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University Daily Kansan, August 22, 1983
Holcomb seeks end to infamy
By United Press International
HOLCOMB — the western Kansas town made famous by Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" has a new bank, a new high school and a new newspaper. Its streets are being paved for the first time. It now has cable television
City leaders say that Holcomb, where the Clutter family was murdered in 1959, is one of the nation's newest boom towns.
Only 1,200 people live in Holcomb, but one of the biggest meat-packing plants in the world stands just a few miles from its borders. Iowa Beef Processors' enormous gray concrete plant is most commonly credited for the boom.
CAPOTE'S ACCOUNT of the murders of Herbert Clutter, his wife and their children made Holcomb famous. He was a judge on the day when success elapses notoriety.
Many of the 2,000 workers at the plant live in nearby Garden City, but some analysts have said that the company could generate a need for 3.5 times its own number of employees in service-related industries.
Holecom needs small service businesses such as gas stations, a laundromat, sandwich shops, an ice-cream parlor, a pet shop, a coffee shop, Mike Castle, president of the First
National Bank. His bank opened in May.
"Holcomb's here, and it's a force you're going to have to reckon with." Castello said. "By God, we're out here going to do our darnest damn to make you."
"We're out there hustling, and we're out there to take a little bit of the attitude of the insurance man. You've got to learn to accept a lot of negative responses, but we're going to hit on some of them. As we hit, and get more people involved in the community, it's going to make it that much easier to get the others."
Capote image lingers
CAPOTE DESCRIBED Holcomb as a small, dusty village divided by railroad tracks. About 270 people lived in the town in 1958. Strangers probably would describe it the same way today, but the new high school, a new subdivision and the new City Hall—a building underneath the water tower—all indicate growth.
"A lot of what the city is doing right now, it's in the developmental stage." Castello said. "So it’s kind of hard to do that right away, but through Holcomb that all is going on."
In the fall, the local school district burgers a $5.3-million high school in Holocaust Village.
sewerage and water lines in 1980 and 1981, they were oversized to accommodate as many as 3,000 living units. City Administrator Dave Geist said the system had 315 customers.
THE SUNFLOWER Electric Co-op generating plant, a $450 million facility just outside Holcomb, is expected to begin production of electricity this month.
Merlyn Brown, editor of Holcomb This Week, said that the town could succeed in three ways.
"It can trap business from the IBP plant, or it can be a kind of bedroom community for Garden City." Brown said. "Or it can do both."
City leaders push the town's school district. They have said the schools were the envy of Garden City's 22,000 residents. The school system has a strong tax base because it covers about 250 square miles, Castello said, and teachers are paid more so they will come to Holcomb. Geist, the city administrator, said the student-faculty ratio was less than 18-1 in the elementary school, and less than 10-1 in the high school.
Residents accept the growth, Geist said. They need businesses to help provide a tax base and support city services. New sewers, water lines and paved streets now have to be partly financed with special assessments.
asked the board to ban the weight limits. He said they encouraged teens to take diet pills and focused too much attention on appearance.
"The weight requirements create the idea that no matter how talented you are and how hard you work, all jobs are as if you look." Newman said.
He read a letter from a woman in Ormond Beach, a community near Daytona Beach, who said the weight requirements had contributed to her daughter's anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder that can sometimes cause victims to starve themselves to death.
Overweight twirler requests move
Newman said. "We're not talking about my daughter. We're talking about all the Tracys and the Susans and the Jeans."
By United Press International
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A 5-foot-6, 135-pound batton twirler who was rejected as a high school majorete because she was 10 pounds overweight has asked to transfer to another school.
"I don't think I look fat," said the twirler, Tracy Newman, 15, who was prevented from trying out to be a majorette at Seabreeze High School. "I went to my doctor, and he showed me his weight charts. I fell in there with no problems. In fact, I was five pounds under."
Seabreeze and Mainland, two of the high schools in east Volusia County, have size requirements. Newman could have attended either, but asked
to transfer to a third high school in the county. Spruce Creek.
AT SPRUCE CREEK, twirling is a credit course instead of an extra-curricular activity. Spruce Creek majortrees face no weight requirements.
School board member T.E. Smotherman said, "This almost makes us look as ridiculous as when we were trying to decide whether boys could wear white socks to school. I think we're better fortunate in some sense. I would be happy to see the girl twirl at any high school in the country."
At a public hearing conducted recently in DeLand, a nearby city, school board officials approved Newman's transfer. The board did not agree however, to drop the weight restrictions on his position. Jack Newman, had requested.
Board members said they would study the issue.
DURING THE meeting. Newman