The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday, February 24, 1982 Vol. 92, No. 103 USPS 650-640
JON HARDESTY/Kansan Staff
Fulfilling one of his main duties, running errands for legislators, Gene Payton (above), 14, Pittsburg, Kan., brings a soft drink to one of the representatives yesterday morning. Taia Felder (below), 11, Kansas City, Kan., looks up at the call board waiting for something to do on a slow afternoon in the House of Representatives chamber.
Pages run errands, offer views on Senate
By COLLEEN CACY Staff Reporter
TOPEKA—Two junior high school girls in fancy dresses sit fidging in straight-backed chairs. One leans over and whispers something to the boy next to her. Suddenly, she hears an impatient pair of fingers snapping and looks guiltily over her shoulder.
it's her turn to go, and she gets up quickly to see what the slightly irritated state senator needs. Soon, she is scurrying across the Senate floor, a note in her hand.
JON HARDESTY/Kansan Staff
So goes a typical day in the life of a page in the Kansas Legislature.
Each morning, a new group of young people arrive in Topeka from schools all over the state for a day of errand running, a chance to tour the Capitol and meet the governor.
Each legislator sponsors a page from his or her district, but the pages work for any legislator who needs them, according to Ginny Scrinopskie, Senate page supervisor.
"We go get Cokes and things for the representatives and take things back and forth." Mark Ducey, 13-year-old page from Lawrence, said.
Several of the pages said they were aspiring to make sure full of suggestions to improve the government.
Scripinopika said students could also write to the representative or senator and ask to be a page.
The boys said their representative, State Rep. Koehlen, to Charles D,Lawrence, ask them to beRep.
"But they must let us use the elevators," complained Allen Levine, 14, also from the district.
Most were not in awe of the representatives they were working for.
"It's all just having fun—they sit there and talk about golf," George Hanson, 15, from Lawrence, said. "They talk about anything but what's going on."
Levine said, "George find I want to be the first liberal senators from Kansas."
Hanson agreed.
"We're going to really redo the political philosophy," he said.
They announced that they were for the Equal Rights Amendment, pro-choice, against the death penalty and strongly against the Moral Majority.
Hanson asked, "Did I mention that we'd cut military spending in half?"
"This is what we believe." Levine said.
But Toby Cook, 14-year-old from Independence, Kansas, disagreed with Hanson and others.
"Reagan is doing the best job since-who should I say, you guys?—Abraman Lincoln," he said. "No one could balance the budget in four years."
Cook said it was not unusual for people his age to be interested in government.
"They know a lot more than people give them
read if they be read."
Scrispinis said most pages enjoyed their day and learned a lot.
Midwifery issue pondered in House
"They might be a little nervous at first, but after a couple of errands, it's old hat," she said. "The only thing that keeps a page away is heavy snow."
She said that when the houses were not in session, pages waited at their "base of operations" on the House of Representatives or Senate floor for signals that they were needed.
By KEVIN HELLIKER Staff Reporter
While in session, page sit on each side of the Senate or House chamber. In the Senate, legislators snap their fingers when they need a page.
Pages also bring snacks and drinks to legislators' secretaries.
The 125-member House is too large for head signals, so a lightboard above the pages' heads flashes when a representative needs their services.
TOPEKA- Supporters of midwifery yesterday told a House committee that home births were less expensive and less traumatic for mothers than hospital births.
But representatives from medical associations said midwives who were not also nurses were able to provide care.
See PAGES page 5
Debate over midwives, who assist in home births for pay, was prompted by a bill that would call for state licensing of midwives who are not nurses. Now, the state licenses as midwives only people who are registered nurses trained in childbirth.
Some mothers, testifying above the wail of infants at the hearing, called midwifery a more humane and natural form of childbirth than services provided by 'strangers' at the hospital.
There are now only three nurses in the state who are licensed as midwives, according to Lynne King, director of the Kansas State University Center for Childbirth. They to increase the availability of legal midwifery.
But State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-Lawrence, a registered nurse and member of the House Public Health and Welfare Committee, said after the hearing, "I'm so upset I can hardly talk
"They're talking about a measure that could be terribly destructive to babies," she said.
Jerry Jumper, secretary of the Kansas State
Committee on Correctional Committee not
to be plagued by non-nurse midwifey.
"lay midwifery—what can we compare with the Jumper." Jumper said. "Lay brain surgery Pituitary." Pituitary said. "Lay brain surgery Pituitary."
"Reductions in the current level of care during pregnancy are almost certain to cost lives of newborn babies and their mothers," said Jumper, a physician.
'1 am outraged that the act of delivering a baby is taken so lightly by people who should be held.'
But supporters of the bill said the money saved in home births justified the remote chance of survival.
State Rep. The Cribs, D-Wichita, who sponsored the bill, said the spiraling costs of medical care had grown out of reach, especially for people without health insurance.
"We want to make it so that everyone who wants a family can have a family." Cribbus.
Supporters of the bill said an unlicensed midfielder would have to be about $1,600 charged by nurse officials to about $1,600 charged by nurse officials.
midwives and about $3,000 for comprehensive delivery services at the average hospital.
But opponents said the cost of non-nurse midwives would go up if extensive training was required to gain a state license. Although midwives now legally operate in Kansas without licenses, Kansas Attorney General Robert Stephan released an opinion two years ago against unlicensed midwives could be prosecuted for any misdresses occurring during a childbirth.
Midwives would have to go out of state to obtain their training because Kansas has no programs for educating and licensing midwives. That would cause their costs to increase dramatically, according to Josie Nerris, a midwife in Holistic Birth and Growth Center in Wichita.
Norris said that since the state legalized registered nurse midwives in 1971, the Birth and Growth Center had tried to send nurses out on a case-by-case program had not been cost-effective, she said.
