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Monday, November 13, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Courtesy of University Archive
A fire of a suspicious origin ravaged the Kansas Union the night of April 20,1970.
Courtesy of University Archive
Hundreds of students flocked to the scene and provided valuable assistance to the firefighting effort.
History
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tions. SenEx changed its position and opposed the strike. The paper also reported that an unlit Melotov cocktail was found behind Strong Hall the night before.
Several fire bombs were reported on campus and in Lawrence the night of April 7. A fire was set in the partially demolished old Haworth Hall. Later two fire bombs were thrown at the animal research labs near the new Haworth Hall. During these events, Anchor Savings and Loan, 900 Ohio St. sustained minor damage in a bombing.
The week of April 13 was fairly quiet on campus. National Anti-War Week activities drew sparse crowds. The rhetoric and hostilities of the prior week subsided.
David Awbrey, Senate president and Bill Ebert, Senate president-elect, wrote in a page one bulletin on April 8, "We recommend that students stay away from the campus proper (this evening) as much as possible." The strike was that day, but few students participated and there were no reports of violence.
Abbie Hoffman, a defendant in the recently concluded Chicago Seven trial, spoke that evening to 8,000 people at Allen Field House. He called a college degree useless and said that universities should be training grounds for revolutionaries.
Then late in the evening of Monday, April 20, all hell broke loose.
An explosion triggered a fire in the Kansas Union before 11 p.m. that night. It caused an estimated $2 million in damage to a 40,000 square foot area of the building's south upper half. The fire started near the Pine Room and quickly spread to the roof. Bill Rowlands, night manager of the Union at that time, said he heard a pop, ran upstairs to check it out and then evacuated the building because of heavy smoke.
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Lee Orr, a detective with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, was instrumental in forming an Occult Task Force in the metro area to investigate ritualistic crimes. Lee started an inservice training program to deal with crime scene investigation, ritualistic abuse of children, mutilation of animals, and even human sacrifice. Much of his Information comes from his personal "hands-on" investigations.
because of Lawrence Fire Chief Fred Sanders said at the time, "In my opinion, it was set."
Responsibility for the fire never was determined.
As bad as the fire was for the University, something else happened that night to show that civility was not lost on Mount Oread. Several hundred students helped with the firefighting effort. Some of the students assisted firemen by moving hoses throughout the building. Others also risked their safety by re-en-tering the Union and carrying out paintings, art objects and furnishings worth $50,000.
Outside, students brought coffee and doughnuts to the firemen.
Lee has been with the Kansas City, Kansas police department for twenty-three years, and a detective for Crimes Against Persons, for eighteen years. He has made appearances on a Geraldo Special, 700 Club, and CNN Cross-fire.
Is Satanism growing?
On Friday, May 8, an all-University convocation in Memorial Stadium decided the fate of the Spring semester. Chancellor Chalmers and SenEx made two proposals — (1) that classes continue and be open to all who wish to attend and (2) students could cease class attendance and have four options for evaluation. The options were credit-no credit for work through May 10; letter grade
Officials acknowledged the student's courage as a key role in
Other universities experienced similar events. Three universities, Boston, Brown and Tufts, canceled classes for the rest of the semester. The University studied the possibility of following the three eastern universities.
for work through May 10; letter grade of credit-no credit based on work to date and the final, without class attendance in the interim; or acceptance of an incomplete, with work to be made up later.
The week ended calmly. The unpopular curfew was lifted Friday. Professors Velvel and Litto received their promotions from the Regents. The week of April 27 was given to analysis of the prior week. Again, the cauldron that was this campus appeared to recede from the boiling point.
A march protesting the Chicago Seven verdict created turmoil on campus and in the city. A group of 200 listened to Velvet denounce the verdict near Lippincott Hall. While Velvet was speaking, one protector spray painted the Jimmy Green statue red and blue.
The ROTC programs underwent severe tests that year. A year-long debate on their accreditation ended in April when the faculty of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences voted to deny credit in 1971 to ROTC courses not integrated into the regular academic courses of the University.
The crowd at the convocation, estimated from 12,000 to 15,000, voted overwhelmed to complete the theater, and Chalmers was given enthusiastic cheers.
The KU Committee for Alternatives, a newly-formed group, called for a strike on Friday to protest U.S. troops in Cambodia and the killings at Kent State. Four hundred KU students marched in mourning for the four victims on Tuesday. After a rally attended by 1,000 students at Strong Hall ended Wednesday night, 200 of the students went to the Military Science Building and some protesters threw rocks through its windows. causing $1,000 damage.
