2017 Great Plans Journalism Awards

the 2017 great plains journalism awards

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Letter From the Tulsa Press Club President

T

he Great Plains Journalism Awards, like a lot of crazy schemes, started with a long, meandering conversation after work at the Tulsa Press Club. Part of the conversation involved colleagues who had moved away from Oklahoma to pursue bigger, better career opportunities.

We were happy for them. But indignant.

You shouldn’t have to go to the East Coast or the West Coast to do great journalism.

“Great work can be done right here in Fly-Over Territory,” we told ourselves. “Great work is being done here.”

And to prove it, we started Great Plains.

This book you’re holding right now was not cheap to produce.

It took many hours of work to put together and a significant investment from the Press Club to print.

It would have made a lot of financial sense to skip it and simply hand out plaques and certificates like other contests do.

But that would have missed the original point of having this contest in the first place.

We want to show off.

Because it’s not easy to get into this book. You have to beat out competition from eight surrounding states and pass muster with a prestigious panel of judges. And, in the end, only the most-talented, hardest-working journalists make it.

So take this book with you. Share it. Pass it around. We think people will be very impressed.

We certainly are.

Best,

Michael Overall 2017 President, Tulsa Press Club Staff Writer, Tulsa World

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 3

Meet the presEnters

Antony Mason He is CBS News’ senior national correspondent and the co-host of CBS This Morning: Saturday. In his 35 years as a TV journalist, Mason has reported from more than 30 countries and won nine Emmy Awards.

Hailey Branson-Potts

Mark Potts

Hailey Branson-Potts has been a reporter for the Los Angeles Times since 2011 and was part of the team that won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for its coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. She grew up in the small town of Perry, Okla., and graduated from OU.

A native of Enid, Mark Potts graduated from OU with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. He has created and edited video for DreamWorks, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony and BET. He currently is a video producer at the Los Angeles Times.

Meet the Judges • Dave Ammenheuser, sports director for Tennessee for the USA Today Network, based in Nashville • Emily Baucum, reporter, WOAI-TV News 4 in San Antonio • Kirk Bohls, sports columnist, Austin American-Statesman • Matt Calkins, sports columnist, The Seattle Times • Meredyth Censullo, reporter, WFLA-TV News Channel 8 in Tampa • Brian Cleveland, digital media producer, The Washington Post • Kevin Cullen, columnist, The Boston Globe • Denis Finley, executive editor, Burlington (Vermont) Free Press • Diana Fuentes, deputy metro editor, San Antonio News-Express • Aileen Gallagher, associate professor of journalism, Syracuse University • Steve Gleydura, editor, Cleveland Magazine • Katrice Hardy, executive editor, The Greenville (S.C.) News and Southeast

regional editor for the USA Today Network • Kevin Lerner, assistant professor of communication/journalism, Marist College • Cindy Loman, entertainment/community editor, The Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record • Herbert Lowe, professor and faculty adviser, Marquette University • Mindy Matthews, copy editor, The New York Times • Leila Merrill, digital media producer, Houston Chronicle • Jack Ohman, editorial cartoonist, The Sacramento Bee • Hailey Branson-Potts, staff writer, Los Angeles Times • Mark Potts, video editor, Los Angeles Times • Jennifer Peter, senior deputy managing editor for local news, The Boston Globe • Lisanne Renner, Culture Desk staff editor, The New York Times • Jessica Rinaldi, photographer, The Boston Globe

• Sarah Schweitzer, former staff writer and current freelancer, The Boston Globe • Susan Currie Sivek, associate professor of mass communication, Linfield College • Farah Stockman, writer, The New York Times • Michelle Everhart-Sullivan, digital news editor and innovation director, The Columbus Dispatch • Ron Tarver, photographer, The Philadelphia Inquirer • Lindsey Turner, creative director, Gannett Design Studio • Bill Wachsberger, design director, The Baltimore Sun • Karen Weintraub, health and medical contributing writer, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and The Washington Post • Eric Wieffering, deputy managing editor for enterprise and investigations, Minneapolis Star Tribune • Jon Wilner, college sports writer, San Jose Mercury News (Bay Area News Group)

Meet the emcee Jennifer Loren

Jennifer Loren is a 15-year veteran of the TV business; anchoring, writing and producing investigative stories for television news and now producing and hosting the magazine style show, “Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People.” Jennifer is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is thrilled to share her tribe’s stories with the world.

She is an eight-time Emmy nominee and has been awarded two Emmys; one as executive producer and host of “Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People,” which won best cultural documentary in 2016, and one for her coverage of politics and government in 2012.

4 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

With appreciation Great Plains Journalism Awards and Distinguished Lectureship committee Nicole Amend Kevin Armstrong Anne Brockman Matt Clayton Jason Collington Joann Frizell Tom Gilbert Lisa Johnson Kyle Margerum Kelly Nash Michael Overall Ashley Parrish Vanessa Pearson James Royal Brian Sittler Jerry Wofford Tulsa Press Club Foundation Dan Harrison Memorial Scholarship Fund

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Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 5

Table of Contents Great Plains Newspaper of the Year.................. 10 Great Plains Writer of the Year........................ 11 Great Plains Newspaper Photographer of the Year. 14 Great Plains Designer of the Year..................... 16 Great Plains Magazine of the Year.................... 17 Great Plains Magazine Writer of the Year............ 18 Great Plains Magazine Photographer of the Year... 21 Great Plains Magazine Photographer of the Year... 22 Great Plains Website of the Year...................... 23 News Package ............................................ 25 Project/Investigative Reporting ...................... 26 General News Reporting ............................... 27 Narrative Story/Series .................................. 28 Beat Reporting ........................................... 29 Feature Writing .......................................... 30 Business Reporting ...................................... 31 Business Feature ........................................ 32 Sports Reporting ......................................... 33 Sports Feature ........................................... 34 Sports Column ........................................... 35 Review .................................................... 36 Food ....................................................... 37 Entertainment Feature ................................. 38

Specialty Feature .......................................

Special Section ..........................................

News Page Design .......................................

Feature Page Design ....................................

Sports Page Design ......................................

Graphics/Illustration ...................................

Editorial Cartoon ........................................

Editorial Portfolio .......................................

Personal Column .........................................

Headline ..................................................

News Writing .............................................

Feature Writing ..........................................

Profile Writing ...........................................

Column Writing ..........................................

Page Design, Magazine..................................

Magazine Cover ..........................................

Specialty Photo ..........................................

Portrait Photography ...................................

General News Photography ............................

Spot News Photography ................................

News Photography, Multiple............................

Feature Photography, Single...........................

Feature Photography, Multiple.........................

6  /  Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 50 51 52 53 54 55 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Table of Contents Sports Action Photography .............................

Sports Feature Photography ...........................

Magazine Portrait .......................................

Magazine Specialty Photo ..............................

Magazine Photography, Multiple.......................

Magazine Photography, Feature.......................

Online General News ...................................

Online Project ...........................................

Online Feature ...........................................

Spot News Video .........................................

General News Video ....................................

Feature Video ............................................

Sports Video ..............................................

Multimedia Project Or Series ..........................

Best Website Page Design, Single Page...............

Best Website Page Design, Project....................

Best Overall Website Design ...........................

News Blog Writing .......................................

Entertainment/Specialty Blog .........................

Sports Blog ...............................................

Great Plains Student Photographer of the Year.....

65 66 67 68 69 70 72 73 74 75 75 75 75 76 76 76 77 78 79 80 83

Great Plains Student Photographer of the Year Finalist...................................... 84 Great Plains Student Photographer of the Year Finalist...................................... 85 Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year.... 86 Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year, Finalist...................................... 87 Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year, Finalist...................................... 88 Great Plains Student Designer of the Year........... 89 Great Plains Student Designer of the Year Finalist. 90 Great Plains Student Designer of the Year Finalist. 91 Great Plains Student Writer of the Year.............. 92 Great Plains Student Writer of the Year, Finalists.. 94 Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year........ 95 Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year, Finalist...................................... 96 Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year, Finalist...................................... 97 Great Plains Student Website of the Year............ 98 Great Plains Student Website of the Year Finalist.... 99

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org  /  7

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918-744-0553 8 / Read TrustOk.com the full stories| and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Best of T he Grea t plains

The 2016 Great Plains Journalism Awards

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org  /  9

Great Plains Newspaper of the Year Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Staff Judge’s comments: “Here’s a newspaper I would be happy to receive every day on my doorstep.

A great mix of exceptional local reporting and storytelling, excellent photography and photo use, beautiful design and an overall inviting personality make this newspaper accessible and expressive, and head and shoulders above the competition.

Fischer endorses Rubio Nebraska senator praises candidate’s vision. Page 5A

Super Bowl Six pages of coverage includes our 50-player all-time Super Team. Sports MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2016

FEBRUARY 7, 2016

•

•

METROPOLITAN EDITION

SUNRISE EDITION

THE NEW CUBA: DAY 2 OF THE SERIES You think it’s hard to start a small business? Try it in Havana. There, two young women have started the country’s first independent design store and gotten international attention. They have also felt the blunt force of the Cuban state. Above: Idania del Río, a talented Cuban designer who worked for years to open Clandestina.

Below: shop employee Israel Buergo helps del Rio’s co-owner, Leire Fernández, fold T-shirts.

THE DREAMERS To its owners, Clandestina is a dream. And at times, Clandestina is also a nightmare.

“This is a kind of fiction,” says the 34-year-old Idania. “And, hopefully, one day the fiction will come true.”

The two friends planned this space for years, originally spurred by governmental reforms that — at least in theory — allowed artists and designers to sell their wares.

But they quickly smacked into the reality of the Cuban state. Idania spent day after day in government offices, sitting on hard chairs in sparsely furnished waiting rooms.

No bureaucrat she saw could answer her questions about the proper licenses, or how to import cotton.

Wrong office, they said. They sent See Cuba: Page 4

Close calls with foreign jets conjure Cold War memories As tensions increase, more Chinese and Russian pilots are buzzing and ‘thumping’ U.S. recon planes

BY STEVE LIEWER WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Flying 30 miles off Russia’s Black Sea coast on Jan. 25, a Russian fighter buzzed an RC-135U Combat Sent surveillance plane carrying a crew from Offutt Air Force Base’s 55th Wing.

The SU-27 fighter flew within 20 feet of the U.S. jet, then banked sharply up and away, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which first reported the incident. The blowback from the afterburners shook up the crew of the RC-135.

It was at least the sixth close encounter involving 55th Wing aircraft and Russian or Chinese fighters since the start of 2014. Most

Obama seeks $1.8 billion to get ahead of Zika virus

INSIDE

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE

U.P. stock tempts investors Some money managers think the shares of the railroad are a bargain after their dive. Money

of them involved the wing’s two RC-135U Combat Sent aircraft, the job of which is to identify electronic land, naval and airborne radar signals from foreign militaries.

The incident prompted a nod of recognition from 55th Wing veterans who played similar catand-mouse games with Soviet MiGs frequently during the Cold War. Aircrews call it “thumping” — the aviator’s version of a baseball hurler’s brushback pitch. A fighter jet zooms up behind a lumbering reconnaissance craft, then blows past with afterburners blazing, pulling up and away just in front of the larger plane so its jet wash disrupts the airflow around it.

“When that stuff hits you, it kind of gets your attention,” said retired Col. Jim Thomas of Bellevue, a former RC-135 pilot who once commanded the Offutt-based 55th Operations Group.

“It’s meant to shake your airplane

Amtrak riders stuck An Omaha-bound train halts twice — for nine-plus hours total — within nine miles of its downtown stop. Midlands

Omaha forecast Tonight’s low: 18 Tuesday’s high: 27 Breezy Full weather report: Page 6B On Omaha.com: the latest updates

Index Advice ........................ 2&5E Classifieds.................5&6D Comics............................ 4E Movies ............................ 3E Obituaries....................... 3B Opinion ......................4&5B TV .................................... 6E

See Airplanes: Page 2

ON PAGE 6A

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is asking Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency funds to help fight the Zika virus, which is spreading wildly in the Americas and is suspected of causing a birth defect.

Announcing the funds request today, the White House said the money would be used to expand mosquito-control programs, speed work on a vaccine against the virus, develop diagnostic tests and improve support for low-income pregnant women.

Zika is spread mainly by mosquitoes. Most people who catch it experience mild or no symptoms.

But mounting evidence from Brazil suggests that in pregnant women the infection is linked to a birth defect called microcephaly, or babies with abnormally small heads and brain damage.

“What we now know is that there appears to be some significant risk for pregnant women and women who are thinking about having a baby,” Obama said in an interview aired on “CBS This Morning.”

$1.00

Ryan Soderlin PHOTOGRAPHER

HAVANA — There is a store in Old Havana where they sell shirts, bags and a vision for what Cuba could become.

Bright hearts are painted on the walls of this well-lit store, and soft cotton T-shirts printed with English phrases hang in neat rows. Squint a little and you could be in Brooklyn, or for that matter in Omaha’s Dundee.

But you only have to talk to co-owners Idania del Río and Leire Fernández for a moment to recognize that a subterranean struggle is happening in this store, a struggle that has nothing to do with T-shirts.

This is Cuba’s first privately owned design store in nearly six decades, since Fidel Castro took power and banned exactly this type of commerce.

30 PAGES

Matthew Hansen COLUMNIST

Genetically booby-trapped mosquitoes are being tested against Zika.

As spring approaches, the White House said, the U.S. must prepare to quickly address risk of virus transmission in the continental U.S. However, Obama said, “there shouldn’t be a panic on this.”

The request for emergency funds is separate from the regular budget that Obama will submit to Congress on Tuesday. The administration seeks the Zika money much faster than the regular budget process would allow and plans to brief congressional leaders on the plan Tuesday.

The Pan American Health Organization says 26 countries and territories in the Americas have recorded Zika transmissions. To date, there have been no cases of transmission by mosquitoes within the U.S., but a few dozen Americans have returned to the U.S. with Zika See Zika: Page 6

STILL PERFECT Nebraska wears down Purdue for its eighth straight victory and first 7-0 start since 2001. Postgame

DAY 1 OF THE SERIES Our view of Cuba is warped by the Cold War, distorted by a half-century-long embargo, blurred by the difficulty of traveling to Cuba and meeting regular Cubans on their own terms. Starting today, The World-Herald aims to present a clear-eyed picture of Cuba in 2016: the country’s rapid change, its upside-down economy, its frustrated young adults, its newfound freedoms and the hope and fear of the future. Above: The view of central Havana from the offices of Vistar, the country’s first

OCTOBER 23, 2016

independent online magazine. Below: Taxi driver Yoel Díaz leans against his 1950s Chrysler in Old Havana.

•

SUNRISE EDITION

GOODWILL OMAHA: AN INVESTIGATIVE SERIES Executive pay is high at Goodwill Omaha — higher than at other Omaha nonprofits, and higher than at most comparable Goodwills around the country.

THE NEW CUBA

Ryan Soderlin PHOTOGRAPHER

ican chest and yelling, “Clear!”

Duck into a doorway beside a kiosk selling cheap jewelry. Enter a dark, sweltering living room, where the ceilings are low and the air is choked with cigarette smoke.

The first sound in this living room is a driving guitar riff screaming from an old speaker. That electric guitar is oh-so-familiar: decadent, whiny, as 1980s American as McDonald’s apple pie.

Wait a second. Is that ...?

“You know where you are?

You’re in the jungle baby!” screams Axl Rose.

The Hustler shakes my hand as the Guns N’ Roses blares. He is 42, lean and wiry, sporting a black polo that exposes tattoos snaking down his See Cuba: Page 5

M AT T H A N E Y / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Matthew Hansen COLUMNIST

HAVANA — To find the heartbeat of the new Cuba, jump in a ’55 Chevy taxi painted electric orange and speed away from the tourist hotel.

Roar right past the government buildings and the weary bureaucrats ending another workday.

Breeze past the old revolutionary slogans, billboards and murals that proclaim in Spanish “Socialism or Death!” — except notice the colors fading on these slogans, as if not even the paint truly believes.

To find the heartbeat of a new Cuba, hop out onto a crowded street near the University of Havana, where the air crackles like live wire, where the humidity sticks like fog, where horns bleat and salsa music thumps, where life feels like a paramedic slapping paddles on an Amer-

NO CULTURE OF THRIFT

Charity pours store revenue into high executive pay, leaving less money to support its nonprofit mission

BY HENRY J. CORDES WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Goodwill Industries touts that simply by donating your old couch, ill-fitting jeans or other of life’s discards, you help the charity find jobs for people with disabilities or other barriers to work.

But when you donate to or buy from Goodwill’s thrift stores in Omaha, your efforts contribute more to something less charitable: some of the most staggering executive pay you’ll find in the nonprofit world.

Federal tax records show that Omaha’s Goodwill in 2014 paid CEO Frank McGree total compensation of $933,444.

INSIDE

MARCH 5 DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES

N. Korea shows defiance in long-range launch

Omaha forecast High: 41 Low: 26 Partly sunny and windy Full report: Page 12B On Omaha.com: Find the latest weather updates

The Kim Jong Un-led country says the launch was a satellite for scientific purposes, though others see it as a disguised missile test. Page 11A

FIND COUPON SAVINGS AND GREAT DEALS IN ADVERTISEMENTS INSIDE TODAY’S NEWSPAPER

NU’s Shields out of hospital, in concussion protocol The scary sight of the player being carted off the court overshadows Husker win.

Plus, details on Creighton win, UNO loss. Sports

Kids Camp rocks with opportunities for children Find the perfect adventure for your child, with options by age and interest. Special Section

We explore why the diversity is so stark between movie and music awards. Living

BY ROBYNN TYSVER MORTON

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS

Around and About.............. 3E Celebrations....................... 8E OWHJobs.com..............5-10D Obituaries..................... 8&9B Opinion .................... 10&11B Puzzles................................ 7E TV ......................................10E 136 PAGES

Like 2008, the Cornhusker State now looks to be in play, and both hopefuls plan to compete hard to win it AND JOSEPH

Index Show nominees different as black and white

Sanders’ strong showing in Iowa is a game-changer in Nebraska

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The political stars are aligning in Nebraska for Democrats to catch a little caucus madness.

Bernie Sanders’ virtual tie with Hillary Clinton in Iowa last week means the Democratic nomination battle is looking more like a marathon than a sprint.

That means Nebraska’s Democratic caucuses, set for March 5, are likely to matter as much as they did in 2008, when nearly

40,000 Democrats swamped caucus sites across the state, closing down Highway 370 in Sarpy County and overflowing gyms in Omaha.

It means potential visits from high-profile politicians. In addition, Sanders and Clinton are planning to open campaign offices in Nebraska, starting next week when Clinton opens offices in Lincoln and Omaha.

Finally, it means some anxious times ahead for Democratic officials in Nebraska, who are hoping to avoid the chaos of the 2008 Nebraska caucuses — as well as the troubles that surfaced last week in Iowa, where Clinton eked out a razor-thin victory amid questions raised by the Sanders campaign about the caucuses process.

“I am both excited and a little panicked,” said Maureen Monahan, See Democrats: Page 2

Numerous Goodwill Omaha executives, not just its CEO, receive generous pay compared with other nonprofits. 6A On top of his $250,000 base salary that year, he received a $95,000 incentive bonus, $52,000 in deferred retirement pay he’ll collect later, and a special retention bonus of $519,000. He even was given a country club membership.

And McGree is far from the only executive at the Omaha nonprofit taking home enviable pay. Tax records show Omaha’s Goodwill that year paid salaries of $100,000 or more to 13 of its executives See Goodwill: Page 5

Goodwill’s money-making repackaging deal may have violated federal ‘Made in America’ law In the past decade, Goodwill Omaha has made an undisclosed amount of money performing a manufacturing magic trick — a sleight of hand that long struck some employees as wrong and may have broken federal law.

The Omaha nonprofit has for years routinely received deliveries from a metro-area beauty supply company named Prestige Products: dozens of giant boxes packed with hair rollers made at a factory in China.

Omahans in several Goodwill programs,

Matthew Hansen

COLUMNIST

Through everything, family has stayed steady with faith

A look at a Clinton America versus a Trump America

Green Plains is loading up on more than just ethanol

Get a side of savings with your Sunday news

The Ostrys — a singing family of 13 — had to adjust when its patriarch lost his sight. Living

Big government and tax hikes for the rich or lower taxes and fewer immigrants. Page 11A

Recent acquisitions are expected to smooth the wild swings in earnings. Money

World-Herald readers are treated to coupon savings and special ad deals, along with news.

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including teenagers with mental and physical disabilities, take the Chinese rollers out of these boxes and repack them into smaller plastic bags to ready them for sale. These bags have a brand name, Nylrem, on the front and an eyebrow-raising three-word phrase on the back: “Made in America.”

Voila! That’s how a Chinese-made hair roller “becomes” an American-made product, sold in Omaha by a retail chain and on the Internet, with a knowing assist from Goodwill Omaha, where at least one top executive has known about the practice for more than five years. Your tax dollars See Hansen: Page 4

Around and About...........3E Books ..............................7E Celebrations....................6E Classifieds...............10-14D Jobs.............................5-9D

Details: 8B

Movies.............................4E Obituaries........................5B Opinion.........................6-7B Puzzles ............................ 5E TV..................................... 8E

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PRESIDENTIAL ROAD SO FAR The election is nine months away, Iowa is over, and neither party has rallied around a front-runner.

Page 2A

REPUBLICAN DEBATE Several candidates call for a return to anti-terrorism tactics, like waterboarding and worse.

Page 3A

10 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: Staff Publication: Tulsa World By: Staff

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Year to date, there has been $22,554 worth of valuable coupons in your Sunday paper.

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THE OKLAHOMAN

Judge’s comments: This series about Daniel Holtzclaw is remarkable. It is deeply reported, and the writing truly shines. I couldn’t wait to get to the next piece. The writer does an excellent job of not only building suspense but also of showing the complexities of this case for the lead detective, the department as a whole and the victims. This is one I had to discuss with others after reading it.

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POVERTY, PERFORMANCE LINKED Oklahoma IN ANALYSIS City

Police Detective Kim Davis groans as she wakes to her cellphone ringing.

After more than 27 years as a cop, she’s grown used to such middle-of-thenight summonses. But tonight, filling in for her partner, she’d hoped to avoid catching any calls.

She grabs her phone off the bedside table and slips into the kitchen trying not to wake her husband, Cecil, a fellow

BY BEN FELDER who’d just gotten home from his officer, Staff Writer bfelder@oklahoman.com shift about an hour before.

Oklahoma’s letter grade sys-tells Davis a woman A lieutenant tem for ranking the academic performance of public schools is claiming that isshe’s been sexually asalso an effective way for measuring school poverty.by a police officer. saulted Designed as a method to evaluate school success,49, the scribbles fiveDavis, a few details year-old system also highlights the income that exists inshe the keeps on the kitchen on a gap notepad state’s schools. counter for calls like this. She tells After combiningjust the poverty rate — based on federal free and thelunch lieutenant she’ll meet the victim at reduced standards — and the letter grade for every public Southwest Medical Center where the school in the state, The Oklahoman found a stark difference in woman can be examined. poverty levels between schools with high grades and low grades.

Davis takes a quick shower to wake The average poverty rate for an A school in the state is 45 perup then dresses cent, based on analysis of thein typical summer work 2015 letter grade report from the attire — jeans, tennis shoes and a tan Oklahoma Department of Education. polo shirt with an Oklahoma City Police As you move down the grading Sex Crimes unit logo.

SEE GRADES, PAGE 2A She takes a quick look in the mirror and is thankful PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONonce again for her short hairstyle that only needs a quick brush to look presentable. She notices the gray is peeking through the brown and makes a mental note that she needs to get it colored again soon. She throws on

Schools’ grades highlight income divide

A 4-PART SPECIAL REPORT

CHAPTER ONE: TWO CLUES 4 a.m. Wednesday, June 18, 2014 klahoma City Police Detective Kim Davis groans as she wakes to her cellphone ringing.

After more than 27 years as a cop, she’s grown used to such middle-of-the-night summonses. But tonight, filling in for her partner, she’d hoped to avoid catching any calls.

She grabs her phone off the bedside table and slips into the kitchen trying not to wake her husband, Matt, a fellow officer, who’d just gotten home from his shift about an hour before.

A lieutenant tells Davis a woman is claiming that she’s been sexually assaulted by a police officer.

Davis, 49, scribbles a few details on a notepad she keeps on the kitchen counter just for calls like this. She tells the lieutenant she’ll meet the victim at Integris Southwest Medical Center where the woman can be examined.

Davis takes a quick shower to wake up then dresses in typical summer work attire — jeans, tennis shoes and a tan polo shirt with an Oklahoma City Police Sex Crimes unit logo.

She takes a quick look in the mirror and is thankful once again for her short hairstyle that only needs a quick brush to look presentable. She notices the gray is peeking through the brown and SEE HOLTZCLAW, PAGE 4A

Go Code

CQJP

Volume 125, 134 Six sections Copyright 2016 The Oklahoma Publishing Co., Oklahoma City All rights reserved

Enter the Go Code at left online at Oklahoman.com for multimedia related to this special report.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Business

1C

CHAPTER ONE Two Clues Today

CHAPTER TWO

A Predator in the Ranks Monday

CHAPTER THREE

In the Box Tuesday

CHAPTER FOUR The Reckoning Wednesday

WEATHER

TODAY’S PRAYER

H: 60

the day all will hear and accept Your word; may Your spirit fill all our hearts. Amen.

In Oklahoma, race could be a contest for least-disliked candidate

FINALISTS Publication: Lincoln It isn’t uncommon for AmerJournal Star ican presidential elections to be described as popularity contests.

This year, though, the presBy: Peter Salter idential race in Oklahoma is shaping up to be a contest to Publication: Oklahoma Watch decide which candidates voters dislike the least.

By: Clifton Adcock Real estate mogul Donald Trump is holding a 20-point lead in Oklahoma over former SecPublication: Omaha retary of State Hillary Clinton, according to a poll of Oklahoma World-Herald voters released Thursday. But when asked how they felt about By:of Erin Grace the candidates, nearly a quarter

BY SILAS ALLEN

Staff Writer sallen@oklahoman.com

those polled said they had somewhat or strongly unfavorable views of both Trump and Clinton.

The poll was conducted May 2-4 by Oklahoma City-based polling firm Cole Hargrave Snodgrass and Associates.

During the poll, respondents

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a blue windbreaker, slips the lanyard holding her police badge around her neck and clips the holster carrying her 9 mm Smith and Wesson to her belt.

Before she heads out the door, she wakes Cecil with a hand on his shoulder to let him know she’s leaving, a routine they’ve developed during their 17-year marriage. As a member of the department’s tactical team, he’s had plenty of his own late-night call outs.

He mumbles an OK, tells her to be careful and that he loves her.

From experience, Davis knows this will probably come to nothing. Almost once a month it seems the department gets a complaint like this against an officer, almost always involving a person upset over getting arrested.

Davis knows that most of the allegations prove false. Almost always, it’s an angry suspect looking to get out of jail or get back at what they perceive as an overly aggressive cop.

Of the dozen or so cases she’d

investigated over the years, none had resulted in charges being filed.

She knows the truth typically works itself out pretty quickly, usually as soon as she interviews the alleged victim.

Typically, liars can’t keep their story straight.

Davis arrives at the hospital about 5 a.m. There, she’s met by another lieutenant who tells Davis that the victim is a 57-year-old black woman who claims she was stopped by a police officer about three hours earlier on NE 50 Street near Lincoln Boulevard in northeast Oklahoma City.

Little older than normal, Davis thinks.

What was she arrested for? Davis asks.

She wasn’t, the lieutenant responds.

Did she get a ticket or anything?

Davis asks.

Nope, comes the reply.

She wasn’t getting out of a ticket.

She wasn’t getting out of an arrest. No

obvious motive.

Strange, Davis thinks.

Down a hallway, Davis knocks before entering a small examination room reserved for sexual assault victims.

The woman is alone, sitting up in a hospital bed quietly crying. She’s wearing jeans, a white, collarless blouse and tennis shoes. The woman wipes her eyes and straightens up.

To Davis, she looks like somebody’s grandmother.

Davis introduces herself, tells the woman she’s a sex crimes detective, that she’ll be investigating her claims and that she wants to hear her story.

Between sobs, the woman, Jannie Ligons, recounts her night.

She tells Davis how she’d been playing cards and dominoes at a friend’s house and was on her way home when she saw a police car pull up next to her red Pontiac Grand Am then fall back and pull in behind her. When the officer flashed his emergency lights,

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Ligons said she quickly pulled over.

Ligons tells Davis she’d smoked a little marijuana earlier that night but hadn’t been drinking.

Ligons details how the officer told her she’d been swerving and ordered her out of her car. She said he’d asked her to walk back to his car, told her she looked like she’d been drinking and asked whether she had any alcohol in the car. He told her he’d take her to jail if she lied. She told him she didn’t.

He patted her down, ordered her to sit in his backseat and searched her car, she tells Davis.

Ligons tells Davis the assault began a few minutes later when the officer returned to his patrol car. First, Ligons says, he ordered her to lift her shirt and bra then shined a flashlight on her exposed breasts. Next, he ordered her to lower her jeans. At first, she says, she thought he was kidding. Then, fear set in.

Through tears, Ligons tells Davis she begged the officer, saying, “You’re not supposed to do this.”

Eventually, he forced her to perform oral sex, she says, at one point telling her to hurry up, that he’d just gotten off work and was tired.

She tells Davis how she spent much of the assault staring at the officer’s holstered sidearm and avoiding looking at his name badge. She says she feared for her life. No way she thought an officer would be that bold and let his victim live to talk, she tells Davis. She’d even asked the officer at one point if he was going to kill her, Ligons says.

She describes her attacker as white, between 35 and 45 years old, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9 inches tall, with a thick build and blond hair.

Right away, Davis remembers a similar case from a few weeks before where a woman claimed she’d been assaulted by a muscular officer. Another detective in the sex crimes unit, Rocky Gregory, had investigated the allegation, but Davis wasn’t sure what had come of it. She makes a mental note to follow up with Gregory when she gets to the office.

Davis knows she needs to keep an open mind. Look for physical evidence.

Determine indisputable facts. Build a solid case. She’s a long way from proving anything, but right away she senses

this incident is different from her previous cases involving officers accused of sexual misconduct. The victim doesn’t appear drunk or high. She’s not combative. She clearly doesn’t look like a prostitute or serious drug abuser, often the type of women who file complaints against officers. Instead, she’s a parttime day care worker and the mother of four grown children.

The woman also appears to be in shock.

Davis knows that’s not unusual for a rape victim, but it is for someone making a bogus charge.

And, Davis thinks, this woman looks scared to death, still trembling hours after the attack. Davis believes this woman when she says she thought she was going to die.

It’s just a feeling Davis has, but this time, this time she thinks the woman might be telling the truth.

