Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Monday, October 16, 1989
3
Landon's film to be for family viewing
By Steve Buckner Kansan staff writer
In the gentle tradition of Little Joe Cartwright, Charles Ingalls and Jonathan Smith, actor-producer director Michael Landon announced details of his latest project Friday during a news conference at the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Massachusetts St.
Landon, S2, is in Lawrence to film "Where Pigeons Go To Die," a made-for-television movie adapted from R. Wright Campbell's novel of the same title. Art Carney, Cliff De Young, Robert Hym Gorman and star in the video he scheduled to air on NBC early next year.
The movie parallels Landon's previous television work in that it is designed for viewing by the entire family.
"It's a very soft picture," he said.
"The beauty of the writing is a lovely literary form. It's so simple and so touching."
Landon said the story was a running narrative from the 1950s to the present. He said the plot focused on a boy, played by Gorman, who became a man after his beloved grandfather, with whom he raised and raced pigeons, suffered a stroke. Carney plays the role of the grandfather. De Young portrays Carney's son, a man who has had problems with his father. Landon will play Gorman's part as an adult.
Judy Billings, director of the Lawrence Convention & Visitors Bureau, said filming would begin today in Baldwin City. The movie also will be shot in Lawrence and Overland Park in the next three weeks.
Landon credited the cooperation from Billings and the Kansas Film Commission as having an important role in landing the movie in the state.
"I'm not sure if people realize how important it is to be treated nicely," he said. "We put feelers out to various states. You discover the organization here was the first to offer cooperative and gives you information."
"Those kind of things excite you.
Some states took three weeks to
Michael Landon
Kansas also offered an ideal setting for the movie, Landon said.
"The layout of the land worked perfectly," he said of the Baldwin City site. "We needed a vacant piece of property in the middle of the city to put a farmhouse. The people were going to landscape there, but they were kind enough to say 'we'll landscape later.'"
Landon said he would be supported on the $3 million production by a 130-man crew. He said a few extras he needed for background shooting.
The veteran actor said he was excited by the opportunity to work with Carney.
Landon said the story helped win over the selective 70-year-old Academy Award winner to the movie.
"I've never worked with Art, but he sounds like a guy we'd all like to have as a grandfather," he said.
"I sent the script to Art, and he read it and shared it with his wife," he said. "He told me he liked the script, that his wife agreed it was wonderful."
Landon said he spent two hours Thursday walking along Massachusetts Street, checking out the shops along the way. He said he enjoyed meeting people wherever he worked.
Christopher McFarlane, Lawrence Tae Kwon Do School, breaks a stack of boards at the Celebration of Cultures Festival.
It's a small world at the culture festival
By Jennifer Metz
Very well written
Kansan staff writer
A street fair atmosphere filled downtown Lawrence Saturday as families and students strolled through the second annual Celebration of Cultures Festival.
More than 40 booths exhibiting ethnic foods, educational displays and art were displayed on Eighth Street between Vermont and New Hampshire streets.
"It was a terrific example of cooperation in Lawrence between KU groups and community
groups," said Mary Johnson, professor of French.
- The KU French Club promoted France's culture at the festival with French foods, music, books and posters.
The Nihon Club, a newly-formed Japanese student organization, demonstrated a Japanese tradition called Origami, or paper folding.
Skip Landis of Lawrence said the festival was a good opportunity to be exposed to cultural awareness, particularly for children.
cultures because it is a university community, Landis said, and the festival was a good exchange between KU and the Lawrence community.
Phi Beta Lamda, the business club at Haskell Indian Junior College, sold Indian tacos as a representation of their culture.
A stage was set up downtown for a variety of productions throughout the day, including performances by the Thunderbird Players of New York and the Second Christian Church, 1245 Connecticut St.
Marine Band to perform for sell-out crowd
By Holly Lawton Kansan staff writer
by Sousa's band on Oct. 27, 1927.
Tonight marks the occurrence of two special events at Hoch Auditorium.
The Marine Band, called "The President's Own," is now on a 13-state tour, said John Potchney, national tour director for the band.
The United States Marine Band will perform at 8 p.m. for a crowd that snapped up all available tickets even before the event was publicized.
