VOL.100,NO.44 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
THURSDAY
OCT. 26, 1989
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
NEWS: 864-4810
Bodv in river was Dawes
Puzzles remain for investigators
A fear became reality yesterday.
By Jennifer Metz Kansan staff writer
A student who had so much going for him had so little time to carry out the high ideals and expectations he had for his life.
The body of Cecil Dawes Jr., a 21-year-old recently disenrolled KU student, was found floating in the Kansas River Tuesday afternoon, leaving many unanswered questions about his death.
After a preliminary autopsy yesterday, Carol Moddrell, Douglas county coroner, said the she wascounted dead. He said her death was drowned. She said the
body had been in the water for several daws.
Moddrell said the final report had not been issued because further analysis still is in process, such as an investigation as part of a patient of Dawar 'blood when he died'.
Chris Mulvenon, Lawrence police spokesman, said that the death was being investigated as an unattended death, meaning that to their knowledge, no one witnessed the drowning.
There were no injuries to the body that would have been consistent with the report.
"We are not ruling out the possibil-
tion that foul play was involved," he said.
There also is no indication how the body ended up in the Kansas River, Mulvenon said.
Friends and family remain baffled by the disappearance and death of Dawes, who was last seen early Oct. 15 after he left the Los Amigos Saloon, 508 Locust St.
"He said he was all dressed up with nowhere to him," Schmidt said.
John Schmidt, one of Dawes roommates, said Dawes left the apartment at 11:30 p.m. Oct. 14.
Dawes arrived at the saloon that night, but left the bar about 1 a.m., Schmidt said. A woman was with Dawes when he left the bar. Then Dawes apparently drove over some train tracks, and stopped his car. He told the woman to get out of the car and hide in some bushes. The woman said she heard a car pull up after he told her to hide. Dawes' car was found about 3 a.m. Oct. 15, after it had been hit by a train. Dawes disappeared after he told the woman to hide.
Mulvenon said a joint investigation consisting of two sheriff's officers and four Lawrence police officers had been formed to conduct a follow-up investigation on the drowning. They are in the process of trying to contact individuals who were present
at the Los Amigés Saloon that night, the woman who was in the car with Dawes that evening and his other friends and acquaintances.
Schmidt said he had no reason to suspect that Dawes was having any problems.
"I don't think that being upset
See DAWES. n. 6
Commission names acting city manager
By a Kansan reporter
Mike Wilden, former assistant city manager, was appointed acting city manager yesterday in a brief ceremony infused with sorrow about the sudden death of former city manager Buford Watson.
Watson, 59, died early yesterday morning from a cardiac arrest. He was a long-time resident of the city.
A few minutes of silence began the emergency City Commission meeting that was attended by more than 30 city employees.
"This is a sad day for Lawrence," Commissioner Bob Walters said. "We have lost a great leader."
Commissioners expressed their sadness about Watson's death before the revelation.
▶ See related stories p. 10
City Attorney Jerry Cooley, who was a longtime friend of Watson, told commissioners that they had to act as soon as possible.
"This is a public emergency," he said. "We have to have a city manager, even if only an interim manager, as soon as possible by state statue.
"Wherever Buford is and whatever he is doing, this is what he would have wanted us to do. He would have said he would have had give them done by noon."
After the meeting, commissioners refused to speculate on whether a search would be made for a new city manager.
Court is in session
Defense counselor Jeff Wietharn, right, argues Larry France's case in traffic court. See story, pg. 3
Bid to override abortion veto falls short
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush's veto of a bill to provide abortion assistance to impoverished victims of rape and incest was sustained in the House yesterday as a 231-191 vote to override him fell 51 votes short of the necessary two-thirds margin.
Though narrow in scope, the bill carried symbolic importance in the widening political struggle over the abortion issue, and proponents took their loss with a vow to keep the
▶ See related story p. 3
president's feet to the fire. But Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., called it "a decisive victory for the pro-life movement."
"The president won a legislative victory today with use of a legislative minority," said Rep. Les AuCoin, D-Orne. "He will put his party at tremen度 in the selection, and some of his allies on the House floor will not be returned."
A Republican who supported the bill, Rep. Bill Green of New York
said, "President Bush may well have stumbled on the one issue that could cost him re-election."
The vote, in which 42 Republicans joined 189 Democrats in the unsuccessful bid to enact the bill over the president's veto, left intact an 8-year-old ban of federal financing of the schools. The governor accepts when their lives are threatened.
The disputed provision, would have permitted Medicaid abortions for women who are victims of rape or incest and who it "reported promptly" to authorities. It was part of a spending bill that will now go back to the House Appropriations Committee for revision.
Smith and other abortion opponents said the vote demonstrated that they could overcome future efforts to weaken the prohibition on most Medicaid abortions, and they also argued that a ground had not shifted in favor of abortion rights as some political strategists argue.
"They made the mistake of thinking this was a one-round fight," said Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn.
Traffic bonds' legality debated in state court
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Lawyers debated before the state Supreme Court yesterday whether $4 million worth of bonds issued by Douglas County four years ago to help build a proposed traffic by-pass around southwest Lawrence were legal.
Donald G. Strole, a Lawrence attorney representing plaintiff Leslie W. Blevins Sr. of Lawrence, told the court the bonds were issued illegally and that he unclaimed a state law that required a vote of the people to approve them.
