Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 6 Best In-Depth Feature or Feature Package/Category 10 First place Manholes & murder Virginia Black, South Bend Tribune Comments: Compelling reporting, writing and presentation. A strong theme; a voice for the voiceless and insight into an oft-hidden piece of society. Second place Losing Devin Tim Evans, The Indianapolis Star Comments: This writer mixes strong human dimension with watchdog reporting that tags multiple problems in human services and the way they���re administered. Third place A future so bright? Kim Kilbride, South Bend Tribune Comments: Love the chapter approach. Clear writing makes the well-told tale attractive to a wide variety of readers and provides insight into the emotional turmoil surrounding what many would see as a quick fix for a big problem. Manholes & murder Virginia Black South Bend Tribune Darlene Nolen couldn���t shake a nagging sense of foreboding even as her family unwrapped Christmas gifts that night. The Nolens��� get-together on Christmas Eve 2006 was at her daughter���s home. But her son, Michael Shannon Nolen Jr., was not there. ���Shan��� always worked to buy inexpensive gifts for everyone, including the three nephews he adored, even if it was a tub of Double Bubble. Although he was homeless, family gatherings were important to him. Yet he had not been heard from since an email exchange with his mother several days before, when they had planned for Darlene to pick up him for the extended holiday. Frustrated and scared, after the festivities that Christmas Eve night, Darlene parked her car on a side street near The Fort, an abandoned warehouse where homeless men, including her son, often slept. She climbed a snow-covered hill up to the double set of railroad tracks, knees aching. She slipped near the top and was forced to crawl the last few feet up. On the other side, the dark building loomed in the night. Darlene stood on the tracks facing the building, haunted by the conviction that something was wrong. ���Shan!��� she screamed. ���Shan!��� If she called his name long enough, she thought, he���d come out and meet her on the tracks. But there was no response. The next day, on Christmas, Darlene and her ex-husband walked into the police station to report that their son was missing. ���Isn���t that silly?��� The last time Darlene had seen her son, he���d persuaded her to drop him off early. Usually, when she bade good-bye to the 40-yearold at the end of a weekend he���d spent at her place in Mishawaka, Darlene would take him to Hope Rescue Mission around 6 p.m., in time for dinner. But on that Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006, he knew she���d been invited to a Christmas party. She offered to just join her friends later, but he responded, ���Isn���t that silly?��� So they hugged good-bye and arranged to meet later in the week. Darlene watched him walk away ��� tall and lanky, wearing a navy blue hoodie, khaki jacket, blue jeans and brown hiking boots ��� toward The Fort, the abandoned industrial building he shared with other men who had come to prefer living on their own. ���I can���t stop drinking��� Michael Shannon Nolen Jr. was called ���Shan��� by his family, a way to both honor a family name and distinguish him from his father. Mike Nolen, who was divorced from Darlene when their son was about 20, would meet with Shan about twice a week, often to give him supplies or have lunch. Sometimes they���d just sit in the car and chat. Shan���s family knew his routine well. Between visits with his father and younger sister, Amy Patterson, and frequent weekends with his mother, he loved spending time at the downtown library in South Bend, where he���d read newspapers and books and send emails home. Shan wore glasses ever since he was 8 or 9, when his parents realized he was having trouble seeing. When they first framed his blue eyes with a set of glasses, he looked up into the night and asked, ���What are those white dots in the sky?��� He had finally seen the stars. He was probably dyslexic ��� every other letter in the words he wrote was higher than the next ��� and, in hindsight, maybe even a bit autistic. He was a whiz at electronics and video games. He had an amazing memory, able to recite old family stories he���d heard, Chicago Cubs stats or even, say, any episode of ���Gilligan���s Island.��� But in the early 1970s, learning disabilities weren���t diagnosed as readily as they might be today, and by junior high school, he was already feeling ostracized. Because he was the fastest runner among those in his Osceola neighborhood and among the cousins he grew up with, Shan went out for the junior high football team. On the first day of practice, the other would-be jocks stuffed him into a locker. He started pulling away from school. His parents sent him for counseling, but Shan resisted after a while. He bucked the idea that something was wrong with him. Shan went through the Penn High School graduation ceremony in 1985 one credit short ��� in economics ��� but never finished. He was smart and a hard worker, though, landing a job at Accra Pac in Elkhart, rooming with some friends. Then, he would drink and occasionally smoke marijuana. His family didn���t notice his drinking escalate until after he was living with his mother���s parents in Mishawaka. He helped care for them several years until they both died. They and their neighbors were from a different era, when hard drinking was acceptable recreation. Shan picked up the lifestyle. After his grandparents��� house was sold, Shan lived in a mobile home on his sister���s property for a while. But his addiction proved to be too much. He���d find a job, such as at McDonald���s or Taco Bell, and then he���d fall off the wagon and be jobless again. He once told his mother that what he regretted most was not having a family of his own. ���What would it take?��� his mother asked. ���I can���t keep a job, and I can���t stop drinking,��� he said, ���and I wouldn���t be any good for them.��� His family encouraged him to seek help, at Life Treatment Centers, at Hope. But rehab never took. And as his father says now, ���You can���t live somebody else���s life for him.��� ���It���s all in your head��� By 2006, Shan Nolen seemed content with his life. If he thought something was funny, the left corner of his mouth would pull up before he���d start to laugh. He made friends easily, whether while eating breakfast at Broadway Christian Parish, where he could also take a shower and do laundry, or at Hope at dinnertime. Shan described what he gleaned from library books about World War II and local history, about the Olivers or the Studebaker factory, where his grandfather had worked. He rented DVDs from the library, to watch in the battery-powered player his family had given him. His mother would fret about his sleeping in the cold. He shrugged her off. ���You���ve got to quit worrying about me,��� he told her. ���Listen to me: It���s all in your head. Whether it���s 90 degrees or 2 degrees, it���s all in your head. This is how we live out here.��� Homeless people in this city get to know a lot of their own in the course of surviving. They meet ��� or at least see ��� each other while taking a meal in one of the city���s shelters or churches. They run across one another in line at the blood plasma center, or in warm public buildings in the winter. They make temporary friends as they claim an underpass, a tent or an abandoned building as a makeshift home. When you don���t own much, there���s not much to envy of others���. Shan felt as if he belonged in this world. When he���d spend a night at Darlene���s, he���d leave the twin bed upstairs and she���d find him downstairs, sleeping on the floor. He didn���t want to grow too used to a soft bed again. Or sometimes in the middle of the night she���d find him awake, watching out the window, worried about a noise For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Page 61