On August 26, I covered my first high school football game in Evansville.  Is started last year on December 1st, so I didn’t get any football in at the high school level, only the Colts.  Neither USI nor UE have football teams either, so high school dominates in this little city.  Hasn’t taken me long to figure out who the good teams are either.  Mater Dei, the West Side’s major Catholic School, has a legitimate shot to win the state title the year, but they’ll have to get past the West Side’s public football powerhouse, Reitz High.  Oddly enough, the two West Side rivals share the same field, the Reitz Bowl, at Reitz High School.  So far I’ve only covered Mater Dei, and their impressive 49-6 win on the 26th in this game over Central High and another the following week over Memorial.

Mater Dei has a pretty complete package on offense.  Wide receiver Hunter Owen breaks a lot of tackles, he’s quick and has good hands, not much more you can ask for there.  They’ve got a strong running back and strong quarterback too and I’m not sure I’ve seen their QB, Dane Maurer, get touched in the pocket by the defense yet.  The odd thing is, all these star players seem to play on the defensive side of the ball too.  I don’t know if that’s a product of Mater Dei being a private school with limited depth on the team, or maybe they’re just really that good all around, but they’re not giving points up either so if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Mater Dei Downs Central 49-6

Mater Dei wide receiver Hunter Owen (11) shakes off the tackling attempt of Central safety Austin Fuchs (10) on a long pass play in which Owen found himself wide open in the second quarter of a game at the Reitz Bowl on Friday night, August 26, 2011. Mater Dei scored 42 unanswered points in the first half of the game with Owen scoring on a punt return and on a reception in which he flipped over a defender and into the end zone.

The Wings of Freedom tour rolled through Evansville right before I left for the UK.  It was an interesting segway into my trip as the only flying B-24J bomber, one of 10 flying B-17s and a P-51 Mustang, all used in the UK to defend the nation from Germany were here for me to photograph.  I even got to take the ride of a lifetime in the B-17 for free and document the flight.  It was unbelievable!

The coolest part of the assignment wasn’t getting to fly in a WWII plane or see how they all work and the amazing technology of the day, it was meeting the WWII vets who came out to see the planes again.  Almost all I met and talked to had flown in similar planes and had could talk your ear off all day with amazing tales of what they saw, what they did and what happened to them and their mates over there.  I met one man who flew 15 missions and came back from every one.  I met another, who you’ll see in the photo below, who went down on his fifth mission and was held as a POW for 15 months before he was freed.

I met a man on my flight whose father was on a B-17 and was a radio man when his plane crashed in Japan and he lost a few teeth and suffered a back injury when I believe poor weather conditions brought the plane down just after take off.  I met another man who served in Afghanistan and who’s grandfather served in WWII on a B-24J and I believe died. I started doing research on his father and found out he actually had a different rank and served in a different regimen than this soldier believed.  He was extremely close, he’d just inverted the numbers on the bombing group and had his rank off by one class, but I found a wealth of information on him that I wish I could send him, but I can’t remember his name for the life of me.

Anyway, I came away from this assignment with a healthy respect for the aging generation that, in my opinion at least, is hands down the bravest and greatest in our nation’s history.

Link to Video of my Flight

Henry Kiesel plays with the machine gun turrets inside the B-24J Liberator at Tri-State Aero on Monday afternoon, August 1, 2011. The Collings Foundation brought the plane to Evansville along with a B-17 Flying Fortress and P-51 Mustang as part of their "Wings of Freedom" tour. Kiesel flew in a B-24 during WWII as an engineer and said it was his job to pull the pins on bombs before they were dropped over targets. That meant walking a narrow walkway surrounded by explosives with the floor open beneath you as the plane flew over targets. Kiesel was shot down on his fifth mission, captured by the Germans and held as a POW for 15 months.

