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Education

Where depression lurks, bullying can be catastrophic upstander.”

Editor’s note: This is part one of a four-part series on depression, suicide and mental health in youth and how families can address these issues openly and proactively with children.

‘IMPOSSIBLE TO SHOW THEM MY BRUISED HEART’

by Maic D’Agostino

maicd@riponprinters.com

“‘Oh, what’s the sense of living? I’m just stupid. I’ll never amount to anything.’”

About a week before his death from suicide, 13-year-old Ryan Halligan said this to his father, John.

Like many parents might do, John Halligan chalked it up to his son’s middle-school-age emotions, academic struggles at school and need for comfort and encouragement.

He now knows that he should have asked Ryan candidly about the state of his mental health.

“What he needed was for me to take a deep breath, swallow hard and ask a really important question: ‘Ryan, are you suicidal?’”

John said. “... This is not the time for a pep talk and a hug.”

Since his son’s death in 2003, Vermont resident John Halligan has been an international advocate for the prevention of bullying, cyberbullying and teen suicide.

Ryan was a victim of all three.

Last week Wednesday, John spoke at Ripon High School both to students and, later, to school staff, parents and community members.

“What I want to accomplish this evening is I want to give you information that I wish my wife [Kelly] and I had before our son passed away,” he told the latter audience. “... There’s one chart in this section [on depression and suicide] that I wish somebody had thrust in front of my face and my wife’s face ...”

That chart is survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on selfharm among high school students.

The state-by-state survey, called the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, has been collected by the CDC for more than 20 years.

This includes data from Vermont in 2003, where and when Ryan Halligan passed away.

John read the results from the 2003 Vermont survey and pointed to Wisconsin’s most recent data, from 2013.

The percentages were very

JOHN HALLIGAN SHOWS a slide featuring his son, Ryan, at different ages, as he explains how bullying and depression combined Tim Lyke photo to make his son believe that suicide was a viable option in response to his woes. similar.

The responses of Wisconsin high schoolers in 2013 were: ‰ Feeling so sad or hopeless that it affects routines for more than two weeks (an indicator of depression): 25 percent; ‰ Considered suicide in the past year: 13 percent; ‰ Made a suicide plan in the past year: 12 percent; ‰ Attempted suicide in the past year: 6 percent; ‰ Needed medical treatment because of a suicide attempt: 3 percent.

John called the numbers “large” and added, “I think we all agree in this room that any number on these charts above zero is a number too high.”

He explained that mental health experts agree that a significant prevention measure to teen suicide is for adults to ask that really important question that John wishes he had asked his son.

“There’s still some people out there who think that if you mention

JOHN HALLIGAN: “THERE’S still some people out there who think that if you mention the word ‘suicide,’ you might plant the thoughts, so [they say], ‘Let’s not even bring it up.’”Tim Lyke photo

the word ‘suicide,’ you might plant of issues of his own. Perhaps it the thoughts, so [they say], ‘Let’s comes from a difficult family life not even bring it up,’” he said. ... You need to learn to just ignore “Well, it turns out the thoughts a kid like that and walk away.’”

The problems persisted, result[already are] out there.”

Talking and ing in Ryan tellcommunicating ing his father: may sound like Bruises on “ ‘ I h a t e t h a t simple soluI never the Heart school. want to go back tions, but John Talking openly about t h e r e a g a i n . noted some famdepression in youth: Can you home ilies may take school me? Can open, honest reA four-part series we move?’” lationships with When John their children for granted, asserting that no one tells told his son he was going to get other adults involved, Ryan intheir parents everything.

If they’re afraid to come to sisted he didn’t want his dad to call parents, he asked, who can they school officials or the bully’s pargo to: a teacher, a counselor, fam- ents, as he would be embarrassed and maybe labeled a crybaby and ily friend?

“I think it’s so important to get tattletale.

John said it was “a huge mistake an answer to that question,” John on our part” that he and his wife said.

He also pointed out that a typi- didn’t immediately and directly cal question posed to students is, go to the school administrators to “How was your day?” with a typi- address the issue, stating that he doesn’t blame the school for what cal teenage response: “Fine.”

“I think what we need to do as happened to Ryan.

He didn’t find out much of what parents is to ask a more thoughtprovoking question: ‘How do you precipitated Ryan’s death until after it occurred. feel?’” John said.

“On the day my son died, we And if those feelings are expressed the way Ryan did, colored tore the house apart searching with a tinge of darker and perhaps for the suicide note, the note fatalistic underpinnings, then the that would answer the question, questions have to be even more ‘Why?’ ... We never found the note,” John said. “Turns out it’s a direct.

“The challenge is to get them myth ... Most of the time, there’s to open up and talk” without judg- no note left behind.”

Because the family had a “no ment or shaming, John said. secret passwords” rule, John said RYAN’S STORY he was able to access Ryan’s AOL Ryan Halligan was born Dec. instant messenger account.

18, 1989, which John called After telling friends that Ryan “clearly the best Christmas gift chatted with online that he was that year.” looking for information about Very soon, John said, he noticed his son, a girl told John about a that there were some developmen- program that saved Ryan’s AOL tal issues with Ryan: he hadn’t messages. spoken a single word by the time John found them in a folder on he was two and was late in crawl- the computer. ing and pulling himself up.

“As I started to read this mateMedical professionals deter- rial, my heart started to break into mined that Ryan had developmen- a million pieces all over again,” tal delays in both fine-motor skills he said. and speech and language.

From the messages, John surRyan took special education mised that the boy who had been classes, and by fourth grade the bullying Ryan spread a rumor that Halligans received news that he Ryan was gay. had caught up to classmates in Ryan apparently was attemptspeech and language. ing to dismiss the rumor online, John said he felt relieved since which included communicating he knew middle school could be an with another student he thought emotional roller coaster. of as his girlfriend.

“But it didn’t work out the way However, John explained that we’d hoped,” he said. “For my son, the girl told Ryan, “‘You’re just the bullying problems started up in a loser. I want nothing to do with fifth grade.” you. I was just joking around.’”

The incidents centered around His voice thick with emotion, one particular boy and his group of John told the crowd that Ryan said friends, John said, who focused on to the girl on the day he died, “It’s the fact that Ryan struggled aca- girls like you who make me want demically, even though he wasn’t to kill myself.” in special education any more.

And that’s what he did. “[H]e wasn’t coming home with Afterwards, John heard from a bruised arm or a black eye or other students similar things Ryan anything like that,” John said. “It had told them. was just words ... So we started “At my son’s wake, one of his giving that typical parent advice: friends came up to us, a complete ‘Ryan, that kid probably has a lot mess,” John said. “I couldn’t un-

derstand him until he blurted out, ‘I should have told you, I should have told you.’ ‘Tell me what?’

‘Mr. Halligan, I knew he was thinking of doing this, but I didn’t think he’d really do it. I thought it was a joke. He made me promise not to tell anybody.’

“This poor kid ... He thought it was his job to be my son’s counselor. He thought it was his job to check up on my son every night.”

John did talk about the importance of the “audience” in bullying scenarios, saying, “You have to address the audience.”

Friends who were the “audience” for the girl that told Ryan he was a loser and for the boy who bullied him had a greater ability to stop the tormenting than any adults, John said, and that those two would have listened to their friends “a lot quicker than anybody else, and this could have been a completely different story.”

John said the first time he presented Ryan’s story in a school, he could see students were connecting to the story.

“They were seeing themselves perhaps as Ryan or one of the bullies or as the bystanders,” he said.

Standing up to a friend who is bullying “is one of the most important, most powerful things your child can do at this point in their young life,” he said, adding that he urged Ripon students earlier, “Don’t be a bystander. Be an

John knows bullying isn’t a new issue but said there has been a major social change since he was in school: the internet.

“We didn’t have the internet to go home to and continue tormenting each other,” he said.

Every school he visits, he hears about the effects of cyberbullying.

“Look, I’ve been doing this presentation for 10 years now,” John said to his adult audience. “It’s the same story every school year: different kids, different parents, same problem. Not going away, folks.”

For his son, nearer to the advent of online communications, the issue centered around AOL instant messaging.

Now, John says, a plethora of means and methods exist for young people to interact instantly — without the accountability of face-to-face contact. “[E]ver since [Ryan’s death], every new gadget, every new application, every new member has given another [person a] new opportunity to hide behind a screen and [text] stuff that they would never have the guts to say or do in person,” he said.

One of the ways to combat the temptation and ease of meanspirited texts and comments, John said, is to prevent kids who are too young and immature from using the technology.

“In fact,” he said, “if you put me in charge of your school district, I would put this rule in place: I don’t want to see a smartphone in a kid’s hand well through sixth grade.”

He referred to an article dealing with youth mental health and smartphones written by a therapist who noticed a large uptick in suicide attempts with her adolescent patients, observing that the “only thing that’s changed in the last five to seven years is the proliferation of smartphones.”

While bullying can be physical, John recalled something a student once told him that highlighted a major difference among those who deal with mental pain: “‘You know, Mr. Halligan, I would actually prefer to get a black eye than have someone spread rumors about me online. Because I could go to adults, show them my black eye and get a response. But it’s almost impossible to show them my bruised heart.’”

Next week: Thirteen years ago, a Ripon family lost their 16-yearold son, Jim, to depression and suicide. Ever since, Tim and Sandy Page have been advocates for mental health awareness and the prevention of suicide. They attended John’s presentation and offered their thoughts on the power of openness and advocacy.

