8A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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STATENEWS
WEDNESDAY,MAY 1,2002
Sports editor's murder still a mystery
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Police have done more than 300 interviews, tips trickle in almost daily and a reward fund has been increased to lure someone into talking.
Yet the mystery endures: Who killed Kent Heitholt?
Six months after the Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor was slain in a parking lot just outside the newspaper, there have been no arrests in Boone County's highest-profile homicide since the Depression-era shooting of the local sheriff.
"The longer the time, the colder case gets. But we keep working," said Sgt. Steve Monticelli of the Columbia Police Department.
Heitholt, 48, a husband and father of two teen-agers, was fatally strangled and beaten early on the morning of Nov.1. He had stepped from the newspaper building with a colleague after preparing that afternoon's sports section.
The co-worker had said goodbye to Heitholt and driven away after they joked about an always-hungry stray cat the editor made a habit of feeding in the parking lot. Heitholt kept a box of cat food in his car, and he had just spread out some food for the cat when he was attacked, police said.
Minutes later, members of the newspaper's cleaning crew reported seeing two white, college-aged men standing over Heittholt's body next to the editor's car.
They said the pair walked away
quickly, up a sloping driveway and down a street toward the University of Missouri campus. Other sports writers rushed outside, found the lifeless Heitholt and called 911, bringing a quick response from police headquarters just two blocks away.
Police dogs followed the trail several blocks south, to an intersection next to a cluster of dormitories. But in Columbia, the sketchy descriptions of the assailants could apply to hundreds of young men, and not necessarily students, Monticelli said.
Robbery may have been the motive, and it may have been random. Monticelli said there was nothing in Heilitholt's life or background to indicate he was targeted.
A veteran sports writer, Heitholt
had graduated from the University of Missouri before working for newspapers in Jackson, Miss., Nashville, Tenn., and Shreveport, La. His widow said they returned to Columbia five years ago because it seemed like a safe, nurturing place to raise their children.
The morning after Halloween, this sports-mad community that hosts the Missouri Tigers was stunned as news spread about Heitolt's death. The 6-foot-3, 300-pound editor was a fixture on the sports scene, covering not only major-college events but giving attention and respect to Little League, community bicycle racing and high school coaching.
"Who knows why this happened? It's so bizarre, we just don't know," Monticelli said.
Officials say public schools need more taxes
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — A tax increase of at least $300 million is the only way to provide adequate funding for public schools, a group of education officials said yesterday.
The group said a compromise budget proposal that would use cash reserves to finance some programs is not a solution to the state's problems.
The House Appropriations Committee took up more budget
issues yesterday, one day before the entire Legislature reconvenes for its wrap-up session.
The $4.4 billion compromise budget drafted by House and Senate negotiators last week would keep aid to public schools at its current $3,870 per pupil in fiscal 2003, which starts July 1. That's despite a projected $700 million budget shortfall that legislators must eliminate.
The compromise budget would use $110 million in cash reserves to finance ongoing government
programs — but still would require $222 million in higher taxes to balance.
A measure before the proposal would increase a wide array of taxes to generate $335 million.
Many education officials say holding spending flat for public schools amounts to a cut because school districts face higher payroll and health insurance costs.
"We all agree that we need at least the $300-and-some million tax increase to get it done," said
Mark Tallman, lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards.
Education officials said that without increased funding, many teaching and support positions, such as school nurses and counselors, would be eliminated.
The compromise budget proposal contains most of the budget for the state's next fiscal year, but legislators plan to consider a final cleanup bill as well.
Two teachers allegedly helped students cheat
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If teachers at two Kansas City high schools provided improper information to students before the most recent round of state examinations, the scores of all those teachers' students — even those with no advance knowledge — would not count for accreditation purposes.
The two teachers have been removed from their schools while the Kansas City School District
investigates allegations of cheating on the Missouri Assessment Program tests, school officials said Monday.
The state would still grade the students' state standardized tests and issue a score for each student, said Jim Friedebach, director of assessment for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
scores of the cheating teachers' students for accreditation purposes, even if the cheating is alleged to have occurred in just one class.
Friedebach said, however, that if teachers provided questions or test materials to students, the state would toss out all the test
At least 90 percent of the students in a particular grade must take a Missouri Assessment Program test; otherwise the scores in that subject do not count, even if the district's scores are high enough to merit accreditation performance points.
That standard is designed to prevent a district from encouraging its worst students not to take the tests.
District officials could not say Monday how many students were assigned to each teacher under investigation. The district said that it was investigating testing improprieties but that no test material or questions were distributed to students.
The district is responsible for investigating the allegations and the state generally accepts those findings, Friedebach said.
TEACH 2002
Disney's 2000 Teacher of The Year
Ron Clark, Keynote Speaker Saturday, May 4 at 1:30 p.m in 130 Budig
FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE
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Pre-service Teacher Education Conference Saturday, May 4 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. Joseph R. Pearson Hall. Pre-registration is requested. Register by picking up a brochure in 208 Pearson Hall or by going to www.soe.ku.edu/seso
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