Blue Valley West High School, located in Overland Park, KS, won the Kansas 6A Girls’ High School State Championships in a commanding 333 points, 44.5 points ahead of runners-up Shawnee Mission East (288.5 points). Blue Valley West’s team and the meet overall were highlighted by strong performances from underclassmen swimmers, particularly freshmen.

Blue Valley West kicked off the meet with a victory in the 200 medley relay, winning by over two seconds in 1:47.51. The team of freshman Sasha Weiner (27.09), sophomore Caitlyn Chopra (31.11), sophomore Avery Johnson (26.01), and freshman Anya Pivonka (23.30) was tied with Lawrence Free State at the 150-yard mark, only to see Pivonka pull away and post the fastest freestyle split by a margin of 1.14 seconds. Given the team’s youth, the State Record of 1:45.28, set by Blue Valley North in 2024, will be tested over the next few years.

Shawnee Mission East’s team of CoCo Reiser (25.17), Darcy Kroening (24.30), Georgia Boyd (24.79), and Teni Oyetunji (24.21) won the 200 freestyle relay in a 1:38.47. Blue Valley West’s quartet of sophomore Greta Reardon (25.42), Sophomore Johnson (25.19), freshman Amber Stringer (25.57), and freshman Hayden Benbow (24.21) took third in 1:40.39.

The last race of the day, the 400 freestyle relay, was won by an entirely freshman quartet from Blue Valley West. Stringer (54.49), Weiner (54.80), Pivonka (52.81), and Benbow (52.96) combined for a time of 3:35.06, more than three seconds ahead of runners-up Blue Valley North (3:38.42).

Stringer went on to become Blue Valley West’s only individual champion, winning the 500 freestyle in 5:05.68, recording a 4.32-second margin of victory in the process over fellow freshman Evie Boshart of Shawnee Mission Northwest. Benbow and Johnson placed fourth (5:16.34) and fifth (5:16.36), respectively, in the 500 freestyle, earning Blue Valley West 49 points in a single heat. Stringer also took second in the 200 IM 2:10.14. Both swims were off of Stringer’s lifetime bests of 5:01.54 and 2:09.03, respectively, both recorded in March at the 2026 Speedo Sectionals Region VIII Championships.

Lawrence Free State freshman Ella Marsh won the 200 IM in 2:02.80, shaving 1.40 from her prelims time and winning by 7.34 seconds. In March at the 2026 Speedo Sectionals Region VIII Championships, Marsh posted a 2:04.84 in the 200 IM to place 12th, which itself represented a 2.49-second drop from her previous lifetime best, meaning that Marsh has shaved a total of 4.53 seconds in the event in a 10-week time period. Marsh later recorded a runner-up finish in the 100 butterfly with a 57.23.

Senior Maggie Dahl of Blue Valley Southwest claimed both sprint freestyle titles, first winning the 50 freestyle in 23.14, making her the only swimmer to break the 24-second barrier in the field. Freshmen Anya Pivonka and Sasha Weiner of Blue Valley West placed second and third, respectively, in times of 24.12 and 24.55. Dahl later won the 100 freestyle in a similar fashion, posting a 50.77 to make her the only swimmer sub-53 in the field. Meanwhile, the duo of Pivonka and Weiner would switch places in the 100 backstroke, this time with Weiner placing second in 57.59 and Pivonka placing third in 58.46

Fia Boshart, a junior from Shawnee Mission Northwest, captured two individual state titles. First, in the 100 butterfly, Boshart posted a 55.22, more than two seconds clear of the next-fastest competitor. Later, in the 100 backstroke, Boshart posted a 57.28, still 0.31 clear of the runner-up. Boshart also contributed a 24.68 butterfly split on Shawnee Mission Northwest’s 7th-place 200 medley relay, as well as a 24.85 lead-off split on the 200 freestyle relay to earn fifth. Younger sister Evie Boshart placed second in the 500 freestyle with a 5:09.00 and picked up a third-place finish in the 200 freestyle with a 1:55.64. E. Boshart also contributed a 25.12 split on Shawnee Mission Northwest’s 5th-place 200 freestyle relay, and also led off the 200 medley relay in a 28.35.

