University Daily Kansan, July 21, 1980
Jitney driver glad to be home in Kansas
Bv HURST LAVIANA
Staff Renorter
After 25 years Alfred "Red" Leeman is coming home. Born in Lawrence in 1923, Leeman was shuffled through 10 foster homes during the Depression and was kidnapped in 1949 before moving to Anaheim, Calif. in July 1985.
“There’s too many people out there, and too fast a pace,” he said. “The smog is getting bad too. I’m not sorry I came back here, hot weather and all.”
For 22 years Leeman drove buses in and around Los Angeles, but in 1977 he moved to Topeka, seeking a less hectic lifestyle.
LEEMAN DROVE a 'city' bus in Topeka until last April, when he got an job in Lawrence driving the汀易, a car bus with a wheel lift on the side.
Although he still lives in Topeka,
Leeman said he sold his house there
and is eager to move back to Lawrence.
"I won't be commuting much
Five days a week, between 9 a.m. and p.6.m., he will take you anywhere in the city limits for $1.50.
Last Tuesday, after a brief trip to a repair shop to fix the Leemans' voltage regulator, Leeman drove to southern Arkansas and met customers. As he drove, he talked about his career, in which he has driven taxi cabs, vans, tractor trailers, buses and trucks.
"I've driven everything but a Model T and a streetcar," he said. "I was too young for streetcar."
As he heads for the Dillon's store on Massachusets, to pick up another customer, Leeman talks about the night he was kidnapped.
WHEN HE FINDS the house he is looking for, he beeps his horn, and an elderly woman and middle-aged man look. They say they are going downtown.
"It was the most harrowing experience I've had," he said. "Two guys broke out of the county jail that night,
and I picked them up in the cab around 10 o'clock."
The men then took him and his cab to Toneka, he said.
"one guy held me captive in the back seat, while the other one drove around Topeka looking for his wife," he said. "He never did find her."
HE SAID the men held him for four hours and then let him go. Both were eventually captured and sent to Lansing.
As Leeman pulls into the Dillon's parking lot, a woman is standing by the door with a bag of groceries. She's going to 13th and Ohio, she says, but she's spent her fare on groceries. She'll have to get the money when she gets home. She will drive silently to her house. The woman carries her groceries inside.
"These people don't have any money to ride," Leeman says. "I can't figure it out."
In a minute the woman is back and hands him $2.
"Keep the change," she says.
"Thank you, ma'am," Leeman says politely.
He turns the Jitney around and drives to a downtown bank where his other riders thank him as they get off. A voice on the two-way radio tells him he has a car with a license plate on the east part of town. As he drives, he talks about his early days in Lawrence.
"WE LOST OUR parents in '33," he said, as he drove. "I was nine. my sister was eight. A lot of people who talk about me were young children about them. I know all about them."
Between 1833 and 1941, he and his sister lived in 10 different homes, he said. The city paid foster parents $30 a month for each child they cared for, but that usually wasn't enough to cover expenses.
"They thought they could make some money," he said. "When they found out they couldn't, they didn't want us anymore."
In 1941 Leeman got a job driving a
truck for Sunflower Transfer and spent the next 14 years working in Lawrence. In 1955 he pulled up stakes and moved to California.
"I thought it was a better opportunity," he said. It was at the time.
AS LEEMAN pulls into the nursing home, a young woman is waiting by the door.
She smiles and says she's going to Bailey Hall.
"I haven't hauled you for a long time," he says.
"In California they drive a lot faster, but you know what they're going to do.
Here they drive slower, but you never know whether they're going to turn or stop or what."
Leeman drops the woman off at Bailey Hall, drives down the hill and parks under a tree to wait for his next call.
"I enjoy people," he said.
"Sometimes I get disgusted, but then someone comes along and makes it all worthwhile."
He said most of the Jitney riders were elderly or handicapped, but that they were his favorite customers.
"I think they have a better attitude than the ones who are OK. They accept life as it is and to try to make the most of it," he said.
Endowment . . .
from page one
ED DUTTON, associate professor of social welfare and a Committee member, said a private, non-profit corporation as closely associated with the University as the Endowment Association should keep open records.
However, Dutton said he doubted the Endowment Association could be forced by law to make its records public.
"The they have the legal resources we don't," Dutton said. "And I think this is more of an ethical and political question, rather than a legal one. I think political action is a more effective process in cases like these."
According to Kansas statutes, any records a state agency is required to keep by law may be open to the public. State agencies such as the University
are required to file reports of agreements to receive non-state funds with the state budget director.
However, records kept by private corporations are not required by law to be open to the public.
Carolyn Hallenbeck, director of the KU Research and Grants Administration, said Friday that her office handled some contributions from students at the University that most gifts to the University not involving formal, on-going projects were handled by the Endowment Association. She said that in fiscal year 1979 about $923,000 in grants from state sources was handed by her office.
RICHARD PORTO, Endowment Association treasurer, said recently that more than $10 million was received by the University during fiscal year
1979 from "discretionary" trust accounts managed by the Endowment Association.
Discretionary trust accounts are set up from money given by private donors to the University for specific purposes, such as the establishment of scholarships, Porta said. Records pertaining to them are not available to the public, he said.
"I think it would be indiscreet to list donors by name and amounts given," he said. "The most important thing is that we have supported the University of Kansas."
SOIFFER SAID the request for Attorney General Robert Stephen's opinion was being relayed to the attorney general by State Sen. Arnold Berman.
Berman said Friday that he had received Soiffer's written request for
the opinion and planned to contact the attorney general about it today.
"The attorney general is frequently asked as civil law enforcement officer of the state to give an opinion on a case and, in some cases, of the state of Kansas." Berman said.
Berman said that since the attorney general's opinion on Kansas laws could only be requested by a public officeholder, he was sometimes asked to be an intermediary in getting an opinion.
An opinion given by the attorney general does not have the force of law and is only an indication of how a law is interpreted by a court, Berman said.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office said Friday that it usually took 60 to 90 days for an opinion to be issued.
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AAUP head protests selection procedure
By MARK PITTMAN
Staff Reporter
The executive committee of the American Association of University Professors lodged an official protest by a group of students in front of the director of Affirmative Action.
Evelyn Swartz, president of the AAUP, said yesterday that her committee was the procedure that Del Shankel, who was then executive vice chancellor, used to name Mike Edwards permanent director of Affirmative Action.
"We wanted to go on record against the procedure," Szwartz said. "We have nothing against the man who got the job."
Swartz said the letter of protest that was sent to Shankel Thursday
The Edwards appointment perhaps signaled a departure from banker's previous position, using his extensive promotative and faculty appointments, Swarts said.
Hankel said yesterday that he had not yet received the AAPU letter. He said the Edwards decision made and announced publicly.
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The Loved One
Evelyn Waugh's satire on the mores and morals of Hollywood and the funeral business. The film proudly advertised as containing something to offend everyone.
She said selections should be made in the spirit of affirmative action rather than adhering strictly to the rule of the KU Affirmative Action plan.
"It is certainly the longest and boldest step up from conventional film fare ever to come from a major American studio."
-Arthur Knight, Saturday Review
As far as the University of Kansas is concerned, he said, the matter of Edwards' appointment is closed.
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urged that the Edwards appointment not be used as a precedent for future appointments.
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