Healing a wounded town: After a string of suicides, a minister helps bring answers to a small Oregon community (reporting from Alsea, Ore.). Second Front.
First Place, Feature Article, Associated Church Press
Finalist (part of three-story portfolio), Magazine News Religion Reporting, Religion News Association
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
ALSEA, Ore. – At the little white church off the two-lane blacktop, the front door stays unlocked all the time — just in case a passerby needs to use the restroom.
Through the windows of the Lobster Valley Church of Christ, a 40-member congregation started by pioneer loggers a century ago, minister Brian Leavitt can look out and spot deer, elk and an occasional bald eagle. Up the hill, sawmill and dairy workers rest in peace in a cemetery deeded to the church by a founding member.
“When I first moved here in the ’90s, we were still digging the graves by hand,” said Leavitt, 54, a retired U.S. deputy marshal. “It was kind of a time where you do a little decompressing and a little sharing.”
Leavitt, his wife, Chris, and their five children moved to this Oregon Coast Range community — 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean — about 15 years ago. They live on forestland dotted with colorful lilies and irises and frequented by black bears and cougars.
“It’s a pretty remote area, but it’s gorgeous,” said Leavitt, whose backyard overlooks a creek that runs into the Alsea River and serves as a swimming hole for salmon and steelhead.
Amid the beauty of wildflowers and wildlife, the ugliness of violent death gripped the tight-knit people of Alsea in 2009: Three suicides in three months shook the community.
A new babe in Christ — at 108 years old. Inside Story.
Not sheepless in Seattle (reporting from Seattle). Churches That Work.
The church’s role in suicide prevention. Editorial.
The Ross News 