Senior Libby Barney of Olathe East achieved victory in the 200 freestyle with a 1:53.11, adding slightly to her time of 1:52.80 from prelims. Barney also placed third in the 500 freestyle with a 5:09.71. Abby Stidham-Ebberts, a junior from Mill Valley, won the 100 breaststroke in 1:04.36, dropping nearly two seconds from her prelims time of 1:06.34. Sophomore Katharine Costello of Olathe East also dipped under the 65-second barrier, posting a 1:04.82 after registering a 1:06.13 to emerge as the top seed in prelims.

Irene Gettya, a junior from Olathe East, won the diving with 409.00 points, with senior Avery Metcalf of Olathe North coming in second with 311.95 points.

Top-10 Team Scores

1. Blue Valley West – 333 points
2. Shawnee Mission East – 288.5 points
3. Olathe East – 245 points
4. Blue Valley North – 209 points
5. Free State – 188 points
6. Wichita-East – 164 points
7. Shawnee Mission Northwest – 148 points
8. Blue Valley Northwest – 122 points
9. Olathe Northwest – 111 points
10. Mill Valley – 83 points

• Michigan ranks 38th nationally in terms of addiction counselors per person with an addiction
• Heads of treatment organizations pinpoint high turnover and low funding as perpetuating the shortage
• Many providers doubt Michigan’s addiction treatment system is sustainable in the long term 

Alyssa Montague is no stranger to being overworked.

Until recently, Montague, the community engagement manager at Ten16 Recovery Network–Midland, was taking on the work of multiple people. So was the therapist who works under her.

“He was slammed,” she said. “I was slammed.”

Now, for the first time since early 2024, her team is fully staffed. But other addiction treatment organizations across the state aren’t as lucky. 

As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage Michigan, the state’s addiction treatment workforce faces a shortage that hinders its ability to effectively respond, providers say.

Michigan ranks 38th nationally in terms of addiction treatment staffing, with 7.58 addiction treatment counselors per 1,000 people with a substance use disorder, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Indiana sits at the top of the DHHS ranking, with 16.54 counselors per 1,000 people with a substance use disorder, and the US median is 8.79 counselors per 1,000 people with a substance use disorder.

Michigan has taken steps to alleviate counselors’ financial woes, offering $12.3 million through its behavioral health student loan repayment program through 2024 and $3.7 million to repay addiction treatment providers’ student loans. Beginning this summer, DHHS will provide internship and scholarship opportunities to incentivize new providers to become addiction treatment counselors.

Some organizations were fully staffed before the coronaviruspandemic, according to Paula Nelson, president and CEO of Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center, which has locations across the state. 

But, during the pandemic, many addiction treatment counselors experienced burnout and left the field, and many others retired early, according to Nikki Soda, of Sodas Consulting. Providers couldn’t attract enough new counselors to fill the dearth. 

“Post-pandemic behavioral health demand increased way faster than the workforce development could, because we saw a significant spike in usage during COVID,” said Soda. 

An estimated 1.3 million Michiganders with a substance disorder including alcoholism did not receive addiction treatment in 2024, according to the most recent data from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. The vast majority of those people don’t seek treatment, but providers say the workforce shortage makes it hard to meet the needs of those who do. 

One Michigander dies from an opioid overdose roughly every six hours.

As Bridge has previously reported, Michigan has among the fewest behavioral health vocational programs in the nation. That substantially weakens the student-to-worker pipeline and means fewer people are being trained to help alleviate the worker deficit. 

The shortage means that, instead of receiving dedicated attention from their providers, people in addiction treatment often feel they are told to “go figure it out,” said Josh Puckett, a peer recovery coach at Recovery Action Network of Michigan. 

High-stress demands

Multiple factors perpetuate the shortage. 

One is that working in addiction treatment isn’t easy: Counselors face high rates of burnout and secondary trauma. They deal every day with people at the lowest points in their lives. 

