Natalee Holloway Case Transcends All Media Lines

Critics question why the Natalee Holloway story is so compelling and why the media and more importantly people have such a fascination and desire to read, question and talk about this case. They need to only look at the vast range of media outlets that cover this story. Not only do you have newspapers, networks and the 24-7 TV shows covering the disappearance, you also have some Sports media doing the same. How often does that occur? CNN, MSNBC, FOX and ABC having something in common with Sports Illustrated and FOX Sports? Not usually, but then again the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has far than proved it is not a typical story. So the next time someone asks what does, Sports Illustrated, CNN, CBS, Fox Sports and the Birmingham News have in common; your answer is Natalee Holloway.

From SI.com and Fox Sports comes the story of the reflections by Nate McManus who took the same graduation trip as Natalee Holloway. Nate took the attitude as most probably would have who had been on the trip previously; she must have just over slept and missed the plane. We now know just how wrong that assumption was.

ATLANTA (AP) — Nate McManus took the same graduation trip as Natalee Holloway.

“I was at home when I heard the news,” McManus recalled. “Everybody was like, ‘Oh, she missed the plane. She must have fallen asleep somewhere.’ Then a day became two days. Then it became weeks.”

“I took the exact same senior trip that she did,” McManus said. “I had the time of my life. It was awesome.”

Now Nate McManus clings to the hope that she will return safe as he begins his career at Georgia Tech as an offensive lineman only one year ago on this same trip. The reflections of an offensive lineman in college sound much the same as Natalee’s girl friends that just recently began their respective college careers as well.

Now, as McManus prepares for his first season as a starter on Georgia Tech’s offensive line, he tries to keep up with news about the missing Alabama teen, clinging to hope that she might be found alive in Aruba.

Holloway was a year behind McManus at Mountain Brook High School in suburban Birmingham, Ala. She was on the dance team that performed at football games and, while the two weren’t especially close, they did share many of the same friends.

Nate finds himself like most of us but with an even greater connection to the story, he clings to hope that she will be OK and finds himself distracted by the events. Through degrees of separation we find this story of Natalee Holloway and the efforts her family goes through to affect many of us and hit close to home in so many ways.