Mosquitoes, motorists menace bicycle trek
Staff Writer
By DAVID LINK
Gary Webber rode his bicycle, 1,000 miles from Tucson to Wichita it must be upagged in the local press by a 63-year-old man who had ridden all the way from California to attend a reunion.
But Webber, a 1973 KU graduate, did not mind. He saw the ride as the simply most practical way to learn how to fly.
"It was time for me to run to Kansas, and since I had sold my car, it just seemed logical." Webber said. "I had no deadlines and I certainly can't think of a more pleasant way to travel."
Webber, 23, arrived in Lawrence last week after visiting his family in Wichita. He hopes to settle in this part of the country and earn a living as an organic gardener.
AFTER 25 DAYS on the road, he rode into Wichita where he was interviewed by the local newspaper.
"But it was just my luck that a 65-year-old guy had ridden in a bicycle from California the same day."
But pushing 200 pounds of body, bicycle and gear over a 1,500-mile route that took him across the
Continental Divide three times was obviously no small feat.
"I really didn't plan to cross the Rockies that many times, but it just worked out that war." Webber said.
"1 HAD A friend who had crossed every pass over the Rockies except one, so we made plans to meet in Los Alamos and ride over Wolf Creek Pass together so he could complete his record."
Averaging 70 miles a day, Webber rode from Tucson, in southeastern Arizona, north through New Mexico to southern Colorado, where he turned east on I-40. Wolf Creek Park and headed for Wichita and Lewiston.
Webber's 10-speed Japanese bicycle has an impressive range of gears, as evidenced by the wide range of speed.
"I wasn't sure I had a low enough gear for crossing the Rockies, so I stopped in Albuquerque and bought a larger sprocket cluster for the rear that has a low gear you can climb trees with." Webber said.
"But then I only had to use it once, when we rode one side of Redondo Peak, outside Los Alamos, and another side of Greenback Ridge."
Webber described the 91-mile ride over the 11,254-foot-high mountain as the best day of the trip.
"THE ELEVATION went from 5,000 to more than 10,000 feet in the space of just a few miles." Webber said. "There was a hot spring at the top that we must have sat in for more than two hours. But those last four months to the top were real ass-ckickers, let me tell you.
"Coming down the other side we lift up to 35 mph, which may not see*'er very fast. But at that speed, with a fully loaded bike, it's vicious. The handlebars would start shaking and the ditch looked pretty omnious."
Other than the winds in Kanaa, Webber said his biggest annoyance on the trip was the mosquitoes. The hissing of the bees was both terrifying and frightening.
"Then all night long I could hear them banging on the outside of the tent, trying to get me.
"I'd stop an hour or an hour and a half before sunset each day to set up camp and the mosquitoes were always thick," he said. "I'd set up my tent as fast as possible and jump inside.
"SOMETIMES I imagined I could hear them out there filing their manacles but saw the slovences on the ground."
Nights along the road were spent either in a public campsite or, sometimes, in a farmer's field.
"I really ate a lot," Webber said. "You burn up a lot of calories on a bicycle. My favorite meal was canned ice cream."
Webber bought food along the way and always tried
to cook a hot meal in the evenings or a small snoop he carried with him. Other meals consisted mostly of
Generally, the people who passed him on the road are men, he gives him a wide beth, but there were women.
The helmet Webbore wore had a small mirror hanging from the front left side.
"MEMORIAL DAY weekend in Arizona was the worst." Webber said, "All these recreational vehicles were screaming by me on a two-lane shoulderless road.
"And then a Tuccus motorcycle gang called the 'Dirty Dozen' passed me with about 75 guys on huge motorcycles. I could go a long time without seeing those guys again."
"That rear view mirror saved my life more than once," he said. "I'd see one of those big doublewide mobile homes bearing down on me on a shoulderless road and I'd head straight for the ditch.