RIPON SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT Mary Whitrock introduces John Halligan.

Tim Lyke photo

Thursday, March 15, 2012 - Page 1

Ripon Commonwealth Press www.RiponPress.com

Issue No. 9 Serving the Ripon community since 1864

Wisconsin Weekly Newspaper of the Year

Single copy — $1 Thursday, March 2, 2017

2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015

Goodbye meth; hello fentanyl?

INSIDE

Car trouble Hi-speed chase An incident in the parking lot of Ripon Medical Center set in motion a series of events that included a chase that exceeded 100 mph.

See page 3

Next big drug problem may be here

by Ian Stepleton

ians@riponprinters.com

It was the classic good news/bad news report Monday afternoon.

As a group of stakeholders met for a “Four Pillars” update on how Drug-Free Communities is approaching the opioid problem in the area, Ripon Police Sgt. John Teachout offered a mixed bag of news.

“I think we nipped the meth problem. We got those meth lab users right away. As a matter of a fact, last week one of them was sentenced and went to prison for it,” he said.

“So, we haven’t seen a lot of meth ...

“Now the big thing is fentanyl.”

Fentanyl, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is “a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent.”

It’s a Schedule II prescription

Our Views

Flyer-fighters?

Even after 21 years, it’s never easy for the men and women of the Ripon Area Fire District and their annual barbecue.

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Business

Sports

Parents navigate grief, stigma to help others driveway to share memories and grieve his death.

As they spoke with the Pages, Sandy described how the kids heard these fragments of stories pointing towards Jim’s depression, “and then they put it all together and went, ‘Wow.’” “The reason ... we didn’t pick up on it is because he was a typical 16-year-old boy,” Tim said. “...

Once we started putting all the puzzle pieces together, then we realized that he was really suffering for probably the last three months.”

But, like so many others, there was more to this typical 16-year-old boy than meets the eye.

Editor’s note: This is part two of a multi-part series on depression, suicide and mental health in youth and how families can address these issues openly and proactively with children.

Depression killed Jim Page.

Of this his parents are sure.

Tim and Sandy Page would tell people that when they asked how Jim died.

“And I know they were asking, ‘Did he shoot himself? Did he hang himself? How did he die?’”

Tim said. “Well, depression killed him. And they looked at me like, ‘What?’Yep, it’s no different than a cancer, a brain tumor, a heart attack; it was depression.”

About eight weeks shy of his 17th birthday, Jim passed away Dec. 4, 2004.

Unlike many teen victims of suicide, Jim didn’t die in his house but on the other side of town from his Ripon home.

“He didn’t do it here because he didn’t want us to have the memory

Jim Page that he took his life here at home,” Tim said. “So when he did that, he didn’t do it here specifically for us.”

At the time of his suicide, the Pages were unaware Jim was suffering from depression.

But they began to realize the truth the night he passed away when groups of Jim’s friends came to Tim and Sandy’s Union Street

THE FALLOUT: FAMILY, FRIENDS AND SCHOOL

The Pages attended John Halligan’s talk for adults Feb. 15 at Ripon High School.

Halligan and his wife, Kelly, became international advocates for the prevention of bullying, cyberbullying and teen suicide after their own 13-year-old son, Ryan, took his life.

Although Jim apparently did not have issues from bullying, John’s speech and advocacy resonated with them.

Especially when he discussed

See DEPRESSION/ page 13

Construction could be imminent on proposed Republican museum Open house planned for Tuesday to give public an update on forward progress

by Ian Stepleton

ians@riponprinters.com

Simply the best Wrestling at state? 4.

Boys undefeated? 4.

March Madness? 4.

Now that’s what you call one amazing week in sports.

See page 14

See FENTANYL/ page 13

‘Depression killed him’

by Maic D’Agostino

What’s growing in the purple light under Bluemke’s? An area professional group got to take a sneak peek at Ernessi.

See page 12

drug “typically used to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery.”

But that’s not exactly what’s flooding the drug market now, Teachout explained.

“A lot of the drug cartels — Mexico and China — are shipping a lot of fentanyl into the United States,” he said. “The dealers are selling it as heroin. The fentanyl is not so bad, but the carfentanils and super-strength fentanyls [and others are worse] ...”

According to a DEA Special Testing and Research Laboratory “Emerging Threat Report” for the fourth quarter of 2016, fentanyl and associated analgesics were listed as a “new psychoactive substance” in the U.S. market due to the recent increase in seizures.

Teachout’s comments echoed that report.

SANDY AND TIM Page of Ripon hold a photograph of their late son, Jim, who succumbed to Maic D’Agostino photo suicide Dec. 4, 2004.

maicd@riponprinters.com

Purple people eats

Ripon, WI 54971

Construction could begin as soon as this fall for the National Republican History Museum.

Curious Riponites, however, won’t need to wait nearly that long to learn more about the longawaited project.

An open house is scheduled for Tuesday, March 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. at 123 Watson St. (former Suds on the Square site).

3

What: Open house about

the National Republican History Museum When: Tuesday, March 7, 5 p.m.

Where: 123 Watson St. “We want to have an open house where I have a short presentation to interested parties,” said Dan Zimmerman, spokesperson for the museum project. “Anyone who wants to come in and hear what we are doing, I would present the various projects to them and then they could ask questions.”

The program will update interested individuals on progress made toward construction. It is not intended to be a fund-raiser.

“This is geared toward the city of Ripon ... giving them an update on the status of the project,” Zimmerman said.

Food and drinks will be provided

by Knuth Brewery.

“Last time I did this was a couple years ago ... Figured it was about time we did something and gave them an update,” Zimmerman said, noting that the focus will be on the museum, though discussion could touch on the proposed hotel associated with the project. “The hotel — we haven’t sited the hotel yet, so that is a little bit less developed than the museum is. A lot [less developed].”

Zimmerman added that there

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CELEBRATING AFTERWINNING the Ripon College men’s basketball team’s first Midwest Conference Tournament Championship since the 2001-02 season are, from left, Ripon native Mason Stangl, Seth Jonathan Bailey photo Kostroski and Elliot Hoerdemann.

Marching

ON!

For the first time in 15 years, Ripon will succumb to March Madness after a storybook trek through the Midwest Conference Tournament for the Red Hawk men’s basketball team.

First, the men — whose team includes Ripon native Mason Stangl — staged a literal last-second upset over Cornell College 80-79 last week Friday night. Senior superstar Ty Sabin put his team on his back for the contest, scoring 50 points, including a winning 3-pointer.

Then, due to a first-round upset, a day later Ripon avoided having to face nemesis St. Norbert. Instead, the Red Hawks faced off against Lake Forest, topping that squad 81-72.

Now, the Hawks head to the Big Dance, facing Washington University Monday in Holland, Mich.

Read the full story on page 14.

RIGHT, OWEN Schaalma raises his hand in the air to tell everybody who’s No. 1 as Seth Kostroksi, left, and Elliot Hoerdemann watch.

Jonathan Bailey photo

Thursday, March 2, 2017 - Page 13

News DEPRESSION/Bullying after his death made school difficult for sister Ryan’s sensitive, sweet and empathetic nature.

“Because our son was really sensitive,” Sandy said. “[Jim] took everything so personally. He’d get so involved helping somebody else.

If somebody else was hurting, he was hurting ...

“He was an old soul in a young body. And [with] so many of them [people who die from suicide], you hear that in all the support groups we’ve been to ... same thing: they were friendly, always smiling, helping everybody, class clown. And super sensitive.”

Those qualities weren’t restricted to teens, Tim pointed out: “There were mothers there who’d lost 30-year-old sons ... There were sisters who lost 40-year-old brothers. But they all had said the same thing.”

Knowing what they do now, perhaps they would have taken John’s advice that extremely sensitive children need adults to be acutely aware of their emotional states.

Sandy also explained that Jim saw a counselor for about a year after concerns were raised at school.

“And the counselor’s like, ‘Hey, he’s on the right track, he’s doing great,’” she said. “And it was a little over a year later he was gone.”

While Jim may not have encountered bullying, the same could not be said of his sister.

Following her brother’s death, Tim said their daughter, Jenny, was

bullied at school, with classmates asking when would be “her turn” to die the way Jim did.

The Pages didn’t want her to change schools, but they also didn’t want her to “go through hell,” Tim added.

“I was going almost every day to pick her up,” Sandy said. “She’d be in tears.”

“After that school year, she never went back to Ripon,” Tim said.

Tim and Sandy themselves experienced social repercussions.

While they found support through a group called Survivors of Suicide (SOS) — “survivors” meaning the loved ones of those who succumbed to suicide — they didn’t always feel the same support from their acquaintances.

“People treat survivors differently,” Sandy said. “... After Jim had passed, we’d go shopping, and people that knew us and would see us, a lot of times, would go down a different aisle. There weren’t too many that would come up and talk to you ... And we were judged for a while, too, as being bad parents.”

They also felt that the school district was unwilling to face the issue head on, saying they met with “a big brick wall.”

“Because the mindset at that time was that if somebody talked about suicide, then kids were going to go out and take their lives. Ironically, that’s not the case,” Tim said, adding that openness often helps

continued from page 1

TRUCKS ARE SCRAWLED with Jim Page’s name after the teen’s death from suicide in 2004. prevent suicides.

