FORE!
LEX LUTHOR GOES BERSERK

By Angie Perez

Moments after being issued a parking citation, Lex Luthor grabbed his nine-iron golf club and violently attacked the parking officer's car, smashing the windshield and the taillights.

"Apparently, Luthor thought he was being targeted by me and just snapped," said Officer Pete O'Grady. "I've never seen someone go so crazy over a parking ticket. It's not like he can't afford to pay it."
Fortunately for Luthor, he did not strike the officer during his unscheduled "golf practice" or he would have certainly been arrested and charged with a felony. The volatile millionaire was additionally cited for vandalism of a city-owned vehicle and now has to pay a much larger fine and attend court-ordered anger management classes.

Words of advice, Lex: Stick to the fairway.

HEARTLAND GHOSTS IN SMALLVILLE

By Christopher James Beppo

Many people are familiar with the story of the "Heartland Ghost" that inhabited a house in Atchison, Kansas, in the 1990s. A husband and father was terrorized by the spirit of a young girl named Sallie who had died horribly in the house decades earlier. Furious over her painful demise at the hands of a surgeon, the child vented her eternal anger by repeatedly wounding the family man who perhaps unwittingly reminded her of the slipshod doctor.

But few outsiders may realize that Kansas has become a sort of epicenter for paranormal activity, especially since the 1989 meteor shower. Those towns that were directly hit by the meteorites, including Hutchison, Edge City, Emporia, Leavenworth and Smallville, have reported hundreds of unexplained events and sightings involving ghosts and poltergeists. And for some reason, many of the occurrences revolve around adolescents and children.

Poltergeists are often mischievous and sometimes malevolent spirits who move objects and furniture and manipulate water and fire. Osage, Kawatche and Pawnee legends tell of roguish figures who often took the form of skeletons and tormented young people. In 1853, Wyandotte resident Sarah Elizabeth Johnson, 19-year-old daughter of the famed Methodist preacher Thomas Johnson, was besieged in her home by frightening knocking noises, footsteps and groaning.

Edge City farmer John Bell's 12-year-old daughter, Betsy, was the host of a poltergeist in 1899 that caused her to slap herself, gave John convulsions and ultimately took credit for his death by medicinal overdose. Two daughters of the Fox family of Wichita were drained of their energy by the spirit of a murdered peddler in the 1920s. In the early 1950s, a Kansas City teenager named Shiera Sanders Hall reported feeling electrical pulses passing through her body and suffered an onslaught of small fires, flying objects and moving furniture in her home. Hall also became a sort of human magnet to anything metallic in her immediate vicinity.

But Lowell County residents need not read the history books to explore the spirit world--it's alive and thriving in their communities. Rexford Middle School boasts the playful ghost of Billie, a vivacious young girl who was killed by a school bus in 1943 but refuses to quit playing pranks on generations of students, teachers and administrators. Grandville High School's "phantom trumpeter," the spirit of a school musician who died of a heart attack after a marathon practice session, sometimes plays a mournful solo to those who remain in the building's corridors after dark.
Smallville High School students like to recount the tale of the three pickup trucks perched precariously atop one another during last year's homecoming dance--no evidence of ramps or construction equipment was ever found. Numerous accounts of mayhem and damage at the Smallville Cemetery have outraged citizens but defied rational explanation.

Following the grisly death of a local antiques dealer, stories circulated of her "shape-shifting" daughter who caused havoc at SHS. Neighbors blamed the explosion of the Melville Nursery on a ravenous teen she-devil seeking revenge on a classmate. Perhaps most telling of these jaded times, hardly a ripple of fear or even curiosity could be detected amongst Smallville's citizenry after two students were recently found dead on school property, apparently drained of their very lifeblood.

The urban legends go on and on, and they almost always involve teenagers. An adolescent "angel of death" supposedly prematurely delivered patients at the Smallville Medical Center to the afterlife. Cars ended up on the roof of a geography teacher's house after an altercation involving his troubled son. Even the Luthor mansion is not immune from the hauntings, as one unnamed assistant attests. "We had that thing here when one of Lex's girlfriends claimed a ghost or something tried to drown her in the bathtub. Wouldn't surprise me if the Luthors are even ticking off the undead."

Scientists propose differing theories to explain poltergeists and their seeming fixation on adolescents. One camp believes malevolent personalities can fragment from a person, often during the difficult pubescent years, so rife with hormonal and behavioral shifts. But others theorize that spiritual entities associate themselves with one place where a traumatic event occurred--a meteor shower, for example--and choose to manifest themselves in people bordering on adulthood, those members of society who not only possess an abundance of physical energy but are also undergoing the most taxing emotional transition of their lives.

