I never got the chance, the opportunity, to ask the following questions of tech whiz and billionaire, Mark Andreessen, but if I had, maybe it would have triggered someone to come forward, maybe it was all that was needed to bring Justice and Closure for an entire community who still grieve upon the mere mention of her name, Barbara Blackstone, whose 1987 murder is still unsolved.
You see she was a teacher at New Lisbon High School in Wisconsin when she came up missing in July of 1987 from her rural Lyndon Station home only for her skeleton to be found nearly a month later 70 miles away near Blanchardville, a region of the state where she grew up.
Andreessen's connection to Barbara came about while he was attending New Lisbon High School. I believe the summer of her murder he would have been between his junior and senior year. I am told that she was his computer lab teacher and he had respected her. That respect became evident in 2009 when he issued a $25k reward in an attempt to bring closure to her case.
Over the years when I wrote about Barbara's case I would try to reach out to him for comments but, naturally, I hit brick walls. We were just a little county newspaper, however our range was a lot wider than people realized, especially once we took off on social media. Even so, peanuts compared most media. As for me, it was never a goal of mine to be a reporter. I never went to school for it and I knew nothing about journalism when I started, I literally tripped into it trying to survive through the end of a marriage filled with domestic violence. I had experience writing press releases for non profits and advocacy organizations, the position became open and the editor knew me through some of my advocacy efforts back then. I literally stumbled into it all ...including Barbara's case.
Rumors, gossip, assumptions and more can spread like wildfire in a community like New Lisbon. It is the 2nd largest municipality in Juneau County, a county with a large land mass but only 25k or so in population. So needless to say when this Illinois raised reporter started asking about a case I was clueless about I received an earful and from many people. As for files, well, most of those were closed once authorities reopened her case after receiving the state received federal funding (if memory serves right) to look into some of those old cold cases.
Needless to say there were many dead ends and theories out there, some of which I've gone into detail about in this blog as well as the paper but that voice of the once student of hers who thought enough to issue a reward all those years later..... silence.
Reminding me off her and that has been my current life situations now living as a disabled American on SSDI, the battle to get there, and needing Medicaid to get me through the process. I know this sounds weird but seriously when his name started popping up again while researching my not so lovely Centene insurance....ahh, the wild west show of healthcare and AI but that is for another day...
When I researched into Barbara's story I did hear quite a bit about him being a once student at the school
. How much of what I heard I will never know if it is true, but some it I can imagine so just knowing now who he is and how adults like him often didn't fit into a high school setting where family status, social life and sports come above all else.
So....if I had the opportunity that is where I would have started. What spawned this many all those years later to issue that reward when I cannot seem to find much of him out there on him even mentioning her, New Lisbon or the reward... and there's a lot out there with him speaking or about him. Maybe my research skills are hampered by the medication I am on,
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