This winter a group of 17 inmates in Wisconsin are studying and
rehearsing a Shakespeare play which they plan to perform in June 2006
for fellow inmates, their family members, and other invited guests.
This will be the inmates' second Shakespeare production at Racine
Correctional Institution, a medium-security facility in Sturtevant,
Wisconsin. Last year, they performed "King Lear" to a series of
enthusiastic audiences. That production received considerable
media coverage, including a major story in The New York Times (April
29, 2005).
This year's choice is the great dramatist's tragic masterpiece
"Othello" - a tale of jealousy, betrayal, racism and murder. The
director, Dr. Jonathan Shailor of the University of
Wisconsin-Parkside, selected the play because of its raw power and
because of the universality of its themes. He also believes that
the inmates will learn something about themselves in the process of
studying the characters and producing the play.
"This work gives the men the opportunity to explore their own thoughts
and feelings, to practice empathy, and examine moral choices and their
consequences," says Shailor.
"Othello" also holds special interest for Shailor because it features
the murder of an innocent young woman named Desdemona.
Shailor's high school girlfriend, Helene Pruszynski, was herself an
innocent young woman who died at the hands of a murderer.
Pruszynski was brutally raped, stabbed, and left to die in a snowy
south of Denver, Colorado on January 16, 1980. The killer was
never found, but renewed interest in the case and the availability of
advanced DNA technology have led to the case being re-opened.
"Helene is gone," Shailor says. "There is no way we can bring her
back. But we can bring the killer to justice. And we can
work to address the roots of violence in our society, and in
ourselves. That's what I've been trying to do in my work with
prison inmates for the past 10 years."
Shailor would like to use his production of "Othello" as a fundraiser
for a local women's shelter. He also hopes that it will help to
bring national attention to the case of Helene Pruszynski.
* Thursday,
October 20, 2005 Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle,
Massachusetts "Sound Off" Written and produced by the
students of Hamilton-Wenham Regional High
School
Harmony Concert
Remembers a Special Alumna
Helene Pruszynski
Attended HWRHS 1971-1976
Former Editor-in-Chief of Sound-Off and Harmony Member
On Oct. 9, Harmony members from past and present came together to
present a benefit concert to commemorate former HWRHS student Helene
Pruszynski, and raise money for the scholarship fund in her name.
Pruszynski, who attended the high school from 1972 to 1976, was a
spirited, inspired student with great interest in music and
theater. Peers described her as bright, talented, effervescent,
and a great role model. The scholarship fund, each year awarded
to a graduating Hamilton-Wenham senior, was created to keep
Pruszynski's memory alive after she was tragically murdered in her
senior year in college. The concert, entitled "Harmony:
Then and Now", was performed by fifty-two Harmony members from the
classes of 1973 to 1976, led by Cici Hunt, as well as the present-day
Harmony, led by Claudia Frost. Together, they presented a diverse
assortment of songs.
Before the concert, previous members met backstage with the present-day
Harmony members. Many previous members reminisced over high
school photos of themselves and the group. Others chatted
amicably with new members, sharing stories about Pruszynski and about
high school.
The first half of the concert began with former Harmony members
entering down the aisles of the auditorium singing the lively tune
"Madeline". Songs ranged from "Amazing Grace" to the funny,
fast-paced "Gari Gari," complete with dance. The group
closed with "Fa Una Canzona," performed with the present Harmony.
The second act started out with a trip down memory lane in the form of
a movie created by Christopher Shailor, a former member of Harmony and
the present drama teacher at Hamilton-Wenham. The movie, which
contained photos of the old and new Harmony was set to "Many Roads," a
special song of connection.
"At first, it was just going to consist of pictures from the yearbook,
but then it felt more important to me to tell a story," said
Shailor. Later on, present day Harmony serenaded the audience
with songs such as the African folk song "Shut de Do" and the joyous
"My Spirit Sang All Day." The concert closed with "Where the
Roads Come Together," a song that turned out to be very meaningful for
all the Harmony members, old and new.
Throughout the concert and between songs, former Harmony members talked
about Pruszynski, the impact that she made on their lives and what she
meant to them.
"This concert definitely brought the memory of Helene into focus for
all who didn't know her," said Claudia Frost, the current conductor of
Harmony.
Audience members responded with reverence, many of whom had known
Helene and were quite moved by the concert. "It was quite the
emotional evening," said Susan Morgan.
Daniel Swartz, who was also in Harmony and graduated with last year's
class, considered the concert to be a "great gift." Present-day
Harmony members agreed the concert was a memorable experience.
