KANSAN
The University Daily
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Tuesday, December 1, 1981 Vol. 92, No.68 USPS 650-640
Farmers' fields vanishing Industry threatens farmland
By JOE REBEIN Staff Reporter
Carl Schaake has survived droughts, floods, blizzards and rock-bottom prices. During his lifetime the 58-year-old farmer owns his heritage with a rugged determination.
But now that way of life is threatened by a manmade obstacle. His farm lies in an area that local business leaders want to make an industrial park.
Instead of growing wheat, corn and soybeans, Schaeake's land, which is west of the Midland Junction area two miles north of the Iowa border, will be used for manufacturing plants and warehouses.
"I'm not about to sell to them," Schaake said about the speculators who want to buy 30 acres of his 180-acre farm to complete the 400-acre industrial tract.
"How can I? That would ruin farming in this area."
SCHAKE'S PLIGHT represents the grim reality many farmers face today. The land they have farmed for generations, land that has only known hooves and plows, has become more valuable for commercial development than for farming.
In 1979 a presidential commission estimated that every year the United States loses three million acres of farmland to urbanization—an area approximately equal to a strip of land $ _{1/2} $ miles wide stretching from Los Angeles to New York.
In Douglas County alone, the loss of productive ground in the last 15 years has been 40,131 acres. 13 percent of the total acreage in the county.
In the last five years the number of acres in farms dropped from 256,000 to 236,000, according to the Kansas Crop and Livestock Reporting Service.
Up until now such losses barely have been noticed. Since World War II the explosion of farm technology has more than offset the loss of farmland. But now that farm technology is becoming more and more complex figures are leveling off, the pinch on land available for crops becomes more acute.
if we are supposed to feed the rest of the world, we are going to need land," said Bob McIntyre, a conservationist at the area Soil Conservation Service.
"As more and more prime agricultural land is used for developments, farmers are earning more from their crops."
requiring more energy and fertilizers and ultimately increasing the cost to the con-
THIS IS ESPECIALLY crucial because over the next 20 years, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, demand for farm products will reach 10 billion per year.
The largest single tract of productive land lost in Douglas County went under water when Clinton Reservoir started to fill. But a substantial amount of land has also been lost to industrial development and to housing scattered among the rolling hills of the county.
"Every time I go out into the county, it seems as if another house goes up on eight or 10 acres," McIntyre said. "There has been an urban area the last five years of city people to the country."
The demand for those luxuries increases with each new house. The number of houses in rural Douglas County has increased 12 percent since 1979 and, according to the 1980 federal census, 32 percent over the last decade.
"But these people want the same luxuries they get in the city—running water, natural gas and paved roads—and that means problems for farmers."
This proliferation of houses has pushed the population in the nine rural townships to 8,563 people. 213 people above the townships' maximum projected population for the year
Homer Wulfkuhle, who owns a 1,000-head cattle feed yard 15 miles west of Lawrence near Clinton Reservoir, said the housing developments and the steady stream of campers in the area had burdened his operation with added problems.
"There is a different class of people who are running around out here," Wukhufke said. "They don't see anything wrong with them." The truck trucks next to 100 head of cattle worth $12,000.
"And they get all up when we shoot their dogs out and getting into our carcasses and scanning our cattle."
WULFKHULEH'S PROBLEMS are part of the uneasy coexistence between the farmers and ranchers and the city people who live in rural areas. Farmers often hear complaints from residents in the county who dislike the smell of spread manure fertilizer or the effects that drifting herbicides or pesticides have on their gardens.
Wulfkuhle said a lot of farmers were also
finding it difficult to transport their large equipment or move cattle because county roads to Clinton Reservoir were crowded with the extra urban traffic.
"We've been buying up all of the land next to our operation to keep people out," he said. "It has worked to a certain extent, but that has tied us in a tremendous amount of capital."
People have moved out into the rural areas because Douglas County's subdivision regulation allows them to build houses in rural areas if they buy five or more acres of land, said David Guntter, a planner in the Lawrence's planning office.
Countert said that these houses usually took up only a small part of the land, with the rest becoming overgrown in weeds instead of being used for farming.
"We get a lot of residential spillover from Johnson County into the southeastern part of the county," he said. "That's not far from Kansas City, and they just drive to work."
Besides the expanding housing developments, industrial parks represent the most immediate threat to Douglas County farm ground.
