July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Hurting for the daughter left behind
Letters to the Editor
It's been over 21 months now since they took him away. The anxiety and heartbreak that I continue to feel day in and day out is unreal, yet all too real. I cannot explain the ache in my heart. The anger I have towards all five of the people that took him away and left my daughter without a father. The intense sorrow for the pain and suffering he must have endured in his last hours. The thoughts that must have gone through his mind as he realized he wasn't going to be able to heal from this beating; ultimately, he was going to die; that no longer would he be able to see or play with or hold his 2-year-old daughter.
Intense sorrow for our daughter as she attends activities where all the children have daddies to coach them and cheer them on, and mine has only me.
Not because she has a daddy that doesn't want to be there, but because they took him from her. Father's Day approaching and instead of spending the day with her daddy she will be taking a flower to his grave. The day will come when she asks why daddy is in heaven, and telling her that Jesus wanted daddy to live with Him so he could help watch over her will not appease her anymore. The day is coming, much quicker than I am going to be ready for, when in fact she will want, and need, to know the truth.
How horrible for one to know that this has happened to another human being. Much worse to know it happened to your daddy. The man you adored and cried for as a small child. The innocence will be taken from her as she comes to terms with the reality of the brutality that some people have the ability to inflict upon another human life. Never trusting another human being from that moment forward. Constantly looking for the worst in people. Wondering, imagining that they could have the same potential to be so heinous, so brutal, so morbid as the five individuals that did her daddy so wrong. At the age of four, she doesn't know who Thomas Smith, Roderick Berry, Michael Heffern, Addison Pijnappels or Tina Whiting are to us, but every day she prays for them. Where the justice system fails us, God will not.
Deuteronomy 32:35 - "Vengeance is mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip, for the day of calamity is near and the impending things are hastening upon them."
From the mother of the angel Shawn Buckner left behind.
Angie Landers
Portland
Bad idea
To the editor:
I had to smack my forehead after hearing about the plans to put 6,200 cattle on a farm around the Adams-Jay County line. The feces, after-birth and antibiotics that comprise an 18-million gallon manure lagoon would end up on top of, and quite possibly in, the Wabash River and the Teays (aquifer), where many of us get the water that comes from our faucets. Spraying this disgusting, smelly mixture on fields results in the running getting into the water we drink and cook with, helped along by rainfall.
Not too long ago in Randolph County, a farmer with a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) had the line of his manure lagoon develop a methane bubble until the liner was 20 feet above the normal level of the lagoon. I doubt if anyone considered this sort of problem prior to Indiana Department of Environmental Management giving approval for that farm.
Would you want to live or work around an area that constantly has the potential to leak manure into even the water that fertilizes the produce and a canning factory? We all should know by now what happens when a person ingests even a small amount of feces. You get very sick from the e. Coli bacteria that simply can't be rinsed away because it isn't just on the food, but in it as well.
Putting the health of so many people in jeopardy by locating mega-thousands of animals and their by-products on top of two major waterways is asinine to say the least.
Tammy Driskill
Decatur
Why?
To the editor:
I wonder what your readers think of our cemetery situation. We have had one for a long time. Green Park, one of our larger cemeteries in the county, is in very bad shape with stones off bases and many leaning badly. Sure an eyesore for Portland.
But our commissioners want to spend time and money to pretty up one. This one has been there for as long as I can remember. I used to go fishing back there when I was a kid.
Some of us Sheller Globe employees were back there several times looking around. No big deal. Take care of the eyesore first.
Richard Haffner
Portland
Praising
To the editor:
The end of an era: This week will mark the end of Dwain Michael's teaching career. Last summer his wife, Sherry Michael, also retired. The two of them have combined for over 74 years of teaching experience. Their influence has touched thousands of people, students, parents and of course their children.
I didn't really understand the magnitude of their influence until a few years after my graduation. I was home for the summer and working in Portland for my summer job. Nearly every employee had one of my parents as a teacher. I heard stories about how great my mother was as an elementary teacher, and how my father was their favorite biology teacher. I was told stories about field trips, lessons, walks outside, and canoe trips. I heard more about my parent's careers than I could ever imagine. At that time I realized that my parents weren't just the people who taught me, but they were teaching everyone else as well. I began to realize how important they are to the community. Now it seems when I am out with my family in Portland, everyone stops to say hello to my parents.
Very rarely do teachers get to see the impact they make on a child's life. That day usually happens years later and we move on saying "I wish I would have listened to so and so." The last few days my father has been able to see and hear some of the lives he has changed. He told me that was why he loved being a teacher, and how special it was for him. My parents were able to change many lives and forge the futures of so many people in our county, and for that I want to thank them.
