The weekend's weather Tomorrow: Cloudy
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
HIGH LOW
53 32
Sunday: Sunny
HIGH LOW
52 30
Kansan Weekend Edition
Friday
March 19, 1999
Section:
A
Vol. 109 • No. 117
Vol.109·No.117
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Wandering the Web
This is it. It's the week that legions of stressed out, overworked college students have been waiting for — spring break.
Classes at KU will be dismissed next week, and many students will hit the beaches of Padre, Cancun or Cozumel. Yet, others will be enjoying the slopes in ski mecas such as Aspen and Breckenridge. For those students who haven't made plans or who are just too poor to travel, the Web offers advice and vicious thrills.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
http://www.scholarstuff.com/netguide/springbreak.htm
m
This Web site offers advice for students who want to travel for spring break. There are articles online and a list of books about traveling, especially when on a tight budget.
http://www.springbreak.com
http://www.springbreak.com
This Web site is devoted to all aspects of spring break. There are links to pictures submitted by Web surfers, the history of spring break and travel sites. It also features entertaining links and offers visitors the chance to post comments directly to a chat board.
This the official Web site of Panama City Beach, Fla. Beachbull is an online humor magazine, and its home page is devoted entirely to spring break. There are links to regular features in the magazine, as well as humor specifically about spring break and the hordes of college students who descend upon Panama City each spring.
http://beachbull.com
http://www.freaknic.net
http://www.freaknic.net
This subject of this page is Freaknic, the unofficial Black College spring break. The celebration takes place every year in Atlanta, and this Web site has everything anyone could possibly want to know about Freaknic. There are also links with pictures from past years and a history of the event.
(USPS 650-640)
CONCERT CALENDAR
Tonight:
The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. — Outhouse, MI1330
Brown Bear Brewing Co., 729 Massachusetts St. — The Wag
■ Jazzhaus, 926 l/2 Massachusetts St. — Jeffery Lee and the Pale Moon Kings
The Bottleneck — Parlay, mi6
Tomorrow:
The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St. — Rusted Root
Jazzhaus — Disco Dick and the Mirror Balls
The Bottleneck — Swing Set
Sunday:
Index
News ...2A
Movies ...5A
Coupons ...3B
Features ...8A
Apartment Guide ..4B
Horoscopes ..2B
Classifieds ...6B
the University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of the Kansan are 25 cents.
Dan Niemi, KU graduate
"What I remember about her is that she was full of life. She was always about helping other people."
Social worker killed in Chicago last month
By Heather Woodward hwoodward @kansan.com kansan staff writer
Students who had worked for The University Daily Kansan in 1989 had lost touch
Students who had worked for The University Daily Kansan in 1989 had lost touch with one of their own. The murder last month of Merceda Ares, a Russell native, came as a shock to college friends who remembered her as someone who had an adventurous spirit and an incredible sense of humor.
Jennifer Michel, a 1990 KU graduate and Salina resident, said that Ares was a bridesmaid in her wedding but that she had not spoken to her fellow Kansan reporter in nine years.
Michel was horrified yesterday by the news and questioned what had happened to Ares, a 31 year-old 1991 KU graduate living in Chicago and working as a social worker.
Marcy O'Boyle, representative for the state attorney's office in Chicago, said that according to prosecutors, three men were looking for a
place to rob and knocked on Ares door about 9 a.m. Feb. 13. After nobody answered several knocks, one of the men allegedly entered the apartment through a transom above the door.
When they discovered Ares inside, one man allegedly approached her with a kitchen knife and led her into the bedroom where he raped her twice and then strangled her to death. O'Boyle said. Ares attempted to save her life by offering the men her ATM card and PIN number.
The suspects later were located after they were caught on camera using her ATM card.
Ronald Hinton, 26; Michael Sanders, 25; and David Wales, 26; received no bond at the Monday hearing after being charged with murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault and home invasion Sunday, March 14.
Ares' death came three weeks before the March 9 murder of Amy Watkins, a 1996 KU graduate, who was attending Hunter College School of Social Work in New York. Watkins was stabbed near her Brooklyn apartment.