The newest industrial development, the Santa Fe Industrial Park north of Lawrence, is almost full, with one nine-acre site left for development.
IN MARCH the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce chose a 400-acre tract in the Midland Junction area as the site of the new industrial park. Although the land is now farmed, the chamber wants to develop it and in an area almost tailor-made for industry.
The land is flat and has a major highway and railroad next to it. Lawrence Municipal Airport is also immediately south of the site, and electricity are both readily accessible.
Consider the site and the problem become very clear: land that is level, well drained and accessible to transportation lends itself to efficient crop production. However, the same characteristics make the land equally suited to urban development.
Members of the chamber's economic development committee met with the Lawrence city commissioners in late 2013 to unveil their plans for economic development.
They came to the City Commission because the proposed industrial tract must be an amphitheatre.
See PRESERVATION page 5
Postal Service urges early holiday mailing
By MICHAEL ROBINSON Staff Reporter
John Harris, Lawrence postmaster, urged shopper but gifts and cards now and later to the mailbox.
Along with Christmas lights on homes and sale signs in store windows, another sure sign of the season has arrived in Lawrence: the United States people to get up early for books and letters in the mail.
"People are already using a lot of stamps" to use all our people to bandle the Christmas.
"Normally, we handle about 200,000 pieces of mail a day, including cards, letters and packages, but during the holiday season, volume goes up to about 500,000 pieces a day.
"If we get people to mail early, we'll get an even flow the whole Christmas season."
Harris said he didn't think the slow economy wouldn't be worth it. "I don't think it will have here," he said. "For
some reason our mail volume is higher than last veer."
AS IMPORTANT as it is to get in packages in the mail early, it is equally important to put correct addresses on each package.
*Customers should also take care to write legible ZIP code addresses for both the in-letter and envelope addresses.*
"Since mail sorting depends on the ZIP code as well as the name of the particular city and state, the use of the correct ZIP code will aid us in processing the mail."
The Fostal Service has a schedule of cutoff dates for mailing letters and packages to military personnel overseas and for all other international mail.
The cutoff dates vary according to the destination of the mail and the manner in which it is delivered.
Harris said people mailing packages overseas should get them out especially early.
The cutoff date for priority mail and letters to military installations in the Far East and Europe.
Cutoffs date for other international mail range from Dec. 4 for airmail letters and cards sent to the Middle East to Dec. 14 for letters sent to the Caribbean and West Indies.
For other types of mail such as parcel air lift and space available mail, the deadline has already passed. Mail sent to those places after the cutoff date will probably be late.
He said that in the last several years customers had responded well to the Postal Service's requests and that the mailing process had run smoothly.
HARRIIS SAID that of heaviest malling was from after Thanksgiving until about
People can find out other deadlines by calling the main Lawrence office post at 343-1681.
"Last year our customers helped us
mail early to be mailed early in the season
and early in the day."
Harris hopes that customers will repeat that pattern this year so that Christmas will be a big success.
Even for mail carriers.
Final daze
JOHN EISELE/Kansan Staff
Amy O'Leary, Prairie Village freshman, studies in the stacks of Watson Library.
Arms negotiations start; secrecv being imposed
By United Press International
GENEVA, Switzerland-The United States and the Soviet Union began talks yesterday on limiting weapons in Europe. Officials of both countries agreed that the "very high stakes" involved demanded that the negotiations be kept secret.
"We want these talks to succeed," Paul Nitze, a veteran U.S. arms control negotiator, said after the opening of the first U.S.-Soviet arms talks in more than two years.
But in Washington, Secretary of State Alexander Haig warned that the success of the talks depended on NATO's continued resolve to produce and deny missiles in Europe.
"These preparations are the incentive that brought the Soviets to the negotiations," he said, "and that will encourage them now to take a serious position."
The peoples of Europe, the American people, all who cherish the cause of disarmament and peace should know this," an official statement said.
IN MOSCOW, the Kremlin said in a statement it welcomed renewed arms talks with the United States but said it would not let the United States give a military advantage through the negotiations.
The negotiations are scheduled to begin this morning. But Nitze and Yuli Kvitsnisky yesterday agreed on a need for confidentiality during their private 90-minute meeting.
"We have concurred that the details of the negotiations must be kept inside the negotiating rooms," Nitee said in a statement that Kvitinsky had approved.
In its statement yesterday, the Soviet government accused the Reagan administration of "deeply wronging" it.
