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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, September 22, 1967
Everything game for barbs of campus columnist-editor
By Margaret Ogilvie Kansan Staff Reporter
Wherever John Hill is—the Jayhawker office, the Daily Kansan newsroom, or at Phi Kappa Sigma—you can expect something Hill-larious.
Any place, anything, or anyone on campus is likely to provoke bristimate from the author of "The Hill With It."
The Prairie Village junior, whose style emulates that of Bill Vaughan, Kansas City Star associate editor, is probably the only student at KU who "reads Vaughan's columns like textbooks."
Any scholar could find a favorite subject in Hill's Kansan column, and even might have enjoyed Billie Joe's ode to enrollment, which ran in the Kansan earlier this week, better than the real thing.
Writes about journalists
Writes about journalism
Hill especially enjoys writing humorously about reporters, newspapers and journalism.
"When it rains, I drive from Strong to Bailey, splashing every reporter I see," he quipped during recent wet weather.
Last spring, he retorted to what he thought an inaccurate generality by the press on the number of students involved in drug addiction. Hill's column was about a naive KU student who when questioned could not tell the marajuana he was not to smoke from the grass he was not to walk on.
Hill explains that he tries to wait for an appropriate subject to convey an idea because "you can't just ramble and try to be
funny." He looks at the clock when the idea won't come easily because "you can't just sit there and look at an empty piece of paper."
First article
Ironically, his first article in the Daily Kansan was serious. The editorial about civil rights he wrote as a freshman was also his last of such a nature. His present column was the only solution for the excess of features he submitted.
He also filled columns in the Intra-Fraternity Council "Greek Column" last year with the "Satyr Speaks," and filled the position of "Greek Column" editor last spring. About that time he became pledge trainer for his fraternity.
The name for his current column, which he calls his "first love at KU," originated in the Shawnee Mission East Harbinger his senior year. After graduation he wrote "Teen View" for the Prairie Village Scout. Declared Hill in regard to high school efforts, "That scaled the highest peaks of mediocrity."
Now a journalism major with an English minor, John is "conditioning himself" to a free-lance writing career, plans he discussed with Vaughan as a high school freshman. An inspiration to Hill was when their visit later became the subject of Vaughan's column. He "worships" the way Vaughan "manages to strike a nerve in people."
John does his work with tongue-in-cheek, and hopes that his readers will take it that way. Prospective Jayhawker staffers
discovered this when they were offered an option of positions including "paper clip straightener," "pleasant distraction" and "confusion manager."
Readability important
Readability is important to him, not only for readers of the Jayhawker but for his own enjoyment in writing. He particularly enjoyed doing a Daily Kansan story on a flying saucer supposedly sighted over Daisy Hill last year. "Some of the projects you get into," he mused. "You meet somebody new every day."
Hill values the emphasis on strife in the works of Ernest Hemingway, another journalist who worked for the Kansas City Star. In John's opinion, the first paragraph of "Snows of Kilimanjaro" (the story of another Hill!) is "real good philosophy for a person and a writer."
"There are eight million stories in the naked college," Hill said, still speaking of books. "This has been one of them."
CHURCH BELLS MUTED
LOWESTOFT, England—(UPI)
—If the Rev. James Lidden, vicar of St. Benedict's Church, knows who among his parishioners likes to sleep late in the morning, he probably knows who deadened his church bell. When the vicar went to work on the bell ropes one recent day at 9 a.m., as he does each morning, he got nothing but a dull thud. Someone had climbed the tower during the night and wrapped the clapper in burlap.
Rock Chalk help needed
Interviews for committee positions for Rock Chalk '68 will begin Sunday, Oct. 1, at 2 p.m. Rock Chalk, sponsored by the KU-Y, will be held in the spring.
Allen Purvis, Topeka senior and director of Rock Chalk '68, said committee members are needed for advertising sales, program design, in-between-acts, publicity and ticket sales. Interviews also
will be held for assistant stage manager, a comptroller and his assistant. Secretaries also are needed for the staff.
Interviews will be held in the KU-Y offices of the Kansas Union. Anyone interested in a committee assignment may sign up in the offices beginning Monday.
Patronize Kansan Advertisers
AURH Committee Interviews
Thursday, September 21
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Templin - Lewis - Hashinger
7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Douthart - Watkins - Sellards
Tuesday, September 26
Tuesday, September 26
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
McCollum - Ellsworth - JRP
7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Miller - Jolliffe - Battenfeld
Wednesday, September 27
5:30 p.m.-Oliver
7:00 p.m.-Pearson
Anyone Interested May Apply