Police chief errs on WSU links to deathsWINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- In his exuberance to curb collegiate boozing, Police Chief Frank Pomeroy has again and again falsely linked Winona State University to two deaths over the summer. The death of Corey Berzelius on Sept. 3 may not even have been related to alcohol. In both cases, the victims had no current or even recent Winona State connection, although one of them, Corey Berzelius had taken a single freshman course two years ago. He later was at Southeast Tech. The other victim, John Logeais, once was at Rochester Community College but never at Winona State. Asked about maligning Winona State, Pomeroy said his motives were sound, but he has declined twice to acknowledge his error in news interviews or to make good on his misrepresentations. Winona State executives, already beset with a serious community relations problem because of student drinking this fall, chose not to make an issue of Pomeroy's overstatements. Said a university spokesperson, referring to the Berzelius and Logais deaths: "We didn't want to be insensitive."
Full story: Facts don't support WSU deaths claim
NOT CROWING AT WSU
Crows to be in studio |
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WSU can't count on Counting CrowsWINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- The rock group Counting Crows is out of contention for Winona State University's spring concert, student activities coordinator Joe Reed said. Reed received news that Counting Crows will still be in the studio recording a new album in April. The group's agent doubts any concerts can be scheduled until summer, Reed said. Counting Crows had been the first choice of the UPAC student planning committee. Problems exist too with others on the committee's list, Reed said:
> Weezer: The group Weezer is unable to commit to any concert dates because it's currently without management. Weezers booking agent does not have any plans for the group in 2002.
> Everclear: Everclear is interested, but Winona State's bid of $40,000 was not enough. The group will be touring the East Coast during the spring, but no Midwest colleges have been interested in booking Everclear in April.
> Bush: The group Bush is not looking for offers in the spring and is booking only through February. |
Reporter: Jeff Ganske
Background: WSU seeks Counting Crows for spring bash
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| Relief comes at a price
for exhibition pissersWINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- Two Winona State University students paid fines of $138 each on disorderly conduct charges for pissing outside Chuckers bar about closing time on Oct. 21. Neither Ryan Emery Sample, 21, nor Andrew Wallace Schmall, 20, both from Sycamore, Ill., contested the charges. |
WSU sets aside class-free Assessment DayWinona, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- Winona State University will have a non-class school day to take a self-accounting in February. The university, assessment coordinator, Susan Hatfield, said this year's Assessment Day will be Tuesday, Feb. 12, for students and profs to participate the wide array of activities to measure student learning. Students will be asked to log into a web survey. Only day classes are canceled.
McCluer quiet about his combat courage
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| Winona, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- The veteran music department chair at Winona State University, Rich McCluer, who died Nov. 17, carried his experience as a World War II paratrooper quietly in his repertoire. McCluer was one of the original Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division. He jumped into Normandy the night before the 1945 D-Day invasion and participated at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge and also in later fighting in the Rhine. Among McCluer's commendations was a Bronze Star and a Combat Infantry Badge. When the United States entered the war in 1941, McCluer was in college. At his family's urging, he delayed enlisting until graduation. He was offered a commission but chose instead to be a paratrooper.
Background: Death claims retired WSU music chair |
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KATI
DUPONT
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JUSTIN
GOEDEL | 
ERIN
DOUGHERTY |
NIKKI
MOSSING
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TOMORROW'S GREATEST BYLINES TODAY |
Union leader: Strike scabs were selfishWINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- The Winona leader of the AFSCME union, Rollie Salling, took a surprise slap at members who scabbed during a two-week strike at Winona State University and other state facilities. He called those who crossed the picket line "selfish." Earlier Salling had declined to share a list of roughly 40 Winona State scabs that the union had compiled, saying the task now was to restore unity. But now, a month later in an opinion piece in the Daily News, Salling said:
"It is unfortunate that those who chose to shun their fellow workers by not honoring the strike will share in the benefits obtained. They selfishly crossed the picket line and collected paychecks knowing full well that their fellow co-workers were making sacrifices for them. Yet they will be right there with their hand out to reap the benefits."
Background: "Let bygones be bygones"
Background: New chapter to strike: Contract ratified
Vandals target Wilkie Christmas lights WINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- Hundreds of holiday lights at the Wilkie Steamboat Center, a block from the downtown bar district, were smashed by vandals over the weekend, police said. More than 450 bulbs were destroyed. The vandalism was the latest in a series of incidents in the downtown area. Newly planted trees have bene uprooted, picnic stables smashed, and windows broken.
