The BulleTin • Sunday, June 27, 2021 A3
TODAY
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
Chris Baxter/The Observer, file
Joe Bell trains in March 2013 in La Grande for his two-year, 5,000-mile walk across the United States to promote an anti-bullying program in re-
membrance of his son, Jadin, whose family believes was driven to suicide by bullying. Joe Bell was killed in October of that year while walking
along a road in Colorado when he was hit by a truck. The movie “Joe Bell,” starring Mark Wahlberg, is set to open in July.
Movie based on story of bullied teen
from La Grande to premiere in July
Mark Wahlberg
plays the teen’s father
in tragic ‘Joe Bell’
places on behalf of his founda-
tion. He talked of the evils of
bullying and what can be done
to prevent it.
Jadin Bell’s family members
and friends said bullying drove
him to suicide, and they later
launched an anti-bullying cam-
paign called Faces for Change.
Joe Bell premiered at the
2020 Toronto International
Film Festival. It was once titled
Good Joe Bell, according to the
website www.slashfilm.com.
BY DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — The com-
pelling and tragic story of Jadin
Bell and his father, Joe Bell, will
soon hit the silver screen.
“Joe Bell” is set to open in
theaters July 23. The announce-
ment has been made on the
Twitter site of Mark Wahlberg,
who plays Joe Bell in the film.
“This family and their story
touched my heart in a big way,”
the social media post said.
The story of Joe and Jadin
Bell made national headlines
in 2013 after Jadin, a 15-year-
old sophomore at La Grande
High School, took his own life
after being bullied because he
was gay.
Joe Bell later started on a na-
tional walk in memory of his
son to draw attention to bul-
lying. He was killed on Oct.
9, 2013, while walking along
a road when he was hit by a
truck in Colorado.
The movie was originally
scheduled to be released in
theaters in February, but the
release was delayed because of
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Patty Johnson, manager of
La Grande’s Granada Theatre,
The Observer, file
Before beginning his cross-country walk in 2013, Joe Bell embraces his
wife, Lola, beside the tiled palmprint of their late son, Jadin, in a dis-
play at Riverside Park.
said she is attempting to get the
movie booked for showings at
the theater. Johnson said she
first needs to receive authoriza-
tion from its distributor.
The film is being released
by Solstice Studios and was
directed by Reinaldo Mar-
cus Green, and its screenplay
was written by Diana Ossana
and Larry McMurtry. Ossana
and McMurtry also wrote the
screenplay for the 2005 land-
mark film “Brokeback Moun-
tain.” The stars of “Joe Bell,” in
addition to Wahlberg, include
Connie Britton and Morgan
Lily. The movie was filmed at
sites around Utah, including
Salt Lake City and Summit
County.
Although the film was not
shot in Union County, Wahl-
berg did visit La Grande in late
January 2019 to do research for
his part in the movie.
A portion of the movie fo-
cuses on Joe Bell’s walk, when
he gave a number of talks in
churches, schools and other
Find it all
online
bendbulletin.com
It’s Sunday, June 27, the 178th day
of 2021. There are 187 days left in
the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1950, the U.N. Security Council
passed a resolution calling on
member nations to help South
Korea repel an invasion from the
North.
In 1787, English historian Edward
Gibbon completed work on his
six-volume work, “The History of
the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire.”
In 1880, author-lecturer Helen
Keller, who lived most of her life
without sight or hearing, was born
in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
In 1942, the FBI announced the
arrests of eight Nazi saboteurs put
ashore in Florida and Long Island,
New York. All were tried and sen-
tenced to death; six were executed
while two were spared for turning
themselves in and cooperating
with U.S. authorities.
In 1944, during World War II,
American forces liberated the
French port of Cherbourg from
the Germans.
In 1955, Illinois enacted the na-
tion’s first automobile seat belt
law. (The law did not require cars
to have seat belts, but that they be
made seat belt-ready.)
In 1957, Hurricane Audrey
slammed into coastal Louisiana
and Texas as a Category 4 storm;
the official death toll from the
storm was placed at 390, although
a variety of state, federal and local
sources have estimated the num-
ber of fatalities at between 400
and 600.
In 1974, President Richard Nixon
opened an official visit to the So-
viet Union.
In 1985, the legendary Route 66,
which originally stretched from
Chicago to Santa Monica, Califor-
nia, passed into history as officials
decertified the road.
In 1988, at least 56 people were
killed when a commuter train ran
into a stationary train at the Gare
de Lyon terminal in Paris.
In 1991, Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall, the first Black
jurist to sit on the nation’s highest
court, announced his retirement.
His departure led to the conten-
tious nomination of Clarence
Thomas to succeed him.
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled,
in a pair of 5-4 decisions, that dis-
playing the Ten Commandments
on government property was con-
stitutionally permissible in some
cases but not in others. BTK serial
killer Dennis Rader pleaded guilty
to ten murders that had spread
fear across Wichita, Kansas, be-
ginning in the 1970s. (Rader later
received multiple life sentences.)
In 2006, a constitutional amend-
ment to ban desecration of the
American flag died in a Senate
cliffhanger, falling one vote short
of the 67 needed to send it to
states for ratification.
Ten years ago: Former Illinois
Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convict-
ed by a federal jury in Chicago on a
wide range of corruption charges,
including the allegation that he’d
tried to sell or trade President
Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
Blagojevich was later sentenced
to 14 years in prison; his sentence
was commuted by President Don-
ald Trump in February 2020.
Five years ago: The U.S. Supreme
Court issued its strongest defense
of abortion rights in a quarter-cen-
tury, striking down Texas’ widely
replicated rules that sharply
reduced abortion clinics. The Su-
preme Court overturned the brib-
ery conviction of former Virginia
Gov. Bob McDonnell, sending the
case back to a lower court. Prose-
cutors ended up deciding not to
retry McDonnell.
One year ago: Florida set another
daily record for the state in the
number of daily confirmed corona-
virus cases, with more than 9,500
new cases. Thousands of people
gathered outside a police building
in suburban Denver to call for jus-
tice in the death of Elijah McClain,
a 23-year-old Black man who’d
been put in a chokehold by police
in August 2019; he suffered cardiac
arrest on the way to the hospital
and was later declared brain dead.
Today’s Birthdays: Former Inte-
rior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is 83.
Singer-musician Bruce Johnston
(The Beach Boys) is 79. Fashion de-
signer Vera Wang is 72. Actor Julia
Duffy is 70. Actor Isabelle Adjani
is 66. Writer-producer-director J.J.
Abrams is 55. Olympic gold and
bronze medal figure skater Viktor
Petrenko is 52. Actor Tobey Magu-
ire is 46. Reality TV star Khloe Kar-
dashian is 37. Actor Drake Bell is 35.
Actor India de Beaufort is 34. Actor
Ed Westwick is 34. Actor Madylin
Sweeten is 30. R&B singer H.E.R. is
24. Actor Chandler Riggs is 22.
— Associated Press