THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol. 90, No. 102
Munson family files lawsuit
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The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas.
Thursday, February 28.1980
Explosion aftermath
an oyster ponders the explosion that killed his uncle George Skinner and seriously injured another worker dayafter afternoon De Solem. Kamm.
15 miles east of Lawrence. The explosion occurred at the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant as workers attempted to demolish the building in the
Blast kills one at munition plant
By BILL MENEZES and GRANT OVERSTAKE
Staff Reporters
**DESOTO—A billboard outside the front gate at 168 Sunflower Armament Plant read yesterday "164 days."**
But by noon one man was dead and another injured after an alcohol storage tank they were dismantling.
Witnesses said Skinner was standing on a wooden scaffold that ran across the top of the tank and three walls. He was holding his breathing.
A co-worker, Tommy Hinton, Topeka, also was injured in the explosion.
Authorities have not determined the cause of the blast which killed George Skinner, 32, Topena. An investigator said the attack was "unbelievable."
Hinton was taken to Suburban Medical Center in Shawnee Mission. He was listed in fair condition last night with a broken hip and second-degree burns over 15 percent of his body, a hospital soaked man.
The blasted ripple the tank from its cement base and destroyed the front of an adjacent distillery building, which was built on the same site.
JM SKINNER, 19, Skinner's nephew, was working in a shed next to the tanks of the time of the blast, but was not injured.
In the building when the explosion happened,
"Kinner said. "I heard their voices, but I couldn't do anything for a few seconds because the explosion was so big everything was kind of flipped by me.
Tommy was the first one I saw. He was on fire and I got him down and set up the man. Then I ran to the firehouse.
While Skinner was running at the plant's fire station about 400 yards away, workers from the building across the street were coming up to the site.
"It was a ball of an explosion," said one witness who asked not to be identified. "We ran over there and one woman got shot."
Tom Stutz, assistant to the plant commander, said
plant ambulances took George Skinner and Hinton to the plant entrance where they were transferred to Johnson County Med Act ambulances. Jim Skinner was examined at the plant hospital and then released
THE EXPLOSION occurred at 11:28 a.m. State man Sam Sweeney and Hinton were not employed by Sunflower, but the crew of Chipmunny Wrecking Co. of Topeka had been contracted to demolish the building but Skinner Nursery had bought it.
Jack Skimmer, a cousin of George Skinner, said the alcohol distillery and some salvaged equipment would be used by a gasohol producer, the Sunflower Fuel Factory. The fuel plant was set up by the nursery, Skinner said.
The Sunflower plant stopped making ammunition in the summer of 1971, Stutte said. The last time the alcohol distillation building was used was during the Vietnam War because it had been a storage and the 2,700 buildings in case the plant is needed again.
In inside an area that is heavily guarded and surrounded by barbed-wire fence, a warning sign reads "Caution you are near fire."
REPORTERS ENTERING the plant were asked to turn over their cigarette lighters and matches. Once inside, they saw rows of abandoned sheet metal shacks that had been rusty. Rusty metal was heaped up in salvage areas. Navy blue containers
House whittles salary increases
TWO HOURS after the blast, some workers from the building across the street were still milling around on the streets.
"We haven't been back to work, but "We've just been standing here. We aren't a bit calm."
Jim Skinner said they had been warned by officials before beginning the dismantling process that it might
He said, "They had told us that sometimes there is still liquid fumes in these pipes even after a lot of years.
"We've been working here for two weeks. We've already handed a few tanks home. I don't smell any air."
Staff Renorter
By SCOTT FAUST
TOPEKA-Following Gov. John Carlin's call in the Kansas House Ways' debate, he is said to adapt the full salary and fringe benefit increases for unclassified employees that the Kansas City Department had.
Unclassified employees include faculty members and some administrative officials.
The Committee has completed action on the Regents schools' budgets and has sent the budget bill to the full House for consideration.
The committee voted to hold the unclassified salary increases to the 8 percent Carlin had recommended in his proposed fiscal year 181 budget, instead of a Regents request of 9.5 percent, the maximum federal wage and price guidelines.
Carlin earlier did not recommence a legends recommendation to teach him, and he benefited in benefits for professors with 10 or more years of tenure, and a 5 percent increase in benefits for those who had not.