Davis explains to Ligons how the investigation will work, that she’ll need to search her Grand Am and talk to the daughter who’d brought her to the hospital.

Davis Tells Ligons she’ll call when she knows something. She promises the only thing she can about the case — to do her best.

Davis leaves the hospital around 5:30 a.m. and heads north to meet up with her lieutenant, Tim Muzny, who already is following a possible lead.

Often, the first step in a police investigation is to see whether the crime may have been caught on camera. Detectives know video evidence often is golden in court. Juries believe that pictures don’t lie.

Sure enough, a police officer investigating the incident had noticed that a building just north of the scene of the alleged attack at NE 50 and Lincoln had several security cameras.

The security guard at the Old Surety Life building, an off-duty Oklahoma City police sergeant, had been happy to cooperate.

Sitting in the guard’s office, Lt. Muzny skims through footage recorded around the time of the alleged attack and finds what he’s looking for.

At one point, as the video rolls, a police car can be seen at the top edge of the frame with its emergency lights flashing. A time stamp reads 2:02 a.m.

The black-and-white video is grainy, taken from several hundred feet away from a camera mounted three stories up and hard to make out with the emergency lights washing out the image.

The police car appears to be all black but the video quality is too poor to detect any movement, let alone make out any faces. The stop lasts about 15 minutes.

Detectives will send the video to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to see if it can be enhanced. But if nothing else, they know a traffic stop took place at the time and place the victim alleged. It’s a good piece of evidence.

After meeting up with Muzny, Davis and another officer spend the next several hours visiting more than a half-dozen other businesses in the area looking for more video they hope will help them figure out which direction the officer might have been coming from before the alleged assault and which way he went after.

Driving back to headquarters later that morning, Davis follows up on her second solid lead. She knows that all of Oklahoma City’s patrol cars are equipped with a system that allows the department to track their movement.

Davis calls Lt. Muzny, and asks him to search the vehicle logs to determine which officer might have been in the area at the time of the alleged assault.

From the description Ligons provided, that the car was solid black with the word “Police” written on it in big white letters, Davis believes the officer might have been driving one of the department’s newer all-black Ford Interceptor patrol cars. Davis knows only a few officers drive them.

Davis is told that based on vehicle locators, nobody was in the area at that time.

But there is something. One Springlake Division officer who had been patrolling the northeast part of the city earlier that night had turned his computer system off shortly before his shift ended at 2 a.m., a violation of department policy.

Who, she asks?

Officer Daniel Holtzclaw.

The name means nothing to Davis.

What kind of a car was he driving, she asks?

One of the new ones.

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Great Plains Newspaper Photographer of the Year Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Laurie Skrivan

Publication: The Daily Republic By: Matt Gade

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Ryan Soderlin

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Publication: Tulsa World By: Ian Maule

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Great Plains Designer of the Year Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Tim Parks 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 8A

PREGAME SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2016

• SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 2016

SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 2016

• 9A

NORTH OMAHA

MAPPING THE GUNFIRE

Two-thirds of all gun crimes reported in Omaha occurred east of 72nd Street and north of a line made up of Cuming, the Northwest Radial and Military Avenue. The area represents 16 percent of the city’s population. The size of the 10-block areas used for this analysis, though, underplays some of the variations in that part of the city. Often, areas away from busy streets were untouched by gun crime. Several residential areas made up of four or ďŹ ve blocks reported no gun activity over the period analyzed. Another good sign: Last year the northeast precinct reported 55 gun assaults, its lowest total since 2010.

Omaha police deďŹ ne “shootingsâ€? as gun assaults — those cases when a person is struck by a bullet. From 2010 through 2014, police reported 992 such incidents.

But that number represents a fraction of the city’s total gun crimes. During that ďŹ ve-year span, there were 3,318 conďŹ rmed gun crimes, a number that includes reports of vandalism, homicide and assault. The broader deďŹ nition encapsulates any time a gun was ďŹ red during the commission of a crime. The World-Herald requested data on those reports to ďŹ nd out where and when shootings happen across the city. The ďŹ ndings are laid out in the maps and charts below. To put the

C 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 SECTION x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

entries on a map, the addresses in police reports were geocoded using several Web services. The newspaper then superimposed 2,900 10-block hexagons on the Cunningham Lake

city and counted up the number of crimes that fell within each 10-block area. The result provides a long-term look at gun crime trends within the city.

BEDFORD PLACE

A

The south end of the Bedford Place neighborhood saw more gun crimes during the period analyzed than any other locale in Omaha. But residents, businesses and police worked together to put pressure on speciďŹ c places where shooters gathered. In 2015, no gun crimes were reported — a dramatic turnaround.

CONFIRMED SHOOTINGS FROM 2010-2014 Forest Lawn Cemetery

0

1

2-10

11-25

26-34

35+

Miller Park Standing Bear Lake

Sore nse n Park way

Fort St.

Benson Park Tranquility Park

Eppley Airfield

Ames Ave.

680

A Adams Park

108th St.

Blondo St.

75

52nd St.

30th St.

120th St.

Maple St.

B

Lawrence Youngman Lake

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

W. Dodge Rd. Memorial Park

90th St.

480

Lauritzen Gardens

80

Zorinsky Lake 75

L St.

Hitchcock Park

Q St.

Mount Vernon Gardens

Horsemen’s Park

SOUTH OMAHA More than 500 shootings took place south of Dodge and east of 45th Street.

In 2010 the most dangerous few blocks in Omaha were those near 26th and F, which reported 18 shootings across four incidents. Things have quieted down.

Since then, the area has reported four.

80

Seymour Smith Park

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

More than two-thirds of gun crimes occurred between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Not all crimes included information about the time an event occurred.

GUN CRIMES BY HOUR FROM 2010-2014

During the winter months, shootings tend to decrease. The total number of shootings also has decreased over the ďŹ ve-year period, with the most dramatic decline occurring after ShotSpotter sensors were installed in late 2011.

GUN CRIMES BY MONTH AND YEAR

113 93

236 231

84

81

193

40

2

3

87

4

5

26

22

23

30

6

7

8

9

43

46

10

11

69

74

12

1

101

61

118 119

40

65 58

58

65 56

54

56

56

64

63

67

70

66

64

70

65

61

56

44

41

36

47 39

45

42

31

74

43

37

2

3

4

5

6

p.m.

7

8

9

10

11

J

F

M

A

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

J

F

M

2010: 677 total

A

M

28

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

J

F

M

A

2011: 706 total

29 20

M

60

J

J

A

S

O

N

73 66 53

47

43

20

a.m.

85

79

74 167 171 163

96

94

1

Mandan Park

285

247

12

One of the city’s ďŹ rst experiments with inďŹ ll housing continues to pay dividends. When the Logan Fontenelle housing complex was demolished in the late 1980s, the City of Omaha built 38 homes on a cul-desac, in much the same style as west Omaha housing developments of the time.

At ďŹ rst the city subsidized mortgages, and today most of the homes are owneroccupied. It’s also devoid of gun crime — a crime-free oasis at the gateway to north Omaha.

75

Hanscom Park

W. Center Rd.

Walnut Grove Park

298

CONESTOGA PLACE

B

480

Field Club of Omaha

Happy Hollow Club

13th St.

72nd St.

132nd St.

144th St.

168th St.

180th St.

192nd St.

WEST OMAHA West Omaha saw relatively few gun incidents — less than 10 percent of all reported gun crimes occurred west of 90th Street. Still, there were hot spots.

In the blocks surrounding 117th and Fort, near the Oakwood Trails apartment complex, three crimes involving eight gunshots were reported. All involved shots at or into vehicles. The most recent occurred in 2013.

Elmwood Park 42nd St.

204th St.

Dodge St.

Pacific St.

D

J

F

M

A

M

2012: 616 total

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

59

58

57

30

31

J

F

62

58

49

49

25

48

37

M

A

2013: 672 total

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2016

24 RACES, 22 MEDALS ps/ / Phelps/ eam m U.S. relay team

expression after getting third in 2004 in the 200 free. Every little tiny thing.â€? To most swimming fans, Phelps’ races are harder to distinguish from one another. Which race produced his ďŹ rst gold medal? In what two

• 15K

Phelps world record

The man who swims like a ďŹ sh has the memory of an elephant. Michael Phelps never forgets. But until 2015, when he moved from Baltimore to Arizona to train with coach Bob Bowman, the most decorated Olympian of all time had never looked at all his medals together. “I could remember back to every single thought I had on the medal stand, after the race, every single one of them,â€? Phelps said in March. “I could remember my facial

D

2014: 647 total

Gold medal winner Silver medal winner Bronze medal winner

mers rs Other swimmers

Phelps Olympic record

events has Phelps won three golds? Which relay featured Jason Lezak’s heroic anchor leg? What’s more amazing than seeing Phelps’ 22 medals in one place? Knowing he isn’t done. — Dirk Chatelain

2000 SYDNEY OLYMPICS 200-meter buttery

TOP THREE

COUNTRY

TIME

USA UKR AUS

1:55.35 1:55.76 1:56.17

USA USA HUN

4:08.26 4:11.81 4:12.15

Tom Malchow Denys Sylant’yev Justin Norris

At age 15, Phelps became the youngest U.S. Olympic male swimmer since Ralph Flanagan made it to the 1932 Los Angeles Games at age 13. Phelps set his personal-best time in the ďŹ nals, which would have earned him silver or gold at every previous Olympics.

6

5

4

3

2

1

P H E L P S’ FINISH 5th 1:56.50

Seconds behind

2004 ATHENS OLYMPICS 400-meter individual medley

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

4x100-meter freestyle relay

200-meter freestyle

200-meter buttery

4x200-meter freestyle relay

200-meter individual medley

100-meter buttery

4x100-meter medley relay

Phelps came to Athens with a chance at tying or beating Mark Spitz’ record of seven gold medals in one Olympics. In his ďŹ rst event, Phelps, now 19, won his ďŹ rst gold in world-record time. â€?It’s an honor winning any Olympic gold,â€? he said. “I am already successful.â€?

Michael Phelps Erik Vendt Laszlo Cseh

The South Africans set a world record to win their ďŹ rst-ever swimming medal, with one swimmer exing both arms on the starting block. It was only the second time the U.S. hadn’t taken gold in this event, and Ian Crocker’s slow lead-off time put the U.S. behind early.

South Africa The Netherlands United States

It was dubbed the “Race of the Century,â€? with four of the fastest swimmers in Olympic history. Phelps was in third for most of the race. “How can I be disappointed?â€? he said. “I swam in a ďŹ eld with the two fastest 200 freestylers of all time, and I was right there with them.â€?

Ian Thorpe Pieter van den Hoogenband Michael Phelps

AUS NED USA

Michael Phelps Takashi Yamamoto Stephen Parry

USA JPN GBR

1:54.04 1:54.56 1:55.52

Michael Phelps Ryan Lochte George Bovell

USA USA TRI

1:57.14 1:58.78 1:58.80

Crocker started quickly and had a half body-length lead on Phelps with 25 meters to go. But then Phelps, whose coach estimated he’d swum 70,000 meters in the past eight days, somehow caught up to Crocker and touched the wall 0.04 seconds faster.

Michael Phelps Ian Crocker Andriy Serdinov

USA USA UKR

Phelps earned the right to swim the buttery leg, but let Crocker have the honor. Crocker swam the second-fastest buttery relay leg in history, and Phelps, who led cheers and waved an American ag during the ďŹ nals, had his sixth gold (earned by competing in the semiďŹ nals).

United States Germany Japan

With two bronze ďŹ nishes, Phelps couldn’t match Spitz’s mark, but he could still become the ďŹ rst swimmer to win eight total medals. Phelps held off a late run by Takashi Yamamoto, and ďŹ nished only 0.11 of a second under the world record he set at the 2003 world championships.

4x100-meter freestyle relay

7:07.33 7:07.46 7:11.83

United States Australia Italy

Phelps swam the lead-off leg only an hour after the 200 buttery ďŹ nals, and the U.S. had a big lead before Ian Thorpe closed on Klete Keller. “It was probably the most exciting race I’ve ever been part of,â€? Phelps said. “(Klete) held off the greatest 200 freestyler in history.â€?

6

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

1:44.71 1:45.23 1:45.32

Phelps shaved 1.38 seconds off his own world record time to take the gold. Ryan Lochte made a late push to take the silver. It was Phelps’ third individual gold. Spitz was the only other U.S. swimmer to win more than two individual races at a single Games.

5

4

3

2

1

2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS 400-meter individual medley

3:13.17 3:14.36 3:14.62

51.25 51.29 51.36 3:30.68 3:33.62 3:35.22

Seconds behind

Michael Phelps Laszlo Cseh Ryan Lochte

Shortly after shattering the world record he had set earlier that year by 1.41 seconds, Phelps dropped a bombshell. “I would like to not swim that anymore,� he said. “It’s one of the hardest races, and I’d like to try other events.� Phelps would swim the 400 IM again in 2012.

USA HUN USA

4:03.84 4:06.16 4:08.09 3:08.24 3:08.32 3:09.91

United States France Australia

Swimming the anchor leg, Jason Lezak trailed France’s Alain Bernard by half a body length with 25 meters left. After a photo ďŹ nish, the replay showed Lezak had beaten Bernard by 0.08 of a second. “He had a perfect ďŹ nish,â€? said Phelps, whose shot at eight golds remained alive.

200-meter freestyle

Phelps entered the pantheon of Olympic greats with his ninth gold medal. His third gold — and third world record — in three days tied him with Spitz, U.S. track star Carl Lewis, Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina for most career golds.

Michael Phelps Park Tae-hwan Peter Vanderkaay

USA KOR USA

1:42.96 1:44.85 1:45.14

200-meter buttery

Phelps won his signature event, but not without a struggle. After his dive, his goggles had ďŹ lled with water, and with 75 meters left he was swimming blind. “I was purely going by stroke count. And I couldn’t take my goggles off because they were underneath two swim caps.â€?

Michael Phelps Laszlo Cseh Takeshi Matsuda

USA HUN JPN

1:52.03 1:52.70 1:52.97

An hour after his goggle malfunction, Phelps chose to swim the ďŹ rst leg. By the time Peter Vanderkaay swam the anchor, the U.S. had a ďŹ ve-body-length lead, lopping 4.68 seconds off the world record and making Phelps the most decorated Olympian of all time.

United States Russia Australia

4x200-meter freestyle relay

200-meter individual medley

100-meter buttery

4x100-meter medley relay

6:58.56 7:03.70 7:04.98

Phelps dominated from the start and powered away, setting another world record. He collected his sixth gold medal and stuffed it in his warmup jacket. He didn’t have time to savor the win as he rushed off to swim the 100 buttery prelims. History awaited in the next two races.

Michael Phelps Laszlo Cseh Ryan Lochte

USA HUN USA

Trailing Serbia’s Milorad Cavic near the end, Phelps had a decision to make: glide to the wall or throw his arms forward one last time. He chopped the wall. Still, he thought he lost — until he saw the “1� by his name on the scoreboard. He’d won by one-hundredth of a second, tying Spitz’s record.

Michael Phelps Milorad Cavic Andrew Lauterstein

USA SRB AUS

50.58 50.59 51.12

The U.S. was in third when Phelps hit the water for the third leg, but he passed the lead to Lezak, who brought home a world record. Phelps thrust both index ďŹ ngers in the air, pumped his right arm and let out a scream. Eight events. Eight golds. He was the greatest Olympian of all-time.

United States Australia Japan

USA BRA JPN

4:05.18 4:08.56 4:08.94

RSA USA JPN

1:52.96 1:53.01 1:53.21

6

5

4

3

2

1

1:54.23 1:56.52 1:56.53

3:29.34 3:30.04 3:31.18

Seconds behind

2012 LONDON OLYMPICS 400-meter individual medley

4x100-meter freestyle relay

200-meter buttery

4x200-meter freestyle relay

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

200-meter individual medley

100-meter buttery

4x100-meter medley relay

Ryan Lochte Thiago Pereira Kosuke Hagino

He crushed the ďŹ eld, irted with a world record for about 350 meters and won the ďŹ rst gold medal for the U.S. It sounded like a Phelps race, but it was Lochte who won. It was the ďŹ rst time Phelps had failed to medal since 2000. “Just a crappy race,â€? Phelps said after ďŹ nishing fourth.

Lochte went from hero to goat as France’s Yannick Agnel jetted past him over the ďŹ nal 50 meters of the anchor leg. The U.S. had led by 0.76 of a second after Phelps ďŹ nished the second leg of the race. “At least I’m in a medal today,’’ Phelps said after winning his ďŹ rst silver.

France United States Russia

Phelps, trying to become the ďŹ rst male swimmer to win the same individual event at three Olympics, led all the way but misjudged his ďŹ nal stroke, allowing le Clos to touch the wall ďŹ rst. Phelps threw his goggles into the water and later struggled to force a smile at the medal ceremony.

Chad le Clos Michael Phelps Takeshi Matsuda

The ďŹ rst three U.S. swimmers handed off a four-second lead to Phelps, who was extra cautious with the exchange, knowing the only way he could ruin this was to get disqualiďŹ ed. He ďŹ nally had gold in London, and his 19th overall medal broke the record set by gymnast Latynina.

United States France China

This time, Phelps’ attempt to became the ďŹ rst male swimmer to win the same individual event at three Olympics came to fruition, his dominating buttery leg setting the tone. When Phelps stepped on the medal podium, he bit his lip and seemed to be struggling to hold back tears.

In what we thought would be the last individual race of his career, Phelps was next to last at the turn, but he surged from the back of the ďŹ eld in the ďŹ nal 50 meters to claim gold. After becoming the ďŹ rst to three-peat in an event in the 200 IM, he had done it again.

Michael Phelps Ryan Lochte Laszlo Cseh

USA USA HUN

Michael Phelps Chad le Clos Evgeny Korotyshkin

USA RSA RUS

Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Swimming. Lane illustrations are not to scale.

6

5

4

3

2

1

1:54.27 1:54.90 1:56.22 51.21 51.44 51.44 3:29.35 3:31.26 3:31.58

United States Japan Australia

Reclaiming the lead for the U.S. with his trademark buttery stroke, the one seen in his Olympic debut as a 15-year-old in Sydney, Phelps ďŹ nished the London Games with more medals than any other swimmer. “I’m done, that was my last race and this is my last Olympics.â€?

4th 4:09.28

3:09.93 3:10.38 3:11.41

6:59.70 7:02.77 7:06.30

Seconds behind

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y M AT T H A N E Y / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

L

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

WIDE

In NU’s last four losses to Wisconsin, the Blackshirts have given up a ghastly 50 points a game: 70-31 (2012)

59-24 (2014)

WALKING DREAD With a year-old regime and renewed energy, Huskers looking to bury Wisconsin skeletons in their closet and stay undefeated

By Sam mcKewon

BY STEVE JORDON WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

23-21 (2015)

• WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN — Snow dancing on sound waves, a scene shook to its core by rap music and fans jumping — not just for joy, but the demise of an opponent in the throes of a mas-

2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10 2p8 x 8p10

WARREN (AND CHARLIE, TOO)

NEBRASKA AT WISCONSIN 6 p.m. Saturday, Camp Randall Stadium, Madison, Wisconsin ESPN; 92.3 FM, 590 AM

MORE INSIDE Husker fans should keep an eye on Northwestern, a dark horse in the West Division race, Lee Barfknecht writes. 2C

sive, program-wide panic attack. • No. 7 Nebraska has new coaches, new schemes and a new vibe — the first 7-0 start in 15 years. Now it’s time to address an old pain, to right several wrongs that cut so deeply that NU can’t forge a full-bodied Big Ten identity without addressing these ghosts of Camp Randall Stadium, where the Huskers lost

MORE ONLINE Track live updates from the game, find stories, live video of the postgame press conference and more.

Omaha.com/gameday

48-17 in 2011 and, more notably, 59-24 in 2014, a loss of infamy as they gave up 408 rushing yards to a single man, Melvin Gordon, in three quarters.

//

See Huskers: Page 11

WORLD

M AT T H A N E Y / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

48-17 (2011)

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y M AT T H A N E Y THE WORLD-HERALD

Riley relishes opportunities, and a huge one is knocking There’s no truth to the rumor that Mike Riley had his staff take a photo in front of a giant “70� this week. No basis of fact, either, to the notion Tom that Riley had copies of Shatel the Top 25 polls sent to family members.

COLUMNIST But you can imagine the Nebraska coach might have had a giggle or a “how about that� in a private moment.

Why not? Riley’s Nebraska Adventure has reached rarefied air for the See Shatel: Page 11

debit

16  /  Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

ast year Kevin Anderson spent about $2,000 to go to the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders meeting in Omaha. On the way into the arena, he got squished into a turnstile by impatient people behind him. His wife, Mary, fell down. “It wasn’t pretty,� the retired dentist said.

Neither Anderson was injured, and overall he enjoyed the experience, his 26th visit to Omaha for the shareholders meeting.

But this year, Anderson canceled his Omaha hotel reservation and will join friends in a room at the Joan Kroc Center in San Diego, watching a big-screen computer monitor.

They’ll enjoy See’s candies, Dilly Bars, Cherry Coke and other Berkshire-endorsed goodies while Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger answer shareholders’ questions from Omaha’s CenturyLink Center. “We’ll have a continental breakfast to start with and an early lunch (Buffett and Munger will break for lunch about 10 a.m. PaciďŹ c time) and should be done by 1:30 or so,â€?

Anderson said. “It should be fun.�

Even though they’ll be 1,615 miles away from the meeting, the San Diegans will be part of a record crowd to view a corporate shareholders gathering, thanks to the ďŹ rst-ever live-streaming presentation of a Berkshire meeting.

Last year’s record of 40,000-plus in attendance is sure to be broken — maybe not in person, but certainly when the new global online audience is added to the tally.

Yahoo Finance Editor Andy Serwer said in an interview that Buffett called last fall and said something like, “How’d you like to live-stream my annual meeting?�

Buffett talked about Yahoo’s live-streaming of the Buffalo Bills-Jacksonville Jaguars game last October, a ďŹ rst for the NFL. It attracted some 35 million viewers.

Serwer said he didn’t hesitate, telling Buffett: “It sounds like a great idea.�

From then on, it was a matter of working out the details.

After a warm-up program at 9 a.m. today, anyone in the world hooked into the Internet can dial up the Buffett & Munger show.

There will be a “halftime� show during the lunch break and a wrap-up afterward, but otherwise it’s live and uninterrupted Warren and Charlie, with a replay available for the next 30 days.

But watching the two men on a remote computer can’t duplicate all that happens in Omaha.

For example, Steven Lipper, a principal with Royce & Associates investment fund company in New York, and colleague Steven McBoyle were in town to discuss investing in small publicly traded companies at a meeting of the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Nebraska.

The topic is important if investors want to succeed in the future as Buffett has succeeded in the past, Lipper said, noting that Buffett himself has said Berkshire can’t match its 50-year performance record in the next 50 years. “It’s easier to grow by 10 percent a year on $1 billion than it is $100 billion,� Lipper said. “The math is inescapable.�

Spotting small companies with Berkshire-like futures is today’s Holy Grail of investing, he said. “A superior company can stay that way,â€? Lipper said. “They can outweigh their industry for a sustained period of time and generate good, attractive proďŹ ts.â€?

If you wanted to hear that sort of message, as they say, you shoulda been there.

In the past, Buffett resisted See Web: Page 12

THE BEST LIFE INVESTMENT. #LifeInvestment | nebraska.edu/lifeinvestment

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Tammy Yttri Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Josh Renaud

Great Plains Magazine of the Year Publication: Tulsa World Magazine By: Staff Judge’s comments: The Moment! What a great way to open a book. I’ve seen lots of fashion pages on how to tie a Windsor knot, but this was excellent. Front of book is extremely strong, with the deco story and fashion story in the “77 Counties” issue, and the insightful Bill Hader interview in the food issue. But wish we had more there. Wish we had more stories from the talented team that produced the others. The “77 Counties” package is terrific. Tons of flipping for the casual reader, but I imagine that someone from Oklahoma would flip out over it. And the food photography in the food package makes for must-stop-and-look moments for the reader. A nice treat for the reader follows the “77 Counties” package with the well-written longform feature on the young coach. But the food issue was all food in the feature well. What if I’m not a foodie? At the back, the “Versus.” section. Well, that did me in. This is a remarkably meaty and healthy magazine. Kudos to the staff.

OKLAHOMA FOOD FINDS

A TO Z

T U L SA W OR L D M AG A Z I N E

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE TULSAWORLDMAGAZINE.COM

ISSUE 06 / SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2016

OF IT ALL

ISSUE 05 - JULY / AUGUST 2016

THE ROUTE

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Candid ISSUE 05 - JULY / AUGUST 2016

TULSAWORLDMAGAZINE.COM COST: $3.95

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Exploring our stretch of 66 — the food, the sights, the future

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kitchens

Capturing the people behind Tulsa’s best food

TULSAWORLDMAGAZINE.COM

WHERE IN THE WORLD DID FLAT DRILLER GO? PAGE 77

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ISSUE 06 - SEPT./OCT. 2016 TULSAWORLDMAGAZINE.COM COST: $3.95

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Katie Bridges, staff Publication: Oklahoma Humanities Magazine By: Carla Walker, Anne Richardson, Oklahoma Humanities Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 17

Great Plains Magazine Writer of the Year Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Mariam Makatsaria Judge’s comments: Mariam’s “First Steps” is the clear standout here, weaving two narratives into a compelling and inspirational tale. But even in her shorter work, her attention to detail and storytelling ability shine.

Moving it Forward

Rhea Roberts walks up to a tired mansion on a quiet, crumbling stretch of East Eighth Street in downtown Little Rock, pulls a cordless drill from an orange neoprene case and—bzzzzz— buzzes screws from the whitewashed plywood sheets barricading the front door. Her blond hair is pulled back in a messy, let’s-get-down-to-business bun, and a pair of red-rimmed sunglasses sits on the top of her head. When asked if she needs any help, she declines the offer.

As the executive director of the Quapaw Quarter Association removes the makeshift barrier, we stand there waiting, exploring with our eyes, our

expressions uncertain in the face of so much dereliction. We’re a diverse group of people, each here for a different purpose—a painter searching for inspiration, a writer hoarding information for a novel and me. And there’s a reason why we all think we’re going to find whatever we’re looking for here.

Encased within the walls of this house is a century and a half of history. It was Arkansas Gazette founder William Woodruff’s longtime home—a dramatically spacious private escape that has now become a rescue project not for the faint of heart. And in looking at the house—a wreck of its former self—it could easily be mistaken for an aban-

doned estate whose cry for help had once turned into a howl and has since dwindled to a soft whimper.

When the doors open, the aroma of old cigarettes, mold and something indiscernible wafts out of the house.

By the light of flashlights, we examine the foyer. Inside, the Woodruff House’s grandeur isn’t immediately obvious. Instead, my gaze falls on the mounted wooden mailboxes, their doors unhinged or broken altogether, a bulky, unopened padded envelope resting atop the number “11.” I look at the cracked, peeling paint, the coffeecolored stained ceiling whose corners seem to be held together by cobwebs,

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Katie Bridges Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Nicholas Hunt 18 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

the gouged paneling, the thick layer of dust coating every possible inch of every possible surface. As we walk up the white-railed staircase, built in the 1920s (no one knows what the original staircase looked like, Roberts says), it wheezes and groans beneath the unfamiliar pressure. There are bathrooms and kitchens and more bathrooms and more kitchens on every floor, and it’s hard to think that decades ago, when the house was split into apartment units, they were habitable.

Then there are other disheartening sights, ones not caused by mere inattention, but a lack of sympathy for this downtown jewel—an empty bag of Brim’s Classic potato chips, soda cans and broken blind slats jutting at all different angles like the points of a weather vane. There are dusty bottles of J.W. Dant’s Olde Bourbon and Italian Swiss Colony’s California muscatel with grimy labels dotting the floors. And even if I look at it with as cool an eye as I’m able, I can’t help but feel slightly deflated by these facts of neglect.

But in the midst of all the rubble, garbage and bits of glass strewn on the floor, there are glimmers of promise.

There is a strip of accent wallpaper in the second-floor bathroom, a series of teddy bear illustrations right above two beach-ball-sized gashes in the wall, where the guts of the house remain exposed. There is the white-brick fireplace, embellished with intricate golden appliques. And when we move to the third floor, where it’s bright and throat-tighteningly humid, there is the stiff, brittle wallpaper in what I assume was once a bedroom, flaking to reveal layers of patterns that graced the walls throughout the years—162, to be precise.

IT WAS IN 1819 THAT WOODRUFF, a New York native, published the first issue of the Arkansas Gazette.

Thirty years later, he ordered the construction of a Greek Revival residence on a 25-acre plot of land that he’d bought for himself and his family of 12.

And when they moved into the house in 1853, the almost-7,000-square-foot manor had all the makings of an opulent mansion—13 bedrooms, a 40-foot hallway and a library (or the “father’s room,” as it was referred to back then).

By the large fireplaces that were built in

every room, Woodruff and his family gathered every winter, burning as many as 100 cords of wood. But you didn’t have to go inside to understand its remarkable lavishness. It opened to a circular carriage driveway, nestled in what was, back then, a piece of the countryside, dotted with an orchard, a poultry yard and beehives. On its east side, the Woodruffs tended to their vegetable and fruit garden; on its north side, the horses rolled in the stables and the pigs fed in their pens. At the time, the house faced south, and its circular upper-floor balcony overlooked Ninth Street (it would be later flipped to face north).

In the heat of the Civil War, when Woodruff was banished for his support of the Confederacy, the Union Army commandeered the house to serve as a makeshift hospital, patching up combat wounds and recovering after sieging the surrounding land. And although Woodruff reclaimed it in 1865, the manor was sold out of the family six years after his death in 1885. Since then, it has been restructured to suit many purposes—a cottage home for out-of-town working women in the 1920s, a Colonial Club for Business Girls in the 1930s. For the following decades, it functioned as apartment homes. But in 1999, a tornado tore through the Little Rock area, and the stoic structure felt the toll deeply. It ripped the roof. It blew out 60 of the home’s 75 windows. Its thenowners, Vickie and John Karolson—a North Little Rock couple who’d bought the house in 1986, renovating and restructuring it into 14 apartment units and then renting it out to low-income tenants—couldn’t shake the disbelief.

They decided to sell to Eric McDuffie, a Bank of the Ozarks vice president, and Mike Helms, an attorney, who spruced up the apartments, escalated the monthly rent and kept their fingers crossed that, upon the construction of the Clinton Presidential Center, the surrounding neighborhood—which McDuffie described as a “dump” in a 2000 article by the Arkansas DemocratGazette—would somewhat improve.

