Thursday, February 13, 2025
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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Milwaukee Press Club 'Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism' 2020 & 2021 Award Winners

Remembrances of My Cousin Glenda Cleveland

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Glenda Cleveland never expected to be thrust into the worldwide spotlight for doing the right thing. In some sense, she was a victim of Dahmer’s evil, but she was also a voice for his victims.

I was about to leave the gas station when my phone rang. My first inclination was not to answer it, until this quiet inner voice said, “Take the call, it’s urgent.”

It was my cousin in Memphis. He always has some funny one liner before you even have the chance to say hello. Before I could utter hello, he said, “I have some bad news. Glenda passed away. She was found in her apartment.” I knew my cousin was serious. The ominous depth of his voice was something I had never heard before. Stunned, like boxer knocked onto the mat by his opponent. I was not prepared for this news.

As I sat in my car processing this new reality, all I could think about was there would be no more warm hugs and hearing her call me her pretty girl.

Glenda cleveland

No more hearing her infectious laughter.

She was gone.

I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye and tell her what she meant to me.

Before she was known to the world as Glenda Cleveland, she born Glenda Faye Smith, on February 16, 1955, in Carthage, Miss., the youngest daughter to Sullivan and Louise Smith. Uncle Sullivan was my father’s older brother. He was a farmer and was also a teacher in a Black public school near Carthage.

Glenda’s childhood was difficult. She grew up in a five-room house that she shared with her parents and nine other siblings. The house lacked indoor plumbing and heating, and was warmed by a fireplace in the living room that offered little refuge from the sneaky frosty central Mississippi winters. My uncle struggled with mental health challenges throughout his life but managed to provide for his family, while instilling a strong work ethic, integrity, and Christian values.

Glenda cleveland

Glenda was extremely intelligent and excelled in school. After graduating from high school, she briefly attended Tougaloo College, but left before earning a degree to become a mother to her only daughter Sandra, whom she named after a sister that passed away from an illness at a young age.

There were times that her parents and older siblings expressed disappointment in her not completing her college education. One of her older sisters had completed her Doctorate degree in Psychology, and another sister earned a business degree and worked in an executive level management position for a leading auto manufacturer. Glenda lived her life on her own terms, and prioritized being a good mother and provider to her daughter.

While Glenda was much older than me, the imprint that she left on my life will never be forgotten.

Glenda cleveland

As I reflect on the personal interactions that I had with her, I can still hear her voice.

Even though she migrated to Milwaukee shortly after her daughter was born, she still had had a delicate voice tinged with a southern accent. I frequently spent the night at Glenda’s house. Her daughter Sandra, and I were the same age. Glenda loved completing difficult crossword puzzles. She was also a voracious reader and could hold a conversation with the most intellectual or the most common individuals.

I was about 10 years old at the time and Glenda came to our house for a barbeque. It was a sweltering summer day. I was out riding my bike with the neighbor kid next door. We had an altercation over a boy that we both liked and it almost became physical had Glenda not intervened.

My mom was in the house busy preparing side dishes to go with the barbecue.

She yelled, “He will never like you because you’re ugly.”

I left my porch, and opened the gate about to go over to her house. Hearing the commotion, Glenda walked to the front. “Allyson, come here please,” she said with a pleading urgency.

With fists clenched, I was about halfway between my gate and the girl’s porch. Glenda appealed again, “Al, please come back here.”

I felt the slightly firm touch of her slender hands on my shoulders, and I turned around and walked back to my yard with her. As we sat on my porch in the shade from the unmercifully sun, she calmly said, “Allyson, don’t ever let people dim your light. They are just words and not who you are. You’re beautiful. People’s opinions don’t define you or your life.”

As a pre-teen, my friends and I loved experimenting with make-up. I thought denim blue eyeshadow, and red lipstick were the greatest color combination. I remember Glenda looking at my garish concoction; she never criticized or made me feel self-conscious, which would have shattered my burgeoning ego.

She opened her purse and retrieved this beautiful chocolate brown lipstick that she was wearing. “I bet this color would look even better than the one that you have on. Let’s take a look,” Glenda said excitedly.

She ushered me into the bathroom, and grabbed some tissue that was on the counter. She placed a generous amount of Vaseline on the tissue that was nearby. She tenderly wiped away the hideous red lipstick that was smeared on my lips. She then uncapped the lipstick and delicately rubbed it on my lips, expressing satisfaction by nodding her head. She said, with her mellow southern twang, “Start in the middle when applying lipstick, and smash your lips together. Then blot with tissue, and reapply, and smash your lips together again.” She then gave me a handheld mirror for me to look while admiring the transformation, “That looks so beautiful on you. You’re such a pretty girl. You don’t need much.”

