Today, we have two stories that are each about people who really craved attention or status.

But instead of getting that, they got carnage.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious,

delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do,

and we upload two,

three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to get the

follow button some brand new tires for their car. But don't tell them, you're going to install

monster truck tires. Okay, let's get into our first story called Stirring the Pot. One afternoon in early September of 2004, 20-year-old Derek Keeper, sat at a desk in the

newspaper lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, furiously typing on one of the school's

desktop computers. The lab that Derek was in was the hub of the university's school paper,

the Daily Nebraska. So there were some other students who were in the space that were talking

or working at other computers. But Derek didn't notice any of them. He was completely locked in

on what he was doing and writing as fast as he could. Because after he was done with the article

that he was working on, he had a ton of other

responsibilities that he needed to tackle. So Derek was involved in a lot of stuff at school.

He was in a fraternity. He was a senator in the student government. He was a research assistant

for the library. And he was pursuing five different majors. And Derek took all of his various commitments very, very seriously.

But the column he was currently writing was really the one he had the most fun with.

So Derek was from a small city in Nebraska, and even though he'd always been, you know, personally a very loud and opinionated person,

he'd never had a real platform for talking about

all the ideas and points of views that he had. And so this column really gave him the opportunity

to finally, you know, actually present these big ideas to the students at school, and, he hoped,

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