A friend of Jim’s who worked at Culver’s in Ripon talked to the company’s corporate headquarters and put Jim’s name up on the restaurant’s sign shortly after his funeral.

According to Tim, this set up a showdown with Superintendent Richard Zimman.

“The superintendent called them up and said, ‘You take that down.

You only [glorify] people who win,’ if it’s like a sports achievement, like if he was a wrestler or a star basketball player,” Tim said. “He says, ‘We don’t glorify death.’ And I called him up and I chewed him a new ass ...

“We ended up meeting in person, and I told him, I said, ‘You got no clue.’ I said, ‘To you, Jim is just a number at school.’ I said, ‘To a lot of kids, he was somebody special ...

He’s touched a lot of people.’”

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Certainly, his family is among those whose lives were touched by Jim’s all-too-brief life.

Even when he was acting like a typical 16-year-old.

“I was just laughing, thinking of some of the s**t he did,” Tim said, asserting that some of his exploits couldn’t be printed in a newspaper.

HELP IS OUT THERE

Although they’re no longer active in SOS, Tim and Sandy are open to helping whomever they can.

“If somebody reaches out to us, we don’t turn them away,” Tim said.

They’ve been impressed with work done by the Kaukauna-based Center for Suicide Awareness and its founder, Barb Bigalke.

The center has a free, 24-hour text hotline, accessible by texting “HOPELINE” to 741741, or

“APOYO” to 839863 for Spanish speakers. “[T]hey found in this day and age — even though the suicide hotline is out there — there’s still kids that don’t like to hear a voice, but they’ll text ’til their thumbs fall off,” Tim said.

They both acknowledged that even though cultural views on suicide and depression have shifted toward openness and away from shaming, there’s still plenty of room for attitudes to improve further.

“I think it’s cultural,” Sandy said. “I think because there’s such a stigma: ‘Oh my gosh, you’re seeing a psychologist?’”

“I think it’s easier for kids to get lost in the shuffle in a big city,” Tim said. “But if you’re in a small town, say like a Ripon or a Berlin, everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

Ultimately, they believe more

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talk to veterinarians continued from page 1 “We’re seeing, the Division of Criminal Investigation state-side is seeing, a lot of fentanyl,” he said.

“And that’s some really scary stuff ...

[Just] handling it — sometimes that exposure is enough to make a mess of people. We have to be very careful handling it — glove, and double glove, in some cases.”

Participants at Monday’s meeting, meanwhile, noted that it would be important to ensure local sources of fentanyl aren’t compromised.

As Ellen Sorensen of Drug Free Communities of Fond du Lac County explained, veterinarians are “an area we are going to go into in the fall ... We’ll find out what their prescribing practices may be, and work with them much like we work with funeral home directors and Realtors and dentists” to discuss best practices to prevent abuse of medications such as fentanyl.

Another participant in the meeting, Ripon Area School District nurse Wendy McCullough, noted vets are prescribing such medicines for animals.

“My dog got the fentanyl patch when he had surgery,” she said.

Agreeing was Alysha Kloeckner of Families United, a Riponbased support group for families of addicts. She added that it’s possible abuse could occur from such sources.

“It might be a lower dose, but you take enough of it and it’ll do some-

thing,” she said, asking Teachout, “Would that be appropriate to drop in the [drug drop] boxes available?”

Drug drop boxes now are at both City Hall and Ripon Medical Center, where — technically — prescription medications are to be disposed of when no longer needed.

“We take anything, no questions asked,” Teachout said.

“Well, you don’t take the illegal drugs,” Sorensen said.

“We don’t take them, but we get them,” Teachout said. “We got marijuana last week — well, it was green and it was leafy; we didn’t test it. You’d be surprised how often that happens: we have parents who come in and report their own child.”

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Next week: One of the most difficult steps in finding help for mental health issues is the first one: talking to someone. Overcoming that fear and finding the wealth of resources available is key, says Ripon High School counselor Jolene Schatzinger.

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lives will be saved as kids are able to seek help without fear of being stigmatized. “[F]or the kids to know that somebody at school will listen and not judge, I think that’s a big thing,” Sandy said. “... That’s why we were so happy to see this whole thing [by John Halligan] on bullying and suicide, depression ...

“It’s really important. And it’s nice to see now that they’re going to talk about it at school, where for us that wasn’t the case. We couldn’t even say the ‘S-word.’”

“Nicely put,” Tim chuckled.

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Meanwhile, long-standing substance abuse problems aren’t going away, either.

“We’re seeing binge drinking at the college a lot,” Teachout said.

“That’s typical, but we’ve had some significant [incidents] — people go out of a third-story window.”

At the school-age level, DrugFree Communities plans to take a closer look to measure how big the problem is.

“We are in the middle of rolling out our first Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug data in Ripon,” Sorensen said, noting funding for this came

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Page 10 - Thursday, March 9, 2017

Education

Numerous mental health resources await RHS students, but first they have to learn to ask for help Editor’s note: This is part three of a multi-part series on depression, suicide and mental health in youth and how families can address these issues openly and proactively with children.

by Maic D’Agostino

maicd@riponprinters.com

barometer in the high school — and watch for gathering storms — the more data they have from students themselves.

Students reporting feeling sad and hopeless and those reporting suicide attempts was higher in 2015 than in 2010 and 2013, the other two years the survey has been conducted.

Other responses have fluctuated more, such as those saying they required medical attention from an attempted suicide or who purposely hurt themselves without suicidal ideation.

There’s good news from the data, too: In the three surveys over five years, the percentage of students reporting ever trying a cigarette, alcohol, marijuana or a prescription drug without a prescription has gone down each year.

The number of students reporting wearing seatbelts, feeling love and support from their families and believing teachers really care has increased each year.

Still, one self-reporting survey taken every other year won’t necessarily reveal the whole picture.

Fortunately, the YRBS isn’t the only survey or resource available to teenage students.

In 2015, 13.9 percent of Ripon High School (RHS) students reported having attempted suicide at least once in the previous year.

The data were collected anonymously as part of Wisconsin’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), conducted every two years.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and the national Centers for Disease Control, use this data to track trends and changes among youth populations.

While Ripon may be a small sample of the overall data, 13.9 percent represents 70 RHS students in 2015.

As suicide-prevention advocate John Halligan said Feb. 15 at RHS, “[A]ny number on these charts above zero is a number too high.”

In all likelihood, when the survey is conducted again this HELP IS OUT THERE year, the number will remain YScreen is a program above zero. throughout the Fond du Lac But there are ways to drive County area designed to identify that number down. The first step risk factors in teens for depresprobably is the hardest: asking sion, anxiety, alcohol and subfor help. stance abuse and suicide.

“Young people are not unlike Ripon youth take the survey in adults in that there’s that fear of ninth grade, which then enables the unknown,” specialists to RHS counselor their Jolene SchatzBruises on review responses and, inger said.

Schatzinger the Heart if necessary, is part of the Talking openly about recommend a student speak Student Serdepression in youth: with a counvices team at A multi-part series selor such as RHS, which she Schatzinger. said meets to However, students and famidiscuss general “climate” issues lies can, and some do, choose to affecting Ripon’s students, such opt out of the survey, Schatzinger as when bullying was brought to said, despite her belief that the the forefront last year. survey is vital for them. Unless The team members more accurately can gauge the emotional youth — and adults — are will-

RIPON HIGH SCHOOL (RHS) counselor Jolene Schatzinger talks with two high school students.

Schatzinger and RHS staff are working to encourage students to make connections, build Maic D’Agostino photo relationships and — when necessary — seek help. ing to share their vulnerabilities and ask for help when needed, mental health professionals and advocates may have greater difficulty giving them the aid they require.

A willingness to seek out and accept assistance is a trait that sometimes may be underpromoted in a hard-working, Midwest culture, Schatzinger noted.

“Sometimes, I don’t think people always realize that is, in some regards, a sign of strength,” she said, not weakness. “It’s a sign that you know what you want and you know how to get it.”

To encourage openness and discussion, Schatzinger explained that the high school has formed teacher-led “advisory” groups that meet periodically with a randomly assigned cluster of students.

For example, after Halligan’s

presentation to students last month, the groups used discussion questions to process his story and generate their own thoughts, with ground rules for listening, respecting differences and honoring confidentiality.

Partly these groups allow for staff to check in with students, but Schatzinger hopes that each youth can make a connection with an adult at school, outside of their families, which Halligan told local adults during his talk is “so important” for children who may be hesitant to discuss certain matters with their parents.

“If I had my dream, I’d meet with every single student every year,” Schatzinger said.

COLLABORATIONS AND CONNECTIONS

While that goal may be a dream, a plethora of resources exist.

Great Conversations will be held April 7 The annual Great Conversations event will take place Thursday, April 6 at Great Hall on the Ripon College campus.

A variety of the community’s leaders have been invited to the dinner, with guests selecting a table and conversation of choice.

Proceeds benefit the Ripon Education Foundation and specifically the Innovative Teaching Grant program.

The foundation offers teachers the opportunity to apply for funding for innovative programs that are not covered by district budgeted funds. An announcement of a special Innovative Grant will be made at this year’s event.

Cocktail reception with appetizers begins at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 6:30 and a live auction of special items at 8.

