8
Monday, February 16, 1976
University Daily Kansam
Lawrence Villages, Inc., home finally opens
Staff Writer
By JAY BEMIS
After a year of planning and controversy, Villages, Inc., a home for dependent and neglected children, came to Lawrence yesterday.
The home's first nine residents, all girls aged 10 to 19, greeted guests with their houseparents, Mr. and Mrs. Phill McPhail, and the home's temporary site at 290, Missouri.
Lance Burr, Lawrence attorney and county project director for Villages, said yesterday that construction on the permanent quarters, to be in Pleasant Valley near the Wakarua Township, is scheduled to begin this spring.
THOSE PERMANENT quarters are to consist of two brick-and-stone frame cottages that will eventually house two families.
Burr said brick and stone was the smartest way to build the houses.
"If we build it right and sturdy," he said, maintenance costs will be lower and it will
Burr estimated total project costs, which included costs of a sewer lagoon and roadway, would be $150,000. Also, water commissions and the lagoon have been paid.
Funds for the construction costs come entirely from donations, according to Herb Callison, executive director of Villages for Topeka and Lawrence. $50,000 is still needed for the Lawrence construction, he said.
AFTER THE HOMES are built, Callison
said, the state takes on financial respon-
sibility for the children and maintenance of the hospital.
There are five Villages homes in Topeka, two for girls, two for boys and one that is coeducational. A boys home is proposed for a complete completion of the permanent quarters.
Burr said it was financially more efficient to have nine or 10 children in a home, in addition to providing care.
"Four can't make it (financially)," he said, "and 15 are too many."
He also said the trick to being a besusparent of such a home was having the children in the family.
McPail, who has two children of his own,
a needed, saving. "it's a fulltime job."
THE MCPHAILS have been with the Villages operation for five years. They ran a nursery for 10 years before coming to Villages and have 15 years experience in caring for families that are larger than normal.
At the Villages' temporary site, McPhail has changed a duplex into one home with seven bedrooms. The revision allows a family atmosphere for the Villages residence and the McPhails. The McPhails also have to have a part of the home for themselves.
McPhaill's remodeling has included repainting the house, adding two rooms, wallpapering and applying sheetrock to ceilings.
Speaking about his new neighborhood McPhail said, "I've never met more friendly and more helpful people—if I ever needed anything, they were there."
One major part of the children's lives is their band, "The Pride and Joys." With each child playing a different instrument, they play nine-piece band that plays popular music.
INSTRUMENTS PLAYED are saxophone, flute, oboe, guitar, drums, piano, bells, trumpet and organ. Practice sessions are every night after school.
The children have been attending Lawrence schools since September, but didn't live in Lawrence until last month. She drove the children to school from Toronto.
The reason for the delay in finding a Lawrence home was a delay in getting the loan.
Twenty per cent of the residents around the proposed permanent site protected the village by a Commissioner I.J. Stoneback, who represents the district where those residents vote, against granting a village for the Villages because of the protest.
The permit was denied, because it was thought that a unanimous vote was needed. It wasn't. The vote was one vote.
Villages disagreed that a unanimous vote was needed and filed a suit against the court.
FRANK GRAY, District Court Division One judge, ruled in November that a two-thirds majority was sufficient for approval. The commission voted again on Nov. 24, against voting 2. enough to grant a permit and a 1-4creat tract of land south of Lawrence.
One visitor at yesterday's grand opening
Dwindling Birchers remain here
He is polite, soft-spoken and very ready to listen. He likes the Fibonacci consistently and shows deep political sensitivity.
He is Robert Ammel chapter leader for
awareness chapters of the John Birch Society.
There are about 15 people in each chapter, Annelmed said Saturday. That membership is down from a 1971 peak of about 100, he said. Recently, membership has held steady.
"There's more people waking up every day," he said.
That educations uses pamphlets, speeches and films, Amnel said, to warn people against world domination by two organizations: the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York and "1313" in Chicago.
The John Birch Society has been recognized as one of the most stuntsually talented organizations in the United States. Unlike the organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Minitemen, the John Birch Society has non-violence and stresses education.
"I learned that communism is a tool used by an elite group of people who run this country."
THE LEADER of that elite group is Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Amnel said.
"Rockefeller apparently wants to be the top man in the whole world kingdom," he
The plans of this elite group are closely tied to Zionism, Ammel said. He emphasized that his opinions on religious weren't those of the John Birch Society.
Ammel said that U.S. foreign involvement proved the attachment of that elite group.
We condemned Korea and Vietnam, he said, but we have been read to fight for larger.
WHAT AMMEL CALLS "the Rockefeller group" even has contacts in Lawrence, he said. There are people on the city planning commission and the county commission
"They don't want to admit it, but they know," he said.
who follow orders from the group, he said,
although he didn't want to give names.
Ammel said that there were about six University of Kansas instructors and administrators who were members of the procommist group a few years ago. He said he didn't know if they were still at KU and didn't want to give names.
IN LAWRENCE, the John Birch Society is fighting attempts to form a regional government. Regional government is part of a plan to take local government away from the people and to centralize power close to the federal government, he said.
The local Birchirbers also fight efforts to establish gun control laws, Ammel said. "Any anti-gun law that they put in is unconstitutional," he said.
The political situation in Lawrence has calmed down in the last five years, he said.
was Evalyn VanValkenburg, Topeka senior, who was one of the first Villages' residents in Topeka with the McPhails in 1969.
"Suddenly there were 10 kids and a lot of discipline," she said of adapting to the villages in the beginning. At 17, it seemed kinder to give her family that I had never lived with before."
"I still don't like to see boys with long hair, especially when they don't take care of it.
Karl Menninger, whose husband is cofounder of the Menninger Foundation in Topeka. Menniger had a vital part in getting the Villages started in the late 60s.
Mrs. Menninger said she and her husband were pleased that Villages had expanded to Lawrence. She said that Lawrence was a wonderful city and that its consulting committee for the Villages project had worked hard in locating a home here.
VOTE
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