But even though much of the land east of Interstate 30 was bought up after the presidential library’s location was announced, says Brian Minyard, a planner with the city’s Planning and

Development Department, the land was never developed. And this surprises him. “I do think there was a possibility that [the house] could have been demolished during that time,” he says in his cramped office on West Markham Street. “There are also people who demolish buildings just for the bricks, and this house is three bricks thick.”

McDuffie and Helms’ efforts were only a temporary reprieve. (They ultimately sold the house to an LLC by the name of Allyn Ward Investments in 2003.) In 2005, the house suffered another blow from which it couldn’t recover. A fire damaged a first-floor room, leaving a hole in the floor. And ever since, the house has remained vacant, lingering in real estate limbo, waiting for a new owner.

In 2007, the house made the list of Arkansas’ most endangered places, raising alarm among preservationists and community members alike. That year, according to an article published by the Democrat-Gazette, it was on the market for $428,000. In an auction held in November of that year, two dozen potential bidders crowded the foyer of Woodruff’s home. Only one made a meager bid of $75,000, which was not accepted. The Quapaw Quarter Association (QQA) kept an eye on the property, wanting to restore it but unable to afford it.

Seven years later, the city and the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (AHPP) pitched in with $99,500.

After years of waiting, the association was finally able to get its hands on the property from Allyn Ward Investments for a significantly reduced price of $107,000 in December 2014. The association also snagged a Certified Local Government grant of $49,500 to restore the house. But to use such a grant, which is drawn through the federal Historic Preservation Fund and offered to city and county governments enrolled in the AHPP’s preservation program, the home had to be a government entity, an obstacle the association managed to get around by donating an easement to the city (the facade) and an easement to the AHPP (the interior).

“I guess the big thing is that, since I’ve been at this job with the QQA, it’s the only brick-and-mortar project that we’ve been able to [work on and

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 19

restore],” Roberts says. Her soft voice echoes in the reception room of the historic Curran Hall (aka the Little Rock Visitor Information Center in which the QQA is headquartered), where she sits at an old dining room table on a wobbly wooden chair with a sunken cushion.

There are Woodruff’s belongings in vitrines around the hall and, most notably, his elaborately carved grand piano quietly rests in a corner. “It’s exciting for me, to really get in there and do things. I’ve become quite familiar with the house, and I can see the potential, and I can see what it can be.”

Although things have been moving along slower than she likes, both the association and the city know what needs to be done: Fix the brick where it’s falling out, the roof where it’s leaking, the wood where it’s rotting. In other words, the goal is to get the first floor to a decent, perhaps not excellent, condition so it can be listed in January for a price Roberts says they haven’t determined yet. (Roberts says she wishes the same could be done with the second and third floors, but funding would be an issue). And once it’s stabilized, it’ll be stripped. Stripped of the walls that once separated apartment units. Stripped of the modern intrusions that disturb its historic appeal. Stripped of the unnecessary bathroom plumbing, the carpets, the chipped tiles, the nonhistoric doors and door frames.

When future buyers walk in, they should be able to envision themselves living there—or perhaps envision an office, or tenants cooking in their apartments, or a decluttered, airy space that could potentially be anything. (The historic tax credits they’d get for making it an income-producing property won’t hurt, either.)

The house has already garnered the interest of many, Roberts says. If not to buy it, then at least to play a part in its rebirth. Many folks have reached out through social media, unwilling to let an important piece of Little Rock’s history go. In August 2015, for example, community members and preservation devotees came together to help clean up the lot surrounding the house. But even after the effort, in which volunteers in closed-toe shoes and raggy clothes helped remove trash off the property, some items—a red shopping cart tipped on its side, a blanket, a cardboard box—

remain scattered on grass that looks tired and withered with no prospect of a triumphant resurrection.

ON A SUNNY OCTOBER AFTERNOON, a tree is about to fall—and Minyard, Roberts and Paul Porter are there to hear it. Most of its limbs have been chopped off already, the open wounds resembling giant mushrooms. Sitting in the belly of the 70-something-foot tree, which is now beginning to look like a fondue fork, an employee of Giraffe Tree Service wraps a thick rope around a branch and, with a chainsaw, cuts it off. There’s a moment of uncertainty when it finally lets go of the body it’s been a part of for years, swings back and forth and grazes the roof of the house before it’s lowered to the plush cushion of leaves ringing the trunk.

And then, in the distance, as we hear the sound of a train chugging down the track, Porter, AHPP’s easement coordinator, tells me about the diseased trees that have met an unfortunate fate today.

“When they started cutting into it, they discovered that the trunk was rotting all the way through,” he says, suddenly speaking in a higher decibel as a Giraffe Tree Service employee begins to

maneuver a growling mini skid loader, riding it as if it were an animal. “You kind of looked at the trees as—well, this one is an invitation to termites, and that one could potentially impact the house during a storm.”

We’re all squinting. Although the sun, no longer leaf-filtered, is a blinding disturbance, the fall weather carries a chilly note, and the occasional breeze sweeps the autumn leaves off the ground of the overgrown front yard and into a miniature twister of dust.

The house looks like a relic from the past—a display of grandeur and local history—wrapped in ropelike ivy that, over the years, has crept all the way to the top, and is surrounded by a metal fence. And as more century-old trees hit the ground, it looks more and more naked and vulnerable to a shift in the wind, a threat of decay, the passage of time. Although it has limped through times of uncertainty, there is one thing that’s for sure—there are many hopeful faces staring up at its eggnog-yellow facade, with its white columns and cactus-green shutters. And these are the folks who have not yet exhausted all hope in finding it a future that could be as grand as its past.

20 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Great Plains Magazine Photographer of the Year Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann Judge’s comments: Standout work here. The environmental portraits really shine. The LGBTQ series brings each individual’s personality to light. Nicely done.

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Arshia Khan Publication: Tulsa World By: John Clanton Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 21

Great Plains Magazine Photographer of the Year

22  /  Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Great Plains Website of the Year Publication: The Des Moines Register By: Staff Judge’s comments: Easy to navigate and find what you are looking for.

Nice, updated look. Love the database page.

FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: NewsOK.com Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Staff Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 23

Newspapers

The 2016 Great Plains Journalism Awards

24  /  Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

News Package Winner OCTOBER 23, 2016 SUNRISE EDITION Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Henry Cordes, Matthew Hansen, Paul Goodsell, Mike Reilly, Matt Haney •

GOODWILL OMAHA: AN INVESTIGATIVE SERIES

is high at Goodwill Omaha — higher than at other Judge’s comments: Smart, important, outrageous series of Executive storiespayabout an appalling violation of the public trust.

Omaha nonprofits, and higher than at most comparable Goodwills around the country.

The series was presented in an elegant manner, with effective illustrations and nice use of a columnist’s voice.

NO CULTURE OF THRIFT

Excerpt from “Goodwill Omaha: No Culture of Thrift”

M AT T H A N E Y / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Goodwill Industries touts that simply by donating your old couch, illfitting jeans or other of life’s discards, you help the charity find jobs for people with disabilities or other barriers to work.

But when you donate to or buy from Goodwill’s thrift stores in Omaha, your efforts contribute more to something less charitable: some of the most staggering executive pay you’ll find in the nonprofit world.

Federal tax records show that Omaha’s Goodwill in 2014 paid CEO Frank McGree total compensation of $933,444.

On top of his $250,000 base salary that year, he received a $95,000 incentive bonus, $52,000 in deferred retirement pay he’ll collect later, and a special retention bonus of $519,000. He even was given a country club membership.

And McGree is far from the only executive at the Omaha nonprofit taking home enviable pay. Tax records show Omaha’s Goodwill that year paid Charity pours store revenue highoften executiveduring pay, money-making may salaries of $100,000 or more to 13 of its countless others find into jobs, aboutGoodwill’s questions raisedrepackaging

by The deal Worldless money to support itstimes.” nonprofit mission have violated federal ‘Made in America’ law executives and managers — a number veryleaving difficult economic Herald’s investigation has been difB H J. C In the past decade, including teenagers with mental and physNumerous Goodwill Omaha executives, that increased to 14 last year.

Goodwill represents one of the most ficult. Goodwill not just its CEO, receive generous pay Omaha has made ical disabilities, take the Chinese rollers compared with other nonprofits. 6A an undisclosed amount of out of these boxes and repack them into Goodwill Industries touts nonprofits that simply It turns out that out of the millions recognizable in the comGoodwill Omaha refused smaller plastic bags to ready them for money performing a man- officials by donating your old couch, ill-fitting ufacturing magic trick — sale. These bags have a brand name, Nyljeans or other of life’s discards, you help On top of his $250,000 base salary that on theinterview front and an eyebrow-raising Goodwill Omaha generates each year munity.

Who hasn’t shopped there or a sleight of hand that long rem, to World-Herald requests Matthew the charity find jobs for people with dis- year, he received a $95,000 incentive bostruck some employees as three-word phrase on the back: nus, $52,000 in deferred retirement pay Hansen abilities or other barriers to work.

America.” of and may have bro- of“Made he’llwas collect later, a special retention selling your donated goods, the charity dropped offtostuff that noandlonger McGree wrong or members itsinboard But when you donate or buy from Voila! That’s how a Chinese-made hair ken federal law.

Goodwill’s thrift stores in Omaha, your bonus of $519,000. He even was given a COLUMNIST The Omaha nonprofit roller “becomes” an American-made prodcountry club membership. efforts contribute And more to to something puts more of those dollars into pay for needed? be sure, the charity has directors, who by law set McGree’s pay. uct, sold in Omaha by a retail chain and on And McGree is far from the only exhas for years routinely reless charitable: some of the most stagceived deliveries from a metro-area beau- the Internet, with a knowing assist from gering executive pay you’ll find in the ecutive at the Omaha nonprofit taking its leaders than it does the jobs proOmaha, where at least one top done much good. home enviable pay. Tax records show Goodwill refused to answer spety supply company also named Prestige Prod- Goodwill nonprofit world. ucts: dozens of giant boxes packed with executive has known about the practice Federal tax records show that Oma- Omaha’s Goodwill that year paid salaries for more than five years.

Your tax dollars of $100,000 or more to 13 of its executives hair rollers made at a factory inproviding China. grams that are the basis of its nonprofit The incharity’s stores also compete in ha’s Goodwill 2014 paid CEO Frank cific questions, only general McGree total compensation of $933,444.

See Goodwill: Page 5 See Hansen: Page 4 Omahans in several Goodwill programs, mission and tax-exempt status. the retail industry, where top corporate written statements related to executive Goodwill Omaha officials, in a writexecutives can earn salaries in the milpay, its funding of mission programs ten statement, defended the pay to Mclions. and the good it does in the community.

Gree and other top leaders. McGree’s Unlike Walmarts and Dollar GenerHigh: 71 Around and About...........3E Movies.............................4E everything, family A look at a Clinton America Green Plains is loading up Get a side of savings Books ..............................7E Obituaries........................5B compensation, they said, recognizes Through als,withhowever, Goodwill isonamore public has stayed steady faith versus a Trump America than just ethanol with your Sunday news Low: 40 Celebrations....................6E Opinion.........................6-7B Classifieds...............10-14D Puzzles ............................ 5E The Ostrys — a singing family Big government and tax hikes Recent acquisitions are World-Herald readers are treated Warm & sunny his three-decade performance leading charity, for which it enjoys valuable tax to coupon savings and special Jobs.............................5-9D TV..................................... 8E FINALISTS of 13 — had to adjust when its for the rich or lower taxes and expected to smooth the wild Details: 8B patriarch lost his sight. Living fewer immigrants. Page 11A swings in earnings. Money ad deals, along with news. a complex and growing $30 million orexemptions.

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By: Matthew Hansen, Ryan has not only grown the agency signifiSaid another employee: “It really felt Soderlin, Paul Goodsell, Ben cantly since his start nearly 30 years like the focus was on the executives’ Vankat, Katie Myrick ago, he has helped Goodwill serve tens pockets rather than the mission.” of thousands of people, and helped Getting answers from Goodwill Y

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Project/Investigative Reporting Winner Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Lisa Hammersly, Brian Fanney Judge’s comments: Revealing findings and rock-solid reporting that surely raised troubling questions for Arkansas voters. Powerfully effective presentation of data.

Excerpt from “Cash & The Court” High-profile class-action lawyer John Goodson, his Texarkana law firm and five law firms headquartered outside Arkansas rank among the biggest campaign donors to state Supreme Court justices, an Arkansas DemocratGazette analysis of public records shows.

The campaigns of Justices Courtney Goodson, Karen Baker, Robin Wynne, Paul Danielson, Josephine Hart and Rhonda Wood accepted an estimated $296,000 in total contributions from the law firms, most of it since 2009, the newspaper’s review of campaignfinance disclosure records found.

Since 2004, 11 state Supreme Court candidates have reported receiving an estimated $452,000 from the law firms, which have worked together on class actions in Arkansas.

Campaign contributions to judges are a sensitive issue, as evidenced

by American Bar Association recommendations on judicial ethics. That’s especially true when the donor stands to benefit from a judge’s court decision.

“Eighty-seven percent of the American public believe campaign contributions influence judges’ decisions,” said Mark Harrison, a national judicial ethics expert and Phoenix attorney.

Whether the donations “actually influence or not, the contributions arguably undermine the impartiality, or the appearance of impartiality, the public has a right to expect,” he said. Harrison was chairman of the American Bar Association committee that wrote the group’s suggested code of ethical conduct for all state court judges.

Arkansas Supreme Court justices have heard cases in which clients were represented by members of the classaction law firms that contributed to the justices’ election campaigns.

Since mid-2008, state Supreme Court opinions have favored clients represented by John Goodson and his co-

counsels in at least eight proceedings, which have translated into millions in legal fees, court records show.

A search of CourtConnect, the state’s online court records system, didn’t find any Supreme Court cases in that time that Goodson clients lost.

The Arkansas Supreme Court also sets rules and procedures for all state courts that are among the nation’s most favorable to class-action plaintiffs’ lawyers like Goodson and the other donor law firms, according to law journals and federal court documents.

In a 2010 Arkansas Bar Association magazine article, University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law professor Kenneth Gould said Rule 23 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure is “among the most favorable” of all states to classaction plaintiffs and their lawyers.

As interpreted by the Arkansas Supreme Court, Rule 23 also is more friendly to plaintiffs than are federal court class-action procedures, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville law professor John Watkins wrote in a different 2010 Arkansas Bar Association article.

The biggest chunk of donations from the six law firms -- $142,500 -- found its way to Justice Courtney Goodson’s 2010 campaign, her campaign contribution reports show.

In late 2011, about 18 months after her election victory and a divorce, she married John Goodson. She is running for chief justice in 2016.

Court records show that Courtney Goodson disqualifies herself from hearing her husband’s cases, as state law dictates.

She does decide other cases that help set and interpret Arkansas’ class-action procedures.

26 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: Silas Allen, Darla Slipke Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Stephen Deere, Doug Moore

Suspect in NYC street bombing captured after shootout. News, A6

General News Reporting Winner

Tuesday, sepTember 20, 2016

FOreCasT: suNNy & hot, hIGh: 95, loW 70. a8

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TulsawOrld.COm

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Publication: Tulsa World OFFICER-INVOLVED SHOOTING: U.S.Vicent, Department of Justice opens into shooting By: Arianna Pickard, Samantha Ginnie Graham, Corey Jonesinvestigation and Paighten Harkins

Police chief vows justice Judge’s comments:Very strong team coverage that was thorough and of consistently high quality. Readers got as clear a sense as possible of what had gone on and what was being done about it, without inflaming irrational fears or passions.

Excerpt from Coverage of officer involved shooting: Terence Crutcher

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether a civil rights violation occurred during the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man on Friday night.

During a Monday afternoon news conference about the death of 40-yearold Terence Crutcher, Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said officers found no gun on Crutcher or in his SUV, which was stopped in the middle of 36th Street North just west of Lewis Avenue.

Officer Betty Shelby fired a single shot at close range that video footage released Monday indicates hit Crutcher in the upper right chest. Another officer, Tyler who won’t show me his hands.”

Tuell said he hopes the agency’s deTurnbough, deployed his Taser at almost In these images pulled from video that was provided by the Tulsa Police Department, Terence Crutcher approaches his vehicle with his An attorney for thebody Crutcher family cision to left), have Tulsa leaders the same time Shelby — who did not hands raised (top getsnorth to the door and is Tasered andand shot by officers (bottom left). Above, Crutcher’s lies motionless outside moments after being shot. Unobscured images and video can be seen at tulsaworld.com. ProvIDED has previously said his hands were up family view the videos first is “the olive have a Taser — used her service weapon. his car when he was shot.

“I want to assure our community, and branch needed” so the investigative Tuell told the World that Shelby’s process can go more smoothly.

I want to assure all of you and people dash cam footage wasn’t provided “We didn’t want to release all this across the nation who are going to be because she didn’t activate her vehicle’s stuff and then have them wonder what looking at this, we will achieve justice, FoR MoRe

By Samantha Vicent lights meant the camwe’re doing about it. We want to be period,” Jordan said.

Officer Betty Shelby’s career Tulsaand Worldsirens, which began with Sheriff’s Office. era was turned off. extremely upfront,” he said. “It sounds He called the videos “very disturbThe U.S. Department of Justice Page A3 from two calls shows two address helicopter an investigation into911Police like rhetoric, but it’s honest truth.” has openedAudio ing” and “very difficult to watch.” whether a civil rights violation chatter concerns. Page A4 people called the police to report that The footage reveals discrepancies in The Department of Justice inquiry occurred during the fatal police Timeline traces events shootingCrutcher’s of an unarmed man on and aftertraffic Terence vehicle wasbefore blocking the department’s initial statements from is separate from investigation being They also want thethe police Crutcher’s shooting. Page A5 Friday night. on 36th Street North, with one caller the scene Friday night. conducted by local authorities, which During a Monday We the People calls for officer who fired the afternoon news con- officer’s arrest. Page A5 reporting that the driver apparently Police initially said Crutcher apwill whether criminal charges fatal determine shot to be charged ference about the death of 40-year-old left the vehicle running with the doors proached officers from the side of the are filed in connection with the shooting.

Terence Crutcher,

By Arianna Pickard wide open.

That caller also told the disroad after Turnbough arrived.

HowJordan declined to take questions or Tulsa Police Chief Tulsa World Chuck Jordan saidran tulSAwoRlDtv.coM patcher that a man from the vehicle ever, video footage from Turnbough’s provide further details during the news officers found no Watch these videos online: A day after reviewing police • An interview with Tiffany believed explode. patrol car shows Crutcher walking to crutcherbecause gun he on Crutcher or it might videos of the shooting of unconference, citing pending investigations the twin sister of in his SUV, which Crutcher, armed Terence Crutcher, his Terence Crutcher; his vehicle with his hands raised and into what led to Crutcher’s death. was stopped in the middle of 36th • Video from the helicopter twin sister said Monday that her Police family isshowed demanding that Shelby had her gun pointed at hisStreet North just west of Lewis Av- that reported to the scene of theimvideos to Crutchenue. mediate charges against the the shooting; back. er’s and attorneys, Officer Betty Shelby fired a single • Dash cam video from the Tulsafamily police officer who fired the Tulsa FINALISTS shot at close range that video foot- cars of the officers who were the fatal gunshot.

After Crutcher reached the driver’sage released Monday indicates hit County District Attorney’s Office and And she asked that public at the shooting; Publication: right chest. • Omaha reactionTulsa to the community videos’ release leaders on side of his vehicle and turned towardCrutcher in the upper north The press conference with Another officer, Tyler Turnbough, remain peaceful.

Tulsa Police Department World-Herald the window, Shelby, Turnbough and a Sunday. deployed his Taser at almost the Chief Chuck Jordan; and Referencing an audio re• Protesters gather to express cording in Monday’s which an officer Police Chief Chuck Jordan speaks a news conference about the shooting death or a thirdat officer each had either a gun After news conference, By: Todd Cooper concerns about use of force. in a helicopter flying over the of Terence Crutcher. mIKE sImoNs/tulsa World » See Crutcher, page A3 Taser pointed at him.

Tulsa Police Sgt.looks Shane scene says the man likeTuell responded Publication: Wichita Eagle a “bad dude,” Tiffany CrutchThe officers’ position on Turnto question er a told reportersregarding their fam- how this fatal By: Kesley Ryan ily wants justice because “that bough’s dash camera video footage shooting differs from others the departbig ‘bad dude’ — his life matPublication: Northwest obscures much of the shooting, but ment tered.” has had this year.

2012 Good The first time Tulsa Police “His life mattered,” she reArkansas Democrat-Gazette Crutcher can be seen falling to the Chief Chuck Jordan “There’s a lot of video that you can Friday racewatched peated. “And the chain breaks motivated video of the fatal By: shooting of Holtmeyer, Doug here. We’re to stop it ground after one gunshot. Shelby then watch thatgoing there’s actually no question Dan shooting 40-year-old Terence Crutcher right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. says, “Shots fired!” over the radio, as to what you’re seeing,” he said.

“This deaths of by one of his officers was with This is bigger than us right Thompson black resithe victim’s family. here.

We’re going to stop it telling dispatchers, “I’ve shot a subject one leaves a lot of questions.”

Family requests peaceful protests

Jordan calls videos ‘very disturbing’

Tulsa will look to its leaders to pull through crisis

right here.”

Tiffany Crutcher broke down and cried as those words elicited applause from approximately 60 people who

dents, end-

He experienced it with

Ginnie ing in/ two27 He sawat their devastaRead the full stories and view winningthem. photos greatplainsawards.org

tion and grief firsthand.

Tulsa has been here before.

Our city burned once in

Graham

News columnist

life-withoutparole sentences.

Narrative Story/Series Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dirk Chatelain Judge’s comments: Great storytelling; wonderful writing. Unique topic well reported. Can’t-stop-reading dialogue moves the story along nicely. I cared about the people in this story. Very well done.

Excerpt from “Breaking the sound barrier” The news broke on Twitter, of course.

The fourth-hour bell at PapillionLa Vista South had just rung. Western civilizations class was about to start in classroom F04. A girl in the second row was checking her phone when she started freaking out.

Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Look at this!

Now, let’s be honest. It doesn’t take the fall of Rome to stir a teenager into a social-media frenzy. Every hour of every school day, the most amazing thing ever jumps from cellphone to cellphone, transmitted silently, consumed loudly.

But the next words out of her mouth revealed this was no ordinary video clip.

Adam Dejka is talking!

Suddenly the honors class surrounded her cellphone like ants on a Cheeto.

The teacher, Mr. Cooley, demanded a stop to the shenanigans, not so he could start his lecture, but rather so he could project the video on the whiteboard.

Shhhhh! Everyone listen! Here it comes!

Adam Dejka’s achievements read like the résumé of The Perfect Senior.

National Merit finalist with an ACT score of 35. All-state soccer midfielder who broke most school records and made opponents look like their cleats were stuck in mud. Standout musician who nailed his clarinet solo at the winter concert.

And yet ... 99 percent of students, teachers and administrators at PapillionLa Vista South had not heard his voice.

Ever.

He was the kid who walked out of classes and wandered the halls; the kid who refused to participate in discussion or group work; the kid who wouldn’t get off the school bus to order fast food because he wouldn’t talk to the clerk; the kid who doesn’t go out on weekends, preferring the comforts of his driveway.

“He said hi to me once in the hallway,” his principal said.

“He’s never said a word to me,” his coach said.

“One time,” said a soccer teammate, “he told me the answer to a problem in math class.”

Now, after all these years, the man of mystery — Adam Dejka — was blowing up their phones, all because his sister recorded him walking into their house with a brown paper bag and a smile, preparing to announce Easter supper.

What. Would. He. Say? *** Hold that thought. Let’s jump to another video clip, another voice, this from a place Adam Dejka’s peers are more familiar seeing him.

The soccer stadium. Senior Night.

Four minutes left in overtime against Omaha Burke.

No. 17 in white receives the pass 25 yards from the goal. Like a point guard with the ball on a string, Dejka crosses over one defender — right foot, left foot — and sees an opportunity to shoot.

No, he keeps going.

Another Burke defender meets him.

He crosses over again, right foot, left foot. Uh-oh, here’s another defender.

He’s double-teamed, running out of space. He cuts left to the edge of the goal box, dodging a slide tackle, and just before the ball crosses the end line, he fires it back into the box past five Burke Bulldogs. Adam’s teammate, who defenders lost track of, buries it into the net.

Papio South 3, Burke 2. Game over.

“Adam’s a difference-maker,” said Paul Harvey, a former Creighton assistant who coached Dejka for four years at the Nebraska Football Club. “I think he’s the best senior in the state of Nebraska.”

28 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: Adam Kemp Publication: Lincoln Journal Star By: Peter Salter Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Jeannie Roberts

Beat Reporting Winner Publication: The Des Moines Register By: Mackenzie Ryan Judge’s comments: This series fires on all cylinders: The articles vividly put faces in front of statistics: the McDonalds worker and the Iowa State student, for example, are engaging illustrations of some of the issues explored here. The overall package is strong: muscular writing backed by data and analysis; lively photos; readable graphics; video; sharp copy editing; and attractive online presentation.

Except from “Black Iowa: Still Unequal?”

For years, Michael Hardat saw his education as a path out of poverty and away from the drug trafficking that sent his father to jail.

He enrolled in after-school activities in middle school and college-prep courses in high school. He felt confident about moving on to college.

But once he arrived at Iowa State University, his perspective quickly changed.

Other college students were better prepared. They’d written essays longer than a page or two in high school, and learned proper citations and formatting styles required by college professors.

And they acquired study habits that went beyond flipping through a notebook a few minutes before class.

“Des Moines Public Schools does a terrible job of preparing students for academics, and I’m just going to say that flat out,” he said. “There needs to be a higher standard.”

But it’s not just Des Moines that has left minority students like Hardat feeling short-changed. Across Iowa, in cities, towns and suburbs, public schools are riddled with achievement gaps that have left minorities — particularly African-Americans — lagging far behind white students academically, according to a Des Moines Register analysis of state exams.

Statewide, only 49 percent of black fourth-graders are proficient in reading, compared with 58 percent of Hispanic students and 80 percent of white students, according to exams from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Moreover, a disproportionate number of African-American teens drop out of school, according to state data. And black students have among the lowest rates of graduating high school, attending college or earning a bachelor’s degree.

“It’s almost criminal,” said Rep. Ako

Abul-Samad, D-Des Moines, who is black and a former member of the Des Moines School Board.

Des Moines Public Schools spokeswoman Amanda Lewis said the district couldn’t comment on Hardat’s criticisms: “It’s not appropriate or lawful for us to discuss individual student situations in a public setting.”

But Superintendent Tom Ahart did say that the district is “working to identify unintended barriers” for minority students. He pointed to a pledge Des Moines signed with other large, urban districts around the nation, promising to improve the education of minority students, particularly black and Hispanic boys and young men, who often face increased challenges.

Even so, statistics show that the challenges facing Iowa schools are daunting. For example: • Only 35 percent of black thirdgraders in Dubuque elementary schools are proficient in reading, compared with 37 percent in Waterloo and 45

percent in Des Moines.

• In the 3,900-student district of Clinton, which borders the Mississippi, only 27 percent of black eighth-graders are on grade level in reading.

• High-performing districts also have big gaps. In Johnston, a Des Moines suburb where 95 percent of white third-graders are proficient, only 61 percent of black students are on grade level — a 34-point gap.

By some measures, Iowa fares worse than the national average. Black fourthgraders here earned an average score of 195 on NAEP exams, below the national average for black students of 206.

FINALISTS Publication: Oklahoma Watch By: Jennifer Palmer Publication: The Oklahoman By: Jaclyn Cosgrove

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 29

Feature Writing Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dirk Chatelain Judge’s comments: Terrific narrative pace. Writing is clear and graceful. A story that could have been a forced march through the science of selective mutism instead became a meditation on teenagers, empathy, and the mystery of human connection.

Excerpt from “Breaking the sound barrier” He’s certainly in the discussion, which is almost unthinkable, coaches say, considering he doesn’t speak. How does a player who covers the whole field thrive without telling teammates when and where he wants the ball?

Dejka wastes no time with confusion.

His attacks are ruthless. The first time he practiced with his state-championship club team, he plowed through a 6-foot-4 center back.

“He’s so strong on the ball,” goalkeeper Cullen Fisch said. “The way he got the guy off balance, it ended up knocking him over. It was awesome.”

To Papillion-La Vista South’s head coach, it’s mystifying.

“How can he be so charismatic on the field and so scared to death to talk to anyone off the field?” Dave Lawrence said. “It’s like an oxymoron.”

One afternoon in mid-March, two weeks before the Easter supper video, Lawrence walked onto the practice field as his players were stretching. One stood up with a sly smile and waved him over.

“Coach, have you ever had the dream?”

“What dream?”

“The one where Adam talks to you.”

“Oh, my God, yes,” Lawrence said, “I’ve had that dream, I’ve had that dream. I’m talking to Adam and he’s talking back to me.”

Adam sat there, listening and smiling, as he usually does when teammates joke about him. Over the next two months — in ways friends never dreamed — his shell would start to crack. *** Back up 12 years. This part isn’t on video.

Joe and Paula Dejka had two older kids in school. They knew the parentteacher conferences routine. Nothing to worry about. Especially with a kindergartner who’d taught himself to read at age 3 with Pokemon cards.

Sure, Adam was an anxious little guy.

A new person would walk into the room and he’d freeze like a deer in headlights.

But shyness sheds like baby teeth, right?

So they thought.

Then the Dejkas showed up for their spring conference and saw teachers ... principals ... counselors ... eight of them, waiting at their table. Was this an ambush?

They discovered that Adam’s teacher had put him in the slowest learning group. The school was recommending he go into special education.

“Wait a minute!” Paula said. “He’s reading third-grade chapter books.”

He doesn’t know his numbers and letters, they said.

So Joe got an idea. That night, he grabbed his video camera. At bedtime, he told Adam they were going to do something different. You’re going to read to me. Adam navigated his Pokemon book with perfection. The voice.

The inflection. He was so into it, his eyebrows were bouncing.

Joe took the video to the principal: “Look at this.” The response: “Well, we don’t see that here.”

Over the next year, the Dejkas tried

to solve the puzzle. They watched their son speak freely at home but lock up in public. They combed through research.

One day, Paula stumbled on a website for selective mutism. She perked up.

A childhood anxiety disorder characterized by inability to speak or communicate effectively in certain social settings.

“Oh, my gosh, this is Adam.”

The official diagnosis came at the end of first grade. Adam’s case was severe. Paula had read that kids with selective mutism feel like they’re on stage in front of a full auditorium. In second grade, Adam described it for his mom: It’s like the words get stuck in my throat, he said.

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Jimmie Tramel Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Erin Grace Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Doug Moore, Jesse Bogan, Blythe Bernhard

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Business Reporting Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Cindy Gonzalez, Russell Hubbard Judge’s comments: Public safety, poor management, troubling oversight all equal a compelling story and add to that the fact that this series is about the 911 system, and you’ve got a strong package that impacts an entire community. Nice work.

