title: Oteil Burbridge

text: In 1998, Burbridge formed a band called Oteil and the Peacemakers. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, it featured musicians Matt Slocum on keyboards, Mark Kimbrell on guitar, Chris Fryar on drums, and vocalist Paul Henson, a carry over from the post-Colonel Aquarium Rescue Unit releases. They released their first album, "Love of a Lifetime", that same year. That was followed up in 2003 by the CD/DVD set entitled "The Family Secret". In 2005, Burbridge took his music in a greater spiritual direction for their third album titled "Believer".


title: Oteil Burbridge

text: Burbridge also was approached by Page McConnell of Phish who invited him and Russell Batiste, Jr. (then of the Funky Meters) to participate in another venture as an electronic trio with vocals. Their name was not chosen until Major League Baseball pitcher Vida Blue hopped up on stage with them and they decided to name themselves after the baseball star. The trio formed in 2001 and continued performing until 2004, putting out a DVD and two albums, and later joining forces with a Latin-rock sextet which sampled a variety of musical genres including the jazz and electronic music-flavored alternative rock music of Vida Blue.


title: Oteil Burbridge

text: The Green Thumb is a serial comic book that Burbridge created with artist LeVar Carter following the adventures of twin cannabis superheroes. The comic explores themes involving the power of nature and spirituality, the role corporations and governments play in stifling scientific and cultural advancements for the purpose of preserving profits and power, and also what it means to be deemed illegal just by one's lot in life (as it pertains to one's biology, nationality, gender, sexuality). A book featuring the characters was published in 2014.


title: Oteil Burbridge

text: Burbridge also had a bit part, as a teenager, playing a street thug named Lolo in the 1979 Peter Sellers movie "Being There". The movie is a black comedy about politics and the woes of celebrity and fame. Although Burbridge plays a small part in a short scene, it is one of the film's many famous moments.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Walter Gretzky, (October 8, 1938 – March 4, 2021) was a Canadian philanthropist who was best known as the father of Canadian ice hockey icon Wayne Gretzky.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: An avid hockey player as a youth, and a keen analyst of the game, he built a backyard rink for his children, and coached Wayne continually from the age of three, devising creative exercises and drills, and teaching him profound insights into how to play successfully. Wayne credited his father as playing a key role in his success, citing advice such as "skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been".


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Gretzky contributed to minor hockey in Canada, and helped many local, provincial and national charities, for which he was honoured.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: The Gretzky family were landowners in the multinational Russian Empire, and supporters of Tsar Nicholas II, originally from Grodno (now in Belarus). Prior to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Gretzky's father Anton ("Tony") Gretzky (, ) immigrated along with his family to Canada via the United States, landing first in Chicago. Following World War I, Anton, who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, married Mary, who immigrated from the town of Pidhaitsi, in what was then eastern Poland and after World War II became western Ukraine due to border shifts.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Gretzky's ancestry is typically described as either Belarusian, Ukrainian, or Polish. In interviews, Gretzky stated that his parents were "white Russians from Belarus", and whenever anyone asked his father if they were Russian, he would reply, ""Nyet." Belarus." On other occasions he mentioned his family's Polish ancestry. In his autobiography, however, Gretzky stated that his first language was Ukrainian which would logically have come from his mother's influence and which is not inconsistent with being of Belarusian or Polish heritage on his father's side.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Tony and Mary owned a cucumber farm in Canning, Ontario, where Walter Gretzky was born and raised. This is where he met his future wife, Phyllis Hockin, at a wiener roast when she was 15 and he was 18. She may have been a descendant of British General Sir Isaac Brock, a hero of the War of 1812. They married in 1960, and moved to Brantford, Ontario, where Gretzky worked as a cable repairman for Bell Telephone Canada. The family moved into a house on Varadi Avenue in Brantford seven months after the birth of their son, Wayne, chosen partly because the yard was flat enough to be able to make an ice rink every winter. The couple would later have a daughter, Kim, and three more sons, Keith, Glen, and Brent.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Gretzky was an athlete in high school. In track and field, he set school records in running, pole vault, and long jump. He preferred hockey, and in his teens was a prolific goal-scorer during five years of play with the Junior B-level Woodstock Warriors. He set his sights on the National Hockey League (NHL), and some thought he was destined to make it there.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: A local car salesman gave Gretzky a bargain so he could more easily drive to hockey games in and around Woodstock, but his relatively small size and weight, at 5-foot-9 inches and 140 lbs, was a problem for progressing in hockey. He tried out for a major team at the Junior A level, a few weeks after catching chicken pox and losing considerable weight. Although he scored just as many goals in the tryout game as any of his fellow hopefuls, he was judged to be too small for the higher league. He returned to play with the Woodstock team.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Walter was an installer and repairman for Bell Canada for 34 years, retiring in 1991. A work-related injury in 1961 put him in a coma and deafened his right ear.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Five days after his 53rd birthday, in 1991, a near-fatal brain aneurysm impaired his short-term memory. His physical therapist, Ian Kohler, married his daughter Kim in 1995. His ordeal is the basis of the CBC movie "Waking Up Wally: The Walter Gretzky Story".


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Walter Gretzky devised numerous creative ways to develop hockey skills, which were often ahead of their time in Canada. Wayne Gretzky would later remark that the Soviet national team's practice drills, which impressed Canada in 1972, had nothing to offer him: "I'd been doing those drills since I was three. My Dad was very smart."


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Some say I have a "sixth sense" ... Baloney, I've just learned to guess what's going to happen next. It's anticipation. It's not God-given, it's Wally-given. He used to stand on the blue line and say to me, "Watch, this is how everybody else does it." Then he'd shoot a puck along the boards and into the corner and then go chasing after it. Then he'd come back and say, "Now, this is how the smart player does it." He'd shoot it into the corner again, only this time he cut across to the other side and picked it up over there. Who says anticipation can't be taught?


title: Walter Gretzky

text: In his autobiography, Wayne describes how his Dad would teach him the fundamentals of smart hockey, quiz style:


title: Walter Gretzky

text: From September 2004 to April 2005, Walter was an assistant coach for the University of Pittsburgh inline hockey team. A long time friend of head coach Bob Coyne, Walter was hired by team president Ryan Gaus as an assistant coach, along with Bob Bradley and Tim Fryer. Pitt participated in the Eastern Collegiate Roller Hockey Association (ECRHA) at the Division I level.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Walter had worked for the CNIB Foundation (formerly the Canadian National Institute for the Blind). The entire Gretzky family is now associated with the CNIB.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: The Gretzkys' support of the CNIB started when Wayne was 19 years old. Two completely blind boys started to talk to him, and one recognized him by his voice. He felt a sense of compassion and persuaded his father to set up a golf tournament to raise cash for the CNIB. These tournaments soon gained fame and attracted NHL players and celebrities. Brendan Shanahan, the Toronto Maple Leafs, Eddie Mio, Brett Hull, Gordie Howe, Scott Stevens, Mark Messier, Marty McSorley, Glen Campbell and Paul Coffey are among hockey names that have attended. Celebrities who have attended include John Candy, Rob Lowe, Teri Garr, Alan Thicke, Jamie Farr, Bob Woods, Kevin Smith, and David Foster. All the money from these tournaments funds visually impaired Canadian university students. At the first tournament, Walter had enough money raised to award three scholarships, which increased to 15 scholarships a year. After eleven years, these tournaments raised over three million dollars.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Another fundraiser that Walter Gretzky established was the SCORE program (Summer Computer Orientation Recreational Education). SCORE helps blind students learn computer skills that will be needed for jobs in the future and increases blind students' access to computer programs and internet applications. So far SCORE has provided over 500 career positions for visually impaired students.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Gretzky wrote two books: "On Family, Hockey and Healing" (2001), and "Gretzky: From Backyard Rink to the Stanley Cup" (1985), in which he recounted how he recognized Wayne's prodigious skills and shaped him into the most prolific scorer in hockey history.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: He was awarded the "Brantford Citizen of the Year award" in 1996. He was also an inductee to the Brantford Walk of Fame.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: He was appointed as a Member of the Order of Ontario (O.Ont) in 2002. Gretzky was named a Member of the Order of Canada on December 28, 2007, "for his contributions to minor hockey in Canada and for his dedication to helping a myriad of local, provincial, and national charities". On February 12, 2010, Gretzky carried the Olympic Torch during the Olympic Relay on the last day of the relay, hours before the opening ceremonies in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Wayne later lit the Olympic Flame.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: On April 12, 2012, in his home town of Brantford, Ontario, the Grand Erie District School Board opened Walter Gretzky Elementary School. It is part of a dual-track Catholic-Public Green School with the Brant Haldimand-Norfolk Catholic District School Board's St. Basil's School.


