Fatal crash brings 180-day sentence
By Debra Haight
News correspondent
Thursday, August 27, 2009
NILES – An elderly Galien man will be spending the next 180 days in jail after being sentenced for negligent homicide in connection with the Oct. 29, 2008, crash on U.S. 12 that killed 18-year-old Nikki Allen of Three Oaks.
Edward Tuholski was driving his truck westbound on U.S. 12 last Oct. 29 when he attempted a left turn at Dayton Road in Bertrand Township and struck an eastbound car driven by Allen.
The entire driver’s side of Allen’s car was peeled off and destroyed in the crash, and she died enroute to the hospital. She was a 2008 graduate of River Valley High School and was a freshman at Southwestern Michigan College. Read the rest of this entry »
NILES – Criminal charges have been reduced for a visually impaired Galien man blamed for a fatal car accident last October.
Berrien County Trial Court Judge Scott Schofield on Monday ordered Edward Tuholski, 76, to stand trial for negligent homicide for the Oct. 29 death of Nicolette Allen, 18, of Three Oaks.
A conviction could bring up to two years in prison. Tuholski had been charged with manslaughter with a motor vehicle, which brings a prison term of up to 15 years.
Tuholski was driving his pickup truck west on U.S. 12 when he attempted a left turn onto Dayton Road in Bertrand Township and struck an eastbound car driven by Allen.
Schofield’s order came at the end of a preliminary hearing that took place on parts of three days since mid-May. The order followed arguments by Assistant Prosecutor Mary Malesky that evidence doesn’t support the more serious charge.
“I’m taking into account his statement at the time of the crash,” she told the court Monday. “He said he simply did not see her.”
The main element of negligent homicide is ordinary negligence and not gross negligence, which is required for a manslaughter charge.
Malesky said she initially thought Tuholski suffered from macular degeneration and that he knew he shouldn’t have been driving, which could have helped prove a manslaughter charge.
She said her presumption was not supported by Tuholski’s optometrist, who testified in late May. The optometrist said Tuholski was tested in May 2007 and was found to have good enough vision to drive.
A test done in December 2008, after the accident, found that his vision had deteriorated to where it wasn’t legal for him to drive, she said.
Malesky said she spoke with a Grand Rapids-area doctor Tuholski had consulted in 2008 before the accident, who said he had not advised Tuholski that he shouldn’t be driving.
The first part of the hearing featured testimony from Tuholski’s nurse, two sheriff’s department officers and a witness to the crash.
The nurse testified she had a growing concern about Tuholski’s ability to drive, given his eyesight, and had talked to him about it.
Defense lawyer Gary Hosbein did not offer witnesses or proofs.
These are two videos that are dedicated to an amazing woman and a personal best friend of mine.
BUCHANAN – The Berrien County Sheriff’s Department has identified the victim of a fatal traffic crash that occurred on Wednesday, Oct. 29, as 18-year-old Nicolette “Nikki” Allen of Three Oaks.
She died after a two-car crash on U.S. 12 near Buchanan.
Police said Allen was not at fault, but the accident was still under investigation as of Thursday, Oct. 30.The crash occurred at 9:44 a.m. at the intersection of U.S. 12 and Dayton Road in Bertrand Township.
Police said Edward Tuholski, 75, of Galien, was driving west on U.S. 12 in his 2002 GMC pickup truck and attempting to turn left onto Dayton Road when he hit Allen, who was driving east on U.S. 12 in a 1994 Ford Tempo. The truck smashed Allen’s car on her driver’s-side door.
Buchanan Township Fire and SMCAS medics freed Allen from her car. The young woman died en route to the hospital, Sheriff’s Lt. Don Goulooze said. Tuholski was treated at the scene for minor injuries by SMCAS medics and was released. Alcohol and speed were not factors in the crash, Goulooze said.
The road conditions were clear, and both drivers were wearing their seat belts. Allen was a 2008 graduate of River Valley High School, where she played softball and ran on the track and cross country teams. She was a freshman at Southwestern Michigan College, studying to be an archeologist.
Allen was driving Wednesday to visit friends for a study session, her family told police.
You can also find an article I wrote earlier this year about Nikki by clicking the link here.
