IDS Thursday, April 17, 2025
INSIDE
2025 LITTLE 500 GUIDE
80%
of Indiana's first responders are volunteers What’s at stake amid Indiana volunteer firefighter shortage
By Molly Gregory
mogrego@iu.edu | @mollygregory22
Joe McWhorter Sr., 78, used to burn houses down to pass the time on Saturdays. “That’s one way we were able to show somebody what fire was actually like,” he said. “Put them in a house that’s actually on fire. You’re talking about 800 degrees coming down on your head.” McWhorter has been working as a volunteer firefighter with the Monroe Fire Protection District (MFD) since 1969. Simulated fires were one of the protection district’s methods of training volunteers 56 years ago. Now, amid a nationwide
volunteer firefighter shortage, recruiting and training isn’t that simple. According to the National Fire Protection Association, the number of volunteer firefighters in the U.S. is the lowest it has been since they started collecting data in 1986. “It’s a big commitment to be a volunteer, to go on the training,” McWhorter said. “I don’t think the general public realizes that to be a volunteer firefighter, you have to go through all that same training as well.” In Indiana, 80% of first responders are volunteers, according to the MFD. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says more than 70% of fire departments
in Indiana are exclusively manned by volunteers. That means when a shiny, red truck barrels past you, and the doppler effect of the siren shrieks away
surance, only governmentissued workers’ compensation covers if a volunteer gets hurt. They also receive a yearly clothes and car allowance
“It’s special, something that not a lot of people know until they’re in it. I always try to explain it, but you just kind of have to know.” Leigh Dillard, MFD auxiliary member
in your ears, there’s a high chance the people running toward the danger are doing it for free. Volunteers don’t make a salary. While employed firefighters have health in-
from whichever township the department services. That totals a minimum of $200 per department. With what little funding the department receives, McWhorter said, training
IU makes progress on repatriating remains By Ella Curlin elcurlin@iu.edu
Two years after a ProPublica investigation found IU held the fifth largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S., the IU office responsible for returning those remains and cultural items has completed four more repatriations. The IU Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act office works to review and return the thousands of Native American remains and funerary objects still in IU collections. It does so in accordance with NAGPRA, a 1990 law requiring federally funded institutions to repatriate the human remains or items held in their collections to their tribal nations of origin. A ProPublica report updated in January says that IU’s original holdings included 6,100 remains, and IU has completed inventories, the first step towards eventual repatriation, for 1,640 of those remains. Jayne-Leigh Thomas, director of the IU NAGPRA office, said the original number was closer to 5,200 remains, and the office has repatriated from that number. NAGPRA seeks to address centuries during which museums, federal agencies and universities routinely dug up Native American gravesites for display or for research that often amounted to pseudoscience. This desecration of sacred areas and gravesites
contributed to the attempted eradication of Native American cultural practices. IU obtained its collections through donations from museums, universities or private donors, or through excavations beginning in the 1930s. An IDS investigation in 2023 found a loophole in NAGPRA allowed IU, along with other institutions across the country, to go decades without repatriating any of the remains in its collections. Current and former faculty alleged at the time that IU avoided the responsibility and pushed the work to untrained anthropology faculty with fulltime research and teaching responsibilities. Updates to NAGPRA regulations closed that loophole in 2010. Three years later IU hired Thomas, who has a PhD in Archeology from the University of Edinburgh, to direct its NAGPRA office. Since then, ProPublica says the office has completed inventories listing possibly affiliated tribal nations for 1,640 of the remains in its collection. Thomas said those lists could include upwards of 50 tribal nations for a given set of holdings or remains. Once an institution determines the possible tribal affiliation of a set of ancestral remains or cultural items, regulations require institutions to consult — virtually or in person — with representatives from tribal nations. But that can take time.
“Consultation requires the development of a relationship,” Thomas said. “That's not something that can happen overnight.” In 2019, Martha Only A Chief, the NAGPRA coordinator with the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, visited IU to determine the affiliation of several cultural items in IU’s collections. She said the in-person consultation allowed her to fully assess whether those items were Pawnee. “There are certain items where, when they have an inventory, it’ll just say rattles,” Only A Chief said. “Well, a rattle can mean a number of different things, but ours, we have certain rattles that are used in our sacred ceremonies or sacred dances, and some of them that we still use.” That consultation resulted in IU repatriating 27 cultural items to the Pawnee Nation last November, allowing Only A Chief to bring certain items back for eventual display in the Museum of the Pawnee Nation, where tribal members can see them for the first time. “The reason, I feel, for my job, is to bring these items back so our people could see them, and our, you know, our children and grandchildren after that,” Only A Chief said. Thomas said during the consultation process she accommodates the needs of tribal representatives, who may be too busy to start new repatriations or accelerate existing projects. SEE REMAINS, PAGE 4
dinance that gave BFD firefighters a 35% raise to $78,503 for this year. The city raised firefighter pay to improve retention and get ahead of the county’s pay for career firefighters, which stood at $72,820. The BFD also reopened its primary station in October last year after a threeyear, $4.5 million renovation.
new volunteers is notably expensive. Recruits typically move on after they have enough hours to get a career firefighter position. “A lot of the guys are here now for the employment,” McWhorter said. “You come in as a volunteer, you work your way to employment. If there’s an opening, you qualify, you go in.” This is especially true amid a perpetual salary war between Bloomington Fire Department, an entirely career department, and the MFD, a combination of volunteer and career firefighters. Last year, the Bloomington City Council unanimously approved an or-
SEE FIREFIGHTER, PAGE 12 MOLLY GREGORY | IDS
Battalion Chief Jason Allen looks at the Chiefs Hall of Courage on April 15, 2025, at Station 22 in Bloomington. Allen said new volunteers have to complete their training hours during weekends or days off.
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA ATHLETICS
Sophomore forward Edessa Noyan shoots the ball during a game against Coppin State University on Dec. 21, 2024, at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia. Noyan committed to the Hoosiers on Tuesday.
Indiana lands Virginia forward Edessa Noyan By Dalton James
jamesdm@iu.edu | @DaltonMJames
Indiana women’s basketball secured its fourth transfer portal recruit of the offseason April 15, as former University of Virginia forward Edessa Noyan committed to the Hoosiers, according to her Instagram post. Noyan played in 28 games during her freshman season in 2023-24, making three starts as she averaged 2.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. She led the Cavaliers in field goal percentage as she shot 32 for 64 from the field. In 2024-25, the Botkyrka, Sweden, native made 23 starts and took to the court in 26 total games. She missed
three weeks of the season as she was sidelined with pneumonia from Nov. 17 through Dec. 8. The 6-foot-3 Noyan averaged 5.7 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.1 assists per contest. She shot 40.7% from the field and 32.8% from 3-point range as the Cavaliers finished the season with a 17-15 overall record and an 8-10 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play. Noyan was also named to the Under-20 Swedish National Team roster for the 2024 Nordic Championship. She also played in the FIBA U20 Women’s EuroBasket Championship, taking to the court in seven games and averaging 8.4 points and six rebounds.
Indiana head coach Teri Moren’s transfer portal class now includes guard Chloe Spreen, guard Phoenix Stotijn, forward Zania SockaNguemen and Noyan. The Hoosiers roster now has 11 players with six newcomers and five returners. The transfer portal is slated to close April 23, which gives Moren and her staff another week to recruit additional players to the program. Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and Savannah Slone (@ savrivers06) and columnist Ryan Canfield (@RyanCanfieldOnX) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball offseason.