. You’re the GOAT for a reason. I miss you and hope you’re doing well.

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

Iowa State Daily Thursday, December 9, 2021

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

STEVE COON Journalism Professor I was professor in the School of Journalism

DYLAN MONTZ 2011-2014 Sports Reporter (Gymnastics, Soccer, Track & Field, Volleyball, Women’s Basketball and Football + assist with Men’s Basketball), Assistant Sports Editor

Mark was a joy to work with whether in the newsroom or classroom. He brought a degree of professionalism and dedication to learning that was critical to the success of the Iowa State Daily and the future careers of young editors and reporters!

Spoon is the best advocate young journalists could ask for when navigating the rigors of working at a daily college newspaper. He is enthusiastic about the industry and the people, and is always available to talk through how to turn a good story into a great story. His efforts changed the outlook of every person that walked through the doors at the Daily and I can’t thank him enough for what he did for me in jumpstarting my career.

BRIAN STEFFEN 1979-1981 Reporter Arts & Entertainment Editor

While I never was one of Spoon’s undergraduate students, I nonetheless learned much from his leadership in student media advising. I first met Spoon in 1989 when I was new to advising` at Simpson College, and Spoon was a rising star within what was then called College Media Advisers. He became an exemplar, a trusted mentor and a good friend over the years. It was such a pleasure working with him to create an Iowa College Media Association in our state. All the best in retirement, Spoon!

JENNIFER DRYDEN 2008-2010 News Reporter, News Editor, Copy Editor, Business Editor/Reporter

Spoon, you’ve always been my person to turn to in a career crisis. You’ve provided donuts upon command in the newsroom and you’ve given me faith in myself and my journalism teaching. Thank you for being one of my biggest fans; I will always be one of yours!

TED WOLFF 2006-2007 Assistant opinion editor, columnist

Congratulations, Mark! Thank you for building a great paper and team behind it.

I will forever appreciate your impact on me to think critically, to be challenged, and put forward the best content.

DIANE (PETITTI) CUNNINGHAM 2003-2006 Designer, Design Editor, Managing Editor of Visuals and Production

Congratulations Spoon! We are all so lucky to have had you guiding us. You have made an enormous impact. Thank you.

JEFF MITCHELL 2001-2003 copy editor, university editor, A&E editor, page designer

Spoon, before I met you my art teacher kindly took me aside and told me my writing was better than the art project it was describing.

It was a prelude to my failure to get into Graphic Design. I felt like dropping out. I didn’t know what to do with writing, if that was a thing I apparently could do. I am SO lucky to have found you to guide me and spend so much time just teaching me how to be curious beyond the pursuit of a degree.

You also let us into your life personally, and taught us values from there that have lasted for generations of students. You are one of the deciding guides who brought me from potential art school dropout, to MBA and law school grad. I know there are many who have similar stories.

RASHAH MCCHESNEY 2007-2010 Reporter, photographer, photo editor, managing editor of visuals

Mark, from the moment I walked into your office and saw that Meatloaf record I knew we’d get along and I wasn’t wrong. You rooted me in good journalism, encouraged me to get up when I fell down and taught me that this job isn’t worth a damn if we aren’t sharing what we know with others. I love you, you’re going to hate retirement. Come back to Alaska and let’s go fishing.

CHARLES DAVIS

Colleague from SMU

So I worked with Spoon at SMU! 19951998. If I had a nickel for every time he totally cracked me up, I’d be a wealthy man.

Loved working with him, and we’ve stayed in touch lo the many, many years that have passed. Happy retirement, my friend!

AMY SIMMONDS 2008-2009 Copy Editor Page Designer Arts and Entertainment Editor

Thank you for consistently being our biggest advocate; pushing us to produce accurate, balanced, and fair news; and helping us put our best foot forward. We are so grateful to have had you guide our pursuit of journalistic integrity and success.

ASHLEY TIBBS 2020-2021 Assistant opinion editor, opinion editor

You were a fantastic leader for everyone at the Daily; everyone looked up to you and none of us hesitated to come to you with questions or problems. I only knew you for a short time, but your impact on the Daily is obvious. Thank you for the dedication and attention you gave to every editor and to the Daily as a whole.

MAKAYLA TENDALL SMITH 2012-2016 Cops reporter, news editor and managing editor of content

While covering my first student death story in 2013, I hung up the phone after an interview with the driver who hit Austin Wonderlich with his car after Austin jumped in front of it to die by suicide. Spoon asked if I needed a hug. I said I’d be OK. Spoon said, “Eeeeehuh.

Good. Yup, there’s only one thing better than breaking news ... and not at my age.” As a journalist and as a mentor, Spoon is invaluable. He does everything possible to help students in and out of the newsroom, and he does so with a flare that could only come from an ex-Texas hippie. Spoon, your legacy will live on in on the funny stories you’ve told, all the off-color statements you’ve made and the vast number of lives you’ve influenced for the better.

Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and my friends. Yee haw!

DEAN BERHOW-GOLL Sports Editor

2010-2014

Spoon, You challenged me to become a journalist and taught me more in my time inside Hamilton Hall than I did anywhere else. I credit you for my editorial judgement and hunger for telling the right story. Thank you!

KIM NORVELL Reporter, Assistant News Editor, Managing Editor

2008-2010

Couldn’t have done it without you, Spoon, yesterday, today or tomorrow.

ELIZABETH POLSDOFER 2012-2013 Bioenergy beat reporter, Assistant news editor, Managing editor of digital platforms

Wow, Spoon! It’s been a minute! Thank you for taking me in even though I wasn’t actually a journalism major. Your beat walks were so great and you introduced me to so many wonderful people. You have such great energy and were a joy to work with, Spoon. Congratulations on a well-deserved retirement!

RYAN W. FREDERICK Columnist, Opinion Editor

2006-2008

Spoon-Best wishes on a spectacularly earned retirement. To “disagree without being disagreeable” will forever be one of the great lessons I and my politics learned from my time at The Daily, and I chalk much of that up to our working relationship and your broadmindedness. We even managed to agree (generally about some of the more vituperative contributors seeking space on our pages), occasionally. Excellent work, sir, and look me up anytime. Congratulations.