Before I left for the UK, I worked on a story on the Holiday Drive-In in Reo, Ind.  The story had a lot of angles to it.  The closure of the Blue Bridge connecting Owensboro (the third largest city in Kentucky) with Indiana right near the theatre threatened to kill it’s summer business.  Interestingly enough, there are only something like 100 drive-in theaters left in the US and Indiana has like 20.  I’d have to double check those facts, but I think I remember hearing something to that effect there.  Uniquely, the Holiday Drive-In has five screens, and still uses film, which makes it even more unique.

I’d post the link to the gallery, but for some reason the photos only ran in print.

Anyway, if you’ve never been to a drive in, check it out.  On a cool summer night, I can’t imagine a cooler way to see two movies at in theaters.

Grant Huey, 11, lays atop his father, Scott's, SUV while his dad remained below him in the driver's seat trading the humid outdoors at the Holiday Drive In for air conditioning as they watch Captain America on Saturday night July 23, 2011. Moviegoers at the drive in all pick their own ways of enjoying the big screens. Some bring lounge chairs and set up on the ground, others make the back of their pickup truck more comfortable with a mattress, chairs or a couch and some prefer lounging on the top of the car.

Right when I was worried working the desk all of July and disappearing for three weeks in August to return to the desk shift would leave me without any clips for the month, I was treated to the biggest fire I’ve ever seen late at night on July 31st.  I had literally just sat down at the apartment after finishing my night on the desk just a little bit early, maybe 5 minutes, when the late-night editor asked me to “check out a possible fire.”  It was a raging inferno when I arrived at the building just four blocks from our office, and I could smell the smoke as I passed the Courier & Press on the way.  I could feel the heat from the flames from a block away.  It was crazy.

As far as I know the cause of the fire is still yet to be determined, but everyone in the neighborhood who came out to see the blaze had their theories on how it started.  One man swears Habitat for Humanity started the fire so they could take over the lot and build homes.  Of course meth use was a prime suspected cause as well.  I’ll have to dig around and see if the cause ever was found, because now I’m curious, but it certainly was hellacious.

Here’s a link to a full gallery of images from the blaze, including some by our intern at the time, Eamon Queeney, who I called once I got there to help back me up on it.  Eamon did a great job on the shoot, and on his internship overall, and was a pretty cool kid to boot.

610 E. Franklin Fire

Flames kick up higher than firefighters spraying water atop a ladder truck as a fire rages at a commercial garage at 610 E. Franklin Street on Monday night around 9:30pm.

If I don’t get these posts up now, I’m not getting them done.  I leave Thursday for the UK for two weeks and I’ll be thoroughly out of communication as my Verizon iPhone doesn’t work over there… Such is the price I pay for domestic reliability.

I’ve been stuck on the desk half the weeks in July, but manage to make a few decent frames the past few weeks.  Keeping my streak of placing each month at least once in NPPA Clips is going to be tough with the bogging down in the studio I had in June and the split desk shift in July… Here’s hoping I return to some good news.

Anyway, this image came at a cost.  Shortly after making it, I dropped my camera and split my 24-70 into two pieces, with the lens coming apart at the mount.  While none of the glass broke, I was still without a 24-70 for the rest of the day at the Vanderburgh County Fair.  I’m lucky I got this image and most of the B-roll for my video done before my mistake cost the company a few hundred dollars.

It certainly was funny seeing a bunch of fair pageant girls burry their faces in pudding pies, but it was even funnier getting their reactions to it, especially the queen, who evidently hates pudding.

Vanderburgh County Fair Queen Jaci Turner, left, sticks her tongue out after tasting a chocolate pudding pie during the pie eating contest at the Vanderburgh County Fair on Thursday afternoon as Queen Attendant Melissa Blythe, right, digs in to hers. "I hate pudding," Turner lamented during the pie eating contest.

Back in probably February, maybe March, Bob brought in some photos from one of his students for us to look at.  He warned us they were a bit graphic, but we had no idea until we saw them  His student, Kimberly Crecelius, has taken portraits of her boyfriend/fiancé Chris Schraner after he got out of the hospital following a horrible accident.  We didn’t know much at the time, other than Chris had been doing something with fireworks and had lost his right hand, sections of his abdomen and other muscle areas.  The portraits were fairly simple, but they told the story well.