"I'm in favor of natural birth," she said. But it'll be to provide optimal care, even if needed for nursery.
"My experience with midwives is that they learn by the seat of their pants, and they do the best in a way."
Supporters of lay midwifery, questioning the childbirth care of doctors, said the United States ranked 15th among countries with low mortality rates in childbirth.
Chris Burger, secretary of Peace At Home of Wichita Inc., a pro-midwifery group, said the countries with the lowest mortality rates were in Scandinavia, where 80 percent of all infants were
Burger called the practice of midwifery in the United States "the awakening of a new age, in which women desire to gain active responsibility lives, their bodies and the birth of their children.
However, the medical profession is holding back midwifery, she said. Although Burger tried to have a home birth of her own last year, she was unable and she was forced to enter a hospital, she said.
While there, she said, she was subjected to inhumean treatment by the staff, which she said resented her demands for the most natural birth possible.
"From the time I was admitted, I was treated in an unfriendly, hostile manner," she said. "But when I was at home in labor, my midwives were surprised to see me responded to my needs before I expressed them."
See MIDWIFE page 5
Kansas journalism giant Oscar S. Stauffer dies
Oscar S. Stauffer, KU benefactor and founder of Stauffer Communications Inc., died yesterday afternoon in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospital. He was 95.
Mr. Stauffer, who served on the Kansas Board of Regents for 25 years and helped found the William Allen White School of Journalism, was admitted to Scottsdale Memorial Hospital Jan. 19 after a mild stroke. He suffered a severe stroke Jan. 25. He died shortly after 2 p.m.yesterday from complications resulting from the strokes.
At the time of his death, Mr. Stauffer was honorary board chairman of Stauffer Communications Inc., which owns and operates 30 radio stations, nine station stations and nine radio stations in 11 states.
Del Brinkman, dean of the School of Journalism, called Stauffa a journalism giant.
"He ranks with his beloved mentor, William Allen White, in the immense influence he has had on state and area journalism," Brinkman said in a prepared statement.
"His influence on the William Allen White School of Journalism lives on in the many scholarships, the Stauffer Distinguishedorship and his recent gift of a million dollars.
"But his greatest contribution to his profession and to his school has his ability to make big dreams come true. All of us will miss Mr. Oscar."
John B. Breemner, the Oscar S. Stauffer Distinguished Professor of Journalism, said, "We at the William Allen White School of Journalism will miss him. We had wanted him present at the dedication of our building, renovated thanks to his generosity."
Mr. Stauffer gave the School of Journalism $1 million for renovation of the building housing the students.
Bremner said that Mr. Stauffer was a kind and generous man.
"If he is not in heaven, there is no heaven," he said.
Mr. Stauffer was born Nov. 26, 1886, in Hape.
Kan. He first entered the journalism profession as a cub reporter for William Allen White's Emmoria Gatzna, earning $8 a week.
After two years, White encouraged Mr. Stauffer to go to college by firing him and offering to help him with expenses if he would attend the University of Kansas.
It was at the University that Mr. Staffer met All Landon, who is elected governor of Texas and a STAFFER.
Commission reaches settlement on Bluffs standoff
By STEPHEN BLAIR
Staff Reporter
The Lawrence City Commission last night voted 3-2 to settle out of court a lawsuit by a local developer.
The suit was brought against the city last August by developer Duane Schwabs on behalf of Vanguard Corp. in response to the city's refusal to issue building permits for his planned 20-unit Bluffs apartment complex on Fifth and California Streets.
However, Schwada must wait for a judge to lift a restraining order that resulted from an earlier lawsuit before the city will be allowed to issue the building permits.
Commissioners Tom Gleason and Nancy Shontz voted against the settlement.
The development has been opposed by a group of residents in the Pinkney neighborhood near the Bluffs. They have been concerned about increased traffic and noise.
The Bluffs is the hilly area just east of the intersection of Sixth and Iowa Streets.
Under the settlement, the city will issue the building permits after a judge allows it, and Vivendi will pay the landlord.
One result of the suit, which is now under appeal to the Kansas Court of Appeals, has been that a judge has restrained the city from issuing the building permits.
Gleason wanted to deter action on the settlement until Robert Freilich, the attorney for residents opposed to the development, could be present.
Those residents filed an earlier suit to prevent a city commission from reconizing the Bluffs to allow water access.
present at the commission meeting and that the settlement was the first step in resolving both
Clark said that Frellich should have been
Gleason said he thought the city should have tried to settle both lawsuits at once.
"If we give one party to a tri-lateral agreement their goal, we dilute that party's incentive to negotiate with the other party," he said.
But Mayor Marc Francisco said such matters could be worked out in the planning process.
The city is still negotiating with the developer over general questions such as placement of buildings, he said.
However, Gleason said the city may have lost some of its leverage in the planning process by making the settlement.
But Francisco said the commission already had agreed with the developer on the general terms.
But the commission disagreed.
In other business, the commission agreed to have the city staff prepare an information sheet to explain the city's 50-cent monthly water management fee added to the city's water bills.
Phil Halverson, treasurer of the group opposed the fee, said it was unfair to make everyone in the organization pay.
The city is collecting the fee to finance a study of storm water runoff.
r the special election will cost the city at least $80, possibly more, said Vera Merger, city clerk.
Commissioners discussed preparation of an information sheet about the fee in response to a petition trying to force an election to repeal the fee ordinance.
"When you're talking about a fee in an amount, I think it's fair to do that way," Clark said.
Everyone benefits by the city's storm water management, Francisco said.
Weather
It will be mostly cloudy today with highs in the low 40s and north winds at 10 to 20 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka.
Tonight will be clear and cold, with the low from 10 to 15 degrees. Tomorrow will be sunny and cold, with highs in the middle to upper 30s.
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