Welcome to Stuart Showalter

While Neil Armstrong was making his first step for mankind on the Moon I was making my first step, or rather crawl, on the Earth for myself. I grew up in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood of Indianapolis. This neighborhood is placed between Butler-Tarkington, where Butler University is located, and Broad Ripple which is where the high school I attended is located. Broad Ripple High School is well-known as the place that David Letterman once graced with his presence.

I eventually settled at a high security institution in Louisiana [pronounced lousy-anna].  While in the system I worked as a legal counselor to inmates, mostly working on appeals. While there I filed my first lawsuit which was against the FBI and in which I was victorious. The intimate observations that I was allowed to make of the federal government in action along with learning what other inmates where convicted of, what they had actually done and how they were caught was the best education I had ever received.

Upon completion of my term of parole I married Elica Wilson, the younger sister of my high school buddy Brian Wilson. After moving around a few years while she attended IUPUI we settled along Highway 32, a short distance West of Lebanon, Indiana while she was pregnant.  In the Fall of that year our wonderful son Therin Alrik was born.

As we had previously agreed I would be the stay-at-home-dad while she went and applied her degree in education as a teacher. This gave me the opportunity to hear his first sounds and words.  "baa" in it's three different inflections meant Thomas the Tank Engine, corn chip, or look. The first time he crawled was a frightening experience. He went backwards about three feet to an area behind the recliner chair.  I walked back into the living room after being gone less than half a minute and our child had disappeared. Sneaky little guy.

Unfortunately, as I showed less worship of Elica and dedicated myself more towards rearing Therin a dramatic change took place in her.  I tried to get her to take a more active role in parenting our son. She then became physically abusive towards me often only throwing things but sometimes unleashing a flurry of punches that resembled the Tasmanian Devil of our cartoon days. A series of different mind altering drugs failed to stabilize her behaviour. In our final months together she often made threats that she would kill me while I slept.  One day she pointed a gun at our son and threatened to kill him because she complained that I took care of him more than her.

That was the point at which I finally sought outside assistance.  She cooperated for a short time before declaring that the psychologist didn't know what she was doing.  Elica then quit the counseling, tried to self medicate and ultimately moved in with a boyfriend leaving Therin behind with me.  A few months later she filed for divorce and then wanted to spend time with Therin.

Ultimately, as is typical, she was awarded full legal and physical custody of our son.  This was a manifest injustice that placed my son with a mentally unbalanced parent who had previously abused him both mentally and emotionally.  At one point during the divorce I did get a restraining order to keep her from harassing my friends and business associates. He was denied a substantial relationship with the person whom he had really only ever known as his caregiver.  The person who taught him mathematics, how to read and nearly everything else that led to him skipping the first grade.

On top of losing a relationship with my child I was ordered to pay to her about 70% of what our family expenditures had been.   This was supposedly to maintain the lifestyle that my child had enjoyed while we were married.  A system that requires one parent to pay 70% of household expenditures to the other as his half of child support is clearly flawed.

In 2004 I and a few other fathers in Boone County Indiana organized what eventually became the Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates as a way to bring attention to these injustices. This quickly resulted in a felony charge being brought against me alleging that I had severely abused my son for a two and one half year period.   I fought with diligence to get a trial but prosecutor's from surrounding counties kept passing the case along until one finally dropped it.  I sought to have it reinstated and again made a demand for a jury trial but was denied. I was also criminally charged in 2006 but again it was simply to attempt to discredit me and was dropped.

I have since dedicated myself to, along with my son, the cause of fighting for the best interest of children through the custodial rights of children and their parents.

In this capacity I am the Legislative Liaison for Indiana Shared Parenting where my primary responsibility is lobbying for more child friendly laws in Indiana.  Other positions include Executive Director of Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates and Legislative Liaison for the American Coalition of Fathers and Children. During the 2010 legislative year I will be a registered lobbyist in the state of Indiana. I am also a member of the Indiana Association for the Gifted, an educational advocacy organization, and the Indiana Coalition for Open Government, a public access advocacy organization.

I am currently pursuing a law degree and hope to eventually teach classes for pro se litigants wanting to learn the law for purposes of representing themselves in court but not seeking a law degree. I currently provide coaching to litigants on an individual basis.

Although I have almost no free time I do take some time out to practice and play real football.  I also returned to playing the trumpet in 2007  which I had previously done through high school.  When my son was visited by the middle school band teacher he decided that he wanted to start playing trumpet.  We worked on it over the Summer and the band teacher was pleased to say that Fall that he was where he was expected to be the next semester.  I now play in the Boone County Community Band.