Susan Gile, a social worker for Kansas Social and Rehabilitation services, 1901 Delaware St., said that she would not want to work as a social worker in a large city.
'I do not know how much they get paid there,
but it is not a lot." Gile said. "There is a lot that the public does not see as dangerous in this work, but frankly, I would not want to do this work in Chicago or even in Wichita."
Alice Lieberman, associate professor of social welfare, said that although social workers sometimes faced dangerous situations, their training could be a valuable resource in maintaining control of a situation.
"Social work is not for the squamish." Lieberman said. "You have to be willing to work with people who are anxious and sad and angry, and you have to learn to de-escalate that."
Ares graduated from the University of Kansas with bachelor's degrees in journalism and English. Ares traveled to Luanda, Angola, after receiving her degree to teach nutrition and hygiene.
She went on to receive her masters degree in social services from Washington University in St. Louis. It was a promotion to a job-placement counselor with Job Corps in Chicago that brought her to the city.
"She had a great sense of humor, and she was the type of person that everybody liked." Michel said. "She expressed some interest in social work. She was really concerned about domestic abuse and that kind of stuff. She was the type of
"What I remember about her is that she was full of life," Niemi said. "She was always about helping other people. You could tell that she really cared about other people, and she was a great reporter."
person who could have really helped a lot of people."
Tom Gainer, assistant prosecutor on the case, said his office might bring more charges against the defendants. The three men will have a preliminary hearing in violence court April 7. Gainer said he did not know whether his office would seek the death penalty.
"It is a death-eligible case on the surface," Gainer said. "But that does not mean we have made a determination to do that yet."
Dani Niemi, a 1990 KU graduate and an editor on the business desk for The New York Times, said he remembered working with Ares on The University Daily Kansan.
Two of the three defendants, Hinton and Sanders, also have been charged in the murder of Keary Lea Gagnier, 36, who lived in the same neighborhood as Ares.
Ares is survived by her mother Donna Hutchison, who lives in Russell.
Hutchison could not be reached for comment.
— Edited by Liz Wrenter
Freshman arrested in burning of swastika in Oliver
Anonymous tip leads police to apprehend hall resident
By Katie Burford
kburford@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A KU student was arrested last night in connection with a swastika found burned into the third-floor hallway carpet of Oliver Hall early yesterday morning, said Lt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office.
Bailey said police arrested the student, a freshman, about 9 p.m. for aggravated arson. Police said they were put on the student's trail after receiving an anonymous tip.
The KU student directory lists the student as a third-floor Oliver resident.
Police first were notified of the 5-foot by 3 1/2-foot swastika after a staff member contacted them some time between 2 and 2:30 a.m. Bailley said.
Police said that they had not yet connected the student to the Feb. 28 vandalism in which an Asian-American student found a swastika burned on the door of his fifth-floor Oliver room. Two other doors were vandalized the same night, but the markings on the doors were illegible.
After contacting the student, police said they took him to the KU Public Safety Office, where he confessed to the arson, Bailey said.
He was then booked into the Douglas County jail with no bond. Police said they expect the student to make his first appearance in court at 3 p.m. today.
Fred McElhenein, associate director of Student Housing, said that the department planned to address the incidents with residents.
The symbol appeared to have been made by laying toilet paper in the shape of a swastika and lighting it on fire. Bailey said.
Danny Rubin, Aurora, Colo., freshman and third-floor Oliver resident, said that he didn't know what the motivation behind the vandalism was.
"It might have been just to piss people off— to give the impression that there are white supremacists living in the hall," he said.
"We will try to get floor meetings together in order to emphasize what we stand for and what we won't stand for," he said.
See HALL on page 2A
Sport of the
Week
See page 8B
A large roster and a tight budget can't keep the competitive players of the women's soccer club down.
I want my EDtv
Kansan movie critic Brendan Walsh says the movie takes an original look at invasion of privacy and Americans' love for scandal.
See page 8A
Millennium motherhood
Despite everyone's addiction to the millennium, doctors say the odds of having a New Year's baby are slim.
The ties that bond
See page 3A
Natural Ties, a KU group devoted to improving the lives of those with developmental disabilities, has been successful enough to spread to 13 other campuses.