A preview of this year’s speakers includes: ‰ Cindy Diemer, “The State of Poverty in the Ripon Area: Statistics and Solutions.”

Join this conversation to learn and discuss percentages of children qualified for Free and Reduced Lunches, homeless student statistics and area schools and organizations that provide ongoing assistance to children and families in need. Other poverty issues include: transportation; housing;

PETER SENSENBRENNER, LEFT, president of the Ripon Education Foundation, accepts a check for $3,500 from Alliance Laundry Systems representatives Anna Ewerdt, plant human resources manager, and David Hickman, Ripon plant manager.

Alliance is the event sponsor for the foundation’s 2017 Great Conversations fund-raising dinner. This year’s event is Thursday, April 6 at 5:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of Ripon College’s Harwood Memorial Union. For more information or to register, visit www. submitted photo riponeducationfoundation.org. clothing; medical and dental needs; and encouragement from the many successful programs offered by schools, community organizations, churches and individuals. ‰ Amy Pollesch, “FREE is Fabulous.”

Making a difference is simple and we know you can help us make an impact on our community.

We would love to tell you how you can help us help others with simple things you currently have in your kitchen, bedroom, closet

and beyond. Making a difference is simple, fun and free. ‰ Susan Reiterman and Jen Rintelmann, “Two Determined Women, One Amazing Son and a Smokin’ Hot BBQ Joint.”

Over four years ago, two unexpected, unwavering paths crossed that were destined to re-define unconditional love, family, and a lot of hard work. Single handedly, Susan and Jen created (from the ground, up) a plan for success and, in short, a most mindful endeavor.

One step after another, their dream of a Texas-inspired, Wisconsinspirited BBQ joint, unveiled itself. ‰ Henrik Schatzinger, “What Do Screaming Politicians and Uncivil Media Do To Us?” We have all watched politicians and experts screaming and yelling at one another on television. What are the benefits and drawbacks from such discourse? How do close-ups and uncivil behavior in political TV affect our emotions, reactions, and trust in politicians and the political process? Let us discuss answers from experimental research, possible alternatives to in-your-face politics and how your own media habits affect you.

Watch for more previews of speakers in next week’s Commonwealth.

Scholars Moraine Park releases dean’s list Moraine Park Technical College recently named nearly 1,250 students to its dean’s list for the fall 2016 semester.

To qualify for the Dean’s List distinction, students must earn a minimum semester grade point average of 3.5, be enrolled in at least six credits of undergraduate-level courses, be in good academic standing and cannot have a failing or incomplete grade for the semester.

The following area students were honored: ‰ Ripon: Matthew Botters, Savanaha Carstensen, Jillian Chitwood, Mallory Erickson, Simon Galica, Alexandra Krahn, Matthew Lemke, Michelle Lieske, Edith Luna, Cheyenne Milton, Adam Peppler, Taylor Plagenz, Crystal Smith, Kathleen Smith, Samuel Smith, Katie Splittgaber, Kriss Standke, Kayla Stemler, Deidra Wagner, Jade Walker, Savannah Wilson; ‰ Brandon: Joshua Eidenshink, Rosie Forester, Heather Fousek, Ryan Krohn, Brady Kuphal, Jennifer Post, Joseph Ramsey, Morgan Tetzlaff; ‰ Eldorado: Cherie Becker, Dylan Genett, Kerby Kuehn; ‰ Fairwater: Barbara Domke, Brooke Harmsen; ‰ Green Lake: Kathryn Kutschenreuter, Katelin Peterson, Kyla Respalje; ‰ Markesan: Shawna Dobberthein, Cheyenne Franke, Miranda Huitema, Kendra Kasuboski, Mary Medrano, Michael Reynolds, Gavin Sell, Kaitlyn Terbeest, Morgan Zuhlke; ‰ Pickett: Katelyn Klettke; ‰ Princeton: Marie Kallas, Brenden Seeliger, Katlyn Steger, Abby Wesner; ‰ Rosendale: James Barbeau, Matthew Blechl, Richard Kostro, Merrisa Miller, Veronica Solecki, Brooke Straks.

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Next week: Lumen High School sophomore Emma Olson openly has dealt with depression and selfharm tendencies for several years.

Two years ago, she was admitted to a mental health institute for suicidal ideation — but she maintains she never had a desire to end her life. Learn about her story and experience inside the institute in next week’s edition of the Ripon Commonwealth Press.

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Besides the surveys and advisory groups, Schatzinger pointed out that groups come to present at the high school, like ASTOP. ASTOP is a local service provider working to treat and prevent sexual assault, which includes promoting healthy relationships and raising awareness about mental health, as sexual assault can be a risk factor for depression and suicide.

Opportunities to learn more aren’t limited to within the high school’s young walls.

Ripon Public Library will host an ASTOP event called “Nevertheless We Persisted” Thursday, April 13 at 6 p.m.

Among other topics, Meredith Birmingham from ASTOP will discuss the assistance the organization provides, offering treatment, outreach, prevention and advocacy, emphasizing hope and connections to self and others,

according to librarian Mandy Sprague.

“Connections” is a word that Schatzinger often uses. “[One thing we] really, really as a school district want to make stronger is our collaborations and connections with our local mental health providers,” Schatzinger said, noting that the school partnered with Ripon Medical Center’s Behavior Health Services team to be on site during Halligan’s presentation.

There are other ways high school staff are attempting to connect with students.

Principal Randy Hatlen mentioned that staff attended a workshop on LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) students, noting that it helped them in understanding different ways that kids can identify.

LGBTQ youth often are considered at a greater risk for depression and suicide, although a report published last month in the American Medical Association’s JAMA Pediatrics suggested that suicide attempts among LGB high schoolers recently have declined.

But Hatlen knows there’s more work to be done. “[R]eally, we’re scratching the surface, and we’re trying to get better at what we’re doing each and every day,” he said, “really trying to build relationships with the students and having them build relationships with each other.”

“The key is relationships,” Schatzinger added.

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Thursday, March 16, 2017 - Page 1

Ripon Commonwealth Press

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Issue No. 11 Serving the Ripon community since 1864

Wisconsin Weekly Newspaper of the Year

Single copy — $1 Thursday, March 16, 2017

2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015

eady for a date with state

INSIDE

Parade Route planned Want to cheer on the boys’ basketball team as it heads off to Madison? The parade will wind its way through several city streets.

See page 3

Ripon, WI 54971

Crashes lead city to lower speed limit on E. Fond du Lac Street

by Ian Stepleton

ians@riponprinters.com

Our Views

World-class waters Where did this Olympic medalist go to celebrate after the Rio Olympics? (Hint: It’s somewhere close to home.)

See page 4

Area FOR THE FIRST time in 14 years, the Ripon High School boys’ basketball team is heading back to the state tournament.

Celebrating their sectional championship are (faces visible), from left, Andy Saul, Eddie Muench, Austen Wallenfang, coach Dean Vander Plas and Hunter Auchtung. For much more on the victory and the upcoming games, see page 15. Jonathan Bailey photo

A sharp increase in crashes at an east-side intersection will mean Ripon residents will need to learn to drive a little slower when heading toward the hospital.

The Ripon Common Council agreed Tuesday night to lower the speed limit on East Fond du Lac Street between Harvey and Douglas streets from 35 mph to 25.

The decision comes after a 15-month period in which far more vehicle accidents occurred at the intersection of Douglas and East Fond du Lac streets than each of the past several years combined.

“It’s become our highest accident rate in the city,” Ripon Police Chief Dave Lukoski said Tuesday night. “...

We obviously have a problem there.”

Statistics bear out the scope of the problem: ‰ 2013: 1 crash at that intersection ‰ 2014: 1 crash ‰ 2015: 1 crash ‰ 2016: 9 crashes (including two injury crashes).

Thus far, 2016 does not appear to be an anomaly, either.

“So far in 2017, [we have had] three crashes,” Ripon Police Capt.

Bill Wallner said in a separate interview with the Commonwealth.

The belief is that the increase in crashes directly correlates to the increased number of vehicles making

See CRASHES/ back page

Like to ‘make’? Creative souls get space at library

by Ian Stepleton

ians@riponprinters.com

On a quiet Thursday afternoon, the still of Ripon Public Library was broken by a whirring noise.

There, rolling among the stacks, moved a strange, glowing ball.

It paused, turned and spun its way back toward the paperbacks.

This wasn’t an alien invasion of spherical visitors.

Road to GL The journey to Green Lake’s Thrasher Opera House for this singer/ songwriter includes layovers with Kenny Loggins and others.

See page 7

Education

Rather, it was a peek into a new spin on the mission of Ripon Public Library: Encouraging learning in ways that transcend the traditional tomes.

“We are always supporting the lifelong learner,” said Mandy Sprague, adult and teen services librarian at Ripon Public Library.

And that means, starting this week, offering a whole new variety of items for check-out.

See LIBRARY/ page 14

BETS OLSON, LEFT, says her daughter, Emma, is her best friend. The two struggled through a separation when Emma stayed at a mental institute for two weeks in 2014. Maic D’Agostino photo

Cutting, over-medicating were part of a much more complex picture

Editor’s note: This is part four of a multi-part series on depression, suicide and mental health in youth and how families can address these issues openly and proactively with children.

by Maic D’Agostino

maicd@riponprinters.com

Using their heads Hats off to the Barlow Park elementary students who read an amazing number of books — then celebrated in a heady fashion.

