Section A·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, May 6, 1999
Trio celebrates commencement
Mother leads her family of graduates
By Kristi Reimer
By Kristi Reimer
krehmer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Instead of becoming misty-eyed as her children prepared to leave the nest to go to college, Martha DeMond led the way.
This month, her education will culminate along with theirs when mother, son and daughter all graduate.
"Everybody's celebrating and proud of us," said DeMond, 52, of Leawood. "The kids have been supportive. They understand why I don't cook big Sunday meals."
DeMond will receive her master's degree in social work from the University of Kansas when she walks down the Hill May 23. Her son, Marcus, will be getting his bachelor's in business administration the same day.
The weekend before. DeMond's
daughter, Lynn Ann Bachman of Harrisonville, Mo., will receive her master's in occupational therapy from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Mo. Bachman graduated from the University in 1984.
All of this University of Kansas activity has been a strain on DeMond's husband, Gregory, who went to Kansas State University.
"We have to fight for the flagpole outside," Martha DeMond said. "He doesn't like writing all these checks to KU. He wants us out of his wallet."
DeMond said she was planning an open house for friends in the area and a houseful of company from upstate New York.
"My husband said he'd only give us one party," DeMond said.
Going to school at the same time as her kids helped her empathize with them and vice versa, DeMond said.
Bachman, 27, who is now married and has a baby, said that when she and her mother were undergraduates, they took a class together.
Bachman said her mother told her what instructors to avoid, and Bachman tried to calm her mom down during finals.
classes than I did," Bachman said. "There was some competition there because my grades were better."
"She actually skipped more
"She always stressed more than I did," Bachman said. "I'd say, 'Mom, you study too hard.'"
DeMond said she made the decision to go back to school when the business for which she was working relocated to Iowa. She said she wanted to work with people, so she chose social work.
"I had to have a piece of paper that said I was as smart as I was," DeMond said. "I hope to go on and get my Ph.D. eventually, but right now I want to get licensed and start working in the mental health field."
Not only has DeMoon been going to school full time, she has been working full time in the psychiatric unit at Baptist Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo. She said the University, her employers and her family had been supportive and flexible.
"There's not enough time to be
supermom, superwife, supergrammy," DeMond said. "I don't have time to bake cookies."
But her son said he was amazed by what she had done.
He said some of the pressures of graduation were eased by having his mother and sister going through the same thing.
"She goes to school and works until one in the morning, and she still has dinner on the table," Marcus DeMond said. "She's never been big on baking cookies, but she's a great mom."
"They just threw my announcements in with theirs," he said. "My mom called me the other day to remind me to pick up my cap and gown. It's taken some of the burden off."
DeMond said she planned to work with abused women at battered women's shelters, but for now she was focused on seeing herself and her children through commencement.
"Anything's got to be easier than this." DeMond said.
- Edited by Kelly Clasen
Thrift stores offer inexpensive choices
By Lindsay Gilliland Special to the Kansas
Tamara Kemp, Arvada, Colo., junior, sorts through a variety of colorful scarves at Sugarton Traders, 918 Massachusetts St. Stem was given an imaginary $50 to put together a stylish outfit from the store's selection of second-hand vintage and contemporary clothing. Photo by Matt J. Daugherty/KANSAN
Is your summer armoire looking anemic?
Are you short on cash to buy a wardrobe with cachet?
Don't despair, Lawrence thrift stores are there to provide attire with flare.
Just take the case of Tamara Kemp, Arvada,
Colo., junior, who recently went on a shopping
spree at Sugartown Traders, 918 Massachusetts
St. and came out dressed to the nines.
Kemp was sent on the seemingly impossible mission of putting together a stylish seasonal outfit with a mere $50 to spend. By secondhand shopping, Kemp was able to emerge from the dressing room looking chic time and again
— and at half the cost per outfit of what she had been allotted to spend.
This is how Sugartown owners Shelly Lane and Tamara Heim, both former KU students, intended the shop to function when they opened their doors a year and a half ago.
"You can get clothes with that 'one-of-a-kind' feeling at roughly one-third of what you would pay in a regular retail store," Lane said.
Heim said that quirky T-shirts also were a hot commodity.
The owners of Sugartown are careful to only stock their store with merchandise they believe will appeal to their shoppers. They primarily carry clothes that conform to contemporary fashion trends or vintage clothing that has made a comeback.