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” said Anthony Dondero, an addiction treatment counselor at Hegira Health, which has locations around Wayne County. “I had to really wrap my head around and really process the fact that more of my clients are going to pass away from the disease that I’m treating than if I were treating just general mental health.”

High stress contributes to the high rates of turnover treatment organizations see.

Nelson said Sacred Heart saw 39% turnover of therapists and counselors over the past fiscal year, while its residential treatment program saw 62% turnover. 

High turnover has affected the addiction treatment field for years, with average national rates above 30%. The turnover rate for all industries in the US was 3.4% in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We’re constantly having to retrain people,” said Nelson. 

A visual of the 12-step program hangs on the wall at the Ten16 Recovery Network-Midland. (Nate Miller for Bridge Michigan)

However, finding qualified staff is extremely difficult, especially in Michigan’s rural areas.

“Ten years ago, when we’d advertise a clinical position in some of our rural communities … we still would get a handful of resumes,” said Sam Price, president and CEO of Ten16, which has locations across central Michigan. “Now, the competition is so fierce we can run an ad for three weeks and not even get a qualified applicant.”

Educational hurdles, low wages

To obtain their full license, counselors must be certified by the Michigan Certification Board for Addiction Professionals. While many organizations require their addiction treatment counselors to have master’s degrees, counselors can legally practice with less formal education if they are certified by the state board. 

Counselors can practice without being certified as long as they are working toward their full license, which can take up to three years. 

However, Nelson said, “Typically, after they get their full license, they move on to other opportunities.” 

Many leave to provide mental health services, which often require less administrative work. 

That leaves addiction treatment centers short-staffed, counselors overworked and patients in need of more attention than they can get. Because of high turnover rates, the attention they can get often comes from counselors new to the field, who can be ill-equipped to manage the complex needs of patients in addiction care, said Greg Toutant, CEO of Great Lakes Recovery Centers, which is based in the Upper Peninsula. 

Dealing with the multifaceted needs of patients in addiction treatment is something, he said, “these newer counselors, (who) are making up the majority of the field, maybe don’t have all the expertise to handle.”

Also contributing to the shortage is low salaries.

While some private, for-profit therapy settings can pay up to $120,000 a year, said Montague, addiction treatment nonprofits, which are funded by both Medicaid and private insurance, can pay much less. The average base annual salary of addiction treatment counselors is $50,506, according to Payscale.

Providers struggling nationally 

According to Thuy Nguyen, director of the Michigan Public Health Substance Use Policy and Economic Research Network, while staffing numbers at outpatient office-based mental health specialists bounced back from reductions during the coronavirus pandemic, intensive mental health facilities, such as those for addiction treatment, “struggled to rebuild their workforce.” 

That is because, compared to before the pandemic, “the lasting strain on the health care system has unfortunately made becoming a health care provider less attractive than it had been,” said Dan Schwartz, vice president of public policy at the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare.

That might have been because outpatient settings are lower-risk environments in terms of COVID-19 transmission, or because they are less stressful compared to intensive settings like inpatient addiction treatment. 

Additionally complicating the shortage, said Schwartz, is that too few people are being trained to work in addiction treatment, across the board. 

And because of broad Medicaid cuts spelled out in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Congress passed last year, Schwartz said he doesn’t anticipate the national shortage improving anytime soon. The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects that, by 2038, the US will be short more than 77,000 addiction counselors. 

Medicaid cuts also greatly affect who can receive access to care. 

“One of the most significant challenges is access to care for uninsured Michigan residents, who remain the most underserved population,” DHHS said in a statement. “Federal and state funding to support uninsured individuals has not kept pace with demand.”

Some support has come from the federal level in the form of the Opioid Workforce Expansion Program, which provides funding to train students in addiction treatment settings. 

Some states have dealt with the shortage better than others. Nguyen cited Massachusetts as a role model for other states recovering from pandemic-era reductions. Since 2022, the state has provided more than $270 million to repay loans of direct care providers including addiction treatment professionals, alleviating some of their financial strain.

