The Wichitan - Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls Texas

MIDWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY | November, 3, 2004

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True Life Stories: Students tell how abstinence, Teen Pregnancy, and Orientation affect their Lives

One in every five Americans is a homosexual.
This means that on a campus the size of MSU, there could possibly be almost 2,000 gay students. With a population so large, one has to wonder what it is about homosexuality that could attract so much attention.
“It’s not an issue that needs to be dealt with, gay is a human being. It’s a classmate, or a neighbor or a teacher, it’s actually pretty normal. Gay people’s love isn’t any different than straight peoples’,” said MSU senior Carry Coffelt.
Although Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG) Texoma’s statistics show that one in every two gay youths attempt suicide, Coffelt said that she didn’t have to wrestle with her sexuality the way many people do.
“I knew I was different when I was real young,” she said, “but I just didn’t know how.”
Coffelt was thirteen when she had her first girlfriend, which is also when she decided to “come out of the closet”. Getting the word out was the hardest part, according to Coffelt. Saying “gay” felt like admitting she wasn’t the same. All things considered, Coffelt never had too many problems; she said everyone was pretty accepting of her.
“In high school I’d get my books thrown out of my locker and things like that, kids can be pretty mean. But since I’ve been at MSU I haven’t had any problems,” Coffelt said.
In fact, since high school, Coffelt’s views on coming out of the closet have changed. She said that now it feels more like she’s just “telling it like it is.” She often forgets that she is gay, because her life is just that to her, a normal life.
Coffelt said that the hardest thing for her to deal with is people referring to her life as a “lifestyle.”
“It’s not something that’s chosen, it’s who I am,” Coffelt said. “Trying to change the fact that I am gay is like trying to change the color of someone’s skin.”

Abstinence
For some students, sex is a treasure to be saved for marriage.
One 20-year-old junior decided a long time ago that she* would save herself for a true love. She said this belief comes from her upbringing.
“I’ve always felt this way. Ever since I was little it’s kind of been embedded in my mind,” she said.
Since her belief is known to her family, they are even taking bets (literally) on whether she will make it or not.
“My aunts have a bet going on. Every week they will call me and ask if anyone has won yet. I always say, ‘no, you’re still winning’ (to the one betting on my abstinence,)” she said.
Her goal is to stay abstinent because it is a special bond, she said.
“I think it’s something that’s special. It’s not just something that feels good even though I’m sure it does, but I really do think it’s something that’s special,” she said.
Although she said she cannot tell the future and therefore can’t say for sure that she will hold out until marriage, that is her goal.
‘I at least have to be in love with the person. I definitely believe that the people who do that should be in love,” she said.
Even though this is something she has always believed in, temptation has occurred.
“I’ve absolutely been tempted. I’ve almost done it before, but when we got to that point I just said we needed to stop. The guys that I’ve done that with have been really understanding and gentlemanlike,” she said.

*The name has been withheld at the request of the source.

Shannon Rutledge was 16 when she became pregnant.
She had sex with a friend who was visiting from England. Two weeks after finding out she was pregnant he was gone.
“Until my son was born, my life was hell.” Rutledge said. “Everyday it was guilt from my parents.”
Rutledge was able to graduate high school before her baby was born. She raised him with the help of her parents while she held different jobs.
Rutledge had many options, but she chose to keep her baby because she knew she was capable of doing it.
“There are a lot more extreme situations than the one I was in. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to raise my son,” she said.
She began college after high school but soon had to drop most of her classes because her baby had gotten sick.
The cost of raising a child was one thing Rutledge was not prepared for at 16.
“At 16 most kids aren’t prepared to take care of themselves,” she said.
The 23-year-old Rutledge is now back at school and is determined to finish. She is on financial aid and is working two jobs. She has never received child support because the father was not a citizen and he left the country.
She said raising a child has made her grow up a lot faster than other people her age.
“People in college are worried about crap and I’ve realized there is so much more to it,” she said.
“I’m not worried with dating I’m trying to get out of school,” she said.
Rutledge said she wouldn’t have her life any other way.
“My life wouldn’t be complete without my son,” she said.