title: Walter Gretzky

text: Gretzky's wife Phyllis died of lung cancer on December 19, 2005. Gretzky was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2012 and died on March 4, 2021, after suffering a hip injury three weeks prior, at the age of 82. Gretzky's funeral was held at St. Mark's Anglican Church in Brantford on March 6. He was buried at Farringdon Burial Ground in Brantford.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Douglas Alexander Zembiec (April 14, 1973 – May 11, 2007), nicknamed the "Lion of Fallujah" and also referred to as the "Unapologetic Warrior", was an officer in the United States Marine Corps and member of the CIA's Special Activities Division's Ground Branch who was killed in action while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is best known for his actions during Operation Vigilant Resolve, which were detailed in the book "No True Glory" by Bing West and for an article that ran in "The Wall Street Journal" following his death.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Doug Zembiec was born on April 14, 1973, in Kealakekua, Hawaii. He attended La Cueva High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was a New Mexico state high school wrestling champion in 1990 and 1991. As a wrestler, Zembiec was the first New Mexico State Champion in any sport and the first repeat winner from La Cueva High School. He was undefeated in competition his senior year.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: He attended the United States Naval Academy where he was a member of 23rd Company, and a collegiate wrestler compiling a 95–21–1 record and finishing as a two-time NCAA All-American. His fellow wrestlers sometimes referred to him as "The Snake" for his anaconda-like grip. Zembiec was well-known amongst his contemporaries throughout his athletic and professional life for his exceptional physical fitness. His coach, Reginald Wicks, referred to him as "the best-conditioned athlete I've ever been around." Zembiec graduated on May 31, 1995.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, Zembiec was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. After finishing The Basic School, and the Infantry Officer's Course, he was assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th Marines as a rifle platoon commander in Bravo Company, starting April 1996. After successfully passing the Force Reconnaissance Selection and Indoctrination in June 1997, Zembiec transferred to 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company. As part of his training for Force Reconnaissance, Zembiec completed Jump School as well as the Marine Combatant Diver Course. He served for two and a half years as a platoon commander, eight months as an interim company commander, and one month as an operations officer.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Zembiec's Force Reconnaissance platoon was among the first special operations forces to enter Kosovo during Operation Joint Guardian in June 1999.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: In September 2000, he was transferred to the Amphibious Reconnaissance School (ARS) located in Fort Story, Virginia, and served as the Assistant Officer-In-Charge (AOIC) for two years.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: In 2001, Zembiec competed in the Armed Forces Eco-Challenge as team captain of Team Force Recon Rolls Royce.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: From ARS, Zembiec was selected to attend the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico, Virginia, graduating in May 2003. Following the Expeditionary Warfare School he took command of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division in July 2003.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: He was nicknamed the "Lion of Fallujah" as a result of his heroic actions commanding Echo Company during Operation Vigilant Resolve (also known as the First Battle of Fallujah) in 2004 as well as comments he made extolling the heroism of his marines, saying "they fought like lions". As a rifle company commander, he led 168 Marines and Navy Corpsmen in the first conventional ground assault into Fallujah. During one engagement, he ran out from cover despite heavy machine gun and RPG fire, jumped on an allied tank to help direct its fire, then returned to cover unscathed. A fellow officer stated "The jaws of every Marine there had dropped. It was like, 'Did he just do that?' I am a God-fearing man, but he just sort of walked on water that day". His company suffered two KIA and 50 wounded during the battle. The letter he wrote to the family of Lance Cpl. Aaron C. Austin was included in the Operation Homecoming book released in 2006. As a result, he earned the Bronze Star with Combat Distinguishing Device and the Purple Heart.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: He turned over command of Echo Company in October 2004 and served as an assistant operations officer at the Marine Corps' First Special Operations Training Group (1st SOTG) where he ran the urban patrolling / Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) and tank-infantry training packages for the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit in preparation for an upcoming deployment to Iraq. Zembiec transferred from 1st SOTG to the Regional Support Element, Headquarters, Marine Corps on June 10, 2005. His promotion to Major was effective on July 1, 2005.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Zembiec was serving in the Ground Branch of the CIA's Special Activities Division in Iraq when he was killed by small arms fire while leading a raid in Sadr City, a neighborhood of Baghdad, on May 11, 2007. Zembiec was leading a unit of Iraqi forces he had helped train. Reports from fellow servicemen that were present when he was killed indicate that he had warned his troops to get down before doing so himself and was hit by enemy fire. The initial radio report indicated "five wounded and one martyred" with Zembiec having been killed and his men saved by his warning. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions that day. On May 16, 2007, a funeral mass was held at the Naval Academy Chapel with nearly 1,000 in attendance, about 40 of whom were enlisted Marines. It was a testament to the honor and respect his former Marines held him in as one officer observed "Your men have to follow your orders; they don't have to go to your funeral". Later that day he was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, Grave Number 8621, Section Number 60. Zembiec is buried only a few yards away from his Naval Academy classmate, Major Megan McClung. McClung was the first female Marine Corps officer killed in combat during the Iraq War, and first female graduate in the history of the Naval Academy to be killed in action. Shortly after his death, he was honored with a star on the CIA Memorial Wall, which remembers CIA employees who died while in service. Although Zembiec's star officially remains anonymous as of July 2014, his CIA employment was confirmed in interviews with his widow and former U.S. intelligence officials.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: In July 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates publicly lost his composure, showing signs of grief, while discussing Zembiec during a speech. Zembiec was also prominently featured in a high-profile column in "The Wall Street Journal" in September 2007. In November 2007, Zembiec's high school alma mater, La Cueva High School, inducted him as the charter member of their hall of fame and named the wrestling room in his honor. The NCAA announced that Zembiec would be awarded the 2008 NCAA Award of Valor. In January 2008 General David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Force – Iraq, dedicated the helipad at Camp Victory located at Baghdad International Airport in Zembiec's name. He referred to Zembiec as "a true charter member of the brotherhood of the close fight." Zembiec is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Don Zembiec, brother, and his wife and daughter, Pamela and Fallyn.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: On May 11, 2009, a petition was presented to the Secretary of the Navy to have the next Arleigh Burke class destroyer to be commissioned named after Zembiec.


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: By order of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the was created on April 11, 2011, to annually recognize the Marine officer who "best exemplifies outstanding leadership as a Team Leader in the Marine Corps Special Operations Community."


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Zembiec left many volumes of personal writings behind, some of which were shared at his funeral. The final words of the eulogy, delivered by his friend Eric L. Kapitulik, related some of those writings:


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Kapitulik said the creed came from the man who knew Zembiec the longest, as indicated by his written description: "Principles my father taught me."


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: Other quotes: "Killing is not wrong if it's for a purpose, if it's to keep your nation free or protect your buddy. One of the most noble things you can do is kill the enemy."


title: Douglas A. Zembiec

text: The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Silver Star (Posthumously) to Major Douglas Alexander Zembiec, United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as a Marine Advisor, Iraq Assistance Group, Multi-National Corps, Iraq, in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM on 11 May 2007. Attacking from concealed and fortified positions, an enemy force engaged Major Zembiec's assault team, firing crew-served automatic weapons and various small arms. He boldly moved forward and immediately directed the bulk of his assault team to take cover. Under withering enemy fire, Major Zembiec remained in an exposed, but tactically critical, position in order to provide leadership and direct effective suppressive fire on the enemy combatant positions with his assault team's machine gun. In doing so, he received the brunt of the enemy's fire, was struck and succumbed to his wounds. Emboldened by his actions his team and supporting assault force aggressively engaged the enemy combatants. Major Zembiec's quick thinking and timely action to re-orient his team's machine gun enabled the remaining members of his unit to rapidly and accurately engage the primary source of the enemy's fire saving the lives of his comrades. By his bold initiative, undaunted courage, and complete dedication to duty, Major Zembiec reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.


title: Nature Cat

text: Nature Cat is an educational animated children's television series that premiered on November 25, 2015 on PBS Kids and is aimed at children aged 3–8. The series follows the adventures of four main characters: Nature Cat, Hal the Dog, Squeeks the Mouse, and Daisy the Bunny. The show has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program". The series debut in November achieved nearly 3.7 million viewers, and by March it has achieved 69 million video streams across online platforms. As of October 2016, Nature Cat has been renewed for a second and third season. The second season premiered on January 1, 2018. Then the third season premiered on April 18, 2019. In 2021, the show was renewed for a fourth and fifth season. The fourth season premiered on May 9, 2022.


title: Nature Cat

text: The show's soundtrack, "The Green Album", was released on February 16, 2018 through BMG Rights Management (which also owns the song publishing rights to "Nature Cat").


title: Nature Cat

text: On June 5, 2018, the first DVD "Onward and Pondward" was released. Tomy owns the toy license to "Nature Cat", and has released several stuffed animals of the main characters.


title: Nature Cat

text: The series takes place in the suburban areas of Chicago, Illinois, following Fred, a yellow house cat with dreams of exploring outside. Once his human owners leave for the day from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM, he transforms into Nature Cat, who cannot wait for backyard nature excursions. However, Fred has one problem: he has no instincts for nature. Through the learning experiences of the characters, this series intends to encourage children to similarly engage with and develop understanding of nature.


title: Nature Cat

text: Many primary cast members are better known for their work on the hit NBC comedy sketch show, "Saturday Night Live".