SMU prof writes on Aquinas, God's existenceWINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- A Saint Mary's University philosophy prof, Mark Gossiaux, wrote an article ÒThomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome on the Existence of God as Self-EvidentÓ in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.
R.I.P.: Gaylon BlackWINONA, Minn., Nov. 26, 2001 -- A Winona State University alum, Gaylon Black, 42, did at his home. Black had been a mail carrier for 15 years..
Facts don't support chief's WSU death countWINONA, Minn., Nov. 25, 2001 -- Two deaths with loose college boozing connections have been repeatedly and falsely linked to Winona State University by Police Chief Frank Pomeroy in recent months. In numerous public forums, Pomeroy has used the deaths as examples of the dangers of student alcohol abuse. Neither death, however, had any Winona State connection.
Dead are:> Corey Robert Berzelius, 21, who died Sept. 3 after complications resulting from an attempted suicide. The death certificate does not list alcohol as a factor.
> John Richard Logeais, 22, who died Aug. 4 when struck by a train at Grand Street. Logeais had a blood-alcohol level of .23 -- more than twice the legally drunk limit. |
Logeais, of Shakopee, Minn., had no ties to Winona State. Almost two years ago he was enrolled at Rochester Community College. He was no longer taking classes.
Berzelius, of Bloomington, Minn., attended one class at Winona State, but that was nearly two years ago. From January 2000 until May 2001, he attended sales management classes at Southeast Tech.
EXPANDED
COVERAGE
REPORTER
WHITNEY WOLFE
| This article is the result of interviews and document-gathering over several weeks by advanced Winona State University journalism students of prof John Vivian. The partipcants:
JEFF
GANSKE
SARA
GREENLEE
NICHOLE
MOSSING
STACY
NUNEMACHER
PETER
OLSON
CARI
PANOVICH
SHANNON
PASSAGLIA
REBECCA
SCHMIDT
JON
SUSEK
WHITNEY
WOLFE
| | THE WRENCHING LAST DAYS OF COREY BERZELIUS |
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Friends of Corey Berzelius will forever remember Monday Aug. 28, As Max Alschlager recalls the details, Berzelius went out drinking with friends. He mentioned that he had had a fight with his best friend the week before. Clearly it was heavy on his mind. He explained how he was going to go home and try to apologize, said Alschlager. Also, as Alschalger remembers, Berzelius was hopeful about the coming year, talking about taking the year off from school and working to get back on track.
However, when Berzelius got back to his house that night, the apology turned into another argument, said Alschlager. After yelling with his roommate, Berzelius went into his room and slammed the door shut: "He locked the door and turned up Guns & Roses as loud as he could, and then he hanged himself."
After countless attempts by Berzelius's roommates to get him to turn down his music so they could go to bed, they broke down the door and found him hanging, said Alschlager. The roommates immediately called 911, and Berzelius was rushed to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester, Minn.
The death certificate states that Berzelius died six days later in the hospital.
Alschlager said Berzelius was on life support for those six days and that he visited him every spare moment. "It was weird because he seemed so close to life. We all knew there was little chance, but you could feel the fight in his soul. It was like he wanted to live," said Alschlager. "When we talked about girls, he sort of smiled and moved. We knew he could hear us," said Alschlager.
"The most vivid memory I have of that last day was of his sister. She showed up about five minutes after her brother was declared dead. Then she came up the stairs and said she knows he's in a better place. She said God took him and she prayed for God to take him quickly," said Alschlager.
Alschlager said Berzelius was a great person and a great friend: "That's all that matters in life."
Reporter:
Nicole Mossing
Main story:
Chief's facts wrong
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| Tom Grier, a Winona State public relations officer, said he was concerned with the association Pomeroy has articulated between the deaths and the university. Grier said that when he first learned of Pomeroy's statements, he was confused because his job is to be in on all the official and unofficial campus loops and he didn't know about the deaths. Then Grier figured out that Pomeroy was off the mark.
"When we found out Pomeroy had stretched the name recognition of Winona State when referring to the deaths, we were concerned. But we didn't want to stomp up and down shouting that they weren't students at Winona State. We didn't want to be insensitive," Grier said. He said that university President Darrell Krueger believed that there was nothing to be gained by making an issue out of Pomeroy's comments. Doing so would make the university look worse in the long run, Grier said. They decided the best action would be to just let it go.
