Tomorrow's weather Increasing clouds with a high of 78 and a lows of 57.
The University Daily Kansan
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Sports: It'll be blue vs. white tomorrow at the spring football game.
SEE PAGE 1B
(UPSP 650-640) • VOL. 110 NO. 132
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2000
Inside: George W. Bush met with a group of gay Republicans, and says he's "a better person" for it.
WWW.KANSAN.COM
President/vice president race:
United Students;
1,427 votes, 39%
Delta Force;
1,011 votes, 28%
Students First;
665 votes, 18%
Resume Builders;
417 votes, 12%
Independent;
97 votes, 2%
Ben Walker, Hutchinson junior, and Marlon Marshall, St. Louis junior, hug after finding out that they won as student body president and vice president, respectively.
Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
UNITED STUDENTS CLAIMS SENATE
Ben Walker, Hutchinson junior, yells in joy after winning the student body presidency. Walker's coalition, United Students, also won 36 of the 66 Student Senate seats elected. Photo by Aaron Lindbera/KANSAN
UNITED Coalition earns most seats in race
By Erinn R. Barcomb
Kansan staff writers
The mood was sour at the United Students election party last night— until the election results were announced.
United Students took the presidential and vice-presidential seats in last night's Student Senate race, as well as more Senate seats than any other coalition.
Ben Walker, Hutchinson junior,
and Marlon Marshall, St. Louis
junior, will be student body president
and vice president, if the elections commission certifies last night's unofficial results.
"We pulled together and said now we're the coalition that should be running Student Senate," Walker said outside Los Amigos, 508 Locust St., after being lifted on the shoulders of supporters and doused with champagne.
Four students connected with the coalition admitted to stealing about 9,000 copies of the University Daily Kansan Tuesday because of an article about Walker's involvement with a fraternity party in which unauthorized alcohol was served and an editorial endorsement of rival coalition Delta Force. Felony theft charges are pending.
Delta Force and Students First filed complaints with the elections commission yesterday.
Election results will not be final until all complaints are resolved.
Marshall said a top priority was
celebrating the victory
"We got hit from all different sides, and we won it." Marshall said.
and we won it," Marshall said. United Students won 36 senate seats, including a Nunemaker seat for Erin Day, St. Francis sophomore.
"We worked so hard in the last two days," she said. "It's been the hardest two days of my life. There were so many obstacles in our way. We did this for Ben and Marlon."
Former student body president and vice president Korb Maxwell and Dede Seibel were also at the celebration. Seibel said that it was a well-deserved victory.
Earlier in the night, tensions ran high. Walker flipped off the radio at mention of the controversy surrounding the United Students.
In the meantime, some United Students partygoers danced and others visited, but a wall of silence and solemnness surrounded Walker and Marshall. At times both heads were down on the table as supporters rubbed their shoulders and brought them drinks from the bar.
At 8:30 p.m., KJHK 90.7 announced that results would come in a half hour, but the candidates waited two and half hours.
Eric Chenowith, United Students candidate for a CLAS seat and member of the men's basketball team, said he would not comment on his loss or whether he would run for Student Senate again.
When Walker did talk, it was to silence the crowd, but that was before the news of victory arrived.
Senate hopefuls unhappy with rocky race's outcome
By Doug Pacey, Ryan Blethen,
BriAnne Hess and Sara Shepherd
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writers
The moods at coalition parties last night were as different as their platforms. As election results were announced, Delta Force was optimistic, Students First was quiet, the Resume Builders were drunk and the independent candidates were nowhere to be found.
Delta Force
Ben Burton didn't win the presidential election, but he said the results were not final.
"This race is far from over," Burton said. "There are still big complaints that have to be addressed. It's not over yet."
Delta Force captured the second highest number of votes in both the presidential/vice-presidential and Student Senate seat races. The coalition won 23 seats.
Burton said he would question the results because the polls were down for four hours on Wednesday and the voting process was "a big mess."
He said the difference between Delta Force and the United Students was that his coalition ran a clean campaign.
"They had felonies and minor violations that have repeatedly happened," Burton said.
He also accused United Students of harassing students on campus.
Outside the Delta Force party at Burton's house, signs in the yard read "Felons are Bad" and "Felons don't equal leaders."
Because of Ben Walker's election as student body president, one Delta Force senator said he seriously would think about resigning his position.
"On one side, I want to stay on Senate to remind Walker every day how his campaign was run," said Hugo Vera, re-elected graduate senator. "But the other side of me doesn't want to be associated with a president with so much controversy.
"If I do stay, they're not going to keep me quiet," he said. "I'll be so loud they're going to have to kick me out."
See CANDIDATES on page 5A
Four students may be charged in Kansan theft
By Mindie Miller
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Following the new admission, the general managers of the Kansan and Journal-World said they wanted to proceed with prosecution on charges of felony theft.
