Great People
University Daily Kansan, October 9, 1981
Page 3
Alums successful in space, Senate and acting
By JANE NEUFELD Staff Writer
The alumni interviewed are: Col. Joe
There's hope for those on the Hill. FIVE KU alumni who have achieved success in their fields say their days at the University of Kansas were enjoyable and educational, although most not expect to end up in the jobs they must get.
Sen. Nancy Kassebaum
Engle of Chapman, who will pilot the space shuttle Columbia in its next flight; Sen, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, R-Kan, of Wichita; Robert H. Kaul, Topeka, retired Kansas Suprene Court justice; Stanley Learned, Bartlesville, Okla, retired president of Phillips Petroleum Co.; and Delos Smith Jr., Hutchinson, a stage movie and television actor.
Sen. Kassebaum remembered she was on the student council at KU, but
she wasn't sure exactly what her position was.
"I can't terribly! I really don't remember," Kassebaum said. "I know what happened."
KASSEBAUM, a 1954 graduate with a bachelor's degree in political science, was enthusiastic about enjoying her political and academic involvement at the University, but she was dubious of her experience. Her teacher had belped her once she graduated.
"Not particularly," she said. "My
friend told me that she
will visit Hallmark cards in Kansai
Catholic Church."
However, she said her college experience helped her in the long run.
"It was an enormous help in further interest in political history the latter of which has been a major factor."
Kassebum turned an interest in political history into participation when she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978.
SOME OF HER college friends were her highest campaign supporters, Karen and Todd.
"I don't know if I had any better support in the campaign that the fraternity provided."
She doesn't think being a KU alumna gives her automatic support from KU students, but she maintains her ties with the University. She will speak at the Foreign Relations Seminar on U.S.-Soviet Relations Oct. 11-12.
Kassbaum said that because she was a Republican, students sometimes took out their anger at President Obama and cuts of college loan programs on her.
"Sure, that happens," she said. "I don't know if it's hostility as much as disappointment. I have always found, though, that students respect an honest answer. I'll talk to them and they may not agree with me, but they'll listen."
She was on student councils in high school as well as in college. She said she dropped out of her sorority at KU so that she could become a residence hall counselor because she was interested in the then-new residence hall system.
Kassebaum has experience in fielding questions on political issues.
"It wasn't politics as such," Kasseben said. "It was involvement."
Kassebaum said. "It was involvement.
"Participation, I think, more than
KASSEBAUM WAS in a political
Delos Smith Jr.
science honor society, but she made no claim of studying compulsively.
"I could have done better, but I could have done a lot worse," she said. "I suppose, like all of us, I look back and think I could have studied more."
Sometimes she misses her days as a student. Kassabea said.
"In fact, I wish I were there now," she said.
Delos Smith Jr. graduated from KU in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in political science that he never bothered to use.
Since his graduation, he has appeared on the stage, screen and television in plays such as "Our Town" with Henry Fonda and "The Front Page" with Helen Hayes; in television series such as "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "Kojak"; and in movies such as "Bound for Glory" and "Goodbye, Columbus." Probably his most famous role was that of Scanlon, a mental patient, in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
HE NEW OWNS and runs a liquor store in Hutchinson, where he was born. He is nonchalant about his television appearances.
"The neighbors and the local people
"but what I like myself is the residuals.
rere took up acting instead of politics, Smith said, because he just kept getting offers to appear in plays. His role of Scanlon on stage won him the same part in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," he said.
"I knew exactly if it was a Bible Diet audience or a John Biah audience or a KluK Klan audience," Smith said. "I knew how to play it to the laughs."
Smith said he liked doing plays or movies more than he liked doing television shows because he had more freedom to interpret his character.
"If they tell you to pick the cup up for a television show, you go and pick the cup up," he said. "I don't say, 'You're not supposed to say,' Pick the goddamned cup up."
MUTH IS TAKING life easy in Hutchinson now, but he has not quit it.
"I'd go back, but I'd get a round trip ticket to Hutchinson," he said.
He is doing commercials, including
his salad and one for waterbed
Smith is also preparing for a movie, which has an unfinished script, but he described his role as that of an old, unhappy man, with four beautiful Hungarian refugees.
"I offered to stand behind each bed I sold, but they didn't think that was necessary," he said.
"I certainly want to audition the lions to make sure that there are no teeth and claws," Smith said. "I want to see that they're properly declawed and defend if they're not, then I'm going to have veterinarians on the set with sedatives."
"Nicholson will call about eight in the morning, because he always knows he'll find them then," he said. "He finds them dead or asleep, but he finds
IN THE MEANTIME, Smith said, he keeps in touch with his fellow actors. He said Carroll O'Connor, Mel Brooks and Carroll Strasburg wrote letters to him. Jack Nicholson, however, prefers to telephone his friends, he said.
Joe Engle
Smith's interest in acting was not as evident when he was at KU. He acted
in only one play, a musical, while at the University. He spent most of his time studying, he said.
"I would make very good notes on the professor's pet theories, whether I read the stuff or not." Smith said. "He going to want you to regurgitate his pet theories. If Rome declines and falls, it's going to decline and fall this way."
KANSAS DID HELP him in one aspect of his acting career, however, by preparing him for different climates around the world.
"If you've been to Kansas, you're ready to go to any climate in the world," Smith said. "In Java, you don't care if you're in Paris." Can you walk out in the noon day sun?"
Col. Joe Engle has said he always wanted to fly. He is still waiting for the flight that will take him into outer space and enable him the first reusable manned spacecraft.
Engle and his partner, Dick Truly, were scheduled to take off in the Columbia Oct. 9, but a propellant spill leaked into the craft. The launch date was moved back until the shuttle could be moved and repaired, a process that will take more than a month, according to NASA officials.
ENGLE WILL HAVE to wait a little longer to go farther out into space than he ever been before. The Columbia will reach heights of 137 nautical miles. However, Engle has been in outer space before. In 1965, he took an X-15 rocket plane above the 50-mile altitude limit, an act that qualified him for astronaut wings. He was the youngest man to qualify at the time.
"Every time I get in an airplane, it's exciting." Enale said.
Engle has been in many airplanes.
After graduating from KU in 1955 with a
bachelor's degree from the Cessna
Aircraft Co. in Wichita as an
See FAMOUS PEOPLE page 4
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