Wednesday, March 3, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 7
Students seeking money for break
By Scott Zerger Special to the Kansan
Local businesses' seasonal headaches have set in: Students looking for extra spring break money are applying for jobs that they may not keep after the break.
Many students realize when they return for winter break that they are short on cash with their spring break plans hanging in the balance. Some KU students are forced to find jobs and make some fast cash.
Mike Applebee, Shawnee freshman, serves up some fresh mexican food. Applebee will be spending his spring break working at Coco Loco, 943 Massachusetts St.
Photo by Kate Levenson/KANSAN
Some employers say these employees tend to be less serious about their jobs compared with those hired at other times during the year.
Ryan Dill. Junction City senior, has worked at Pizza Hut, 1606 W. 23rd St., for two years and is currently an assistant manager. Dill said that there were usually two or three people that quit after spring break. He said that usually led to the restaurant being understaffed after spring break.
"They usually don't stay very long and usually don't give notice that they are quitting," he
said. "It's frustrating after you've spent time and money on training a person."
Shawnna Eaton, assistant manager of Barb Wire Steak House 2412 Iowa St., said that most new employees worked until summer. She said the restaurant recently had hired two new employees.
"There are a few who make it very clear that they are only working temporarily and don't show up after spring break," Eaton said.
Matt Dougan, Spring Hill freshman, said he applied for his job in order to earn cash for his spring break trip to Panama City. But he said he planned to continue working as a cook at Buffalo Bob's Smoke House, 719 Massachusetts St. after the break.
He said that even though restaurants have problems with high turnover during the spring, he hadn't had problems finding a job.
job. "I turned in eight applications and got offered three jobs," Dougan said.
Wade Oden, bartender at Old Chicago, 2329 Iowa St., said the restaurant recently had hired 10
new employees. He said that the number of applicants had doubled since the beginning of the semester.
semester.
"There are usually a few that are lower quality than our normal new hires, but they usually don't come back after spring break." Oden said.
Richard Stephenson. Merriam sophomore, said he still was looking for a job.
"I'll take any job I can get my hands on right now." Stephenson
said.
This is the second year Stephenson has been forced to find a job to pay for spring break, he said.
This is the second year Stephenson has been forced to find a job to pay for spring break, he said.
Stephenson said he quit his valet job last year at Harrah's Hotel and Casino, I Riverboat Drive in Kansas City, Mo., after he went to South Padre Island, Texas.
This year he said he planned to keep the job he hopes to find for the remainder of the semester.
— Edited by Seth Hoffman
Beach communities to curb rowdy,partying scholars
The Associated Press
It's spring break time and that usually means sun, sand, surf and suds as the young scholars make traditional pilgrimages to their favorite stretch of beach and bars.
Because many popular seashore communities pull out all the stops to attract students, some have devised some new ways to try to control the rowdiness.
The Gulf Coast beach community in Panama City Beach, Fla., rowdy students could end up in Spring Break Court. The idea is to allow those charged with misdemeanors such as underage drinking to spend a day doing community service — such as picking up litter
— to avoid arrest records and fines. They also must wear an orange vest with "Bay County Jail" across the back.
Dan Stark, head of the local convention and visitor's bureau, said that last year, a couple of students, who were happy not to have a permanent blot on their records, said "thank you."
But don't expect Panama City Beach to go the way of Fort Lauderdale or Daytona Beach, Fla., officials said. In the two Florida cities, some residents were so fed up with rowdiness that they demanded crackdowns that included zero-tolerance for lawbreakers and bans on beach drinking. The hard-line policies drove many students to Panama City Beach.
The Panhandle city usually sees about 500,000 visitors during March. Stark said they were welcome, even if a few did get out of hand.
"We're working to foster a good image of spring break," he said.
Affordable prices and proximity to colleges in the Northeast and Southeast make Panama City Beach popular, Stark said, but for
a growing number of students distance is no longer an object.
Cancun, Mexico. is the top seller this year at Surf & Sun Tours.
