Setting us apart Terre Haute boasts many unique, positive features By Mark Bennet When John Wooden migrated from Indiana State to UCLA, he was told the Bruins' cramped, smelly basketball gym - known as the "B.O. Barn" - would soon be replaced. Sixteen years later, his UCLA basketball team moved into Pauley Pavilion. Despite Wooden having to mop the dusty floor every day before practice, despite having to share the facility with the wrestling and gymnastics teams, and despite its lack of appeal to recruits, he built his first two NCAA championship teams during those 16 years in that crackerbox. In fact, he was building the greatest dynasty in college basketball history, eventually adding eight more titles. Somehow, Wooden didn't let the negatives around him spoil the positives. This wise man once said, "If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments, we would all be much happier." So for the next eight weeks, the Tribune-Star will help our community count some of its blessings with a series of stories titled "Terre Haute's Top 40." Each day, Mondays through Fridays, we'll highlight one of the 40 people, places and things we've chosen as our city's most unique and positive features. Why 40? We'd like to say there's something scientific about that total. But, as Editor Max Jones explained, we decided to stop at 40 arbitrarily. The "top 40" is a familiar phrase. And, frankly, it's just enough to interest readers without wearing them out. That's why we didn't pick 50, a hundred or a million. By the time we got to No. 1,000,000,000, even Coach Wooden would probably be saying, "You know, that payphone across from the mall isn't really that special." But we think our Top 40 are pretty special, not only to folks who live here, but also to former Hauteans, people who visit often and those who just pass through once or twice in a lifetime. Sometimes it's those outsiders who notice the positives better than we do. Some of us pass by a thing of beauty every day and never stop to really see it. Some of the places on our Top 40 might fall into that category and spark us to say, "Oh, yeah. I forgot about that," as Max put it. Maybe that's one of Terre Haute's biggest problems. The city's reputation around the state and the country has been flogged so much for so long, that some of us anxiously await only the gut punches. "Sin City" ...Thank you, sir, may I have another? The General Strike ...Thank you, sir, may I have another? The smell ...Thank you, sir, may I have another? Nowhere USA ... Every city has its burdens, but we seem to be ball-and-chain collectors here when it comes to our image. "Somehow with Terre Haute, it's gotten elevated to some iconic status," Max said, chuckling. So, for the next eight weeks, you'll find a series of stories about Terre Haute that have nothing to do with those old labels. "We know the things that haunt us," Max explained. "We have to acknowledge that, but we don't have to let them control our image." To be sure, a newspaper must not gloss over our problems. We've well documented the meth scourge that has the Vigo County Jail overflowing. The continued deterioration of the Terre Haute House in the heart of our city requires scrutiny too, as does our community having the highest poverty rate in Indiana, according to recent state statistics. Good exists too. Take the talented brothers Paul Dresser and Theodore Dreiser, for example. Both found fame far from their boyhood roots in Terre Haute - Dresser as the most prolific songwriter of his era, and Dreiser as an author of classics "Sister Carrie" and "An American Tragedy." Dreiser carried an acerbic attitude about his home state. And yet, at one point in the late 1800s, they sat together and swapped ideas about Paul's plan to write a song about a river. From that came Dresser's classic "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away." Sure, Paul and Theodore might have been at odds with each other throughout their lives, and distanced themselves - either geographically or spiritually, or both - from Terre Haute. "But the fact remains, they were drawing upon their childhood in Terre Haute," Max pointed out. Dresser and Dreiser may be included in our Top 40. Maybe not. (We're not at liberty to divulge the list, which will be revealed day by day in no particular order.) But the point is, Terre Haute followed them out into the world, and their link to this city is easily detected within their work. Half-empty types might zero in on the controversial aspects of those two writers. Dresser died penniless. Dreiser had a hateful streak, joined the Communist Party late in life, and his books - at the time - were considered risqué back in his hometown. The same focus might hit some of Terre Haute's other most notable names, such as labor pioneer Eugene Debs, who ran the last of his five presidential campaigns from a federal prison cell. But Dresser wrote a melody that became Indiana's state song. Dreiser, according to fellow literary legend H.L. Mencken, "was a man of large originality, of profound feeling and unshakable courage. All of us who write are better off because he lived, worked and hoped." And Debs championed social causes that now seem far less radical than they did back in the early 1900s, such as child labor laws and Social Security. Even Wooden stirred up emotions here in his two seasons as ISU basketball coach. Wooden, a former high school coach in South Bend, brought in his former prep players - back from military service after World War II - from that northern Indiana town. Those guys bumped some Terre Haute locals from the Sycamore roster. By the time he left, though, he'd posted a winning record that still stands as the best ever for an Indiana State coach and - most important - his players became well-regarded members of our community and others around the state. So the fact that someone inflamed folks here a time or two didn't scratch them off our Top 40. "Controversy is part of your history, and controversy is part of your fabric," Max said. "But why must controversy be negative?" Instead, our series, which begins Monday and concludes Sept. 23, will look on the bright side. We'll compile the stories on our Web site as we go along, and invite readers' responses throughout. Max said, "Hopefully, when it's all over, people can go down the list and say, 'You know, we do have a lot to be proud of.'"

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