DESPITE THE WIND, heat, road hogs and mosquitoes. Webber kept returning to the beauty of nature.
"I don't care if it was 10 feet deep and full of thorns.
No way was I going to stay on the road."
"The day we crossed Wolf Creek, the morning was cool and we were wearing jackets," he said. "Then as we got close to the top it was not enough to take our shirts off, but by the time we got to the summit there was snow all over the place and we had to put coats on."
"It then started snowing. It was just incredible—huge flakes and children playing in the drills. My buddy turned me and said, 'I think we better get off this mountain,' and by the time we got down to 7,000 feet, it was cold."
The Soviet charges stem from articles published by the Times and the Sun quoting sources that doubted the authenticity of a televised confession by Zvad Gamsakhurda, a convicted dissident from the Soviet republic of Georgia.
Whitney and Harold D. Piper of the Baltimore Sun papers were charged in the slander action. They are scheduled to appear in a Soviet court July 15, but told a US attorney that they had decided against taking any further part in the proceedings against them.
UNDoubtedly they are not many people who, when faced with a 1,000-mile move, choose to do it on a bicycle. It may seem a cheap way to travel in the world, but it could be more expensive, the world could not be measured in dollars and cents.
"When you consider the cost of the bicycle and gear, plus figure in the $ to $1 a day I spent for food on the road, said it would have been cheaper to buy conventional means of transportation," Webber said.
"But where's the adventure in that?"
Partly cloudy High upper 90s
KANSAN
Whitney said yesterday he might return to Moscow "just for appearances" before his trial.
Students fight tuition increase at Med Center
BOSTON (AP)—Craig R. Whitney, one of two U.S. reporters charged with slander in the Soviet Union, has returned to the United States.
Whitney landed in Boston Tuesday to begin a delayed vacation.
He had been scheduled to begin the vacation the day a Soviet court charged him with slandering the Soviet television service.
By TOMRAMSTACK Staff Writer
Thursday July 6,1978
A lawsuit by University of Kansas Medical Center students to stop a tuition increase of as much as 250 percent, delivered to Shawnee County District Court Monday, is awaiting the filing fee, a lawyer for the students said yesterday.
The lawyer, David Deal of Carson, Boal and Fields law firm in Kansas City, Kan., said that the change of venue for the lawsuit from Wyandotte to Shawnee County had caused a mix-up but that the students now would proceed with court action.
Soviets allow U.S. reporter to return home
A petition signed by 227 medical students
protests tuition increases of from $1,500 to
$2,000 and from $3,000 to $8,000 annually for nonresidents in the three-year medical degree program,
and from $1,500 to $3,000 annually for
nonresidents in the four-year program.
A bill signed into law April 14 by Gov. Robert F. Bennett provides that any medical student who agrees to practice in Kansas after graduation will have his tuition paid by the state for each year he practices in Kansas.
ACCORDING TO THE petition, the fee increases, which were approved March 17 by the Board of Regents, were "part of a cost-sharing program" in the medical school graduates to work in Kangas."
The law also provides that any student who agrees to practice medicine in areas with shortages of doctors in Kansas will be only allowed a $800 while in medical school.
Sharon Prohaska, president of the medical students assembly, said that besides forcing many medical school graduates to remain in Kansas, the tuition fee and theach of the free schedule agreement for students already enrolled in the Med Center.
"The students aren't opposed to the scholarship program because it gives students a new way to pay," Prohaska said. "What they're opposed to is that tuition is raised so high that they're almost forced into it."
Sound investment
Gary Marshall, director of the Audio Reader rehabilitation program, and Art Hadley, field engineer, work together to
produce special rehabilitation programming for their listeners.
Audio Reader is a radio reading service for the blind and
the hearing impaired.
Audio Reader broadcasts vision
By SANDY HERD
Staff Writer
The people at Sudler House are the eyes for more than 3,700 blind or physically handicapped persons in Kansas.