LOGAN METZGER 2018-2021 LGBTQIA+ Beat Reporter News Editor of Diversity, Editor in Chief, Managing Editor of Content, Managing Editor

Spoon, You are the first person I ever talked to at the Daily. You got me to start with this paper and you got me to stick with this paper through workplace and my own personal turmoil. You are one of my biggest mentors and have truly shaped me into who I am today. Thank you for everything (especially those amazing cupcakes).

Logan SYDNEY NOVAK Lifestyle reporter, editor

2019-2021

Thank you for beings such a great role model and always holding the Daily to the highest of standards. Spoon does everything he can to help students grow as professionals.

Without Spoon at the ISU Daily I would not be half the journalist I am today. We will miss you.

Thursday, December 9, 2021 Iowa State Daily PROTEST

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don’t think it’s going to be the last conversation you ever have.”

Later that evening, Ben, Joe, and Brian Behrendt, another fraternity brother and now senior in marketing, arrived at the Peterson home. At about 9 p.m. they decided to head out to Maynards, which was in Excelsior, a suburb a couple miles away. Danny knew they would be drinking so he asked Pat if she could drop them off — they could walk back in the morning. On the way there, they joked about how it felt like junior high again, the last time they remember their mom driving them to a party.

“Thanks, Mom,” Danny said, the last words Pat remembers hearing from her son.

It was like any other night at the bar, Joe remembers. The friends were catching up on what happened over the past semester. Danny, like always, was a source of constant jokes and stories. He was the type of outgoing person who, Joe says, when you went out with him to a party, you would end up knowing just about everyone there by the end of the night. Ben estimates they had about eight drinks each during the three hours at the bar. They felt clearheaded, though, as the bar closed at 1 a.m.

Danny, Joe and Ben decided it was too early to go home so they walked to a friend’s house for a bonfire.

A walk never forgotten Excelsior Boulevard is a busy artery that runs east to west past the Minneapolis area. In the area where the men walked, the street is just a quiet, two-lane road that winds through a woodsy area bordered by neat houses on one side and a cemetery atop a hill on the other. The lighting is dim and there is no sidewalk, just a dirt shoulder that had puddles from earlier rain. It was short-sleeve weather.

Joe remembers walking next to Ben, and Danny was maybe a foot or two further toward the road than they were. They walked on the dirt shoulder, facing away from traffic. Joe and Ben were talking to each other when suddenly they heard and

TRINITY

pg2

Her 9-month-old daughter, Trinity, had just been diagnosed with Histiocytosis X, a rare disease that affects young children, causing their immune system to turn against itself.

Doctors did what they could for Trinity, but in December of that year they told Jamie to take her home to spend her last Christmas with her family — she only had six weeks to live.

“The doctors had pretty much given up, but I never gave up. I guess it’s a mother’s instinct — you just never give up,” Durham said.

One doctor suggested that they try to get a bone marrow transplant. It was a last-ditch effort — there was no guarantee that they would be able to find a match or that it would do any good, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. They analyzed her DNA and searched the bone marrow registry for possible matches.

The match Five hundred miles to the north, Bishop’s phone rang.

Bishop had volunteered to be a bone marrow donor in 1999 — it only took half an hour over a lunch break to get his name on the registry. He knew the chances were slim that he would actually get called on to donate, so the call surprised him.

The voice on the phone told him they had found a patient in need and that his marrow would be the best possible match. In January 2001, Bishop went to the University of Iowa Hospitals to have his bone marrow harvested.

Although most people prefer to sleep through the procedure, Bishop decided to use epidural anesthesia, a regional numbing that would allow him to be awake through the entire process.

“I wanted to be awake just to kind of know what was going on and experience it. That’s the thrill-seeking part of it,” Bishop said.

The doctors made a small incision in his lower back, inserted a hollow needle into his hip bone, and twisted it in deep enough to extract the marrow. This process was repeated several times on different bone areas until enough marrow was harvested.

All he knew about the recipient was her gender, and where she lived. And that’s all Jamie Durham knew about the donor.

The wait Jamie sat in the hospital with her daughter, waiting anxiously. Trinity had just gone through heavy chemotherapy — so intense that it had virtually shut off her immune system. If the bone marrow didn’t arrive within 24 hours, she would almost certainly die.

That’s why the small Coleman cooler Julee Darner was carrying through the airport was so important.

Darner, donor services coordinator at the Iowa Bone Marrow Program, was the designated courier for Bishop’s bone marrow as it traveled from Iowa City to Oklahoma City.

“Our job is just to keep the cells with us at all times. Even when we go to the bathroom, we’re carrying that cooler with us,” Darner said. “It’s a big responsibility, but I guess I’ve done it enough times that the fear isn’t there anymore.”

The marrow was delivered to Trinity without incident, and was immediately plugged into an IV that slowly dripped the marrow into her blood stream. All her mother could do was wait and pray that her daughter’s body didn’t reject it.

Trinity spent the next two months in the Intensive Care Unit under close supervision,

felt a car pass by with a loud thump.

“Did someone just hit a log or something?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know,” Joe said. He stopped.

“Hey, where’s DP?” All of a sudden, Joe knew what had happened. Up ahead they saw Danny lying in the middle of the road. They ran to him and yelled his name. There was no response. Danny was on his side, there was a gash on his head, and he was making gasping sounds as though he had difficulty breathing.

Joe and Ben flagged down the first car that came by. As luck would have it, the driver was a paramedic. They rolled Danny onto his back and Joe put his shirt under Danny’s head. The paramedic called 9-1-1 and waited for help to arrive. Someone made the decision to transport Danny by helicopter instead of ambulance, a decision that kept him from dying that evening.

A patrol officer asked Joe and Ben for details but the two had been so focused on Danny they didn’t get a good look at the car.

“All we could remember was seeing taillights,” Ben says.

The longest 25 minutes At about the same time, probably before Danny was airlifted, Chris had gotten off from work and was driving home. He had to turn briefly on to Excelsior Boulevard. He pulled up to a stop sign at an intersection where Danny had walked maybe 15 minutes earlier. The sound and lights of a police cruiser rushing by startled him. When it passed, he took a left onto the road that headed home, not knowing just a couple of blocks ahead his brother lay dying on the road.

The first thing Chris did when he arrived home was wake up his parents. He always did this when coming home late so that they would know he was back home. On nice nights like this one, he would brag about the tips that he brought in. He then went up to his room, brushed his teeth and drifted off to sleep.

Less than half an hour later, Pat woke up again, this time to the sound of the phone ringing. She picked it up and heard a woman ask, “Is this the home of Danny Peterson?”