title: Nature Cat

text: The series aired on Family Jr. and Family CHRGD in Canada, Discovery Kids in Latin America, and TG4 in Ireland for Season 1. It is currently unknown when Season 2 and 3 will be airing internationally.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Shear force and bending moment diagrams are analytical tools used in conjunction with structural analysis to help perform structural design by determining the value of shear forces and bending moments at a given point of a structural element such as a beam. These diagrams can be used to easily determine the type, size, and material of a member in a structure so that a given set of loads can be supported without structural failure. Another application of shear and moment diagrams is that the deflection of a beam can be easily determined using either the moment area method or the conjugate beam method.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Although these conventions are relative and any convention can be used if stated explicitly, practicing engineers have adopted a standard convention used in design practices.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: The normal convention used in most engineering applications is to label a positive shear force - one that spins an element clockwise (up on the left, and down on the right). Likewise the normal convention for a positive bending moment is to warp the element in a "u" shape manner (Clockwise on the left, and counterclockwise on the right). Another way to remember this is if the moment is bending the beam into a "smile" then the moment is positive, with compression at the top of the beam and tension on the bottom.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: In structural engineering and in particular concrete design the positive moment is drawn on the tension side of the member. This convention puts the positive moment below the beam described above. A convention of placing moment diagram on the tension side allows for frames to be dealt with more easily and clearly. Additionally, placing the moment on the tension side of the member shows the general shape of the deformation and indicates on which side of a concrete member rebar should be placed, as concrete is weak in tension.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: With the loading diagram drawn the next step is to find the value of the shear force and moment at any given point along the element. For a horizontal beam one way to perform this is at any point to "chop off" the right end of the beam.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: The example below includes a point load, a distributed load, and an applied moment. The supports include both hinged supports and a fixed end support. The first drawing shows the beam with the applied forces and displacement constraints. The second drawing is the loading diagram with the reaction values given without the calculations shown or what most people call a free body diagram. The third drawing is the shear force diagram and the fourth drawing is the bending moment diagram. For the bending moment diagram the normal sign convention was used. Below the moment diagram are the stepwise functions for the shear force and bending moment with the functions expanded to show the effects of each load on the shear and bending functions.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: The example is illustrated using United States customary units. Point loads are expressed in kips (1 kip = 1000 lbf = 4.45 kN), distributed loads are expressed in k/ft (1 k/ft = 1 kip/ft = 14.6 kN/m), moments are expressed in ft-k (1 ft-k = 1 ft-kip = 1.356 kNm), and lengths are in ft (1 ft = 0.3048 m).


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: The first step obtaining the bending moment and shear force equations is to determine the reaction forces. This is done using a free body diagram of the entire beam.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: The beam has three reaction forces, "R", "R" at the two supports and "R" at the clamped end. The clamped end also has a reaction couple "M". These four quantities have to be determined using two equations, the balance of forces in the beam and the balance of moments in the beam. Four unknowns cannot be found given two independent equations in these unknown variables and hence the beam is statically indeterminate. One way of solving this problem is to use the principle of linear superposition and break the problem up into the superposition of a number of statically determinate problems. The extra boundary conditions at the supports have to be incorporated into the superposed solution so that the deformation of the entire beam is compatible.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: If we plug in the expressions for "R" and "R" we get the trivial identity "0 = 0" which indicates that this equation is not independent of the previous two. Similarly, if we take moments around the second support, we have


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Once again we find that this equation is not independent of the first two equations. We could also try to compute moments around the clamped end of the beam to get


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: This equation also turns out not to be linearly independent from the other two equations. Therefore, the beam is statically indeterminate and we will have to find the bending moments in segments of the beam as functions of "R" and "M".


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: After the reaction forces are found, you then break the beam into pieces. The location and number of external forces on the member determine the number and location of these pieces. The first piece always starts from one end and ends anywhere before the first external force.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Let "V" and "M" be the shear force and bending moment respectively in a cross-section of the first beam segment. As the section of the beam moves towards the point of application of the external force the magnitudes of the shear force and moment may change. This makes the shear force and bending moment a function of the position of cross-section (in this example "x").


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: By summing the forces along this segment and summing the moments, the equations for the shear force and bending moment are obtained. These equations are:


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Notice that because the shear force is in terms of x, the moment equation is squared. This is due to the fact that the moment is the integral of the shear force. The tricky part of this moment is the distributed force. Since the force changes with the length of the segment, the force will be multiplied by the distance after 10 ft. i.e. (x-10) the moment location is defined in the middle of the distributed force, which is also changing. This is where (x+10)/2 is derived from.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Notice that the distributed force can now be considered one force of 15 kips acting in the middle of where it is positioned.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: By plotting each of these equations on their intended intervals, you get the bending moment and shear force diagrams for this beam. In particular, at the clamped end of the beam, "x" = 50 and we have


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: We now use the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory to compute the deflections of the four segments. The differential equation that relates the beam deflection ("w") to the bending moment ("M") is


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Substituting the expressions for "M", "M", "M", "M" into the beam equation and solving for the deflection gives us


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Now we will apply displacement boundary conditions for the four segments to determine the integration constants.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: For the fourth segment of the beam, we consider the boundary conditions at the clamped end where "w" = d"w"/d"x" = 0 at "x" = 50. Solving for "C" and "C" gives


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Now, "w" = "w" at "x" = 37.5 (the point of application of the external couple). Also, the slopes of the deflection curves at this point are the same, i.e., "dw"/"dx" = "dw"/"dx". Using these boundary conditions and solving for "C" and "C", we get


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Similarly, at the support between segments 2 and 3 where "x" = 25, "w" = "w" and "dw"/"dx" = "dw"/"dx". Using these and solving for "C" and "C" gives


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: At the support between segments 1 and 2, "x" = 10 and "w" = "w" and "dw"/"dx" = "dw"/"dx". These boundary conditions give us


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Also, since "w" = 0 at "x" = 10, expressing the deflection in terms of "R" (after eliminating "M") and solving for "R", gives


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: We can now calculate the reactions "R" and "R", the bending moments "M", "M", "M", "M", and the shear forces "V", "V", "V", "V". These expressions can then be plotted as a function of length for each segment.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: It is important to note the relationship between the two diagrams. The moment diagram is a visual representation of the area under the shear force diagram. That is, the moment is the integral of the shear force. If the shear force is constant over an interval, the moment equation will be in terms of x (linear). If the shear force is linear over an interval, the moment equation will be quadratic (parabolic).


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Another note on the shear force diagrams is that they show where external force and moments are applied. With no external forces, the piecewise functions should attach and show no discontinuity. The discontinuities on the graphs are the exact magnitude of either the external force or external moments that are applied. For example, at x = 10 on the shear force diagram, there is a gap between the two equations. This gap goes from -10 to 15.3. The length of this gap is 25.3, the exact magnitude of the external force at that point. At section 3 on the moment diagram, there is a discontinuity of 50. This is from the applied moment of 50 on the structure. The maximum and minimum values on the graphs represent the max forces and moments that this beam will have under these circumstances.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Since this method can easily become unnecessarily complicated with relatively simple problems, it can be quite helpful to understand different relations between the loading, shear, and moment diagram. The first of these is the relationship between a distributed load on the loading diagram and the shear diagram. Since a distributed load varies the shear load according to its magnitude it can be derived that the slope of the shear diagram is equal to the magnitude of the distributed load. The relationship, described by Schwedler's theorem, between distributed load and shear force magnitude is:


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Some direct results of this is that a shear diagram will have a point change in magnitude if a point load is applied to a member, and a linearly varying shear magnitude as a result of a constant distributed load.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: Similarly it can be shown that the slope of the moment diagram at a given point is equal to the magnitude of the shear diagram at that distance. The relationship between distributed shear force and bending moment is:


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: A direct result of this is that at every point the shear diagram crosses zero the moment diagram will have a local maximum or minimum. Also if the shear diagram is zero over a length of the member, the moment diagram will have a constant value over that length. By calculus it can be shown that a point load will lead to a linearly varying moment diagram, and a constant distributed load will lead to a quadratic moment diagram.


title: Shear and moment diagram

text: In practical applications the entire stepwise function is rarely written out. The only parts of the stepwise function that would be written out are the moment equations in a nonlinear portion of the moment diagram; this occurs whenever a distributed load is applied to the member. For constant portions the value of the shear and/or moment diagram is written right on the diagram, and for linearly varying portions of a member the beginning value, end value, and slope or the portion of the member are all that are required.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters are a group of non-passerine birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by richly coloured plumage, slender bodies, and usually elongated central tail feathers. All have long down-turned bills and medium to long wings, which may be pointed or round. Male and female plumages are usually similar.


title: Bee-eater

text: As their name suggests, bee-eaters predominantly eat flying insects, especially bees and wasps, which are caught on the wing from an open perch. The insect's stinger is removed by repeatedly hitting and rubbing the insect on a hard surface. During this process, pressure is applied to the insect's body, thereby discharging most of the venom.


