Amy Wilczynski , editorial page editor
The Behrend Beacon
„ „ , ,(
News Editor
Justin Curry
Angela Szesciorka
Sports Editors
Kevin Fiorenzo
Amy Frizzell
Editorial Page Editor
Amy Wilczynski
Features Editor
Dana Vaccaro
Beacon
Staff Photographers "Professionalism with a
Jeff Hankey personality"
Heather Myers
Greek Life Editor
Courtney Straub
••••11•1111•00••••••MIONI•M•111.
Penn State Erie,
the Behrend College;
First Floor, The J. Elmer Reed Union Building,
Station Road, Erie, PA 16563.
Contact The Beacon at:
Telephone: (814) 898-6488
Fax: (814) 898-6019
ISSN 1071-9288.
Inspiration comes
all shapes and sizes
by Adam Massaro
Feel sorry for yourself right now?
Feel like complaining? Feel like
whining?
Well, hold back the tears for a
couple more minutes, because there
may just be someone out there who
got dealt a worse hand than you did.
This someone is Kyle Maynard,
who unlike most of us, refused to fold.
Now you're asking yourself, have
I seen him around campus? Maybe he
was in one of my classes? Wrong.
See Kyle isn't even in college; he
is a senior at Collins Hill High School,
outside of Atlanta. He is the starting
103 lbs. for the wrestling team and
this past November placed sixth at the
NHSCA National Preseason Wres
tling Championships.
Undeniably, this is a praiseworthy
accomplishment by any athlete, yet
Kyle managed to do it as a congenial
amputee, without arms below the bi
ceps and legs below the thighs. Kyle
was born without these features and
has never walked upright. For lack
of a better description, Kyle is a torso
with a head and stumpy extensions—
one opponent referred to him as a
"103 pound block of muscle"—who
walks on all fours. When he is off the
mat, he uses an electric-powered
wheel chair as means of transporta
tion.
At age 11, Kyle began to play foot
ball and with each snap he silenced
his critics
"Yeah, there were a couple of
doubts that I couldn't," Maynard said.
"But I don't really look at those. I just
look at what I can do and what I will
do," said Maynard in an interview
with CNN/SI.
Editor in Chief
Lauren M. Packer
Managing Editor
Daniel J. Stasiewski
Assistant Managing Editor
Scott Soltis
Hopefully by this point you have
stopped feeling sorry for yourself and
are at least feeling sorry for Kyle. Well
don't. He doesn't feel sorry for him
self and neither should you.
See this story isn't about Kyle, it's
about everyone else. Everyone who
does feel sorry for themselves but
shouldn't.
It is evident that most people have
not faced enough adversity to truly ap
preciate how good they have it. And
on top of that, people prefer not to un
wrap their gifts of life, and instead
leave their potential locked away in the
closet.
College should be a place that opens
doors to great things, and pushes stu
dents to tap into that potential, yet all I
see are people slamming those doors
shut and cursing the world for their
shortcomings. This observation leads
me to believe that the normal people
are the only ones who are truly abnor
mal because they can't even see how
easy they have it.
By this point in his life, Kyle has
conquered mountains of adversity, yet
most people can barely get over the
foothills.
The struggle to ascend is not due to
a lack of ability but the inability of
people to apply the gifts given to them.
We should all look to Kyle and mirror
his ability to disregard the bad and em
bellish the good in life. His unrelent
ing drive should be used to show us
how little drive we actually have. And
his accomplishments should act as
motivation to improving ourselves on
all levels.
It's funny, you know, who could ever
have thought?
Adam Massaro's column appears
•
. „
Advertising Manager
Ryan Russell
Calendar Page Editor
Amy Wilczynski
A&E Editor
Daniel J. Stasiewski
Supplemental Editor
Lauren M. Packer
Adviser
Cathy L. Roan, Ph.D
Copy Editors
Carolyn M. Tellers
Kristin Bowers
every three weeks
Friday, January 30, 2004
ew York Times is dead wron
What if you were reading the New
York Times and you notice that one of
your professors was featured in the
"obituary" section? Obviously, the per
son is dead. You would probably call
all your friends and classmates and dis
cuss the matter. You may be relieved,
in some strange and twisted way, or you
may be sympathetic for the death of the
old bat. Either way, would you ques
tion the validity of the death notice?