Editor gives Firsthand Account of Sex and Drug Abuse
Abigail Carter | Managing Editor

“This must be hell,” I thought to my 12-year-old self as I stepped off of the plane into the hot Texas sun. And it was just beginning.
I moved with my parents from Nebraska to Texas in June of 1992. I was a straight-A student, a bookworm, a well–rounded athlete, an all-around good kid. An all-American child who drank milk with her meat and potatoes, went to bed early, and did her homework with joy.
Less than two years later, I smoked, drank, did drugs, had quit sports, and started failing classes. And it all began when I was raped.
I was a 13–year–old virgin who had never even kissed a boy, other than the little boys who would chase me when we played together as children. I spent the night before the first day of 9th grade summer-band camp at my best friend’s house. Early in the morning, about 4:30 a.m., her older brother raped me on the floor of her bedroom as she slept in the bed above. He pinned my knees with his knees, my elbows with his elbows, covered my mouth with his hand, and raped me. He was sixteen.
I even remember a couple of the songs that played through my friend’s clock radio while it was happening: “If I Had No Loot” by Toni Tony Tone and “Rain” by Madonna. After it was over, he left the house and I went to the hall bathroom, where I stood under the shower, crying, for something like two hours.
I didn’t know what to do. My best friend was really my only friend. She was sort of a birthday present when she introduced herself to me on my 13th birthday on the steps of the junior high. I didn’t fit in with the kids when I moved here, and neither had she. She reached out to me because we were both Yankees, and too different for the kids in Iowa Park. I was too pale and she was too tan.
Then, the next summer, that happened. If I told on her brother, not only would there be possible media coverage, I thought, she would hate me. I stood in the shower thinking about how I would react were the situation reversed, if she told me my brother had raped her. I loved my brother fiercely, as I knew she loved hers. I knew that if I told it would destroy our friendship and damage their family. But I was in pain and bleeding, I could barely walk.
So, I made a decision. I told my best friend. After all, I had to tell someone. And she and I had smoked and drank for the first time together, in a horse trailer in my backyard with cigars and red wine stolen from my parents. Except I told her I had had sex with her brother willingly. I didn’t tell my parents for three years. I regret not turning him in immediately. Maybe my friend would have understood.
As it happened, my friend teased me about it. I cried. My tears confused her. I said that I was physically sore. An hour or so later we were at our first day of summer band camp, and two weeks later was my first day of high school. One week after that was my 14th birthday.
Six months after that, in February of 1994, I smoked marijuana for the first time. I didn’t like it. I almost put the bowl, the burning end, in my mouth when my more-experienced friend handed it to me He had to hold the pipe so I could hit it. I got so high my eyes turned a brilliant red, so red that I sat on my friend Heather’s bedroom floor for three hours, staring at my snake eyes in the mirror.
This was also about the time I had sex, by choice, for the first time. I have always been sort of an old soul, and even at the age of 14, I thought I could end up being severely screwed up because I was raped. I wanted to understand that sex could be something enjoyable as soon as I could, not after six to eight years of psychological fear and torment. So, I chose a boy, and I fixed myself.
As for smoking pot, I did do it again, but not until the following October, during the homecoming game of my sophomore year. And I loved it.
When I was stoned, I was much happier and less stressed out, which I seemed to be all of the time. Whereas in the Midwest I had been something of a clown among friends, in Texas I had developed social anxiety. Strange as it sounds, weed helped with my anxiety, too. I started smoking pot consistently. I already smoked cigarettes and so would drown myself in tobacco smoke before going home at night, after driving around smoking weed with my friends.