Excerpt from “MUD” When Omaha’s gas utility started sending troops to the Old Market explosion in January, the nearest emergencytrained technician had to finish caulking a hole at 40th and Decatur Streets before heading downtown.

So the Metropolitan Utilities District dispatcher called the next-closest person. That technician arrived at the M’s Pub fire 23 minutes after the utility got the call from 911. Then he locked his keys in his truck. A colleague had to fetch a set of spares — all while the flames spread.

Meanwhile, the MUD operator dispatching workers to the scene that Saturday afternoon didn’t have all his regular computer programs up and running — a key one was offline that weekend for an upgrade. At one point he was tuned into a Kansas City Chiefs football game, not Omaha 911 radio traffic.

The company’s media liaison was at home monitoring the fire buildup on Twitter.

And more than five hours went by before the utility’s dispatch center became aware that the genesis of the Jan. 9 blast was a ruptured pipe feeding natural gas to the M’s Pub building.

“I will correct the statement I gave you,” the lead dispatcher told a utility manager over the phone that night.

“Somebody did hit a gas service and that’s what blew up. ... I don’t know why nobody told me this earlier.”

The Nebraska Fire Marshal’s Office, which is charged with overseeing utilities’ emergency responses, has yet to release its review of MUD’s January performance.

But an examination by The WorldHerald of public records — including more than 50 calls in and out of the utility’s dispatch hub — found glitches beyond the focus on an inactive gas line when the first workers got to the scene.

The World-Herald reported in January

that the utility’s workers initially shut off the gas to a line that hadn’t been operating since 2009.

It took 95 minutes from the time 911 alerted MUD to the blast and natural gas odor for the utility to shut off the gas that was fueling the blaze. Firefighters could not aggressively fight the inferno until the gas was plugged.

In January, an assistant fire chief had a succinct reply when asked if it was common for that amount of time to elapse between the reporting of a gas explosion and getting the gas shut off: “No.” Eventually, flames engulfed more than a dozen residences, M’s Pub and the Nouvelle Eve boutique. A few people were injured.

Officials have blamed the explosion on an out-of-town contractor who they said accidentally hit the service line that fed gas to the M’s Pub building.

MUD has said it is confident it correctly marked gas lines for the Minnesotabased North Central Service, which was installing fiber optic cable at 11th and Howard Streets. North Central hasn’t returned requests for comment.

Still, the information obtained

through The World-Herald’s public information request raises questions about the utility’s emergency preparedness.

National experts say they know of no gas utility empowered with sirens and flashing lights that would let workers speed to a life-threatening event in the way police and fire squads can.

But a check with some MUD peers revealed different approaches to shaving off precious time when responding to high-risk leaks. » In Philadelphia, for example, the public utility can simultaneously notify several emergency crews through computers and cellphone text alerts.

Dispatchers follow up with phone calls, said spokesman Barry O’Sullivan.

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Brian Fanney Publication: The Oklahoman By: Paul Monies

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 31

Business Feature Winner Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Jessica Seaman, Emily Walkenhorst Judge’s comments: What a great, in-depth but touching look at what happens to a booming community when a main employer closes its doors or downsizes. Nice work.

Excerpt from “Fayetteville Shale boom gone bust” He drives his red pickup off the paved road and onto a dirt path before coming to a stop at a lake.

The heat index has already climbed above 100 degrees on this June afternoon, making it almost unbearable to leave the air conditioning. So Verlon Abram, 65, stays in the truck and points to the 22-acre lake that looks like it has always been there but was built only a few years ago.

The lake is part of Abram’s desire to make a living from the land of his family’s farm in the Wilburn community in Cleburne County. He moved back to the farm after he retired from the Army in 2006.

Abram initially planned to raise cattle. But when drilling rigs and other heavy equipment began rolling into the community, he realized there was an alternative use for his 773 acres.

A crush of companies arrived in north-central Arkansas in the mid2000s eager to pull natural gas from the Fayetteville Shale, a formation that stretches across the state to the Mississippi River.

The nation was on the verge of a shale boom that would change the American energy landscape.

In Arkansas, it offered a gold-rush opportunity for people like Abram, and thousands of jobs and wealth for local communities.

But it didn’t last.

The energy companies’ success at extracting natural gas from shale soon became their undoing. An oversupply of gas pushed prices to record lows.

That led to layoffs, bankruptcies and meager royalty checks.

The glory days of the Fayetteville Shale are over. The main drillers are gone. What remains is sobering. Businesses have closed. Once-bustling

highways are mostly empty now, and equipment sits idle along the roadsides.

ENERGY EXPLORATION The early days of the Fayetteville Shale exploration were highlighted by discovery of new geology and development of new technology. There was a lot of optimism about the gas-producing potential of the area, but there was also a hefty dose of skepticism.

This was north-central Arkansas, after all, where acres of green support dairy and cattle farms. There had never been energy exploration there.

Then, while Southwestern Energy Co. was drilling for natural gas in the Arkoma Basin, the potential of shale natural gas was discovered in Arkansas. Until this time, the Barnett Shale in north Texas was the only commercially producing shale formation in the United States.

Realizing that the shale rock in north-central Arkansas was similar to that in the Barnett play, Southwestern Energy started buying acreage across the state in 2003. The next year, the company drilled its first Fayetteville Shale well in Conway County.

Other companies, including Chesa-

peake Energy Corp. and XTO Energy Inc. -- a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil -- followed, looking for gas in the shale. Chesapeake Energy eventually sold its Fayetteville Shale assets to BHP Billiton Ltd. in 2011.

“How significant it is in the history of shale exploration: Prior to the Fayetteville Shale, only the Barnett was commercially producing,” said George Sheffer, Southwestern Energy’s vice president of operations for the Fayetteville Shale. “The Fayetteville Shale proved the Barnett wasn’t a fluke because it proved another shale was productive.”

To extract the natural gas from the Fayetteville Shale, energy companies coupled hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, with horizontal drilling. The technique, used in the Barnett play, allows companies to reach more of the gas locked in the rock formation.

Fracking involves blasting water, sand and chemicals underground to break apart the dense rock, releasing trapped natural gas and oil.

As the energy industry realized that fracking was the key to unlocking the oil and gas trapped in shale formations, it became the go-to method from Texas to North Dakota to Pennsylvania, igniting the nation’s energy boom and pushing the United States ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest energy producer.

32 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Barbara Soderlin Publication: Tulsa World By: Jimmie Tramel

Sports Reporting Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Berry Tramel, Jenni Carlson, Anthony Slater, Erik Horne

Excerpt from “How Russell Westbrook changed the future of the Thunder” Clay Bennett mingled around the gathering crowd inside The Peake, smiling constantly and hugging frequently.

The Thunder chairman isn’t normally smiley or huggy. Stoic is more his speed.

He can sit stone-faced in his courtside seat even as some of the most exciting athletes in the world do some of the most amazing things in sports.

But Thursday afternoon, Bennett was effervescent by his standards. He was still buttoned up, a black suit paired with a white shirt and light blue tie, but the calm and cool was gone, replaced by the giddy and glee.

No one was ever more excited to pay someone $85 million.

On the day Russell Westbrook signed a contract extension with the Thunder — a reported deal that is for three years and $85.7 million, including a player option for 2018-19 — the magnitude of this moment cannot be understated. It went beyond the pomp and circumstance at The Peake, a choreographed event for fans and media that had clearly been in the works for quite some time. It went beyond the boost for state morale and the shock around the basketball world.

“I think he understood the gravity of his choice, of his decision,” Thunder general manager Sam Presti said. “We’re thrilled with how he decided to move forward.”

And now, the Thunder can move forward.

For a month, the Thunder hung in the balance. Kevin Durant had left, and everyone wondered if Russ was next.

The widely held belief had always been that Westbrook, who was slated to be an unrestricted free agent next summer was the more likely one to bolt. He would jump on the first thing smoking out of town. He would head for Los Angeles, his home, or New York or anywhere with brighter lights.

The question for many wasn’t if the Thunder should trade Westbrook but when.

Can’t end up with nothing, after all.

But trade Westbrook this season, and the door for departures would’ve swung open wide. Without him, there’d have been no reason to keep Enes Kanter. Or Mitch McGary. Or Josh Heustis. Or Kyle Singler.

OK, well, losing that last guy wouldn’t break many hearts, but those moves would’ve been the start of a complete and total teardown of this team.

Players would’ve been shipped out, and salaries would’ve been whittled down.

The moves would’ve had short- and long-term ramifications.

Yes, the Thunder would’ve stunk this season, but when you go into rebuilding mode, that’s the kind of thing that can take years and years. And in a small market like Oklahoma City, it can take even longer.

The Thunder avoided that fate with the stroke of a pen.

Westbrook stabilzed the Thunder. For someone so unpredictable on the court, stability isn’t a word often associated with him. But his decision not only to stay in Oklahoma City but also to extend his contract allows the Thunder to keep this current core. It can continue developing players like Kanter and Steven

Adams, Cameron Payne and McGary. It can start integrating newbies like Victor Oladipo and Alex Abrines, Domantas Sabonis and Ersan Ilyasova.

It can start to discover what this group can do.

Westbrook, for one, has high hopes.

“I love my teammates,” he said.

“They go to battle every single night.

The group of guys we have, I’m looking forward to playing with them, continue great things for Oklahoma City.”

Yes, there were great benefits for Westbrook in his new contract. He got a nearly $9 million raise for this next season. He is guaranteed more money in these next three years than he could’ve ever imagined when he was just a kid playing ball at Leuzinger High School on the south side of Los Angeles.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dirk Chatelain Publication: The Oklahoman By: Berry Tramel Publication: The Oklahoman By: Jenni Carlson

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 33

Sports Feature Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dirk Chatelain

Excerpt from “Breaking the sound barrier” “They won’t come out.”

So while his classmates were going to sleepovers, birthday parties and summer camps, Adam cultivated other interests.

Things that didn’t ask questions, point fingers or judge.

He devoured Harry Potter books — his reading teacher told him they were too advanced for a second-grader. He devoted hundreds of hours to the clarinet. He mastered the Pokemon video game.

His favorite outlet was a ball. *** Thud ... thud ... boom.

Thud ... thud ... smack.

Robyn Stephen lives on South Grandview Avenue, right across the street from the Dejkas. She hears those sounds late at night — 10 p.m., midnight, 2 a.m.

She’s been hearing them for years.

Adam’s first year of soccer, he mostly observed. His parents didn’t know the game. His brother and sister didn’t play.

But his second year, he scored five goals in the first game.

He understood the game’s geometry.

The creases. The angles. How pressure exerted in one place created weakness in another. Other kids waited for a teammate’s word or a coach’s order. Adam saw three moves ahead.

School wasn’t so predictable. In sixth grade, the teacher wanted him to participate in a group math assignment. He did it on his own. They took away his recess.

Mom and dad tried to work with the teachers. Tried to convince them he wasn’t being aloof or defiant. “Selective” mutism is a misnomer, they said.

He didn’t have control. The words just won’t come out.

Usually, teachers and administrators listened. They crafted alternative ways to learn, careful to nourish his imagination. When classmates discussed classic novels or current issues, he sat silent.

When classmates delivered speeches or conducted science labs, he left the room and received his own assignment.

Routine was his security blanket.

He carried the same lunch every day:

turkey, strawberries, granola bar and chocolate milk. He spent three, four, five hours a night at the dining room table, studying to avoid surprises. When he finished, he grabbed his ball and started kicking.

“Off the sofa,” Joe said.

“Off the lamp, replace the bulb, through the legs of the dining room chair ...,” Paula said.

“Over to the computer chair,” Joe said.

One night, his sister counted how many times he kicked the ball without letting it hit the ground. She stopped at 1,000.

Come spring, mom and dad could finally kick him outside. They bought him a regulation-size goal for the front yard. Adam spiced things up.

Off the basketball hoop ... off the garage ... off the massive oak tree.

Robyn Stephen looked out the window and smiled. He was getting better. *** The first time he showed up at Dave Lawrence’s soccer camp, Adam Dejka was a chubby third-grader. His mom handed coach a note.

“He’s not gonna talk to you, just tell

him what to do and he’ll listen.”

So Lawrence knew what was coming when Adam walked into his seventhgrade social studies class.

“I’m your prototypical middle school teacher that kinda makes kids feel at ease and goofy. I can reach kids that other teachers can’t reach. I thought, ‘OK, he’ll talk.’ Had him in class the entire year and never said a word to me. Just amazed me.”

Correction: One time the class was playing a “Jeopardy”-like game — team versus team — and students had five seconds to answer. Lawrence got an idea. He shut off the lights.

“If I wasn’t looking at him, he would say the answer. That’s the only time I’ve heard his voice. Otherwise, I couldn’t tell you what his voice sounded like, even today.”

Lawrence has taught students with autism. He’s taught students who were brilliant. But he’s never had one harder to label or harder to predict. He’s never had one who amazed him or flummoxed him like Adam.

How does a seventh-grader who rarely speaks write essays with the structure and vocabulary of a college kid? One night at SumTur Amphitheater, Adam was sitting on the grass with his sister — talking, smiling, laughing.

Lawrence snuck up on him. “And as soon as I got close, he stiffened up and put his head down,” Lawrence said.

“I’m to the point now where I can joke with him. I was, like, ‘Darn it, I thought I was gonna get you.’ ” Coach knows it’s not always funny when someone looks at Adam or asks him a question. He turns or backs away.

34 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Cody Stavenhagen, Kelly Hines, Mike Brown Publication: The Oklahoman By: Jenni Carlson

Sports Column Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dirk Chatelain

Excerpts from Columns by Dirk Chatelain David Volenec rolled down Sorensen Parkway in his police cruiser, belting the notes to a song he knew by heart. This was his rehearsal.

His Sunday shift at the Northwest Precinct had been hectic until 4:45 p.m., when the sergeant changed into his kilt and headed downtown to the CenturyLink Center.

Volenec has sung the national anthem dozens of times in his hometown.

At business luncheons and UNO hockey games, at 9/11 memorials and graduation ceremonies. One year, he sang on fireworks night at Rosenblatt Stadium.

That was a big one.

But none quite like this: opening night of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials.

The gig had been on his calendar for a month and Volenec was nervous. He’s always nervous, never because of the crowd.

“I just wanna make sure I do that song justice.”

Just before 7 p.m., the arena lights went dark and the pool glimmered beneath the scoreboard. The Omaha Police Department’s pipe and drum corps appeared under spotlight at the north end of the deck.

The crowd rose and heard the opening notes of “America the Beautiful” on bagpipes. One time through, then another as the corps approached the south end, where an American flag waved on a giant screen.

Sgt. Volenec broke away from the bagpipers and grabbed the microphone, his baritone voice starting steady and strong.

“Oh say can you see! By the dawn’s early ...”

The microphone crackled for a second. Then it stopped. The speakers went silent.

When you sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” for 12 years, you face the occasional technical difficulty. But Volenec has never experienced a dead mic so early in the song. He didn’t stop.

“What so proudly we hailed ...”

That’s when he heard the most

amazing thing: 13,426 voices in his ears, spontaneously and without hesitation.

“AT THE TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING. WHOSE BROAD STRIPES AND BRIGHT STARS.” It went on like this for another minute. The people couldn’t hear Volenec’s voice, but they could see his lips on the scoreboard screen. Volenec believes in a traditional anthem. No surprises.

No personal twists. They followed his tempo perfectly.

Ali Harrison, a breaststroke competitor from Ventura, California, joined the chorus from section 218, taking a 10-second video on her phone.

“I was smiling so much my cheeks hurt the rest of the night,” she said.

When the arena reached “the home of the brave,” the applause began and continued as Volenec joined the corps and exited the pool deck.

The Swim Trials are one of the city’s most-coveted events and the Omaha Sports Commission leaves nothing to chance. Planning begins years in advance. National anthem singers are coordinated months ahead.

But the truth is, you can’t control everything, said Harold Cliff, who oversees the Trials. Sometimes you have to improvise. Sometimes you get a little help.

“Only in America would you not miss a note,” Cliff said.

Sunday night’s first race featured Chase Kalisz’s thrilling win in the 400 individual medley. Jay Litherland chased down Ryan Lochte for second place and an Olympic spot. The crowd roared again, but Volenec didn’t hear it.

As he drove back up Sorensen Parkway, his mind was on the anthem.

One of the biggest crowds of his singing career and the fans barely heard a word. Disappointing? No. “Personally, I think it would be, I want to think of the right term ... I think it would be pretty selfish of me to be upset because a microphone didn’t work when I was singing a song that I don’t sing for me anyway.

“Really I was just there to lead the crowd. They did a great job.”

FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: Jenni Carlson Publication: The Oklahoman By: Berry Tramel

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 35

Review Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Brandy McDonnell Judge’s comments: Brandy McDonnell writes reviews with authority, humor and vivid detail. She’s also versatile, tackling topics from from a Carrie Underwood concert to the “Trolls” movie.

Excerpt from “Concert review: Carrie Underwood serves up a feast of song and spectacle at Oklahoma City Thanksgiving eve show” Carrie Underwood earned a hearty Thanksgiving meal Wednesday night, stuffing the Oklahoma City stop on her blockbuster “The Storyteller Tour: Stories in the Round” with a nonstop feast of songs and spectacle.

“Well, it certainly is good to be home,” the Checotah native told the sell-out crowd at Chesapeake Energy Arena. “We’re to have a great Thanksgiving eve. A little exercising before all our food tomorrow.”

The seven-time Grammy winner definitely got in her cardio, roaming all over the massive stage that spanned most of the arena floor and changed configuration more often than a troop of Transformers. She also played three instruments, raced through four costume changes and rode a giant revolving jukebox, all while belting out hit after hit in her signature powerhouse soprano.

Underwood, 33, pumped up the energy from the start, opening with the wailing urgency of “Renegade Runaway,” the first track from her 2015 platinum album “Storyteller,” and revving up the already ecstatic crowd with dynamic smashes like “Undo It,” “Good Girl” and a mash-up of “Last Name” and her Miranda Lambert duet “Somethin’ Bad.” Although she has more than 20 chart-toppers to her name, the recently crowned Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year didn’t turn her nearly two-hour set into a predictable hit parade. She stopped the show to pay tribute to Dolly Parton, encouraging the audience to “channel your inner Dolly” on a quiet yet powerful acoustic rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” She invited opening acts Easton Corbin and The Swon Brothers to join her on a tuneful cover of the Alabama classic “Mountain Music,” before swinging like a pendulum into

the intensely pulsating “Storyteller” cut “Clock Don’t Stop.”

“Of course, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I feel like all week I’ve been thinking of all the things I’m thankful for. … We’d be here all night if I started going down the list. But right now, I’m thankful I grew up in Oklahoma,” Underwood said.

The headliner wasn’t the only Oklahoma native on the lineup who was home for the holiday. “The Voice” Season 3 standouts The Swon Brothers, who hail from Muskogee, warmed up the crowd with a brief but lively opening set, showcasing their tight brotherly harmonies on their radio hit “Later On” as well as the catchy kiss-off “Don’t Call Me” and the anthemic “Pretty Cool Scars,” two new songs from a planned early 2017 release. Real-life brothers Zach and Colton Swon got a warm reception from the home-state crowd, especially when they signed a guitar and presented it to a little girl in the crowd.

“Man, it’s good to be home. We want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. We’re so grateful to be on this stage, and we know it’s thanks to you guys and the good Lord,” said Colton Swon. “We hope we do you proud.”

The pride of small-town Trenton, Fla., Corbin brought a buttery drawl and understated charisma to the middle slot on the lineup. Before heading to NYC to perform during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Thursday, he pleased the OKC crowd with his hits “Clockwork,” “Lovin’ You Is Fun,” “A Little More Country Than That” and a surprisingly smooth cover of Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself,” which he claimed was his payoff for a bet he lost to his guitar player and fishing buddy.

Despite the top-notch support, there was never any question that Underwood was the superstar of the show, as she served up a passionate, precision performance highlighted by her mighty voice and superbly backed by her tight six-piece band. More than a decade into her career, the formidable vocalist just keeps getting better, which she proved by elevating early hits like “Wasted” and “Before He Cheats.”

As with her previous tours, the 2005 “American Idol” winner treated her fans to live show that is a relentless entertainment extravaganza complete with pyrotechnics, lasers and video effects.

36 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Sarah Baker Hansen Publication: Tulsa World By: Jerry Wofford Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Micah Mertes

Copyright © 2016, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.

ARKANSAS ONLINE www.arkansasonline.com

Food Winner

Pie in a pinch

E

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2

Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Kelly Brant

Excerpts from Kelly Brant

pie of Indiana and has been around never fell out of favor in the South and What does one make for dessert since at least the mid-1800s. We found a Midwest. when the cupboard is almost bare? similar recipe called Joshua’s Pie in our Well-known examples of desperaDesperation pie. archives, the main difference being that tion pies include vinegar pie, sugarIn the days before 24-hour grocery the dry ingredients are added to the pie cream pie (also known as Indiana stores selling fresh and frozen foods crust, then topped with the wet, but not cream pie and Hoosier pie), mock from around the globe, cooks had to apple pie, oatmeal pie, butterscotch pie mixed together. make do with what was available.

Water pie, also known as poor man’s and shoo-fly pie.

In late winter, when summer’s pie, is similar but made with water in Often these pies are cited as having bounty was all but a distant memory, place of milk or cream. According to a been created during the Great Depresmany cooks still had flour, sugar, lard, recipe for it on the Oklahoma Historical sion, but most are much older. vinegar and possibly an egg or two (if Society’s website, water pie was popuShoo-fly pie, according to foodtimethe hens were willing) in the cupboard. lar during the Depression and Dust line.org, is a Colonial-era adaption of And ingenious cooks (in those days Bowl days. a European recipe popularized and housewives and slaves) figured out named by the Pennsylvania Dutch. The how to turn those simple ingredients name Shoo-fly didn’t appear in print into delicious desserts.

FINALISTS Food styling/KELLY BRANT Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN until 1926, but recipes for the sticky Whether you know them as desThis Butterscotch Pie may look extravagant, but it’s made with simple ingredients: sugar, butter, flour, eggs and vanilla.

Publication: St. Louis sweet pie date to the 1700s. The pie was peration pies, make-do pies or by their Post-Dispatch also known as molasses pie. specific names, these frugal-hearted By: Daniel Neman Sugar-cream pie is perhaps the desserts are coming back into fashion KELLY oatmeal pie, butterscotch pie and shoo-fly pie.

Vinegar pie has been around the early to of the desperation pies, filled in cookbooks, on BRANT cooking websites and pie,simplest Publication: Tulsasince World ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE Often these pies are cited as having been created mid-1800s and was especially popular in the Midwith a simple mixture of sugar, flour trendy restaurant menus -though it What does one make for dessert when the cupduring the Great Depression, but most are much west, where citrus fruits were harder to come by, By: Scott Cherry boardcan is almost bare? Desperation according to foodtimeline.org. The flavor can vary and cream. The pie is the official state be argued that manypie. of these pies older.

When the cupboard is almost bare, old standby make-do recipes will save the day

In the days before 24-hour grocery stores sellShoo-fly pie, according to foodtimeline.org, is a depending on the type of vinegar used. Contrary ing fresh and frozen foods from around the globe,ReadColonial-era the full stories and view winning photos greatplainsawards.org 37 adaption of a European recipe poputo itsatunappetizing name, the finished pie/ does not cooks had to make do with what was available. larized and named by the Pennsylvania Dutch. The taste like vinegar.

In late winter, when summer’s bounty was all name Shoo-fly didn’t appear in print until 1926, but Recipes for mock apple pie appeared in newsbut a distant memory, many cooks still had flour,

Entertainment Feature Winner Publication: Oklahoma Gazette By: Ben Luschen

Excerpt from “Public Enemy’s Chuck D says Woody Guthrie’s spirit lives on in OKC rapper Jabee’s new album” Hip-hop artist Jabee and genre-defining rap icon Chuck D appear strikingly different, despite their common goals.

Jabee Williams, known publicly as Jabee, enlisted the famed political rap heavyweight and Public Enemy frontman for his new album, Black Future, set for an Aug. 12 release.

The original Jabee is warm and approachable. He isn’t tall, and his recently trimmed frame contributes to him looking more like a tattooed college kid than a grown father of two. But his knowledge runs deep.

Broad-shouldered Chuck D, on the other hand, speaks in a bellowing monotone dense with decades of voluminous wisdom. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer with three platinum albums under his belt. Rolling Stone’s seminal 100 Greatest Artists list ranks Public Enemy at No. 44. That said, commercial success is not why Chuck D is an imposing figure.

His is the voice behind the politically and socially charged music act that called out American pop-culture relics Elvis Presley and John Wayne as “straight up racist” in Public Enemy’s powerful and enduring hit “Fight the Power.” In recent months, the New York musician also called Donald Trump a “clown,” Hillary Clinton a “liar” and former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani’s continued presence a “nightmare.”

Chuck minces no words, a fact an Oklahoma Gazette reporter kept in mind when he joined the artist for a late June interview inside The Granada, a theater in Lawrence, Kansas, ahead of recent Public Enemy gig.

There is some solace in knowing Jabee well, about being prepared to discuss why Jabee’s Black Future feels like the one of the most ambitious albums any Oklahoma rapper has created — or how huge and generous a gift Chuck D’s work on the project really is, or how respected Jabee is locally for his own generosity in the northeast Oklahoma City community he proudly represents.

Instead, Chuck D just shook his head.

Two minutes into the interview, he cut to the point.

“You guys had Woody Guthrie rapping out there,” he said of the politically outspoken Okemah-born folk musician.

In a “what’s now?” genre historically obsessed with geography, world-traveling Chuck D has little patience for the tight restrictions of time and space rap music often places on itself.

“The tie between Woody Guthrie and Jabee is not as distant as people think,” he said.

Dangerously absurd Before his rap career, Jabee endlessly studied cultural thought and history.

He read Malcolm X’s autobiography several times. While a student at Northwest Classen High School, he asked his social studies teacher Sally Kern, who coincidentally went on to become a state legislator, if she could tell him more about activist Huey P. Newton, who co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966. Kern instead asked him if he meant scientist Sir Isaac Newton.

Jabee’s longstanding interest in civil rights and social activism explains why it bothers him when people claim he only addresses those issues now because they’re topical. His social and

political truths were woven into his earliest songs and life experiences, and they still are.

In Black Future track “Flashes,” Jabee recalls an instance when someone he considered a friend called him an Uncle Tom because he perceived the artist’s fan following as largely white.

Black Future is not solely about black issues or any one group, despite its title. Jabee said it’s about humanity — in the city and across the globe — at a crossroads. Which path will people chose in a world that feels increasingly chaotic?

“We can have a bright future or a dark future,” Jabee explained. “That’s across the board for blacks, whites, whoever. We all want a bright future.

We all want to see tomorrow.”

Black Future was inspired by a poem of the same name written by his friend Najah-Amatullah Hylton. The narrated prose, broken into three tracks, creates the framework for the album.

38 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Judith Newmark

Specialty Feature Winner Publication: The Des Moines Register By: Kathy Bolten, Grant Rodgers, Brian Powers Judge’s comments: This project is riveting, woven together in a smooth, compelling narrative, woven together from multiple sources. All of the elements enrich the section.

Excerpt from “Murder at the State Fair: Greed, Envy, Lies” Marilyn Blewer suffered the most.

The gunman had already ordered her husband, Bobie, to open their safe and take out thousands of dollars earned at their funnel cake stand at the Iowa State Fair.

But she sensed something even more terrible was about to happen in the cramped bus, her family’s living quarters on the road.

Her hands bound, Marilyn jumped up from her seat at the dining table. The gunman fired, the bullet ripping into her chest and knocking her to the floor.

Outside, tens of thousands of visitors flooded the fairgrounds that August day in 1996. They stood in long lines to sample attractions that were quintessentially Iowan — eating corn dogs and glimpsing the renowned butter cow and its companion sculpture, “American Gothic.”

But inside the motor home, a coldblooded murder plot played out, fueled by greed envy and lies.

Marilyn cried as the gunman stood over her.

She heard a second gunshot. And then another.

‘Try my funnel cake’ Bobie and Marilyn Blewer began operating Florrie’s Funnel Cakes at the Iowa State Fair in the mid-1970s, eventually landing a coveted vending spot on the Grand Concourse “triangle” for their distinctive-looking red trailer with gold accents and wagon wheels.

Married in April 1969, the couple lived on a 120-acre farm near Granby, Mo., a town of about 2,000 in the southwestern corner of the state. Bobie “was doing quite well” at an executive recruiting company, but he wanted to be his own boss, said his older brother, Arnold Blewer.

“He went down to Silver Dollar City one time and saw what they were doing with funnel cakes,” Arnold Blewer said.

“He had a trailer built, and as far as I know, he was one of the first to go on

the road with funnel cakes.”

The couple traveled the Midwest from mid-June until the end of September. It didn’t take them long to add a second trailer, he said.

Neighbors and friends kept watch over the family’s livestock and large garden during concession season.

“We had a cherry tree,” said Jada, the couple’s youngest daughter. “My mom would tell the neighbors, ‘You pick the cherries, I’ll make you a pie.’”

Their son, Beau, helped with the garden. “Then we’d leave and go concessioning,” he said.

Jamie, the Blewers’ oldest child, was 8 when she first joined her father on the “funnel cake circuit.” Bobie taught her how to count change and pour sodas, but kept her away from the hot fryer.

When Beau and Jada were old enough, they joined the family on the fair circuit.

“We were all together,” Beau said.

The Blewers brought their stand to Des Moines after an Iowa State Fair manager noticed the crowds they were drawing in Oklahoma. At the time, many Iowa fairgoers were unfamiliar

with the sweet treat made by pouring cake batter through a funnel into hot oil and serving it with powdered sugar sprinkles.

Bobie “would stand outside his trailer with bits and pieces of funnel cake cut up and hand them out to people as they walked by — ‘Here, try it; try my funnel cake,’” Arnold said.

By 1996, the Blewers’ stand, and funnel cakes, were fair staples.

A home on wheels The first days of the 1996 Iowa State Fair were nearly perfect — 85 degrees with a light breeze and a blue sky punctuated with white, cotton candylike clouds.

At night, the family slept in an oldermodel charter bus they had converted into a home on wheels.

FINALISTS Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Ian Froeb Publication: The Oklahoman By: Melissa Howell

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 39

Special Section Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Staff Judge’s comments: This section is top-notch. It’s slick, creative and filled with valuable information. The photos and graphics are excellent and the flow and cohesiveness of the section are impressive.

2016 College Football Preview COLLEGE FOOTBALL

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2016

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2016

MICHIGAN

The once marauding Nebraska football machine is being retooled in Lincoln by a cadre of coaches, specialists and support staff. The machine, powered by sellout after sellout at Memorial Stadium, is bigger and more intricate than ever. Coach Mike Riley is the man charged with making it all work. Can he put all the pieces together in a way that ignites a consistent winner? Possibly. Sometimes, where there’s smoke, there’s ďŹ re.