“Yes,” Pat replied. Then the woman asked who she was. Pat

until the doctors finally felt confident enough to let her go home.The procedure had worked; Trinity’s immune system was doing its job again — she was healthy.

The mystery donor Jamie Durham was overjoyed, but there was still one thing she wanted. She wanted to meet the man who had saved her daughter’s life.

“That’s her angel, and you want to meet that person, you want to thank him. And that was my number one goal,” Durham said.

Darner said marrow donors and recipients are kept anonymous for a year after the procedure because they don’t want the donor to feel obligated to go through the procedure again if something goes wrong.

“They keep everything pretty quiet for a year, and they don’t tell you anything about it,” Bishop said.

A year passed, and Trinity continued to recover as Bishop continued to test his physical limits.

Keep running In July, about six months after the transplant, Bishop ran a non-stop 135-mile race through Death Valley in California — the hottest place on Earth at that time of year.

Runners were given 60 hours to finish the race, and Rusty finished, pushing his body to the most extreme limits.

“The problem there is you get into hallucinations and stuff because of sleep deprivation, so I was seeing all kinds of stuff in the last couple hours of the race,” Bishop said.

Bishop watched as rock formations turned into Transformer-esque robots, and his crew members exchanged confused glances, wondering what he was laughing at. Bishop knew he was seeing things that weren’t there, but he was too tired to explain it.

“That’s probably about as natural of a high you can get,” Bishop said.

Seeing the miracle But that feeling would never compare to what he felt six months later, standing in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Durrant, Okla.

A year had gone by since the transplant, and today was the day he would finally meet Trinity.

Television cameras rolled as Jamie Durham waited anxiously in the lobby of the Holiday Inn. She didn’t know how Trinity would react to Rusty. She had always been scared of men — the only men she had ever responded to were her father and her doctor.

A man approached as 2-year-old Trinity peered through the glass doors, and nobody there that day will ever forget what happened next.

“When Rusty walked up to the door, she just kind of stood there and looked at him and she held her hands up for him to hold her,” Durham said. “That was so not her. It was just like she knew.”

Bishop remembered the photos he had seen of 9-month-old Trinity before her transplant, her skin yellow with jaundice and her eyes sallow. Now she was a healthy, energetic 2-year-old, running back and forth across the hotel lobby.

“It was nuts. I couldn’t talk for almost four or five minutes, or at least it seemed that way,” Bishop said. “All my races and stuff have been really amazing experiences, but nothing will ever top that.”

Giving back Bishop said being a bone marrow donor has been one of the most rewarding experiences of his life, and he hopes many more will take the opportunity to save someone’s life

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

was now wide awake with panic.

“I’m his mother.”

The woman told her Danny had been in a serious accident and had been airlifted to the hospital.

Pat practically screamed into the phone: “Is he alive?”

“Yes. But you need to come quickly.”

Chris heard footsteps running up the stairs. The frantic pounding made him think there was a fire. His usually soft-spoken and gentle mother woke him up roughly.

“Get up. Get dressed. Danny’s been hit and he’s at the hospital.”

Chris let out a cry — he desperately wanted to know what had happened. But there wasn’t time for details and there were no other details. Tim drove them all to the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. They didn’t say much on the way there. There was little else they wanted to say, except to repeat the Lord’s Prayer over and over, during the 25-minute trip.

It had just started to rain.

About this series This series was inspired by a Minneapolis Star-Tribune July 12 article headlined, “Who struck down Danny Peterson? A detective won’t let go,” about a Minnesota police department and its almost obsessive search for the driver who killed Danny.

The Daily learned from the Star-Tribune and the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department in February that the driver had been arrested and sentenced. This prompted the Daily to find out the complete story behind what happened to Danny.

The events surrounding his life and death are derived from the accounts of 10 of the major people involved, including Danny’s family and the detectives working his case. The Daily also visited the Peterson home and the spot where Danny’s accident took place.

Articles from Minnesota newspapers, the transcript of the sentencing hearing, the text of Danny’s eulogy and victim impact statements to the judge were also sources for this story.

Get to know Trinity Durham Born in 1999 Diagnosed with Histiocytosis X Received bone marrow transplant in January of 2000 Is now 9 years old and healthy Get to know Rusty Bishop An ISU alumnus who was a semi-finalist for the Inspiring Soles award, given to those who complete incredible athletic endeavors and have devoted their lives to helping humanity.

Owner of Gong Fu Tea, 414 E. 6th St., in Des Moines Ran the Marathon des Sables, a 150mile footrace across the Sahara Desert, in 7 days Ran solo run across Iowa, 374 miles, in 9.5 days Ran the Atacama Crossing, a 150-mile footrace across the Atacama Desert, in 7 days in honor of Trinity, his bone marrow recipient Member of the Iowa Marrow Donor Program Supports the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society through fundraising and running

by joining the bone marrow registry. He said at any given time there are as many as 6,000 people in need of a bone marrow match, and that only two out of every 10 people in need of a transplant actually get one.

Darner said it is simple to join the bone marrow registry, especially for students.

Applicants need only to fill out an application and supply a DNA sample from the inside of their cheek on a cotton swab. Darner said there is usually a cost involved in getting added to the registry, but the cost is waived for students.

“It’s not a guarantee that you’re going to match someone, but if you do match a patient and you are able to donate, you might literally be the only person in the world that can provide that chance for that patient. It’s just a beautiful gift of hope for that family that needs the transplant,” Darner said.

Jamie Durham encourages all who are able to be bone marrow donors to get their names on the registry, because she knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of someone’s decision to give.

Changed forever Since 2002, Bishop has carried the Olympic torch, has run across the state of Iowa and has run two 7-day 150-mile races through the Gobi Desert in China and the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Last year he was named a finalist for the Inspiring Soles contest, an award given to outstanding athletes who dedicate their efforts to charity. The results of the contest will be published in April’s edition of Outside magazine.

Bishop doesn’t know when or where his next race will be, but he does know how he’s going to get the strength to keep going when he feels like giving up.

He will look at the band on his wrist and the name written across it.

Trinity.

What bone marrow is used for Bone marrow is tissue found in the body’s bones. Marrow contains stem cells that can mature into white blood cells, red blood cells or platelets. Bone marrow is used to treat a variety of illnesses, including leukemia, plasma cell disorders and lymphomas. *information from Lab Tests Online

07

AMERICA

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sure where the reunion would even take place.