It really made me think about life and how valuable it is," said
sophomore Katie Stuart. "You really got the sense that Helene was
just a normal high school girl, she could be any one of us."
Sophomore Samantha Stokes, also expressed the powerful impact the
concert had on her. "At first, I didn't really realize how close
everyone was to [Helene]. It made me step back and realize how
lucky I am to have everyone. It also made me realize how much
Harmony is a part of my life. Like the former Harmony, Harmony
today is like one big family. I'm convinced that twenty years
from now we'll still be friends and still singing great," said Stokes.
I was surprised by their passion for Helene, for each other, and the
concert," said junior Emily Greeke. "During the concernt, I was
overwhelmed with such happiness and excitement. I loved watching
them sing so animatedly, and felt it to be an honor to sing with
them. Their ability to speak about Helene and share with us
personal memories impressed me so much. Because of them, I was
able to realize how important the scholarship really is."
Shauna Cauley, senior, summed up what most who attended the concert
felt after it was over. "The concert was simply amazing.
I'm speechless. There are no words to describe how amazing it
was. You just had to be there."
*
Saturday,
October 8, 2005 The Salem Evening News,
Massachusetts An Eagle Tribune Company
25 Years After Murder,
Local Woman Honored by Amanda McGregor
Staff Writer
HAMILTON - Helene Pruszynski
was the kind of person no one can forget.
She sang in a high school singing group here, had a high school
boyfriend, made plans to go to college - the usual things for any
teenager.
But the Hamilton native's promising life ended in 1980, when she was
killed at the age of 21 in Colorado. Pruszynski's unsolved rape
and murder continues to haunt her family, friends and
investigators. She was killed near Denver while staying there for
an internship at a local radio station.
Now, 25 years later, her friends and teachers are gathering for a
concert Sunday to honor her memory and to celebrate her gift of song.
"The concert is more a celebration of Helene's life, rather than
concentrating on her death," said high school friend Kimberly (Shailor)
Obremski, who now lives in Danvers. "It's hard not to keep her
memory alive."
The concert comes shortly after Colorado police announced that they are
re-opening the case, in part because of the continued interest of
Pruszynski's high school friends and her family.
"I have always been haunted by the fact that this case was never
solved," said Agent-in-Charge Bob Brown of the Colorado Bureau of
Investigation.
Brown worked on the case back in 1980 and is heading up the
re-examination.
But, true to Pruszynski's spirit, those who loved her won't let the
tragedy prevail. So tomorrow night at 7, her fellow members of
the Harmony chorus at the Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School will
come home to Hamilton to sing. The concert will also raise money
for the Helene Pruszynski Scholarship Fund, which has aided
Hamilton-Wenham students pursuing the arts and music in college.
"She was such a bright light, and we won't let it go out," said Cici
Fougner Hunt, who started up the Harmony chorus in the 1970s and is
returning to conduct tomorrow night's concert.
"When she smiled, her eyes and nose squinted up, and she lit up the
room," Hunt said during a phone interview Thursday.
Remembering in Song
Pruszynski graduated from Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in
1976. The year she was killed she was to graduate from Wheaton
College in Norton, with a degree in journalism.
Tomorrow night, former members of Harmony - including a former exchange
student from Finland who is coming back to sing for Helene - will
perform many of the songs they used to sing. Seventeen of the
original 25 Harmony members will be there.
Also, members of the current Harmony will be singing songs, too.
Both groups of Harmony singers will conclude the concert with a song
that was one of Helene's favorites, "Where the Roads Come Together" by
Paul Colwell and Herbert Allen. The chorus sang it at Helene's
graduation in 1976.
It's lyrics conclude, "And I have a feeling, That we'll meet someday,
Where the roads come together...up the way."
"It's a very emotional song," Obremski said.
Christopher Shailor was a friend of Helene's in high school and is now
the drama director at Hamilton-Wenham High. He vividly remembers
the last time he saw Helene during his senior year performance of the
musical "South Pacific" in 1978.
"Helene was two years older than me, but she came back (to the high
school) to see a show I was in," Shailor recalled. "She came
backstage to give me flowers. I remember her coming back to the
dressing room, and she said, 'I wanted to wish you good luck,' and she
told me, 'Believe in yourself.'"
Friends say that was the kind of warmth and kindness that epitomozed
her.
Shailor - whose older brother dated Helene - also remembers vividly the
day in January 1980, when she was suddenly gone. He was in
Hamilton, home from college for winter break.
"I remember my dad waking me up, and I thought he wanted me to shovel
the driveway or something," Shailor said, "but he said, 'Helene's dead.'
