Kansan
Tomorrow's weather Warmer tomorrow with a high of 63 and a low near 24.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2000
Sports: If the men's basketball team keeps winning like it did Saturday, coach Williams may be sporting a bald 'do soon. SEE PAGE 1B
Inside: Hillary Clinton officially announces her candidacy for the New York Senate.
SEE PAGE 7A
(USPS 650-640) • VOL.110 NO.90
Ben Walker; Presidential candidate for United Students
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Sum MacRoberts:
Students first presi
dential candidate
Ben Burton: Has considered running for Delta Force
New coalitions to run for Senate
By Erinn R. Barcomb writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
When preparations for the student body presidential race begin later this month, at least four candidates will be in the running.
Ben Walker, Hutchinson junior, and Marlon Marshall, St. Louis sophomore, said they intended to run against Sam MacRoberts, Leawood junior, and Carrie Depenbusch, Columbus junior, in this spring's election.
Ben Burton, Ocean, N.J. sophomore, said he had considered running for president with Delta Force, but nothing had been decided. He said whether he would run depended on how the other candidates' platforms compared to his.
Zora Mulligan, elections commissioner, said although petitions were scheduled to be released today, the commission decided to wait until it had approved the elections code later this month. She said the candidates would officially be in the race when the petitions were turned in around mid-March.
Both candidates will run with new coalitions. Walker and Marshall said they would run with United Students, which Walker said had lined up about 35-40 candidates.
MacRoberts and Depenbusch said they would run with Students First, which had a similar number of candidates.
Both sets of candidates said they had no set issues but wanted to wait and see what students were interested in. They also said they prided their coalitions on diversity.
"We're not the same old thing." Walker said of he and Marshall. "We're from two different parts of campus. I'm in a fraternity, and Marlon lives in the [Jayhawk] Towers."
Walker and Marshall said United Students' candidates represented about 100 different organizations on campus.
MacRoberts and Depenbusch said Students First represented scholarship halls, residence halls and Greek organizations in equal numbers, and was reaching out to off-campus and nontraditional students.
"I've been talking to people for a long time now," MacRoberts said. "We've pulled leaders from all across campus. We found leaders from outside Senate, and we want to put them in the Senate realm."
Kevin Rapp, Cedar Crest, N.M. senior and MacRoberts's campaign manager, said he thought students had become cynical and wanted candidates who weren't involved in campus politics.
On the other hand, Walker and Marshall said their experience in
s en a t e
would be
their biggest
a s s e t.
Walker is the Senate Legislative
STUDENT
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
SENATE
Advisory Board chairman, and Marshall is the Student Senate Executive Committee chairman.
"Marlon and I have a combined five years on Senate, and we have our personal relationship with administrators, the Board of Regents and state legislators," Walker said. "We know how things work."
Walker said that as legislative director he had worked behind the scenes on the recent tuition hike. Marshall's latest calling has been working to preserve bowling lanes at the Jaybowl.
Although MacRoberts and Depenbusch have no previous Senate experience, they and Rapp agreed that it was not an issue. Rapp drew a parallel to the popularity of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, a one-time professional wrestler who became involved in politics.
"To me, what's important is integrity and character," said MacRoberts, who has been president of the University of Kansas chapter of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and undergraduate president for the national chapter. Depenbusch is president of KU Ambassadors, and said she had experience with parliamentary procedure.
"With the leadership we will take to Senate, we will be representative of everyone," Depenbusch said.
More information:
For audio clips from the
Lawrence-area emergency
scanner
See www.
kansan.com
Emergency crews fight a blaze outside of Strong Hall with foam. The fire broke out when a transformer exploded Saturday night behind the building.
Photo by Matt J.
Daugherty / KANSAN
Strong Hall sustains blast
Emergency crews battle the Strong Hall fire Saturday night from behind the building. It took firefighters an hour and a half to extinguish the blaze.
Photo by Selena Jabara / KANSAN
Weekend blaze will not hinder today's business
By Mindie Miller, Doug Pacey and Jim O'Malley
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writers
Strong Hall remained closed yesterday afternoon as a Facilities Operations crew worked to restore power to the building, but crew members said it would be "business as usual" today.