REBUILDING THE BIG BIG TEN TUNE-UP

RED

Take a spin around the conference. A couple of programs are in high gear, a few with big engines are still gearing up and some programs are simply sputtering. 22-25CF

NEBRASKA SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN. 20-21CF

MACHINE

MARYLAND

11

MARYLAND

90

MARYLAND

22

Quality of banking.

Quality of life.

WILL A BIG TEN TEAM CLAIM THE PLAYOFF TROPHY? FIND OUT WHAT OUR EXPERTS SAY. 27CF

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• SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2016

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2016

• 11CF

M A R K D AV I S / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

A M I X E D V I E W F R O M T H E S TA N D S

They’re known nationally as college football’s most loyal fans. But aside from ďŹ lling Memorial Stadium on Saturdays, what’s their role in the Big Red Machine? And how do they feel about 2016? We conducted an email roundtable with Nebraska fans, asking what’s on their mind entering Year 2 of the Mike Riley era.

MICHAEL RHEINER “As much as some people don’t like to admit it, Riley has been a uniquely surprising hire that has given fans someone that has a “Nebraska Niceâ€? quality, while also being willing to adjust the staff, and work to compete immediately. “There is no denying the positive tone found in the recruiting efforts. The vibe is real and the optimism is patiently (and quietly) swelling. That said, there is a constant undercurrent of negativity waiting to pounce at the ďŹ rst sign of struggle. A very vo-

cal segment of the fan base still loves to believe that Husker football was and should always be the ’90s.

They forgot the struggles in the ’70s and ’80s when, despite nearly no limits to recruiting or the walk-on program, we still didn’t win titles every year.�

K ATIE NEDROW “The fan base is in a shaky spot. I grew up in South Dakota cheering for the Huskers and my dad was always a season-ticket holder. In 2013, he decided he didn’t want to do that anymore. Fans have grown a bit

weary of the current state of the program, but I don’t think it’s too late. Last year my dad only came down for one game, but is planning on multiple visits this year.�

DAV I D H A R D I N G “I’m always hopeful, as fans of every team this time of the year are. But perhaps more importantly, even though the Huskers went 6-7 last year, which obviously isn’t anything to brag about, I have a sense of pride in the program once again. Not to bash the prior regime, but any pleasure or satisfaction I got

from being a fan of the team, regardless of wins and losses, had been reduced signiďŹ cantly the past few years. Just all the drama and the crushing big losses.

They took a toll. “It’s amazing to see how this staff has rebuilt the Nebraska brand in one year’s time, and even with a losing season, they seem to be reeling in better recruits across the board than the team has in years.

This new staff exudes positivity and the fans (and recruits, it seems) are eating it up. In a nutshell, it’s fun to be a fan again. Now let’s hope they can get 9-10 wins. Then we’ll really go crazy.�

GREG BRIGHT “Has the state of the Nebraska football program and its fans ever been worse? Nebraska fans continue to spend the offseason sweeping Midwest practicality under the rug and accept all the cheeriness the university and its marketing team spin.

Instead of demanding success, fans treat every decision as a positive and then are surprised when the results

don’t match it. Over the past 15 years, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have won eight national championships at four schools following a similar, basic set of rules: 1. Hire the best assistant coaches, not the ones you know the best.

2. Recruit the best players.

3. Give your players every advantage, bend to the talent you have, not the talent you want.

Let’s look at Nebraska’s track record: 1. When was the last time a Nebraska coach picked talent over loyalty? Riley brought nearly his entire mediocre staff from Oregon State to Nebraska. He did ďŹ re a coach, but one he had never worked with before. Grade: F 2. Pelini may have been the worst recruiter in Nebraska coaching history. Riley has opened us up to California, but doesn’t appear to know how to break into Texas or other Southern states. Grade: B-minus 3. Who thinks Riley has used Tommy Armstrong’s talent correctly? Grade: F The results of the past 8-10 years and last year, speciďŹ cally, should surprise no one.â€?

ANDY HOLZ “The last couple years have been interesting, as a fan, to experience such a contrast in acceptance of us between Bo and Riley. I honestly don’t blame Bo. I know we can be crazy. But he seemed threatened by us. In the ’90s, we were so good we would’ve won without fan support. We became spoiled, and when the talent (both coaching and players) diminished post-’90s, our ingratitude probably drove away good coaching candidates (who wants to coach at a place that ďŹ res a nine-win coach?) and at least contributed to some toxic situations in the recent past. (Did you listen to any of the audiotapes from Bo?) “Bo had issues, but he did help me to see that we seemed to be a fan base that had entitlement issues. On the other hand, Riley seems to have nothing but eternal gratitude and thankfulness for us. It has been refreshing and helped me to have perspective. He sees us as an asset, which, if used wisely, can beneďŹ t the program (not unlike Tommy’s running ability in this offense).â€?

See more fan emails on Page 12CF

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News Page Design Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Ian Lawson SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2016 • SECTION D

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016 SECTION D

JOE HEARN

war on savers.

What does this mean for the long-term viability of your retirement, and what can you do to keep your plans on track?

The 4 percent rule

ON RETIREMENT math of retirement works only if they’re able to earn some interest on their savings. That is a challenging task in a world where central banks the world over seem to have declared

In the early 1990s, financial adviser William Bengen did research on sustainable portfolio withdrawal rates. Assuming an asset mix of half stocks and half bonds, he back-tested withSee Hearn: Page 2

Health care, taxes still an uneasy mix It’s ‘steep learning curve’ as penalties rise for going without insurance, and others must repay more aid WASHINGTON (AP) — Many people who went without health insurance last year are seeing fines more than double under President Barack Obama’s health care law, tax preparation company H&R Block said Tuesday.

Among its customers who owe a penalty for the 2015 tax year, the average fine is $383, compared with $172 for 2014,

the company said.

Separately, among those who complied with the law and took advantage of its taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance, six in 10 have to pay back to the IRS some portion of their financial assistance.

Those payments also are trending higher this year, averaging $579, compared with $530 last tax season.

Although millions of uninsured people have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act, the update from H&R Block underscores the extent to which the law’s complex provisions remain a challenge for many consumers.

Previously, IRS data had pointed to some of the same problems, as well as an additional concern: Many who received subsidies in 2014 failed to file a tax return as required, See Insurance: Page 3

M AT T H A N E Y / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

Retire? Hard to answer in low-rate era Not long ago, most people worked as long as they were able and eventually either “died in harness” or relied on younger family members to care for them in their old age.

Then along came this idea of retirement, where through hard work, shrewd investing and some help from a pension (if you’re lucky) and Uncle Sam, you could hang up your work boots a little early and spend your golden years enjoying a bit of leisure and fun.

But for most people, the

GOING TO THE WELL AGAIN Falling oil prices haven’t scared Berkshire from stocking up on an out-of-favor commodity

BY RUSSELL HUBBARD ONLY IN THE WORLD-HERALD

Oil, oil everywhere — and Berkshire Hathaway is quickly moving to control an even bigger share of the out-of-favor energy commodity.

With the price of crude oil down more than 70 percent since the middle of 2014, many companies connected to the black stuff are under severe pressure.

Production in some U.S. fields has been curtailed, and there’s even talk of coming bankruptcies by drillers if prices continue to fall.

That hasn’t seemed to scare off Berkshire Chairman and Chief Executive Warren Buffett — instead, he’s stocking up while the stock prices of oil-connected companies are battered.

Regulatory filings last week by Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway show the conglomerate is diving even deeper into the crude pool. The latest investment in the company’s portfolio of stocks worth $117 billion at the end of 2014 is Hous-

$110 $100

$107.26

$90

$102.20

$80 $70

$60.30 $60 $50 $40

Crude oil prices per barrel

$30

$29.86 2015

2014 SOURCE: NYMEX

$20

2016

ton-based Kinder Morgan, operator of energy-storage terminals nationwide and an 84,000-mile network of oil and natural gas pipelines.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire Hathaway on Dec. 31 owned a new stake in Kinder Morgan of 26.5 million shares — worth about $400 million at year’s end.

The new stake in the energy business

by Berkshire Hathaway comes as others are shunning such investments. The price of crude oil has fallen so precipitously because of a major supply glut: Global production is outpacing demand by about 2 million barrels per day.

That has been welcome news for consumers, who are paying about $1 less for a gallon of gas than they were just over a year ago.

But it has been awful news for the energy business — including Kinder Morgan, whose stock has fallen about 65 See Oil: Page 2

THE WORLD-HERALD

U.P., BNSF

ECONOMIC STANDOUT

Railroads’ freight volume decline continues

BY RUSSELL HUBBARD WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Rail freight volumes for Union Pacific and BNSF Railway have continued to slump so far in 2016, after a disappointing 2015 that has led to job furloughs and sliced capital spending.

At Omaha-based Union Pacific, freight volumes through the first six weeks of the year have fallen 8 percent compared with the same period last year.

The decline is led by drops in hauling coal, farm goods other than grain, and sand used to stimulate oil wells.

At Texas-based BNSF,

Restaurants booming despite market turmoil TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU

owned by Omaha’s Berkshire Hathaway, volumes are down 3 percent in the same period.

Top decliners have been metallic ores, coal and crude oil.

Both Class I railroads, the U.S.’s two largest employing about 13,000 Nebraskans

WASHINGTON — One part of the U.S. economy is enjoying a surprising boom, and it should prove useful in combating the recent slowdown: Americans are spending more dining out than ever before.

The restaurant industry,

See Railroads: Page 3

long a reliable indicator of the underlying economy, has become an economic standout at a time of financial market turmoil and global uncertainty.

Sales at food service and drinking places jumped nearly 8 percent last year from 2014, more than double the pace of growth for total retail sales.

Employment at restaurants and watering holes grew nearly twice the rate of all other sectors combined over the past five years. Last month, eating and drinking places created 47,000 new jobs, more than what manufacturers added all See Economy: Page 2

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TO LIKE? Major beef sellers including McDonald’s and Walmart are pledging to use “sustainable beef” — a promise that holds risks and rewards for Nebraska, the nation’s leader in feeding and slaughtering cattle.

What is sustainable beef? And what should producers be doing if they want to raise and sell it?

Ask a dozen people in Nebraska’s beef industry, and you’ll get as many answers.

To some who worry about beef’s environmental impact, “sustainable beef” is an oxymoron.

To others, time-tested conventional practices are sustainable and getting more so every day — big ranches, feedlots and meatpackers wouldn’t still be in business otherwise, they say.

Now industry players including the Nebraska Cattlemen’s Association; major Nebraska

Plenty, probably, when you’re talking about ‘sustainable beef,’ a touchy idea across the industry

$1,000 INVESTED IN S&P 500

FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016 SECTION D

If you’d invested $1,000 in the S&P 500 index 51 years ago, you’d have $112,341 today — good for 74,894 Dilly Bars.

EACH DILLY BAR SHOWN REPRESENTS 50,000 BARS

employers Tyson Foods, JBS and Cargill; and one of the state’s largest feedlot operators, Adams Land and Cattle, are part of a national effort to build some consensus on what “sustainable” means.

They say they hope to counter the perceptions of some consumers that beef production harms the environment.

More than 90 groups and businesses are part of the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. Among the names on the roster: sustainability advocates such as the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, universities, and big agribusinesses such as Dow and Merck.

It might seem unusual that conventional See Beef: Page 2

W O R L D - H E R A L D I L L U S T R AT I O N

BY BARBARA SODERLIN ONLY IN THE WORLD-HERALD

$1,000 INVESTED IN BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY Had you invested $1,000 in Berkshire Hathaway 51 years ago, you’d have $15.3 million today. That’s a lotta Dilly Bars — 10,200,000, to be exact. Why the Dilly Bar comparison?

They’re Warren Buffett’s favorite treat — yours for $1.50 each.

Berkshire Hathaway to sell bonds to repay $10 billion loan Buffett’s conglomerate borrowed to take over Precision Castparts Corp.

BLOOMBERG NEWS Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will sell debt in what may be the conglomerate’s biggest bond sale, partly to repay a $10 billion loan used to finance its purchase of Precision Castparts Corp.

Berkshire may sell the debt in

up to eight parts as soon as this week, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Buffett had said earlier that Berkshire used about $23 billion of its cash for the deal and would borrow the rest. The one-year loan was provided by lenders led by Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Precision Castparts takeover is one of the largest See Bond sale: Page 2

A DILLY OF A RETURN

BUSINESS BRIEFS

Sticking with Buffett and

BY RUSSELL HUBBARD

Chevron lowers forecast for its spending in 2017-18

N.Y. business owners protest $15 minimum wage

Hastings’ Pacha Soap pays off loan early

Pennsylvania offers tourists ‘happiness’

Chevron is cutting its spending budget by nearly 40 percent for 2017 and 2018 as it deals with plunging oil prices. The oil and gas company said it expects to spend $17 billion to $22 billion on drilling and other projects in 2017 and 2018, lower than the $20 billion to $24 billion the company expected in October.

Chevron has a spending budget of $26.6 billion this year, down 24 percent from the year before.

“Industry conditions are tough right now,” Chevron chairman and CEO John Watson said.

Small-business owners are striking back against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to implement a $15 minimum wage, which would be the highest state minimum in the country. Business owners from around New York gathered at the Capitol in Albany on Tuesday to urge lawmakers to reject Cuomo’s proposal. A vote is expected in coming weeks. They say the wage increase would devastate the state’s economy by raising prices and reducing employment.

Pacha Soap of Hastings, Nebraska, has paid back a $30,000 loan to Hastings Economic Development Corp. five years early. Pacha received the loan in 2014 to help leverage private equity funding and jump-start the company.

“I think that’s just tremendous,” said Dave Rippe, the agency’s executive director, the Hastings Tribune reported. “We’ll be able to put that money back and leverage other startups in town and hopefully do other great projects just like this one.”

Pennsylvania is turning to the Declaration of Independence to inspire its new tourism motto. State officials unveiled the slogan “Pennsylvania.

Pursue Your Happiness” and a logo on Tuesday at a winery in Somerset County. The slogan takes the place of “The State of Independence,” the winner from among 22,000 submissions in a 2004 contest.

— From wire reports

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

One of the easiest ways to get rich in the past 51 years, longtime Berkshire Hathaway shareholders say, has been to leave it to Warren.

As in Buffett, chairman and chief executive of the Omaha-based conglomerate, who has led the company to beat the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index on a compound basis over that period by almost 2-to-1.

But will it still be true in another 51 years? (Buffett is 85.) Or even in five more years, as the company’s enviable returns become harder and harder to replicate?

SUSIE AND PETER BUFFETT

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Warren Buffett’s daughter and younger son said Thursday that their parents’ attitude about disadvantaged people — not the money — is the main influence in their work as philanthropists.

Both Susie Buffett and Peter Buffett said that although they never expected to be responsible

ask: Will it last?

for spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve other people’s lives, they both are now dedicated to giving equal chances to all people.

“My dad was 100 percent behind my mother” when it came to helping people, Susie Buffett said.

As they grew up in the 1960s, Susan Thompson Buffett was so

As for the historical numbers, they tell the tale of wealth that starts dynasties: » Berkshire’s book value — Buffett’s preferred benchmark — has compounded by 19 percent over the 51 years since Buffett bought a struggling Massachusetts textile mill and began doing business as head man at a publicly traded company that later branched into insurance, retailing, heavy industry and most everything else related to mankind’s needs and wants. » As for the share price, it has compounded annually at 21 percent over the 51 years.

See Stock: Page 3

MARKET WATCH

They credit parents’ caring attitudes for their own philanthropic ways

BY STEVE JORDON

Berkshire has paid off big for 51 years. Analysts

Dow Industrials

17,830.76 (-1.17%)

S&P 500

2,075.81 (-0.92%)

NASDAQ

4,805.29 (-1.19%)

Gold (NYMEX)

1,265.10 (-0.03%)

Crude Oil (CME) 46.03 (+1.54%)

World-Herald 150, Page 2D

See Philanthropy: Page 3

CABELA’S

Cost-cutting and credit card business propel quarter beyond expectations

BY PAIGE YOWELL WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Cabela’s reported a better-than-expected first quarter on Thursday, but not because it sold more hunting or fishing gear.

Company management instead attributed the results to a swath of companywide cost-cutting measures, and its successful credit card business.

As was the case when the Sidney, Nebraska, outdoors retailer reported fourth-quarter earnings in February, management did not address its strategic review — Wall Street speak for an effort to possibly sell the company.

Company leaders also didn’t address news reports that competitor Bass Pro Shops, based in Missouri, See Cabela’s: Page 2

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MARKET WATCH

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S&P 500

1,979.26 (-1.12%)

NASDAQ

4,648.83 (-1.26%)

Gold (NYMEX)

1,262.20 (-0.09%)

Crude Oil (CME) 36.50 (-3.69%)

World-Herald 150, Page 2D

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Six new elephants ready for visitors

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2016 SECTION E

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 2016 SECTION E

BY CHRIS PETERS WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Nearly a month after their arrival, six new African elephants will go on display today at the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium.

At about 11 a.m., the elephants will be introduced to a portion of their new outdoor exhibit, which is in the far southwest corner of the zoo, south of the giraffes.

The newly constructed yard stretches east from the elephants’ overnight quarters right up to the zoo’s train tracks. The remainder of the 4-acre yard — which will include a wading pool, timed hay drops and a training station with amphitheater seating — is under construction from the tracks to the lagoon.

Dennis Pate, zoo CEO and executive director, said officials will monitor the elephants to see how they handle crowds of onlookers.

Since arriving from Swaziland on March 11, the elephants have been living inside the 29,000-square-foot elephant family quarters. They underwent a quarantine period mandated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — initially expected to take about 30 days — and passed a veterinary examination last Thursday that cleared them from quarantine.

The entire African Grasslands, including the remainder of the elephant exhibit, is expected to be open by Memorial Day.

A man and his myth of Western legend Buffalo Bill was a global icon, but his story is shrouded in tall tales and lingering ill feeling

Contact the writer: chris.peters@owh.com, 402-444-1734, twitter.com/_ChrisPeters

CUB REPORTER Nine-year-old who covered a homicide for her website defends self after being told to have a tea party. PAGE 2E

BY MICHAEL O’CONNOR WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

He’s considered the first international celebrity, kind of the Brad Pitt of his day with a strong dose of showmanship thrown in.

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody became famous during the run of his Wild West Show, which was first performed in Nebraska in the 1880s and then across the country and Europe.

Cody is an interesting historical figure, partly because it’s tough sorting out which parts of his story are real and which are folktales. There’s also debate about whether his inclusion of Native Americans in the Wild West shows was educational or exploitive.

An exhibit opening Jan. 30 at the Durham Museum explores Cody and his show, which both have strong Nebraska ties. North Platte was his home for more than three decades during the height of his fame a century ago, and the Buffalo Bill State Historical Park remains a popular tourist destination there. Cody, who was born in eastern Iowa, spent plenty of time in Omaha,

Bellevue family stars in Missouri tourism ads

THE NOSE KNOWS

BY MICHAEL O’CONNOR

A

Casting call leads to a four-day trip; role will help pay for adoption D AV E C R O Y / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

• WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

ON PAGE 2: A GUIDE TO SURVIVING ALLERGY SEASON

runny nose is usually the first sign for Salvatore Ingraldi. • Then itchy eyes, congestion and sneezing.

• “It’s annoying,” said Ingraldi, who lives in Bellevue, “when you’re talking to someone and your nose

Do you have hay fever or a cold?

starts running without any warning.” • Medical books call it allergic rhinitis, but we know it as hay fever,

and millions of Americans face it. • Hay fever season started about a month early this year in the Omaha area.

Tree pollen counts hit high levels in late February because of unusually warm weather, so people were sneezing and sniffling sooner than usual.

See Buffalo Bill: Page 2

BY LAUREN BROWN-HULME The Swartz family of Bellevue milked cows at Shatto Dairy Farm in Osborn, Missouri, slid down water slides at Oceans of Fun in Kansas City and ate funnel cakes at the State Fair in Sedalia, capturing it all on GoPro and iPhone cameras.

The photos Danna and videos that Swartz Danna and Patrick Swartz took are featured in TV, print and online advertisements and on the Visit Missouri website as part of “It’s Your Show,” an ad campaign by the Missouri Division of Tourism that features real families visiting the Show-Me State.

The Bellevue family’s part in the campaign is funding the family’s adoption of their eighth child, a 15-year-old daughter from Vietnam, Danna Swartz said.

• There’s no cure for hay fever, but there are ways to ease symptoms and make your life

easier when the pollen is flying. • So if you’re sniffling today or your eyes are Husker red, turn to Page 2 and read on.

Finding relief: medications, testing for your allergen, tips to avoid pollen What’s your “on” season for allergies?

See Swartz: Page 2

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SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 SECTION E

FROM NEBRASKA TO THE WORLD: BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST

B U F FA L O B I L L C E N T E R O F T H E W E S T

M E G A N FA R M E R / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

What: Exhibit exploring William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his Wild West Show Where: Durham Museum, 801 S. 10th St., Omaha When: Jan. 30-May 1 Cost: Included in museum admission: adult, $11; children, $7; seniors, $8. Prices effective Jan. 30.

Most of the additional programming with the Cody exhibit, such as lectures, are included in the admission cost.

For more information: durhammuseum.org

A JOYFUL NOISE AGAIN Repairs will let St. Frances Cabrini’s 150-year-old bells chime once more, to parishioners’ delight

BY MICHAEL O’CONNOR

• WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Helen Butera grew up four blocks from St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church and remembers the mighty sound of the parish bells.

•

The church’s four bronze bells rang at

weddings, tolled at funerals, clanged at noon and pealed before Masses and to signal milestones such as the end of World War II. • “It was powerful,” said Butera, who turns 99 this month, “like God was calling out to us.” • Those bells fell silent more than three decades ago because of damage at the historic Omaha church — which has roots as the city’s first cathedral — but now the parish is raising funds to bring them back to life. • The Rev. Damian Zuerlein, who took over as pastor last year, says the timing is right for repairing the bells at St. Frances Cabrini, which sits in Little Italy along the resurgent 10th Street corridor south of downtown. • Developers view the corridor as hot real estate, with the area drawing retail and residential development, including

GAB SESSION IS A FINE FIT

CONCERT REVIEW

Jason Aldean fans rock out to star’s amped-up ‘country’ hits

BY KEVIN COFFEY WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

They call it country.

I’m not sure I can say the same.

Two of the biggest stars in country music, Jason Aldean and Thomas Rhett, shared the stage Friday at CenturyLink Center Omaha. And it wasn’t so much country as pop and rock with the occasional bit of twang.

A close to sold-out audience

of more than 13,000 packed the arena, and they sang their favorite songs from country radio such as “Burnin’ It Down,” “Night Train” and “Fly Over States.”

Aldean wore fringed jeans, a wallet chain, a cowboy hat and loads of tattoos. His clothes were as divided between rock and country as his music, which was full of as much of his Georgia twang as roaring guitars.

See Aldean: Page 2

At several points during ‘Love, Loss and What I Wore’ at the Playhouse, reviewer Betsie Freeman nodded along to the relatable story.

PAGE 5E

COMEDY REVIEW

Tracy Morgan leaves audience in stitches with tale of recovery

BY ANDREA KSZYSTYNIAK WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A year and a half ago, the world wasn’t sure whether comedian Tracy Morgan would survive.

A Walmart truck rear-ended his limo in June 2014. The accident would kill Morgan’s friend, comedian James McNair, and leave Morgan in a coma for nearly two weeks.

The comedian has spent the

See Bells: Page 2

The bell tower at St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church has played recorded music since the mid-1980s, when damage to the church silenced its four bronze bells. Now the church has raised funds to get the bells fixed and ringing again. At top, Ben Sunderlin, a bell maker from Virginia, navigates the tight spaces of the bell tower during his inspection.

last year or so recovering from his injuries, which included a broken femur, several broken ribs and a broken nose.

None of these things were apparent when Morgan made his triumphant return to the stage at the Whiskey Roadhouse in the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs on Friday night. The show was the first warmup date before Morgan officially begins the “Picking Up the Pieces” tour See Morgan: Page 2

PERFORMERS AND FANS FIND THEIR GROOVE

HOW WE MET

He made a (gentlemanly) play for her while rehearsing show

BY MICHAEL O’CONNOR WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

He was a few years older than the high school students trying out for a play at his church, so he was reluctant to join the cast.

But his sister was the director, so he couldn’t say no.

It turned out to be a good decision for Andy and Joann Gohlinghorst of Council Bluffs.

It was 1947 and Andy was a

19-year-old high school graduate working for his dad in the family plumbing business.

Joann Varner was 15 and finishing her sophomore year at Abraham Lincoln High in Council Bluffs.

Both were members of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs and sang in the choir, but they had never met before and for some reason had never even See Wed: Page 2

Electro-pop band CHVRCHES leaves a boisterous crowd hungry for more at Stubb’s in Austin as South by Southwest rocks on.

PAGE 5E

COMMUNITY PLAYHOUSE

Play that’s done the rounds of city’s writers is set for reading

BY BETSIE FREEMAN WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

He was the new guy in town, so Jeff Horger decided to get out and meet his fellow Omahans.

That quest turned out to have benefits beyond just getting acquainted. It gave Horger the idea for an educational project at the Omaha Community Playhouse, where he became associate artistic director about a year ago.

Now that idea has become a reality: On Monday night, the Patchwork Play Project will have a staged reading of a work created as a round-robin by several Omaha writers, including an English class at Beveridge Middle School and a student at Burke High School.

As he was meeting his fellow thespians, Horger started to notice that the city had a number See Playwrights: Page 2

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FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Tammy Yttri Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Pam Miller-Jenkins 42 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Sports Page Design Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Margaret Riedel TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2016

•

SECTION C

CWS CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

COLLEGE WORLD SERIES SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2016

WHO B R E N D A N S U L L I VA N / T H E W O R L D - H E R A L D

WILL THIS ONE’S IN HAND

HANG

ARIZONA 3, COASTAL CAROLINA 0

Cloney goes the distance, leaves Wildcats one win from second CWS title in five seasons

BY JON NYATAWA WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Arizona’s stocky starting pitcher raised his left arm as he strutted off the field, pumping his fist a couple of times while heading toward a dugout full of celebrating teammates.

Never mind that the last pitch JC Cloney threw had been demolished — driven to the right-field wall, where senior Zach Gibbons made a leaping grab to preserve the three-run lead in the eighth inning.

To Cloney, it was just a lazy popup.

TILL

So the confident left-hander, still a bit upset that he’d been pulled after seven scoreless innings here last week, marched through the high-fives and back-slaps — straight toward his coach so he could tell him to give the bullpen guys the ninth inning off.

“I got this,” Cloney said. “This is my game.”

That it was. Cloney pitched a shutout in the opener of the CWS finals Monday night, leading Arizona to a 3-0 win over Coastal Carolina before 20,789 at TD Ameritrade Park. He did have to escape some drama in the ninth inning after two

men reached base, but Cloney induced a double play and recorded a strikeout to move the Wildcats (49-22) within one victory of the national championship.

“It’s a special performance,” Arizona coach Jay Johnson said. “It’s an unbelievable offensive team that did not get very many good swings off on him. Very impressive. It’s about as good as it gets.”

The Chanticleers (53-18) have hit more home runs (95) and scored more runs (507) than anyone else in the country — but they managed just four singles off Cloney on Monday.

See Game 1: Page 15

THE BEST-OF-3 SERIES: ARIZONA LE ADS 1-0 Game 2: 7 p.m. Tuesday, ESPN Game 3: 7 p.m. Wednesday, ESPN (if necessary)

CLONEY KILLS COMEBACK Coastal Carolina credited Arizona starter JC Cloney for limiting its offense — even after a couple of late hits gave the Chanticleers a chance to rally. Page 14C Arizona right fielder Zach Gibbons goes to the wall to snare a drive by Coastal Carolina’s Michael Paez to close the eighth inning. It was the hardest hit against Arizona starter JC Cloney, who allowed four singles.

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THE END? Patience. Focus. Resolve.

The same qualities it takes to create art come in handy on the diamond. Add a comeback here and a walk-off there, and suddenly you’re in Omaha. Here, it’s anyone’s game, and what happens next will have everyone on pins and needles. Find team reports, the bracket and players

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I slouched in the high school gym bleachers during lunch period, reading one of those preseason baseball magazines we bought before Matthew the Internet and talking Hansen myself into the upcoming Chicago Cubs season.

COMMENTARY You never know, I thought. We did sign lockdown closer Mel Rojas this offseason.

It was 1997 and I was a high school junior far more skilled at studying Rojas’ ERA than asking a girl to prom. One of the hallmarks of my high school springs — heck, something I have done most every year before or since — is the day when I would sit quietly somewhere and

scheme all the ways that my Cubbies might shock the world.

You never know, I thought in ’97. Onetime superstar Ryne Sandberg might find that old magic. Up-and-coming pitcher Steve Trachsel might turn into an ace.

This is how it works. As surely as the cottonwoods turn green, as surely as the goldenrod grows wild in roadside ditches, as surely as the spring wind whistles across the Nebraska plains, I will convince myself that this Cubs season might be, could be, is in fact different.

You never know, I think. This year could be the year the Cubs win the World Series.

That annual rite of spring is what makes this spring just a tad odd for hopelessly devoted Cubs fans like yours truly.

For the first time in memory, there’s

no reason to try to pound square pegs into round holes, to conjure false hope, to pretend that a weak-hitting outfielder named Corey Patterson might magically morph into the next Ken Griffey Jr. (Yes, I did that once.)

This year’s version of the Cubs needs none of that magical thinking. After winning 97 games last year — the most by any Cubs team since World War II — and reaching the World Series doorstep, all they did this winter was sign stud outfielder Jason Heyward, veteran pitcher John Lackey and super-utility player Ben Zobrist while losing … pretty much no one.

The Cubs are the proud owners of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, two of the best 10 young hitters in baseball. And also Jake Arrieta, last year’s Cy Young Award

winner. And also Joe Maddon, generally regarded as the best manager in baseball.

And also a cast of supporting characters — Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber, Jon Lester, Jorge Soler — who are either stars or stars-in-waiting. My punchline of a baseball team is somehow ridiculously, fantastically, overwhelmingly stacked.

It feels a little like walking into your kitchen expecting to find the usual leftover 99-cent packaged ramen. Instead, you discover a Japanese sushi chef slicing bluefin tuna and a French sommelier uncorking a vintage bottle of cabernet.

It’s wonderful, and also weird.

