Former vaulter Wade Steffey, now @ Purdue, missing

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Who is Wade Steffey?
By Alberto D. Morales | Indiana Daily Student | Friday, February 02, 2007

ARTICLE TOOLS

Dale Steffey and Dawn Adams sit in their living room as they talk about their missing son. Wade Steffey, a Purdue freshman, has been a missing-person case since Jan. 13, and his disappearance has the hearts of his family and friends torn.

The story has been told and updated in the local and national news media.

But who is Wade Steffey?

Wade went missing after attending a Phi Theta Kappa fraternity party at Purdue. Police say two calls were made to two friends after Wade left the party to retrieve his jacket.

"It's amazing how a child opens up your life," Dale Steffey says, taking deep breaths to hold his composure, "and brings so many people into your life and has his own people in his life too."


Academically accomplished


Steffey is a 2006 graduate of Bloomington High School South. He was an exceptional student while in high school. So good, in fact, his father explained how much confidence he had in his son when it came to his educational standards.

"We were pushing him, telling him he could go anywhere in the country if he wanted," Dale Steffey said. But Wade chose Purdue, where he received a full-ride scholarship.

Perfection in his son's academic accomplishments could be seen early in his life. The parents tell of a time in the eighth grade when Wade came home to reveal a B he earned in his art class. It was ironic; his parents are both artisans.

"He didn't like that," Adams explained with a deep laugh. "He wasn't quite sure he deserved that B. And he's never had a B since."

Adams described how she taught her son to read when he was 6 years old. She would stay up with her son every night for a half-hour to teach him.

"When it came to reading the words 'a,' 'the,' 'some,' I'd elbow him and he'd tell me what they were," Adams said. "So he learned to read kind of easily."

Like many children, Wade was interested in team sports including baseball and basketball. But as he grew older and entered high school, his parents said he became more focused on individual sports. He joined his cross-country team his freshman year in high school.

Larry Williams, Wade's cross-country and track coach during his four years of high school, called Wade an athlete with a great heart.

Williams coached IU student Jill Behrman when she attended the same school. Behrman, too, went missing when she was 19, as a sophomore at IU. Her remains were found a few years later by hunters.


An athlete with heart


By all measures, Williams said, Wade wasn't the greatest athlete on the team, but his heart made up for what he did not have physically. Nevertheless, Wade still earned a spot on the team to go to sectionals in track. And when they went to compete, Wade earned points in the pole-vault competition on the way to a team win.

"Tight-knit group" is how Williams explained Wade and his fellow runners. You could see that the day before a planned vigil at Purdue. A group of his friends met in a Super Wal-Mart parking lot in Bloomington to carpool there.

"I wish he was found," said Dane Lockhart, an IU freshman and friend of Wade's. They ran together on the cross-country team in high school. It was hard not to notice Lockhart's purple-and-white varsity jacket. The jacket meant more than being a member of the team at that moment. It somehow signified that tight-knit group.

Josh Murphy, a junior at Bloomington High School South, was Wade's teammate when Murphy was a freshman and Wade was a junior at Bloomington South.

"He actually was one of the top upperclassmen that would actually talk to the lowerclassmen," Muphy said. "He was a big part of the team but was just a regular guy."

Eventually, the vigil in West Lafayette turned into a blanket search for Wade's cell phone. Verizon Wireless was able to determine in what vicinity his phone could be -- a good lead at possible clues.

But the phone was never found.




Bittersweet memories


Back in the Steffeys' living room, Dawn Adams brings out her scrapbook of Wade. She and her husband describes Wade's accomplishments, including a stack of ribbons and a photo of their son posing in his wrestler's uniform with mouth guard exposed.

"He was a skinny wrestler," Dale Steffey said, "but he tried hard."

The scrapbook brought about feelings that were bittersweet for his parents as they turned the pages of photos -- Wade playing with Legos, being with his family on Parent's Day Out, posing for Little League photos.

While nearly three weeks have passed since anyone has reported seeing Wade, his parents and friends hold out hope.

On Saturday, hundreds of volunteers will scour the West Lafayette area as they try to answer the question, "Where is Wade Steffey?"

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IUPD: Confidence key to being safe
Dulled senses, being alone can lead to attacks
By Alberto D. Morales | Indiana Daily Student | Tuesday, February 06, 2007


IUPD Sgt. David Rhodes, owner of Ryukyu Kyusho Martial Arts, shows IDS reporter Alberto D. Morales how effective the use of pressure points can be in self-defense. Photo by Ashley Wilkerson, IDS.
You just left a late-night party and you want to walk the short way home. Do you take the easier, quicker path, or do you take the longer, safer way with lights?

