Comm 1610 — Writing Leads
Read each paragraph below. Discriminate between facts and opinions. Pick out the
who, what, when, where, why and how. Then select the most important facts and
write a lead. Pay attention to accuracy, spelling, style, grammar and punctuation.
Teacher
This morning, the Utah Education Association announced its prestigious Teacher of the
Year awards for 2011. One of the winning teachers is from Cedar City. His name is Reid
Enright. He teaches fifth grade Language Arts at North Elementary School on 200 North.
Enright has been a teacher in the Iron County School District for 27 years. He began as a
high school English composition teacher. For 17 years, he taught English and coached
basketball at Cedar High School. However, Enright says that about ten years ago, he
realized that students begin forming bad writing habits in about fifth or sixth grade. He
went back to college and certified to teach elementary school. He’s been working with fifth
graders ever since. He was honored in part for his innovative teaching strategies that have
helped increase writing competency at North Elementary by 350 percent over the past 10
years.
Assault
There are two guys from Parowan who are in some serious trouble. The first one is named
Earl Lee Riser, age 21. He and his friend got up at about 3:30 on Tuesday morning and
drove to Summit. They walked into this 17-year-old kid’s house and surprised him in his
bed at 4 o’clock. Riser started slashing and stabbing the kid several times with a knife.
Then the second guy joined in with a medieval battle ax (in the police report, it’s called a
“four-bladed warrior-style ax”) and slashed the kid’s shoulder. When the kid started to
scream, the second guy stuffed a rag in the kid’s mouth to muffle the screams. The second
suspect’s name is Justin Casey Howells. He’s 20 years old. The two men are charged with
attempted murder, which is a first-degree felony. The charges were filed in 5th District
Court. At Valley View Medical Center, one of the trauma doctors said the poor kid has life-
threatening injuries. One of them was a deep cut on the neck. They had to use more than
300 stitches and staples to fix that one! Here’s the kicker: It was all over a girl! Sgt. Lou
Tenant of the Cedar Police Department says Riser told investigators he was jealous because
the kid was sending text-messages to a girl he liked. He said he got an STD from the little
snot, and she probably got it from that kid they tried to waste.
Tips
Owen Moore, the IRS Taxpayer Advocate in Southern Utah, says he has three ideas that will
help college students save money on their income taxes. First, if you engage in a service
learning project, you can deduct 14 cents per mile driven as part of the project. You don’t
get a tax deduction for time donated for charitable causes, but if you drive your own car on
a trip sponsored by a qualifying charity, you can deduct the mileage. Keep good records!
Second, Mr. Moore said if you go to Las Vegas or Mesquite to gamble and Lady Luck smiles
on you, gambling winnings must be reported to the IRS. If you lose money gambling, you
can deduct losses, but he said that only works if you itemize deductions (which most
college students don’t do), and if your winnings exceed your losses. Again, keep good
records! Finally, he said, newlyweds should report name changes to the Social Security
Administration and address changes to the U.S. Postal Service before filing a new tax
return. Also, Moore said using the withholding calculator at www.irs.gov will help couples
determine whether their withholding status is correct.
Dance
Most SUU students can show a few moves on the dance floor, but the chief instructor at
Cedar City’s Fred Astaire Academy of Dance says social dance skills are in short supply
among today’s young people. For that reason, he’s willing to help SUU students get started.
The instructor, Dan Saul Knight, says he’ll offer four free workshops on campus during
October to help students learn basic steps, such as the waltz, foxtrot, tango and two-step.
The classes will be Wednesday nights in the Sharwan Smith Center Ballroom. The first
class is October 7th. Students who attend all four courses will be ready for advanced
instruction, he said.
Bust
Manheim Stoned is a guy who was living just outside New Harmony. Behind his rural house
near the base of the Pine Valley Mountains, he had a huge marijuana operation — about
five acres. No one knew anything about it. Meanwhile, he was going on the internet trolling
for sex with underage girls. He got hooked up with an undercover agent from the Utah
Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force. The agent posed as 14-
year-old girl in a chat room. Stoned arranged to meet the “girl” in the Walmart parking lot
in Cedar City, but when he got there Tuesday, he was arrested. Chris P. Bacon, an
investigator with the Iron County Sheriff’s Office, says that while the guy was being
questioned, he admitted he had child porn, but he wouldn’t give police his computer. So
investigators obtained a search warrant and went to his house. They found a woman at the
house. She identified herself as Anita Joynt; she said she was Manheim Stoned’s girlfriend.
She let investigators into the house, and they seized the computer. But Bacon said she was
“way too jumpy,” so they started to look around outside. He said, “Behind the house, we
discovered a cleverly concealed marijuana garden. There were more plants than I could
ever imagine.” Bacon said the garden was “very sophisticated.” Stoned is in the Iron County
Jail. He’s charged with enticing a minor over the Internet and cultivating marijuana with
intent to distribute. Both are first-degree felonies.