Most likely not because printing a false
obituary can be a pretty disturbing
thing.
As disturbing as this may be, it actu
ally happened! And it happened in one
of the most significant newspapers in the
United States—the New York Times. In
a conference, the New York Times "ad
mitted that a dame of dance and theater
was alive and well, a day after prema
turely polishing off the 94-year-old hero
ine from the original production of
`Oklahoma. — This was no ordinary lady:
she was a star in her town. According to
an online article, Katharine Sergava lives
in Manhattan. She taught acting classes
at HB Studio up until a few months ago
when she moved into a nursing home.
Her former students were in a frenzy
after reading the death notice. They
"rushed to her home to mourn after read
ing the bogus story". Who would have
thought it was all just a big mistake?
This obituary was written by freelance
dance writer Jack Anderson. The Daily
Telegraph of London published the false
obituary, which is where Anderson first
read of Sergava's so-called death. Ander-
Take some time to be a college student
OK, winter has everybody down.
OK well, winter, and the fact that the
Paris Hilton video was blurry and
looked like it was shot in night vi
sion. (So my friends told me.) So
far, it seems, everybody has been
whining about something going on
at Behrend, i.e. lack of snow removal,
the 3 inches of solid ice on the
ground, classes being delayed/can
celed, and so on. And if they aren't
complaining about any of those
things, they are complaining about
politics again. Why not? It's easier
to whine about the primaries than it
is to, say, argue over "The Price Is
Right." Imagine that conversation:
"What, is that girl insane?!? $4.29 for
the Little Debbie Snack Cakes is way
waaay too much. You fool!" Admit
it, everyone has, in the privacy of
their apartment, screamed at a con
testant on "The Price Is Right." I do
it almost daily, and there are times
when I need to be restrained by room
mates.
Anyway, rather than being nega
tive, I decided to be positive, spice
things up a bit: ride into my audition
on a scooter, act like a jackass fiancée
for a million bucks on TV, anything
except whine.
So what to type about then? Well,
Spike TV is going to debut a show
called "Ten Things Every Guy
Should Experience." Now, I don't
know what these 10 things are, nor
do I care, because, lets face it, I'll
most likely never do any of them.
I'm sure the list is entirely unrealis
tic. Number 8 is probably something
like, "Seduce both Olsen twins on
their 18th birthday, all while bungee
jumping with Uncle Jesse." Number
6 is likely "Watch 'Speed 3:Glacier
of Doom," followed by "Gigli," fol
lowed by "Kazaam," followed by
Season One of "Star Trek" on DVD,
dkairseP disagreeP F disagreeP disagreeP to: It
write your opinion to The Beacon
e-mail The Beacon at behrcoll2@aolcom
and make sure you include your name, major, and semester stand
s.
• 4 0,
1 111 ",
' V".„7 •
titeetnitit
Wilcz nski
son did not attribute the Telegraph as the
source of the obituary or personally con
firm that Sergava did, in fact, die. His
only comment was that he was "embar
rassed" about the episode. "Embar
rassed" is an understatement.
Apparently. there is no paper that ex
ists that is error-proof. I still find it in
credibly odd that Jack Anderson, writer
of the bogus obituary, would not double
check his facts. I suppose he trusted the
Daily Telegraph of London; however, he
most certainly should have given the
British paper credit for the death notice.
If he had cited the Telegraph for the
news, he wouldn't have looked as had.
All good writers are supposed to double
or triple-check their facts. Obviously,
Anderson did not.