John W. Langsturm, a Lawrence lawyer representing the county, argued that provisions of the state's Arterial Highway Act did not apply to the bond issue. He said the Kansas Court of Appeals, Douglas County District Court, Attorney General Robert Stephan and the League of Kansas Municipalities all have agreed with his position.
In addition, an attorney for the city of Lawrence, Roger K. Brown of Lawrence, said the city shouldn't even be involved in the appeal the state filed against Mr. tiff makes no claim against the city in his cause of action.
The attorneys debated an appeal brought by Blevins after he lost his challenge to the issuance of the bonds in the case of Court and in the Court of Appeals.
The bonds were issued in August 1985 after the board of county commissioners and the Lawrence City Commission adopted joint resolutions authorizing the bonds to help construct the proposed 14.1-mile, $44.9-million bypass linking the Kansas Turnpike. U.S. 40 and Kansas 10.
Construction has not begun because of the lawsuit and problems putting together the financial package needed to finance it. That package is expected to include federal, state and local financing.
Strole told the court that the issue in the lawsuit was simple: Was the issuance of the bonds a proper exercise of home rule powers granted by the Legislature, or did the provisions of the Arterial Highway Act apply?
nally advised the county it would have to issue the bonds under terms of the state law, which required a vote of the people.
However, he added, when the county wanted to speed up the process and avoid a public vote, it changed the name of the project to avoid having an attempt to avoid having the project classed as an arterial highway.
He argued that bond counsel origi-
"The question is, has the county used the arterial highway statute and called it something else and passed conflicting legislation?" Strole said.
"I think without question that this is an arterial highway. I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise."
Strole said if the Supreme Court upholds the defendants in this case, "All a county ever has to do to exempt itself from state law is to be a citizen of that county did was call it a trafficway instead of an arterial highway."
However, Lungstum said the two lower courts upheld legality of the bonds because the county properly paid the debt as power granted by the Legislature.
He said the bonds were for a "unique project" that didn't meet the definition contained in the law of an arterial highway.
"This is a bypass, literally," Langstrom said. He said he didn't think a bypass, or trafficway, qualified as an arterial highway because it linked highways and was not a new route "from point A to point B."
"This was a good subject for local legislation," he said of the resolution authorizing the bonds, "because there was no uniform legislation" that would prevent use of home rule power.
The state arterial highway law does not address projects to be financed jointly by federal, state and local governments. Lungren said.
Brown argued that the city of Lawrence couldn't be a party to the case because it hasn't done anything.
However, Strole told the court,
"The reason the city is in the suit
is because it entered into a joint resolution
with the county. If the county's
actions are illegal, then the city's
actions are illegal."
Air Force professor makes education fly
By Stacy Smith Kansan staff writer
The room stirs with activity as students talk among themselves before class begins. At 10:30 a.m., the mood changes.
Recruitment calls the career monitor.
Silence falls over the room. The students snap to attention, awaiting the entrance of their commanding officer.
"Attention!" calls the cadet monitor
Col. John T.rademacher, Air Force ROTC professor, enters the classroom with an air of confidence and professionalism. The silver belt buckle and tie clip on his dark blue Air Force uniform are polished to a shine, as are the wings pinned above his left chest cocks.
The message painted in blue letters above his classroom door in the Military Science Building reads, "The mission of the United States Air Force is to organize, train and equip air forces for the conduct of prompt and sustained combat operations in the air."
Rademacher, 46, is prepared to fulfil his current mission of training cadets to be future Air Force officers. Since August 1987, he has been the Air Force ROTC commanding officer at the University of Kansas. He left his position as Deputy Commander for Operations at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas to assume his role at KU.
"I was asked by my commander If I would be willing to go to Air Force ROTC and be a professor of aerospace studies, he said. At North Carolina University and one at KU.
His military career began at the age of 13 when he transferred to Culver Air Academy in Culver, Ind. After graduating from Culver, he went to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He then attended pilot training at Laredo Air Force Base in Texas.
"I thought the central location would be better. I had no idea what Kansas University would be like, but I was pleasantly surprised."
Born to serve
But the all-professional color image is just one facet of his personality. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Browder remembers his friend, John, in a much different way. They met during the summer of 1961 when they both entered the Air Force Academy.
"We were all very naive and idealist at that time. John was always a competitive person." Browder said. "He was also popular with the girls. He always had a girlfriend."
Browder remembers the day he woke up to find a poem on his bunk from Rademacher
"We were all heavy smokers," Browder said. "John was always bumming cigarettes over the counter."
that began, "There he was sleeping on his — the school day over, he didn't have a class. . ." The poem was left to replace the cigarette that Rademacher had taken.
The time Rademacher spent at the academy was not his first exposure to a military way of life. He was born into the military tradition. His father was an Air Force officer, and the family traveled from base to base while he was growing up.
"I can't say I was a person who knew when I was eight years old that I wanted to be a pilot. But let's face it, the influence I had was probably from my father," he said. "My father is still influential and I just took it for granted."
"Plus being around aircraft all of the time, I guess I've just had a liking for the thrill of flying. That's what initially drew me to the Air Force."
See RADEMACHER, p. 6
Operation KU
After 24 years of working on Air Force bases and dealing with military personnel daily, life
Col. John T. Rademacher Instructs Air Force cadets in aerospace studies.
A