Jennifer Moody

Interesting stories I’ve covered, A-Z, in 14 years, continued (if you’d like the post about A, click here):

B is for “Bunny Suicides” and Winnie Barron

– The “Bunny Suicide” book saga happened last year. An outraged parent contacted us after her 13-year-old son brought the book of cartoons home from his school library. Dark, dark humor, those cartoons. She was appalled that a school library would contain anything on suicide, let alone something meant, in a sick way, to be funny. She took the book from her son, she said, and she would burn it rather than give it back. Ever. If the school replaced it, she said, she’d steal that one, too.

Our story drew national attention. The parent was alternately canonized and vilified by people who insisted she was doing the right thing, standing up for her beliefs, committing theft or overreacting to the type of humor popular with teens.

People kept asking me what I thought, personally, of the whole situation, especially as a parent. I always gave my standard reply, which was that I’m not allowed to have an opinion on duty (which is true). I feel very strongly about keeping myself out of a story as much as is humanly possible. That said, however, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. Would my eyebrows go up if my kid had brought that book home from her school? Yes. Would I have complained? Possibly, or at least asked. But “book-banning = bad” is so ingrained in my personality I doubt I would have done more. I probably have used the book as a gateway to a serious talk about suicide and tactless humor and left it at that.

In the end, the school board decided that, while the book may not have been the best choice for a library shelf, they would keep it, unrestricted, rather than try to retroactively police the subject matter. The parent was disappointed, but as far as I know, didn’t attempt to take the book again.

– Winnie Barron, a paramedic and physician’s assistant who lives in Brownsville, fairly glows with life. If auras exist and I could see them, she’d be too bright for me to sit in the same room.

I have done many stories updating her work in Kenya at a children’s center she helped found. The first, however, is the one that will stay with me.

We published it as part of a special section in 1998, shortly after Barron returned from Makindu, Kenya, after launching her dream.  Dedicated to children orphaned by AIDS – children who have become the community’s pariahs – the center Barron and local woman Dianah Nzomo founded provides food, education and medical care. Its focus is to help the children become a part of the community, to find a trade that will give back, to help the center become self-sustaining. Over the years, the children’s center has grown into other community programs, such as helping develop sources of clean water.

What I will remember most about Winnie’s story, though, is the little girl she saved before she even visited Makindu. Her first trip to Africa was in 1994, with Northwest Medical Teams, to care for victims of the war in Rwanda. There she helped save the life of a tiny girl, Marie, who would later become a long-distance daughter of her heart. Winnie never forgot Marie and was determined to go back and find her.

I remember how much we wanted to go with her, when she finally planned her trip. I remember working up a proposal with photographer Mark Ylen. We would travel as cheaply as we could and charge only for what we ended up producing. All we wanted was permission to follow the story.

We knew, I think, that it would never work. Our executive editor, who doesn’t like us to go to Salem, would never let us travel overseas, and of course, he didn’t.

But the Register-Guard did go. The Eugene reporter and photographer were there when Winnie found Marie; safe, well, and reunited with her little brother. The paper did a huge series on the trip, with tons of photos and side information on AIDS, Africa and why both matter to the rest of the world.

I was angry and depressed for days, knowing that a different paper had found the subject worth extending itself for. But in the end, I was glad the story had been told.

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