On my 16th birthday, I tried crank, or methamphetamine, for the first time. This was before it was produced in Nazi meth labs and so easily obtained. My 16-year-old friend, Trink, who is currently a student at MSU but no longer a friend, had moved into her 28-year-old boyfriend’s apartment with her father’s permission. For my special day, Trink and her old man generously offered me some speed.
I have always been an adventurous person, and when I was stuck in the drug community, my motto was “never turn down free drugs.” In those days, crank, or meth, was snorted more often than it is now, and after two lines, my nose felt like it was full of turpentine, battery acid, or some other equally unpleasant, painful, burning substance.
It didn’t turn me off to meth though. Periodically, I would snort or smoke speed, for a day or a week at a time depending on the quantity, with friends who had it to share. I never used intravenous drugs. No one is touching my veins unless they have an MD, RN, or LVN following their name.
My close circle of friends and I spent about a year on inhalants-air propellant, air freshener, gasoline, freon, spray paint, whatever we could find. Eventually we got bored with it. Actually, they got bored. I got scared when, during one gas trip, I saw a tumor growing in my brain. I never did it again.
I dropped LSD, or acid, for the first time during the same year I tried crank, my junior year of high school. I tripped alone, on two hits, locked in my bedroom all night. My own reflection stretched into something unrecognizable and my eyes bugged out. I covered the mirror with a blanket. On my little 13” color television screen, a talk show-format, Rogaine infomercial played without volume. The host screamed soundlessly at me, his eyes blazing like red coals. I turned the TV off. My poster of Kurt Cobain as a child crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out at me. Jim Morrison’s head floated off of its poster and hung, three-dimensional, above my bed, reciting song lyrics. Everywhere I looked or didn’t look, there were visions and flashes and shadows. It scared me senseless. I lay, shaking, curled in the fetal position on my bed, until dawn. This did not turn me off to acid. I continued to use LSD as I did crank, occasionally and when freely available, into my early twenties.
By the time I was 17, I was buying a quarter sack ($20 for eight to ten grams of marijuana) every week or two. Trink was the only one of us allowed to actually go to the dealer’s house, so we would drop her off around the corner and drive around until we saw her walking. About this time, I started dating Trink’s ex-boyfriend, Marc.
A couple of months after my birthday and into my senior year, I moved out of my parents’ home and into a crummy trailer in Scotland, Texas with Marc. There was a blizzard that first night and we had no running water or gas. There was no electricity. We woke up the first morning to ice-coated bed covers.
I lived with Marc for five months. After a month of both of us being unemployed and pawning belongings to eat, I got a job. A few weeks later, Marc started beating me. He would pin me on the floor and beat my head against it, choke me, hit me, cut me, whatever he wanted. After a few months of this, I summoned the guts to call my mom from work one day and tell her what was happening. I left Marc and moved back into my parents’ house in March of 1997.
I was determined to graduate in May. I enrolled in Harrell Accelerated Learning Center in Wichita Falls, and graduated in a cap and gown in Akin Auditorium, on the same night, at the exact same time, 7 p.m., my original class in Iowa Park graduated, despite having lost more than five months of schooling.
The summer after graduation, Trink took me to meet our dealer, Justin. His live-in girlfriend had a habit of staying gone for days at a time with lame excuses for her whereabouts and Justin had gotten fed up. He specifically asked Trink to bring me to meet him.
I was flattered. I had seen him and thought he was cute. I had low self–esteem and was thrilled that someone thought enough of me to request an introduction. I would later find out, years into our relationship, that Justin had seen me at a party in Iowa Park some two years earlier, when I was 15. He decided he would have me then, and watched and stalked and planned for the moment when he could get me for himself.