As of mid-February, the tour operator had sold 20,000 airline seats, a 97 percent sellout, to Cancun, said Shawn Andreas, vice president of marketing.
With traffic up for Cancun, it's down about 20 percent for Florida destinations. Because of Florida's unpredictable weather, students don't want to risk missing the sun, Andreas said.
Away from the ocean, Black College Spring Break in Atlanta, which is during the third weekend in April, welcomes African-American students from around the country.
"Atlanta is the Mecca for African Americans all over the country," said mayoral spokesman Nick Gold. "It's the birthplace of the civil rights movement."
The challenge is keeping it a college-only activity. Gold said.
There also is an Alternative Spring Break that sends students to do community service throughout the country. The University of Michigan program has grown from 15 students and two sites in 1989 to 470 students and 42 sites now. There's a $75 application fee, but demand has outstripped available space.
The students produce 20,000 hours of community service ranging from work in urban rehabilitation, rural poverty and AIDS.
"Alternative Spring Break works to break down stereotypes," said Albert Muzaurietta, Michigan senior and fund-raising coordinator. "It helped me to focus on what I want to do with the rest of my life."
He said the motto explains it perfectly: "Spring break breaks a week
— Alternative Spring Break lasts a lifetime.
Internet allows browsers access to maps for travel historical information
ay Ted Anthony AP National Writer
In the old TV sitcom sight gag, the man trying to take his family on vacation gets lost and exasperated. At wits' end, he consults a folding road map, which turns out to be his worst enemy. Finally, desperately, he tries to fold it again to no avail.
On the Internet, the maps don't need to be folded. And they offer myriad other advantages.
Cyberspace offers ample map attractions for the armchair traveler and the trip planner alike — a wealth of cartographic information to fit any need, much of it printable and far more intuitive than the uncooperative piece of paper from the corner service station.
Yahoo! Maps offers an instantaneous way to map anywhere in the United States in seconds. Located at maps.yahoo.com, it features zoom functions and the ability to both create driving directions and search an extensive database of nearby businesses for services you're seeking. It even features a special version for your printer.
The DeLorme CyberAtlas (atlas.delorme.com/atlas.asp), by one of the nation's foremost mappakers, offers a graphically appealing database of the nation, available in even more detail — much like the company's popular map software, only it's scaled down and free. You can't plan elaborate trips, but the maps are wonderfully laid out and also allow zooming.
political. An interesting alternative is the University of Minnesota's Maps in the News (www.map.lib.umn.edu/news.html), which features maps penged on current events. A recent visit turned up maps of Kosovo, Kurdish rebellion locations and the site of the recent European avalanche.
For world travelers, Atlapedia (www.atlapedia.com) contains an A-to-Z database of nations and searchable maps both physical and
One of the Web's most established mapping sites is Xerox's PARC map viewer of the world (mapweb.parc.xerox.com/map/), which allows both zooming and searching by geographic coordinates. You also can link to the Geographic Name Server, which searches U.S. locations by name.
for another great resource, try the National Atlas of the United States of America (www.atlas.usgs.gov) for official maps from the U.S. Geological Survey. The site includes the popular topographic maps used by hikers and climbers, and you can even design a map to your own specifications.
Finally, the Web offers an ample supply of historical maps.
A historical atlas of the 20th century (www.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm) serves up maps on every topic from the Cold War era to religious conflict to, most curiously, maps of earthquakes and accidents through history.
And not to be missed is the online map collections of the Library of Congress' American Memory Project (memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtm/gmdhome.html), selections from the library's collection that span five centuries.
Maps have always had two relationships with travel; motivator and substitute. Map resources on the Internet serve both those desires with ease and depth.
Old Southern town serves Sunshine State as historic capital
By Jeffrey McMurray The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Sharks and dolphins don't swim here.
Cartoon mice and spinning tracurs are nowhere to be found.
a lousy place to put Florida's capital? Tallahassee residents don't think so.