Welcome to my five part series on how to drive more traffic to your website. For the next five weeks, I will be posting ways on how to increase the traffic to your website. You can subscribe to my RSS feed by clicking here. If you’re not familiar with what an RSS feed is, please check out my article on RSS feeds by clicking here.
Increasing Traffic to your Website Tip #1
It seems very odd to many bloggers, but the first tip to driving traffic to your website is to write blogs on lots of different topics. For example, I write my LGBT and Blog Builder series to help gain long-term traffic. I update both of these series about once a week, and this content will be relevant for years to come. However, when I posted a video on Edward Cullin, my traffic rose ten times the normal amount because of the upcoming Twilight sequel, New Moon. This post will obviously not continue to gain traffic; even now, it declines each day. However, it did give me a great short-term boost in traffic. My advice is to write not only long-term posts, but also things to just bring people in.
I like to call these your “Current Topic of Interest” posts. Here are some ideas.
Current Events
Some examples of this could be something that has just happened in the media, a review of a new movie, a snippit about a sequel or remake of a movie being made, a celebrity death or divorce, or anything that relates to this. You shouldn’t spend most of your time on posts like these, of course, unless you want to be another one of the thousands of celebrity gossip sites out on the internet. However, it is a good way to quickly spike up your traffic, bring new readers in, and maybe a few of them will find your other content relevant and exciting. Others will post the link to your article or blog on their twitter accounts or any social bookmarking sites; this will help to build up your backlinks (don’t know what Backlinks are? Click here).
Criticizing
A good critizing of a movie, book, or specific glitter-vampire can always go over well. Just make sure you don’t end up bashing; there is enough hate and violence in the world.
Videos
I have an entire “Funny Videos” section on my blog. This is just for fun; I know that youtube has thousands of people searching for funny videos every single day. This doesn’t bring in a lot of new traffic, but every little bit counts, and it doesn’t take but five seconds to throw up the embedded code into a post with a little snippet about what the video is.
Good Content
Make sure that your good content is a 5/1 ratio to your current topic of interest posts. Long term content is always going to give you better results in the long run, but to build a high traffic website, you need to mix in a little of both.
Ready for Part Two?
You can find part two of this series by clicking here.
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Thanks to the Social Vibe Widget, I can now help support “To Write Love On Her Arms” [ www.twloha.com ]. To Write Love on Her Arms, or TWLOHA, is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
Every time you complete a sponsered activity, our sponser will donate a small amount to TWLOHA. It’s a win-win situation, since neither you nor I actually have to give anything out of our own pockets!
Keep tuning in to help prevent suicide, addiction, and self-injury.
The category “Ongoing Subjects” is dedicated to my own personal journey in life. This is my way of documenting things that really have impacted me in my life, things I feel passionate about, or things that are ongoing.
If you have comments on any of my subjects, please, feel free to comment on that blog. Feel free to send me an e-mail. I love to hear your feedback. If you’re inspired to do the same thing in your life, by all means, link me to your blog about it. This will probably be one of the more frequently updated categories, since it will contain my goals, my feelings, and other touchy-feely things.
Ongoing Subject: 30 Day Trial, June 2009.
I found the idea of the 30 day trial on a blog and I really liked it. The idea behind the 30 day trial is to get you into a set of habits without making it seem overwhelming and life-commiting. As Steve Pavlina puts it, its like “download[ing] a trial version of a piece of software… [to] try it out risk-free for 30 days before you’re required to buy the full version”. I really liked the idea of a thirty day trial, so I’ve devised my own list of things that I am going to try out for thirty days. Obviously this is an ongoing subject, since, in thirty days, I’ll be giving an update to my progress.
The Trial
Today is May 29th, so, to make things even, I’m going to start on June 1st. This way, on June 30th, I will report my progress, say with habits I want to keep and which ones I would like to toss, and how the overall idea of the trial worked for me.
The idea behind the trial is quite simple, actually. It’s a way to count down the days until you can do something again, while at the same time developing habits that will be hard to get out of. If you have ever tried to quit smoking (and if you haven’t, you should!), you know how the first few weeks are the hardest, but after you get over the natural habit to smoke, it’s easy to continue not giving yourself cancer. The same idea works for this– After the first few weeks, the trial will turn from something you are forcing yourself to do to something that you will just naturally do; a habit.