Students, Faculty Party Celtic-Style
Mandy Cross | For The Wichitan

“Erce! Erce! Erce!”
It was one of the lines chanted Saturday night at a gathered celebration in honor of the Celtic New Year.
Arvilla Taylor, associate professor of English, and Thomas Galbraith, associate professor and chair of the English department, shared supper with students and lit a large bonfire to celebrate Samhuinn or Samhain, Oct. 31 and Nov.1, the most important holiday of the Celtic calendar. Samhain (pronounced sow-en) means “summer’s end,” and marks the “dark days” when the sun descended to the underworld, opening the doors of darkness.
Other Celtic holidays include Oimelc or Imbolc, Feb. 1or 2, which centered around the fertility goddess Brigit and was concerned with the fertility of livestock and other pastoral matters; Beltane or May Day, May 1, the celebration of new life, and Lughnasadh, Aug. 1, the harvest festival, coming from the first loaf made from the harvest.
“This lowered the barrier between the living and the dead,” Taylor said, “opening contact of the spirit world.”
According to Taylor, the line between the two worlds was so thin that special spells existed to protect the old, sick, and the young from slipping into the other world.
Spirits would walk about letting horses loose and stealing pies from open windows, she said.
The Celtics feared the sun would not return. To encourage its return, they would light huge bonfires, march clockwise in ceremonial processions, and rekindle hearth fires.
“The Celts would roll enormous wooden wheels burning with straw into water,” Taylor said.
This was to suggest that out of water would come life, and they would have good crops the following season.
“The Celts would burn john barleycorn,” she said.
John barleycorn, or sheaves of the corn god, were burnt as a symbol of the harvest.
Taylor got the idea to start the celebration about 20 years ago and invited Galbraith to participate.
“He knew the language,” Taylor said.
Galbraith continues to play the role of the priest who led the chanters and tilled the ground.
The priest and a chorus of students, all dressed in dark clothing, chanted to Caedmon’s Hymn and another chant.
“The hymn was a poem by a seventh-century cowherd,” Taylor said. “Dr. Galbraith does it so well.”
After the chanters finished, Galbraith unleashed a sheath and with a knife began stabbing the ground. He then seized the soil, letting it run through his fingers as it fell back to the ground.
The ceremony concluded with three horsemen riding in, one on a white horse, the other two on black “horses of death.” They then carried away the corn god and threw it into the fire to ensure fertility for the coming year.
After the ceremony, guests were invited to stay and eat. For $3 per person, Taylor provided hot dogs, beans, and all the trimmings for the gathered crowd at her ranch.
Lana Boley, senior English major, participated in the chant for class.
“I went two years ago for Old English class,” Boley said. “It was required, but I really enjoyed it.”
Complaints about the ceremony have been made in the past.
“My neighbors thing we do voodoo, but it is a church–sanctioned ritual,” Taylor said. “We had the fire department called out on us once, but nothing happened. It was a legal fire so they just stayed for the cookout.”
Saturday’s stormy weather was not a threat to the festival.
“We’ve had it in the rain and the snow,” Taylor said.
Past crowds have varied in size, from 35 to 150 people. Former students and people from Sheppard Air Force Base have also attended. This year there was about 40 people present.
The celebration date of Nov. 1 was chosen by England’s King Gregory III, who dedicated a church to All Saints’ in order to recognize the importance of Samhain during the eighth century. According to the legend, All Hallows Eve is the night when spirits and ghosts, both demonic and friendly, would assume corporeal form.
By the ninth century, all churches in England and Scotland celebrated All Hallows Eve.
Now the holiday is customarily celebrated with candy, jack–o–lanterns, pranks, and costumes.

