CAMPUS / AREA
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, April 28, 1992
3
Bill becomes law without Finney; picketing of funerals now illegal
The Associated Press
TOPEKA—Abil making it a crime to pocket funerals has become law without Gov. Joan Finney's signature.
Attorney General Bob Stephan said yesterday that the bill might contain a constitutional problem, potentially violating the First Amendment right of free speech.
However, he also said the bill had a chance of being upholded by the courts because Legislature had declared that it served the purpose of preventing cases from emotional disturbance and distress.
"Full opportunity exists under the terms and provisions of this section for the exercise of freedom of speech and other constitutional rights at times other than immediately before, during and immediately after funerals." the bill states.
The bill was aimed at Topeka minister Fred Phelips Sr. and members of his Westboro Baptist Church who had picketed at the funerals
of several people suspected of dying of complications of AIDS.
The bill, unsigned and without comment from Finney, was delivered yesterday to the secretary of state's office.
Mary Hollady, the governor's chief of staff and appointments secretary, said Finney not to sign the bill in order to not draw undue attention to Phelps.
Phelps unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1990, when Finney was elected governor.
"She has tried to ignore the people who have caused the need for such a bill," Hollady said. "She doesn't want to acknowledge that group. She's never responded to any of their accusations. She just didn't want to further dignify their cause."
The bill will take effect as soon as it is published, probably by Friday, in the Kansas Register, said a representative for Secretary of State Bill Graves.
Stephan said he would study the bill and
offer an opinion on its constitutionality, so that county and district attorneys would know whether they should attempt to enforce it.
The bill creates the Kansas Funeral Picketing Act.
"I think the idea is good," said Stephan. "But there is no sense in trying to enforce a law that is unconstitutional. Any time you try to limit speech, you're going to run into trouble. If the bill is warded in such a way it is meant to prevent violence, then I think there is some precedent for that."
It declares that the state's public policy concerns the interests of families in privately and peacefully mourning the loss of deceased relatives are violated when funeral are targeted for picketing and other public demonstrations.
Purposes of the law, it says, are to protect the privacy of grieving families and preserve the peaceful character of cemeteries, mortuaries and churches.
County debates Z-Bar Ranch future
Central Kansas acreage may become national park
By Andy Taylor
Kansan staff writer
The Z-B Ranch in Chase County rests in the middle of nowhere.
But the fate of the 14,000-acre ranch,
secluded in the Flint Hills of central Kansas,
has pitied political power against the interests of farmers and ranchers
Opponents and proponents of a plan to turn the Z-Bar Ranch, 100 miles southwest of Lawrence, into a national monument sparked by the announcement at the Jayhawk Room in the Kansas Union.
The speakers said the controversy centered on whether the ranch should be turned into a national monument by the federal government or run as a private group or run by Chase County rappers.
Lee Fowler, head of the Flint Hills Prairie National Monument Committee, said Chase County needed a national monument for economic development.
"Anytime you have the National Park Service, you will have more money coming into you."
Fowler said a preliminary study conducted by the National Park Service showed that the region would gain more than $500,000 a year even with low-visitor turnout.
He also said a national monument would educate people about the history of the tall
grass prairies and would demonstrate uses of conservation to future ranchers and farmers.
Wes Jackson, director of the Land Institute in Salina, a conservation research facility, said the proposal for a national park would be made at a future meeting, and an idea that did not sit well with him.
"I picture this like a castle on the Rhine," he said.
Jackson said preliminary plans called for turning the ranch's three-story house and 6,000-square-foot barn, both more than 115 years, into visitor's center and museum.
Although Jackson is not excited about the prospect of increased tourism, he said he supported the idea of a national park.
Jim Mayo, a Chase County rancher and professor of ecology at Emporia State University, said he would rather see the ranch regulated by environmentally concerned people.
Mayo said farm corporations were the major land owners in the Flint Hills.
A bill currently before the U.S. Congress would help develop the monument. A private foundation has been involved.