A transformer exploded at 8:11 p.m. Saturday — a few feet from Strong's north exterior wall causing a small fire and cutting off power to wall outlets inside the building.
Vince Grisell, Topeka sophmore, was in the Sigma Nu fraternity parking lot, 1501 Sigma Nu Place, when the transformer exploded. He said he was getting out of a car when he heard the explosion and saw flashes of light in the direction of campus.
"The light was white, and it was kind of like fireworks," he said. "And there was smoke. The pops were sporadic."
Blue and red lights from the eight emergency units dispatched to the scene cut through the darkness. Strobe-like flashes of white light pulsed from within Strong and Wesco halls, where tremors from the explosion tripped emergency
alarm systems. A fire alarm went off in Watson Library as well, although there was no fire inside any campus buildings.
KPL officials cut electrical power to Strong and much of the surrounding area so that firefighters could battle the fire safely. Firefighters used foam to extinguish the fire because it was fueled by oil from inside the generator.
Bill Stark, battalion chief for the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical Department, said using foam was the standard procedure in an oil fire because it reduced the chance of reignition.
The fire caused $25,000 damage, said Rob Kort, battalion chief for the fire department.
Fire department personnel cleared the scene at 10:32 p.m.
The transformer was the oldest of several behind Strong, said Lynn Bretz, interim director of University Relations.
Smoke from the fire left a trail of grayish-black carbon flakes up to the third floor of the exterior wall of the terra cotta building, but no permanent damage occurred.
"The damage throughout the evening has been contained to the cage area around one of the transformers there in the back of Strong." Bretz said. "We're lucky the fire was contained quickly and that it was on Saturday night when there weren't many people around."
Darkness blanketed the area from Wescoe Hall to the usually glowing Campanile and west to Potter Lake.
See BUSINESS on page 3A
Put yourself in a winning state: Some lotteries pay for college tuition
A proposed bill could use state lobby money to help cover educational expenses for Kansas residents. Photo illustration by T.J. Johnson/KANSAN.
By Katrina Hull
By Katrina Hull
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Otero, a Valley High School senior in Albuquerque, N.M., will attend the University of New Mexico for free just because he lives in New Mexico. All Otero has to do is keep a 2.5 college GPA to receive a full-tuition Lottery Success Scholarship.
Jason Otero didn't win the lottery. He's never even bought a ticket. But the lottery will pay for his in-state college education.
"It shouldn't be that hard," Otero said. "I have to keep my grades up, or my parents said I can pay my own tuition."
Other states, such as Georgia, have similar programs.
But in Kansas, some legislators say state lottery money is not the ticket to enhancing higher education.
"I don't like the idea of supporting educational programs with something as unsure as the gambling industry," said State Rep. Ralph Tanner, R-Baldwin and chairman of the House Education Committee.
"In the late '80s, Kansas was still in a recession, but now the economy is strong and unemployment is low. What Kansas needs now is a welltrained, well-educated work force."
Tom Sawyer
State Democratic chairman
A large percentage of Kansas lottery proceeds go toward economic development, which attracts companies and creates job.
"We've been fairly successful driving economic growth in Kansas," Tanner said. "There's no reason to stop doing that."
State Democratic chairman Tom Sawyer, however, said higher education was the best economic development investment.
Last year, the Kansas Lottery awarded about $108 million in prizes. The state pocketed $59 million.
Lt. Gov. Gary Sherrer, who helps recommend how lottery money is spent, said that successful economic development was dependent upon quality education, but that education alone wouldn't create economic development.
"The problem you get into using lottery funds for tuition is where do you get the money to create the jobs that the students will have?" Sherrer said. Some lottery money does go to state universities
— but not to students. About $3 million goes to Centers of Excellence, including two at the University of Kansas, for economic development research.
Jim Janousek, manager of research for the Department of Commerce and Housing, which receives about $20 million in lottery dollars, said the money created about 5,000 jobs last year.
Sawyer said that those numbers were misleading and that higher education had a greater need.
Our lottery money has been going to the same place since it was founded in 1987, Sawyer said. "In the late '80s, Kansas was still in a recession, but now the economy is strong and unemployment is low. What Kansas needs now is a well-trained
See HOUSE on page 2A
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