WANTED: Woman who is wise Beyond Measure
Jessica Dunn | Circulation Manager

Young, black female. Approximately 5’8”. She was last seen with her hair up in a ponytail, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, spandex capris, socks, tennis shoes, and carrying a small bundle of clothing on Thursday evening of Oct. 28 around 11:30 p.m.
I’m glad I listened to my instinct last Thursday.
I helped that woman. I don’t know her name and probably never will unless I run into her at some random junction. Even then, I don’t know if I would recognize her because it was so dark that night. But whoever she is, she helped me so much more.
I was driving home from campus when I saw a woman walking alone on Taft Boulevard. I automatically sympathize with anyone who makes that walk because I’ve done it myself.
I pulled into my driveway trying to ignore the nagging voice inside telling me, You really should give that woman a ride. I’ve been successful at dismissing the voice before with many reminders to myself of all the things I needed to do before the next day; or the fact that it was already quite late; or the comforting thought that many had made this walk before and been alright; or the scary notion that I didn’t even know who this stranger was so why should I be responsible for giving her a ride and putting myself at risk (My mother would’ve really pushed this one, not to be cold to the needs of others, but to protect me).
My Good Samaritan spirit won this time and I found myself putting the car in reverse to catch this lady. It was perfect timing as she was approaching the driveway as I pulled up.
“Need a ride?”
She hesitated at first and continued to almost audibly debate until she finally responded, “Yeah, I probably need a ride.” I tossed the stuff from the front seat to the back seat to make room for my new passenger.
“So, where do you need to go?”
“I need to go back to my boyfriend’s to get my stuff.”
Oh no, you’re thinking. Well, I was thinking it, too. But, oh yes. “What have I just gotten myself into?” I thought I was just giving this woman a ride home, but I was about to enter the battleground of a domestic dispute.
The woman proceeded to tell me that she was on her way back to her boyfriend’s to get the stuff out of his car she left after walking out of an argument with him. I don’t know what possessed me to pry and play investigator, but I asked the woman if her boyfriend had hit her. After all, that was a long walk for just an argument. Fortunately, she said no.
We pulled into the apartment complex and I put the car in park while she went to see if she could convince her boyfriend to get her stuff out of his car. Although the thought of getting involved in the disagreement was somewhat disturbing, it was at this point that I started to really doubt if I had done the right thing. I thought, “What are my options?” What if this woman is playing with me and just made up a really convincing (and unnecessarily extreme) excuse to get a ride. What if she never comes back out?—whether it be the result of her lying to me or she finds her boyfriend inebriated and she’s in there being beaten. I wasn’t about to go looking for her. I felt I had crossed too many boundaries already. Should I just go now?
I rolled the car windows down when I heard loud yelling and several expletives slung back and forth between my passenger and who I guessed was her boyfriend. I saw her coming my direction and unlocked the door in preparation for her arrival and a quick getaway, as I saw her boyfriend following. He stopped at the end of the cars, but I was really frightened at this point and only waited long enough for the woman to pull herself into the car before I peeled out of there. The last thing I noticed was the man throwing his fist in the air.
The woman seemed shaken up, and after telling me that she was ready to go home and that she lived in a bad part of the neighborhood (another, Great…), she broke down. She said she would file a report in the morning because, for the first time, her boyfriend had pushed her.
She said, “Hey, I’m gonna be honest. I smoke crack/cocaine.”
Yet another Great…
She went on, “All he wanted was sex and he’d give me a little crack. He got upset when I put my finger in his face and said I didn’t want any more. And he pushed me. I’ve never been so scared in my life—not so much by him, but what he brought out of me. I don’t like to yell. I’m going to file a report tomorrow.”
“You don’t plan on ever seeing him again, do you?” I asked.
“Never. Uh-uh. Never again.”
“I think that’s very wise.” I pried once again and inquired, “How long have you been addicted?”
“Seven years. But, you know, we’ve all got something.”
Wow. She hit it right on. That did it for me. She’s right. I may not be addicted to crack, but I’m an addict of other things: busyness, my schedule, my pride.
Now, I am not at all promoting that anyone should go around putting themselves at risk by performing acts of good will late at night. I was very scared and did doubt my decision to give this woman a ride at several points during the maybe-15-minute time frame in which I was with her. However, the whole reason I even felt the need to write about this is to promote that we should not be so judgmental. I went into that situation hoping I could help another person, add to my personal resume of good deeds. Yet, after dropping that woman off, I suddenly realized all my thoughts revolving around the fact that I couldn’t believe she could’ve ever allowed herself to get to this point were stupid. Only by the grace of God was I not in the same boat. If I had allowed my judgment to rule my actions, I could have missed out on a lesson in character development.
You know, I was thinking about not ever telling my mother about this, but knowing how things work, she’ll find out anyway, so I might as well save her a copy, right? Hopefully she’ll forgive me for voluntarily putting myself at risk and instead, share in the joy that I learned to be a better person as a result of this experience. Plus, I can always argue that she was one of the people who raised me to have a servant’s heart. I only learned from the best. Thanks, Mom.