title: Bee-eater

text: Most bee-eaters are gregarious. They form colonies, nesting in burrows tunnelled into vertical sandy banks, often at the side of a river or in flat ground. As they mostly live in colonies, large numbers of nest holes may be seen together. The eggs are white, with typically five to the clutch. Most species are monogamous, and both parents care for their young, sometimes with assistance from related birds in the colony.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters may be killed by raptors; their nests are raided by rodents, weasels, martens and snakes, and they can carry various parasites. Some species are adversely affected by human activity or habitat loss, but none meet the International Union for Conservation of Nature's vulnerability criteria, and all are therefore evaluated as "least concern". Their conspicuous appearance means that they have been mentioned by ancient writers and incorporated into mythology.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters were first named as a scientific group by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, who created the bird subfamily Meropia for these birds in 1815. The name, now modernised as Meropidae, is derived from "Merops", the Ancient Greek for "bee-eater", and the English term "bee-eater" was first recorded in 1668, referring to the European species.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters have been considered to be related to other families, such as the rollers, hoopoes and kingfishers, but ancestors of those families diverged from the bee-eaters at least forty million years ago, so any relationship is not close. The scarcity of fossils is unhelpful. Bee-eater fossils from the Pleistocene (2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago) have been found in Austria, and there are Holocene (from 11,700 years ago to present) specimens from Israel and Russia, but all have proved to be of the extant European bee-eater. Opinions vary as to the bee-eater's nearest relatives. In 2001, Fry considered the kingfishers to be the most likely, whereas a large study published in 2008 found that bee-eaters are sister to all other Coraciiformes (rollers, ground rollers, todies, motmots and kingfishers). A 2009 book supported Fry's contention, but then a later study in 2015 suggested that the bee-eaters are sister to the rollers. The 2008 and 2015 papers both linked the kingfishers to the New World motmots.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters are generally similar in appearance, although they are normally divided into three genera. "Nyctyornis" comprises two large species with long throat feathers, the blue-bearded bee-eater and the red-bearded bee-eater, both of which have rounded wings, a ridged culmen, feathered nostrils and a relatively sluggish lifestyle. The purple-bearded bee-eater is the sole member of "Meropogon", which is intermediate between "Nyctyornis" and the typical bee-eaters, having rounded wings and a "beard", but a smooth culmen and no nostril feathers. All the remaining species are normally retained in the single genus "Merops". There are close relationships within this genus, for example the red-throated bee-eater and the white-fronted bee-eater form a superspecies, but formerly suggested genera, such as "Aerops", "Melittophagus", "Bombylonax" and "Dicrocercus", have not been generally accepted for several decades since a 1969 paper united them in the current arrangement.


title: Bee-eater

text: The Asian green bee-eater, African green bee-eater, and Arabian green bee-eater were previously considered to be a single species, and are still treated as such by some authorities.


title: Bee-eater

text: A 2007 nuclear and mitochondrial DNA study produced a possible phylogenetic tree, although the position of the purple-bearded bee-eater seems anomalous, in that it appears amongst "Merops" species.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters are morphologically a fairly uniform group. They share many features with related Coraciiformes such as the kingfishers and rollers, being large-headed (although less so than their relatives), short-necked, brightly plumaged and short-legged. Their wings may be rounded or pointed, with the wing shape closely correlated with the species' preferred foraging habitat and migratory tendencies. Shorter, rounder wings are found on species that are sedentary and make typically short foraging flights in denser forests and reed-beds. Those with more elongated wings are more migratory. All the bee-eaters are highly aerial; they take off strongly from perches, fly directly without undulations, and are able to change direction quickly, although they rarely hover.


title: Bee-eater

text: The flight feathers of the wing comprise 10 primaries, the outermost being very small, and 13 secondaries, and there are 12 tail feathers.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bills of bee-eaters are curved, long and end in a sharp point. The bill can bite strongly, particularly at the tip, and it is used as a pair of forceps with which to snatch insects from the air and crush smaller prey. The short legs have weak feet, and when it is moving on the ground a bee-eater's gait is barely more than a shuffle. The feet have sharp claws used for perching on vertical surfaces and also for nest excavation.


title: Bee-eater

text: The plumage of the family is generally very bright and in most species is mainly or at least partially green, although the two carmine bee-eaters are primarily rose-coloured. Most of the "Merops" bee-eaters have a black bar through the eye and many have differently coloured throats and faces. The extent of the green in these species varies from almost complete in the green bee-eater to barely any green in the white-throated bee-eater. Three species, from equatorial Africa, have no green at all in their plumage, the black bee-eater, the blue-headed bee-eater and the rosy bee-eater. Many species have elongated central tail feathers.


title: Bee-eater

text: There is little visible difference between the sexes in most of the family, although in several species the iris is red in the males and brown-red in the females, and in species with tail-streamers these may be slightly longer in males. Both the European and red-bearded bee-eaters have sex-based differences in their plumage colour, and the female rainbow bee-eater has shorter tail streamers than the male, which terminate in a club-shape that he lacks. There may be instances where bee-eaters are sexually dichromatic at the ultraviolet part of the colour spectrum, which humans cannot see. A study of blue-tailed bee-eater found that males were more colourful than females in UV light. Their overall colour was also affected by body condition, suggesting that there was a signalling component to plumage colour. Juveniles are generally similar to adults, except for the two "Nyctyornis" species, in which the young have mainly green plumage.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters have calls that are characteristic for each species. Most sound simple to the human ear, but show significant variability when studied in detail, carrying significant information for the birds.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters have an Old World distribution, occurring from Europe to Australia. The centre of diversity of the family is Africa, although a number of species also occur in Asia. Single species occur in each of Europe, (the European bee-eater), Australia (the rainbow bee-eater) and Madagascar (the olive bee-eater, also found on mainland Africa). Of the three genera, "Merops", which has the majority of the species, occurs across the entirety of the family's distribution. "Nyctyornis" is restricted to Asia, ranging from India and southern China to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The genus "Meropogon" has a single species restricted to Sulawesi in Indonesia.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters are fairly indiscriminate in their choice of habitat. Their requirements are simply an elevated perch from which to watch for prey and a suitable ground substrate in which to dig their breeding burrow. Because their prey is entirely caught on the wing they are not dependent on any vegetation type. A single species, the blue-headed bee-eater, is found inside closed rainforest where it forages close to the ground in poor light in the gaps between large trees. Six other species are also closely associated with rainforest, but occur in edge habitat such as along rivers, in tree-fall gaps, off trees overhanging ravines or on emergent tree crowns above the main canopy.


title: Bee-eater

text: Species that breed in subtropical or temperate areas of Europe, Asia and Australia are all migratory. The European bee-eaters that breed in southern Europe and Asia migrate to West and southern Africa. Another population of the same species breeds in South Africa and Namibia; these birds move northwards after breeding. In Australia the rainbow bee-eater is migratory in the southern areas of its range, migrating to Indonesia and New Guinea, but occurs year-round in northern Australia. Several species of bee-eater, are intra-African migrants; the white-throated bee-eater, for example, breeds on the southern edge of the Sahara and winters further south in equatorial rainforest. The most unusual migration is that of the southern carmine bee-eater, which has a three-stage migration; after breeding in a band between Angola and Mozambique it moves south to Botswana, Namibia and South Africa before moving north to its main wintering grounds in northern Angola, Congo and Tanzania.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters are diurnal, although a few species may migrate during the night if the terrain "en route" is unsuitable for stopping or if they are crossing the sea. Bee-eaters are highly social, and pairs sitting or roosting together are often so close that they touch (an individual distance of zero). Many species are colonial in the breeding season and some species are also highly gregarious when not nesting.


title: Bee-eater

text: The social structures of the red-throated bee-eater and the white-fronted bee-eaters have been described as more complex than for any other bird species. The birds exist in colonies located on nesting cliffs, and have a stable structure all year round. These colonies typically contain five to 50 burrows, occasionally up to 200, and are composed of clans of two or three pairs, their helpers, and their offspring. The helpers are male offspring from a previous year. Within the colony, the males alternate between guarding their mate and attempting to make forced copulations with other females. The females in turn attempt to lay eggs in their neighbour's nests, an example of brood parasitism. Some individuals also specialise in kleptoparasitism, stealing prey collected by other colony members. The colony's daily routine is to emerge from the nesting holes or roosting branches soon after dawn, preen and sun themselves for an hour, then disperse to feed. Feeding territories are divided by clan, with each clan defending its territory from all others of the same species, including clans of the same colony. The clans return to the colony before dusk, and engage in more social behaviour before retiring for the night. Colonies are situated several hundred metres apart and have little to do with each other, although young individuals may disperse between colonies. As such these species can be thought to have four tiers of social kinship, the individual pair, the family unit, the clan and the colony as a whole.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters spend around 10% of their day on comfort activities. These include sunning themselves, dust bathing and water bathing. Sunning behaviour helps warm birds in the morning, reducing the need to use energy to raise their temperature. It also has a social aspect, as multiple birds adopt the same posture. Finally, it may help stimulate parasites in the feathers, making them easier to find and remove. Due to their hole-nesting lifestyle, bee-eaters accumulate a number of external parasites such as mites and flies. Together with sunning, bouts of dust bathing (or water bathing where available), as well as rigorous preening, keep the feathers and skin in good health. Bathing with water involves making shallow dives into a water body and then returning to a perch to preen.


title: Bee-eater

text: The bee-eaters are almost exclusively aerial hunters of insect prey. Prey is caught either on the wing or more commonly from an exposed perch from which the bee-eater watches for prey. Smaller, rounder-winged bee-eaters typically hunt from branches and twigs closer to the ground, whereas the larger species hunt from tree tops or telephone wires. One unusual technique often used by carmine bee-eaters is to ride on the backs of bustards.