Part of the group went to the Douglas County Court House and spray painted a clenched fist on the building. Several members went inside the building, and a window was broken.
Faculty members and students volunteered for curfew watch in the campus buildings at night. Three residence halls received bomb threats. Snipers were reported at various locations within town, and people were arrested in the bar area east of campus. All roads into town were patrolled.
The annual ROTC Review was canceled in May in wake of the demonstrations after Kent State.
Today, both the Army and Navy ROTC programs have 130 participants each, and the Air Force ROTC has 106, officials of each program said.
Students again marched in protest during the weekend of Nov. 15-16, albeit off campus. A rally drew 500 in Topeka, and more than 100 KU students took a bus to Washington D.C., with 250,000 protesters.
On Monday, May 4, two weeks after the Union fire, four students at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, were shot to death by National Guardsmen, and emotions on campus were back at a fever pitch.
The school year ended without any major incidents on campus.
The imposition of the curfew and presence of the guardmen did not prevent disturbances on campus and in Lawrence. Two fires were set on campus early Thursday morning, when a fire broke out at the Malibu Science Building, the other as a trash fire behind Strong Hall. Neither fire did any damage.
The first and largest march was the national moratorium on Oct. 15, 1968. Approximately 3,000 students staged a peace march along Jayhawk Boulevard. Anti-war speakers addressed smaller crowds at the future site of Wescoe Hall, which was then called Wescoe Hole.
Activism took many forms at KU during the 1969-70 school year. One of the most visible forms was the protest march, which usually was associated with the Vietnam War.
the Harambee, but workers at University Printing Services walked off the job on Feb. 18 because the printers were upset with words in the paper they said were obscene. The BSU appealed to state Attorney General Kurt Frizzell for a ruling on the question of obscurity.
keeping the Union's loss from being much higher. The damage was done, however, and for the next three days, Lawrence was under a curfew at night and the streets were patrolled by National Guardmen and police.
After not receiving what the BSU considered to be a timely ruling from Frizzell, the group gathered copies of the Kansan from the stands around campus on Feb. 23 and dumped the papers into Petro Lake. A series of students at the BSU the Kansan and student government leaders.
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 14th
7:30pm Big Eight Room Kansas Union
Maranatha Campus Ministries
The Kansan ran two editorials supporting the BSU in its attempt to publish its paper. Frizzell ruled the Harambee was not obscene on Feb. 25, and the Printing Service printed the second and third issues of the paper. The BSU printed its first edition in Wichita in the interim.
Maranatha Campus Ministries
It is difficult to sum up a school year as tumultuous as 1969-70, but Richard Louw, editor of the Jayhawker Yearbook that year, did a good job when he wrote about the spirit of student activism he witnessed while marching in the November moratorium in Washington, D.C.
In the final edition of the Kanson on May 13, BSU president John Spearman said the group had had a good year because it had achieved a new sense of consciousness for Blacks at KU. The BSU also won seven administrative positions and 150 scholarships that year.
On Feb. 26 the BSU presented Chalmers with a list of demands that included having the positions of campus provost and six associate deans or assistant directors be held by Blacks by Sept. 1 and that 10 percent of the incoming freshmen be Black. Chalmers responded to the demands in a page one bulletin in the March 5 Kansan. Chalmers wrote that the demands could not be considered consistent, as desirable as short-wage he added. "If the BSU were to address itself to long-range goals instead of short-term demands, reasoning men and women would not question the goals that are consistent with equal opportunity for all minority groups."
"Some had gone to Washington to say they had gone. Some had gone because they believed strongly in the cause. Some had gone because they wanted to find a cause. But all had gone, I think, because they no longer believed the television myth. For once, they had gone to see for themselves to bring realism home."
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The Black Student Union was another active campus group. The 35U tried to print its own newspaper,
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Student Senate presents: a SAFETY SEMINAR
It's No Secret.
It's Good Food.
The University of Kansas and Lawrence Police Departments give tips on safety for the home, car, and life.
Everybody welcome!
Tuesday, November 14th
7:30 p.m.
Jayhawk Room / Kansas Union
2700 Iowa
RUNZA
Jayhawk Room / Kansas Union
Susan T. Fiske Professor of Psychology University of Massachusetts
The Psychology Department presents
"Sex Stereotypes: From the Research Laboratory to the Supreme Court (and Back)"
Monday November 13,1989 8 p.m. Alderson Auditorium Kansas Union
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