This spring, I find myself searching hard for weaknesses. Maybe the bullpen See Hansen: Page 10

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Tim Parks Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Santiago Carlos Ayulo, Evan Hill, Ethan Erickson Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 43

Graphics/Illustration Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Todd Pendleton “Hunting Holtclaw”

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Matt Haney Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dave Croy 44 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

OPINION

Editorial Cartoon Winner

Terry Kroeger, Publisher •

Publication: Omaha World-Herald Cate Folsom, Editorial Page By: EditorJeff Koterba

Editorial Staff: Jeff Koterba, Aaron Sanderford, Geitner Simmons, Tim O’Brien

Judge’s comments: Jeff Koterba is an institution in Omaha, and I really enjoy his take and his artwork. Very thoughtful, consistent, high-quality cartoons. The World-Herald is lucky to have him! PAGE 4B

p

a sound decioposal that demolish any rical or archi-

the plan afors objected demolitions. ter numerous . Among them: stricting ighborhood ctions that rchase a propect a property fter a house

lition appro4B • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2016 MIDLANDS OMAHA WORLD-HERALD verly broad and criteria being e “streetscape neighbors the property’s Terry Kroeger, Publisher • Michael Holmes, Editorial Page Editor • Cate Folsom, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Terry Kroeger, Publisher • Cate Folsom, Editorial Page Editor her the alterEditorial Staff: Jeff Koterba, Aaron Sanderford, Geitner Simmons, Tim O’Brien Editorial Staff: Jeff Koterba, Aaron Sanderford, Geitner Simmons, Tim O’Brien ble?

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2016 PAGE 4B PAGE 4B s have uninrejuvenate the OFFICERS DOWN wl by creating operties? desire to prethe Gretna Downtown Business Association A perfect role for City Council Delightful story about Cozad ed for future to revitalize the Gretna downtown area are Omaha City Councilman Chris Jerram said he Another great example of the wonderful pment. exciting (“Gretna wants to put its historic ‘core’ ebraska and Iowa residents have mourned has heard concerns that, under future mayoral variety of stories and the insightful writing 2 on modiclear nowa about Hillary map,” June 10 World-Herald). law enforcement back officers on lost the to senseless administrations, the proposed ordinance shootings and assaults. offered in The World-Herald was the May 30 ous handling of email pay attention There are many features of our area that are as secretary of state.

So the recent requiring the city to sign off on demolitions of shootings of police officers in San story “Cozad’s bronze age: memorials built to Ahts new State Department might be prospective businesses as it looks one fatal, the to other nearly Antonio and St. Louis — positives t spells that out in detail. older structures could become “an unforeseen last” by David Hendee, whom I’ve bragged on — hit close to home. The losses were even harder to open shop in the downtown region.

Those nal accountbest was ntemail works to stomach because regulatory quagmire because of personalities in authorities in both instances before.

servants public

port said. Email records vernment were “incomlegal adviser neither er private system. When tate Department email, nt her personal emails mbers raised concerns, speak of the secretary’s ain.” ng explanations have creclarity. mail system was rer convenience — she rate devices for personal months of insisting she for, she called it a “misy about that.” She said her — an ineffective, “all the She said she’d be happy me” about the matter but d for the inspector gen-

agree

rable thing. gtheinsults at othpolitical fray, of you. nton quickly sought to campaign-related clash. re making poportant principle inloyees — whether they ortable with inton was, or elected to

public servants. y typing letters for the ment or the secretary of for the American people. name of the American eir work belongs to the re answerable to the

h Carolina is logue, setting e country. m an array of venient. Sometimes, othdo it properly.

Sometimes, s, with views

ike to explain.

OPINION

OPINION

THE PUBLIC PULSE Midlands feel officers’ losses

N

say police officers were characteristics targeted. That revivesinclude historic brick streets the position.”

Paul S. McKie, Tonganoxie, Kan. painful memories of last July in Dallas, where an and well-established businesses, such as Kids assassin He has tried to address that by having theshot and killed five officers.

Roundup.

Line-of-duty shooting deaths are up sharply, City Council, rather than the city planning staff, with 61 in 2016, up from 38 in 2015, the National Hopeless lives lead to terrorist acts Four years ago the city opened the children’s Enforcement Memorial Fund reports. make the final decision (“Developer Law seeks library downtown, which has increased traffic Mayors and police chiefs nationally have The events in Orlando remind us that violence delay in plan to slow razings,” June 4blamed Worldsuch attacks for a decline in the number of during the day and evening hours. I hope with and terrorism are becoming more common in people applying for jobs as law enforcement offiHerald). cers. Applicants for the Omaha Police Department the new and upcoming efforts, this library our country. When some people have little or One could only conclude that a lackdropped of by more than half from 2010 to 2015. will continue tothatbe a staple in the downtown nothing to lose and believe that they will be One good to come from these tragedies is personality would be the goal for whoever is more folks are learning that police officers, business plan.sherrewarded in the afterlife for killing “infidels,” making those decisions — a perfect job for thestate troopers and federal agents are iffs deputies, My family and I own a home in the Gretna one can see why these barbarous acts are human beings doing a hard job.

City Council.

Omaha Police Officer Kerrie Orozco, 29, the and would love for the downtown area taking place.

Cara Redding, Ralston most recent OPD officer killed in the line of duty, development to include even more familyRemember, it is difficult to punish a was gunned down May 20, 2015, while serving a warrant. Her death camefriendly one day before she was options. successful suicide bomber.

THE PUBLIC PULSE to take maternity leave to bond with her preemie Stothert held to aenvironment, higherthatstandard Samantha Deloske, Gretna J.F. Johnson, Omaha becan released fromhe the Orozco was primary, didhospital. get the majority. is the only about “green”to they Deadly force a last but necessary resort claim.

As for Rodle’s disdain for U.S. Sen. Deb a wife, mother, daughter, friend, colleague, youth In her upcoming May 24 Public Pulse writer Thomas Wessling 2017 city budget proposal THE PUBLIC PULSE Wind turbines are deadly tosports bats, birds and Fischer’s endorsement of Trump — like it or coach and Girl Scout volunteer. (“Reconsider deadly force”) questioned why FINALISTS insects.

They visually blight and for industrialize Trump will be the Republican candidate, (“Cityhavefinalizes figures, counts surplus 3rdas Policenot,Chief the language we heard on the “Access destructive forces of communism.

She was, Todd Schmaderer Omaha police officers to resort to deadly Goodwill sparks bad will Chicago canbesaid take Van Metre was a friend tomention Omaha schools the natural landscape. The network of roads and Fischer recognizes it would a disaster the chef After World War II, President Harry Truman Hollywood” tape. force during altercations. shooting, for “a the tremendous an were As housecleaning of the grossly overpaid year in a row,” June 3andWorld-Herald), Omaha power lines that need to after be builtthe to erect country if his officer probableand opponent saved Western Europe from being taken by Miller wrote, “get over it, we won.” Actually, First of all, police officers do not resort to executives and of managers continues at Goodwill even better person.” and maintain these giants fragment sensitive When are the corporate leaders ConAgra Publication: Tulsa World

By: Bruce Plante to win.

I am writing to honor the memory of Carol the Soviet Union with the Berlin Airlift.

He you didn’t.

Clinton won theVan popular vote by deadly force every time there is an altercation.

Omaha, it is time to move on to the next group Mayor Jean Stothert,natural as she hassuchdone each landscapes as theDes Sand Hills and and Urbandale, Iowa, suffered Jane Wilson, established NATO to protect Europe and more than 2 million votes. Trump won because Moines sim- Omaha Deadly force is the last thing any officer wants — the boardgoing of trustees. and/or civic leaders of Chicago to move Metre (“Giving a lift through wasCollege. the Pine Ridge. confronted the onslaughtkids of communist of thesports archaic Electoral ilarmoney losses Nov. 2, when a man targeting police to use.

All 21 of them who currently sit on the board. year in office, will again allocate more aggression in South Korea from North Korea Fifty years ago, when Lady Bird Johnson Miller says the Democrats pout, cry and Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to By: Deering Most confrontations are controlled merely Marcuzzo of justice OK, maybe we can give ahome pass those who John officers shot and killed Urbandale Officer Justin oura friend statue of Chef Boyardee to his new her goal,” June and Red China with military12 force.World-Herald). whine when they don’t get their way. One can campaigned to beautify America by placing by the officer’s for presence.

If thingsrepair begin to and snow have been on the board for less than three street removal. Martin For many years I worked the City and Des Moines Police Sgt. Tonyin Beminio.

President John Kennedy attempted to imagine the screaming and wailing that limits on billboards, fencing junkyards and escalate, verbalization is then used, followed by years (“Goodwill trustees defend ex-CEO’s pay, in the Windy City?

Surely, the chef’s symbolic She and Dave,well were Prosecutor’s Office with Jeffrey when overthrow Castro her and ledhusband, America through the would have ardent occurred if the election had gone stopping littering, we as a nationMartin decided was 24 years old, just starting out,Marcuzzo an For some people, itaesthetics won’t be enough, and other control tactics. citing his leadership,” Nov. 26 World-Herald). he was a city prosecutor. Among his peers, Cuban missile crisis. the other way — if Trump had won the popular mattered. Today, ineager the name of who answered It would make sense to have an orderly officer even mundane police If a police officer is presented with an and iconic value belongs with his corporate supporters of Omaha Schools President Lyndon Johnson deployed Public military there was no one more well-respected.

He is vote and lost by the Electoral College. preventing climate change, we are creating Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 45 criticism is inevitable.

The streets in Omaha, timeline to replace the trustees — such as two imminent threat of death or serious injury, calls withthe enthusiasm, his co-workers forces to fight a long war to stop the spread of The Electoral College electors have the right thoughtful and diligent in said. pursuitMartin of justice and industrial sprawl that will forever change a month. The replacements should start with the officer must resort to superior force providing facilities first-class communism in athletic Vietnam and Southeast Asia. thatto are vote their conscience, but they never do. It is should headquarters. not be faulted for the decision that was prided tensions.

He was environment live in. than toinone arewemore a himself on de-escalating those reported to have “potential” conflicts of quickly. Deadlyaccording force is superior force those report, President Jimmy Carter ended détente with utterly pointless.

We need to get rid of it. based on the input of several people in the To create enough power to hired, replace one small as the Des Moines Register reported, for The opportunities to useinterest. the chef to promote and worthy of the our many situations. Those situations do not include the USSR by boycotting 1980 Summertalented students.

Mike Hill, Omaha legal system. years behind” maintenance. nuclearin generator, such as the at Fort maturity.

Community sadness and anger continues to hisone unusual He had played trombone in tasers, batons “hundred or mace.

Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet George Ernce, Omaha Calhoun (which doesn’t create greenhouse build as appear more information is released. And the Chicago’s corporate poaching limitless.

I joinofthe Omaha community in celebrating Wessling obviously has no police training or invasion Afghanistan.

Editorial Portfolio Winner Publication: Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Doug Thompson

Excerpt from “Going to the right of Moses” I’ve seen many strange things while covering politics. Watching Gov. Asa Hutchinson in a fight with people claiming to be more Republican than him and people who agree with him beats all.

For 30 years, Hutchinson pushed the limit of how conservative someone can be and remain a serious candidate in Arkansas. No one can challenge Hutchinson as the leader of the Arkansas Republican Party — well, most of it anyway.

What his in-house opponents want in races for the Legislature is a 25-percent-plus-one minority.

That would give them a veto, because passing a whole state budget requires a three-quarters vote. The dissenters want to block the budget so they can stop the state from accepting federal health reform money.

You can’t please everybody. The issue here is how many people you can afford to displease before getting a budget shut down.

I’ve covered a lot of debates in this fight, which is taken very seriously by the people in it. I’m like a heathen covering a church split.

It seems to me there are some very important factors other than questions of faith that are not getting enough attention.

For instance, the Arkansas Democratic Party still exists. They still have legislators, a lot more than 25-percentplus-one in the House. They’ve lost all the seats, or almost all, they can lose.

So suppose the minority GOP group gets its veto.

Suppose they force their GOP brethren to adopt a budget that doesn’t include the health care money and strips 250,000 people of health insurance.

If the much-battered Arkansas Democrats have any fight left in them at all, they will take one look at such a

budget and simply say “no.”

Then they’ll veto that one. That 25-percent-plus-one sword cuts both ways.

Among Republicans, the latest topic in their debate is whether Hutchinson’s “Arkansas Works” plan is just a “rebranded” version of private option passed by his Democratic predecessor.

Perhaps the fact that I don’t care makes the answer to that seem very simple.

How different is “Arkansas Works” from private option? As different as Hutchinson can make it. If Republicans nationwide settle down and nominate someone electable for president, that change will be rapid. If they don’t, that change will still be steady.

If there’s one thing no one can deny about Asa Hutchinson, it’s that this man never veers off course. His path to the governor’s office took 30 years to walk, and he got knocked down several times along the way.

“And many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timber’d oak.”

The most interesting thing to me is how this “more Republican than thou” fight plays out politically.

Northwest Arkansas accounted for one-third of the GOP primary turnout as recently as 2006. The region accounts for only one-sixth of it now.

True believers accounted for the bulk of the party once — when Republicans made up the minority party. Now I wonder how much of this fight is a rebellion against Hutchinson and health care spending, and how much of this is frustration among the stalwarts. The party is too big for them to dominate any more.

The Republicans suddenly became the majority party because this state’s real base of power — rural voters — finally switched. Those voters are a whole lot like Ronald Reagan. They

didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left them. This was a solidly Democratic state six years ago and a mostly Democratic state four years ago. Then voters converted, but their new faith really hasn’t been tested yet.

So I wonder what will happen if rural hospitals start closing, assuming the state stops taking the health care money. I don’t think this state will ever snap back to being Democratic.

That doesn’t matter, though. We’re already seeing that the Republicans don’t need an opposition party to have a fight.

What does it mean to be Republican? Again, I don’t care, so the answer seems pretty obvious.

It’s what most members of the Republican Party of Arkansas say it means. I hope the people pressing so hard for an answer like whatever answer they’re going to get.

Northwest Arkansas enjoys very strong relations with rural conservatives, much better than Little Rock ever had. Together, they rule the roost on everything from school funding formulas to taxes. I’ll watch with interest to see how much strain their relationship can take.

46 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Tod Robberson Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Cate Folsom Publication: The Oklahoman By: Ray Carter

Personal Column Winner Publication: Lincoln Journal Star By: Cindy Lange-Kubick

Excerpt from “Dear Gold Star Parents — another Donald with another point of view” The TV was on in the farmhouse in Pawnee County Monday morning, and there was Donald Trump, the brash businessman aspiring to be president, bad-mouthing a Muslim couple whose son died in the Iraq war.

The words worked on Don Reiman all day long. Trump questioning the couple’s motives, the mother’s silence.

That night, the 70-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran sat down at his computer and started to write.

To Mr and Mrs. Khizr Khan and all Gold Star Parents: I want to apologize for insults that have come your way due to the Republican candidate for President ...

The words came easy, said Reiman, retired after 20 years as a rural carrier for the Postal Service. They eased his anger.

I was a Navy corpsman in Nam with a rifle company of Marines. I served with Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and other nationalities and never did I question their religion when I was patching up their wounds …

Reiman is a father and a grandfather now, a strong-minded man who grew up on this land near the tiny town of Virginia, a poor farm kid when he joined the Navy in 1964, yearning to get out of Nebraska and see the world.

And see the world he did.

The first time he spied the ocean, it pretty near took his breath away.

He saw a lot of death, too, and held young men as they left this world.

I will tell you this, all their blood was red and they were all heroes. I wrote letters to those Marines parents I could not save. It was the hardest thing I have done …

Fifty years later, he thought about Khans’ son -- Humayun -- an Army captain killed in 2004 protecting his soldiers.

He thought about the pain he’d seen etched on Ghazala Khan’s face as she stood beside her husband and he talked about their son at the Democratic National Convention.

He thought about his own mother.

A hardworking farm wife who butchered two chickens for dinner the

day he left for Vietnam, worried sick about her middle son.

He’d slipped out to the milking barn that morning and scrawled a message on the whitewashed wood.

“I left for Vietnam 4 July ‘66 I will return. Bye Mom, Dad and Wayne” Later, he would find his mom’s journal and learn that she’d read those words, morning and night, crying and praying for his safety.

Reiman returned as promised, 15 months after he left home, six months after he’d stepped on a landmine crossing a rice paddy. His 20-year-old body flew through the air that March day and when he came down, he watched the blood spurt from his left leg, like a garden hose poked with holes.

The corpsman became the patient then, flown from one military hospital to the next until doctors at Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Chicago gathered around his bed and told him they couldn’t save his leg.

He didn’t want to live without it, he told them.

That night, his mom called, his older sister on the line, too.

“They talked me into letting ’em do it,” he says. “Basically they told me how

stupid I was.”

After a month in intensive care, he was transferred to the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, where he learned to walk and “did a helluva lot of partying.”

And in the middle of October 1967, he came home to the farm and his parents.

He met Linda and finished college and raised three kids, Kevin and Korey and Ronda, who blessed them with 14 grandkids.

He can’t imagine the pain of losing any one of that number.

What I want to say is that you all are brave, to be respected, and held in honor …

Reiman is a Democrat. But it wasn’t politics that made him write his letter, he says. If Hillary Clinton had said what Trump said, he’d feel the same way. He’d do the same thing.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Erin Grace Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: John Brummett

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 47

Headline Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Haylee Pearl Judge’s comments: All of the headline writer’s entries are very good, but “Building Noah’s archive” sealed it for me.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Tim Sacco Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Paul Sawyer

48 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Magazines

The 2016 Great Plains Journalism Awards

News Writing Winner Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Greg Jerrett, Sam S., Doug Meigs

Excerpt from “Dying for Opiates in Omaha” Getting high on injected heroin—or one of the several synthetic equivalents—does not feel like an orgasm or a dozen orgasms. That is a mythical description the average non-user appreciates, so it gets repeated. The truth is more sinister. Whether you spike a vein with melted oxy in a back alley or get your Dilaudid prescribed in-hospital, getting high on injected opiates feels like being 4 years old, falling asleep in your mother’s lap while watching your favorite movie. You feel safe, warm, satisfied, and content to do nothing. Your nervous system melts like butter with a warm tingling sensation. Emotional and physical pain dissipate. Trauma becomes meaningless. You nod off. Occasionally, you approach consciousness long enough to melt into it again. And on it goes over and over. The first time is always the best, and no matter how long you chase that first high, you will never see it again.

Anything above and beyond pain relief is experienced as a rush of dopamine to the pleasure center of the brain. Addicts will escalate the amount of opioids they consume until coming across a bad batch mixed with other drugs—such as large-animal tranquilizers—or they stumble onto an unusually pure source, take too much, and overdose. Some users accidentally consume a fatal cocktail of prescriptions with alcohol or other drugs. In recent years, overdoses involving opiates have claimed the lives of several celebrities: the musician Prince, actors Philip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Cory Monteith, and the list goes on.

In the state of Nebraska, deaths from opiate overdoses are on the rise.

According to Nebraska’s Vital Statistics Department, at least 54 people died from overdosing on opiates in the state during 2015. Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that six out of every 10 drug overdoses involve opiates of some kind. From 1999 to 2014, roughly 165,000 Americans died

from opiate-related overdoses, quadrupling the numbers from previous years, according to the Center for Disease Control. The death toll is climbing. The most recent CDC estimates suggest 78 Americans overdose on opiates every day.

Russell Janssen is a case manager at the Open Door Mission, located between Carter Lake and the Missouri River. At age 20, he was introduced to heroin and was an intravenous user until the age of 39. Off heroin now for nearly two decades, Janssen spends his days treating people with the very addiction problems he has faced and continues to battle.

“I’ve been clean for 19 and a half years and I’ll still have ‘using’ dreams,” Janssen says. “They don’t affect me the way they used to. When I first cleaned up, I would wake up in cold sweats. I’d try to go back to sleep and just couldn’t.

I still wake up to this day, but now I can lay down and go back to sleep. The thought is always there, though, and never leaves us.”

Heroin addiction is powerful, Janssen says, too powerful for anyone to be completely beyond it, especially if they think they are “too smart to get hooked.” And while most drugs will

provide some high with diminishing returns, heroin burns out the brain’s pleasure center and forces users to do more and more in order to “stay even” and barely functional. Serious daily side effects include nausea, abdominal pain, high agitation, muscle cramps and spasms, as well as depression and cravings leading to relapse.

“The problem with heroin is you have to have it just to maintain,” Janssen says. “It’s not just about getting high. I’d go through $150 a day just to maintain for the 12 to 14 hours that I was up. If I wanted to get high I had to go above that amount because you gotta have it.”

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Jordan P. Hickey, Katie Bridges, Mariam Makatsaria Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Doug Meigs

50 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

eagle Rock loop Trail

Feature Writing Winner

Publication: Arkansas Democrat Gazette Magazines By: Wyndham Wyeth

Judge’s comments: This is a delightful collection of trail stories: personal reflections, historical vignettes, thoughtful reporting, and even poetry that evoke the joys and trials of life on the trail.

The blend of styles makes for a compelling read that goes well beyond standard trail guidebook imagery to offer emotion and insight.

If a tree fallsfrom in the forest … who picks it up off the trail?

Excerpt “Pathfinder”

By Paul McDonnold

Arriving at the Albert Pike Recreation Area, one of the first things I notice is the abandoned campground along Arkansas Highway 369. Geysers of green—plant life in its dizzying array of forms—well up from the ground to jostle for sunlight.

Head-high weeds obscure benches, picnic tables and boarded-up restroom facilities. Since a tragic flash flood in 2010 that took the lives of 20 campers, the Forest Service has closed the campground to overnight use. The site’s present state shows what happens when something, even a “natural” area, is not regularly maintained.

The adjacent day-use area and its hiking trails are open, but the same sort of wildness now taking over the campground must be kept at bay. After all, people come to hike, not hack, through the Ouachita National Forest. Thanks to volunteers like Mark Davis, who lives in nearby Mount Ida, hikers can do so.

In the parking area, Mark exits his white four-wheel-drive pickup to greet me. A fit-looking 56-year-old with short hair and aheavily salted goatee, he looks the part of a hiker as he puts his arms through the straps of an Osprey backpack, cinching it against his Columbia Sportswear T-shirt.

For a day hike, he recommends the Little Missouri Trail, named for the river it parallels, as one of the most popular and scenic. It is one of several hiking circuits that form the Eagle Rock Loop in the southern Ouachita range, some 50 miles west of Hot Springs. We make our way to the trailhead and start down it.

“This needs to go,” he says, retrieving a piece of litter someone left behind.

“My wife and I maintain this trail from the trailhead down to the winding stairs.”That makes for about 3.5 miles of trail. In addition to litter removal, the work involves clearing forest under-

a

RRIvINg THe“keeping albeRT a little growth from theaT trail— Pikehere Recreation Area, of the corridor through theone brush and first things I notice is the abandoned briars,” Mark explains. “We usually campground along Arkansas Highway maintain late in the winter. And then we 369. Geysers of green—plant life in its will come back the firstupfrost dizzying array ofafter forms—well fromand the brush groundeverything to jostle foragain.” sunlight. Head-high weeds obscure benches, picnic tables and Self-employed, Mark works part boarded-up restroom facilities.

Since a time in construction, taking on small tragic flash flood that took thehiker, lives remodeling jobs.inA2010 longtime avid of 20 campers, the Forest Service has closed he first got involved in trail work a the campground to overnight use. The site’s decade thewhat Buffalo Riverwhen Trail present ago state on shows happens with Wilderness something, even a Volunteers, “natural” area,a isnonnot regularly maintained. profit group that organizes “adventure The adjacent day-use area and its service trips” on public lands.

Mark was hiking trails are open,bybut the sameabout sort ofthe initially motivated curiosity wildness now taking over the campground trail-building process and the chance to must be kept at bay. After all, people come meet others withthrough a love of outdoors. to hike, not hack, thethe Ouachita He subsequently worked projects with National Forest. Thanks to volunteers like Mark groups, Davis, who livesasinthe nearby Mount Ida, other such Ozark Society hikers can doof so.the Ouachita Trail, while and Friends In the parking Mark exits his whitehis building a circlearea, of friends (including four-wheel-drive pickup to greet me. A future wife, Donita) through the Backfit-looking 56-year-old with short hair and a packingArkansas.com forum.

“We just kind of started organizing trail maintenance on the Eagle Rock 76 ARKANSAS LIFE www.arkansaslife.com Loop and Caney Creek Wilderness trails,” Mark says. “And we used the

heavilyas salted the part of a forum our goatee, vehiclehetolooks get volunteers.” hiker as he puts his armsleader through the straps When prior volunteer Tom Trigg of an Osprey backpack, cinching it moved to the Delta region, Markagainst took his Columbia Sportswear T-shirt. over for him.

For a day hike, he recommends the “Usually, day offor trail Little Missouriafter Trail,a named thework, river you’re pretty wellofworn out,” Markand it parallels, as one the most popular scenic.

It is one of several hikinga circuits says.

“You might only cover couple of that form Eagle Loop in the miles in a the day, butRock the amount of energy range, miles or itsouthern takes is Ouachita way more thansome just50 hiking west of Hot Springs. We make our way to backpacking. It’s always a nice feeling the trailhead and start down it. to know you left a ”section trail better “This needs to go, he says,ofretrieving a than found it andleft that your “My work is pieceyou of litter someone behind. wife and I maintain fromhiking the trailhead going to make this for atrail better experidownfor to others. the winding ” ence A lotstairs. of people stop and That makes about 3.5 miles of trail. In converse withfor you as you’re working, addition to litter removal, the work involves and most let you know how much they clearing forest undergrowth from the trail— appreciate yourcorridor efforts,here so that adds to “keeping a little through the thesatisfaction.” brush and briars,” Mark explains. “We usually maintain late in the winter. And then we will come back after the first frost FINALISTS and brush everything again.”

Publication: Arkansas Self-employed, Mark works part time in Democrat-Gazette Magazines construction, taking on small remodeling

By: Nicholas Hunt Publication: The New Territory By: Jacob Zlomke

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 51

jobs. A involv the Bu Volun “adven Mar about chanc outdo with o Societ while his fut Backp “We maint Caney “And w get vo Tom T took o “Us pretty only c the am than j

Photo

Profile Writing Winner Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Mariam Makatsaria

Excerpt from “The First Step” It’s Day 25. A nervous wind bellows and huffs. It stomps its foot like an angry child and sends everything on the ground flying into the air, then settling on Ben’s skin, clothes and inside his shoes. Here in Arizona, there are a few resilient shrubs and a carpet of sand. Dust, thick as fog, drapes over the horizon like copper-colored garland. He can’t see them, but behind the veil of orange, there are cliffs and rocks and vistas he’d likely enjoy if it were any other day. The temperature hovers around 30 degrees, and the wind cuts right through his red sweater, blue waterproof North Face jacket and olive-green knit hat.

A gust of wind catches his breath, the sand pokes at his eyes. He trudges through it, squinting. His brother, Jed, who’s joined Ben for a week during his ocean-to-ocean walk across the country, is pushing a yellow stroller packed to the brim with the basics: water, granola, a portable charger, an extra pairs of socks and underwear, a tent and the like. They stop by the side of the road often, rub their eyes, wash their faces with water.

This is Jed’s third day on the road—and also, the brothers’ worst. Besides the storm, the blisters on his heels—not to mention the aching, sore muscles—are becoming an annoyance, the way Ben’s were his third day, just over three weeks ago when he set off from Los Angeles.

In the close-to-225-mile arid stretch of highway across northern Arizona, there’s only a handful of towns the brothers can stop at, and they’re all spread apart. When they reach Tuba City, Ben locates the closest hotel and, though reluctant to drop $200 for a room, decides that a long hot shower is a must after the day’s 21-mile walk. He scrubs the grit off his skin with one wash cloth after another. The water turns brown. Next, laundry, to rinse the only clothes they have.

That night, he and his brother sit down at the adjacent Denny’s, chatting about the difficulty of the day’s walk.

That was awful, Ben says. That’s as

bad as it can get. The waitress takes his order: eggs, sausage and toast. Behind him, a television bracketed to the wall flickers with images of chaos. Ben glances at the reports of bombings at an airport in Brussels. He frowns, then looks away.

Warm food arrives on a plate in front of him. He’s hungry and worn out. Twenty-five miles a day is the goal—that’s 65,000 steps on average.

Sometimes, if he sees a town up ahead, he’ll go an extra mile or two, just to get some proper sleep at a hotel or an inn.

The walk was never meant to be arduous; hence the hotels, the restaurants, the days off that Ben allows himself to take advantage of. (It was very much a 21stcentury walk, he later says). But other times, he camps just off the road—something he tries to avoid if possible. He’s not afraid to admit that he’s afraid—of the dark, the murmur of the wind, the faint rustling of leaves, potential murderers hiding in the shadows. Maybe he’s spent too many hours watching Criminal Minds.

Quite often, he’s alone, but he is never lonely—not in the full sense of the word. He is always in the company of Charles, a modified double baby stroller, which has father’s friend engineered to hold extra weight. (A couple of times a week, random passersby stop to ask why he is pushing a baby

in a stroller in the middle of nowhere.)

On social media, strangers offer him their couches to crash on, and others drive for hours to deliver care packages.

Some just join him for a drink or a slice of pizza whenever he crosses their neck of the woods. Others ask if his feet are OK, if his knees are holding up. But he likes that.

So when Ben posts photos of the storm in Arizona, his followers chime in with some motivation. They urge him to keep going, offer a place to crash and a home-cooked meal should he pass by their town and call him a “rock star.”

That night, per the recommendation of an Instagram user, Ben buys a pair of goggles at a nearby trading post, only to realize that he won’t be needing them.

On Day 27, the weather clears up, and the brothers take to the open, flat road and walk until 10:30 p.m., their headlamps illuminating the way. They camp and sleep on the rocky, uneven ground, and at sunrise, they wake up and start walking again.

52 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World Magazine By: Jimmie Tramel Publication: Topeka CapitalJournal By: Jan Biles

Column Writing Winner Publication: Tulsa Kids Magazine By: Kiley Roberson, Betty Casey

Excerpt from “Tips for Stopping Toddler Tattling” My daughter is a compulsive tattler.

This sweet, innocent little 5-year-old has no shame when it comes to calling people out and very often it’s not just other children or her younger brother.

Take for example our latest trip to Target. When we pulled in to the parking lot she made sure to point out that the car parked next to us was over the line. When we walked into the store she loudly proclaimed that the woman who spit out her gum in front of us was littering. And, after hearing a lady behind us in the checkout lane use the word “stupid” while talking on the phone, she announced to the rest of the store what a very bad word that was and how the lady was not being nice.

In general, this type of tattling doesn’t bother me as much as the constant tabs she keeps on her 1-year-old brother.

After all, people shouldn’t park over the line and spit their gum out on the sidewalk. However, nobody likes a tattletale, and I don’t want my little informant to spend her life isolated from others. So, is there a healthy amount of tattling, and how can I teach these tattle boundaries?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a plan to help tame tattletales.