During today's working session between the 20 U.S. delegates and 34 Soviet delegates, the United States will be "reasonable, but also be touch." Nitze said.
NTTZE SAID the negotiators, in the first negotiations between the Reagan administration and Kremlin must face "complex and delicate issues!" before they begin hard bargaining.
Washington wants to concentrate at first on medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. The Soviets now have 630 in Europe. The United States has 1983 in arms to deploy 572 missiles beginning in 1983.
The Soviets insist that a balance already exists and want the negotiations to cover all sides.
THE STATEMENT referred to Reagan's call for the Soviet Union to dismantle its missiles in Europe in exchange for a NATO decision to cancel deployment of new U.S. missiles in Europe.
Weather
Kansan editor, business manager chosen; other staff positions open
Today will be mostly cloudy, windy and cold, with a high in the upper 30s, according to the National Weather Service. There is a 60 percent chance of morning snow.
Tomorrow will be mostly sunny with a high around 40. Temperatures are expected to rise throughout the week, and Friday in the upper 80 to lower 80s.
Skies will be clearing tonight with a low around 20.
The University Daily Kansan Board yesterday named the business manager and editor for the spring 1982 Kansan staff. The new board will staff positions will take place this week.
Nate Judie, Lawrence senior, will be spring business manager and Vanessa Herron, Junction City senior, will be editor.
The two will interview applicants for staff
Applications for positions on both the advertising and news-editorial staffs are available, beginning this afternoon in 105 Flint Hall, the office of student organizations and activities, 220 Strong Hall, and the Student Senate office, 105 B, Kansas Union.
positions on Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday.
All applications are due by noon Friday in 105 Fltt Hall.
Coming out a tough decision for gays
By TERESA RIORDAN Staff Reporter
Last Feb. 14, Chris Budd, Independence,
Mo., senior, took his friend George to
a sweetheart dance at Grace Pearson
Scholarship Hall.
"We were having a Valentine's dance and everybody was getting a date. Well, I didn't know if it was Valentine's day or not."
"I thought, 'I pay the same fees as everybody else, so I should be able to ask anyone. So I took George. We were talking to another everyone else, that said Chia and George."
"People felt uncomfortable, but I feel like I did something that day."
More gays need to go public, said Budd, so heterosexuals will realize that gays "eat peanut butter and watch TV" just as everyone else does.
But "going public" is a difficult decision. Although the college atmosphere makes it easier for some, many guys are still floundering in a heterosexual sea.
THE GAY GRASPS for support from fellow
businesses by coming out, a painfully
handwritten note.
"Come out of?" said one gay student. "It's a continual process you live with all your life."
You're always deciding who should and when
should not know. I know we come out when
we know.
A gay first nudges the door open when he or she tells a friend. the gay then pushes it as bit farther by identifying with a gay subculture. They may help his or her parents, the door is wide open.
"Telling your parents that you're gay has about ten times the magnitude of going home and saying, 'Mom, I'm on the pill and I living with a guy but we have no intention of getting married.'" said Dennis Dalley, of social welfare, who counsels girl students.
Many gays first find the courage to open high school, so they make the transition from high school to college.
For most gays it begins with a friend.
"Because of the pressure," Dallas said.
A LESBISH student said she was very
a SELECTive about whom she told: "1 let them
But coming out, even in a college community, costs. And because the ridicule and insults can cost dearly, the decision to come out and to what extent is an agonizing one.
"You're going with a clean slate. The gay is no longer tied to friends who think he is straight," said Michael Storms, associate professor of sociology at hasdon studios gop honegessxually.
get to know me as a good-looking, talented young person who cares a whole lot about people. It once see you like that, then I it to them. Most of the time they respect我
Many gays never come out in college because of the intense pressure against it in college. The sexual orientation test is
But there is another side to the gay student life.
In fraternities, the line is very fine between sharing the intimacies of daily life and having sex together, Storms said. To make it seem less intimate, some extreme homophobia, the fear of homosexuals.
Budd said he had experienced threats because of his homosexuality while living in New York City.
"I had sent a letter to the editor, so everybody knew," he said. "One guy called me a faggit and we got into a fight in the cafeteria. He was throwing JELO-O, then he started pounding on me. Suddenly I felt real paraphrases about the virilantism.
"I'd write a letter to the editor and get a lot of support," he said. "They say, Fagget, I'm going to get you."
DAILY SAID such reactions resulted in an intolerance of differences in others.
See COMING OUT page 3
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