Ron Klataske. regional vice president of
Prairie debate
The Z-Bar Ranch in Chase County has been the battle ground for government officials who want to make the ranch a national monument, and farmers and stockmen who say that government interference would result in spoilage of the prairie grasslands.
Almee Brainard, Daily Kansan
the national Audubon Society, said. "This ranch is significant nationally because it represents one of the few remaining tall grass prairies in the world."
Philip Meinong/KANSAN
Under construction
Wayne Bennett of Harveyville, a Bob Florence Contractor employee, cuts plywood that will become part of the Lied Center's upper balcony lobby. Renée Kraiser, assistant project manager,said after a year of construction the center is about half finished.
Professor, 17 students dig up ancient history in Costa Rica
By Erik Bauer
Kansanstaff writer
As he hacked away at the tropical vegetation with his machete, Jann Hoopes, KU assistant professor of anthropology, came upon several large boulders and had there been, digging for gold in Indian graves.
Hoopes beckoned three students to the pits to show them his find. Walking toward their professor, one of the students was attacked by an African "killer" bee. Jumping over rocks and logs, the four evaded the angry insects by jumping into a nearby swamp. They held their breath until the bees went away.
It is only one of the experiences Hoopes and his band of rugged student archeologists could compare to the adventures of Indiana Jones. Hoopes and 17 KU students are learning research hands-on this semester at an archaeological field study in Golifte, Costa Rica.
As part of KU's study-abroad program, students arrived there Jan. 11 and began practicing their Spanish skills with Costa Rican host families. Hoopes arrived Feb, 1, and soon after, the group started digging.
The program is on its first leg. Students receive 12 hours credit for participating in the program, four of the hours in Spanish, the rest in archeology and independent study. They paid $3,100 each to participate in the program, which is financed in part by a research grant.
The program's continuation depends on whether another research grant is obtained.
"The goal of the project has been to use data from prehistoric trash dumps to reconstruct the ecology and the diet of the ancient inhabitants of the area," Hoopes said through a computer modem network that links the study-abroad office and the University of Costa Rica at San Jose.
He said one of the sites dated as far back as 200 A.D. The other could date back to 700 A.D.
The group has found more than 4,000 fragments of ancient pottery vessels, whiskey and other musical instruments, polished stone axes, grinding tools, and artifacts of fact belong to the Aguas Buenas and Chiriqui
John Hoopes assistant professor of anthropology
cultures, two cultures that the scientific world still does not know much about.
But clay artifacts are not the only cultural remains that are important to Hoopes and his students.
"The most unusual materials we have are the organic remains," he said. "These do not usually preserve in tropical environments, and no one knows what." Agua Buenas subsistence remains before now."
Hoopes said that there were few records about either culture but that the Agua Buenas developed in Costa Rica and were later replaced by other Costa Rican cultures. The Chiriqui peoples were decimated as a result of th. Spanish Conquest. Descendants of the cultures still live in the same area.
Hoopes said the research was important because it provided new information about past human use of the tropical rain forest and water resources.
"These are the two habitats that are in danger of elimination through deforestation and sedimentation," he said. "By showing how these resources were useful to prehistoric populations, we can teach people today how to conserve and use them."
3 but can stay longer at their own expense, agree that the trip, despite its hard work and difficulties, is an important cultural and archeological experience.
"The cross-cultural experience gained by living in a small Central-America port town cannot be duplicated in a KU classroom," said Nason Burchard, a graduate student, through the computer modem.
The students, who are scheduled to return May
Other students told stories of romance, bomb threats, passport hassles, the food and earthquake. One student, Chris Raymond, Kearney, Bebi, junior, said he was invited to play Jesus in a local passion play because of his long-haired, bearded appearance. He performed in the pastry with a cross on his back for an hour and a half — even though he was not fluent in Spanish.
JulieCaine, Lawrence senior, said, "In Golfoft, there are vultures in the trees, iguanas in the streets, dolphin psychologists, ugly imperialist gringos, deadheads, pale German tourists, a British film crew and us — all sandwiched between the mountains and the sea."
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