FRIDAY APRIL 8:2005
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
STUDENT SENATE ELECTIONS
5A
Candidate continues family's KU legacy
BY KELLI ROBINETT krobinett@kansan.com KANSAN STAFF WRITER
On the surface, it may look like Marynell Jones is running for student body vice president to follow in her mother's footsteps.
Her mother,
Mary Lou
Reece,
held office in 1976,
and though
duplicating her
mother's fate
would mean a lot to Jones, that's not what drives her.
She genuinely likes the student government process and wants to sacrifice her time to make campus life better for other students, Jones said.
"We've always placed a high regard on public service and doing things for the good of the whole." Jones' mother Reece said. "That's just rubbed off on her over time."
During the last two years, Jones has been the freshmansophomore CLAS student senator. This year she is a student representative for the University Council and serves on the Senate Executive Board.
"Student Senate is my life," she said.
The Dallas junior got involved with KUnited and Student Senate during her freshman year when former president Andy Knopp asked her to run. She said she liked the group because it represented the same goals she wanted to achieve.
"It was hard to make KU feel like a home coming from Texas," Jones said. "Once I got involved with the Senate stuff it started feeling more like a home."
Her mother's influence may not be the main reason Jones is involved with Senate, but following her family members' leads is nothing new to her.
Jones was named after her
This University has been a big part of my family since I was a little kid."
Marynell Jones Student body vice presidential candidate
grandmother; her brother Arthur is a student senator; and she wants to work for her mother's construction company when she graduates.
As a fourth-generation Jayhawk, her decision to come to the University was never in question.
"This University has been a big part of my family since I was a little kid," Jones said. "We were all united around KU."
campus. A picture in the KU Visitor Center commemorates her great grandmother, who graduated in the first class of nursing students.
You can also see evidence of her family's history spread across
At Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union, there is a brown bag signed by Reece on display. It was the first brown bag lunch ever handed out at the University.
Even the family's vacations have been scheduled around Kansas events. In 1997 Reece's grandmother flew 24 members of the family to Hawaii so they could watch the men's basketball team play in the Rainbow Classic.
Whether KUnited wins the election, Jones will continue to try to make her own mark at the University.
"This University is a really important place, and important things go on here," Jones said. "I just want to encourage people to get involved."
Edited by Azita Tafreshi
Marynell Jones is running for vice president for the KUnited Coalition. Jones, Dallas junior, is a fourth-generation Jayhawk.
Erin Droste/KANSAN
Cosmosphere co-founder charged with theft
Sandra I. Millburn/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jeff Ollenburger, president and CEO of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, talks to reporters during a news conference at the U.S. Attorney's office yesterday in Wichita. Ollenburger was answering questions after U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren, left, announced an 11-count indictment against Max Ary, the former director of the KCSC. Ary has been charged with stealing artifacts from the space flight museum and selling them.
BY MATT SEDENSKY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The co-founder of a Kansas museum that houses a nationally recognized collection of space memorabilia stole dozens of artifacts, sold them and pocketed the profits, prosecutors said yesterday.
Max Ary was instrumental in transforming a small-town planetarium into the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, which he led for 27 years. He is named in an 11-count federal indictment filed in Wichita, that claims he stole a number of the Hutchinson, Kan., museum's prized possessions — many on loan from NASA.
The grand jury's indictment said Ary made around $180,000 by selling the objects, including the nose of a rocket, an astro-
naut's in-flight T-shirt, a control panel from Air Force One and an Apollo 12 water valve.
Cosmosphere president Jeff Ollenburger, who assumed Ary's post after he left the museum in September 2002, said more than 100 items were unaccounted for, only a third of which were noted in the indictment.
Jim Cross, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren, said the court filing was not intended to be a "laundry list" of thefts, simply those for which prosecutors had significant evidence.
Wichita attorney Lee Thompson, who is representing Ary, said there were inconsistencies in the government's case.
"Mr. Ary intends to defend his innocence against any charge that he harmed the Cosmosphere or the federal space program," Thompson said. "Mr. Ary's
defense will certainly contend that his actions in dealing with tens of thousands of space items during his tenure at the Cosmosphere complied with the policies of the Cosmosphere's board of directors."
Under Ary's leadership, the Cosmosphere, about 200 miles southwest of Kansas City, grew from a two-person operation to a space museum with about 70 employees and 285,000 annual visitors.
In 2005, after Ary's departure, the center's board of directors first became aware that artifacts apparently had been sold without its approval and the museum did not receive the money.
According to the indictment, Ary established two accounts with California auctioneer Superior Galleries Inc. — one in his name and another to sell items
on behalf of the Cosmosphere.
The court filing details four auctions from October 1999 to May 2001 in which Ary allegedly sold 92 items for around $180,000.
"We are prosecuting this case on behalf of NASA and others who have entrusted valuable historical artifacts to the Cosmophere's keeping," Melgren said. "It is significant to all Americans that the history of this nation's heroic exploration of space be preserved and retold to each new generation."
Ary now lives in Oklahoma City, where he runs the Kirkpatrick Science and Air Space Museum at Omniplex. A spokeswoman there said Ary had been open about the possibility of legal action against.
Ary did not return a call seeking comment.