Trying to confirm the allegations laid out time and again by Pomeroy about Winona State links to the deaths, student journalists specifically asked him about it twice. After a Winona State Student Senate meeting on alcohol, he looked at the reporter, said nothing, and moved on to somebody else.
Asked by another journalist in an interview in his office, Pomeroy responded that his motives were good. Again, the chief neither confirmed nor denied the Winona State link. He went to say that he was "very concerned" with the binge drinking that seems to be going on at Winona State. "Eighty percent of what I look at in paperwork every morning is a direct off-shoot of alcohol," he said.
About Logeais and Berzelius, the chief said: "If these people had drunk responsibly, they wouldn't be dead or injured/"
Pomeroy, in effect, excused his overdrawn assertions about Logeais and Berzelius being Winona State students as part of his well-intentioned campaign to alert students to the deadly risks of alcohol abuse. "We must find a way to get the word out to the students," he said. Indeed, Pomeroy has been tireless. With Mayor Jerry Miller and City Council members, the judge who hears boozing cases and other leaders, he has personally called on the student senates at all three colleges this fall, in some cases twice. He has written open letters to newspapers and taken to other forums with his message.
With 7,000 students, Winona State is the largest institution with an underage and collegiate population and has attracted the most critics from the community. Also, the most popular college bars in town, frequented by both Winona State and Saint Mary's students, are only five blocks from Winona State. Grier, the university spokesperson, noted that alcohol is also a problem at all colleges as well as high schools. The others just don't take as much heat, he said.
Even with the two deaths that Pomeroy has falsely linked to Winona State, one may not have involved alcohol at all.
Berzelius, who died several days after his suicide attempt, had gone to a bar with some friends one afternoon, according to Max Alschlager, a friend. But no investigation report or other document, not even the death certificate, points to drunkenness. Here's what happened:
From the bar, Berzelius returned home and got into an argument with his roommate. According to Alschlager, Berzelius proceeded to go to his room, slammed and locked his door and turned up Guns & Roses to full volume. He then hung himself in his closet.
Later that night his roommates broke down his door to turn off the music. When they found him they immediately called 911. Berzelius was taken to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester, Minn. Said his friend Max Alschlager: "We all knew there was little chance, but you could feel the fight in his soul." Berzelius was finally taken off life support on Sept. 3. He died from anoxic encephalopathy and carotid artery compression asphyxia.
Logeais, on the other hand, clearly was drunk. He was lying on the Soo Line tracks at 2:48 a.m. when a freight locomotive hit him. His blood alcohol level was .23, the death certificate said -- a number repeated in Pomeroy's mantra for weeks.
Did Logeais fall? Slip? Was he unconscious? Nobody knows for sure. He was struck near the Grand Street crossing, three blocks from Winona State, presumably on his way home from the Third Street bar district. He had navigated the crossing, within eyeshot of his rented house at 579 Dacota St. The area was dark that night except for a street light half a block away on Howard St.
Even so, it's hard not see a train coming. Twelve crossing lights continuously blink as a train approaches, each of four crossing gates with three bulbs flashing red as they descend. Approaching eastbound trains send rumbles through the ground even before they round a curve and illuminate the crossing brightly.
Whatever led to Logeais being on the tracks, death was inevitable. Trains at the usual 35 mph through town can't make a sudden stop. Logeais suffered massive head and body trauma, the death certificate said.
Although Pomeroy has been misleading in connecting the Logeais and Berzelius deaths to Winona State University, no one seriously disputes that Winona has an underage and collegiate alcohol problem. In one of many presentations on the issue Pomeroy rattles off these stats:> A Winona State student fell off the Garvin Heights overlook and remained in critical condition for weeks.
> Eight students have been sent into 72-hour detox at the hospital.
> Citizen have complained about drunken disturbances and vandalism more than ever.
> Eighty-five citations were issued at 27 noisy house parties in the first few weeks of fall classes.
> Police are called to Winona State dorms for drunkenness more than ever in the past. |
Pomeroy is consistent that he wants to work with all three Winona colleges and the high schools to combat binge-drinking. At Winona State, officials couldn't be more supportive. Said university spokesperson Tom Grier: "We don't want any students to die from alcohol." |
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UNDER-AGE
BOOZERS
WHO GOT
CAUGHT
BEING
STUPID
DON'T
TELL
THEIR
MOTHERS
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CAMPUS
SALARIES
Louis
DeThomasis
SMU president
2000: $139,281
Darrell
Krueger
WSU president
2001: $152,130
Jim Johnson
Tech president
2001:
$125,000
OTHER
SALARIES
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