We spoke with Prosecutor Bob Miller today to find out more about the pre-trial conference happening at the Monroe County Courthouse on Monday, March 1.

It is scheduled for 1 pm and is open to the public. Anyone attending should ask a bailiff which courtroom it is in.

A pretrial conference is “just a status conference,” according to Miller. “It’s unlikely that anything of import will transpire.”

Miller said the prosecutor’s office is still collecting evidence, going over the coroner’s report, and scheduling depositions, etc. “It’s still very early in the process,” he said.

Monday’s pretrial conference is simply ” a report to the court that we’re making progress,”
after which another conference will be set for about 6 weeks later.

Miller estimates that the entire conference will take no more than 5 minutes.

Yesterday, Don’s family and friends were to have held a planned memorial service for Don.  I assume, and hope, that everything went off as expected, and that it was a memorable event.  If any of this site’s readers were able to attend and would like to share their impressions here, we would welcome news of that event, and any other information about upcoming events that celebrate Don’s life and work.

I want to add as a personal note that, yesterday, one of my current students, who was also one of Don’s former students, came by my office hours.  We were chatting about other things when the conversation turned to Don.  This particular student is having a difficult go of things this semester, in large part because she deeply misses Don, who was (no surprise) an important mentor for her, who encouraged her work and, as she put it, changed her life forever by being one of her favorite instructors.

At one point, this student wondered aloud whether or not Don considered her “just another student.”  This immediately struck me as impossible.  Did Don consider any of us “just another” anything?  I have to say that I really don’t think so, and I don’t think I am idealizing Don’s memory by saying so.  I don’t know that I would say it about many people, but it does seem to me that Don probably did celebrate his students, each and every one, a little more than most.   His absence on this campus continues to be felt.

I.U. English Department graduate student, Caroline Diggins, will be reading from Don’s essay “Voodoo for Charles” at the Black History Month Art Fair, Wed. Feb 10^th 2010 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Indiana University Neal-Marshall Black Cultural Center Grand Hall.  The theme for this event is “Expressions of the Soul.”  For more information, contact the center at omsld@indiana.edu