To this day, it wasn’t only the lesson that she taught, but the affectionate way that she directed me.

Glenda was the most beautiful person inside and outside. She met people where they were at without judgment or criticism. Her kind heart and gracious nature was genuine.

I remember her saying that she stayed in contact with the family of Konerak Sinthasomphone, and even attended a family member’s wedding.

Glenda never expected to be thrust into the worldwide spotlight for doing the right thing.
In some sense, she was a victim of Dahmer’s evil, but she was also a voice for his victims.

She was also a forgiving person who never harbored malice or resentment toward anyone, including the officers who were so dismissive of her concerns that tragic night.

She was hurt that her pleas were ignored, and believed that they needed to be held accountable for their inaction to stop Dahmer’s reign of terror. I believe if she was alive today, she would be disappointed in how good law enforcement officers are being treated, while still wanting the ones who abuse their authority to be held accountable.

Glenda’s life after Dahmer’s conviction and imprisonment was also difficult. She endured the loss of her oldest sister, Valeria Flowers, and a nephew in a tragic house fire. She also dealt with a major surgery and some health issues, but I never expected her to die so young at 56 years old.

I never got the chance to tell her that I loved her and to express my gratitude for the life lessons that she so patiently taught me. She definitely made this world a better place during her time here, and even today.

I have not been able to watch the Netflix series about that dark and grisly chapter in Milwaukee’s history because all my family wanted to do was move forward from that bleak time and live a normal life. It would be a betrayal to them and to the victims of Dahmer if I watched it. The publicity reignited from the series has restarted my grieving process for my cousin.

I hope that the one lesson people can learn from this series and apply to their own lives is how to be compassionate, kind, and to stand up for what you believe, even if it seems the odds are not in your favor, and that you may be standing alone.

Dear cousin, thank you for accepting me.

Rest in Peace, Glenda.

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President Donald Trump said late Sunday that he has ordered the U.S. Treasury Department to stop producing pennies.

Pennies famously cost more than a penny to produce, putting them in the crosshairs of Trump and DOGE’s government efficiency push.

"For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents," Trump wrote on TruthSocial, his social media site. "This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.

Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," Trump added.

DOGE posted on X last month critical of the penny’s cost, hinting at its fate.

"The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023," DOGE wrote on X. "The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced. Penny (or 3 cents!) for your thoughts."

According to the U.S. Mint’s latest report, the cost of all coins is on the rise. From the Mint’s 2024 report:

"FY 2024 unit costs increased for all circulating denominations compared to last year. The penny’s unit cost increased 20.2 percent, the nickel’s unit cost increased by 19.4 percent, the dime’s unit cost increased by 8.7 percent, and the quarter-dollar’s unit cost increased by 26.2 percent. The unit cost for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year."

Lake Sturgeon Protection

Wisconsin Lawmakers Want State Exempt From Any Lake Sturgeon Protection

(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin lawmakers have filed legislation to protect sturgeon spearing in the state.

The bill would exempt Wisconsin from any listing of lake sturgeon under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The group, including Republican Congressmen Glenn Grothman and Mike Gallagher filed what they called the Sturgeon Protected and Exempt from Absurd Regulations Act.

Reps. Tony Wied, Grothman and Tom Tiffany introduced the legislation on Friday.

The bill is in response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducting a status assessment of lake sturgeon after the group was sued by an animal rights group in 2018 attempting to have lake sturgeon listed as threatened.

“Sturgeon-spearing is crucial to maintaining Wisconsin’s lake sturgeon population which is why we must take proactive steps to ensure that we are exempt from any action to list the lake sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act,” Tiffany said about the bill. “Wisconsin is a global leader in sturgeon management, and the SPEAR Act will protect this unique and long-standing tradition for years to come.”

https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-118hr7037ih

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it will not add the lake sturgeon to the endangered species list last year.

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2023 pointing out the impact a listing could have on Wisconsin and how the state has worked to manage the lake sturgeon population.

The letter was signed by Gallagher and Grothman along with Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil, Tiffany, Scott Fitzgerald and Derrick Van Orden.