The AAP acknowledges that tattling is perfectly normal behavior for preschoolers. It’s during these early school-age years that children begin to develop social skills, specifically in relation to their peers. Children this age also have a strong and very literal idea of what is right and wrong and they expect everyone to abide by the same set of rules.

When these rules are perceived as “broken” by others, this can lead to tattling.

Children psychologists agree that there are many reasons why young children tattle, and before you begin working to prevent it—it’s important to understand the root cause: Are they doing it for attention?

Sometimes tattlers just want some recognition and may think that they can build their own status by making someone look bad.

Is it about power?

Some tattlers like to be in charge, which is often the case for my daughter when she tattles on her younger brother for eating an extra cookie and leaving his toys out. She just likes to keep him and sometimes other kids in line.

Are they strict on rules?

Most often, though, tattling is simply children noticing that others aren’t following the same set of rules as themselves. Since they hold this very literal view of the world around them, as their cognitive development cannot recognize abstract reasoning yet, they expect all rules to be inflexible.

Of course there are benefits to having kids who sing like a canary about every offense. We want our kids to report when there is a potential problem and for them to know that intervention is sometimes necessary, especially in the case of bullying or abuse. The AAP says that’s the key to teaching kids about tattling—explaining when it’s appropriate to blab and when it’s better to keep quiet, or tattling versus telling. When explaining this difference to kids, teach them that tattling means that they are trying to get someone in trouble, while telling means that they are trying to help.

Putting this lesson into action means talking it out. The next time my daughter comes to tell me something her brother did, I can simply ask, “Are you telling me about what your brother did to help him or hurt him?” If she says she wants to help, we can assess whether there is really a need for assistance or how she can take control of the situation herself without my help. If she says she wants to hurt him or get him in trouble, then it’s time for a talk about how tattling to hurt others isn’t acceptable.

Teaching this help or hurt approach will slowly help your child learn the difference between tattling and telling on his or her own. Just make sure you also teach your children that they can always tell you anything that makes them feel sad, uncomfortable or scared. And if your little rule-follower points out poorly behaving adults at the store, let it go — they probably deserve it.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Douglas Wesselmann Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Bonnie Bauman

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Page Design, Magazine, Winner Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Kelley Lane Judge’s comments: Really beautiful and engaging, from the photography to the mix of black and white to the pop of yellow in the typography. Love the “Sides” page and “Awesome Sauce.” Great design, thoughtfully presented.

RIGHT ON ’CUE WHAT IS ARKANSAS BARBECUE? IT’S NOT TEXAS BRISKET, AFTER ALL. AND IT’S NOT MEMPHIS DRYRUBBED RIBS. IT’S NOT KC BURNT ENDS OR SOUTH CAROLINA WHOLE HOG. IT’S SIMPLE. UNASSUMING, EVEN, WITH A LITTLE BIT OF THIS AND A LITTLE BIT OF THAT. AND IT’S UNABASHEDLY DELICIOUS. WHICH IS WHY WE OFFER THIS CELEBRATION OF TRIED-AND-TRUE ARKANSAS BARBECUE—FROM THE FIRST MORSEL OF HICKORY-SMOKED PORK TO THE LAST CRUMBS OF THAT FRIED ELBERTA-PEACH PIE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RETT PEEK 48 ARKANSAS LIFE

JULY 2016 ARKANSAS LIFE 49

www.arkansaslife.com

ODE PIG

THE BBQ ISSUE

SIDE WAYS

SIDE DISHES

P H OTO G R A PH Y B Y AR S H IA K H AN

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AT AN ARKANSAS BARBECUE JOINT, IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE MEAT. HERE ARE 25 DISHES WORTH SIDESTEPPING THE MAIN COURSE

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THE BBQ ISSUE PIG SANDWICH Blytheville, home of the Pig Sandwich, has at least nine barbecue joints— that’s one for every 2,000 residents.

TO THE

OUR ASSOCIATE EDITOR’S NEWFOUND BARBECUE LOVE

I’VE ALWAYS

avoided picking sides when it comes to barbecue. From Texas brisket to Memphis pulled pork to Alabama’s wonky mayo-based sauce, it’s all good to me. So when I first heard of Blytheville’s Pig Sandwich, claimed by a reputable source to be Arkansas’ only home-grown barbecue style, I wasn’t expecting to fall in love.

It was an accident really. I’d made the 3-hour drive from Little Rock to that tiny Mississippi County town to interview Buddy Halsell about the history of the Dixie Pig (see page 56), and, as a sort of side excursion, to sample a few Pig Sandwiches and see what was what.

It didn’t seem all that impressive as Buddy broke down the Pig Sandwich’s component parts for me on the line in the Dixie Pig kitchen.

Chopped or sliced pork cooked over charcoal (some around town will do pulled, but Bob Halsell, Buddy’s son, insists it’s a foreign influence: “That’s what they do in Tennessee. This is Arkansas!”). There’s slaw—though in this case, it’s dry, with just a hint of vinegar—and a plain bun, a short stint in a sandwich press and, finally, the sauce.

That’s where the magic is: that sauce.

Turn back now ye lovers of molasses-, tomato- and mustard-based sauces; you’ll not find what you’re looking for here. But for those of you of a certain persuasion—lovers of salt-and-vinegar chips, sauerkraut or a swift kick in the pants— you’ll never look back. Similar in concept to what’s whipped up in eastern North Carolina, Blytheville’s

signature sauce is a thin, sharp mix of pepper and vinegar. It runs like water. Sampled straight, the taste is a curious explosion: equal parts spicy, sour and savory. But combined with slow-cooked pork, the two are greater than the sum of their parts. If this weren’t an ode, I’d say the fat cuts the spice and tartness while the vinegar in turn opens up the pork. But because it is, I’ll simply say this: Tasting this culinary alchemy was akin to a first kiss. For me, in the kitchen at Dixie Pig, it was love at first bite.

It’s a beautiful chemistry not lost on Jeff Wallace, owner of Kream Kastle and son-in-law of its founder, Steven Johns. After leaving Buddy behind, I’d walked into the tiny office-slash-kitchen at Jeff ’s drive-in unannounced, and he was kind enough to chat barbecue with me over the constant buzz of orders coming in through the ancient intercom.

We talked of his 31 years in the business and how even though he’s added plenty of things to the menu, the Pig Sandwich is still the best seller. It’s not even close. “[Blytheville’s] got the best barbecue,” he told me without a hint of jest. “You will hear people tell you that in Kansas City.”

Not ready to make the three-hour trip back to Little Rock, every mile taking me farther and farther from my now beloved Pig Sandwich, I made one more stop a little ways down the road at Penn’s Barbecue, planning to take home its version for dinner. I ate it in the parking lot with the passion of a convert.

BY NICHOLAS HUNT

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PIGGING AND CHOOSING

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A GUIDE TO THREE OF OUR BLYTHEVILLE FAVORITES

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1. GREEN BEANS, SIMS BAR-B-QUE IN LITTLE ROCK; 2. BLACK-EYED PEAS, LINDSEY’S HOSPITALITY HOUSE IN NORTH LITTLE ROCK; 3. SWEET POTATOES, C APITOL SMOKEHOUSE & GRILL IN LITTLE ROCK; 4. FRIES, SMOKE SHACK BAR-B-Q IN MAUMELLE; 5. C ANDIED YAMS, LINDSEY’S HOSPITALITY HOUSE IN NORTH LITTLE ROCK; 6. COLESLAW, C APITOL SMOKEHOUSE & GRILL IN LITTLE ROCK; 7. TAMALE SPREAD, M c CLARDS IN HOT SPRINGS; 8. COLESLAW, JO-JO’S BBQ IN SHERWOOD; 9. TAMALES, SMITTY’S BAR-B-QUE IN CONWAY; 10. TOMATO RELISH, SMOKE SHACK BAR-B-Q IN MAUMELLE; 11. BAKED BEANS, MICKEY’S CMB BBQ IN HOT SPRINGS; 12. FRIED OKRA, JO-JO’S BBQ IN SHERWOOD;

62 ARKANSAS LIFE

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13. FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, SMITTY’S BAR-B-QUE IN CONWAY; 14. ZESTY ITALIAN SALAD, MICKEY’S CMB BBQ IN HOT SPRINGS; 15. ONION RINGS, SMOKEHOUSE BAR-B-QUE IN CONWAY; 16. CORNBREAD, SIMS BAR-B-QUE IN LITTLE ROCK; 17. GREENS, SIMS BAR-B-QUE IN LITTLE ROCK; 18. POTATO SALAD, C APITOL SMOKEHOUSE & GRILL IN LITTLE ROCK; 19. DEVILISH EGGS, MICKEY’S CMB BBQ IN HOT SPRINGS; 20. STEAMED C ABBAGE, LINDSEY’S HOSPITALITY HOUSE IN NORTH LITTLE ROCK; 21. BARBECUE NACHOS, JOJO’S BBQ IN SHERWOOD; 22. POTATO SALAD, HB’S BAR-B-Q IN LITTLE ROCK; 23. SQUASH C ASSEROLE, C APITOL SMOKEHOUSE & GRILL IN LITTLE ROCK; 24. BAKED BEANS, HB’S BAR-B-Q IN LITTLE ROCK; 25. SWEET POTATO FRIES, JO-JO’S BBQ IN SHERWOOD

58 ARKANSAS LIFE

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DIXIE PIG

KREAM KASTLE

P E N N ’ S B A R B EC UE

As the only one of the three barbecue joints listed here to have chairs and tables and, well, indoor seating, Dixie Pig is the kind of place where you will rest your elbows on the hardwood as you devour your sandwich. You can get the pork chopped or sliced, white or “outside brown,” depending on your preference. Just don’t ask for it pulled. (701 N. Sixth St.; (870) 763-4636)

Located in a retro drive-in (and boy do we mean retro—just take a look at that intercom), Kream Kastle’s 12-hour-charcoal-smoked chopped or pulled pork is topped with a slightly thicker, less tart sauce, but otherwise features that trademark dry slaw and a light squeeze in the sandwich press. Order some onion rings, and you’re set. (122 N. Division St.; (870) 762-2366)

Smaller even than Kream Kastle, this simple drive-through is the definition of a pig shack: everything you need and nothing you don’t.

Served in the traditional whitepaper wrapping, Penn’s version of the sandwich boast choppedto-order pork, a toasted (but not pressed) bun, slightly saucier slaw and a little more spice. (367 S. Division St.; (870) 762-1593)

JULY 2016 ARKANSAS LIFE 59

JULY 2016 ARKANSAS LIFE 63

FINALISTS Publication: Sunflower Publishing By: Shelly Bryant, Ken Davis, Seth Jones, Nathan Pettengill, Torren Thomas Publication: Sauce Magazine By: Meera Nagarajan 54 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Magazine Cover Winner Publication: Sauce Magazine By: Carmen Troesser, Meera Nagarajan Judge’s comments: Beautiful. Great image draws you into the engaging cover line. Even the croissant description seems to waft off the main image.

H E L L O , L OV E R the darkness triple-chocolate croissant at la patisserie chouquette, p. 42

H I T

L I S T

PORANO PASTA

RAISE THE

L O A V E S

PART Y BAR

WE LOVE

P. 31

P. 28

P. 10 ST. LOUIS’ INDEPENDENT CULINARY AUTHORITY

February 2016

SAUCEMAGAZINE.COM

TH E S C A N D I S P I R I T P. 23 FREE, FEBRUARY 2016

saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 1

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Kelley Lane Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Kristen Hoffman, Matt Wieczorek, Bill Sitzmann

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 55

CNENT_45862_CNB_Osiyo_TV_PrintAds_Revised_v2.indd 3

56 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

1/4/17 9:23 AM

Pho t o graphy

The 2016 Great Plains Journalism Awards

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Specialty Photo Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Steve Gooch Judge’s comments: “Photographer did a good job of lighting such a small creature.

Would have liked to have seen it a bit closer.”

A jumping spider rest on the leaf of a lantana plant at Will Rogers Gardens in Oklahoma City, Wednesday Oct. 19, 2016

58 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Portrait Photography Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Bryan Terry

“Noodler” Judge’s comments: Photographer did a wonderful job of capturing curious expression of all three. Not sure which dad is proud of — fish or baby — but neither look too pleased. Cropped a little tighter and it would have been a ten.

Marion Kincaid holds his two-month old son Kanyon Kincaid as he brings his catfish to get weighed during the 17th annual Okie Noodling Tournament in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, Saturday, June 18, 2016.

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: John Sykes, Jr. Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Sarah Hoffman Publication: The Oklahoman By: Chris Landsberger

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 59

General News Photography Winner Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Mitchell Masilun Judge’s comments: “Great job of seeing this subtle moment in a chaotic scene.“

Miss Dogwood, Abby Lindsey, of Van Buren, right, reacts to getting her hair stuck in the crown of Miss Arkansas Savvy Shields at the end of the Pageant Saturday, July 9, 2016.

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons Publication: The Oklahoma By: Jim Beckel lPublication: Tulsa World By: Cory Young 60 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Spot News Photography Winner Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Robert Cohen Judge’s comments: A poignant moment punctuated by the yellow caution tape caressing the head of the officer as blood stained water from his fellow officer flows before him. A new twist on the thin line police officers face on a daily basis.

St. Louis County police officer John Cunningham mans a police line as Mehlville firefighters wash away a stream of blood and disinfectant on Arno Drive in Green Park after fellow officer Blake Snyder was shot and killed on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016. A second officer then shot the suspect, an 18-year-old man who was critically injured.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Megan Farmer Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Stephen Thornton Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons

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News Photography, Multiple, Winner Publication: The Des Moines Register By: Brian Powers, Rodney White Judge’s comments: Unless you pay close attention, detailed coverage of stories such as this are bewildering at best, confusing at worst.This is such a complicated subject to cover.The photographer was given the time to dig deep into the reasons why people staunchly held their ground for such a long time. Although there was little caption information to fill in the blanks for individual images, the coverage is a testament to the power of the still image to speak volumes.

Dakota Access Pipeline camp

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons 62 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Feature Photography, Single, Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Ryan Soderlin

Mike Ostry, center, and his family say the rosary following lunch at their home near Bruno, Nebraska, on Monday, Oct. 17, 2016. Since losing his eyesight, Ostry said he prays and meditates more often than he used to. From the left are Mike’s daughters, Maria, 22, and Lydia, 10. Ten years ago, the Ostry family of Bruno, Nebraska, had nine kids and was concentrating its energies on homeschooling, organic farming, eschewing television and computers and traveling the state as the Ostry Family Singers, presenting shows about their Czech heritage. Now, they have 11 kids, are still organic farmers and still homeschool, but they’ve had to change their lifestyle a little. Patriarch Mike Ostry had a benign brain tumor that took his eyesight, so the older kids do more of the farming and mom Karen does the books, still by hand.

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Stephen Thornton Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Sarah Hoffman Publication: The Oklahoman By: Bryan Terry

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Feature Photography, Multiple, Winner Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Laurie Skrivan Judge’s comments: This photographer tackled gun violence in the most intimate and raw of ways, by bringing us into the living room of a mother who has lost a child. The images speak of anguish and unnecessary loss in a way that is both unflinching, heartbreaking and tender all at once.

“Struggling with aftermath of gun violence”

FINALISTS Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By:Laurie Skrivan Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Ryan Soderlin Publication: The Des Moines Register By: Michael Zamora

64 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Sports Action Photography Winner Publication: The Daily Republic By: Matt Gade Judge’s comments: This had it all. Action, peak moment, great framing. Everything a sports photo should be. A little bit of luck never hurts either. Well done!

Jared Fulton, of Valentine, Nebraska, is unable to hang on to the head of the cow while competing in the steer wrestling portion of the Wessington Springs Foothills Rodeo on Saturday, May 28 at the Jerauld County 4-H arena.

FINALISTS Publication: Lincoln Journal Star By: Francis Gardler Publication: The Oklahoman By: Bryan Terry Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Stephen Thornton

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 65

Sports Feature Photography Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Bryan Terry Judge’s comments: This was exceptional. The thrill of victory, the agony of...you get it, we’ve all seen it, we’ve all photographed it. The eye obviously is drawn to the wrestler celebrating, which is awesome, and then the rest of the environment of the frame only complements it. Well done!

Perry’s Dalton Hamaker celebrates beside Plainview’s Zane Miller after winning his match and giving Perry the win in the Class 3A dual state championship at Fire Lake Arena in Shawnee, Oklahoma, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Sarah Hoffman Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: JB Forbes Publication: The Oklahoman By: Bryan Terry

66 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Magazine Portrait Winner Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann

Child Prodigy

Collin Kauth-Fisher is photographed at his home for Omaha Magazine

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Rett Peek

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 67

Magazine Specialty Photo Winner Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Rett Peek

“Arkansas BBQ”

FINALISTS Publication: Sunflower Publishing By: Jenni Leiste, Nathan Pettengill, Doug Stremel Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann 68 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Magazine Photography, Multiple, Winner Publication: Sunflower Publishing By: Brian Goodman, Nathan Pettengill

“The Secret, Domestic Life of a Kansas Klingon”

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World Magazine By: Christopher Smith Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Magazines By: Rett Peek Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 69

Magazine Photography, Feature, Winner Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann

Cars and Stars

On an excursion out into the wilderness, a photo subject stands on the car and his headlamp becomes like a star.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Bill Sitzmann Publication: Presence Magazine By: Shane Bevel

70 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Mul ti media & Web

The 2016 Great Plains Journalism Awards

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org  /  71

Online General News Winner Publication: The Frontier By: Kevin Canfield Judge’s comments: Great breadth of coverage for the mayoral race; I really felt like I had a good feel for what happened in the election and who the major players were after reviewing the entries. Good combination of stories, video and photos.

2/2/2017 Pollster contracts with city, praises mayor on the radio Shapard said Bynum has the support of 27 percent of Republicans, according to his Excerpt of “SoonerPoll founder defends remarks on Tulsa mayor’s race” poll, which is bad news for Bartlett.

A pollster paid $100,000 to conduct citizen surveys for the city of Tulsa says he was not trying to help Mayor Dewey Bartlett by making critical remarks of the mayor’s challenger during a radio interview last week.

SoonerPoll’s founder Bill Shapard, who has twice been paid to conduct citizen satisfaction surveys, said last week that Mayor Dewey Bartlett’s primary challenger would effectively put former Mayor Kathy Taylor back in the mayor’s office if elected.

Shapard was referring to City Councilor G.T Bynum, who is attempting to unseat Bartlett after two terms in office.

However, Shapard said Thursday Pollster Bill Shapard has been paid $100,000 by the city under Mayor Dewey Bartlett to he wasn’t advocating for Bartlett and conduct two citizen surveys. During a radio broadcast last week, Shapard was sharply was only expressing his opinion based critical of Bartlett’s challenger, City Councilor G.T. Bynum. on polling data Bartlett, who is seeking a third term, is being challenged by At one point Shapard said Taylor has endorsed Bynum. She has not. the city who should not be able to exShapard is a well-regarded pollster Bynum and three other candidates. The press an opinion, if I am the only one,” who has conducted political polling for nonpartisan mayoral primary is June Shapard Tulsa World and other mediamake out- sense 28.

Whenthe Campbell suggested it might for thesaid.

Bartlett campaign to focus on “Every other contractor should be lets and organizations across the state Shapard appeared on the Pat the supposed Taylor tie, Shapard said: “If I was running his campaign, that is what I held to that same standard.” for more than a decade.

Campbell radio show during an 18 I was G.T. Bynum, I would definitely try eat away boththat sides of the He to added: “Anyatwork I have HeIfalso conducted two citizen minute interview last week to discusswould do. done for the city was done in an unbisatisfaction surveys forthe theDemocratic city of Tulsa spectrum.” the race. During the interview, Shapard Republican spectrum and since Bartlett took office in late 2009. He ased way and no one has ever chaldescribed Bartlett as more conservative lenged that I did that in any biased way was paid $50,000 for each survey, the than Bynum, accused Bynum of basing in therecent interview, Campbell said Bartlett was running on his record while Bynum whatsoever.” of which was released last his candidacy on “shifting sands” andLater most month the andvision reflected satisfaction repeatedly linked the councilor’s cam-was selling thatgeneral Tulsa can do better. with city services and the direction of paign to Taylor. the city.

Bartlett and Bynum are Republiresponse: “But howsurvey do you sell a vision when basically Tulsans come back Bartlett referred to the results cans. Taylor is a Democrat who lost toShapard’s ‘Wecampaign like the direction we’re going, we like city services?’” on the trail, and that Shapard refBartlett in a highly contentious — andand say, erenced them to support his positions expensive — mayor’s race in 2013.

FINALISTS during his interview with Campbell.

Shapard said critics of his remarks Shapard said his recent polling work were hearing only what they wanted to Publication: The Frontier also indicates that Tulsans believe the hear.

By: Dylan Goforth https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/pollster-contracts-with-city-praises-mayor-on-the-radio/ city is headed in the right direction.

“It was not my intent to help or hurt Publication: The Frontier Shapard insisted his remarks were not any candidate in the race,” Shapard By: Dylan Goforth slanted toward one candidate and desaid. “I think I was equally fair and fended his right to speak on the issues equally harsh to both candidates. I “I don’t think there is any reason why I think my analysis of the race is a reflecshould be singled out as a contractor of tion of what I see in the data.”

72 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

5/8

Online Project Winner Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Laurie Skrivan, Nancy Cambria, osh Renaud Judge’s comments: The design is beautiful and powerful. This is the kind of presentation that really shows off in-depth reporting and photography.

FINALISTS Publication: Oklahoma Watch By: Clifton Adcock Publication: Oklahoma Watch By: Trevor Brown, Jennifer Palmer, Warren Vieth, Thomas Thoren, Nate Robson Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 73

Online Feature Winner Publication: The Frontier By: Ziva Branstetter Judge’s comments: Persistence pays off. Excellent investigative work. Well-organized, good writing that’s clear and to the point. Numbers are strong but not overwhelming. This could easily have been terribly over-written as too many major projects are these days. Congratulations to reporter and editor.

Excerpt of “Decade of indifference: Prisoners died while county ignored years of warnings” One year before a paralyzed veteran endured a slow death without food or water on the floor of his cell, an assistant district attorney sent an ominous email warning the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office not to ignore “any and all signs” of trouble with the jail’s healthcare system.

The email from Andrea Wyrick, an assistant district attorney for Tulsa County, noted that Oklahoma County had sued the company providing medical care in that county’s jail for falsifying records to cover up understaffing.

The same company was paid $5 million per year to provide medical care in Tulsa’s jail, where several prisoners had already died that year under questionable circumstances.

“This is very serious, especially in light of the three cases we have now — what else will be coming?” Wyrick wrote in the email to Josh Turley, risk manager for the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office.

“It is one thing to say we have a contract .. to cover medical services and they are indemnifying us … It is another issue to ignore any and all signs we receive of possible issues or violations of our agreement with them for services in the jail. The bottom line is, the Sheriff is statutorily … obligated to provide medical services,” she wrote.

Her email was written one year before Elliott Williams, a 37-year-old U.S. Army veteran and businessman, died in the jail after days without food, water or medical attention with a broken neck.

The email is among previously undisclosed documents obtained by The Frontier as part of an investigation into deaths of inmates in Tulsa’s David L. Moss Correctional Center, including Williams’ 2011 death.

Listen Frontier

Elliott Williams/jail deaths in Oklahoma

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factors leading to Williams’ death.

The Frontier’s investigation has “This is very serious, especially in light of the three casesand we investigations have now — what else • Audits in 2007, found: be of coming?”

Wyrick the email2009, to Josh Turley, for the 2010, 2011risk andmanager 2012 found the •will Out more than twowrote dozeninmedijail failed to provide basic medical and cal Tulsa professionals and TCSO jail staff County SheriffÕs OfÞce. mental care to prisoners. A medical who crossed Williams’ path before he expert hired by the county reviewed 52 died, only two employees were held ÒIt is one thing to say we have a contract .. to cover medical services and they are prisoner medical charts and reported accountable for his treatment in any indemnifying us É It is another issue to ignore any and all signs we receive of that six prisoners who died in 2009 and way. One was a black detention officer possible or violations of our agreement with themhave for services in the jail. The 2010 might lived with adequate who claims issues in a racial discrimination line is,fired the Sheriff is statutorily provide medical services,Ó mental to and medical health care. she suitbottom that TCSO her after she tried É obligated • Estimating the number of pristo help Williams. wrote. oners whose deaths may have been • Oklahoma licensing board records prevented with better medical care in do not reflect any disciplinary actions Her email was written one year before Elliott Williams, a 37-year-old U.S. Army the jail is difficult. Some staff members against the doctors and nurses due to veteran and businessman, died in the jail after days without food, water or medical had a practice of feigning efforts to their involvement in Williams’ case. with a broken resuscitate dead inmates “so that the •attention The psychiatrist, Dr.neck.

Stephen jail would not become a ‘crime scene,’ “ Harnish, still works at the jail and the to obtained a 2013 affidavit by the jail’s medical director, Dr. Phillip Washburn, The email is among previously undisclosedaccording documents

by The Frontier as former director of nursing. works at a family medicine clinic in Sapulpa.

• Williams’ death was investigated FINALISTS by the OSBI while then-Sheriff Stanley Glanz was on the agency’s commission, Publication: Global which hires and fires the director.

Sisters Report • The agent who conducted the By: Dawn Araujo-Hawkins investigation said in a deposition he did Publication: The Oklahoman not watch the videotape depicting WilBy: Brianna Bailey liams’ treatment and death. The OSBI report, half as long as TCSO’s 82-page internal report, minimizes important

74 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Spot News Video Winner Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons

Double homicide at Chamberlain Park Judge’s comments: Very difficult to watch. Great job keeping us on the moment at the beginning and not cutting around it.

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons Publication: KFOR By: Jon Welsh, Marc Dillard, Kristen Shanahan

General News Video Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Brendan Sullivan

Life after Agent Orange: Duane Wiskus FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Jessie Wardarski Publication: The Des Moines Register By: Michael Zamora

Feature Video Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Brendan Sullivan

ALS: This is just our reality Judge’s comments: This story was raw and painful, and fully showcases the devastation of ALS, not only on the person diagnosed, but the entire family. I was bawling at my desk.

FINALISTS Publication: Tulsa World By: Mike Simons Publication: KTUL By: Burt Mummolo, Bryan Clemmer, Kristin Dickerson Publication: The Frontier By: Mike Wyke

Sports Video Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Megan Smith

One Last Season: High School Football FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: Sarah Phipps Publication: Tulsa World By: Jessie Wardarski Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 75

Multimedia Project Or Series Winner Publication: Staff By: The Oklahoman

Getting Away With Murder Judge’s comments: The Oklahoman’s “Getting Away with Murder” series has a rich multimedia presentation. I found it easy to navigate and understand, clearly important to readers, and beautifully executed. Well done.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha Magazine By: Doug Meigs, James Vnuk, Marisa M. Cummings, Charles Trimble, Christopher Marshall Publication: The Frontier By: Ziva Branstetter

Best Website Page Design, Single Page, Winner Publication: Tulsa Voice By: Maxx Crawford, Madeline Crawford

The Tulsa Voice - Best of Tulsa 2016 Judge’s comments: The bright visuals and graphics are eye-catching. It’s nice that you can skip to other categories easily without scrolling through everything. Nice way to display useful information.

FINALISTS Publication: Fly Over Media By: Michael Todd Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Staff

Best Website Page Design, Project, Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Richard Hall, Tim Watson

Hunting Holtzclaw Judge’s comments: The illustrations create a unique feel for the story. The sound clips and images really help bring the story to life, and they are carefully placed. Well done!

FINALISTS Publication: The Oklahoman By: Richard Hall Publication: The Oklahoman By: Richard Hall Publication: Topeka Capital-Journal By: Staff

76 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Best Overall Website Design Winner Publication: Tulsa-People Magazine By: Anna Bennett, Madeline Crawford Judge’s comments: I love the “giving back” calendar, which seems like a nice way to engage readers. Good use of visuals within stories. Clear organization of topics/info.

FINALISTS Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Staff Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Staff

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News Blog Writing Winner Publication: The Oklahoman By: Steve Lackmeyer Judge’s comments: Interesting, varied topics; nice diversity of sources; needs better copy editing

“Metta World Peace Sexually Assaulted by Ghost at Skirvin?”

Well my oh my, add Metta World Peace to the list of NBA players who say they’ve had a spooky encounter at the Skirvin Hilton.

News about the encounter popped up after the Lakers loss Sunday night to the Thunder.

“The ghosts were all over me. I just accepted it,” World Peace said, via The Orange County Register. “They touched me all over the place. I’m taking one of the ghosts to court for touching me in the wrong places.”

People laughed when the Lakers player suggested this encounter was of amorous category - but truth be told, this is not out of line with previous reports.

Every few years these reports pop up. And talk to any NBA player who has visited the Skirvin Hilton Hotel and it’s likely they’ve at least heard the tales that its rooms on the 10th floor might be haunted.

Some players with the Knicks claimed the ghost of “Effie” led to their loss against the Thunder in 2010. The legend was enough to prompt a visit by NBA on TNT sideline reporter Craig Sager to spend the night — one that resulted in an amusing report that re-aired during the recent Thunder playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs.

Some fellow Lakers players, aware of the ghost stories, chose to pay for rooms down the street at the Colcord rather than risk a weird evening with “Effie.”

“I’m not going to play with that,” Lakers guard Lou Williams said about the supposedly haunted hotel. “I’d rather pay for my peace of mind. If they say it’s haunted, that’s enough for me. I’m not going to roll the dice.”

Despite such notoriety, the hotel, which opened in 1911, remains a top destination for visiting NBA teams.

So are the ghost stories true? Past Skirvin managers have sought to downplay such tales. Throughout the 1990s when the hotel was closed, electric was not just cut off — the power box itself was removed. Yet one single bulb inexplicably stayed lit that entire time in the lobby chandelier above where founder W.B. Skirvin once sat and greeted guests. The power source for that light remains a mystery, but is it really evidence that the hotel is haunted?

Another question often asked: is there any truth to the legend of a housekeeper named Effie being impregnated by hotelier W.B. Skirvin and then jumping to her death, baby in arms, from a 10th floor window?

W.B. Skirvin, who built the hotel in 1911 and owned it until 1945, was a notorious womanizer and drinker. And a lot of

wicked things did occur on the 10th floor, which originally was the top of the hotel before a third tower and three more stories were added between World War I and 1930.

Rooms on the floor consisted of salesman’s suites, built extra large to accommodate temporary displays set up by traveling salesmen. But were they also used for gambling and vice?

Newspaper archives show the suites being raided by authorities on multiple occasions. On one visit, police seized fixed roulette wheels; in another incident, authorities discovered “loose” women, beer, a bullet hole in the ceiling and a trail of blood in the bedroom and bathroom. Hotel employees insisted they saw nothing and only heard the sound of a gunshot.