We went on about life at the paper and pretty much forgot about the images and the story, but then a few days ago our intern was out doing a St. Mary’s story and heard from their PR director about a man rehabbing from fireworks injuries and that it may be a good pre-July 4th story.  Once we heard what his injuries were, we realized it was Chris, and that we should probably pursue the story again.

I was sent out on Wednesday to photograph Chris at therapy.  His attitude and determination is simply unbelievable, and the support he receives from his family has to be a major driving factor.  Kimberly is there to help Chris in whatever he needs, but he two-year-old daughter Peyton might be the most helpful of all.  Every therapy drill Chris had to perform, Peyton was there trying to help.  Every chore at home, Peyton wants to be a part of.  I think she has to be Chris’ driving force through this recovery and with another girl on the way, Chris will soon have twice the reason to work hard to recover.

The story is much deeper than recovering though.  Read Rick Iorio’s write up to see how it all happened.

Chris Schraner’s Story

And to see a gallery of Chris at home and as he recovers:

Chris’ Gallery

Chris Schraner and his daughter, Peyton Crecelius, 2, color as his girlfriend Kimberly Crecelius watches on the couch in their apartment off of Cass Ave. on Thursday, morning, June 30, 2011. Schraner credits his daughter with much of his positive attitude that he tries to hold despite the pain he endures daily since a fireworks accident claimed various limbs and sections of muscle on his body. Schraner tries to set an example for Peyton that if he can overcome his struggles, she can overcome anything.

Last week I went down to a little nook of Vanderburgh County where residents who lost everything in the April flooding are still without answers.  Some of it sounds like they’re just not asking the right people.  Whether that is actually their fault or not is up to debate.

I’ve been covering these stories for a month now and I’m still not sure how the process goes to get aid when you’ve been effected by a disaster.  I saw how quickly FEMA worked in Tuscaloosa, and while I understand they’re dealing with victims in the South and in Joplin, the flooding here is real and just as severe as that in Louisiana and the Mississippi River Valley.

Residents have no answers though and the complex process isn’t something they have any knowledge of.  My understanding is one first must contact Indiana EMA and get them to assess your damage.  Indiana EMA must make a disaster declaration to Governor Mitch Daniels and he must submit that report to FEMA.  I think Daniels did so about two weeks ago.  From there FEMA comes out and assesses the damage again (yeah bureaucracy) and then they make an assessment and send that to the president.  It would appear FEMA is in their evaluation stages, but it doesn’t make any sense that they’re just getting there two months after the damage.  FEMA was going around with Tuscaloosa victims three days after the tornadoes.

Brian Elwood lost everything in his home and is now living with his daughter in Henderson.  It was an emotional return when he walked around the shell of his home last week that is now inhabitable.

Brian Elwood looks around what's left of his home on Thursday afternoon, June 23, 2011. Elwood has been living with his daughter in Henderson since flood waters started rising back in April. He got out before the water overtook his small neighborhood. Elwood, who lives just 50 yards or so from the river's edge, hasn't been back to his home much since the flooding hit as he said it's just been too hard to handle. His home has been declared inhabitable.

I’ve been waiting 10 days to post this story, and we finally got it running!

On June 15th I went to the Coliseum in Downtown Evansville and covered possibly the best kept secret in the town, the CCW.  That stands for Coliseum Championship Wrestling.  That’s right, “professional” wrestling, in Evansville.  Who knew?

Well a pretty good number of people, but they’ve all been going since they were kids and in recent years as the league has shuffled and transferred ownership, it’s lost some of it’s following.  It’s now owned by an 18-year old North High School graduate and her 10-year old brother.  I couldn’t believe it either, and they put on a hell of a show.