‘Wake up’

Ten16 Recovery Network-Midland offers food-themed group therapy sessions on every weekday. (Nate Miller/Bridge Michigan)

Treatment organizations across Michigan have trouble imagining a future for addiction treatment centers without an overhaul of the existing system.

“A couple years ago, I said we can’t continue this for any more than five years, and I still believe that,” Nelson, of Sacred Heart, said. 

Toutant, of Great Lakes Recovery Centers, said addiction treatment providers across the state must unite to move away from the current reimbursement model.

“I don’t think there’s been enough voices to rise up in opposition to say to the state of Michigan, … ‘Wake up,’” he said. “The workforce problem will not change unless the financing model changes.”

“We recognize the challenges providers are facing, which is why the state continues to invest in recruitment, retention and provider capacity efforts to strengthen Michigan’s addiction treatment workforce,” DHHS said in a statement. 

If provider facilities close, and Michiganders who need addiction treatment are increasingly unable to access it, the state will see “more hospitalizations and deaths,” said Kenneth Hammond Jr., a board member of MAADAC, the Michigan Association for Addiction Professionals.  “More individuals will be incarcerated without these services being available to them.”

Related

The threats by President Donald Trump to wipe out the Iranian “civilization” by bombing the country “back to the Stone Age” and targeting civilian sites elicited castigation as international war crimes and recalled the post-World War II Nuremberg trials of the Nazi leadership. That is a topic that warrants reflection as Minnesota and the rest of the nation recognizes Memorial Day on Monday, May 25, honoring those who gave their lives in service to this country in all of its wars.

The major war crimes trial that followed World War II was portrayed in the critically acclaimed movie “Nuremberg,” which rolled out late last year rife with Minnesota connections. Despite widespread praise by critics and theatergoers, the movie did not win a single Oscar at the Academy Awards two months ago.

That’s because it was not nominated for any. It was on the short list in a couple of categories but didn’t make the cut on either of them.

It’s regrettable that the film was not honored, especially here in Minnesota, where the movie has its roots and other linkages worth exploring, highlighted by its derivation from a book titled “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,” written in 2013 by Los Angeles author Jack El-Hai, who lives and works in the Kenwood area of Minneapolis with his wife and two daughters.

“I am innocent of all the charges made against me. I did not commit any of the alleged crimes.”
Hermann Göring (1893 – 1946)

*****

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization … cannot survive their being ignored.”
Judge Robert Jackson (1892 – 1954)

*****

“Of course, the trial was botched and imperfect … it had to deal with new crimes for which there was no provision in national law or international law.”
Reporter Rebecca West (1892-1983)

Minneapolis movies

Despite its absence from the awards ceremony, the movie remains one of the latest critically acclaimed films with ties to Minneapolis. In 2007, Minneapolis neophyte screenwriter Diablo Cody won an Oscar for her work on the movie “Juno,” a semi-autobiographical account of the growing pains of a teenager.

Six years later, Minneapolis actor Barkhad Abdi was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role as a villainous pirate in “Captain Philips,” the Tom Hanks vehicle about an assault on an American vessel, although the Somali immigrant did not prevail.

It took a dozen years for El-Hai, who was an executive producer of the film and was a speaker in the beginning of March for the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, and his 2013 work to reach the silver screen. It starred Rami Malek, as the real-life psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Kelley, who befriends, analyzes, and then turns against the Nazi chieftain Hermann Göring – Hitler’s second-in-command during the war – skillfully portrayed by Russell Crowe. Both are previous Oscar winners: Malek for his role as singer Freddie Mercury in 2018’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Crowe in 2000 for “Gladiator.”

Despite a few liberties, “Nuremberg” is a largely true account focusing on the vacillating relationship between Kelley and Göring, a longtime Nazi, head of the Luftwaffe, and presiding officer of Hitler’s subservient legislative body, the Reichstag. The film is not to be confused with its 1961 predecessor, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” a star-studded movie that won a pair of Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Maximillian Schell. That earlier film was a more fictionalized account, focusing on Schell as the Nazi’s lead attorney and one of the tribunal’s judges, an American played by Spencer Tracy.