“Wisconsin does not list lake sturgeon endangered nor threatened in state waters, and has in place a sturgeon program considered a world model for effective management and recovery, and as such should be exempt from any Federal ESA listing of the species”, said Dr. Ron Bruch, former Chief of Fisheries and Leader of the statewide Sturgeon Management Team for the WI Department of Natural Resources.

dpi wisconsin

Wisconsin Republicans Call for Transparency, Fairness in School Referendums

(The Center Square) – A pair of Wisconsin legislators are pushing for more transparency in the school referendum process in the state.

The proposal comes after 169 out of 241 school ballot referenda in 2024 elections were approved by voters at a cost of $4.4 billion to taxpayers.

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, and Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, proposed bills that would require local governments and school boards to include information on the ballot about how much the difference in taxes would for a median-valued home in the community resulting from the referendum.

“Referendums are opportunities for voters to make important decisions about how their tax dollars should be spent,” Allen said. “Good decision making requires transparency in the information provided to voters.”

A second bill would protect school districts from losing state funding when other districts go to referendum.

“It was a shock to many to learn that the massive school referendum passed in Milwaukee would take away vital state funding from over 300 other school districts,” Allen said. “It’s only fair that large referendums in one district should not negatively affect other school districts.”

A Legislative Fiscal Bureau report last year analyzed by Badger Institute showed that a $252 million Milwaukee referendum would cost Madison, Waukesha and Racine $2 million a year in state funding while Appleton and West Bend would lose more than $1 million each year.

The impact is due to tax base equalization, which means that “a school district's property tax rate does not depend on the property tax base of the district, but rather on the level of expenditures.”

The bill states that any school referendum of over $50 million dollars should be paid for by the district that votes for the referendum instead of taking away money from shared school funding.

Tammy Baldwin Supports Transgender Children Surgeries

Trump Order Forces Many Medical Providers to End Transgender Procedures on Children

Late last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting “transgender” procedures on youth, including puberty blockers and surgeries such as mastectomies and penile reconstruction. In response, many medical providers including some of the top in the nation for performing them have announced they will comply with the EO.

The EO states that “it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

Last year, nonprofit Do No Harm unveiled a database reporting that between 2019-2023, there were 13,000 gender reassignment procedures performed throughout the nation on minors; those procedures included both surgeries and prescriptions. Among the top states in the nation for those procedures was Ohio, which has since enacted legislation banning such procedures.

The Center Square reached out to more than two dozen medical providers throughout the country based on data provided by Do No Harm regarding their total billing, prescriptions, and surgeries performed, asking them how they planned to respond to Trump’s EO.

Among those to announce they were suspending all procedures was Seattle-based UW Medicine, which stated in an email that it was “committed to supporting the clinical care needs and well-being of all our patients, as well as complying with state and federal law. We are currently in compliance and are also continuing to provide our full spectrum of services.”

Seattle Children’s Hospital ranked among the top in the nation for puberty blocker prescriptions; though it did not respond to request for comment, there have been reports that it has suspended those services, and its webpage for gender affirmation surgery has since been removed.

MultiCare Mary Bridge Children's Hospital located in Tacoma wrote in an email that while it does not perform gender-affirming surgeries, “we are aware of the executive order that calls for an end to gender-affirming medical treatments for children and adolescents under 19 and are continuing to monitor the situation. Executive orders are directives to federal agencies on how they will operate. Much of what’s been issued has not yet become rules for us to evaluate.”

D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital released a statement that it will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or hormone therapy, noting that prior to the EO it did not perform gender affirming surgeries.

Coolie Dickinson Hospital based out of Massachusetts wrote in an email that it “is reviewing to see what, if any, actual impact the executive orders might have and would follow up, if there is any impact. In the meantime, the care we provide to our community continues as normal at this time.”

University of Michigan Health stated that its “teams are assessing the potential impact of this executive order on our healthcare services and the communities we serve. Our priority remains delivering high-quality, accessible care to our patients while ensuring compliance with the law."

Another medical provider to cease gender transition services for anyone under 19 is VCU Health and Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Virginia, which wrote in a statement that it was “in response to an Executive Order issued by the White House on January 28, 2025, and related state guidance received by VCU on January 30, 2025. Our doors remain open to all patients and their families for screening, counseling, mental health care and all other health care needs.”

UCSF’s Gender Affirming Care in San Francisco has also ended services for patients under 19, a policy also adopted by Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York simply wrote in an email that “we will keep you posted once we have an update on this matter.”

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia both said they were reviewing their services.

Several hospitals and hospital systems who performed these procedures on minors did not respond to The Center Square's requests for comment on the executive order. The Center Square will continue to seek clarification on whether they plan to comply with the order.

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