Russell Frank
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A Refugee Builds a New Life in State College, but Misses Her Old Life in Ukraine
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What does it mean to have a normal life? To Oleksandra Pyrozhok, it means that she and her husband Stanislav are together, have jobs and have their own apartment. To appreciate what’s extranormal about the Pyrozhoks’ “normal life,” let’s go back to February 2022. The Pyrozhoks were living in Chernivtsi, a lovely city in southwestern…
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No Decision Yet on Subu Vedam’s Plea for a New Trial
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BELLEFONTE – Having spent 42 of his 62 years in prison, Subu Vedam is probably used to waiting. After remotely watching a two-hour hearing of his petition for a new trial on Monday morning, he’s going to have to wait a little longer. Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine listened to a prosecutor argue that…
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After 42 Years, Another Day in Court for Subu Vedam
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Maybe you’ve seen the yellow yard signs around town: “WE’RE FOR INTEGRITY/ #FairTrialFor Subu.” Subu is Subramanyam Vedam, four decades into a life sentence for the murder of his boyhood friend Thomas Kinser in 1980 – a crime Subu says he did not commit. Next Monday, Subu’s lawyers will try to convince Judge Jonathan Grine…
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Bivens in the Big Leagues: It Just Gets Better
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Wait a second, you may be thinking. Didn’t you write about Spencer Bivens in your last column? I did, but the story of the State College kid who arrived in the Major Leagues after years of wandering in the baseball wilderness keeps getting better. I’ll let San Francisco Giants play-by-play man Dave Fleming summarize Spencer’s…
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‘It’s About Not Giving Up.’ State College Area’s Spencer Bivens Gets Call to the Bigs
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Spencer Bivens has played baseball for the Rogers State Hillcats, the Lions de Savigny de-sur-Orge, the Steel City Slammin’ Sammies, the Washington Wild Things, the Lexington Legends, the West Virginia Power, the Gastonia Honey Hunters, the Sacramento River Cats, the Eugene Emeralds, the Richmond Flying Squirrels and the Scottsdale Scorpions. Perhaps you haven’t heard of…
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Yes Mow June
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Now that we’re all mowing our lawns again, I thought I’d dig up some fun and un-fun facts about the green carpets beneath our feet. Fun Fact No. 1: We Americans grow a lot of grass. In fact, we devote more acreage to growing grass than we do to growing corn or wheat. Fun Fact…
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‘It May Have Started as a Battle’: On the Site of the Bear River Massacre
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PRESTON, IDAHO – Just north of Preston, the town where “Napoleon Dynamite” was filmed, past Polar Bear Burgers and Shakes, past the Pop’n Pins bowling alley, past The Hangout, the Jiu Jitsu studio, Big J Burgers and the Spit Shine car wash, is a terrible, peaceful place – site of the worst massacre of native…
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Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Mindless Chants Have Got to Go
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Protests are messy affairs. They sprawl beyond the intentions of their organizers, attracting reformers and revolutionaries (and counterrevolutionaries); rebels with related and unrelated causes (I remember “Save the Whales” signs at Vietnam War protests); sowers and seekers of chaos; false friends intent on discrediting the protest through their excesses; and of course, “outside agitators.” With…
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What Is a Spring Day If Not a Poem in Your Pocket?
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As I walked up the mall last Wednesday, a sign caught my eye: “Free Poems.” Adjacent was a folding table on which were displayed a plate of cookies; pens and notebooks; and four piles of poems that had been printed and cut to a size small enough to fit in one’s pocket. Thus did Penn…
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The Eclipse: Words Failed Me
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The eclipse chasers who insist the only way to experience a total solar eclipse is in the path of totality are totally right. I think I said those exact words in 2017, when I was part of a quartet of State Collegians who journeyed to South Carolina for the same experience. (A crazy trip: We…