Rahma Belaid, sophomore in aerospace engineering, sat to the left of Al-Rubaye. They are from two completely different countries, have different backgrounds and despite both being affected by this executive order, Belaid has her own separate struggles.

Belaid came from her home country, Libya, to start school in the United States in 2014. After spending two years away from her family, she planned to visit home to be by the side of her younger sister, who will be receiving a difficult and dangerous surgery.

Her brother broke the news of the immigration ban to her while she was in the middle of an online test.

At first, she believed it to be a joke, but when she went on Facebook, she saw for herself post after post relating to the matter.

“People would say that ‘[Trump] wouldn’t dare do this. Don’t take him seriously,’ but it was just one week and he did all this damage,” Balaid said.

Belaid’s sister had asked her to be at the surgery.

Belaid said her sister is young and scared, but going home would mean giving up her degree. Ultimately she had to make the decision to stay at school.

Belaid and Al-Rubaye both drew conclusions between America’s current administration with what they saw in leadership in their home countries, calling it “the Middle East way.”

“We are familiar with this because the Middle East is like this,”Al-Rubaye said. “A new president that comes in, he changes everything in the country the way he wants. No one can even dare talk to him.

America is turning into a Middle Eastern country.”

Al-Rubaye recalls hearing stories of America back home. He thought of it as the “country of freedom” and the “country of love.” Now, in his eyes, it is turning into the country that he left behind.

After coming from a war-torn country that faced years of conflict with America, Al-Rubaye attributes the amount of refugees to the United States.

“You don’t want refugees to stop destroying our countries,” Al-Rubaye said. “You can’t expect no refugees while you are occupying our countries.”

He recalls life in Iraq before war, saying Baghdad was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. A quick Google search brings up pictures of libraries and buildings once prosperous now in rubble.

He explained that he wasn’t saying that his home country didn’t have the best situation, but added, “look at us now.”

The concept of protecting real Americans confuses Al-Rubaye because his understanding was that this is a country built by immigrants.

Al-Rubaye cited Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant, saying that he changed the world when he co-founded Apple.

As these students worry about their status in the United States, they still feel the pressure of school work that every other student at a university has looming over their heads.

Al-Rubaye finds it hard to motivate himself to focus on his studies when his education could be cut short.

He also worries about his father, who pays for his education. If he doesn’t leave this institution with a degree, the money that went toward tuition will be wasted.

As for Belaid, a contributor to her tuition was a grant from her government. This grant gave her the opportunity to study anywhere in the world. Belaid chose to come to America.

Al-Rubaye has two siblings going to school in Canada telling him to transfer there. He tells them no. He went to school in the United States because this is where he wants to be.

Belaid also cited her reasons for attending school in the United States.

“I chose America because I know that I’ll be myself, I’ll have my freedom to practice anything I want, to meet people from all around the world,” Belaid said.

She added that now he is planning to ban people based on of their religion and nationality. She believes it is unacceptable, saying that “this is not America.”

08

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

TRAFFIC

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She has worked as a therapist, social worker, advocate, foster parent and now coordinator for Achieving Maximum Potential, or AMP, a youth foster support organization.

Our conversation about her work with AMP halted as we approached the Iowa state Capital building. She was asked to attend an invitation-only meeting hosted by Iowa Speaker Kraig Paulsen and Sen. Kevin Kinney to discuss what the state can do to better research human trafficking and offer aid to the crime’s victims.

— Buckels is a well-known name in the trafficking and youth advocacy communities.

Buckels hadn’t consciously thought about human trafficking, especially in Iowa, until she received a phone call from officials asking to speak with one of her foster children, Brittany Phillips, who they said was a main witness in a human trafficking case.

At age 14, Phillips was taken from her mother’s home in Des Moines – where her mother’s boyfriend sexually abused her – and moved to a treatment facility in Iowa City. She and a friend ran away from the facility and ended up in Cedar Rapids.

While looking for groceries at a Cedar Rapids Hy-Vee, a man offered Phillips a modeling job. She took the bait and was shipped to the sex trade in Chicago.

Phillips said she doesn’t quite remember what exactly happened the day Buckels discovered the teen’s past, or exactly how she was feeling, but she does remember worrying about Buckels loving her less.

“I remember being scared when I moved in that she’d find out and not want me,” Phillips said. “I was completely wrong.

Her love for me didn’t become less. It only grew stronger.”

Finding out Phillips’ past sparked Buckels’ passion. She has traveled the state giving public presentations on the illegal sex trade in Iowa.

— Of the 40 or so in the Nov. 4 human trafficking roundtable discussion at the capital, at least 80 percent of the room knew Ruth Buckels. All asked how her kids were doing in school or sports. Some complimented her knit Iowa State Cyclonecolored hat. Buckels saw Kathy O’Keefe, director of Braking Traffik, from across the room.

“Ruth, how are you?” O’Keefe said as she leaned in for a friendly hug.

Buckels responded with a nod and a raspy, slightly-gurgled, “Just fine, thank you.”

“Oh, I just got over that cold crud last week,” O’Keefe said.

“No, this is from my chemo treatment,” Buckels corrected her.

“Oh, Ruth, I had no idea,” O’Keefe said.

Buckels proceeded to explain her recent discovery of breast cancer, the constant displeasure of the chemo treatments and the agony caused each week because of them.

But cancer couldn’t stop Buckels from going to this meeting, or working in general.

Buckels couldn’t miss this meeting in a room with some of the most influential people combating trafficking in the state of Iowa. She’d prayed for it for too long. Besides, it was Wednesday, one of her good days. Thursday was the best day of the week, so that’s the one day she goes into work.

“How are the kids taking it?” O’Keefe asks in regards to Buckels’ cancer.

“They’re terrified they’re going to lose their mom,” Buckels said.

The group of women chat for a bit, and just before the meeting starts, the group erupts in soft chortles in response to what Buckels had just said.

“Let me tell you, guys, I would not recommend taking chemo for fun.”

— Buckels was at a routine checkup at the beginning of summer 2015. When doctors told her they needed to look at her chest again, she didn’t fret too much. When they said they needed to run a biopsy, she started paying attention.

Nine millimeters of cancer was discovered near her armpit, she says, holding her hand to her face, her thumb and index finger so close together a fire ant would be snug.

