Despite journalism's many modern tools, shoe leather and determination are irreplaceable for digging out a story. And they are readily available to anyone, no matter the size of the news operation.

Janelle Stecklein and The Herald-Banner in Greenville, Texas, proved as much in February, with a lengthy story about a woman accused of drunk driving at the wheel of her boyfriend's patrol car before she crashed the cruiser into a tree.

Officials pointed to unspecified evidence that Tiffany Bates was driving the cruiser the night of Dec. 4, 2007. Her now former boyfriend, a sheriff's deputy who suffered a head injury in the crash, at first said he was driving but later changed his account and accused Bates.

Stecklein's story, published in February, makes the case that Bates was not driving. The story quotes more than a dozen people, including witnesses and emergency crews who never saw Bates at the accident scene. It describes the walk from Bates' home to the accident site to prove how unlikely it was that she fled before anyone could notice.

Bates' father says he heard her argue with her boyfriend that night, but she never left the house. Bates' ex, who lost his job with the sheriff less than a week after the accident, now says he can't remember who drove.

The county attorney dropped charges against Bates a month after the story appeared.

Stecklein enjoys digging, as proven by her work on a three-part series in February 2007 about structural and security problems at the Hunt County jail. The story earned The Herald-Banner a Public Service Award in the 2007 Best of CNHI contest.

Stecklein, who recently took a job with the larger Amarillo Globe-News in West Texas, took time before she left Greenville to write about the Bates story and what she learned.

The most important lesson for the rest of us may be the utility of old-fashioned shoe leather journalism.