I’ve never been one into pro wrestling on the national stage, but I will find myself watching every now and then when I’m flipping channels.  More for the acrobatics than anything, and trying to guess who’s going to come out of nowhere to win.  I wondered how a local league that only has a dozen or so wrestlers to rotate through could keep it fresh, but I was shocked at the quality of the show.  I even bumped in to a guy I who’s filled in on our softball team a couple times and had no idea he did this on Wednesdays.

The CCW puts on a great show. If you’re free on a Wednesday in Evansville, check it out, it’s just as good, if not better for the intimate experience  you get, as what you get on TV.  The wresters take what they do seriously, and oddly enough the fans do too.  I had to be careful which wresters I shot and how as they were getting changed because certain wrestlers are supposed to hate others.  We all know it’s “fake,” and it’s grown men and women in the crowd, but they work hard to maintain the soap opera storylines they develop.

Below is a link to the gallery.  The photo is of Micas Harris, who I mentioned I’ve played softball with a time or two.

Coliseum Championship Wrestling

Micas Harris does his introduction routine as he enters Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Coliseum for his bout on Wednesday night, June 15, 2011. Harris is a "baby face" favorite of many fans.

I heard the Evansville Otters weren’t a good baseball team when I first got word there was a pro baseball team in town.  The independent A-level team in the Frontier League shattered my expectations though, and not in a good way.  While the team puts on a good show, and they’re not the walking dead in baseball uniforms yet, but they presently sit at 6-24 after their 5-3 loss today to the River City Rascals.

I’ve covered several Otters games so far, and I’m not sure I’ve seen one of their six wins.  Opening day they were down 4-2 before tying the game in the bottom of the ninth, but the losing 8-4 in extras.  Another game later down the road I think I left to make deadline with the team trailing by a run midway through the game.  If I recall right they went on to lose.  Today, a rare Monday afternoon game, the team fell into a 2-0 hole early, but got the lead back in the sixth, going up 3-2.  They turned around and lost it in the seventh and never got it back.

They’ve blown up half the roster, cutting underperforming players and bringing in players fresh from college, but it hasn’t seemed to help.  I wonder how, with little hope of contending at all, they can put fans in the seats.

The best photo I got came from River City as their right fielder dove for a ball and lost his glove as he hit the ground.  Not something you see every day.  A link to the full gallery is below as well.

Otters fall to Rascals

River City right fielder Stephen Holdren loses his glove as he dives for a shallow fly ball in right field from Otters short stop Greg Fontenot with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning.

It’s been a long gap between posts again, and not for lack of assignments and things worth posting.  In fact, May was probably my best shooting month in a long time. The biggest reason I’ve been away has been lack of time.  I think I’ve worked six days each week the last four, picking up some OT and some decent assignments.  For June, it’s been a plus, because I’ve been bogged down in the studio shooting portraits for our magazine, the Evansville Business Journal, but it’s also starting to tire me out a little.

I’m not going to complain, though.  My future at the paper is becoming cloudy as the end date for my contract is getting closer and closer and I still don’t have any clue whether I’ll be here come September or not.  I have no desire to leave, and with Sarah finishing just outside the final 20 for grad school, I’d like to stick around for at least another year.  Hopefully I’ll have an answer soon, and a future position.  One can only hope the extra effort I’ve put in lately will pay off in that realm.

Speaking of extra effort, the extra work yesterday came on a road trip to Indianapolis for the Class 2A Baseball State Finals.  South Spencer High School is on the edge of our coverage area, and I don’t think we covered them much if at all during the season.  They made the state finals though, and since we do the occasional story in Spencer County, I got the call to head up to Victory Field and cover their game against Hanover Central.

It wasn’t much of a game at all to be honest.  South Spencer’s starting pitcher, Jordan Meece, almost threw a two-hit shutout until the final inning when he allowed a few base runners and Hanover Central’s only run.  South Spencer still came away with an 8-1 victory and I came away with a few good shots.

South Spencer Victorious

South Spencer players dog pile on each other after recording the final out of the seventh inning in their Class 2A State Title game against Hanover Central. South Spencer defeated Hanover Central 8-1.