Those nine millimeters, she said, were dangerous. The cancer was removed from her body, but doctors still wanted her to go through chemotherapy to make sure all of the cells were dead.

Her prognosis is “good,” she says, but she still needs 12 rounds of chemotherapy every Friday until Dec. 18. After January 2016, she’ll take on 17 radiation treatments over five

VACCINE

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that's what's going to be available for the clinics that we do next week,” she said.

One problem that arises with using the Pfizer vaccine is the time that needs to pass between first and second doses.

“For example, if you get vaccinated this Friday, on the 16th, you're going to be due in 21 days, so you're going to be due again in three weeks, and that will be on Friday, May 7,” Baldwin said. “So unfortunately, you know, that's why we were really excited when we heard about Johnson & Johnson because it was one dose. We were really hoping, especially for our students, to be able to serve them with Johnson & Johnson so that they didn't have to deal with getting vaccinated during finals prep week or during finals week.”

Baldwin said they will be offering

Iowa State Daily Thursday, December 9, 2021

to six weeks.

Her first chemo treatment was the worst.

Buckels remembers suddenly being horizontal. She looked up to see a bright light, shielded by the figure of a stranger putting on plastic sanitary gloves.

The memory of the snaps is one that sticks out in her mind.

Snap, one glove on. Snap, the other.

“What is this man going to do to me?” she recalls of the thought racing through her mind.

She later discovered he was preparing to perform CPR. Buckels’ first round of chemo, which was to last four hours, completely shut her throat. No air in, no air out. Nurses and doctors swarmed the room. Buckels felt as if she was watching it all happen to somebody else, until the thought dawned on her that all these people were coming for her.

“They’re coming for me,” she remembers thinking. “They are coming to save me.”

The unknown doctor didn’t have to perform CPR, but Buckels said a nurse told her they almost lost her. A conversation she doesn’t like to revisit.

Buckels’ mother, Helen Eley, of Zearing, also had breast cancer, a cloudy mass found in a mammogram. The mother and daughter had such different looking cancers that doctors said there was no way Buckels’ was genetic.

It still blows her mind.

— Buckels is down to about an hour and a half for each chemo.

The worst days are Sunday through Tuesday. No food tastes the same and she never knows when she’s going to be able to keep down whatever she eats. Applesauce usually works.

Sometimes oatmeal, but there’s always that taste of a tin can, liquid rust that lingers on her taste buds.

She is 100 percent nauseated, she said. Some days, she takes a bite and the food stays down. Others, she takes one bite and thinks, “why did I do that to myself?” With each morsel of food, she must consciously think about how quickly and when to eat it – a concept completely foreign to her.

She was always eating on the run. Grabbing a quick sandwich before jetting off to speak at a church or school about the terrifying truths of human trafficking in Iowa. Downing a granola bar before heading into a meeting for Achieving Maximum Potential. It’s never been, take these three bites and see if a half hour later the food will stay down. She can’t taste salt or garlic. She can’t find anything that tastes like it’s supposed to.

“But then I think, so many other people have it so much worse, I say to myself, ‘Shut up, Ruth. Shut up, Ruth,’” she said, her voice still raspy as it had been all day.

“But it’s weird for me.”

—

—

Eley remembers the day Buckels said she was going to help people. It was in the 8th grade and Buckels told Eley she wanted to help one of her classmates.

“I said no, he can do his own work,” Eley said. “She says, mom, he has so many troubles that aren’t school-related and those are what I’m going to help them with.”

Buckels was always a good student, Eley said. She talked a lot and sang a lot. She was in band, choir, school plays and the honor society. She did her chores on the farm and never let her mother down.

“If she was determined, she was going to do it and be good at it,” Eley said.

Eley thought this of her daughter through Buckels’ years of schooling for an associates in paralegal from Des Moines Area Community College and a bachelor’s and master’s from Iowa State. She thought like this when Buckels became a foster parent and active advocate on human trafficking education.

“She’s always well-received. She has a power of speaking.

She stops talking, well look out,” Eley said, the last sentence with a soft chuckle.

Buckels didn’t tell Eley about the cancer until after the lump was removed. “[The cancer] has slowed her a little bit, but not a lot,” Eley said. “She doesn’t say, ‘I’m not going to do this because I have cancer.’ She’s a strong person that way.”

— Buckels’ coworker and longtime friend Terri Bailey really wants to take Buckels to see the new movie, “Miss You Already,” featuring Drew Barrymore. There’s a scene shown in the trailer that reminds her of the two of them.

Barrymore’s character finds out her best friend has an aggressive cancer. The two go wig shopping and laugh at the more ridiculous selections.

“It just looks like something we would do,” Bailey, also a foster parent and who has known Buckels since the early 1990s, said. “The movie looks hilarious and makes me think of Ruth.

She’s very feisty and driven.”

Buckels has a wig, but hasn’t worn it yet, Bailey said. It rests on a stand on a table in the corner of Buckels’ bedroom, seemingly untouched. Buckels is now sporting a short, pixie haircut, and wears hats as long as she can stand the itch.

Buckels stays home as much as she can, Bailey said, as Buckels doesn’t want to be seen as weak. To Buckels, her voice, her hair, her reaction to food, all make her seem vulnerable, Bailey says of her decades-old friend.

“If you know her, she doesn’t want pity eyes,” Bailey said.

“She has things to do and plans to make and we keep telling her to slow down and she goes, ‘No, no, no,’ and finally she said, ‘Man, I gotta slow down.’”

Her normal routine was up early, work late.

She can’t do that anymore, Bailey said. The chemo drains her energy.

“She’s fighting through these road bumps,” Bailey said.

“That’s her strength – she pulls herself out.”

The way Buckels works is similar to the way she parents.

Watchful, but distant enough to let everyone do their own thing, always encouraging.

“Whenever she sends out emails, she’ll say ‘I’m glad you’re all mine,’” Bailey said. “I would never want to do anything to disappoint her and that’s the way her kids are too. You don’t want to disappoint her because she’s too special.”

the second dose of the vaccine if people can commit to getting it.

“So now it's just presenting the information to people and saying, you know, can you commit to getting both doses of vaccine on campus?

People can make that decision,” she said.

Baldwin said they don’t have a numerical goal for how many students they’d like to see receive the vaccine.