Carlin also did not recommend two other fringe benefits requests by the Regents. One was a provision for state funding of additional health insurance coverage for university employees. The second would include families of family members. Under the current policy, an employee must provide all of family
THE OTHER benefit would have allowed payment of accumulated unused sick pay to retirees.
John Conard, executive director of the Regents, said the benefits combined would have equaled an additional 2.5 percent increase to salary funding.
Conard said an 8 percent salary increase would keep the Regents' schools salaries competitive with other schools'.
He said the schools still would be able to attract good faculty because the money could be allotted to certain employees. But he also noted that a growing number of increasing existing faculty salaries, he said.
"It doesn't mean people will be leaving in驾渡," he said. "Other states are experiencing the same problems. It's just a difficult situation everywhere."
Conard said there was "just no way around" public employees being hurt in times of high inflation.
Chancellor Archie R. Dykes told the committee two weeks ago that without the full salary increases, KU would be in danger
IN OTHER ACTION, the committee approved Carolin's recommendation for a 2 percent increase in funding per pupil and penalties for all Regents schools and an 8 percent increase for University of Kansas students.
of losing faculty members to the private sector and to private institutions.
The Regents had requested an 8 percent increase in OOE for Regents schools and a 9 percent increase for the hospital.
State Rep. Ruth Lazatti, D-Wichita, succeeded in making an amendment to the budget bill. The amendment recommends Wichita State University to research possible inequities it may have suffered as a result of the method used in formulating OEE.
Lazzati said that if the full-time student funding formula hurt Wichita State, then it should be able to come up with figures proving inequities.
OOE appropriations are based on the number of full-time students attending each Regents school. However, Wichita State has a large number of part-time students.
State Rep. Loren Holman, D-Topke, agreed with Latzl's concern over possible inequities and called the full-time student formula a "dubious equation."
State Rep. David Heinemann, R-Garden
City, said no one really knew where to set the OOE increases.
"When the Regents rolled the dice, it came up eight," Heinmann said, "and when the governor rolled the dice, it came up seven."
AFTER EXTENSIVE DEBATE, the committee approved Carlin's recommendation to provide state funding for student union room rentals by the Regents
Hieinemann criticized the recommendation, saying it penalized KU, Wichita State and Kansas State University because it required them to pay for a portion of student union rentals. Although these institutions already pay rental costs, the state should allow the other Regents schools to have all of their rents paid by the state.
KU now pays $33.19 to student Union rooms. Heinemann missed unsuccessfully a job he was offered. A tie on the motion was broken by committee chairman State Rep. Mike Hayden,
Student unions at all Regents schools are owned by student associations, which all may charge rent for non-student use.
State Rep. Lee Hamm, D-Pratt, said the
see BUDGET page eight
Funny face
DAVE KRAUS/Kennan staff
Sandy McCelland, graduate student senator, last night managed to add a bit of humor to this year's first Student Senate meeting. McCelland and her fellow graduate student senators had donned the novelty masks to welcome newly elected student senators and officers. See story page six.
Sports bring out aggression in man
By KEVIN MILLS Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Sporting events have attracted bloodthirsty spectators since the beginning of recorded history.
- On July 8, 1888, 3,000 fans stood in 100-degree heat to watch a knee-hurricane fistlight between John L. Sullivan and Jake Killarin—a 75-mound marathon.
- The popularity of gladiator competition in ancient Rome is well documented in the Bible and Cecil B. DeMille movie epics.
- The tradition continues, even in college sporting events.
- On Feb. 16, Kansas State University basketball fans pelted KU coach Ted Owens and the KU team with ice, plastic cups and other debris.
THE LURE of competition draws fans to sporting arenas like moths to a flame. Once there, many fans engage in freerearing, shouting and occasional flipping.
Joane Nagel, assistant professor of sociology, said that violence was a natural component of some sports, such as football and hockey.
A few years ago, a Danver Broncos fan was so depressed after his team fumbled
"Let's say you're a supporter of a team," Nagel said. "To the extent that you want to remain a fan, you have to
condone violence by sitting there and watching it."
See FANS page eight
William Arnold, associate professor of sociology, said that some sports fans got so excited that they were ready to step over the bounds of acceptable behavior.