See page 9

Emma Olson describes herself as “always been shy.”

She’s not too shy about her scars, however, whether they’re physical or mental.

Her body carries welts from self-inflicted knife cuts, but she doesn’t wear sweaters or long pants in the summer anymore to hide them, nor does she seem to mind showing the marks to anyone who’s curious.

The Lumen High School soph-

omore is just as up front about her mental health struggles — which once culminated in a stay at a mental health institute.

That story, like many mental health issues, is much more complex than it seems on the surface.

Just before Christmas a little over two years ago, Emma was sent to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for suicidal thoughts. But she said she never had them.

What she did have were depression and anxiety, leading to two very different ways to try to control them: antidepressants and cutting.

“With my journey at first, I was really ashamed,” she said about her scars and cuts. “...

But after Winnebago, I kind of stopped caring ... I can’t get rid of them,” she added matter-of-factly.

Both treatments — the prescribed pills and the destructive blades — played a role in her two-week institutionalization.

Before she was a teenager, Emma discovered the concept of self-harming through social media and thought the practice might make her feel better, by focusing her mind

See COMPLEX/ page 14

IT’S NOT A book, but the sphere held by librarian Ben Sprague is one of many new items available in Ripon. Ian Stepleton photo

Page 14 - Thursday, March 16, 2017

News

COMPLEX/Humor helps LIBRARY/Items may be checked out

Olson family cope

continued from page 1

on more easily treated physical pain rather than overwhelming and often misunderstood mental anguish.

“If you search ‘self harming,’ there’s so many pictures and quotes and everything about it,” she said. “Why is this so wellknown? This isn’t a good thing.

There’s so many other things that kids my age should know about, not this. This is gross and cruel.

It’s not pretty.”

TOO MUCH TO BEAR

While therapy was helping her cope, desperate thoughts about not being good enough assailed her mind one night in December 2014, when she was 13, beyond what she felt could be dealt with by herself.

Reaching out to two peers she considered friends, she was devastated when they said they “wouldn’t care if I ended it,”meaning her life, she assumed.

Already in pain, her thoughts became “too much to bear,” and she attempted to ease the hurting by taking “a bunch of medication.”

Her rationale, she explained, was if one pill helped her from sinking into depression, then a lot of them would save her from drowning in despair.

Emma left a note and knives she collected by the plug of the Christmas tree lights so her mom, Bets, could find them. “[The note] just said that she’d had these negative thoughts, and she felt that she shouldn’t have those [knives] in her possession,” Bets said, explaining she was Emma’s “safe place” when her daughter’s thoughts turned to self harm.

Worried about side effects from taking so much medication, Bets took Emma to the emergency room.

“They said they needed to monitor her for a minimum of six hours, so we sat there in the ER until about 4 or 5 in the morning,” Bets said. “At which time she was taken to Winnebago in the back seat of a squad car.”

With the note Emma left, plus using phrases about wanting her bad thoughts to go away and the thoughts being too much to bear, Emma and Bets realize why authorities might conclude she was suicidal.

But they maintain that just wasn’t the case. At the time, Bets felt concerned and confused about her daughter’s situation — and where exactly she was headed.

“When we left the hospital ...

I had a scrap piece of paper with a phone number,” she said, “and the nurse said to me, ‘All I can tell you is this is who we called. Try this number tomorrow morning.’

They couldn’t tell me where the facility is, what was the next thing to happen, how long to wait, who we would hear from.”

Bets fretted that the situation would exacerbate what she knew was one of Emma’s biggest fears: being separated from her family.

“It was hard for me mostly because I’m really family-oriented. They’re my support,” Emma said. “... But I think in the end, we came out stronger, in a way, because I knew how to cope with things better.”

That isn’t to say the experience was easy.

Rules at the institute seemed to be revealed when she accidently broke them, Emma felt.

She got in trouble for facing the boys in the lunch room and writing on her hand, for example.

She also observed youth with behavioral issues, not just mental ones, and even saw adults “tackle” young girls when they were acting out.

“It was scarring, a little bit,” she said.

Emma stayed at the institute from Dec. 16 to 30, spending Christmas there away from her family.

The depression, the cutting and the institute all were ordeals that would weigh heavily on any mind, not to mention a not-yet-14 year old’s.

“More than once she made the comment to me, ‘I can’t even imagine I’ll be here when I’m 16.

I don’t think I’ll make it to 16,’” Bets said. “... She just turned 16 last [month].”

EMMA OLSON shows scars from self-cutting she engaged in as she battled depression and anxiety as a middle schooler. Maic D’Agostino photo EMERGING STRONGER

Both Bets and Emma believe they have come out stronger and better equipped to deal with issues as they arise, whether as individuals or as a family, and are even able to joke about some aspects of their lives. “[Emma] has a T-shirt that says, ‘I have more issues than a fashion magazine,’” Bets said.

“I feel like in a way it was harder on her than it was on me,” Emma said, noting that the stay at least was a welcome break from the pressures of school and peers.

When Emma returned to school, she said she distanced herself from the girls who told her they wouldn’t care if she ended her life, and she quickly made new friends.

But it’s not always easy for her to communicate with other teenagers.

“I talk better with adults than with kids,” she said. “I’m not really good at communicating with people my own age. That’s why presenting in front of them scares me so much, because I feel like they’re judging me. I know how kids think because I think the same way. It’s nerve-racking.”

Emma still has difficulty speaking in front of her class, but she discovered a love of writing poetry as an outlet after a slam poetry assignment in seventh grade required her to read out loud in front of her classmates.

“I was shaking so bad. I was terrified,” she said. “But that was when I [realized I] liked writing, and that’s when I found a passion for it ... I take my pain and turn it into [art].”

Bets especially recalled a poem Emma wrote called “Eyes Like Knives” that, she said, opened her own eyes.

“We framed it,” Bets said.

“And that was the start where we kind of knew; that was ... her way of letting us know that it was more than just, ‘I don’t want to stand up in front of class and talk to people.’ That it was much deeper.”

As far as perceptions of mental health, Emma has a unique perspective that sees a stigmatization — but also sometimes a need for attention.

“A lot of people brush [mental illness] off because there are people nowadays that say things to get attention, so everyone thinks everyone’s looking for attention when they’re just [making] a cry for help,” she said. “... People are either ashamed of [mental illness] and they want to hide it or they overexaggerate it and they want attention for it ... Mental illness isn’t fun, it’s not happy, it’s not a good thing to have.”

Still, Emma and Bets find humor as a way to cope with mental health issues.

“The other saying we like is, ‘Our family doesn’t suffer from mental illness; we enjoy it,’” Bets said laughing, admitting there were “a lot of tears, a lot of anger” in the course of their journey.

“Some of [the jokes] may be a little bit morbid,” Emma said, “but I find closure in it because [the events are] in the past, and it helps me cope with what had happened.”

Next week: Ripon College senior Mitchell Eithun grew up in a family with several mental health issues — and fought through his own in high school. Now taking medication and feeling “so much better,” he has some words of advice for his younger self.

Now, in addition to books layered effects [such as] a silhouand magazines, teens through ette of a person on it.” adults may check out items from Some items even are as simple the library’s new “Makerspace” as Play-Doh. collection.

Mixed in as well will be These are items patrons may existing products such as WiFi take home to interact with physi- hotspots, Rokus and e-readers.

“Then we’re also going to cally, as opposed to simply read.

Items range in interest areas highlight some of the things we from electronics — such as the already have that people may not smartphone app-driven Sphero know we have,” Sprague said. balls, to a simple canning tool- “We have a projection screen kit — and plenty of other items you can check out; we also have an old slide projector that can be in between.

They’re meant to appeal to checked out. We’ll be including visitors to the library who might those in the same area.”

Ripon is far from dancing on be less apt to sit and read, and the bleeding edge of library innomore apt to “do.”

“You think of [the current vation with its new Makerspace push for] STEM (science, tech- collection. “[The concept has] been nology, engineering and math) and the arts ... A lot of what’s in around for the last couple years,” here supports learning in those Sprague said.

A quick search of the Ameriareas,” Sprague said.

While this may seem like an can Library Association website, step beyond the stereotypical role in fact, can turn up plenty of arof a library, staff argue it’s just an ticles and resources for libraries extension of what the library has considering Makerspaces, such been doing for as toolkits and some time now. discussions on “The library the topic. ’m very excited ... I has already had “Librarthink people are really ies that have great success i n c i r c u l a t - excited about it too.” a continuous space available ing non-tradiMandy Sprague, teen and for Makerspace tional library adult services librarian stuff” are startitems such as the Rokus and ing to dedicate WiFi hotspots,” whole rooms to head librarian Desiree Bongers “making” on premises, Sprague said, adding the Toy Library has said. been well used. “Staff hopes that Ripon, however, doesn’t have this new collection will also be that kind of space. popular with patrons.”

Instead, Ripon Public Library Sprague agreed, noting this is following the toy lending liprovides patrons a natural next brary model in which items may step beyond the Toy Library, in be checked out. which plenty of hands-on activi“You have to be 13 or older to check these things out, or have ties are available for children.

“Once you are phasing out Mom, Dad, Grandpa with you of the Toy Library, you’ll then to help you out,” Sprague said.