title: Bee-eater

text: Prey can be spotted from a distance; European bee-eaters are able to spot a bee away, and blue-cheeked bee-eaters have been observed flying out to catch large wasps. Prey is approached directly or from behind. Prey that lands on the ground or on plants is usually not pursued. Small prey may be eaten on the wing, but larger items are returned to the perch where they are beaten until dead and then broken up. Insects with poisonous stings are first smacked on the branch, then, with the bird's eyes closed, rubbed to discharge the venom sac and stinger. This behaviour is innate, as demonstrated by a juvenile bird in captivity, which performed the task when first presented with wild bees. This bird was stung on the first five tries, but by ten bees, it was as adept at handling bees as adult birds.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters consume a wide range of insects; beyond a few distasteful butterflies they consume almost any insect from tiny "Drosophila" flies to large beetles and dragonflies. At some point bee-eaters have been recorded eating beetles, mayflies, stoneflies, cicadas, termites, crickets and grasshoppers, mantises, true flies and moths. For many species, the dominant prey item are stinging members of the order Hymenoptera, namely wasps and bees. In a survey of 20 studies, the proportion of the diet made up by bees and wasps varied from 20% to 96%, with the average being 70%. Of these honeybees can comprise a large part of the diet, as much as 89% of the overall intake. The preference for bees and wasps may have arisen because of the numerical abundance of these suitably sized insects. The giant honeybee is a particularly commonly eaten species. These bees attempt to congregate in a mass defence against the bee-eaters. In Israel, a European bee-eater was documented attempting to eat a small bat that it had caught, which probably could not fit down its throat.


title: Bee-eater

text: Like kingfishers, bee-eaters regurgitate pellets of undigested material, typically long black oblongs.


title: Bee-eater

text: If an apiary is set up close to a bee-eater colony, a larger number of honey bees are eaten because they are more abundant. However, studies show the bee-eaters do not intentionally fly into the apiary, rather they feed on the insects caught on pastures and meadows within a radius of from the colony, this maximum distance being reached only when there is a shortage of food. Observations show that the birds actually enter the apiary only in cold and rainy periods, when the bees do not leave the hive and other insect prey are harder for the bee-eaters to detect.


title: Bee-eater

text: Many bee-keepers believe that the bee-eaters are the main obstacle causing worker bees not to forage, and instead stay inside the hives for much of the day between May and the end of August. However, a study carried out in a eucalyptus forest in the Alaluas region in the Murqub District in Libya, east of Tripoli, showed that the bee-eaters were not the main obstacle to bee foraging; in some cases, the foraging rate was higher in the presence of the birds than in their absence. The average bird meal consisted of 90.8% honey bees and 9.2% beetles.


title: Bee-eater

text: Predation is more likely when the bees are queening or during the peak of migration, from late March till mid-April, and in mid-September. Hives close to or under trees or overhead cables are at increased risk as the birds pounce on flying insects from these perches.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters are monogamous during a nesting season, and in sedentary species, pairs may stay together for multiple years. Migratory bee-eaters may find new mates each breeding season. The courtship displays of the bee-eaters are rather unspectacular, with some calling and raising of throat and wing feathers. The exception is the performance of the white-throated bee-eater. Their "butterfly display" involves both members of a pair performing a gliding display flight with shallow wing-beats; they then perch facing each other, raising and folding their wings while calling. Most members of the family engage in courtship feeding, where the male presents prey items to the female, and such feeding can account for much, if not all, of the energy females require for egg creation.


title: Bee-eater

text: Like almost all Coraciiformes the bee-eaters are cavity nesters. In the case of the bee-eaters the nests are burrows dug into the ground, either into the sides of earth cliffs or directly into level soil. Both types of nesting site are vulnerable, those on level ground are vulnerable to trampling and small predators, whereas those in cliffs, which are often the banks of rivers, are vulnerable to flash floods, which can wipe out dozens or hundreds of nests. Many species will nest either on cliffs or on level ground but prefer cliffs, although Böhm's bee-eater always nests on level ground. The burrows are dug by both birds in the pair, sometimes assisted by helpers. The soil or sand is loosened with jabs of the sharp bill, then the feet are used to kick out the loose soil. It has been suggested that riverine loess deposits that do not crumble when excavated may be favoured by the larger bee-eaters. There may be several false starts where nests are dug partway before being abandoned; in solitary species this can give the impression of colonial living even when that is not the case. The process of nest building can take as long as twenty days to complete, during which time the bill can be blunted and shortened. Nests are generally used only for a single season and are rarely used twice by the bee-eaters, but abandoned nests may be used by other birds, snakes and bats as shelter and breeding sites.


title: Bee-eater

text: No nesting material is used in the breeding cavity. One white egg is laid each day until the typical clutch of about five eggs is complete. Incubation starts soon after the first egg is laid, with both parents sharing this duty in the day, but only the female at night. The eggs hatch in about 20 days, and the newly hatched young are blind, pink and naked. For most species, the eggs do not all hatch at the same time, so if food is in short supply only the older chicks survive. Adults and young defecate in the nest, and their pellets are trodden underfoot, making the nest cavity very malodorous. The chicks are in the nest for about 30 days.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters may nest as single pairs, loose colonies or dense colonies. Smaller species tend to nest solitarily, while medium-sized bee-eaters have small colonies, and larger and migratory species nest in large colonies that can number in the thousands. In some instances, colonies may contain more than one species of bee-eater. In species that nest gregariously, breeding pairs may be assisted by up to five helpers. These birds may alternate between breeding themselves and helping in successive years.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eater nests may be raided by rats and snakes, and the adults are hunted by birds of prey such as the Levant sparrowhawk. The little bee-eater and red-throated bee-eaters are hosts of the greater honeyguide and the lesser honeyguide, both brood parasites. The young honeyguides kill the bee-eater's chicks and destroy any eggs. The begging call of the honeyguide sounds like "two" bee-eater chicks, ensuring a good supply of food from the adult bee-eaters.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters may be infested by several blood-feeding flies of the genus "Carnus", and the biting fly "Ornithophila metallica". Other parasites include chewing lice of the genera "Meromenopon", "Brueeliaa" and "Meropoecus", some of which are specialist parasites of bee-eaters, and the stickfast flea "Echidnophaga gallinacea". The hole-nesting lifestyle of bee-eaters means that they tend to carry a higher burden of external parasites than non-hole-nesting bird species. Bee-eaters may also be infected by protozoan blood parasites of the genus "Haemoproteus" including "H. meropis".


title: Bee-eater

text: Fly larvae of the genus "Fannia" live in the nests of at least European bee-eaters, and feed on faeces and food remains. Their presence and cleaning activities appear to benefit the developing bee-eaters.


title: Bee-eater

text: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assesses species vulnerability in terms of total population and the rate of any population decline. None of the bee-eaters meet the IUCN vulnerability criteria, and all are therefore evaluated as "Least-concern species".


title: Bee-eater

text: Open country species, which comprise the majority of bee-eaters, have mostly expanded in range as more land is converted to agriculture, but some tropical forest species have suffered declines through loss of habitat, although no species or subspecies gives serious cause for concern. There is some human persecution of bee-eaters, with nest holes being blocked, adults shot or limed, or young taken for food. More generally problematic is the unintended destruction of nests. This can occur through cattle trampling, as with the blue-headed bee-eater in Kenya, or loss of forests, with massive conversion of native forest to oil palm plantations in Malaysia being particularly concerning.


title: Bee-eater

text: A study of the southern carmine bee-eater in Zimbabwe showed that it was affected by deliberate interference and persecution and loss of woodlands, and that nesting sites are lost through poor water management leading to river bank damage, dam construction and panning for gold. Colonies are becoming concentrated into the national parks and the Zambezi Valley. The well-studied European bee-eater is trapped and shot on migration in countries bordering the Mediterranean, an estimated 4,000–6,000 annually being killed in Cyprus alone, but with a global population of between 170,000 and 550,000 pairs even losses on that scale make little overall impact.


title: Bee-eater

text: Bee-eaters were mentioned by ancient writers such as Aristotle and Virgil, who both advised beekeepers to kill the birds. Aristotle knew that bee-eaters nested at the end of tunnels up to long and the size of their clutch. He said that nesting adults were fed by their own young, based on the observed actual help at the nest by related birds. In Greek mythology, the Theban Botres was fatally struck by his father when he desecrated a ritual sacrifice of a ram to the god Apollo by tasting the victim's brains. The god took pity on him, turning him into a bee-eater.


title: Bee-eater

text: The Ancient Egyptians believed that bee-eaters had medical properties, prescribing the application of bee-eater fat to deter biting flies, and treating the eyes with the smoke from charred bee-eater legs to cure an unspecified female complaint.


title: Bee-eater

text: In Hinduism, the shape of the bird in flight was thought to resemble a bow, with the long bill as an arrow. This led to a Sanskrit name meaning "Vishnu's bow" and an association with archer gods. Scandalmongers were thought to be reincarnated as bee-eaters, because of the metaphorical poison they bore in their mouths.


