For college basketball fans across the United States, the month of March is known as “March Madness.”
March is a special month for me as well . . . but for a far different reason.
On a warm spring evening in late March of 1976, my childhood and my sense of innocence was taken away behind the public swimming pool in the small town of Newman Grove, Nebraska. I was sexually assaulted by the teenage brother of a classmate who left me with one terrorizing thought — if I told anybody about what happened, he would hunt me down and kill me.
At the age of 9 years old, my life changed forever — all because of the madness brought forth by a sick, twisted excuse of a human being, one who had preyed on children before and continued to force himself on the less able-bodied until he finally found himself doing time in the Nebraska State Penitentiary before earning a permanent spot on the state’s Sex Offender Registry.
In the years since my attack, I’ve dealt with just about everything one could experience. The physical attack, the nightmares, the flashbacks, thoughts of suicide — my life is a literal day-to-day mixed bag of emotions. I’ve forgiven my attacker for the violent act he committed . . . but I’ve never been able to forget it.
My story is a story that is shared by more people than I care to count — in the 16 months since my book, “Call Me A Survivor” was published, I’ve had numerous people contact me, whether in person, via mail, e-mail or social media, and tell me their story. They were attacked by family members, a neighbor, a coach, a member of the clergy — people they thought they could trust. The physical wounds that are left behind may heal, but the emotional scars that are left behind will never go away. It will always be something that we, as survivors, will deal with on a daily basis until God calls us to our final resting place.

I was threatened with my own life if I stayed silent, but that wasn’t an option for me. When I ran screaming into the house, there was no hiding what had happened. Sadly, our justice system was ill-prepared, or maybe just completely unwilling, to deal with those who committed these acts of sexual violence against another human being. My perpetrator was a juvenile, and the probation he received was hardly a deterrent to his future sick acts against others. He developed quite a resume of violence before I finally helped put him in prison for a sexual assault he committed against a disadvantaged woman more than 20 years later.
It would be easy to wallow in self-pity and play the “poor me” card — but I’ve chosen a different route: I’m speaking out about my experience and encouraging others to do the same.
During the month of April, I’ve taken it upon myself to speak out during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I am going anywhere and everywhere that I can to bring my story to the world and raise awareness on a crime that is hurting our children at all ages, from our babies to our teenagers.
A Centers For Disease Control study has found that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthday. If you plugged those ratios into the current K-12 enrollment of every public and private school in my home state of Nebraska, that is more than 70,000 children — enough to fill Memorial Stadium at the University of Nebraska to more than two-thirds capacity.
My goal is to speak to as many people — not just in Nebraska, but anywhere and everywhere in the United States — about my experience and offer support and assistance to those who are living the hell that has been a part of my life for almost four decades. (NOTE: My calendar of speaking engagements is located on the right side of the page — scroll through the list of dates in April and stop by if you can make it to one of my engagements.)
This “madness” has got to stop — there are too many children in this country who are living this daily hell, and it’s time we make perpetrators aware of the fact that we are no longer going to be silent, and that we will tell someone, anyone and everyone about child sexual assault.