Items may be checked out for work into the Makerspace — older children through adults,” up to 14 days, with a limit of only one item at a time.

Sprague said.

Fines, too, are a little heftier “As children age out of the Toy Library, they will now have for these items: $1 per day, with a more advanced collection to a maximum fine of $30.

If something breaks or is lost, interact with that shares some of those same concepts,” Bongers though, library patrons are resaid, adding the concept fits sponsible for replacement — and well with a Department of Pub- that often is a larger dollar figure, lic Instruction project called the sometimes into three digits.

Coding Initiative in Wisconsin The check-out cards for each Public Libraries. item, though, state the replaceA wide range of items already ment cost up-front. are available as part of the pro“We want to point that out to people when they come in [that gram.

Games, such as Laser Maze, this] is something you need to be allow the player to construct a responsible for,” Sprague said, maze and see if they can bounce explaining that a family consida laser through it. ering checking out an item with a Another activity encourages large replacement cost will need basic coding skills. to consider, “Do I want to take Or, for the more crafty types, something out that has a replace“We also have jelly plates [which ment cost of $150? Maybe that’s are] an easier monotype-printing not right for my family.” system,” Sprague said, describGiven the items often involve ing it as “a hard, gelatin plate fragile pieces, the library is tak... good for card-making, things ing other extra safeguards.

Makerspace items will not sit like that ... You can create multi-

continued from page 1

“I

LIBRARIAN BEN SPRAGUE uses a smartphone to control a Sphero Ian Stepleton photo ball, which is available at Ripon Public Library. out — patrons will need to bring the matching card to library staff at the desk.

They also must be returned inside as well, rather than having sensitive electronics stuffed in the return box outside.

Items, too, must be picked up in Ripon.

“If you are a Ripon resident you can put it on hold, or if you come to our building to pick it up, you can [borrow these items],” Sprague said. “But we are not going to send it out to the other libraries in a delivery. We don’t want them to be damaged.”

Though lending such items likely comes with a whole new set of headaches, the collection comes with a bit of a mandate from the library’s patrons.

Last summer, when the library held its second-annual “Read for a Cause” program, patrons voted for which of three groups should receive the largest donation from the library.

Coming in a close second?

The Makerspace concept.

That garnered the library $150 toward the new program.

Another $500 came this spring from the Webster Foundation, and $500 also came from the Winnefox Library System.

With $200 as well from a private donation, “Altogether we had $1,350 to start — that’s a healthy little start,” Sprague said.

She’s hoping it’s only a start.

“We’re starting a wish list already. One of the things we want to get is a virtual reality goggles ... We’ll probably get one of those this spring yet,” she said. “As we find grants that meet the needs of this space, we’ll continue to add items.”

Sprague, however, believes the Makerspace already available will benefit patrons.

“I’m very excited. I’m a creative person; this is one of those things that have been in the back of my mind for quite a while,” she said. “I think people are really excited about it too. We saw a lot of interest in it last summer ... People are excited about it.”

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Page 10 - Thursday, March 23, 2017

Education

‘Life is never perfect’:

Ripon College senior promotes openness to combat pressures Editor’s note: This is part five of a multi-part series on depression, suicide and mental health in youth and how families can address these issues openly and proactively with children.

SCHOOL STRESSES

While he’s long been interested in music — his mother, Sandra, is an accomplished church music composer — Eithun struggled with the climate surrounding high school band.

In particular, he recalled his

by Maic D’Agostino band director’s attitude adding to maicd@riponprinters.com the stress of the situation.

Once, in solo ensemble, Eithun When Mitchell Eithun gradudidn’t have the right music up on ates this May, he won’t feel the his stand. same regrets he did last time “What the hell is this?” he someone handed him a diploma. remembers the director shouting “Something I remember very at him. strongly is standing on stage at Confused, with tears blurring high school graduation, thinkhis vision, he fumbled with the ing, ‘I stressed so much about falling music sheets as he tried to what I was going to do and trying correct his mistake. to achieve things,’” the Ripon “It was the most awful thing,” College senior said. “... I wish I Eithun said. “And so it was really would have focused on getting to a love/hate relationship because I know my classmates better ... So loved doing music; I loved being much of [what] I did was just not necessary when I could have actu- in marching band and in jazz band and things. But it was just ally developed more meaningful rough because my director was relationships.” not the nicest of people.”

His difficulty in forming These experiences weighed relationships in high school heavily on him as he came to exacerbated a likely pre-existing Ripon. condition: anxiety and, from that, He described how nervous he depression. was to audition and play in the In bits and pieces, he also discollege’s jazz and symphonic covered mental illnesses plagued wind ensembles. several members of his family At first, Eithun thought his — while they all tried to mainperformance tain an image was poor, and of stability and normalcy.

Bruises on he worried he wouldn’t be With sothe Heart able to connect cial pressures Talking openly about with the strangmounting, a sense of lonelidepression in youth: ers blaring trumpets and ness and alienA multi-part series clarinets beside ation pushed him — reliving Eithun to search fears from high school that he for a community, which he found lacked the ability to make friends. online in Christian chat groups.

Pressures again building, a colBut conflicts there only made lege counselor gently suggested matters worse. he try medication.

How far he would have sunk It wasn’t the first time he’d isn’t clear, though Eithun believes heard that. he would have “drowned.”

The pastor of his family’s After some unsuccessful counseling, he finally reversed the church had spoken to him about the possible benefits. downward spiral into an upward “[My pastor explained he] trajectory, especially after meethad been on medication before ing with his childhood pastor. and was the first person that’s A math major who admits like, ‘This is something you rehe has a bit of an obsessive and ally could, or should, consider,’” perfectionist personality, Eithun Eithun said. now thinks he’s on the right Medication, he believed at the track, and at Ripon new-found friendships and interests in music time, were for “those” people, the “messed up” people; “I wasn’t at and poetry have expanded his the point to realize that was me.” horizons and breathed life into Between the personal story his learning. from someone he trusted and the He didn’t always feel so fortuadvice of his college counselor, nate as a teenager.

RIPON COLLEGE SENIOR Mitchell Eithun waits for class to start in Todd Wehr Hall’s breezeway.

Eithun struggled with anxiety and depression in high school — while family members battled other mental health issues — but he manages it now, helped by medication. Maic D’Agostino photo himself, he witnessed in his famEithun got a prescription.

That didn’t work. ily first-hand the morass of mental So he tried another medication, health issues and the difficulty of and then another. remaining open, despite the best Finally, the chemistry seemed intentions. to click, and around his junior The point really hit home one year he noticed much improvewinter break.

Eithun returned that year to ment. find out his father, who suffered School relationships strengthened, both with other math majors from bipolar disorder, had been hospitalized for mental health and within music ensembles. reasons.

In fact, Eithun will graduate Another family member, he with a music minor. knew, struggled with possible The old feelings of being out alcoholism. of place? They’re blown away to While he became aware of the tune of a saxophone. these issues in “Now it’s so high school, comfortable,” he ow do you tell your Eithun noted said of participating in the friends, ‘My dad is he often didn’t ensembles. “... I [being] institutionalized for a know what problems his never thought in little while?’” family members a million years were dealing Mitchell Eithun I would join with until after choir, and I did Ripon College senior they happened, that in the fall.” discovering FAMILY MISFORTUNES details later.

With the worst of his troubles “My parents really wanted to in the rearview mirror, Eithun protect me,” he said, “which I sort wishes he could turn around and of wrestled back and forth with. give his high-school self a few On one hand, I can really see that pointers to make for a smoother [reasoning], because you want journey. your kids to have a good life. On Such as being more open to the other hand, there are a lot of getting help. details that would have been sort “It’s really a tricky thing when of helpful to know.” you’re in [a mental health crisis],” Despite wanting to discuss he said. these matters openly with friends Besides experiencing that and family, and perhaps relieve

“H

some of his emotional burden, Eithun knows life isn’t always that simple.

“How do you tell your friends, ‘My dad is [being] institutionalized for a little while?’” he said.

The day he headed back to Ripon, Eithun’s nephew was born in the same hospital his father had been staying at, a joyful and comfortably shared family event book-ending the one rife with worry and uncertainty.

COMMUNITY COMPLICATIONS

Still, he’s become much more comfortable discussing his family and himself, including past events that pained him deeply but which he thought no one would ever understand.

As a high schooler, Eithun said he wanted to make friends but didn’t know how: Were there others with the same interests?

Were there peers he could connect with on a deep level? Were there people he could trust?

Turning to the internet, he believed he found community in a Christian chat board, where people displayed similar tastes and personalities.

“Oh, I can make friends here,” he thought.

On the board, they’d talk about books and movies and held elections every few months to determine administrators.

In a strange sort of mirror

of the real world, the electoral politics ultimately eroded Eithun’s faith in some of his online friends.

Political maneuvering and even a “shadow government” pervaded the actions of those he trusted.

“If I were a better writer, I’d write a book about it some day,” Eithun said.

Reflecting that the strife seems “comical” in retrospect, at the time he felt crushed and betrayed by the “sham.”

And he had no idea where to turn to process this devastation.

“It was so tough for me to share that because I felt so bogged down by it,” he said. “... It seems especially older people [think], ‘You have friends on the internet?

What’s up with that?’”

The more he opened up, however, the more Eithun discovered people — especially peers — who were not only willing to listen but empathized with him.

