09.12.1987 "High school: if you could go back..."

On Wednesday, The News & Daily Advance sent staff writer Scott Baradell to Brookville High School, where he spent the day as a student.

07.25.1988 "The fast lane: cops, cruisers clash on Ward's Road"

They say it was a .44 Magnum. But then, the cops say a gun always looks bigger when it's pointing at you. And this gun was pointing directly at a small group of cruisers in the Burger King parking lot on Ward's Road the other night.

08.07.1988 "Robes of hate define aims of KKK"

Some robe. Put it on, and a high school dropout who works under cars at a Texaco station in a small North Carolina town suddenly becomes the ruler of an empire.

08.07.1988 "Once secret, Klan relishes limelight now"

The Ku Klux Klan. "The sound of it is suggestive of bones rattling together," a sympathetic historian gushed in 1884.

10.09.1988 "Haysom daughter masked troubles with lies"

Elizabeth Haysom might have first felt the pressure of being a Haysom when, at age 9, a school bully knocked out her front teeth.

10.10.1988 "Arrogance drew lovers together, murders bound them"

Jens Soering was not an imposing person, physically. According to one observer, he looked like "a 9-year-old increased by volume."

11.09.1988 "On the mountain, the people cast a paper ballot"

Pastor Anderson was handing out leaflets in the parking lot to oppose pari-mutuel betting. Some bedsheets had to be hung up in the restaurant to separate the lunch patrons from the ballot box. And the Cash sisters, down from the mountains, voted for the first time in 50 years. Otherwise, Tuesday was just another busy one at Montebello General Store.

11.20.1988 "Transcending the culture: the Liberty University way of life"

In most ways, the 11th annual Miss Liberty Pageant was like any other beauty contest.

11.20.1988 "Former student backs school despite banning"

When Paul Balmer got a job at Z-100, Liberty University security guards posted his picture in the guard shack.

01.27.1989 "Mississippi Burning: admirable drama, flawed history"

Whatever director Alan Parker had hoped to achieve, what emerges on screen is a lie, and an insult to black Americans and white Mississippians.

02.12.1989 "The swimsuit issue at issue"

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is either (A) a 12-year-old boy's ejector seat into normal, healthy adolescence or (B) the initial magazine purchase of a burgeoning Ted Bundy.

05.21.1989 "Monuments ironic testament to changing city"

Under Traveller, Robert E. Lee's horse, the statue's inscription read simply, "Lee." No Southerner would ever need more information than that, the sculptor believed, since the general's legacy would live on forever.

06.11.1989 "A man's castle isn't safe against fraud"

Clyde Hicks is 58 years old and works part-time as a clown at hospitals and parties. He is accused of beating another man -- his contractor, Allan Semmont -- with a walking stick. When police arrived at the scene, one officer said, Semmont was "crying like a baby."

06.24.1990 "The prophet of prosperity"

Televangelist Robert Tilton wants to pray for your miracle. It's a mission that has blessed him richly.

08.05.1990 "Pain, guilt, loneliness lead elderly to suicide"

"I apologize for disturbing your gin rummy game," read the note the millionaire philanthropist left his wife just before he shot himself to death at age 78. "I'll see you in heaven."

08.05.1990 "Issues of life, death clear-cut to suicide machine's inventor"

Dr. Jack Kevorkian yells into the telephone, his voice bubbling with pride and vitriol. He is trying to convince his listener that he is not a madman.

09.08.1990 "Prophets of doom: We're a leg up on Armageddon"

In the United States, apocalypticism had its first splash -- and belly-flop -- in 1844, when Baptist layman William Miller used numbers found in the book of Daniel to predict Christ's return on Oct. 22. On Oct. 23, his credibility evaporated.

10.27.1990 "Write-in possibilities nearly as vast as Texas"

Among the 19 write-in candidates for Texas governor is a celibate pro-life feminist who boasts he used to do special effects for the 1960s sitcom "Bewitched."

02.08.1991 "Giving football a stiff-arm"

This Texas town doesn't have a football team. And apparently, it doesn't want one.

02.20.2005 "A house of God divided: Cumberland Presbyterians' vision still black and white"

In rural Ellis County in 1866, a freed slave asked B.D. Austin, a white pastor with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, if he would preach to a newly formed black congregation. Austin agreed, but quit two weeks later when his white neighbors threatened to hang him. He eventually was forced to leave town.

03.10.1991 "Holy deception?"

Callers turn to TV phone ministries for help, but critics say they are often deceived.

03.10.1991 "Ex-phone minister isn't proud"

In December, Bill Hardy was given a plaque for answering 12,000 calls as phone minister at the Rev. Robert Tilton's Miracle Prayer Center. It's not an award he's proud of. "The normal people leave sooner," he said.

03.24.1991 "A religious break"

Jimmy Springer and his band stopped playing when the wet T-shirt contest began, as four young women stepped on stage and -- one by one -- were goaded into ripping off their soggy shirts and pulling down their bikini bottoms for the crowd. The next day, Springer went to Island Baptist Church and asked God for forgiveness.

04.14.1991 "Hot property"

"You guys in Dallas have some spectacular clubs," said Steve Paled, who four months ago opened Goldfingers, New York City's first topless bar with valet parking, a mezzanine for VIPs and other features of white-collar clubs. Paled says upscale clubs such as Cabaret Royale are having a national impact.

05.08.1991 "A taxing situation"

You can't be a man of God and work for the IRS. That, in effect, is what the Internal Revenue Service recently told the Rev. Max Butler.

05.19.1991 "War still rages over Confederate symbols"

"What in God's name are they talking about?" asked Shelby Foote, a commentator in PBS' acclaimed documentary series on the Civil War. "Lincoln wanted to sent blacks back to Africa; do you take his statue down?"

06.23.1991 "Scouts' honor on trial"

Everybody seems to want to be a Boy Scout these days: homosexuals, atheists, even girls.

06.27.1991 "No room for Baptist argument"

In a move moderates call dirty politics but fundamentalists praise as "the Baptist way," conservative Texas Baptists have bought up Waco's hotel rooms in a bid to control the state convention when it meets to decide Baylor University's fate in November.

09.08.1991 "The charismatic convent"

The sisters in one tiny Panhandle community find their numbers increasing as they worship God in a non-traditional way.

11.24.1991 "Preachers fear doom for Baylor"

In agonized tones, the fundamentalist preacher told an audience of his Baptist brethren the horror story of his trip to that haven of tanned secular humanists - the University of Southern California.

12.02.1991 "The mass marketing of Bob Tilton"

Robert Tilton calls it his "prayer closet."

02.06.1992 "Robert Tilton's Heart of Darkness"

The young preacher arrived in early 1976, in a beat-up travel trailer he parked in Carroll and Valta Oden's front yard. He came with no money, a wife and two small children -- and the dream of starting his own church.

03.12.1992 "Under the Tilton hearing big top"

Scenes from the church-state circus: Warring principles, Bronx cheers, and boys in powdered wigs

05.21.1992 "Naked ambition"

Cabaret Royale's Salah Izzedin is king of the topless bars. But will an upstart new club unseat him from his throne?

08.20.1992 "White man's burden"

Can a computer nerd from Iowa represent a black district in South Dallas?