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Tuesday. November 28, 1972
University Daily Kansan
'Pinball Wizard' Trains in Lawrence
By LINDADOHERTY Kansan Staff Writer
From the noise of buzkers and the flash of colored lights, two "pinball wizards" in the Pinnball Championship, conducted in Columbia, Mo., last weekend. One of the "wizards" was a member of a team organized by two University of Kansas
Winner of the regional championship was Chuck Blackboroy, a professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, III. Blackboroy is a member of the Michigan Street Bar-B-Q Pinnailers, a three-man team created by Kary Unger, assistant professor of economics and Richard Ruppert, associate professor of economics.
Ruppert said the group became interested in the championship after seeing an advertisement about it in the Rolling Stone newspaper.
Funeral services were held Monday in Lawrence for a retired University of Kansas professor who died Saturday at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
J. Neale Carman, 75, was a member of the KU faculty for 49 years. He started as a Student Army Training Corps instructor in 1967 as a professor of French and Italian.
Funeral Held For Ex-Prof, J.N. Carman
Carman was born in Herington, and received an undergraduate degree from KU in 1917; an M.A. from KU in 1921; and a Ph.D. degree in French from the University of Paris. He was served as chairman of the department of romance language from 1957 to 1962.
Unger said that the team, consisting of a player-coach and two substitutes, was then disbanded.
RUPPERT SAID, "I've played pinball off on, and on mostly, for 25 or 30 years. We've been in practice sessions, in training, for the couple of weeks prior to the tournament."
Because many of the practice sessions took place on a pinball machine at the Michigan Street Bar-B-Q, 515 Michigan St., the group adopted its name for their team.
"One of our players qualified for the finals," Ruppert said, and then went on to win.
the pinball contest had three main events. The first event, the measure of skill, was played by a player's skill at playing on two different machines at the same time. Event number two, the measure of assimilation, required a player to play on a new machine which he had been using before.
SUBJECTIVE MEASURE of finesse and introduction of luck and personality, was
the third event. In this category, the pinbailer had to make certain moves and hits while playing before a judge and an audience.
The Michigan Street Bar-B-Q Pinchallers placed first, second, third and eleventh in the race.
Ruppert's 10-year-old son, the youngest in the tournament, was the third place winner.
"He beat me in events two and three," supper said, "but I beat him in the first ever.
As a sidelight to the pinball championship, the group has organized the Jolly Tournament.
Unger said, "The Jolly Roger is a type of pinhole machine that's quite old. There are no signs."
"BECAUSE THAT'S our favorite machine to play on, we've formed a tongue-in-cheek foundation for the preservation of the Jolly Rorer."
There have been only two types of pinball
machines manufactured again once the
machine was purchased.
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"Once the rubber is worn out, they're done for," she said.
"The Jolly Roger must be a good machine," Unger said, "since that is the one we trained on most of the time and we did quite well."
According to Unger, the tournament was well organized throughout the three days of the tournament.
Ruppert said, "It was actually better put together than I figured it would be."
MOONCHILDREN
Ruppert said that if there were a tournament next year, he would give strong pressure to players.
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