It is a question many ask themselves when they walk home at night. Many know about prevention methods, but dealing with an assault once it is already occurring is a different matter.



Prevention Tips



IU Police Department Capt. Jerry Minger recommends that people walking home at night should not appear to "look like a victim."

"Whether you're male or female, sometimes walking with your head down, seeming like you're not alert ... is not good sometimes," Minger said.

Minger said attackers will look for victims who look like they have low-self esteem because those victims are most likely to not fight back.

"In our rape aggression training that we give solely females, many of them we have to teach how to be assertive," Minger said, "and how (to) appear like you're not a victim, how to walk with authority in an appearance that you won't be taken advantage of."

Minger also recommends not walking down a street, at day or night, wearing headphones because you may not be able to hear someone sneaking behind you or a bus coming toward you as you cross the street.

Bloomington resident and IU Alumni Association employee Marilyn Behrman spoke about her daughter Jill Behrman, the IU sophomore who went missing in May 2000 and whose remains were not found for another three years. Marilyn Berhman said her daughter may have been listening to music while riding her bike the day she went missing.

"To be walking around on campus, not just at night," Behrman said, "and take away your senses -- that's huge because you don't know what's around you and your mind is elsewhere. You may not be aware of a car speeding out of control or an ambulance because your ears are tuned into something else," she said.

IUPD Sgt. David Rhodes, the defensive-tactics instructor at IUPD, also said to not "dull your senses." He recommends not getting to a point where you do not know what is going on around you because of alcohol or anything else that will slow down your senses.

"Be aware of your surroundings. Beware of what people are trying to do," Rhodes said. "If someone is trying to get you away from everybody, you should pick up on that."

Dawn Adams, the mother of Purdue student Wade Steffey, who went missing Jan. 13 after attending a fraternity party, recommended that students not walk on campus by themselves.

"Women are usually targets," Adams said. "But not necessarily so. Here's a young man (Wade) who is not a typical target."

Her husband, Dale Steffey, said not walking at night alone is "Common Sense 101."

"Don't walk down an alley by yourself." Steffey said. "Don't walk in the woods by yourself. Just walk with someone -- not by yourself."



'What if I still get attacked?'



Rhodes, who runs Ryukyu Kyusho Martial Arts, 1711 N. College Ave., teaches a class at IU for cadets and a separate class for students that includes small circle jujitsu, which he calls a "street defense" class.

Rhodes said "blitz attacks" -- in which someone randomly attacks a person walking down the street -- do not occur in most cases. Instead, most of the attacks, including sexual assaults, Rhodes said, are from people who are acquaintances.

"You want to make sure that everybody understands that it's not somebody who just suddenly jumps out and grabs you like in the movies," Rhodes said. "... It's actually when you let your guard down, because you think it's OK to let your guard down, and somebody takes advantage of you."

Rhodes said weapons like pepper spray may not help, especially if you have not practiced with them or don't know the limitations of the weapons. In fact, Rhodes said that pepper spray works on only about 85 percent of people when used correctly.

"There is a lag time if you spray too close and you dilute the substance as it goes on the face," Rhodes said. "It takes a few seconds for the carrier to evaporate before the pepper spray can actually take effect."

While pepper spray may be a good option to defend yourself, Rhodes said the best way to defend yourself is with your hands.

"If a person is quick enough, they can take it away from me and spray me with that pepper spray," Rhodes said.

Rhodes emphasized that with any self-defense tactic, the goal is "all about survival." If a person who has the correct mind-set and has some basic self-defense skills, then fighting is sometimes a last resort.

"Remember, fighting is only one of many options," Rhodes said. "As a police officer, I've talked my way out of far more fights than I've been in."

Rhodes recommends lying to an attacker if necessary to survive and talk them into not hurting you. It makes the attacker maybe have some sympathy to not hurt you. Rhodes recommended saying things like "you have kids" or "you don't want to do this."



Don't be a hero



"Don't roll up your sleeves and dive in on them and start punching them," Rhodes said. "The next thing they should hear is the door closing behind you as you get away."

While Rhodes recommends fighting if you have been trained in the skills to defend yourself, he also says not to be a hero and try to catch the attacker. If you end up making an attacker stop or maybe fall down, run away and call the police. He said that if you have enough information to identify who the attacker is, that is a plus in helping catch the attacker.

To take a class with Rhodes, visit his Web site at www.ryukyu-kyusho.com or call 355-0405. A 30 percent discount is offered to IU students.