Four students who admitted to stealing 6,000 copies of the University Daily Kansan from the Lawrence Journal-World loading dock early Tuesday said yesterday that they also stole 3,000 papers from distribution boxes along Javhawk Boulevard.
The students — R.J. Woodring, Lisle, Ill., junior; Drew Thompson, Wichita sophomore; Lindsey Gaston, El Dorado senior; and Jameson Jones, Dallas freshman — were involved in the United Students Student Senate campaign. Woodring and Thompson were running for senate positions with the coalition, but they withdrew from the race.
The students originally admitted stealing papers from the Journal-World dock but denied taking any from campus. However, Tom Eblen, Kansan general manager, said yesterday that the students had confessed to the campus theft.
"They've told me and told the police they took papers on the campus as well, which is contrary to what they said when we first talked," Eblen said. "I'm very disappointed that they weren't forthcoming."
Jones — who confessed the day after Woodring, Thompson and Gaston — said the other three students encouraged him to lie about stealing the campus papers.
"By the time I found out we were in trouble, my friends had already said they hadn't taken the ones from campus," he said. "I was encouraged to say the same."
Lt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU Office of Public Safety said he could neither confirm nor deny whether the students had confessed to the campus theft.
"We have spoken with those people," he said. "They are cooperating with the investigation."
The students had offered to pay restitution to the Journal-World to cover the cost of the 6,000 papers taken from their dock and the 7,500 papers printed to replace them. Ralph Gage, Journal-World general manager, said yesterday that he did not know whether he would accept their offer.
"They have offered us restitution for the extra work that had to be performed and the stolen copies of the papers, and we have taken that under advisement pending the opportunity to consult with our attorney about whether it's even proper for us to accept that offer at this point." Gage said.
Police reports from the Lawrence Police Department and the KU Public Safety Office will be forwarded to the district attorney's office, which will decide whether to file formal charges.
The students said they stole the papers because they were upset about an article concerning United Students presidential candidate Ben Walker, adding that the theft was not endorsed by the coalition. Gaston apologized last night.
"It just happened so fast," he said. "It was never supposed to be like this."
Woodring, Gaston and Thompson are senators, but they said they would resign their positions. Jones was an associate senator, a new program started this year to give senate seats to freshmen, but he didn't have any voting rights.
According to police reports, the papers stolen from campus were valued at $750, and the papers stolen from the Journal-World were valued at $2,000. Because the papers are valued at more than $500, the crime is considered felony theft.
Thompson could not be reached last night for comment. Woodring declined to comment.
2000 Student Senate election winners (Unofficial Results)
President/Vice President
Ben Walker / Marlo Marshall
Architecture
Allison Beck 70
Sarah Taghizadeh 51
Business
John Duckworth 71
Kelsy Simcox 59
CLAS
R. James Abraham 279
John Glampaoli 285
Jennifer Green 337
Trevor Loney 309
Luke Melnan 340
Olivia Stockman 289
Imad Uddin 276
Sarah Yannaccone 314
Kyle Browning 324
J.D. Jenkins 265
Education
Corey Snyder 51
Jamie Goode 51
Nikki Bina 49
Jennifer Pittsford 50
- United Students
Engineering Joshua Burdette 95 Justin Marz 92 Jeremy Bodecker 115 Kelli Deuth 125
Fine Arts Jeff Berauu 75 Nathan Knipp 63 Sarah Brenner 62
Graduate Joy L. Jenkins 116 Hugo A. Vera 119 Carrie Gliese 51 Michael D. Johnson 49 Adrienne Harris Boggess 58 Duane Bruce 65 Shannon Doyle 53 Lynetto Lewis 52 John H. McCool 55 Maria Melgazjo 55
Journalism Thomas Franklin 112 Katie Holman 84
Delta Force Students First
NonTraditional ▲ Michael Roessler 84
● Deena K. Hardie 76
● Amber Ratliff 71
Nunemaker Kate Bartlett 319
Jessica Bankston 549
Tracy Chiles 589
Erin Day 626
Marsha L. Harrison 573
Meade Kelley 534
Megan Knop 575
Jessica Lucas 571
Scott Panton 681
Jonathan Ng 681
Laura Nelson 577
Dallas L. Rekestraw 519
Laura Rupe 593
Brooke Schmidt 557
Off-Campus
Mike Appleby 584
Jeremy Glauner 549
Kurt Lane 518
Breeze Luetke-Stahlman 596
Erin Simpson 620
Pharmacy
Reza Kazerooni 19
Amanda Teel 27
Residential
Kelsal L. White 671
Social Welfare
Amy O'Gara 24
Kristy Schilli 20
Law
Nate Bunk 30
Ashley Udden 24
Total Winners
United Students 36
Delta Force 23
Students First 7
Voter turnout
Voted 3,617
Total students 24,209
Percent 14.9
Jason Williams/KANSAN
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