"All anyone needs to do to receive Audio Reader is to submit an application through a physician, nursing home director or any recognized social agency that will attest to the need of the service." she said.
Sudder House contains the broadcast and production studios of Audio Reader, a radio reading service that allows blind and physically handicapped persons to hear news, literature and other information relevant to them.
"The things that other people take for granted are provided by Audio Reader, giving our listeners the ability to participate and be a part of all that goes on around them," Rosie Hurwitz, director of Audio Reader, said.
AUDIO READER broadcasts 90 hours weekly by closed-circuit radio and provides listeners with special receivers at no cost.
Eligible listeners of Audio Reader include blind persons, elderly persons with impaired vision, persons with poor eyesight, persons and victims of diseases or brain damage.
Hurwitz estimated that more than 100,000 Kansans were eligible to receive Audio Reader broadcasts.
"This service isn't just for blind people. It's for anyone who, for some physical reason, cannot read easily."
Local newspapers are read 16 hours a week and magazines are read five hours weekly over the radio.
"It's not just a 'nice' service, as some people think," Gary Mairman, director of rehabilitation programming, said. "It is an absolute necessity because there is no other way for these people to get information that is current."
Marshall, who has been blind for 13 years, said that without the detailed and current information in newspapers and magazines, people who are unable to read are denied the opportunity to be fully functioning citizens.
"WE READ THE headline stories, editorials, sports and columns, as well as the lighter items, such as Ann Landers and horoscopes." Marshall said.
"HOW CAN YOU DISCUSAN an issue if you don't know what it is about?" he said. "How can you be a respondent to that issue?" candidates and legislation that affect you and your family? You can get this detailed information only if you can get it.
"Listeners will know where the best buys are and can take advantage of sales," he said.
On Thursdays Audio Reader provides a reading of grocery store ads that allow listeners to compare prices.
Marshall said a full description of current issues could not be found on radio or television because the news coverage was censualized.
Besides the news. Audio Reader
listeners also can "read" the latest best sellers in fiction and nonfiction.
Every week night from 11 p.m. to midnight listeners can hear articles from "Playboy" and "Penthouse" and X-rated novels.
The books for July include "All Things Wise and Wonderful," "The Man Who Would Be King" and the biography "Wvien Leuph."
"We broadcast on a subcarrier signal of KANU-FM, meaning it's closed-circuit broadcasting to a select audience," Marshall said. "FCC doesn't have censoring control of subcarrier stations."
A MONTHLY schedule of programming is sent to all listeners, either in large print or in braille, according to their preference.
Audio Reader also broadcasts and produces special programming with particular emphasis on subjects of interest to handicapped persons.
One such series of programs has been studies of 12 rehabilitation centers in the Lawrence area.
When all 12 rehabilitation centers have
"We go to the rehabilitation centers and interview everyone from the executive director on down to the clients." Marshall said.
"After gathering information on what services are available and how clients are helped, we come back to the production studio and edit the information into five one-hour tapes that we broadcast on Audio Reader."
See AUDIO page three
Breakthrough remote after Egypt lists plan
CAIRO (AP) - Egypt unveiled a new sixpint Middle East peace plan yesterday, calling for Israel withdrawn from the Gaza Strip and moving to the Jordan River including East Jerusalem.
But the main elements of the plan already have been rejected by Israel and Egyptian diplomats said they had little hope for a breakthrough.
Israeli radio said the plan was rigid and reflected no change in Egyptian President President Hosni Mubarak.
Israeli government officials withheld immediate comment on the proposal, which also stipulates that Israel must abandon a military retreat in the territory. A decision on whether to send Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan to London for a meeting with Egyptian and American officials later this month to discuss the plan will be announced until Sunday's Israeli Cabinet meeting.
Israel has said it will not withdraw from
The Egyptian plan, prepared at the urging of the United States, calls for a five-year transition period during which the occupied country will be reconstituted, elected" representatives of the Palestinian people under the supervision of Jordan on the West Bank and Egypt in Gaza. The future of the 1.1 million Palestinians living there will be decided after the transition period.
