6A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
FRIDAY,FEB.15,2002
Kappa Delta, Delta Chi to help needy children
By Caroline Boyer
Kansan staff writer
Some sorority and fraternity members will soon gain experience working with children with special needs.
Kappa Delta sorority and Delta Chi fraternity will begin volunteering Monday at the Brookcreek Learning Center. 200 Mount Hope Court. Members will volunteer one or two hours per week for the rest of the semester.
The center is a non-profit agency affiliated with the United Way. The center focuses on caring for children with special needs or behavioral problems, many of whom have been referred from other centers.
"A lot of our children come from low-income, multi-problem families," said Kelly Frantz, projects coordinator at the center. "Some of them have come from abusive families or have learning disabilities."
The center helps teach children cognitive, motor, social and self-help skills, and works on language development. Frantz said the center received funding from grants, but it really needed donations of clothes for the children. Kappa Delta donated nine boxes of coats and mittens to the center last semester.
Frantz said the center also needed regular volunteers.
"Volunteers offer us the opportunity to focus on one or two children at a time," Frantz said. "Delta Chi and Kappa Delta made a commitment to say, 'Yes, we want to help and here are the people who want to help,' so it's been a great opportunity."
Joey Rayl, Hutchinson sophomore and Delta Chi member, said the volunteers hoped to create something that would go beyond this semester.
"That's our goal — to set up some sort of fund for them and have it be something that we can contribute to every year," Rayl said.
Kappa Delta and Delta Chi are
also raising money to help buy new computers for the center. Frantz said the center often used educational computer games to teach the children, and the outdated computers at the center were too slow and did not capture the children's attention.
"For children with behavioral problems, if they have to wait two or three minutes for a game to load, that's two or three minutes to poke their neighbor," Frantz said.
Rayl said that, although some of the children have special needs, he thought the volunteers would be able to interact well with them.
"I think we'll be fine. Everybody at one point has been around kids like that," Rayl said. "I went there and they seem like good kids."
Contact Boyer at cboyer@kansen.com This story was edited by Jenna Goepfert.
Courts find Saudi man guilty
The Associated Press
PHOENIX — A Saudi man was convicted yesterday of lying to the FBI when he denied knowing one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Faisal Al Salmi repeatedly denied knowing Hani Hanjour, one of the terrorists aboard the plane that hit the Pentagon, during a series of interviews, prosecutors said.
Al Salmi, 34, was the first person convicted on charges connecting him to the hijackers. He was not charged with terrorism, but could receive up to six months behind bars when he is sentenced on March 14.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said after Al Salmi's indictment was unsealed in October that the government "will bring the full weight of the law upon those who attempt to impede or hinder" the terrorism investigation.
Prosecutors said Al Salmi and Hanjou were registered at the
same time to use a flight simulator that was open to the public at a Phoenix flight school.
FBI agents testified during Al Salmi's trial that he had changed his story during the interviews, eventually acknowledging he had met Hanjour on different occasions.
Al Salmi's attorney, Gerald Williams, didn't deny his client and Hanjour had met, but told jurors there was a difference between meeting people and knowing them.
ROCK CHALK VALENTINE
AARON LERNER/KANSAN
Josh Ediger, University of Kansas alumnus, stops at the corner of Seventh and Massachusetts streets to recognize his valentine on the sidewalk. "This year, me and my girlfriend are just going out to dinner in Kansas City," Ediger said.
State wildlife officials expect West Nile virus to hit Kansas
The Associated Press
WICHITA — Though many expect the West Nile virus to eventually reach Kansas, there are no signs yet that it has arrived. But entomologists and state wildlife officials are on the lookout anyway.
Wildlife workers have trapped about 100 crows in west Wichita during the past several days and have drawn their blood to test for West Nile.
Crows are susceptible to the virus, which was first detected in the United States in 1999 in birds at the Bronx Zoo. It has been spreading westward since, as far as Missouri.
"West Nile virus will be here next year if not this year," said Charlie Cope of the Kansas
Department of Wildlife and Parks.
Mosquitoes that feed on infected birds can transmit the virus to other birds, animals or humans. If bitten by an infected mosquito, the majority of people would not get sick. But the elderly and those with weak immune systems could become ill and show flu-like symptoms. Several people have died of the virus, for which there is no treatment.
The monitoring project is an effort by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kansas State University and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
If banded crowes are found dead of the virus somewhere else, scientists will know they picked it up somewhere between Wichita and that location, said Tom Janousek, an independent entomologist from Omaha, Neb., who is leading the project.
The monitoring effort also will include testing mosquitoes this spring and summer and looking for dead crows that could have the virus. People who see dead birds now should not be concerned, Janousek said.
When West Nile does arrive in Kansas, "it's going to get a lot of press, but it should be a small concern to them."
Preventing mosquito bites is the best way people can protect themselves this summer, he said.