Another Minnesota nexus concerns a related Nuremberg case that was prompted by North Dakota-born Arley R. Bjella, a 30-year old JAG officer at Nuremberg, who was the appointed defense counsel for an Austrian-born Nazi Franz Strasser, who was charged, convicted, and executed for murdering two of five downed American pilots in Czechoslovakia near the end of the war in a trial that took place at Dachau.

The JAG captain went on to become the long-term chairman of the Lutheran Brotherhood financial service company here in the Twin Cities, now known as Thrivent Financial, before his death at age 84 in 2001.

Supreme Subtext 

A subtext of the new movie concerns Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who served as lead prosecutor in the trial. He developed the novel concept of an international tribunal to adjudicate war crimes, which had hitherto been undefined and never subject to litigation before the Nuremberg trial was conducted.

Jackson, on leave from his judicial duties, headed the prosecution, aided by attorneys from a consortium of major wartime European allies — Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. The trial was conducted in a historic courthouse that still stands, after postwar renovations, in the heart of the Bavarian city of Nuremberg (which this writer has visited), not far from the site that was home to the annual Nazi rallies and was 90% destroyed by Allied bombings in the latter stages of the war. A replica of the structure and its courtroom was used in the movie, which was primary filmed in Budapest, Hungary.

Jackson was selected for the prosecutorial lead role after a long career as a government prosecutor, including serving a short period as Solicitor General arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and then as Attorney General in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. A moderate on the decidedly liberal court of the day, he was known as a judicial craftsman. Jackson was described years later as “the best legal stylist of the 20th century” by no less an authority than conservative High Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

The trial involving charges against 24 Nazi leaders resulted in 19 convictions, three acquittals, and 12 death sentences. However, a pair of them — Göring and Nazi labor leader Robert Ley — cheated the hangman by committing suicide before they were to be hanged, each taking his own life by consuming a potassium cyanide pill obtained by unknown means.

As a predecessor to other war crime trials for lesser culprits that took place through the end of 1949 in Germany against 199 Nazi officials, along with similar trials conducted in Japan, the Nuremburg proceeding served as a precedent for modern-day prosecutions. It was the Nuremberg case that captured the most public attention at the time because it was the first of its kind and because of the courtroom denouement of the clash between Jackson and Nazi chieftain Göring, taken nearly a year after proceedings began.

Desire dashed

Jackson’s desire to become chief justice of the Supreme Court was, as depicted in the movie, dashed when the sitting chief, Harlan Stone, died while Jackson was in Nuremberg. Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman — who had selected Jackson for the leading role at Nuremberg — passed over him and appointed an old congressional buddy, Fred Vinson, who had served a short stint as Treasury secretary.

Jackson was only a minor character in El-Hai’s book upon which the movie was based. He was elevated into a major role in the movie, portrayed believably by actor Michael Shannon, in order to add conflict to the film.

But Jackson’s work on the Supreme Court stood out, validating Scalia’s characterization of his craftsmanship, as exemplified by three of his most noteworthy judicial observations.

In Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49 (1955), he pointed out in a concurring opinion in a case invalidating coercive criminal confessions that “any lawyer worth his [sic] salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to the police under any circumstances,” a predecessor to the Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) self-incrimination “warning” case.

In Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. (1949), his dissent in a ruling invalidating on First Amendment grounds a breach of peace conviction of a rabble-rousing inflammatory speaker, perhaps thinking of his Nuremberg experience, informed his colleagues that they ought not “convert the Constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”

Most famously, in a concurrence in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443 (1953), he reminded that the High Court jurists “are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.” Scalia would be proud!