The Tasks
I have a lot of things I want to change about my life, and I’m hoping I won’t overload myself with trials, but here goes:
Get up at 7 every day. This one should be easy for me, since I work at 9 all throughout the week. I just feel like if I sleep past seven, I’m wasting my day away.
Write a new blog every day. This one will probably be the easiest. I’m going to post a tentative schedule sometime soon that will outline the subjects I would like to talk about as well as the dates I would like to do each subject on.
Run 20 minutes a day. I would like to be in great shape for Nikki’s Shortcut. That race means a lot to me, and I want to be in top shape.
No pop or coffee. I have a major addiction to caffeine and sugar, so this one will be hard. I don’t want to keep packing on the pounds, however, and cutting this from my diet, even if for just thirty days, will help.
Not leaving work early. This is mostly for J. Milito & Associates, since when I leave Triton (which pays 7.40/hour) I go directly to Milito’s (which pays 8/hour). I want to put in 68 hours a week minimum. That will be about five hundred dollars a week earned and in my pocket, which would be about two thousand dollars in the month of June.
Conclusion
I’d love to hear comments about this– If anyone would like to join me for the thirty day trial, please do! If you’ve got ideas for future trials, you can post them as well. On June 30th I will post a follow up entry to this and give the overall success (or failure) of the trial.
Ongoing Subject:Nikki Allen: An Asian, A Runner, A Best Friend.
The Girl: Nikki Allen was one of my best friends in High School. She had a locker next time mine our junior year of high school. We ran together at Cross Country practice. She sat next to me in Mrs. Maloney’s senior English class at River Valley. She came to my graduation party for three minutes just to say hi.
I met Nikki Allen in kindergarten, along with another life-long friend of mine, Olivia. We all grew up together at the Three Oaks Elementary School, but we didn’t really become friends until our sophomore year of high school.
I started off Cross Country because my friend Brianna somehow convinced me to. At the first practice, Foreman had Tricia, and Olivia all talk about how their experiences at running camp went. I remember thinking to myself that they were so stuck up and I would probably drop out, mostly because they didn’t ever talk to me. Boy, was I dead wrong.
During my sophomore year, Nikki, Tricia, and Olivia became some of my closest friends. We didn’t run together, by any means, because they were amazing and I was chunky, but we still hung out occasionally, and we all had a few classes together. By the next year, the four of us hung out on a semi-regular basis, and we did crazy things together. Nikki’s locker was next to mine our Junior year. I saw her every single day of that year, and never once though about how it would be if she was suddenly gone. The most annoying part about Nikki Allen wasn’t how good she was at running– It was the fact that she talked as loud as a mouse. You could be in a room that is completely quiet, and she would say something, and you would have to stare at her for a second, and then ask her to repeat it. It was so cute, and we made fun of her a lot for it, but she knew we loved her.
We went as a group to Prom our junior year. She didn’t have an official date, and instead went as friends with a German foreign exchange student. We all had fun regardless, and it was one of the best nights of our lives.
Nikki Allen was just that: Nikki Allen. You could never say Nikki and not say Allen right after it. That was her name, just like Johnny Cash and Queen Latifa. I’m not really sure when we started that, but it caught on quickly, and it stuck.
For the first year or so that I really got to know Nikki Allen, I thought she was Asian. Finally, we all brought it up one day, and we were shocked to find out that Nikki Allen was, in fact, not Asian at all; She was Irish! We quickly ignored her Irish roots, and from that day on, Nikki Allen was our Oriental-Asian-Chinese-Japanese friend. We talked about her secretly being a ninja, and she loved it. She had so much fun with it, she would wear chop sticks in her hair. She was our Asian Princess, and wouldn’t hesitate to go off on random chants in a foreign language that resembled a mix between Japanese and tongues.
We began to tan in February together, and it was quite interesting. While all the rest of us slowly began to bronze, Nikki Allen just turned a light shade of pink. Instead of buying a bottle of lotion, she would instead buy samples, which cost four dollars. We always told her she should just buy a bottle instead, but she never listened to us.