Thank you for teaching all of us so many lessons and giving us the ability to learn them at our own speed. I know my parents are great teachers, not by how many people will say hello, or tell me a story about their class. I know they are great teachers because even though I have been out of school for 10 years and I have moved away from Jay County, I still try to make both of them proud with my decisions.
Andrew Michael
Cleveland, Ohio[[In-content Ad]]
Intense sorrow for our daughter as she attends activities where all the children have daddies to coach them and cheer them on, and mine has only me.
Not because she has a daddy that doesn't want to be there, but because they took him from her. Father's Day approaching and instead of spending the day with her daddy she will be taking a flower to his grave. The day will come when she asks why daddy is in heaven, and telling her that Jesus wanted daddy to live with Him so he could help watch over her will not appease her anymore. The day is coming, much quicker than I am going to be ready for, when in fact she will want, and need, to know the truth.
How horrible for one to know that this has happened to another human being. Much worse to know it happened to your daddy. The man you adored and cried for as a small child. The innocence will be taken from her as she comes to terms with the reality of the brutality that some people have the ability to inflict upon another human life. Never trusting another human being from that moment forward. Constantly looking for the worst in people. Wondering, imagining that they could have the same potential to be so heinous, so brutal, so morbid as the five individuals that did her daddy so wrong. At the age of four, she doesn't know who Thomas Smith, Roderick Berry, Michael Heffern, Addison Pijnappels or Tina Whiting are to us, but every day she prays for them. Where the justice system fails us, God will not.
Deuteronomy 32:35 - "Vengeance is mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip, for the day of calamity is near and the impending things are hastening upon them."
From the mother of the angel Shawn Buckner left behind.
Angie Landers
Portland
Bad idea
To the editor:
I had to smack my forehead after hearing about the plans to put 6,200 cattle on a farm around the Adams-Jay County line. The feces, after-birth and antibiotics that comprise an 18-million gallon manure lagoon would end up on top of, and quite possibly in, the Wabash River and the Teays (aquifer), where many of us get the water that comes from our faucets. Spraying this disgusting, smelly mixture on fields results in the running getting into the water we drink and cook with, helped along by rainfall.
Not too long ago in Randolph County, a farmer with a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) had the line of his manure lagoon develop a methane bubble until the liner was 20 feet above the normal level of the lagoon. I doubt if anyone considered this sort of problem prior to Indiana Department of Environmental Management giving approval for that farm.
Would you want to live or work around an area that constantly has the potential to leak manure into even the water that fertilizes the produce and a canning factory? We all should know by now what happens when a person ingests even a small amount of feces. You get very sick from the e. Coli bacteria that simply can't be rinsed away because it isn't just on the food, but in it as well.
Putting the health of so many people in jeopardy by locating mega-thousands of animals and their by-products on top of two major waterways is asinine to say the least.
Tammy Driskill
Decatur
Why?
To the editor:
I wonder what your readers think of our cemetery situation. We have had one for a long time. Green Park, one of our larger cemeteries in the county, is in very bad shape with stones off bases and many leaning badly. Sure an eyesore for Portland.
But our commissioners want to spend time and money to pretty up one. This one has been there for as long as I can remember. I used to go fishing back there when I was a kid.
Some of us Sheller Globe employees were back there several times looking around. No big deal. Take care of the eyesore first.
Richard Haffner
Portland
Praising
To the editor:
The end of an era: This week will mark the end of Dwain Michael's teaching career. Last summer his wife, Sherry Michael, also retired. The two of them have combined for over 74 years of teaching experience. Their influence has touched thousands of people, students, parents and of course their children.
I didn't really understand the magnitude of their influence until a few years after my graduation. I was home for the summer and working in Portland for my summer job. Nearly every employee had one of my parents as a teacher. I heard stories about how great my mother was as an elementary teacher, and how my father was their favorite biology teacher. I was told stories about field trips, lessons, walks outside, and canoe trips. I heard more about my parent's careers than I could ever imagine. At that time I realized that my parents weren't just the people who taught me, but they were teaching everyone else as well. I began to realize how important they are to the community. Now it seems when I am out with my family in Portland, everyone stops to say hello to my parents.
Very rarely do teachers get to see the impact they make on a child's life. That day usually happens years later and we move on saying "I wish I would have listened to so and so." The last few days my father has been able to see and hear some of the lives he has changed. He told me that was why he loved being a teacher, and how special it was for him. My parents were able to change many lives and forge the futures of so many people in our county, and for that I want to thank them.
Thank you for teaching all of us so many lessons and giving us the ability to learn them at our own speed. I know my parents are great teachers, not by how many people will say hello, or tell me a story about their class. I know they are great teachers because even though I have been out of school for 10 years and I have moved away from Jay County, I still try to make both of them proud with my decisions.
Andrew Michael
Cleveland, Ohio[[In-content Ad]]
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