title: Bee-eater

text: Depictions in classical art are rare for such striking birds. The only known Ancient Egyptian example is a relief, probably of a little green bee-eater, on a wall of Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, and an early Roman mural depicting blue-cheeked bee-eaters was found in the villa of Agrippina. Bee-eaters have been depicted on the postage stamps of at least 38 countries, the European and Carmine bee-eaters being the most common subjects, with 18 and 11 countries respectively.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Jonathan David Edwards, (born 10 May 1966) is a British former triple jumper. He is an Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion, and has held the world record in the event since 1995.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Following his retirement as an athlete, Edwards has worked as a sports (primarily athletics) commentator and presenter for BBC television. Formerly a devout Christian, he also presented episodes of the BBC Christian worship programme "Songs of Praise", until he renounced his faith in 2007. In 2011 he was elected President of the Wenlock Olympian Society following the death of its then President, Roy Rogers. He was a member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the 2012 games.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Edwards was born in Westminster, London and attended West Buckland School in Devon where his potential for the triple jump was spotted at an early age. He was a strong all-rounder, and on leaving received the school's top award for sporting and academic excellence, the Fortescue Medal.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Contemporaries with Edwards at West Buckland School included Victor Ubogu and Steve Ojomoh, both former Bath and England Rugby international players. Edwards now has a Sports Hall at West Buckland named after him, "The Jonathan Edwards Sports Centre". Edwards then studied Physics at Durham University, attending Van Mildert College.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Due to his strong Christian beliefs during his athletic career, discussed in more detail below, he initially refused to compete on Sundays, but eventually decided to do so in 1993. This decision proved timely, since the qualifying round at that year's World Championships took place on a Sunday. He went on to win the bronze medal.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: In his breakthrough year of 1995, Edwards produced a jump of 18.43 m (60 feet inches) at the European Cup. The leap was wind assisted and did not count for record purposes, but it was a sign of things to come as he capped an unbeaten year with a historic gold medal performance at the World Championships, in which he broke the world record twice in the same meeting. On his first jump, he became the first man to legally pass the 18-metre barrier with a jump of 18.16 m (59 feet 7 inches). That record lasted for about 20 minutes. His second jump of 18.29 m made him the first to jump 60 feet. During his commentary for the 2008 Summer Olympics, Edwards observed that during the 1995 World Championships, he felt as if "he could jump as far as he needed to". Later that same year, Edwards became the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: During 1996 Edwards went into the 1996 Summer Olympics as favourite and world record holder, but it was American Kenny Harrison who took the gold with a jump of 18.09 m. Edwards walked away with the silver after a leap of 17.88 m (the longest ever jump not to win gold). Edwards won the gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, and was appointed a CBE shortly thereafter. He also won golds at the 2001 World Championships and 2002 Commonwealth Games.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: At one point in 2002, Edwards held all the gold medals for the "four majors" (Olympic Games, World Championships, Commonwealth Games and European Championships). He retired after the 2003 World Championships.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Following his retirement, Edwards has pursued a media career as a television presenter mainly working for the BBC as a sports commentator and presenter, and on programmes such as "Songs of Praise" until he gave up this programme, due to his loss of faith, in February 2007.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Edwards regularly presents BBC coverage of athletics. When he is not presenting coverage, Edwards often provides expert analysis on field events as part of the BBC commentary team.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: After retiring from competition, Edwards became a keen recreational cyclist and has presented the BBC's coverage of cycle racing since 2012. He also covered the 2014 Winter Olympics for the BBC and the 2014 Winter Paralympics for Channel 4.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Edwards also served as a presenter for the Olympic Announcement ceremonies during the IOC sessions in Guatemala in 2007 and Copenhagen in 2009.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: In 2004, Edwards joined with Paula Radcliffe on an "Olympic Special Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". The pair raised £64,000 for charity with half of that sum going to the British Olympic Association and a quarter of the sum going to Asthma UK.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: In 2011, Edwards became President of Wenlock Olympian Society, organisers of the annual Wenlock Olympian Games held in Shropshire.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: He was a member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, representing athletes in the organisation of the 2012 Summer Olympics.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: In February 2016, after 13 years with the BBC, Edwards announced that he had agreed to join Eurosport on an exclusive contract as the channel's lead presenter from 2017, although he would continue working for the BBC and Channel 4 on their coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics alongside duties with Eurosport until the end of 2016, with his first anchoring role for the pay TV channel being the 2016 European Aquatics Championships in May in London.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: An honorary doctorate was conferred upon him at a ceremony at the University of Exeter on 21 January 2006.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Later in the same year, an honorary doctorate of the university (DUniv) was conferred upon him at the winter graduation ceremony of the University of Ulster (19 December 2006).


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Edwards was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to "The Guardian" opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to the 2014 referendum on that issue.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Edwards initially refused to compete on Sundays due to his devout Christian beliefs, a decision that cost him a chance to compete in the 1991 World Championships. However, in 1993, after much deliberation and discussion with his father (a vicar), he changed his mind, deciding that God gave him his talent in order for him to compete in athletics. He once said "My relationship with Jesus and God is fundamental to everything I do. I have made a commitment and dedication in that relationship to serve God in every area of my life." He presented episodes of the Christian television show "Songs of Praise" until 2007.


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: Furthermore, in the same interview with "The Times" he also stated "When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God." In the same interview he also said "I feel internally happier than at any time of my life."


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: In an interview for a film by Matthew Syed broadcast on BBC One at around 18:30 on the evening of 12 August 2012, after the last medal of the London 2012 Summer Olympics was awarded, Jonathan Edwards stated "It may seem odd to quote from the Bible since I have lost my faith, but...".


title: Jonathan Edwards (triple jumper)

text: An interview reported by Jane Oddy in Mirror News (27 February 2014) quoted him saying "I am happy and actually it's fine. I don't miss my faith. In many ways I feel more settled and happier in myself without it. I don't know if that is related to losing my faith or would have been the case anyway, but it's a non-issue as far as I am concerned. Seven years on I don't feel a gap in my life and I suppose that's the proof of the pudding isn't it? Had I suddenly thought that life doesn't quite feel right, maybe I'd re-examine that – re-examine my faith. In fact, more than ever, I feel comfortable with where I am in life."


title: Pierre Boulle

text: Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French novelist best known for two works, "The Bridge over the River Kwai" (1952) and "Planet of the Apes" (1963), that were both made into award-winning films.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Singapore, when he was captured and subjected to two years' forced labour. He used these experiences in "The Bridge over the River Kwai", about the notorious Death Railway, which became an international bestseller. The film, named "The Bridge on the River Kwai", by David Lean won seven Oscars, and Boulle was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two actual screenwriters had been blacklisted.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: His science-fiction novel "Planet of the Apes", in which intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, was adapted into a series of nine award-winning films that spawned magazine and TV versions and popular themed toys.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: Born in Avignon, France, Pierre Boulle was baptised and raised as a Catholic, although later in life he became an agnostic. He studied at the prestigious École supérieure d'électricité (Supélec) where he received an engineer's degree in 1933. From 1936 to 1939, he worked as a technician on British rubber plantations in Malaya. While there he met a Frenchwoman who was separated from her husband. She was to become the love of his life, to whom he would write tender love letters. She later chose to return to her husband, an official in French Indochina. During World War II she and her husband escaped into Malaya, but one of her children died in the process. Boulle would later meet her after the war, and they enjoyed a platonic friendship.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: At the outbreak of World War II, Boulle enlisted with the French army in Indochina. After German troops occupied France, he joined the Free French Mission in Singapore. During the war he was a supporter of Charles de Gaulle.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: Boulle served as a secret agent under the name Peter John Rule and helped the resistance movement in China, Burma, and French Indochina. In 1943, he was captured by Vichy France loyalists on the Mekong River and was subjected to severe hardship and forced labour. He was later made a "chevalier" of the Légion d'Honneur and decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. He described his war experiences in the non-fiction "My Own River Kwai". After the war he would keep in touch with his war comrades for the rest of his life.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: After the war, Boulle returned to work for a while in the rubber industry, but in 1949 he moved back to Paris and began to write. While in Paris, too poor to afford his own flat, he lived in a hotel until his recently widowed sister, Madeleine Perrusset, allowed him to move into her large apartment. She had a daughter, Françoise, whom Pierre helped raise, but plans for him to officially adopt the girl never materialized.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: While in Paris, Boulle used his war experiences in writing "Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï" (1952; "The Bridge over the River Kwai"), which became a multi-million-copy worldwide bestseller, winning the French ""Prix Sainte-Beuve"". The book was a semi-fictional story based on the real plight of Allied POWs forced to build a railway that passed over the bridge, and which became known as the "Death Railway". 16,000 prisoners and 100,000 Asian conscripts died during construction of the line. His character of Lt-Col. Nicholson was not based on the real Allied senior officer at the Kwai bridges, Philip Toosey, but was reportedly an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. Both the book and film outraged former prisoners because Toosey did not collaborate with the enemy, unlike the fictional Colonel Nicholson. Boulle outlined the reasoning which led him to conceive the character of Nicholson in an interview which forms part of the 1969 BBC2 documentary "Return to the River Kwai" made by former POW John Coast. A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book "Railroad of Death".