"It still isn't real," Shailor said. "It just seems like she's
somwhere else. She was one of the truly good people who walked
this place."
Pruszynski's parents, Chester and Henrietta, left Hamilton nearly 15
years ago and moved to Florida. They hold out hope for anwers in
their daughter's mysterious, brutal murder. And while they can't
trek back to Hamilton for tomorrow's concert, they are moved that
people back home still remember "their little girl," said her father,
Chester Pruszynski, now 87.
"It's hard to talk about," he said during a phone interview
Thursday. "She was a very intelligent, special girl. I'm
glad their trying to keep the scholarship going."
"She's still top of mind for all of us," Obremski said. "She
always has been. She always will be."
Tragedy Hits
Pruszynski disappeared the evening of January 16, 1980, after
taking a bus from her internship in Denver out to the Denver suburb of
Englewood, where she was staying with her aunt and uncle. Police
found her body in a field the next day, roughly 15 miles from where she
had gotten off the bus.
She had been raped and stabbed.
"Helene was a victim that really pulls the heartstrings," said Brown,
of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. "She was the kind of
person who really was going to make a contribution to mankind."
Two other women were assaulted in the same area that month - one of
them raped just moments before Helene got off the bus.
Brown appeared on Fox News in Colorado last week, and the Rocky
Mountain News published an article about the case last Monday.
Investigators hope the renewed attention will bring long-awaited
answers and closure to a murder that has tortured the souls of all the
people touched by it.
"Someone out there has a huge price to pay," Brown said, "and it's
something I'd very much like to do before I leave this business."
*
October 6, 2005
Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle, Massachusetts
by Wendall Waters
She was brutally murdered. But her friends aren't going to let
Helene Pruszynski fade away. They're keeping her alive not just
in their own hearts but also in song so that others may remember.
And, they can sing.
They are members of the original Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School
select choir, Harmony, formed in the 1970s under then Musical Director,
Cici Hunt. Pruszynski, they say, was, and still is, one of them.
So they are coming back to HWRHS, some from just down the street and
others from as far awsay as California, to give a performance to
benefit the Helene Pruszynski Scholarship Fund. THey will sing,
under the direction once again of Cici Hunt, with members of the
current Harmony choir.
Lauren Seaverns, one of the event's organizers, says the group has two
goals for the evening, to keep Pruszynski's name in public view and to
raise money to replenish the scholarship fund, which was created in
1990 but has now run dry.
"The concert," she says, "will keep that fund alive and continue to
keep Helene's memory at the forefront of our lives."
Helene Pruszynski was, by all accounts, an all-American girl. She
was musically gifted, worked on the school newspaper, tutored other
sstudents, was class treasurer, and graduated near the top of her class.
Bob Lassonde, former musical and band director at HWRHS, says, in
short, "Helene was the student every teacher wanted in class."
After graduation, Pruszynski went to Wheaton College, where she sang
with the Wheatones and continued to be a model student.
In 1980, while doing a journalism internship at a radio station in
Denver, Colorado, Helene Pruszynski was murdered.
According to former Harmony member Kimberly Obremski, the case, which
was closed some years ago, has been reopened. It is the group's
hope that the reunion will help generate interest once again in this
case.
Gathering for a recent pratice session at the HWRHS auditorium, several
of the original Harmony members, Cici Hunt, and others connected to the
group reminisced about their years in Harmony and what music has meant
to them.
They talked about how Seaverns didn't make the cut the first time she
auditioned for Harmony and was relegated to the position of
"music sequencing engineer," i.e. page turner. And, they laughed
about the time Hunt directed the group singing a song about an egg
popping out and when the song ended turned her pregnant belly to the
audience.
But, there was one thing they kept coming back to. Each of them
expressed in his or her own way that music has been a life-changing
experience, something they will never really be without.
"No matter what happens," Hunt said, "no one can take away the
experience or making music."
And, for this group, no one is going to take away the memory of Helene
Pruszynski.
*
January 20, 1999 Internet Crime Archives
Kenyon Tolerton - Authorities armed with DNA technology are revisiting
the unsolved 1980 murder of Helene Pruszynski, a 21-year-old senior at
Wheaton College in Norton, Massachussetts. Investigators are
trying to link Pruszynski's slaying
with Kenyon Tolerton, a computer programmer convicted of murdering
Donna Waugh of Englewood in 1980. Authorities used DNA evidence
to link Tolerton, whom police described as a "serial killer of petite
white females," to the 1993 slaying of 14-year-old Cissy Pamela Foster.