We graduated together this past spring, and we shared in the joy and the sadness of saying goodbye to our old life and hello to our new. She came to my graduation party for a total of two minutes, just to stop in and wish me a happy graduation. How many of your friends would do the same for you? She drove all the way to Bridgman just to say Happy Graduation and give me a hug, when gas prices were at their highest. That’s a true friend.
We began to tan in February together, and it was quite interesting. While all the rest of us slowly began to bronze, Nikki Allen just turned a light shade of pink. Instead of buying a bottle of lotion, she would instead buy samples, which cost four dollars. We always told her she should just buy a bottle instead, but she never listened to us.
We graduated together this past spring, and we shared in the joy and the sadness of saying goodbye to our old life and hello to our new. She came to my graduation party for a total of two minutes, just to stop in and wish me a happy graduation. How many of your friends would do the same for you? She drove all the way to Bridgman just to say Happy Graduation and give me a hug, when gas prices were at their highest. That’s a true friend.
She came to the Masquerade Ball to support the GSA. She didn’t look too bad, either– Nikki Allen, believe it or not, had a rockin’ Asian body. That was the last time I saw Nikki
Allen, I believe.
If I could go back to just one day and spend it with her, I would in a heartbeat. I miss her so much, and everything I do reminds me of her. She had such a big impact on my life, and I didn’t even realize it until it was too late. She showed us how we should live our lives, and how we shouldn’t take even a second for granted.
The Present: Nikki constantly wore a little turquoise cross around her neck, so I got a turquoise cross tattooed on my upper right arm, with her birthday, 7.8.90 above the cross and the day she passed away, 10.29.08, tattooed below it. It’s almost comforting knowing that so many people will now permanently remember Nikki. Two of my friends got tattoos of track shoes with a cross through it, with the day of the accident below it. Another friend got a picture of two interlocking hands with her necklace dangling below it. All of these things help keep Nikki alive in our hearts forever. We will never forget her, no matter how busy life gets. She’s almost lucky in this way; She’ll forever be with us, no matter what.
Nikki’s Shortcut: In memory of an amazing individual, Nikki’s Shortcut was devised. I will not only run in the race, but I am also volunteering to help organize the event. I think that Nikki would smile if she knew how much of an impact she had on everyone. My goal in doing this event is to not only get in shape, but also to help ease the pain her mom and family still have over her sudden death by showing them that Nikki left a huge hand print on everyone’s heart.
Edit 6/27/09: You can now link to this article by putting ” http://tinyurl.com/asiannik ” into your web browser. While you’re here, help support suicide prevention and click the “Help Now!” link on the right sidebar and rate the video; Showtime will donate a small amount to help prevent suicide.
I think it is not only a good idea to write your goals down, but also to go over them every couple weeks to make sure you’re actually making progress reaching your goals. Goals should not just be things you want to achieve, goals should be things you should be working to achieve.
My Goals
Here are my top five goals right now, one in each aspect of life.
Goal One- Finances: I would like to save a thousand dollars by the end of this year. That would be about 37 dollars a week saved. Also, I’d like to have my car payments saved up for the first semester at Grand Valley.
Goal Two- Blog: I want to have my blog be a hit by the end of this year as well. I would like to have at least a hundred (hopefully more) people who regularly visit my site and actually value my opinions and suggestions.
Goal Three- College: I want to work really hard this semester at GVSU and get all A’s. I want to look good when I apply to Med School, and these classes are the classes that actually count towards my end goal.
Goal Four- Friends: I learned the hard way that time is short, and I don’t want another Nikki Allen on my hands. I want to stay in touch with the people who actually matter to me. I want to not regret losing touch with the people who made me who I am today. I obviously don’t think that I’ll be able to do this forever, but I can fight my hardest to not lose them.
Goal Five- Travel: I would really like to take another trip to Florida this year. Florida was amazing last year. I’ve learned that it’s easier to just get up and go as a young adult than as an adult with responsibilities and a full time job. Plus, trips help us appreciate life and breaks us away from the monotony of everyday life. As goals constantly are changing, assimilating, and evolving, this is an ongoing subject.
I will be periodically updating this section as my life changes, and I hope that I can inspire someone to do the same.