After the war, Jackson also dissented in a pair of cases in which the Supreme Court allowed public financial aid to parochial schools, another hallmark of his liberal bent. Jackson was also involved in one major matter from Minnesota during the pre-Nuremberg days: a precedent-setting property tax case titled Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Minnesota, 322 U. S. 292. (1944) in which the locally based airline, now part of Delta Airlines, challenged a state law that imposed a personal property tax on all eleven aircraft in the Northwest fleet at that time.

The tax was challenged by the airline on grounds that it should be apportioned among the various states in which it operated. However, the High Court rejected the argument, deeming it too unwieldy to divide the tax among the states where Northwest flew. Jackson joined the majority decision but also wrote a separate concurrence asking for “help” from Congress to address the “mongrel” status of inter-jurisdictional taxation on property that moves between states. While expressing reservations, Jackson was content to adhere to the doctrine of permitting taxation by the “home port” where the business is located. Under that principle, with Jackson’s blessing, the High Court ruling allowed Minnesota to tax the fleet in its entirety.

Neither Jackson’s colleagues on the court nor Congress responded to his call for legislative assistance. A decade later, in one of his last cases, a similar issue came before the tribunal dealing with a tax on airline equipment in Nebraska. Based on the Northwest precedent, the justices upheld the state’s refusal to apportion taxes in Braniff Airways, Inc. v. Nebraska State Board of Equalization and Assessment, 347 U.S. 590 (1954). This time, however, Jackson was not as accommodating; he issued a dissenting opinion, elevating his previous concurring view into a refusal to join the majority with a dissent that pointed out that his “home port” analysis in the Northwest case was inappropriate to this case in which the airline was registered in Texas.

Segregation suit

Jackson continued on the High Court after Nuremberg for nearly a decade before he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 62, right before the beginning of the Court’s 1954-1955 term. Before passing, however, he joined the unanimous court in the spring of 1954 in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), which invalidated racial segregation in public schools.

A forerunner of the Civil Rights Movement, the ruling overruled the 58-year precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which had permitted racial segregation in public facilities under the “separate but equal” doctrine. While Jackson joined all of his colleagues in the ruling, one feature of the litigation later drew a great deal of attention. Jackson’s law clerk at the time was William Rehnquist, a recent graduate of Stanford Law School — an institution that has turned out a number of legal luminaries, including Sandra Day O’Connor and Warren Christopher.

While he was up for confirmation as Chief Justice in 1986, Rehnquist was confronted with a memorandum he had written to Jackson while the court was pondering the Brown case, in which Rehnquist urged upholding the Plessy doctrine of racial segregation. Jackson did not buy into it, nor did the senators who questioned Rehnquist 32 years later. The aspiring chief justice tried to retreat by claiming he was merely acting as a “devil’s advocate,” but he had a difficult time shedding the taint of that advocacy.

Jackson was replaced on the High Court by John Marshall Harlan II, a conservative who was the grandson of an earlier justice of the same name – the man who happened to be the only dissenting jurist in the Plessy case.

Jurisprudence aside, Jackson proved in the Nuremberg trial — and in the movie — that his role in bringing a modicum of justice to Nazi barbarism was a singular achievement, as depicted in the book by Minneapolis author El-Hai. As for psychiatrist Kelley, he went on to a distinguished career as a professional author, educator, and host of a forensic science television program.

But he proved to be fallible when he met a tragic end on New Year’s Day 1958 by emulating his Nazi antagonist, Göring: he committed suicide by ingesting potassium cyanide.

The “Nuremberg” movie, Justice Jackson’s role in it, and the cases he decided before and after it, are worthy of consideration, even without any Oscar awards.

More Perspectives columns

PERSPECTIVES POINTERS

Books About Justice Jackson

“Robert H. Jackson, A Life In Judgment” by G. Edward White

“America’s Advocate” by Eugene Gerhart

“Advising the President” by William Casto

“Robert H. Jackson: New Deal Lawyer” by Gail Jarrow

“The Actual Art of Governing: Justice Robert Jackson” by Gerard Magliocca

Marshall H. Tanick is an attorney with the law firm of Meyer, Njus, Tanick, Linder & Robbins, PA.