4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 10.2005
843 MASS 785.832.108
ROCKTOBER 2005
07 AD ABRAT PER ASPERA
WHITE WALE
12 COMMER • THE FIREBIRD BAN
12 KODK BENEFT W/ THE BILLIONS
PERMINUEL & THE VIND TANGERINE
09 OK JONES CD RELEASE PARTY!
08 MORNINGWOOD
MEN WOMEN & CHILDREN
28 Broken SPINDELS ULTIMETRU
28 KU'S DALTA FORCE PARTY!
W/ 4TH OF JULY • TAMARINFOLD
WNHY • AQUEDUCT
NOVEMBER 2005
02 OKERKILL RIVER • MINUS STORY
04 BUILTLS & OCTANE
08 CHIN UP CHIN UP
09 DEERHOOF
10 THE STATICBIC • THE POMONAS
13 DJ SWAMP
18 THE THEVES
18 MILE MARKER
1.80 PBR, BUD LIGHT, SHINER DRAWS
1.50 PBR, BUD LIGHT, SHINER DRAWS
MONDAY THURU WEDNESDAY!
WWW.THEKPOTBALDON.COM
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
Sunflower State tunes lost
APARTMENT FIRE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A fire that destroyed a Lawrence apartment building also claimed a stockpile of Kansas musical history.
Bill Lee, president of the Kansas Music Hall of Fame, said he lost around 2,000 albums from Kansas and Kansas City bands, about 4,000 singles and several hundred CDs and tapes. He also had rare live recordings from the late 1950s to today.
"Since the Hall of Fame doesn't have a brick-and-mortar location, everything was at my place," Lee said. "I've long felt that I had the largest collection of Kansas music and memorabilia. I never met anybody who had more, anyway. And it's all gone."
up in flames early Fridav.
Lee, a 25-year radio veteran and author of "Kansas Rockers - The First Generation," had lived for six years at Boardwalk Apartments, which went
Lee, a 25-year radio veteran and author of "Kansas Rockers"
On Saturday, Mark Bradford, interim chief of the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical department, said three people remained unaccounted for after the blaze, which left 87 people without homes, including 32 students at the University of Kansas.
About 40 investigators were working Saturday, interviewing witnesses and trying to find the three missing people. Bradford declined to release information about the three.
Also on Saturday, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it would join the investigation.
Mike Boxler, special agent in charge of ATF's Kansas City Field Division, said his office is simply providing additional expertise and laboratory resources and its involvement should not be taken as an indication that authorities
suspect arson or foul play was involved.
Investigators will not be able to begin shifting through the scene until Sunday, Bradford said, because of concerns about structural damage.
Lee, who was at work when the fire began, said his apartment was a total loss.
"Over the years I just managed to grab onto all the things I could." the 58-year-old said, "Former booking agents, for example, who were cleaning out their basements and attics would give me what they had. So I had old flwers and photos."
He said an 8-by-10 glossy autographed photo of the four Blue Things is what he will miss the most.
"One of the members died in 93, so he's not going to be signing any more pictures," Lee said. "Life goes on. It was just stuff. I've lost the important people in my life this year to cancer and other things. I
miss them a whole lot more than I miss stuff."
The first Kansas Music Hall of Fame induction was held last January. Music artists The Blue Things, Brewer & Shipley, Chesmann/Chesmann Square, Mike Finnigan, The Fabulous Flippers, Kansas, The Red Dogs, Rodney and the Blazers and Big Joe Turner were honored with a ceremony at Liberty Hall.
The organization had just sent out a news release last week discussing the potential 2006 nominees.
"We'll keep going. Voting is under way right now for next year's inductees. We're going to have a ceremony at Liberty Hall in the spring," Lee said.
"As far as my contributions go, it means going back to square one. I need to start scouring garage sales and flea markets again and see what I can find."
HOLIDAY
Theme parks rake in frightening profits
BY MIKE SCHNEIDER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ORLANDO, Fla. — Dave Surgan dropped into a crouch, then leaped into the air and let out an eardrum-rupturing vein.
Halloween Horror Nights, now in its 15th year.
His imitation of a crazed monkey during a recent audition at Universal Studios Orlando helped him land a job frightening some of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who will come to be scared, be very scared, at the theme park resort's multimillion-dollar Halloween celebration this October.
"Once, they had to call the paramedics because a girl started hyperventilating," said Surgan, 22, who in the past five years has worked as a crazed chain saw operator and a mutated dinosaur at the park's monthlong
Not so long ago, Halloween was merely a one-day holiday, observed primarily by kids dressed in fake blood, plastic teeth, ballerina tutus or superhero costumes, who traipsed from door-to-neighborhood door, dragging pillowcases full of candy.
Not anymore. Over the past five years or so, the nation's $11 billion amusement park industry has appropriated the holiday as its own, helping transform Halloween into a monthlong celebration.
"If there are still theme parks out there that aren't celebrating it, they need to get their heads examined," said James Zoltak, editor of Amusement Business, a trade publication. "It's a mon-
eymaker, almost universally."
Although the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions keeps no figures, industry experts estimate that millions of people go to Halloween celebrations at parks around the nation, generating tens of millions of dollars in extra revenue for them.
For Terri Lacroix, the appeal of the Halloween celebrations comes from the adrenaline rush she gets anticipating where the next grotesquely masked figure is going to jump out at her in the confined space of a haunted house.
"I don't like roller coaster rides but I love scary movies. This is my adrenaline rush," said Lacroix, 35, an Orlando catering manager, as she exited "The Skool" haunted house at
Universal's Halloween Horror Nights.
Nationwide, Halloween has grown by leaps and bounds as a holiday, and this year consumers were expected to generate $3.3 billion in Halloween spending, according to the National Retail Federation. Celebrations also have spread abroad to amusement parks in places, such as Mexico and Brazil, without strong Halloween traditions.
This year, the nation's theme and amusement parks are counting on successful Halloween celebrations more than ever as a season of great promise in the spring gave way to what is expected to be flat attendance for the year because of the hurricanes and high gas prices.