Memorable stories I got to write about while at the Star, 2000-2011.
1) The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center with the late photographer Mpozi Mshale Tolbert. Got to stand on, and write about, and photograph the rubble pile for my generation's Pearl Harbor, 2001.
2) Unveiling parking meter hogs in downtown Indy. Pure shoe-leather journalism, identifying scofflaw parking permits and keeping tabs on who parked there and for how long, caused Indianapolis officials to revoke all 3,300 tags and led to a policy overhaul, 2008 and 2009. The detailed observational skills of Heather Gillers and deft handling of the prose by Alvie Lindsay made it all the more memorable in terms of impact
3) Getting on Twitter and using it to chronicle, in real-time, breaking news events such as the Downtown Indianapolis suicide jumper and the New Year's Eve earthquake in Central Indiana.
4) Staking out the private airport at 2 a.m. as the Indiana Pacers players arrived back in Indy following the brawl in Detroit [I wrote story for Star and USA Today]; then interviewing Ron Artest a few days later at Emmis HQ as fans held a rally, including a bizarre dunk tank (video) that had a radio DJ wearing a wig and pretending to be a Detroit Piston who had helped start the melee in 2004.
5) Before Twitter and before widespread Wi-Fi, reporters had to call and dictate information from crime scenes. What I remember best from the 2004 killings of two police officers -- one with Butler PD outside of historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, one with Indianapolis PD, was working alongside a fully-staffed superb reporting team that included Matthew Tully (now the Star's lead columnist), Ted Kim, Vic Ryckaert, Staci Hupp, Tammy Webber, et al, as we phoned in information to rewrite men Tom Leyden and John Strauss. Strauss asked so many questions for his scene-setting piece on IndyStar.com that he caused the cell-phone batteries in THREE of our Star-issued Nokias to go dead. 2004.
6) Covering Hurricane Katrina along with photog Sam Riche and in WTHR Channel 13's RV-1 in Biloxi, Mississippi in September 2005 to follow the Indiana Task Force 1. 13 journo Scott Swan and photojournalist Scottie Allen were great traveling buddies. Went, two weeks later, to Louisiana to cover Hurricane Rita with photog Adrienne Jaeckle in more challenging, brutal conditions. We flew for that assignment to Dallas, then drove a rental down to New Orleans, sleeping in a small rental car, the floor of a bug-infested wildlife refuge, with the military in an unairconditioned hog barn and even the sidewalk of a Louisiana vistor's center. http://bit.ly/8YEXyG
7) Pioneering some real-time web reporting from the Jill Behrman trial in Martinsvile in fall 2006. I convinced the judge in Morgan County to let me type on the laptop in court. I typed stories in Gmail and hit the send button during recesses to try to outscoop the Indy TV media and indefatigable Laura Lane of the Bloomington Herald-Times and Keith Rhoades of the Martinsville Daily Reporter. Thank God the Star's Tim Evans and Mike Fender were able to zip down Ind. 67 to help write and photograph the surprising nighttime quick "guilty" verdict.
8) An investigative (and award-winning) report with coworker Eunice Trotter, looking at the seemingly anything-goes police-pursuit policy in place in 2005 in Marion County/Indianapolis. The title: Are police chases worth dying for? http://bit.ly/dPrGVB
9) Exposing the degenerates who lured poor Katrina refugees from NOLA up to Indianapolis to stuff their vacant, dilapidated apartment complexes. The "recruiters" promised gift cards, Colts tickets and shopping sprees to convince New Orleans folk to relocate. [Postscript, my father, George Spalding, came up to help me donate some furniture and clothing to help some of those new Hoosiers out].
10) My work on the "web desk" for the indystar.com that included co-producing over 1,000 daily business e-mail newsletters in four years. Some gosh-darn fierce battles with the skilled folks over at IBJ and Inside Indiana Business for sure. I had the wide latitude to chase click-generating breaking news stories from the "UFO in Kokomo" ... to the "Belichick bodyguard bump" after the Colts' 35-34 win over the Patriots ... to an audio/video slide show after the June 2008 floods.
11) Many, many police stories including working with my police beat cohorts Vic Ryckaert, Kevin O'Neal, Terry Horne and John Tuohy. Tuohy and I hopped an interstate chain link fence after a box truck full of painters caught fire on I-465, killing two in 2003.
Kudos to the many, many editors who fixed dirty copy and pointed out organizational and grammatical deficiencies.
It's been a ride.