THE PLAN CALLS for talks involving Egypt, Jordan, Israel and representatives of the Palestinian people with the participation of the United Nations to discuss details of the transitional government, a timetable for Israel withdrawal, mutual
the occupied territories and not give up any of the settlements there. Even the opposition Party in Israel has said it cannot do so, only from certain areas of the West Bank.
See MIDEAST page three
Rv The Associated Press
Tornadoes that struck suddenly in small farming towns in Minnesota and North Dakota left eight persons dead and turned homes and other buildings into piles of twisted rubble yesterday. More than 60 people were injured.
Midwest tornadoes ravage farming towns
a tornado hit Eign, N.D., a ranching and farming town of 1,000 about 75 miles southwest of Bismarck, Tuesday night, at about 50 feet south of the town's hospital.
The storm ripped through 17 blocks of a residential area, killing six persons. Arnold Meyer, Grant County coroner, said J.J. and Martha Nicklaus, 72, and Odell and Martha Hauck, 68, died Tuesday night. He said the hauccled lives in the town were carried over by the tornado. The Nicklauses were killed when the tornado blew anart their pickup.
A spokesman at St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck identified the fifth victim as Henry Neher, 77, who previously had been listed in critical condition. Thirty-five to 40 persons suffered minor injuries as a result of the storm.
OFFICIALS REPORTED a sixth victim of the storm, an unidentified man, died yesterday morning at the Algeen hospital, but the death was not a result of the weather.
"This is going to be a really serious thing
for us," Elgin's fire chief, Clarence Werner, said.
The town was left without water or power. Werner said authorities were trying to hook up an emergency generator to pump water out of its well field and into water lines.
Three persons—an infant, a teen-ager and an elderly man—were reported killed in the attack.
Authorities said 25 persons were injured in Gary and five persons were injured in nearby Foston. Gov. Rudy Perpich ordered the State Emergency Service Guard to help search for missing persons.
The storms leaved buildings, overtured trailer homes and snapped off power poles,
A tornado struck Gary, a community of 253 person about 260 miles northwest of Mesa.
Police Chief Myron Adkins was sitting in his squad car and tried to sound the alarm as officers approached.
"I was trying to get to the fire hall and trip the alarm," Adkins said. "I never made it. I didn't see the tornado coming. It started shaking my car and picked it up. It went maybe half a block before everything went black."
When Adkins regained consciousness, he was lying on the floor of his car. He was not insulted.
Soviets decry U.S. trade policy
MOSCOW (AP) — Premier Aleksei N. Koyguyn yesterday accused the United States of hampering US-Soviet cooperation by its unwillingness to establish normal relations.
Kosygin spoke at the opening of the regular summer session of the Supreme Soviet, Russia's parliament.
In Washington, Hodding Carter, a state department spokesman, declined to comment on Kosygin's remarks.
on osynjyš s ULLN Sa.
Koepp said U.S. Soviet trade amounted to only 2 percent of the Soviet Union's foreign business.
"This indicates that economic cooperation with the United States is, in effect, still at the onset. A cooperative season is the unwillingness of the United States to conform for trades."
It was an allusion to the 1972 U.S.-Soviet trade agreement, which was never implemented because of an attempt by Congress to link it to Jewish emigration. Some Jews in the Soviet Union say they are discriminated against and are not permitted to emigrate.
The agreement would have granted the Soviets most favored nation trading status with the United States, which would assure the Soviets tariff advantages as good as those of the United States.
When the agreement passed Congress in 1974, it contained the Jackson-Vank amendment, linking U.S.-Soviet trade to increased Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union.
The outraged Soviets refused to implement the agreement. U.S.-Soviet trade slumped as the Soviets turned to West Germany, Japan and other countries to trade.