“I think our original goal was not necessarily a numerical goal, but it was just, we'd love to be able to have enough vaccine supply to vaccinate any student that wanted to get vaccinated before they leave campus this semester,” she said.

“If we have students that are going to be around or if they're within driving distance or they're willing to come back to Ames, they're willing to get both doses on campus, and we'll continue to push that information out and serve people that way,” Baldwin said.

The clinic is set up in the three basketball courts on the west side of State Gym. “So what that will look like is that people will enter the south side of State Gym. This is the entrance that looks out towards the parking lot, towards Lincoln Way and Dunkin’ Donuts [...] then you'll come in and we'll have different ISU employees that will be working in the vaccination site,” Baldwin said.

Over 700 people from across the university have signed up to work at the clinic.

“It's been outstanding to see the support and everybody stepped up to help with that,” Baldwin said.

“And then you'll have our group of nonclinical volunteers, so that will be people that are assisting with wayfinding, with directing people that come into the vaccine site to the different locations,” she said. “There will be people working at registration, and then we'll have people helping with observation after people get

Much like the way Ruth Buckels met most of her children, she met her current husband: through the foster care system.

Bill Buckels was already a foster parent, but wanted to continue his training, which Ruth was helping conduct. She was married to another man at the time, and didn’t think anything of her and Bill’s relationship other than that of one foster parent to another. Ruth at one point was Bill Buckels’ foster kids’ therapist, but the two still didn’t know each other too well.

Ruth married her first husband at the age of 19 and was married for 24 years, she quickly shares.

“I’m very private,” she says, and moves on.

After the end of Ruth’s first marriage, Bill Buckels checked in to see if she was OK. “Well,” she responded. “You’re going to have to teach me how to be single.”

“I was good at that,” Bill Buckels said.

“I ended up teaching him how to be married,” Ruth Buckels laughs.

— The two moved in together on Bill Buckels’ farm around Christmas 2009 and wed in 2010.

The farm is home to not only the teenagers as well as Ruth and Bill, but also to four snakes, a tankful of fish, cows, cats and a dove. On top of the already-seemingly full zoo, the Buckels family also takes care of 14 dogs: German shepherds, corgis and St. Bernards, as Ruth has been in the dog breeding business for about three years. Ruth Buckels used to own horses and chickens, but couldn’t keep up with taking care of them while going through chemo.

It would be impossible to be bored at the Buckels’ house.

Six bedrooms, an office and four bathrooms are necessary to house the double-digit family. The kids are two-to-four to a room. Bunkbeds are necessities. The spacious yard features a trampoline, hammock, picnic tables, a fire pit the size of a monster truck wheel and a homemade wedding deck for the kids to use if and when they get married. The kids like to play games outside in the open area on the farm, which is just north of Ames. Ghosts in the graveyard or capture the flag are some of the most popular.

In one basement hallway, a mattress rested against a wall.

“Someone must have gotten mad at someone,” Ruth Buckels chuckled. “They do that sort of stuff.”

In fact, they rat on each other all the time, both Buckels said.

“Oh, they sing like canaries,” Bill Buckels said.

But it’s always out of love, Ruth Buckels says.

An empty spot on the wall is impossible to find in the Buckels home. Pictures of each of the 19 kids, six of whom have significant others, cover nearly every inch of every room.

That’s something she gives each kid, as most kids or teens in foster care won’t ever see their picture on any wall, Buckels said.

Trust is one of the hardest things for youth in foster care to learn.

“I’ve grown to completely trust her, whereas before I was skeptical. I gave my trust to people who were supposed to protect me and they didn’t,” Phillips said. “I see [Ruth] as my hero.

She saved me. If I hadn’t been placed in her home, I wouldn’t be where I am today. She taught me that I’m worth so much more than anyone has ever told me. Someday I hope to be even half the women she is. I hope that I can save someone’s life like she did mine.”

That love, Buckels said, and that steady home, is the biggest gift she can give to any of her kids.

done with their vaccine, and then we have our clinical workers at the clinic; those are the people actually giving the vaccine.”

There will also be trained medical professionals on site if anyone would have a reaction to the vaccine or if recipients have medical questions or any other medical situation that needs to be dealt with.

“Our vaccinators are a mix of people, including our staff from the Thielen Student Health Center. We have some of our nurses from occupational medicine on campus that are helping,” she said.

A group of Iowa State veterinarians and veterinary students will also help administer the vaccine, thanks to the PREP Act. “The PREP Act gave legislation that allowed different types of clinical professionals the ability to give vaccines in this situation,” Baldwin said.

“We really have great support from the community so Stor y

County Public Health, and then Mary Greeley Medical Center, are both also going to provide some support for some of the clinical workers for the vaccine,” she said.

Senior liberal studies major Christina Alexander is currently an online Iowa State student living in Des Moines.

“I am really excited to get vaccinated,” Alexander said. “I think it’s a wonderful idea to offer vaccinations to students. It’s understandable why the university chose the onedose Johnson & Johnson [...] I am holding out for Pfizer since it’s the mRNA vaccine.”

The mass vaccination clinic will begin April 19 and is planned to continue for two weeks. Students will be contacted and do not need to call Thielen to schedule an appointment.

Vaccine and clinic updates and frequently asked questions about the vaccine can be found on Iowa State’s vaccination website.

Thursday, December 9, 2021 Iowa State Daily MILLER

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Miller gets up from her seat and moves to the back of the office to examine some pictures.

She stumbles across a picture from 1984 of herself and Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, social activist, writer, editor and champion of women’s rights.

“I forgot I had that,” Miller said while examining the picture. “We were both much younger then.”

The ‘80s are represented in Miller’s office by a glass bottle holding the cigarette ashes of Steinem. Steinem was trying to quit smoking when she spoke at Iowa State in October of 1984. Miller gave Steinem a ride back to her hotel when Steinem knocked off the ashes of her cigarette into the ashtray in Miller’s van.

Miller said those ashes were part of the last cigarette Steinem ever smoked. Thirty-two years later, the ashes are preserved on Miller’s shelf and might be seen by Steinem when she returns to Iowa State on Oct. 11.

The ‘90s are represented in Miller’s office by a Willie Nelson poster, from when he performed at the football stadium, hiding behind a bookshelf.

MBB

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almost record-breaking game and it still not be enough,” coach Greg McDermott said. “All the parts have to be functioning.”