Heim said that the revival of the Swing movement had made clothes from the '40s and '50s big sellers as well.
And of course, the staple of any college student's wardrobe — blue jeans.
Lane said the majority of Sugartown clientele was college students, although high school students, professionals and children were not uncommon shoppers at the store.
Kemp said she liked not having to worry that
she would end up standing in line next to someone wearing the same outfit as her.
Another plus is that Sugartown Traders buys clothes from customers. The employees will pay customers 40 percent of the item's value up front or 60 percent in store trade.
While Sugartown has a wide selection of vintage clothing, another Lawrence thrift store — Arizona Trading Company, 734 Massachusetts St., stocks more of a contemporary selection.
"Other stores have the vintage market covered," said owner Jennifer McKnight, who began the Arizona Trading Company eight years ago and has since opened two additional locations at the Westport area of Kansas City, Mo., and Columbia, Mo.
Arizona operates the same way as Sugartown, offering to pay cash for clothes or give store credit.
- Katie Burford, Kansas staff writer, contributed to this article
- edited by Katie Burner
Snooze time isn't priority for many college students
By Amber Stuever Special to the Kansan
"I'd say most college students suffer from sleep deprivation." Devaney said. "However, most make it a priority to sleep and in my life right now, it's not a priority."
Devaney, like many University of Kansas students and a large portion of the American population, suffers from sleep deprivation, a condition that deprives a person from getting the recommended 6-9 hours of sleep necessary for them to stay healthy.
It's 5 a.m. and Colleen Devaney, Leawood senior, is just finishing up her homework for the night before drifting off to sleep.
Three hours later she'll slam on the alarm clock and face a full day of class, work and extracurricular activities that will take up more than 21 hours of her day, leaving her to her usual 2-3 hours of sleep.
Many students said their class loads, work schedules, social lives and extracurricular activities - and the inability to focus late at night
- left them little time to sleep.
Linda Keeler, a psychiatrist at Counseling and Psychological Services, said sacrificing sleep to accomplish other activities wasn't a good idea.
"All the things they're working so hard to accomplish aren't working when they're sleep deprived," Keeler said.
According to Keeler, while a person sleeps, the brain produces serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. Serotonin controls a person's anxiety level, appetite, concentration and the brain's conversion from short-term to long-term memory. When a person sleeps too much, Keeler said, the excess of serotonin can make them feel groggy and not alert. The brain's production of too little serotonin, however, can lead to irritability, anxiety, susceptibility to depression, and a weakening of the immune system, among other effects.
of sleep a night, said she felt the effects of sleep deprivation. She said she felt groggy and would get sick easily when she was sleep-deprived.
"My worst problem is driving because that's when it usually hits me how tired I am," Devaney said.
Devaney admitted she felt the effects of sleep deprivation on the road.
Sarah Peden, Colorado Springs, Colo., freshman, who gets an average of five hours
Keeler said that some factors could decrease the quality of sleep, despite the quantity Caffeine and nicotine, both stimulant drugs, can affect a person's sleep. She also cited dieting and alcohol intake as other factors that rob students of valuable sleep.
Making up for lost sleep may be harder for those suffering from sleep deprivation than they think, Keeler said.
"It really takes several nights to be able to recuperate from that," Keeler said. "Biological systems tend to recuperate slower than we think."
Despite the obvious downfalls of sleep deprivation, some students are unwilling or unable to make any changes to their sleep patterns.
"The time I am most productive is from 12 a.m. or 1 a.m., to 6 a.m." Devaney said. "I find those to be my most productive hours so that's why I pull those late-nighters."
Doug Derhodes, Chicago freshman who works and studies through the night, said he too benefited from the lack of late night distractions.
"Sometimes I wish I had night classes because that's when I'm most focused," Derhodes said. "I feel like my day doesn't start until six or seven at night."
Derhodes and Devaney are part of a growing population of the sleep-deprived. According to the National Sleep Foundation's 1999 "Sleep in American" poll, 40 percent of adults reported that they were so tired during the day that it affected their daily activities.
One of the most tragic effects of sleep deprivation is the issue of fatigue-related car accidents. According to the poll, 27 percent of adults said they had dozed off while driving in the past year.
— Edited by Liz Wristen
APPLICATIONS
are available for Editor and Marketing Director at the Jayhawker Yearbook.
LAST DAY:
to apply Monday, May 10th. For more information contact Allison Bernard at 864-3728
Participating Entry in the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival