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Charge dropped: Enid News. May result in lesser charge

Published: March 17, 2008 11:47 pm

Court drops hazing incident charge against Cherokee student
By Cass Rains Staff Writer The Enid News and Eagle
www.enidnews.com/

A felony charge of indecent exposure filed against an 18-year-old Cherokee High School student was dropped by the court Friday during a hearing.

Levi James McHenry was charged with the felony in November for the alleged role he played in a hazing incident in Septem-ber that occurred in Cherokee before a football game.

“The felony charge did not stand,” said Alfalfa County Assistant District Attorney Westline Ritter. “There will be a misdemeanor filed.”

McHenry was accused of holding down a 15-year-old boy while another boy, 16, exposed his genitals and placed them on the face of the 15-year-old, according to charges filed Alfalfa County District Court.

According to an affidavit prepared by Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Agent Chuck McAnarney, on Sept. 7, 2007, McHenry “coerced” another boy “into exposing” himself as McHenry held the 15-year-old boy down on his back on a bed.

None of the court documents state McHenry exposed himself during the incident.

Ritter said her office will re-file a misdemeanor charge against McHenry “within the next few days.”

McHenry’s attorney, Tim Gungoll, declined to comment.

Two other Cherokee High School students were suspended for 20 days for their roles in alleged hazing incidents in July 2007 at a Frontier Public Schools basketball camp in Noble County.

They had been suspended for a year, but the Cherokee school board reduced the suspensions.

No charges were filed in that case.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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