title: Pierre Boulle

text: David Lean made the book into a motion picture that won seven 1957 Oscars, including the Best Picture, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness. Boulle himself won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay despite not having written the screenplay and, by his own admission, not even speaking English. Boulle had been credited with the screenplay because the film's actual screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, had been blacklisted as communist sympathizers. Boulle was neither a socialist nor a communist. The Motion Picture Academy added Foreman's and Wilson's names to the award in 1984.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: In 1963, following several other reasonably successful novels, Boulle published his other famous novel, "La planète des singes", translated in 1964 as "Monkey Planet" by Xan Fielding, and later re-issued as "Planet of the Apes". The book was highly praised and given such reviews as this example from England's "Guardian" newspaper: "Classic science fiction ... full of suspense and satirical intelligence." In the year 2500, a group of astronauts, including journalist Ulysse Mérou, voyage to a planet in the star system of Betelgeuse. They land to discover a bizarre world where intelligent apes are the Master Race and humans are reduced to savages: caged in zoos, used in laboratory experiments and hunted for sport. The story focuses on Ulysse's capture, his struggle to survive, and the shattering climax as he returns to Earth and a horrific final discovery. The novel is also a wry parable on science, evolution, and the relationship between man and animal.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: In 1968, the book was made into an Oscar-winning film, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Charlton Heston. The screenplay, originally written by Rod Serling, focused more on action and deviated in many ways from the novel, including the addition of its own classic twist ending that was different from the novel's. It inspired four sequels, a television series, an animated series, a 2001 remake of the original title by Tim Burton, and a 2011 reboot, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", directed by Rupert Wyatt.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: The five films of the original series (1968–1973) have become cult classics. Boulle, who had thought his novel to be unfilmable, was taken by surprise at the worldwide success and impact of the film. He wrote a script for a sequel titled "Planet of the Men", but the producers of the original film turned it down. The second film, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", which came out in 1970, was also very successful. It was followed by "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" in 1971, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" in 1972, and "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" in 1973.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: In September 1973, the original film was first aired on network television. The marketing of toys and other products relating to the film series skyrocketed at this time, creating an 'Apemania' craze. In June 1974, Marvel Comics also released a magazine based on the novel and film called "Planet of the Apes". By September 1974, "Planet of the Apes" had become a television series. In 1975, an animated "Return to the Planet of the Apes" series was shown on television.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: The French film "Le Point de mire", based on Boulle's novel "Le Photographe", was released in 1977. There have also been TV films based on Boulle's novels "William Conrad" in 1958 (US) and 1973 (France), "La Face" in 1959 (US) and 1966 (West Germany), and "Un Métier de Seigneur" in 1986 (France), as well as the short story ""Le Miracle"" (from "E=mc") in 1985 (US).


title: Pierre Boulle

text: Another film adaptation is in production for Boulle's "A Noble Profession" ("Un Métier de Seigneur"), a spy thriller partly based on Boulle's real-life experience working as a secret agent during the Second World War. The movie is being produced by Tessa Bell and Andrea Chung.


title: Pierre Boulle

text: Pierre Boulle died in Paris, France, on 30 January 1994, at age 81, three weeks before his 82nd birthday.


title: Phatic expression

text: In linguistics, a phatic expression (, ) is a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships. In other words, phatic expressions have mostly socio-pragmatic rather than denotational functions. They can be observed in everyday conversational exchanges, as in, for instance, exchanges of social pleasantries that do not seek or offer information of intrinsic value but rather signal willingness to observe conventional local expectations for politeness.


title: Phatic expression

text: Other uses of the term include the category of "small talk" (conversation for its own sake) in speech communication, where it is also called "grooming talking." In Roman Jakobson's work, the 'phatic' function of language concerns the channel of communication; for instance, when one says "I can't hear you, you're breaking up" in the middle of a cell-phone conversation. This usage appears in research on online communities and micro-blogging.


title: Phatic expression

text: Phatic communion at first appears to break Grice's conversational maxims, because it denotationally appears to give information that is unnecessary, untrue, or irrelevant. However, phatic communion plays an important role in language and has important connotational meanings that do not break these maxims and needs to be understood as an important part of language in its role in establishing, maintaining, and managing bonds of sociality between participants, as well as creating feelings of solidarity and familiarity, and putting participants at ease


title: Phatic expression

text: The term "phatic communion" ('bonding by language') was coined by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in his essay "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages", which appeared in 1923 as a supplementary contribution to "The Meaning of Meaning" by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. The term "phatic" means 'linguistic' (i.e. 'by language') and comes from the Greek ('spoken, that may be spoken'), from ('I speak, say').


title: Phatic expression

text: Many expressions generally considered to be phatic ("see below") may be a genuine request for information in certain contexts. For example, in British English, "How are you?" is a phatic expression used when greeting someone one knows, especially when a participant wants to initiate conversation. However, it can be asked sincerely, and this must be inferred from context, such as when a friend gives bad news, or tone, such falling intonation to show it as a genuine question (as is with w/h-word questions), or speaking more quietly. Authenticity of the question can also be emphasised by the addition of the word "feeling" ("How are you feeling?").


title: Phatic expression

text: Some greetings like can be used throughout the day. Some are more specific, and the specific time of when to switch to the next greeting can vary from speaker to speaker. Time-specific greetings include


title: Phatic expression

text: Ways of saying thanks include 'thanks', 'thanks shall you have', 'many thanks', 'thousand thanks', 'thanks for that' and 'I thank'. A thanks can be answered with 'self thanks' or 'it was so little' (referring to the small amount of work that had to be done).


title: Phatic expression

text: Other phatic expressions include ('luck and fortune'), equivalent to the English "good luck", and ('crack and break') which has the same meaning as "good luck" similar to the English expression "break a leg", mostly used by hunters, fishers, and theater crews.


title: Phatic expression

text: "You're welcome", in its phatic usage, is not intended to convey the message that the hearer is welcome; it is a phatic response to being thanked, which in turn is a phatic whose function is to acknowledge the receipt of a benefit.


title: Phatic expression

text: Similarly, the question "how are you?" is usually an automatic component of a social encounter. Although there are times when "how are you?" is asked in a sincere, concerned manner and does in fact anticipate a detailed response regarding the respondent's present state, this needs to be pragmatically inferred from context and intonation.


title: Phatic expression

text: In both dialogues neither speaker expects an actual answer to the question but rather it is an indication that each has recognized the other's presence and has therefore sufficiently performed that particular social duty.


title: Phatic expression

text: In Japanese, phatic expressions play a significant role in communication, for instance the backchannel responses referred to as "aizuchi". Other such expressions include the ubiquitous ('please treat me well', used before starting work with someone), (lit. 'you must be tired', closer to 'thank you for your hard work'—used for leave-taking and sometimes as a greeting) and ('thank you for your support').


title: Phatic expression

text: In China, the phatic expression 'have you eaten?' is equivalent to English speakers "how are you?" Food culture is important in China and thus inquiring if one is well-fed implies the speaker's desire to know if the listener has this basic need met. This expression is most often used by older members of society towards younger persons.


title: Phatic expression

text: Taarof is a complex set of expressions and other gestures in Persian society, primarily reflected in the language.


title: Phatic expression

text: In Welsh the general phatic is a regional and colloquial version of ('how is?'). The general pronunciation in southern Wales is and in the North, . The usual answer is ('OK') or, ('OK, thanks')", "or maybe the more traditional ('quite good'), ('quite good, thanks').Many native speakers do not answer like this, but simply say, or in response.


title: Phatic expression

text: The use of phatic has been used as a Welsh language campaigners to encourage Welsh speakers to begin conversations in Welsh, and for non-fluent speakers to "give it a go". Shwmae Sumae Day was held for the first time in 2013 and is held annually on 13 October.


title: Phatic expression

text: Phatic expressions are often created by authors, particularly in science fiction or fantasy, as part of their worldbuilding.


title: Phatic expression

text: Non-verbal phatic expressions are used in nonverbal communication for emphasis or to add detail to the message that a person conveys or expresses. Common examples of these are smiling, gesturing, waving, etc. According to Dr. Carola Surkamp, professor at University of Cologne, non-verbal phatic communication can be expressed with involuntary physical features such as direction of gaze, blushing, posture, etc. and that these have a vital function in regulating conversation.


title: Phatic expression

text: Phatic expressions are used on different communication platforms on the internet such as social media networks where certain platforms require and prompt certain actions to be made between users to communicate or implicate certain messages between people without direct utterances. Examples for this would be: 'likes', comments/replies, shares/reblogs, emoji use, etc. These "phatic posts" as Radovanovic and Ragnedda like to call them, are again used with a social function of social communicative upkeep with the primary function of expressing social connection, relationships between users, and recognition of coparticipants.


title: Donald Regan

text: Donald Thomas Regan (December 21, 1918 – June 10, 2003) was the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1981 to 1985 and the White House Chief of Staff from 1985 to 1987 under Ronald Reagan. In the Reagan administration, he advocated "Reaganomics" and tax cuts as a means to create jobs and to stimulate production.


title: Donald Regan

text: Earlier in his life, he had studied at Harvard University before he served in the United States Marine Corps, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1946 he started to work for Merrill Lynch. He served as its chairman and CEO from 1971 to 1980.


title: Donald Regan

text: Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Kathleen (née Ahearn) and William Francis Regan, he was of Irish Catholic origins. Regan earned his Bachelor of Arts in English from Harvard College in 1940 and attended Harvard Law School before dropping out to join the Marine Corps at the outset of World War II.


title: Donald Regan

text: He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel while he was serving in the Pacific Theater. He was involved in five major campaigns, including Guadalcanal and Okinawa.


title: Donald Regan

text: In 1942, Regan married the former Ann George Buchanan (1921–2006) with whom he had four children: Donna Regan Lefeve, Donald T. Regan, Jr., Richard William Regan, and Diane Regan Doniger.


title: Donald Regan

text: After the war, he joined Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in 1946 as an account executive trainee. He worked up through the ranks, eventually taking over as Merrill Lynch's chairman and CEO in 1971, the year the company went public. He held those positions until 1980.


