Signs of the times 

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Sept. 30, 1995: "The Charlotte Infamy Tour." A tongue-in-cheek tourist's guide to the dark side of Charlotte history, featuring the sites of some of the city's most infamous incidents, from a police killing of striking streetcar workers to Jim Bakker freaking out under his attorney's couch.

March 16, 1996: "Angels In America" by Perry Tannenbaum. CL's exclusive interview with Tony Kushner, the man who wrote the Pulitzer-winning play that launched a wave of homophobic reaction and community-wide debate over the arts.

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May 8, 1996: "Free Press, Inc." by Vance Cariaga. An in-depth look at how the corporate journalism of the 1990s undermined our access to information. And to think it's only gotten worse.

March 18, 1997: "Rush to Judgment" by Jerry Klein. An in-depth report pinpointing police mistakes in the investigation of the Kim Thomas murder. The case enthralled the region in the 1990s, and led to the arrest of her husband, Dr. Ed Friedland. Klein's story pointed to another possible suspect, Marion Gales, who was later successfully sued by Friedland in a wrongful death civil suit.

July 19, 1997: "TransMission" by Jane Grau. Racecar driver J.T. Hayes won over 300 regional and national championships in go-kart, midget, and sprint racing. He briefly competed at the NASCAR Winston Cup level, and then had sex reassignment surgery, becoming Ms. Terri O'Connell.

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Nov. 22, 1997: "JFK, Dallas and High School Football" by John Grooms. An award-winning personal essay on the writer's experience when his high school's football team played for the state championship on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Aug. 15, 1998: "She Covers the Waterfront" by Amy Rogers. The first local media profile of one of the area's most dedicated environmentalists, Catawba Riverkeeper Donna Lisenby, who spends her time monitoring the region's liquid lifeline and fighting those who pollute it.

Oct. 24, 1998: "Chasing A Ghost" by Sam Boykin and John Grooms. Rumors ran through the Charlotte media that former City Councilman and County Commissioner Hoyle Martin, an avid homophobe, had a gay son. Our story looked at how several local media outlets, including CL, feverishly chased after a rumor that finally proved to be untrue.

Dec. 11, 1999: "McWorkers" by Sam Boykin. An inside look at Labor Ready, a company that provides temporary workers for manual labor jobs. The company rakes in hundreds of millions each year, but barely pays its workers minimum wage. The writer went "undercover" and discovered a subculture of people living in the woods and barely scraping by on their meager wages.

Feb. 11, 2000: "Leslie Price: On Her Own" by Sam Boykin. CL talked to Leslie Price about her future, after her highly publicized lawsuit against Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn. Price met Shinn in 1997 while she was in a drug treatment program. A few days later, Price alleged, Shinn forced her to perform oral sex. Shinn, married at the time, claimed the sex was consensual. The jury rejected Price's suit, but Shinn's reputation was already beyond repair.

Aug. 19, 2000: "Homegrown: Clamping Down On NC's Cash Crop" by Peter Eichenberger. An examination of ongoing drug war skirmishes, including "Operation Bladerunner" which sought to eradicate North Carolina's illegal, highly profitable crop. During that week, a young waitress was pulled over and her car searched after an Iredell County cop spotted a copy of the CL issue, which showed -- gasp! -- a pot leaf on the cover, in the backseat.

Nov. 18, 2000: "Different Strokes" by Sam Boykin. Dispelling the myth that Charlotteans are nothing but a bunch of uptight banker types, this story looked at local swingers -- married couples that swap partners for sexual excitement and variety. The idea of such "open relationships" confounded many, intrigued some, and disgusted others.

May 23, 2001: "The Human Face of Piedmont Courts" by Sam Boykin. City leaders and media were discussing the future of crime-ridden Piedmont Courts as if the people who lived there were interchangeable thugs. We talked to residents and got a full, multi-dimensional view of life on the economic margins in Charlotte.

July 11, 2001: "Howdy Neighbor!" by Tara Servatius. Subtitled "Mecklenburg's 376 registered sex offenders -- who they are, where they live, and what they did," this was CL's first listing of the area's sex offenders. We caught hell for it, but our thinking was that women and children's safety trumped concerns about the offenders' privacy.

July 25, 2001: "Lost In the Shuffle" by Tara Servatius. Robin Hester, a blind AIDS patient, desperately needed housing, but Charlotte Housing Authority was in such disarray, they couldn't even tell her whether she was on their waiting list or not. This was CL's opening salvo in a series of stories on CHA dysfunction that ended with the canning of director Harrison Shannon.