And, reciprocally, he feels “lucky” he now can empathize with classmates when they share their own struggles, finding he can be a patient listener and a good friend.

His advice to students? Try to take your mind off the stress of school work and enjoy learning for learning’s sake.

As he’s embraced those principles himself, he’s realized he delights in subjects beyond the mathematics he excels at, even (or perhaps especially) when those subjects may present a challenge.

“Life is never perfect, but I feel like I function so much better [than before],” Eithun said.

He cited the small liberal arts environment of Ripon as helping to foster these interests and connections.

“There’s a lot of people I never would have met if I had gone to a larger school,” he said. “... I do like that aspect of things quite a bit.”

Eithun likely will be heading to a larger campus in the fall, as he considers several Ph.D. programs in applied mathematics.

Having built strong relationships at Ripon, he knows he’ll miss the college friends and faculty here.

But he thinks he can handle it this time.

“It’s a little rough,” Eithun said, “but not nearly as rough as I felt four years ago in high school.”

Great Conversations will be held April 6 Nominations open for The annual Great Conversations event will take place Thursday, April 6 at Great Hall on the Ripon College campus.

A variety of the community’s leaders have been invited to the dinner, with guests selecting a table and conversation of choice.

Proceeds benefit the Ripon Education Foundation and specifically the Innovative Teaching Grant program.

The foundation offers teachers the opportunity to apply for funding for innovative programs that are not covered by district budgeted funds.

An announcement of a special Innovative Grant will be made at this year’s event.

Cocktail reception with appetizers begins at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 6:30 and a live auction of special items at 8.

A preview of this year’s speakers includes: ‰ Jason Presto, “Boys & Girls Clubs: Improving the Lives of Children and Families.”

The Boys & Girls Club is a national organization that serves more than 4 million children across the

country in more than 4,000 clubs.

Ripon is one of 26 Wisconsin communities (and many more throughout the nation) that is working with Boys & Girls Clubs of America to determine if there is a need for Club services here in our community.

This conversation will provide an up-to-date report on the status of a Ripon club and outline the complete process for potentially bringing services to the community. ‰ Brian Ernst, “Vertical Farming and Urban Agriculture: The Next Green Revolution to Feed the Planet.”

The world is on the verge of the next Green Revolution.

With a finite amount of land suitable for agriculture, and with the global population expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, vertical farming and urban agriculture have arrived to fill the gap needed to feed the growing planet. ‰ Erin Ter Beest, “Durable Solutions: Addressing the Refugee Crisis.”

Hardly a day goes by that Americans don’t hear something in the

news about refugees, whether it is in regards to the travel ban issued by the Trump administration in January or migrants fleeing crises in Africa and the Middle East arriving on European shores.

The question of refugees and what to do with them is a hot topic, and a highly contested one at that.

But what really is the best solution for the millions of displaced people around the globe?

The United Nations seeks a “durable solution” for each refugee individually, but what does that mean? And do Americans have any obligation to help them?

Join this friendly exploration of the topic, which will take into consideration both current and historical events. ‰ Steve Davis, “Drones: The New ‘Eye in the Sky.’” Unmanned aerial vehicles — more commonly known as “drones” — are here, and they promise to change the world.

According to the FAA, more than 670,000 drones have been registered in the last year or so, and the technology is advancing at record pace.

In addition to being flown for recreation, they also are being used for many commercial applications.

This talk will cover commercial uses, career opportunities and how to become a certified remote pilot. ‰ Jacqueline Clark, “How Size Matters.”

More than a decade ago, Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity showed that 15 percent of respondents would be willing to give up 10 years of their lives to avoid being “fat.”

Nearly one-half of respondents reported that they would give up one year of their lives to do the same.

Such findings illuminate the stigma associated with being obese, as well as the fear that people have of being targets of prejudice and discrimination based on body size.

This table conversation will address the stigma that is associated with “fatness and obesity,” the prejudice and discrimination that stems from the stigma, as well as how society can move from a culture of fat shaming to one that encourages body acceptance.

NEW CONSTRUCTION • REMODELING SKILLED HANDYMAN SERVICES

significant contributions to the community.

The forms need to be returned to the high school by April 7.

A plaque with the portrait and a brief biography of the award recipient will be hung in a permanent display at the high school.

This is the 14th year the Distinguished Alumni award will be presented. Last year’s award was presented to Jesse Doers from the class of 1977.

OPEN OPEN HOUSES HOUSES 30 h c r Ma p.m.

5-6

Apr 5-6 il 27 p.m .

Welcoming all preschool children from Ripon & surrounding communities.

Parents and their preschool children are invited to: • Meet the teachers • Tour the classroom • Engage in fun activities • Meet other parents • Enroll your child in preschool Now accepting registrations for 2016-2017.

www.gracepreschoolripon.org 430 W. Griswold Street • Ripon

“Serving The Area Since 1984”

1112 N. Douglas St., Ripon

(920) 748-5000

The Ripon Area School District recently opened nominations for its 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Nomination forms can be picked up at the high school office or requested from the high school secretary by calling 748-4616.

To be eligible for nomination, an individual must have graduated from Ripon High School at least 10 years ago and have excelled in her or his profession and/or made

Call (920) 748-5465 for more information.

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“Grace Pre-School is a non-profit, non-denominational, Christian school. Our goals are to help three, four, and five year olds develop positive self-esteem and to gain social, intellectual, emotional, and physical growth by providing a positive and happy experience which will prepare them for kindergarten and set the stage for future years of school.”

Thursday, March 30, 2017 - Page 11

Education

Learning how to swim with a bruised heart Editor’s note: This is the final part of a multi-part series on depression, suicide and mental health in youth and how families can address these issues openly and proactively with children.

Originally intended for four parts, community response forced an unanticipated extension.

bought a little house and settled down.

I worked several different jobs and didn’t worry about money too much.

But emotions are tricky things. Sometimes you know what events are going to trigger panic attacks and suffocating despair. Sometimes you don’t.

At times, that river of anxiety I was wading through would swell in a sudden torrent, biting and cold, and I was sure I would drown.

In my youth, I hid my social distress behind a facade of eccentricity and aloofness and the dismissal of anything trendy, but really I was highly sensitive and empathetic and had major nerd-level obsessions.

Hearing similar stories really opened my eyes.

I never really learned how to swim.

If I kick my feet and paddle my arms, I sort of squirm through the water. I have to keep moving to stay afloat.

Without a floatation device, I sink if I try relaxing, remaining still or pausing to take in my surroundings.

It’s amazing — and a little absurd — how accurately this floundering translates into a metaphor for my emotional life.

Instead of inflated water * * * wings and foam pool noodles, I The Commonwealth’s series stay afloat in life with cognitive on teen mental health, suicide behavioral therapy and selective and depression, “Bruises on the serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

That means I go to counseling Heart,” was sparked after I spoke over the phone to John Halligan, and take antidepressants.

As long as I’m moving along, an international advocate for the prevention of bullying and teen I do well suicide, just enough. When before he arI need to stop Bruises on rived in Ripon and rest, my speak at our treatments help the Heart to high school. me stay buoyTalking openly about John told me ant. mental health in youth: about his “very I spent a A multi-part series sweet, very emsolid 10 years pathetic, very plus trying to navigate a slippery, swift river of sensitive” son, Ryan, who died anxiety and depression with little from suicide at 13.

Through his conversations to hold on to. with other parents who lost chilWhile I have a few close, dren to suicide, John reflected incredible friends and family that this sensitivity was the one members, my support network common personality trait among was not wide. I was doing very the young people whose lives little to help myself. ended far too young.

Usually, I didn’t feel like I Like Jim Page. was drowning. I met my spouse, Ripon Superintendent Mary Joanna, and we got married, proWhitrock tipped me off to Jim’s duced some sweet-natured kids,

Maic D’Agostino

and teen, I shared personality traits with Ryan, Jim, Emma and Mitchell. And I share them to this day.

When someone criticizes me, I “take it in too much.” When no one laughs at my jokes, I “take it in too much.” When no one likes my Facebook posts, I “take it in too much.” When I see pictures of Syrian kids the age of my own daughter sitting with bloodied faces in an ambulance, I “take it in too much” and break down in tears.

It’s not that these reactions are unprovoked or even unusual.

It’s that their intensity is overwhelming.

If there’s one word that sums up my emotional life, it’s “overwhelming.”

DURING HIS PRESENTATION at Ripon High School Feb. 15.

Finally, last year, I realized I John Halligan, an international advocate for the prevention of needed to be proactive. I needed teen suicide and bullying, showed this note a student sent him to be honest with myself. I about finally reaching out for help with mental health. As the note needed help, and I didn’t need to states, it was “one of the hardest things” the student ever did. be afraid to ask.

Tim Lyke photo “Young people are not unlike adults in that there’s that fear of braver than I ever was.” story and his deeply expressive the unknown,” my friend, high My friend, Ripon College separents, Sandy and Tim. Of Jim, school counselor Jolene SchatzSandy said, “He was an old soul nior Mitchell Eithun, emailed me inger, told me in an interview in a young body.” his personal story after reading for this series.

She agreed with John Halabout the series. Later, speakI definitely was afraid. During over the phone, he told me ligan that loved ones lost to ing my first counseling session, that in high school he would try suicide — whatever their age — I started shaking. The first time to keep his mind off his anxiety always seem to be remembered I picked up my prescription over making friends and fears the way Sandy remembered her from a local pharmacy, I froze of being disliked by taking long son: “Friendly, always smilmy face into a smile to hide my bike rides. ing, helping everybody, class embarrassment and worry.