The Cyclones almost caught the Jayhawks after a Brackins 3-pointer cut a once 17-point Kansas lead to six with just over six minutes to play. After a defensive stop, Jamie Vanderbeken had a wide-open three rim out. Kansas went the other way, missed, but grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back in to extend the lead to eight. The Cyclones never got any closer.

B r a c k i n s ’ d o m i n a n c e c re a t e d o p e n

PROTEST

SPOON SPECIAL EDITION

“What’s the date say on the poster?” Miller asks, having returned to her chair.

April 24, 1993.

‘He’s great,” Miller responds before going into specific detail about her encounter with the country singer more than 23 years earlier.

The 2000s are highlighted by getting Bill Nye the Science Guy to venture to campus.

The five years of phone calls, hand-written invitations and emails to get Nye to easily fill Stephens Auditorium to maximum capacity were worth it, but not the longest amount of time Miller has spent recruiting talented speakers.

Steinem most recently came to Iowa State in 1997. It took 19 years of persistence to get her back for her lecture “My Life on the Road” this October.

Miller’s office is filled with unique memories from her past. It took 25 years to get Margaret Atwood to finally come in November.

A replica of Miller’s thumb is on a shelf next to Leonardo Dicaprio’s “pee bottle” from the movie “The Aviator.”

Next to the picture with Steinem in the back of her office is a picture from “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. Miller pitched an idea of eating chocolate-dipped, crispy crickets to the show and the next thing she knew, she was

flying out to California with the presidents of the Entomology Club.

Leno walked around the audience handing out the insects.

Miller said everyone in the audience ate one.

Tony Bennett was a guest on the show that night. He turned down Miller’s offer.

“Now why would I want to have any job other than this one,” Miller said, laughing to herself about “The Tonight Show” experience.

Within the first five minutes of the interview leading to this story, Miller’s computer alerted her of a new email three separate times.

After an hour of telling stories, Miller said the interview should wrap up soon. She had to write two invitations to potential speakers, and by this point, at least 15 emails to read.

After all, getting eight presidential candidates to speak at Iowa State didn’t just happen by itself. It takes effort. Like averaging five hours of sleep for the past 35 years, kind of effort.

Miller doesn’t set an alarm in the morning but consistently wakes up between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. to begin her day.

She has to constantly recruit new speakers to come to Iowa State in the same day she’s making sure the lecturers who are speaking that night are completely taken care of.

“It’s like a Rubik’s Cube,” Miller said.

She usually ends her day by doing what she calls “the lecturers happy dance” discretely by the door after everything wraps up with a lecture, often after 10 p.m.

“People don’t appreciate how good she is at her job,” said Greer Brown, a senior on the Committee on Lectures as well as national and world affairs. “She’s always thinking about what’s best for the students.”

Miller is good enough at her job to have what she believes to be one of the best lecture series in the entire country.

Brown spent the first year and a half in college enrolled at Iowa, where she said she saw one lecturer and was standing during it.

Most colleges have between six to eight lectures a year.

“We always say [those colleges are] wusses,” Miller said.

The lectures series at Iowa State has topped out at 177 lecturers in a year.

Those hundreds of lecturers a year translate to hundreds of stories from people who have made their mark on this world. In 35 years, Miller has heard thousands of impactful stories and met thousands of impactful people.

“I have to write a book,” Miller said. “Maybe I’ll do it in my spare time. Between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.”

looks all game for his teammates, but like Vanderbeken’s three, the shots just didn’t fall.

“They had some open looks and they knocked them down, and we had some open looks and we missed them,” McDermott said. “We had some good looks at the basket as a result of what Craig was doing, so that provided some opportunities for some guys to knock down shots and we just had another one of those days where we did not shoot it well from the perimeter.”

They definitely didn’t. Take away Brackins’ 3-of-5 shooting from downtown, and the Cyclones shot 3-of-21 (.143), well below their season average of .358. Simply put, Brackins made 11 shots, while the rest of the team

made eight.

“I wish I could tell you that our game plan was to stop everybody else and make him make all the plays, but it wasn’t,” Self said. “We were fortunate that a lot of their guards missed.”

Some of the Cyclones’ regular contributors were silent in the game. Lucca Staiger, who came into the game averaging 9.1 points per game, was 1-of-7 from the arc and ended the game with five points. Bryan Petersen and Diante Garrett also struggled, each scoring two points.

“I know they can’t hit everything,” Brackins said. “I told them to just stay confident with their shots. I heard Lucca come in and he was

like ‘man, I gotta hit a shot,’ I’m like just let it flow dude, don’t think about it too much. If they would have hit their shots, it would have been a whole different ball game.”

It was Brackins’ eighth double-double of the season. He now ranks fourth all time in ISU history for points in a game and is the first Cyclone to score 40 points since Fred Hoiberg scored 41 against Colorado in 1995.

He was just one shot away from tying the Big 12 record for points in a Big 12 game, and undoubtedly shined brighter than Sherron Collins.

“It doesn’t matter, we still lost and it wasn’t enough,” Brackins said.

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STRENGTH

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KATLYN CAMPBELL/IOWA STATE DAILY Nicholas Fuentes speaks with Sergeant Meenagh of the Iowa State Police Department in East Hall at Iowa State on Wednesday, March 6. Fuentes attended Iowa State for his first campus visit. Sergeant Meenagh had Fuentes move his speech from the classroom as it was not reserved. Fuentes moved to the “free speech zone” outside Parks Library. The prepared speech was followed by a Q&A where Fuentes spoke with attendees about their differing views.State University on Wednesday, March 6.

he noted how “diverse” they were and said, “I’m a diverse person myself — a quarter Mexican, 1.5 percent African.”

One activist suggested closing the door, telling fellow protesters they should listen to Fuentes before talking with him.

“He already assumes that we’re going to be very disruptive, so we’re going to be very respectful,” she said. “Let him speak; hold all the questions until the end.”

Three Iowa State police officers arrived at the scene and asked Fuentes to step into the hallway, where they asked him who brought him to campus.

“It was Turning Point who organized the event ... I believe an individual reserved the room,” Fuentes said.

The officer told Fuentes Turning Point doesn’t have affiliation with the university. Fuentes said he was unsure who reserved the room, but he said it was an individual who does have an affiliation with the university.

Fuentes attempted to find out the name of the individual who had booked the room. A member of the crowd said the room was booked by College Republicans, but student Trevor Kems said the person speaking was not a member of College Republicans, and it was “not an official statement” from the group.