It's Either Senioritis or the Flu
Camron Rushin | Editor-In-Chief

I’m writing this column on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004. Since our paper’s deadline is on Nov. 2 I can’t really write about the election outcome, but I hope the thing is over. I don’t think I can take it anymore.
There are two possible outcomes from this election 1. Four more years of liberal whining. 2. Liberals stop whining for a month, then find new things to whine about.
That being said, I’m now going to write a column that has nothing to do with politics.
A couple days ago a guy comes up to me and says, “What are you gonna do after graduation?”
Somewhere between all this work and bull that I have to put up with I forgot that I was going to be graduating in May. A lot of my friends have plans and have already talked to future employers or they’ve applied to graduate schools. And I have done nothing.
I’m not sure if I even want to do anything. I would like to sell my body to someone studying sleep disorders. Maybe that way I could catch up with the 5 years of sleep I’ve been missing.
It’s so strange that when I graduated high school I was told, “you’re entering the ‘real world’ now.” For some reason I went to college and kept doing the exact same thing I was doing for the four years I was in high school. The only difference is my mom isn’t cooking for me anymore. So, apparently I’m still stuck in this “fake world.”
I think I’m just going to float around in this “fake world” for a little while longer because if the “real world” is any worse than this I don’t want any part of it.
There is a good reason why I don’t really have any plans for what I’m going to do after graduation. In the past, if I had something planned, it would usually fall through. That would lead to total devastation. Things always seem to fall in to place, so if I just go with the flow everything will turn out OK.
I’ve summed life up into three categories. In order of importance they are : Love, Fun and Career. These are the three things I foresee as things I will need to make my transition to the “real world” bearable.
Let’s look at love. OK, so I’m not doing so good in this department at present. But I would put love over fun or career any day. Don’t let professors fool you. They’ll tell you a career is the most important thing in life. Some will call you ridiculous for even falling in love. But they are only bitter and heartbroken. Some of them believe this because they are such nerds they have never experienced love. Others are in love with their careers so they don’t see the importance of a mate.
When I was a kid all I could think about was money. I couldn’t wait until I could get a job and make some real money. Now, I could care less about money. Who cares? What is a lonely, old man, like myself, going to do with a lot of money? Buy prostitutes? I’ve seen what money does to people. They get some and then they want some more. They aren’t satisfied until they have it all.
Anyway, I think I have the career thing in the bag. Making enough money to get by has never been a problem for me. I just want to find a mate so I can know that she really likes me and not all the money I’m going to be making.
Now, let’s have a look at fun. At the moment, I’m in a band. This is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been dreaming of being in a band since I was about 10-years-old. To me, there is nothing more fun than playing in a band and writing lyrics and music. Here’s my dilemma: I’m about to graduate. If I leave and start a career the band breaks up. I’m sad. If I stay with the band and get a pre-career job the band stays together and I’m happy.
Should I just throw away the coolest thing I’ve ever done to go get some lame job? I’d live in regret until I died.
I understand that the chances of me making a living in a band are slim. But at the moment, it sure beats thinking about getting a real job and selling my soul to the man.
Now, what about career? I’ve been going to school for 18 years. All I know how to do is go to school. I’m too burned out to do that anymore, at least for now.
Maybe I should just retire, graduate from college and move into a nursing home. I don’t know what happened to me, but I used to have all this potential. College sucked it right out of me.
This is probably the effects of senioritis. You try to sum up your years at college to see if you’ve really accomplished anything, but you can’t remember what you did yesterday. You’re uncertain about the future and you’re so burned out that you don’t really even care if there is one.
Maybe it’s the flu.