title: Donald Regan

text: Regan was one of the original directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation and was vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1975. He was a major proponent of brokerage firms going public, which he viewed as an important step in the modernization of Wall Street. Under his supervision, Merrill Lynch had its initial public offering on June 23, 1971, becoming only the second Wall Street firm to go public. (Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette was the first.)


title: Donald Regan

text: During his tenure in these two positions, Regan pushed hard for an end to minimum fixed commissions for brokers, which were fees that brokerage companies had to charge clients for every transaction they made on the clients' behalf. Regan saw them as a cartel-like restriction. His lobbying played a large part of fixed commissions being abolished in 1975.


title: Donald Regan

text: President Ronald Reagan selected Donald Regan in 1981 to serve as Treasury Secretary, marking him as a spokesman for his economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics". He helped engineer changes in the tax code, reduce income tax rates, and decrease taxes for corporations. Regan unexpectedly swapped jobs with then White House Chief of Staff James Baker in 1985. As chief of staff, Regan was closely involved in the day-to-day management of White House policy, which led Howard Baker, Regan's successor as chief of staff, to give a rebuke that Regan was becoming a "prime minister" inside an increasingly-complex Imperial Presidency. During his four years as Secretary of the Treasury, Regan did not have a single one-to-one meeting with the president. Regan was forced to resign for repeatedly disagreeing with the First Lady and for being unable to contain the continuing political damage to President Reagan from the Iran–Contra affair.


title: Donald Regan

text: Regan's 1988 memoir, "For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington", exposes his disagreements with First Lady Nancy Reagan, revealing publicly that she had a personal astrologer who was later revealed to be Joan Quigley with whom she consulted and who helped steer the president's decisions. Regan wrote:


title: Donald Regan

text: Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco [Quigley] who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.


title: Donald Regan

text: "And the horse you rode in on" was a favorite saying of Regan. He learned it from a poker buddy in Texas who said "fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Regan adopted the latter part of the phrase. In the portrait of Regan that hangs on the third floor of the treasury, the title of a book in the background reads "And the Horse You Rode In On".


title: Donald Regan

text: Regan retired quietly in Virginia with Ann Regan, his wife of over 60 years. In late life, he spent nearly 10 hours a day in his art studio painting landscapes. He had four children and nine grandchildren.


title: Donald Regan

text: Regan died of cancer on June 10, 2003, at the age of 84, in a hospital near his home in Williamsburg, Virginia, and was served by Nelsen Funeral Home. His cremated remains were inurned at Arlington National Cemetery.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: The murder of Rachael Runyan is an unsolved child murder which occurred in Sunset, Utah, on August 26, 1982, when a three-year-old girl was abducted from a playground and murdered by an unknown individual. Her body was found three weeks later in a creek bed in nearby Morgan County.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: One of Utah's most notorious cold cases, Rachael's murder ultimately proved a catalyst to establish the "Rachael Alert" child abduction alert system, which remained in use in the state of Utah until 2003, when the state adopted the national AMBER alert child abduction emergency alert system.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: The abduction and murder of Rachael Runyan was a factor in the 1983 passage of the US Congressional Missing Children's Act, which mandated an allocation of additional resources for the investigation of ongoing missing children cases.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: In 2017, the Rachael Runyan Missing and Exploited Children's Day was signed into legislation in Utah. The purpose of the annual observance is to raise public awareness of missing and exploited children within the state; the annual awareness date is August 26, the date of Rachael's abduction. Runyan's abduction and murder remain unsolved.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: Rachael Marie Runyan was born on June 23, 1979, in Weber County, Utah, the second child and only daughter of Jeff and Elaine Runyan. She had an older brother, Justin, and a younger brother, Nathan.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: The Runyan family had moved to Sunset from Tennessee just before Rachael's birth; her mother would later recall she and her husband had believed Sunset—then a community of 6,000 inhabitants—would be a "wonderful and safe place" to raise their children. Rachael was a child beauty queen, having been crowned "Little Miss Sunset" the year before her murder. She has been described by her mother as a well-behaved child who, often being too young to participate in playground games with Justin and other children, was content to simply sit aside and suck her thumb watching the other children play. This habit had led to her mother occasionally teasing Rachael that she would become "bucktoothed" as an adult, to which Rachael would simply giggle. Despite the sense of security Jeff and Elaine Runyan felt within the community of Sunset, both parents repeatedly warned their children of the dangers of trusting anybody they did not know who attempted to lure them from their home or any safe environment.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: The family lived in a modest home adjacent to the Doxey Elementary School playground. A park the three children were fond of in which they regularly played, Mitchell Park, was also near their home. In the summer of 1982, Jeff and Elaine Runyan installed a gate in their backyard fence, so the family could easily access this playground.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: In the late morning of August 26, 1982, Rachael Runyan and her five-year-old brother Justin asked their mother if they and their younger brother Nathan, aged 18 months, could play in the playground of Doxey Elementary School. Although Elaine Runyan had never allowed her children to play unsupervised anywhere outside the family home, because she was preparing lunch for her children when they made the request, and the school playground was just from her home, well within sight of her kitchen window, she agreed to it. Nonetheless, Runyan looked repeatedly out the kitchen window and conversed with her children as she prepared the meal.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: When she called her children to lunch at approximately 12:55 p.m., only Nathan and Justin returned home. Justin blurted out to her that Rachael had been taken from the park by force moments before by a young black man who had initially offered to buy her ice cream and bubble gum at a nearby supermarket. According to Justin, the man had approached them as they played in the sandpit, attempting to lure the siblings into his car with an offer to purchase candy for the trio. When they were close to the man's car, Rachael told him she liked bubble gum–flavored ice cream. The man claimed to have this flavor of ice cream in his car. Justin said when he warned Rachael not to accompany the man any further, she began to turn and walk away from him. In response, he simply picked Rachael up and placed her over his shoulder before bundling her, screaming, into his car as Justin stood frozen in fear with Nathan standing by his side.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: Elaine rushed to the supermarket the kidnapper had mentioned, repeatedly asking staff and shoppers: "Have you seen a little blond girl? A 3-year-old with a black man?" Nobody she encountered had seen her child. Approximately 20 minutes after her daughter's disappearance, Elaine reported Rachael's abduction to the Sunset Police Department.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: Immediately upon learning of Rachael's abduction, the Sunset Police Department set up roadblocks in and around the city. This tactic failed to help police apprehend the suspect or to recover Rachael. In the hours following her abduction, a task force consisting of ten law enforcement investigators was formed to investigate the child's disappearance. These investigators were recruited from several Utah counties and supervised by Sheriff Brant Johnston.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: Both Justin Runyan, and a 10-year-old child who had also been approached by the man at the playground, described him to investigators as being a light-complexioned African-American, aged between 30 and 35 years old, tall, with a medium build, an afro-style haircut and a handlebar mustache. He drove an older model four-door dark-blue car with wood-grain stripes along the sides. The man had been at Mitchell Park, talking to various children and drinking coffee for a minimum of 15 minutes before abducting Rachael. Investigators also discovered this individual had played with the three Runyan children for several minutes before they had accompanied him partway to his vehicle.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: Although eyewitness memory enabled police to obtain an accurate physical description of the child's abductor from which they were able to construct a detailed composite drawing, the only witnesses to Rachael's abduction had been the three children. No CCTV had captured her abduction from the school grounds. As such, beyond police and media appeals, subsequent law enforcement efforts were effectively limited to procedures like forensic searches of the crime scene and house-to-house inquiries in the hours and days after the event.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: Public appeals for information about Rachael's disappearance did lead to investigators receiving multiple leads both in relation to the whereabouts of the child and the possible identity of her abductor. Although all leads were vigorously pursued they ultimately proved fruitless.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: With assistance from an assembled neighborhood committee (many of whom donated money to an improvised family search effort), the Runyan family began its own efforts to search for their daughter. Both the family and neighborhood volunteers had limited means and methods for the search at their disposal, although a nationwide distribution of flyers displaying Rachael's picture was organized. With the assistance of friends and neighbors, the Runyan family searched local neighborhoods and distributed thousands of missing person posters and flyers alerting the public to Rachael's disappearance. Within three weeks, this initiative had cost the family $10,000 in postage expenses alone.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: One week after Rachael's abduction, her parents flew to New York to attend a press conference intended to maintain the extensive publicity surrounding their daughter's disappearance. At this press conference, Jeff Runyan said: "I feel [the abductor] is without conscience, and my plea is for someone who knows him to come forward and sell him out." Acknowledging the possibility Rachael might have been sold following her abduction, Elaine Runyan urged all parents planning on adopting a little girl in the near future to ensure the child was not Rachael.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: On September 3, Rachael's parents appeared on the "Today" show to continue to publicize Rachael's disappearance. They offered a $20,000 reward raised largely through donations from concerned citizens in their community. The city of Sunset also pledged an additional $20,000 for the child's safe return.


title: Murder of Rachael Runyan

text: At 5:00 p.m. on September 19, a family traveling on a mountain road in Mountain Green, Utah (approximately from Sunset) stopped their vehicle at a turnout close to Trapper's Loop Road to let their children play at a nearby stream and throw rocks into the water. Close to a pile of brush, the children observed what they initially believed was a doll, partly covered in shrubbery floating at the edge of the stream. On closer inspection, the children realized the doll was actually the nude body of a female toddler with her hands bound behind her back.