The Sunshine State stretches farther south than any other in the continental United States. So, they reason, why not save at least one of Florida's old Southern towns from the fate of tourist traps and amusement parks?
And with the Capitol building as insurance that it will never be annexed into Georgia, Tallahassee seefs that仁致 nicely.
In fact, this Panhandle town of fewer than 150,000 people is closer to the largest metropolitan areas of six other states than it is to the Miami area, home of Florida's largest city. New Orleans; Jackson, Miss.; Birmingham, Ala.; Columbia, S.C.; Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta are all closer.
Less than 30 minutes from Georgia to the north and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Tallahassee provides a blend of Southern hospitality and bustling tourists on their way to the beach.
Not to mention football fans.
Not to mention football fans.
But although football is Tallahassee's premier attraction in the fall, just as politics is in the spring, it's the area's natural beauty and historic sites that keep residents satisfied.
A drive toward Georgia tunnels through a thick canopy of moss-covered oak trees. If the shade doesn't cause travelers to forget they are in the Sunshine State, reminders of the Old South along the way surely will.
Nestled in the forest about 12 miles north of Tallahassee is Bradley's Country Store, which has been there longer than many of the trees. Grandma Mary Bradley began selling sausage from her kitchen in 1910 and then from the store after it was built in 1927. It became a popular stop for Southern travelers.
But Janet Bradley Fryzel, Grandma Bradley's great-grand-daughter and the store's third owner, says fame is the only reason the business has survived.
"When people think of Florida they think of beaches and palm trees and Disney World," Fryzel said. "This is about as far south as you can go without getting into that image. But if we didn't make sausage, we would have been closed down years ago."
There are other Southern monuments still standing in Talahassea. Among them is Goodwood Plantation that dates from the 1840s, where slaves once raised cotton, corn and other crops on the 2,400 acres.
The Knott House, which has been restored to its 1928 appearance, provides a time capsule of Tallahassee, including Luella Knott's poetry about the home's Victorian Era furniture.
And the Riley House museum gives visitors a glimpse at the plight of middle-class African Americans from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement.
But there are far more ancient sites. Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto passed through Tallahassee in the winter of 1539, and it is widely believed this is where his men celebrated the first Christmas in North America.
About 15 miles south is Wakula State Park, perhaps one of the Panhandle's best-kep secrets. Its freshwater springs rank among the world's deepest, and the 3,000 acres of surrounding forest is home to a variety of birds, including inhua and osprey; turtles and alligators.
A guide on a glass-bottom boat tour will point out those species, as well as the filming sites for the black-and-white classics Tarzan and The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
"We do not compare ourselves with Orlando, which is a push-button kind of experience," said Charles Wright, executive director of the Leon County Tourist Development Council. "This is the kind of a place where a person has to be a participant in the activities."
A visit to town wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Maclay Gardens, the hands-on Odyssey Science Center or the Antique Car Museum, home of the Batmobile Michael Keaton drove around Gotham City.
But let's face it, few travel to Tallahassee to see a Batmobile. Politics is what drives this town.
According to the city's Chamber of Commerce, about 30 percent of the work force is employed by state government and another 9 percent works for local government. Those numbers don't factor in the thousands of lobbyists who are in town year-round.
But no major corporation has its national headquarters in Tallahassee. In fact, a hospital is the city's largest private employer.
With dogwoods and magnolias in bloom, few places boast a more pleasant spring. But Tallahassee can't escape Florida's sweltering summer heat, and the city is far enough inland that there's seldom a breeze from the Gulf of Mexico.
As Florida's growth continues to soar, so too does the population of its capital city. And while Tallahassee has been more conscious than most places about clinging to its Southern roots, historian Bill Rogers said the changes have been dramatic.
"This was once a swamp, a place of pestilence, a place where people thought they'd get rare diseases, which many of them did," Rogers said.
Now he figures life here is pretty pleasant.
But a bottle of sunscreen would
n't hurt.
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