"Sport is not warfare, but a substitute for warfare," said Christopher Lash, a social critic and professor of sociology at Rochester University. "Organized sport is an integral element in American life; militarism machismo and cathartic competition."
"Loyalty to your in-group is the basis for a lot of activity." Arnold said. "You learn to take on others and other side look bad. If it looks like throwing cups will get you there, you do."
"The home team in sports is a contemporary tribe. It gives us security. If the home队 wins, we win. They're good; that means I'm good."
Arnold Mandel, a psychiatrist at the University of California, said, "We all have tribute instincts . . . a feeling that we must belong to a team to survive.
SUCH IDENTIFICATION with the home team can go too far, however.
Age hike dries up bars, students
By BLAKE GUMPRECHT
Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series examining the possibility of raising the 3.2 beer drinking age from 18 to 21 in Kansas.
Staff Reporter
Thursday is Greek night at the Village Bell tavern in Ann Arbor, Mich., home of the University of Michigan.
"You couldn't even walk around," says the bart's assistant manager, Mark Zulli. "But these days we don't have anybody there. We didn't notice times. We're lucky to have 100 people."
Until a year ago, it wasn't unusual for 300 people to pack the bar on a typical Thursday night.
The legal drinking age in Michigan was rased from 18 to 21 in 1978, when 59 percent of the state's voters approved a constitutional amendment.
Palley Bailey, owner of the T-32 tern in Champaign, IL, has fired 40 of his 60 board members. The board meted 85 percent since the Illinois Legislature raised the legal drinking age for boys.
"It's ridiculous," he says. "I'd be out of business if it weren't for food sales."
THE SITUATION is the same nationwide as states have joined the trend to raise the drinking age.
In the last three years, 11 states that lowered the legal age in the early 1800s—after 18 year-olds were given the right to have-brought the drinking age back up.
Hundreds of student employees are out of work as a result, dozens of bars have shut down and college students have had to find a new way to spend their spare time.
And officials say the fake ID business is booming.
The effects in Kansas are expected to be equally drastic if the Legislature approves but fails to pass a bill that would mandate the House Federal and State Affairs Committee that would raise the drinking age for 3.2
"When 10 of us go to a bar on Friday afternoon and only three of us can drink
and the rest have to order Coke, it kills of puts a dang on things," says Derrick Albertson, a 21-year-old senior at Michigan. "There are more private parties now."
Accordingly, numerous student bars have gone out of business.
IN EAST LANSING, Mich., home of Michigan State University, three bars have closed. Two more are for sale. Numerous bars on the verge of extinction, bar owners say.
"It is disasterous for the bar, we haven't recovered yet," Janice Martin, manager of Elgin's restaurant and bar, said. "We had to lay one manager and three or four full-time employees. We knew the effect would be that but we didn't think it would be this grim.
At the University of Illinois, two bars have gone out of business since the tap was shut off to teens last fall. Five others are for sale.
The social and economic effects of the
"It just changes the social life completely." "University of Illinois Student John Peterson, 19, said. "Everybody stays home more."
State officials estimate that Michigan may lose a million dollars in sales tax revenue annually because of the higher drinking age.
MEWHILE, COLLEGE OFFICIALS in states where the drinking age was raised report that attendance records are being set and those recorded events since the legal age was raised.
higher drinking age have been well documented.
It has yet to be proven, however, that raising the drinking age decreases the number of traffic accidents and fatalities involved drunken young people.
Statistics are inconsistent. Some even show increases in alcohol-related fatal accidents among teen-agers.
Fatal accidents involving drunk teenagers in Massachusetts jumped 17 percent from 2014 to 2015, and age was raised. State safety officials contend that the sample is too small to be
IN MICHIGAN, the number of accidents in 1989 was about one-third more, beverage drinkers a 2 percent decrease, the first six months of 1979, as compared to the same period a year earlier, when drivers were not drinking.
However, the number of alcohol-related fatal accidents involving that age group increased slightly.
Maine officials report that arrests of 17- and 18-year-olds for drunken drive have dropped 30 percent since the drinking age was raised to 18 in 1977.
"The kids are still getting the same amount of booze," said Steve Graham, 21, a student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. "Now people just buy liquor somewhere else and drink it in their cars. There are a lot of lake Ds going around."
The liquor industry maintains that
See LIQUOR page seven