Myself, a long-time resident of East Lansing, knew little about Old Town and nothing about Robert until his tragic death in 2006.  Many of my friends involved in the arts community were deeply saddened by his passing and I felt like I had missed a chance to know a very interesting person.  While I was not throughly involved with the story of Robert Busby at the time, I would say it was a pretty big deal in Lansing and it was hard not to hear about it.  In other words, while I didn’t completely follow the media coverage about Robert Busby, I felt there was a story there that would be well served through investigation and documentation.

I mentioned this to Bump Halbritter, Professor of Rhetoric and supervisor of the MSU Documentary Lab, in the summer of 2008, as a project that I thought would well serve the interests of the Doc Lab.  I was disappointed that the space and equipment wasn’t being heavily utilized, even though it was stocked with top-of-the-line computers and cameras intended for the production of documentary film.  Bump thought it was a great idea and advocated I begin production on the project.  After some preliminary research, however, I found the story to be to big, too overwhelming, and I was hesistant to start working on something that I didn’t think I could finish.  I was entering into my last semester at Michigan State, after all, and the chances of completing a quality piece in the way I imagined it were slim.