Best of News Cut 5x8
Each weekday the News Cut blog by Bob Collins presents "5x8" -- 5 stories worth a second look. The best of 5x8 for Sept. 24-28.
1) IT HELPS TO HAVE FRIENDS (posted Friday, Sept. 28)
In June, Dan Dotzenrod slipped off his semi-trailer, severing a vertebra. After surgery and a 12-day hospital stay, he was allowed to return home but he was on a feeding tube and under orders to stay off farm equipment until winter, the Fargo Forum reports.
That's a problem for a farmer whose livelihood -- the crop -- doesn't wait for winter.
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So yesterday, volunteers show up at the Wyndmere, N.D., farm and took care of it.
They can thank this guy...
2) WHEN PEOPLE DO GOOD... AND BAD (posted Thursday, Sept. 27)
We admit we don't know exactly how to react to this story in the Hastings Star Gazette. Last week, a man lost an envelope with $1,100 in cash in it. He retraced his steps from the bank but came up empty. This week, Hastings police got an anonymous letter from the person who found the envelope. "the person returned $900 of the $1,100 and in the letter the person wrote that they 'really needed' the $200 and that they were sorry they had to take some of the money," the paper says.
3) IT TAKES A COMMUNITY TO RESPOND TO THE BULLIES (posted Wednesday, Sept. 26)
There is no more vicious animal walking this planet than the American teenager. In West Branch, Michigan, for example, students at a high school thought it would be funny to elect an unpopular kid to be the homecoming queen. The boy who was picked with her dropped out; he didn't want to be seen with her, the Detroit News reported this week.
But in West Branch, the adults -- at least the ones who aren't busy raising thugs for children -- showed the proper way to respond.
For the homecoming dance Saturday, businesses will buy her dinner, take her photo, fix her hair and nails, and dress her in a gown, shoes and a tiara.
For the homecoming game Friday, residents will pack the football stadium so they can cheer when she is introduced at halftime.
They will be wearing her favorite color (orange) and T-shirts with messages of support. A 68-year-old grandmother offered to be her escort.
"I am in awe, overwhelmed at the amount of support," said Jamie Kline, 35, who began a Facebook support page. "I never expected it to spread as far as it has."
For Kropp, a sophomore at Ogemaw Heights High, it's been a remarkable transformation.
Before the homecoming vote, she was either ignored or scorned by classmates.
Now, when she isn't fielding yet another free offer from a business, she's being lauded by hundreds of strangers on the support page.
Supporters set up a Facebook page to show their support, and have spent too much time explaining why they had to.
Missing from all of the news stories about this: the kids in the school who participated in the joke. Bullies are like that.
Not far away, by the way, in Linden Hills, Michigan, a special needs student has been selected as homecoming royalty. The boy's mother father told the kids behind the campaign he hoped it wasn't a joke...
"I told Blake [North] 'I just hope that you're not putting him on the homecoming court to be nice, or for fun, or because you feel sorry for him.'" His worries were quickly put to rest. "I got a lecture from a 17-year old! He came back at me and said, 'You don't get it, Mr. Leideker, we love Danny. We love him for who he is.'"
(H/T: Julia Schrenkler)