Given the multitude of bizarre events concentrated on the youth in this humble little corner of the country, Smallville might just be the best place for paranormal researchers to start looking for the truth.

BODY OF HONOR STUDENT FOUND

Possible Link To Murdered Smallville High Teacher
By Gena McGuiness

The body of high school student Ian Randall was discovered at the base of the Smallville Dam early Monday evening by two hikers who have asked not to be identified. The only son of Charles and Emma Randall, owners of Randall Electronics, Ian was a straight-A sophomore at Smallville High. A Luthor Foundation Scholarship candidate on his way to an Ivy League collegiate career, young Randall attended night classes at the local community college and volunteered at Mobile Meals and the Smallville Medical Center.

Exactly what happened at the dam is still unclear, but recent facts uncovered in the investigation suggest a probable suicide. "We were in the process of interviewing students of the murdered Smallville High shop teacher, Mr. Frankel, when Mr. Randall's body was found. Ian Randall was on our list to be interviewed," said Sheriff Ethan. Frankel's body was found in his classroom Friday night with a stab wound to the chest.

Students claim Randall made a metal letter opener in Frankel's class. "Frankel was critiquing everyone's final project, and he
was pretty tough on Ian's," says fellow sophomore George Davis.
Officials seized a handcrafted letter opener from Ian Randall's bedroom. According to the sheriff's report, there appeared to be traces of blood on the blade. DNA samples have been sent to the Metropolis Police forensic lab for analysis. "We know Randall pushed himself to get straight A's, but we've discovered that he was to receive a C in metal shop. Our theory is that Ian Randall may have gone to see Frankel about his grade, and the situation got out of hand. We have to wait for the lab analysis from Metropolis," asserts Sheriff Ethan.

SHS Principal Dr. Terrance Reynolds issued the following statement: "Faculty and students alike are shocked at the loss of both Mr. Frankel and Ian Randall. To think that their deaths are possibly linked causes everyone here at Smallville High even greater sadness. Our teachers and counselors try very hard to see possible warning signs from troubled students. If, in fact, Ian Randall was involved in Mr. Frankel's murder and then took his own life, we regret we were unable to help prevent this double tragedy."

NATIVE AMERICAN ADVOCATE SPEAKS OUT

"The Destruction Must Stop," Warns KU Professor

By Jim "Slim" Bradlee

Around campus, Joseph Willowbrook is known as a gentle man and a tough but fair educator. But to the engineers scouting the proposed site of LuthorCorp's planned corporate park in Smallville, he is becoming the bane of their existence.

"They say I'm trespassing," comments Willowbrook, looking every bit the refined professor in his corduroy jacket and neatly pressed khakis. "But how could I be trespassing on land my people have owned for 500 years?"

For the past two weeks, Willowbrook has been camping out at the development site, where he has silently protested the incursion on ancient Indian lands by the powerful Metropolis corporation. And company officials are beginning to chafe at his constant presence.

"We'll be coning off the roads or putting up fences, and he just stands there, staring. It's like he can see right through us. That old guy gives me the creeps," stated Dan Hammond, the project foreman. "Once we start bringing in equipment and personnel, I'm going to have to talk to Sheriff Ethan about him."

Noted for his numerous scholarly papers on archeology and his work as a Distinguished Professor of American Indian
History at the University of Kansas' Center for Indigenous Nations Studies, Willowbrook also has a reputation for rabble-rousing from his days as a young activist for the Kawatche people, who were among the earliest settlers of this region. Willowbrook promises to spearhead Kawatche protest groups should the desecration continue and hopes to rally townspeople and legal representation as well.

"We are well aware of Joseph Willowbrook, and of course, we remain sympathetic to his concerns," stated a LuthorCorp spokesman. "But good American progress and modernization can still take place alongside quaint old traditions. We thought his people would be pleased to learn about the great employment opportunities offered by the Kawatche Kafeteria we have included in the blueprints, but apparently they still want to deny the people of Smallville thousands of jobs in the name of preserving some trees and rocks."

Willowbrook remains steadfast, likening his battle to that of David and Goliath. "They don't understand the significance of what they're doing. They never even asked for a referendum; they just expected us to go along. Well, we all know what happens when indigenous peoples are asked to peacefully coexist with outsiders, right? Not this time--not here in Smallville."