After I graduate in May, I plan on pur
suing a career in newspaper or maga
zine journalism. I suppose this story is
a good lesson to me and all the other
aspiring journalists out there. Double
all without blinking or hard drugs."
You know, things that no normal guy
could possibly do.
Well, I figured. "Why not blatantly
rip off Spike TV's idea. but twist it
around to my own liking, while involv
ing things that the average college stu
dent could actually do. Without fur
ther ado. here is:
Ryan Russell
Ryan Russell's Top Five Things
Every College Student Can and
Should Actually Do Before They
Graduate.
1. Take one Saturday, and do noth
ing but sit on the couch. I've already
checked this one off my list. In fact,
I've checked it off several times. This
one is fun and easy to do. Guys, you
can watch college football or basket
ball for 14 consecutive hours if you
play your cards right and have two tele
visions with VCRs. Girls can do the
same, except with episodes of "Sex
and the City" or "Extreme Makeover. -
2. Play one video game for 18
straight hours, resulting in at least 3
missed classes. This one is checked
off for me as well. Actually, twice:
"Madden 2004" and "Dance Dance
Revolution Ultramix" for the Xbox
The Behrend Beacon
check the facts!
If you go to google.com and type in
'newspaper bloopers' or similar
phrases, hundreds of web sites pop up
that have thousands of misprints from
major newspapers around the globe.
Some of my favorites are: "Nordic track
for sale, $3OO, hardly used, call
Chubbie, - or these headlines: "Astro
naut Takes Blame for Gas in Space,"
and "Gas Cloud Clears Out Taco Bell."
We look at these as being funny, but
in reality, WHERE WERE THE EDI
TORS? Did no one catch how ridicu
lous and unprofessionally written these
headlines are? I cannot imagine the
New York Times, Washington Post,
Boston Globe or any other major news
paper letting "bloopers" like this slide
just to get a laugh.
To all aspiring journalists: take this
as a lesson. Be wise in what you pub
lish. Double or triple-check your facts
and your wording. It's better to spend
an extra half hour researching facts and
rereading paragraphs than make an ass
out of yourself in front of the huge au
dience the paper is distributed to.
I have barely any newspaper experi
ence, but at least I know the importance
of double-checking. With all hopes, the
new generation of newspaper journal
ists will also be more aware of such
incidents (bogus death notice, bloop
ers, wording) that they will not do it
themselves.
Amy Wilczynski's column appears
every three weeks.
I won three Super Bowls and made
it to the
"megasucerhyperjmsslowthisthingdown"
remix of John Mayer's "Your Body
Is a Wonderland.-
3. Watch every episode of the
"Family Guy" ever made (Must watch
each episode at least four times to
check this one.) This show is the best
show ever made. I will not listen to
any arguments on this one. Guys, I'm
sorry, "G
-String Divas" lost any
chance it had in the third season when
Candy added a boyfriend to the mix
and Jenni added that insipid "i" to the
end of her name. It's a "y" and every
body knows it! Girls, don't even get
me started on "The Real World, - or
"The Bachelorette," or "Friends."
4. Take at least one random week
end-long road trip that your parents
have no business knowing about.
Check (for me, anyway). My trip in
volved Canada, the casino, casino se
curity and two very, very angry Maple
Leaf fans; then it involved the casino
door and my face. Then it involved
dancers. No, not like in "Dance Dance
Revolution." You figure it out.
5. Have at least one good "random"
party. What I mean is this. Say it's
Saturday night, you aren't attempting
to complete No. 1 on this list, and it's
9:30 p.m. You aren't doing anything
too exciting, maybe even you are
catching up on homework. By 9:45,
you have the bottle of Captain Mor
gan opened, and you and your friends
are playing "Strip Jenga." By 11:30
p.in., you have begun the second set
of team co-ed challenges in "Beer-
Olympics." By 3 a.m., you are in the
middle of the quad watching a picnic
table burn to the ground. That's a good
random party.
Ryan Russell's column appears
every three weeks.
Page