I did the clown[s]. And super sensitive.”

I’ve been After hearing about the series, same thing in afraid of many high school, local self-described “mama his series has con- things in my slowly pedalbear” Bets Olson reached out vinced me there are life: heights, to me, explaining that her high ing along the hundreds of people right water, death, school sophomore daughter, asphalt path phone calls, here in our little community failure, being Emma, wanted to share her covering old story. train tracks that only need you to stretch unloved, being Frankly and without pretense, behind my out your hand, and they’ll forgotten.

Emma spoke about her struggle family’s house, But, more gladly grab it and hang on.” with depression, use of antidetrying to think than anything, pressants and self-harming knife of anything but I’ve been terrimy pain. cuts, telling me how much fear fied of taking risks.

With all these stories, someshe had of presenting in front of I’m afraid of angering or thing John Halligan said about her class. disappointing people, so I try to his son, Ryan, really stuck with Joanna and I often tell our please everyone. me: “He took it in too much.” children, “Being brave isn’t I’m afraid of not being good He was referring to bullying but, enough, so I keep my self-exabout being unafraid; it’s being perhaps, also to life itself. afraid and acting anyway.” I told pectations low.

Emma after our interview about I’m afraid of losing my iden* * * my own mental health issues tity, so I try not to have one.

I recognized that, as a child and assured her, “You are much I’m afraid to tell people

“T

Great Conversations will be held April 6 The annual Great Conversations event will take place Thursday, April 6 at Great Hall on the Ripon College campus.

A variety of the community’s leaders have been invited to the dinner, with guests selecting a table and conversation of choice.

Proceeds benefit the Ripon Education Foundation and specifically the Innovative Teaching Grant program.

The foundation offers teachers the opportunity to apply for funding for innovative programs that are not covered by district budgeted funds. An announcement of a special Innovative Grant will be made at this year’s event.

Cocktail reception with appetizers begins at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 6:30 and a live auction of special items at 8.

A preview of this year’s speakers includes: ‰ D e a n Va n d e r P l a s , “Coaching Winners and Guiding Youth Development.”

After many seasons of coaching Ripon High School Boys Basketball teams, Coach Vander Plas shares his philosophy of coaching and helping guide young men to be the best they can be. Vander Plas will share his experiences as a player and coach and how athletic experiences help build lifelong skills and attitudes. ‰ Cathylee Arbaugh, “Achieving Magazine Worthy Interior Design Solutions in our Homes, Schools, and Community.”

Walk through the process of

design discovery, development, preparation and implementation to make updates and remodel living environments in homes, schools and communities. Discuss with Arbaugh the importance of determining the purpose of an environment in the space available and how it might be re-done, all with the added benefit of the experience of rehabbing a Ripon tradition. ‰ Katie Lang, “Connecting Your Health-care and Your Wellness.”

Finding the right journey to wellness doesn’t need to be a hassle filled with road blocks. Learn how the Ripon Medical Center (RMC) can assist in personal journeys of health and wellness, from the physicians and staff to the various departments and clinics to the 24/7 and community-based RMC Wellness Center.

Finding a balance between health and wellness can be as simple as knowing physicians are working together and with the Wellness Center to ensure a proper and well-managed program is the right approach to a healthier life. RMC provides programs such as Healthy Youth, Healthy Hearts, various Journeys and Know & Go programs, and multiple class offerings within the Wellness Center. ‰ Erik Ellingson, “How I Became a Race Car Driver — At the Age of 40!!”

Ellingson, a 62-year-old practicing attorney, describes what it’s like to race at one of the

world’s premier race tracks: Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. Ellingson resides in Waupaca with his wife, Kay, and practices law in Milwaukee (and all points in between).

He’s been a race fan all his life and has attended the Indianapolis 500 more than 30 times. His first “behind the wheel” action was in a charity go-cart race in the mid ’90s. That experience led to Racing Driver’s School, and ultimately to real, fast, wheel-towheel club racing. Erik has raced in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Georgia and is excited to be racing this summer in Watkins Glen, N.Y. For the past few years, Ellingson has been driving 14-hour endurance races with two or three of his teammates, an exciting and challenging format that sometimes includes professional drivers and their crews who are looking to satisfy their “need for speed” when their professional obligations don’t otherwise interfere.

As an added bonus, those who sit at Ellingson’s table, might get a chance to ask questions on what it’s like to practice law, in real courtrooms with real people who have real problems. ‰ Todd Kaull, “Investing Locally, Growing Globally.”

Alliance Laundry Systems is the world’s leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of stand-alone commercial laundry equipment, providing customers with a single-source solution for

nearly all of their stand-alone commercial laundry equipment needs.

Alliance produces a line of commercial washing machines and dryers with load capacities from 15 to 400 pounds, as well as presses, ironers and laundry finishing equipment. The equipment is sold globally in 155 countries through a network of more than 1,600 distributors and route operators under the wellknown brand names Speed Queen, UniMac, Huebsch, IPSO, Primus and Deli.

Alliance provides industryleading value-added services to support customers, such as laundromat site selection, laundry design services and comprehensive training programs. With more than 3.1 million machines in operation, the company has the largest installed base of commercial laundry equipment in the world.

Its business model is designed to leverage a large-installed base, a global distribution network, a strong portfolio of trusted brands, extensive sales and technical services group, and comprehensive product and service offerings.

This allows Alliance to promote new sales of technologically advanced and efficient equipment while also capturing ongoing sales of replacement equipment and service parts.

Join this table for a discussion of how this company with a strong history in Ripon is moving forward and impacting the Ripon community.

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Scholars Foundation hands awards to locals The selection committee for the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Scholarship, Fellowship and Leadership Program has announced recipients of the 2017 Herb Kohl Foundation awards for students, teachers and principals.

Local recipients include: ‰ Initiative Scholarship: Alexis Riggs of Ripon, Green Lake High School; ‰ Teacher Fellowship: Nicole Mashock of Ripon, STEM Institute.

Awards in the amount of $3,000 will be made to 100 teachers, 16 principals and their schools, and $5,000 scholarships will be given to 207 graduating high school students.

Excellence Scholarship, Fellowship and Leadership Award recipients are selected by a statewide committee composed of civic leaders, representatives of education-related associations and the program’s cosponsors: the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools, regional Cooperative Educational Service Agencies and the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators.

Initiative Scholarship recipients, chosen by their schools, have demonstrated exceptional initiative in the classroom and have shown strong promise for succeeding in college and beyond, but have not yet received other academic-based scholarships.

The Kohl Foundation Scholarship and Fellowship program was established by Herb Kohl, philanthropist and businessman, in 1990. To date the foundation has awarded $11.5 million to Wisconsin educators, principals, students and schools. “Education is the key to the future of Wisconsin and our nation. I am very proud of the accomplishments of these students, teachers and principals and look forward to the great contributions they will make in the future,” Kohl said.

Letters notifying recipients of the award were mailed by the Herb Kohl Foundation March 11. Regional recognition luncheons honoring the recipients will be held in a few weeks. Herb Kohl will attend all luncheons and present awards to recipients.

Friends of the..

Ripon Public Library

3 Day Book Sale

Hardcovers: $2.00 Paperbacks: 50¢-$1.50

plus specially priced books, CDs, DVDs, VHS, gardening, scholarly, military, sports, romance, mysteries, literature, children’s books & much, much more!

Thursday, March 30

Early Bird Sale 4-7:30 p.m.

($3 or current Friends membership)

Friday, March 31 Noon to 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 1

Bag Sale 10:30-2:30 p.m.

($5 a bag, specials 1/2 price) Newly Revamped Showroom with improved signage.

Check it out!

Call 748-6160 for more info

“Serving The Area Since 1984”

1112 N. Douglas St., Ripon

whom I love and admire and cherish what they really mean to me, because I’m scared they won’t feel the same or with the same intensity.

I’m an awkward person who really doesn’t want you to know how awkward I feel.

So I need a little more encouragement than some to take risks. I need a little reassurance that if I swim into the deep end someone will be there to rescue me.

And since I’m afraid to ask for help, I’m trying to be honest and open.

When people are honest and open with me, I’m happy to help them. I love to help people. Jim Page was that way, his dad Tim told me, always sticking up for the underdogs.

But, like the parents of so many children struggling with anxieties and complex social interactions and burgeoning emotions, I don’t know they need help unless they ask.

And vice versa.

If you need help, if you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, if you feel pain and anguish, if you feel utterly alone, if you just want people to notice you and see you, if you want someone to hold onto you so you don’t slip underwater, if you want to stop and breathe and take a moment without panicking about the next thing to be done or all the things left undone, just tell someone.

I’m telling you now. I’m willing to listen. I’m willing to talk. This series has convinced me there are hundreds of people right here in our little community that only need you to stretch out your hand, and they’ll gladly grab it and hang on.

Talk doesn’t solve everything, but anything can be solved when people are open, honest, compassionate and vulnerable.

We’re not weak because we flounder and need a hand to hold; we’re strong because we cross the water anyway, hand in hand.

So come on in, the water’s fine.

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Ripon Public Library

120 Jefferson St. Ripon