College Republicans and Turning Point have denied affiliations with the event. Since Turning Point is not an official student organization at Iowa State, the turn of events left Fuentes without a campus organization to sponsor his appearance.

Without an official sponsor, Fuentes was not allowed to speak in a classroom and was asked to leave by Iowa State police. He set out for the Tree of Oppression outside of Parks Library, near the “free speech zone.”

As Fuentes and a still-growing crowd of protesters and supporters trekked

09

across campus, members of Student Government heard he was moving to the Tree of Oppression and left their weekly Wednesday meeting.

P r e s i d e n t J u l i a n N e e l y, V i c e President Juan Bibiloni, Director of Sustainability Toni Sleugh, Senior Director of Student Services Zahra Barkley and Director of Diversity and Inclusion Lilian Juma, among other Student Government members, were in front of Parks Library by the time Fuentes arrived.

“I don’t appreciate the hateful rhetoric this speaker brought to our campus and I recognize the harm that it has caused,” Neely said in a statement after the event. “Not only did they target my identity, he targeted many others.

Whoever feels the need to bring someone to our campus to disrespect, harm and disrupt our family, shame on you.

“This is our community, our campus and our family. We love everyone for who they are and what they represent.”

Fuentes stopped before reaching the Tree of Oppression and moved to the “free speech zone” for better lighting and stepped up onto a half-wall to begin speaking.

The speech Fuentes began his hour-long speech by dissecting an Iowa State Daily article describing him as a white nationalist and distancing himself from neo-nazi Richard Spencer.

“A lot of everything in this article is garbage,” Fuentes said. “It should be taken with a grain of salt.”

Shortly after, Fuentes switched to what he said would be the main focus of his speech: immigration. He noted that the speech he was about to give “was not designed to be given for an audience of left-wing and right-wing people. This speech was designed for college Republicans.”

“The number one issue of our time in

the United States and in the Western world is not socialism, it’s not economic systems,” Fuentes said. “The number one issue of our time, whether you think it’s good or bad, is mass migration. What defines the 21st century when we have globalization, when we have liberalization of markets is the massive movements of people.”

Main themes of Fuentes’ speech included connecting what he believed to be the link of people of color and Democratic beliefs. He also remarked “the number one issue of our time” as “mass migration,” which he argued went against the ideals of what America was built on.

Fuentes was regularly met with chants trying to disrupt his speech, including, “hey, hey, go home,” and making noises, while other protesters encouraged attendees to listen.

Af ter 45 minutes of speaking, Fuentes ended his livestream of the event as he and members of the crowd argued with one another.

“This speech is going nowhere,” an attendee said. “We realize that he is definitely a racist because he is ignorant and he is close minded to other people’s perspectives and opinions, so we’re just going to move on and take this as an example of what you should not be.”

As he walked away from the scene, Miranda said Fuentes “pointed out [his] yarmulke and started asking [him] questions about [his] jewishness.”

An Iowa State police officer intervened and escorted Fuentes into Parks Library where he waited for his car.

To close the night, Fuentes tweeted: “Thank you to Turning Point USA and ISU for a great event— hopefully the first of many campus speeches!”

Reporting contributed by Jake Webster, K. Rambo, Devyn Leeson, Katlyn Campbell, Whitney Mason and Alex Connor.

a text from her boyfriend, Marcus, say ing that she needed to call her dad because her dad was getting arrested and he wanted her to come home immediately.

“I was like, ‘ W hy is he going to jail?’ I thought that was weird,” she said. “I thought he was joking.”

Amber left her class and went to the foyer in Curtiss Hall to call her dad. When she was talking to him on the phone, Amber began to realize why he really wanted her to come home.

“A lightbulb popped up in my head and I said, ‘Where’s Mom?’ and he said, ‘I can’t tell you,’” she said. “He didn’t want to tell me about my mom over the phone.”

When Amber arrived at her family’s home later that day, she said Jennie’s body had already been taken and only a stain on the bed and the smell of tea and vomit remained in her room.

“What I think happened was that she was so out of it, and she was lying on her back, that she got sick and choked on her own vomit,” Amber said.

According to the Iowa Office of the State Medical E x a m i n e r, t h e c a u s e o f Jennie’s death was mixed drug intoxication or overdose.

A growing national problem In a Nov. 1 press release by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it stated that the number of deaths due to overdoses of prescription painkillers has tripled in the last decade.

Scott Kickbush, director of the Central Iowa Drug Task Force, said he has noticed an increase in prescription drug abuse cases in central Iowa.

“It’s really uncommon to do a search warrant drug bust and not have some sort of illegal prescription drug at the scene,” Kickbush said.

Kickbush said there are a variety of prescription drugs people are selling, buying and trading. Some of the most popular drugs are hydrocodone, codeine, Adderall and OxyContin.

“If there’s a market for it out on the street as far as people selling individual pills, we’re seeing it,” he said.

“I always thought, ‘Just call the cops,’ or ‘Do something cause she’s going to die if you don’t. And then she did die.”

“Where there’s a need, people are finding it.”

Kickbush said he has seen all sorts of different people who abuse prescription drugs.

He said some abusers are professional men and women or mothers and fathers.

“It hits all demographics,” Kickbush said. “There’s not one person you can put your finger on and say, ‘That person is a prescription drug abuser.’”

Prescription drug abuse is also hard to monitor because prescription medication is so abundant in society, Kickbush said.

“Honestly, we live in a society where, when people have aches or pains, they run to the doctor and want a pill,” he said. “And the doctor prescribes it to them and the pharmacist fills it.”

Gaining from the loss Amber is not one of the people running to the doctor for medicine, she said. She explained that she has a strong aversion to prescription medication ever since her mother’s death.

Now, she said she realizes how abundant prescription medication is in America and urges people to speak up if they believe someone they know has a prescription drug addiction.

Amber said she blames herself for not speaking up about her mother’s addiction.

“I always thought, ‘Just call the cops,’ or ‘Do something cause she’s going to die if you don’t,’” she said. “And then she did die.”

W hile Amber said she wishes her mom wouldn’t have been addicted to prescription medication, she said she believes her mother’s addiction made her a better person.

“I wish she hadn’t been on them, but I know if she weren’t, I wouldn’t be such a hard worker,” she said. “I wouldn’t be so dedicated to things.”

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