provides story higher in the backlog for the rendering partial to avoid querying for it in the partial

app/views/rb_master_backlogs/_backlog.html.erb

@@ -6,6 +6,14 @@
   </div>
   <ul class="stories">
     <% reset_cycle 'stories' %>
-    <%= render :partial => "rb_stories/story", :collection => backlog.stories %>
+    <% backlog.stories.each_with_index do |story, index| %>
+      <% higher_item = index == 0 ?
+                        nil :
+                        backlog.stories[index - 1] %>
+
+      <%= render :partial => "rb_stories/story",
+                 :locals => { :story => story,
+                              :higher_item => higher_item } %>
+    <% end %>
   </ul>
 </div>

app/views/rb_stories/_story.html.erb

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
   </div>
   <div class="subject editable" fieldname="subject" fieldorder="2"><%=h story.subject %></div>
   <div class="fixed_version_id"><%= story.fixed_version_id %></div>
-  <div class="higher_item_id"><%= story.higher_item.blank? ? '' : story.higher_item.id %></div>
+  <div class="higher_item_id"><%= !defined?(higher_item) || higher_item.nil? ? '' : higher_item.id %></div>
   <div class="meta">
     <%= render :partial => "shared/model_errors", :object => story.errors %>
   </div>