The Skirvin had its share of mysterious deaths. The shooting death of the hotel’s first manager was investigated as a homicide, and Skirvin and his staff gave conflicting stories that would encourage one to doubt their insistence the manager committed suicide.

And Skirvin’s own death — the result of a hit-and-run crash — is itself a mystery, considering it immediately followed a court ruling that restored his control of the hotel after a fiveyear battle with his family that placed it in receivership.

But these deaths did not occur on the 10th floor.

So the final question is: Was there an Effie?

Newspaper accounts record a suicide, but it was a salesman jumping from his room window, not a housekeeper. If there was an Effie, she does not show up in any news accounts, hotel documents or any other research we conducted over two years.

And if there were an Effie, one must wonder how she might have survived the attention of Mabel Luty, who was W.B. Skirvin’s longtime bookkeeper and assistant. Skirvin’s family believed Skirvin and Luty were romantically involved, and court records show their legal battle with Skirvin over control of the hotel in the 1930s was at least partially motivated by fears that he was going to will over his assets to Luty.

But Luty never jumped from a hotel window. Newspaper archives indicated she lived a long life and was still around in the late 1950s — long after Skirvin’s death in 1945.

If it’s of any comfort to visiting NBA players who do believe in ghosts, while some tales suggest “Effie” walks the halls of the 10th floor pushing a carriage with a crying baby, other guests have told hotel employees that “Effie” is more interested in being naughty, appearing to male visitors as they’re going to bed or taking a shower.

78 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Entertainment/Specialty Blog Winner Publication: TulsaKids Magazine By: Betty Casey Judge’s comments: A quality blog with a specific niche to which it caters well. It explains a variety of issues and synthesizes information from multiple sources to support its stances, while also providing links to follow for more information if readers want. All in all, very readable, informative and helpful.

“Don’t Take Your Anger Out On Your School’s Principal” I was running with some friends a few days ago and one of the moms told me about a contentious meeting at her child’s school. The principal was telling the group of parents about cuts to programs and other negative effects due to lack of funding from the state. She said the parents “went off” on the principal, even to the point of angrily cursing her.

A dad pulled out his checkbook and waved it around, vowing to make up the lack of dollars himself.

I’ve heard similar stories from other parents at other schools. Angry PTA meetings, ugly accusations thrown at school administrators.

I understand the frustration. I wouldn’t want my children lost in the midst of large classes. I wouldn’t want my children to lose out on going to competitive colleges because they didn’t have foreign language credits, AP classes, extracurriculars or music, drama or art. I would be angry, too.

But anger directed at principals or superintendents is anger misdirected.

The principals and superintendents are merely the messengers delivering bad news. The bad news is originating in the Oklahoma State Legislature.

There were no new funds for public education, and higher education took a huge hit (those are just the negatives regarding education. I’m not even going to talk about children going without health care or grandma’s nursing home being closed). And maybe the legislators who voted for this budget hope that voters will ignore the fact

that it was built on the shaky ground of one-time bonds and a withdrawal from the rainy day fund -- which means that if you think this year was bad, just wait until next year.

While this shouldn’t be a partisan issue, keep in mind when you vote in the fall which legislators voted for this budget. Your lawmaker may come back to you and say he or she didn’t raise your taxes, but ask how much exactly you’re saving. Is it $45 a year?

Maybe $100? Is that worth letting down the children of Oklahoma? Is it worth compromising mental health, roads and safety?

And, money has to come from somewhere else. New license plates, anyone? Will you vote for raising the

sales tax by a penny in order to give teachers a raise? Because our lawmakers didn’t do their job in funding Oklahoma’s public schools, OU President David Boren came up with the idea to increase the sales tax – at least he’s trying to do something to stop the hemorrhaging. It’s too bad that he had to come up with this creative solution because lawmakers didn’t have the backbone to do the right thing for the future of Oklahoma – our children.

I do want to remind you that you have a voice. You can vote. Friday, June 3 is the last day to register to vote in the primary. You can register at libraries, post offices or other public locations or go to www.ok.gov and download and application form.

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Sports Blog Winner Publication: Omaha World-Herald By: Dirk Chatelain Judge’s comments: Terrific style. Very conversational writing. Entertaining, informative, topical.

Excerpt of “Mad Chatter: The end of Kobe and Tiger is really the end of Air Jordan; Harbaugh fires back; Drew Ott denied” The pinnacle of Air Jordan. Hmmm...

Maybe it was June 1991 when he finally won his first NBA championship.

Or the first 3-peat in ’93.

Maybe it was March 1995 when he returned to basketball after a yearand-a-half hiatus and hung 55 on the Knicks. Or the 72-10 season of ’96.

Yes, I think it was the summer of ‘96.

By that point, MJ’s shoes had been on teenage feet for more than a decade.

His impact on American sports culture was immeasurable.

It was certainly true in my house.

My older brother’s bedroom walls were covered with Jordan posters. Our hallway closet was filled with Jordan VHS tapes — “Michael Jordan’s Playground” and “Come Fly With Me” were the two best. In a house without cable TV, we must’ve watched those tapes 100 times.

Jordan came to fame in the mid-80s, thanks in part to Phil Knight’s brilliant marketing campaign. By the mid-90s, he had fulfilled all the prophecies and promises. He had secured his throne as the GREATEST OF ALL-TIME. The athlete to whom everyone else bowed.

If it sounds dramatic — even spiritual — well, that’s exactly the way Nike wanted it.

To question Jordan’s dominance was blasphemy — like doubting the order of the universe. To honor Jordan’s supremacy meant imitating his personality.

It wasn’t just his tongue-wagging, it was his intensity. His fury. His refusal to laugh at himself or reveal weakness.

Jordan was cutthroat like no athlete America had ever seen. And he spawned a generation of disciples.

Two, in particular, stand out. They emerged on the scene in 1996, right between the 72-win season and the release of “Space Jam.”

The first was a 17-year-old from Philly named Kobe Bryant. Drafted in June ’96 and immediately traded to the Lakers, where he debuted on Nov. 3, 1996.

The second was a 20-year-old from California named Tiger Woods. Turned pro in August ’96 after his third U.S. Amateur title, debuted at the Greater Milwaukee Open and won his first tournament in Las Vegas on Oct. 6, 1996.

They were the Nike heirs to Air. From clutch performances to scandalous infidelity, their career arcs were strikingly similar. Above all, what united them was intensity. Fury. Refusal to laugh at themselves or reveal weakness.

They were Jordan clones.

The lesson they took from MJ was Manifest Destiny. You couldn’t relent.

Ever. You had to walk like Mike. Talk like Mike. Scowl like Mike. You had to be a cold-blooded assassin. The joy was in the misery.

This worldview carried Kobe and Tiger for years. They built images, then empires and ultimately legacies. And then... they burned out.

Just about the same time, too. Tiger’s final epic achievement was June 2008 when he won the U.S. Open in San Diego — that same Sunday, Kobe was playing the Celtics in his fifth NBA Finals appearance.

Tiger last contended in a major championship in July 2013, just three months after Kobe tore his Achilles.

The last three years have represented an agonizing, long goodbye as Kobe’s and Tiger’s fans tried to come to grips with their demise. It’s not just the end for two icons, it’s potentially the end of the Jordan worldview.

Nike’s cold-blooded assassins, overpowering and unwavering, are going out of style. They’re being replaced by the Under Armour boys next door — warm, humble, approachable. Steph Curry and Jordan Spieth aren’t exactly underdogs anymore. But they FEEL like underdogs. The kinds of guys you’d want your sister to date.

In that sense, they violate every Nike campaign ever made. Jordan, Tiger and Kobe ruled by force. They thrived on hate. Steph and Spieth have no comprehension of that motivation. When they close their eyes and listen to the crowd, they don’t seek out the boos, they take fuel from the cheers.

80 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

FINALISTS Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette By: Matt Jones Publication: Lincoln Journal Star By: Brian Christopherson, Steven M. Sipple Publication: Tulsa World By: Mark Cooper

Students

The 2016 Great Plains Journalism Awards

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Dan Harrison Memorial Scholarships

T

he Dan Harrison Memorial Scholarships are awarded to student journalists each year during the Great Plains Journalism Awards.

Sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club and funded by generous donors, the scholarships are given in honor of Dan Harrison, president of the Tulsa Press Club in 2009 and one of the original architects of the awards program.

The scholarships are given to students with award-winning portfolios who exemplify the characteristics Harrison displayed: integrity, leadership ability and creativity.

Harrison died in 2014 at the age of 61.

A former broadcast journalist, Harrison was senior vice president for administrative services and corporate relations of ONEOK and ONEOK Partners at the time of his death. From 2005 until July 2012, he was vice president of investor relations and public affairs. He also served as president of the ONEOK Employee Political Action Committee.

In 2011, Harrison was named to Institutional Investor magazine’s “All-America Executive Team: Best Investor Relations Professionals,” tying for first place in the Energy category, Natural Gas & Master Limited Partnership

sector.

“Dan was loved and respected at ONEOK, both as a friend and leader, and is greatly missed,” said Terry K. Spencer, president and chief executive officer of ONEOK. “Dan’s contributions to ONEOK and its employees are too numerous to name, and the way in which he was able to tell ONEOK’s story in such a meaningful way to the investment community – and to all of our audiences – is a great legacy.

“In the years I knew him, his tenacity never ceased to amaze me,” Spencer said.

“Even during his fight with his illness, he continued to provide counsel and leadership to me and to his team.”

Active in the community, he was a member of the board of trustees of the Tulsa Community Foundation; a member of the executive committee and board of directors for the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce; chair of VisitTulsa, the chamber’s convention and tourism initiative; and past director of the executive committee of the National Association of Publicly Traded Partnerships.

He was a founding board member of Leadership Oklahoma, served on the board of Tulsa Opera and was a member of the Oklahoma Commission on State Gov-

Dan Harrison ernment Performance.

“For 22 years, Dan was one of my most loyal and trusted friends,” said John W. Gibson, non-executive chairman of ONEOK, ONEOK Partners and ONE Gas. “In the seven years I served as CEO, Dan contributed so much to our organization. In the areas of communications and investor relations, Dan made ONEOK the ‘best in class.’

“All stakeholders of ONEOK benefitted from Dan’s many talents,” Gibson

82 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

said. “It was my honor to work with him and have him as my friend.”

Harrison is survived by his wife Mary Ann, herself a former journalist, and daughter Annie.

Sponsors of the Dan Harrison Memorial Scholarships include: ONEOK, ONE Gas, John Gibson, Terry Spencer, Pierce Norton, BOK Financial, David Roth, Walsh Branding, Andrew Ziola, Steve Bradshaw and the Tulsa Press Club Foundation.

Great Plains Student Photographer of the Year Publication: The O’Colly By: Kurt Steiss

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Great Plains Student Photographer of the Year Finalist Publication: The Connection By: Cecil Sunny-Philip

84 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Great Plains Student Photographer of the Year Finalist Publication: The Collegian By: Dalton Stewart

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org  /  85

Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year Publication: The Baker Orange By: Sarah Baker Judge’s comments: This was a difficult decision, as each of the editors is doing a great job. Hard to ignore this from the advisor of the winner: “While writing and design skills are important traits for a student editor at a small college, project management skills are more essential. This is the area in which Sarah truly excels. She coaches struggling writers, updates assignment lists regularly, and always develops contingency plans. She is not afraid to make difficult decisions, but she seeks advice before making those decisions. In short, Sarah keeps the trains running on time and has eliminated the advising stress that I often feel during other school years.”

The Baker Orange

@bakerorange

www.thebakerorange.com

is Baker in t i ) g n turn(i m

Sept. 16, 2016 vol. 125 [issue 2]

Baker University Student Media ~ Baldwin City, Kansas

Wowzer Wildcat

Page 1

QS111

The Baker Orange @bakerorange www.thebakerorange.com

16 September 2016

Print Is Not Dead Yet!

Aug. 26, 2016 vol. 124 [issue 1]

Baker University Student Media ~ Baldwin City, Kansas

ENROLLMENT SPIKE:

When was the last time you read a form of print media - a book, magazine or newspaper? Was it recently? Are reading

our print issue right now? Or you can’t remember? That is not surprising considering modern popular culture. In the words of the

giaris

staff of the Baker Orange, print media is still “relevant,” “convenient,” “important” and “timeless.” You may not choose to pick

la vent p e r p o t

up a paper because you want to know the news - because that’s what your phone and TV is for, right? - but it seems print media has become more of a convenience than a necessity. According to history, it doesn’t look like print media will ever entirely go

away. There is room in the world both print and digital media. Girls, you’re both pretty, stop trying to kill each other. Remember

292 NEW STUDENTS

that 80s classic, “Video killed the radio star?” But did it?

Modern radio has adapted and survived with the times. Why not the same for print? Print publications may never be as

successful and monumental as they used to be, but there is definitely a place in the world for it. Digital media is important and

BU invests in Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software.

PG. 5

valuable in our modern news-as-it-happens society. Therefor, print is rarely the source of breaking news anymore, but does that make its content any less important? Print media may be more of a read-out-of-convenience form media of now, but there is

PG. 5

something of value in holding and reading a newspaper, book or magazine. Isn’t it nice to be mentioned in a newspaper? To have

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

your picture or quote used in something a lot of people see? Print media can be a tangable keepsake in those instances. Keeping a old faded piece of paper with your name/picture is something of value to most people. You just don’t get that option with digital.

Financial aid changes for students wanting to study at Harlaxton.

Photography

by Director of Bands Frank Perez is featured in a guest gallery.

PG. 4

PG. 8 & 9

The Official Mexican Restaurant of Baker University

CARRYOUT 785-594-2711

711 8th St. in Baldwin City Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

First copy free; additional copies 50 cents. The Baker Orange Copyright 2016

Orientation leaders welcome new students with a performance during Playfair on Aug. 21.

The Baker Orange

@bakerorange

www.thebakerorange.com

Oct. 7, 2016 vol. 126 [issue 3]

Baker University Student Media ~ Baldwin City, Kansas

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE The Kwik Shop has moved across the street to the old Santa Fe Market building.

Explore the history of Baldwin City and Baker University dating back to 1856.

PG. 4

PG. 8 & 9

What if we had 1,000 students?

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

The Official Mexican Restaurant of Baker University

CARRYOUT 785-594-2711

711 8th St. in Baldwin City Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

First copy free; additional copies 50 cents. The Baker Orange Copyright 2015

Both soccer teams defeated MidAmerica Nazarene on Rivalry Night.

PG. 12

PG. 5

The Official Mexican Restaurant of Baker University

CARRYOUT 785-594-2711

86 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

PG. 8-9 The Baker Wetlands hosted a Monarch Butterfly Tagging Event.

711 8th St. in Baldwin City Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

First copy free; additional copies 50 cents. The Baker Orange Copyright 2016

Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year, Finalist Publication: The O’Colly By: Nathan Ruiz

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 87

Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year, Finalist Publication: The Connection By: Erica Wilson

88 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Great Plains Student Designer of the Year Publication: The Oracle By: Tabitha Levi Judge’s comments: Presented the greatest range of material among the competition. Wishing the ads didn’t have to detract from the presentation. Love “The Voice” graphic as it is colorful and vibrant, just like one would expect of the show.

The Big Short Bridge of Spies Brooklyn Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Room Spotlight

“Earned It” - Fifty Shades of Grey “Manta Ray” - Racing Extinction “Simple Song #3” - Youth “Til It Happens To You” - The Hunting Writing’s On The Wall” - Spectre

Cate Blanchett - Carol Brie Larson - Room Jennifer Lawrence - Joy Charlotte Rampling - 45 Years Saoirse Ronan - Brooklyn

Bryan Cranston -Trumbo Matt Damon - The Martian Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs Eddie Redmayne - The Danish Girl

Carol - Sandy Powell Cinderella - Sandy Powell The Danish Girl - Paco Delgado Mad Max: Fury Road - Jenny Beavan The Revenant - Jaqueline West

1. Download the Aurasma app 2. Follow oruoracle 3. Hold mobile device over designated photo to view videos and photos.

RENEW

How to use Aurasma 1. Download the Aurasma app.

2. Follow oruoracle.

3. Hold mobile device over designated photo to view videos or photos

Videographers: Sara Paula and Kayla Roettgers

Photographers: Abby Friedman, Jeremy Luczak, Sydney Stoever and Rebecca Olvera

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 89

Great Plains Student Designer of the Year Finalist Publication: The Collegian By: Elias Brinkman

a student newspaper of the university of tulsa

january 25, 2016 issue 14 ~ volume 101

TU "Vaudeville Museum" showcases marginalized American voices, p 12

for Trump

Donald Trump brings Sarah Palin to town, draws Tulsa’s own “silent majority,” p 8

TU recognized as a top school for veterans, p 5

Graphic by Elias Brinkman

a student newspaper of the university of tulsa

august 29, 2016 issue 1 ~ volume 102

Everything Oklahoma!

Students weigh in on the new license plate, p 4

Concerning lack of women in state legislature, p 7 Where did it all go wrong? Why did Kevin Durant leave us? p 3

Graphic by Elias Brinkman

Graphic by Elias Brinkman

90 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Oklahoma citizens suffer from lack of mental health care funding, p 7

Great Plains Student Designer of the Year Finalist Publication: The O’Colly By: Sierra Winrow

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 91

Great Plains Student Writer of the Year Publication: The O’Colly By: Stetson Payne Judge’s comments: This writer takes the time to offer lots of details, with lots of descriptive writing and a very emotional tie-in that leaves the reader invested in the outcome.

“OSU intramurals adds concussion policy, expert says it’s a step in the right direction”

Austin Dick locked onto his target, a football thrown over the middle and dropping toward him.

The Oklahoma State management senior said the details are all secondhand

because he has no memory of the event.

As he moved up on the ball from his deep safety position, he didn’t see the receiver or his teammate on a collision course with him.

The lights went out. Violently.

“All I remember is them hiking the ball, and then I remember waking up with four or five (EMTs) surrounding me, and I had no idea what happened,”

92 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Dick said. “They were asking me if I knew what day it was, or where I was at, and I couldn’t answer any of those questions.”

The game stopped when Dick’s face smashed into his teammate’s ear. The collision knocked him to the ground as his concussed brain settled in his skull.

When he came to, he said nothing was as it seemed.

“I laid there for a while, called my mom,” Dick said. “I was still really out of it not knowing what was going on.

I remember looking over at my friend who I hit and his ear is gushing blood, and I’m like, ‘How’d you get hurt?’”

Dick said he was able to walk to a car for a ride to the emergency room and recovered in just over a week. He said he returned to the field a month later.

University of Tulsa’s director of athletic training said intramural concussions are a genuine concern, namely with when players can return to the field. Ron Walker, also a clinical professor at TU, said when testing for concussions, athletic trainers will use cognitive tests compared with predetermined base scores for a given player.

If a player scores lower after a hit to the head or shows obvious signs of a concussion, he or she is pulled from competition. A player is cleared to return only when he or she achieves the same cognitive marks as before, Walker said. He said the criteria are important not only to show progress, but also to keep players in check.

“Waiting for a participant to selfreport is like asking a drunk if they want another beer,” Walker said.

He said it’s the time immediately after a concussion when the risk is greatest for serious injury, often when someone has the common symptom of a headache.

“If someone sustains a second concussion while they still have that symptom, they’re at a significant risk for even a fatal injury; it’s called second-impact syndrome,” Walker said.

“When there’s no athletic trainer, it’s common sense recognition of that being a possibility.”

OSU’s assistant director of recreational programs said the department implemented a concussion policy in January, and two students have already gone through the protocol for suspected

concussions.

Jason Linsenmeyer said supervisors are trained to spot concussions and given specific protocols for when players can return to playing sports or attending classes.

“If there’s a suspected concussion based on these signs my supervisors have been trained on, they’re going to pull the individual out,” Linsenmeyer said. “Any of those individuals that are pulled out for a potential concussion have to go seek medical attention before they’ll be allowed to play intramural or club sports again.”

Linsenmeyer said supervisors receive training on concussion protocols, and officials have a card listing signs and symptoms of concussions on their person. But he also said those watching aren’t medical staff.

“It’s just our staff as far as officials and supervisors; sometimes our graduate students go out there, but none of them are athletic trainers, none of them are any of the advanced medical training certifications,” Linsenmeyer said.

Although tracking concussions is a good start for any intramural department, it depends on who’s monitoring players, Walker said.

He said although referees or supervisors can act as monitors, they’re focused on the rules and the fair play of a game, not specifically any signs of a concussion. Ideally, an athletic trainer can observe participants because otherwise some less-obvious concussions might be missed.

“From an injury surveillance standpoint, yeah, it’s certainly going to be

hard to track,” Walker said. “When they have an incident and there’s a report filed, I would think that if the reports reflected that participants have concussions, I would think those would only be the most severe cases, which would be in the minority.”

Linsenmeyer said because the undergraduate athletic training program was moved to an OSU-Tulsa graduate program, there isn’t a viable way to have medical staff observe.

“There’s really no avenues here to get athletic trainers,” Linsenmeyer said.

“Obviously, those are expensive. We have lots of events; we have 50 plus events that we offer every year.

“Trying to staff an athletic trainer or someone who’s got advanced medical certifications, that budget would go out the roof just for basketball, same thing for flag football. … Trying to provide that would be a nightmare as far as budget concerns. We just don’t have that available. ” Walker said even if officials monitor for concussions, they should be trained enough to provide the rising standard of care for intramural sports.

“There’s absolutely no reason for intramural departments across the country to not accept (concussion training) as a standard and require that for their intramural officials and game managers,” Walker said.

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 93

Great Plains Student Writer of the Year, Finalists Publication: Columbia Missiourian By: Blake Nelson

Publication: The Baker Orange By: Lauren Freking

Excerpt from “In prison for the election, John Dukes released into its aftermath”

Excerpt from “Despite the controversy, I’ll stand by my faith”

TIPTON, Missouri — John Dukes missed the election.

During the campaign, he never drove by a “Trump/ Pence” yard sign. He never passed a rally for Tim Kaine.

He never walked into a polling station during the primaries or filled in a bubble during the general election.

From the first caucus in February to Tuesday’s vote, his residence received no mailers, and his phone picked up no robo-calls.

That is because, from exactly one week before the Iowa Caucus until Tuesday’s general election, Dukes was in prison.

On Wednesday, he was released.

Twenty-four men and women throughout the state were set to be freed from incarceration the day after the election, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections. Twenty-four people who did not have a say in one of the most contentious elections in modern American history stepped out into its immediate aftermath on Wednesday.

Dukes, for one, was still very aware of what Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and a host of other candidates were saying outside the barbed wire. He still had access to newspapers and TV. In short, they were saying very little about people like him.

That doesn’t mean Dukes is not representative of both Missouri and the nation.

“They’re not spending enough time on core issues,” Dukes said about the candidates on Oct. 19, three weeks before his release. “They’re too busy beatin’ each other up.”

Dukes sat in the visiting area of the Tipton Correctional Center, a minimum security prison that could almost pass for a junior high school: white cinder block walls, lines of blue lockers, a brightly-colored poster that read: “Only positive attitudes beyond this point.” It wasn’t a normal visiting day, and dozens of numbered tables around Dukes were empty. A library card hung just below his collar.

On paper, Dukes looks like an archetypal Donald Trump supporter. He’s white and lives in a trailer in a red state, near the small town of Sunrise Beach, Missouri. He estimates he brought in about $6,000 — through odd jobs and electrical work — the year before he went to prison.

Throughout the campaign, countless stories were written about people who matched that description and their anger toward politicians they felt had forgotten them.

Dukes does feel forgotten. But he was far from sold on Trump, and there wasn’t a hint of anger when he talked about politicians in Jefferson City or Washington, D.C.

It hurts my heart to sit down and write this. The topic is so heavy that I worry I will be unable to adequately describe my opinions and emotions.

By the time you read this, I’m sure you will have heard through the grapevine that the Catholic priest in Baldwin City was recently suspended from the ministry after news reports of him “visiting ‘inappropriate’ websites depicting children on the internet.” An FBI investigation is underway.

Cue the moment when my heart sank into my stomach Sunday evening.

Wow. That is heavy, right? I am well acquainted with the Rev. Chris Rossman and have been involved with the off-campus Catholic center here over the course of my college career.

As people have been finding out about the incident, the reactions have been “it seems like that happens a lot,” or “wow, another one?”

The sad reality is that I am a member of a church that is stereotyped as corrupt, sinful and exploitive of children.

I’ve heard the stories in the news over the years of priests molesting children, I’ve watched movies dramatizing the corruption of the institution, and I’ve seen countless Catholics lose their faith and leave.

Now that I know someone firsthand, I will not lie: this situation hurts. It is shocking and disheartening. However, in the midst of public reaction and my own emotions, I never have questioned or lost an ounce of support or faith in the Catholic Church.

My hope today is to educate others on what the Catholic Church does when situations like this arise, bring to light societal expectations and discuss the true center of our faith.

First of all, it needs to be said, the Catholic Church has never supported or hired child molesters. The church views sexual abuse and pornography as a “grave moral evil” and “particularly deplorable in organizations claiming to order moral leadership.”

So why do scandals keep happening?

In the past, the Church, in a forgiving sense, thought it could “treat” pedophilia with counseling and psychology.

Wanting to be forgiving and accepting of even the “least of these,” it tried to treat the problem rather than banish it.

The Catholic Church eventually learned that, unfortunately, this mental sickness is rarely if ever curable through treatment, and instead the perpetrators would have to be removed from the institution completely.

94 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year Publication: The Baker Orange Judge’s comments: Very impressed by the reinvigoration of the print product, but also by the capacity to draw students to want to participate in a traditional form of journalism. The increased ad revenue is a testament that hard work and good stories pay off.

The Baker Orange

@bakerorange

www.thebakerorange.com

Nov. 4, 2016 vol. 126 [issue 4]

Baker University Student Media ~ Baldwin City, Kansas

The Baker Orange

@bakerorange

www.thebakerorange.com

is Baker it in ) g n i ( turn iarism

Sept. 16, 2016 vol. 125 [issue 2]

Baker University Student Media ~ Baldwin City, Kansas

Wowzer Wildcat

Page 1

QS111

16 September 2016

Print Is Not Dead Yet!

When was the last time you read a form of print media - a book, magazine or newspaper? Was it recently? Are reading

our print issue right now? Or you can’t remember? That is not surprising considering modern popular culture. In the words of the staff of the Baker Orange, print media is still “relevant,” “convenient,” “important” and “timeless.” You may not choose to pick

lag

up a paper because you want to know the news - because that’s what your phone and TV is for, right? - but it seems print media

vent p

has become more of a convenience than a necessity. According to history, it doesn’t look like print media will ever entirely go

to pre

away. There is room in the world both print and digital media. Girls, you’re both pretty, stop trying to kill each other. Remember that 80s classic, “Video killed the radio star?” But did it?

Modern radio has adapted and survived with the times. Why not the same for print? Print publications may never be as

successful and monumental as they used to be, but there is definitely a place in the world for it. Digital media is important and

BU invests in Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software.

PG. 5

valuable in our modern news-as-it-happens society. Therefor, print is rarely the source of breaking news anymore, but does that make its content any less important? Print media may be more of a read-out-of-convenience form media of now, but there is

something of value in holding and reading a newspaper, book or magazine. Isn’t it nice to be mentioned in a newspaper? To have your picture or quote used in something a lot of people see? Print media can be a tangable keepsake in those instances. Keeping a

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

old faded piece of paper with your name/picture is something of value to most people. You just don’t get that option with digital.

Financial aid changes for students wanting to study at Harlaxton.

Photography

by Director of Bands Frank Perez is featured in a guest gallery.

PG. 4

PG. 8 & 9

The Official Mexican Restaurant of Baker University

CARRYOUT 785-594-2711

711 8th St. in Baldwin City Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

First copy free; additional copies 50 cents. The Baker Orange Copyright 2016

The Baker Orange

@bakerorange

www.thebakerorange.com

Oct. 7, 2016 vol. 126 [issue 3]

Baker University Student Media ~ Baldwin City, Kansas

Zombies walk along Massachusetts Street as part of the Zombie Walk on Oct. 20 in downtown Lawrence to benefit the Lawrence Humane Society. | pg. 8-9

What if we had 1,000 students?

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Why Edward Snowden should be pardoned. pg . 3

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Exercise science program is first in state to be accredited. pg . 7

PG. 8-9

Both soccer teams defeated MidAmerica Nazarene on Rivalry Night.

The Baker Wetlands hosted a Monarch Butterfly Tagging Event.

PG. 12

PG. 5

The Official Mexican Restaurant of Baker University

CARRYOUT 785-594-2711

711 8th St. in Baldwin City Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

First copy free; additional copies 50 cents. The Baker Orange Copyright 2016

The Official Mexican Restaurant of Baker University

CARRYOUT 785-594-2711

711 8th St. in Baldwin City Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

First copy free; additional copies 50 cents. The Baker Orange Copyright 2016

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 95

Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year, Finalist Publication: The O’Colly

T H E O ’ C O L LY

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96 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KURT STEISS/O’COLLY

fashion boots!

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Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year, Finalist Publication: The Oracle

CY YOUNG WINNER PITCHES TURF PROJECT FOR GOLDEN EAGLE BASEBALL

Astros ace Dallas Keuchel talks fear of failure, success and the future with the Oracle. PAGES 10-11

Fair Access Investigating the truth behind Trump’s visit PAGE 3

Neurofeedback Drug-free technology defeating ADHD PAGE 8

Student ID Deals Ways to save major money on big products PAGE 15

Oral Roberts University · Jan. 29, 2016 · Tulsa, Oklahoma · Vol 50, No. 9 · www.oruoracle.com · @oruoracle @oruoraclesports

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 97

Great Plains Student Website of the Year Publication: http://www.thebakerorange.com/ (The Baker Orange) By: The Baker Orange Staff Judge’s comments: A wide variety of multimedia used and a clean homepage with lots of interesting content, which is easy to find (including a helpful campus calendar next to the carousel). After viewing so much about the print reinvigoration, I was still surprised to see such a nice online complement. I agree with the adviser: “I think you will see that thanks to our regular content, special projects, and social media usage, our website exhibits many journalistic best practices.”

98 / Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Great Plains Student Website of the Year Finalist Publication: http://oruoracle.com/ (The Oracle) By: Jadyn Watson-Fisher, Russell Dorsey, Alyssa LaCourse

Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org / 99

100  /  Read the full stories and view winning photos at greatplainsawards.org

Unlimited Digital Access Hurry! Don’t miss this limited-time offer!

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS ONLY $3.95 A MONTH

Deliver yourself from the unknown.

Our reporters shine light in dark places to keep you informed and keep our communities safe.

Your subscription not only gives you access to news, it’s also a show of support for these journalists who work to uncover the truth. tulsaworld.com/subscribe

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