Also, Chancellor Gene A. Budig will accept a plaque from Robert Foster, KU band director, designating Hoch as a historic site. The plaque, awarded by the John Philip Sousa Foundation, is a memorial of the first concert at Hoch, performed
Fourney, national four director for the Atlantic Foster said he had been in touch with Marine Band conductor Col. John Bourgeois for several years.
"We had Colonel Bourgeois here as a guest conductor two years ago, and I think he told the band people to be sure to include Lawrence on their tour," he said.
Pototechny the Marine Band left Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2 for its tour and would return
Nov. 22. It will visit Lawrence, Liberal, Shawne and Wichita in four davs.
Tonight's concert will be augmented by a piece composed by James Barnes, assistant director of KU bands.
The Marine Band is the United States' oldest musical organization, officially established by an act of Congress signed by President John Adams in 1798, according to a band information packet.
Tonight's concert is free, but tickets are required. Foster said all tickets were gone within a week, but non-ticket holders might be able to enter the auditorium at 7:45 p.m.
Blue Cross seeking to make a profit
The switch in insurance plans in 1990 will limit the number of approved doctors that state employees can see.
Leavenworth County
Now 1990
95 8
Atchison County
Now 1990
31 14
Miami County
All figures are approximate.
Now 1990
43 6
Kansan staff writer
This is the second in a series of three articles.
By Doug Fishback
In the wake of a declared $16 million loss on the Kansas state employee health plan, Blue Cross and Blue Shield officials hope that manipulating state risk groups will put the company back in the black.
Mary Betzen, Blue Cross spokesman, said that younger state employees had taken their business to health maintenance organizations, which left an older, higher-risk group enrolled in traditional Blue Cross plans.
Kevin Master/KANSAN
piano.
As a result, she said, Blue Cross paid more in claims than it made in premiums from 1985 to 1988.
She said that state employees and their dependents were the largest market group in the state, with almost 42,000 state employees insured by Blue Cross-sponsored programs.
Explaining why Blue Cross kept bidding on the state contract, Betzen said, "Over the years, generally we had problems losing money on the group."
"That's a large chunk of the Kansas marketplace that we don't want to let go of," she said.
Madi Vannaman, act benefits manager for the Kansas Health Benefits Administration, said Blue Cross and the state were trying to curb losses by attracting younger, lower-risk employees away from HMOs and back into traditional insurance programs. To do so, in 1988 Blue Cross introduced Blue Select, a hybrid between an HMO and more traditional coverage, she said.
Blue Select resembles an HMO in that its enrollees choose a primary-care doctor from a list of those who have contracted with the program. The enrollee pays no deductible but is responsible for a co-payment.
Blue Select is more flexible than an HMO, however, because it allows enrollees to go off the list of preferred doctors, Vannaman said. In that case, the enrollee pays a deductible and an increased co-payment.
Vannanaman said attempts to stabilize the risk groups under Blue Cross plans appeared to be working. This year, the segment of state employees covered by HMOs fell almost 3 percentage points to 36.8 percent, she
University of Kansas Health Insurance
--said, with Blue Cross programs picking up the difference.
"What you are seeing is a trend we hope will continue drawing people back into Blue Cross plans," she said.
To aid Blue Select enrollment efforts, beginning January 1 seven Kansas counties that serve state employees with traditional Blue Cross coverage will be switched to Blue Select, Vannaman said. Four of those are Atchison, Leavenworth, Miami and Coffey Counties, all of which are relatively close to KU operations in Douglas and Johnson counties.
If state employees in the counties have been seeing doctors who are not on the Blue Select approved list, they either will have to find new doctors or pay the deductible and increased copayment in Blue Select's self-referral policy.
KU and other state employees living in the new Blue Select counties will have fewer doctors to choose from. Betzen said that there were approximately 95 Leavenworth County doctors on the provider list for the tradition of Cross plan care, and eight of them were on the new Blue Select list.
In Miami County, about six preferred doctors will serve patients, whereas almost 40 had done so under the 1989 plan, Betzen said. For Atchison County, the numbers are 14 in 1990, compared to 31 under the 1989 plan.
"My hunch is that it will be minimal." Johnson said.
Vannaman said Blue Select subscribers could, however, travel across county lines if they could not find preferred doctors at home.
Paul Johnson, who practices family medicine in Leavenworth, said he had contracted with Blue Cross as a Blue Select physician. He did he说明 the state employee health plan to have a great effect on his patient load.
He said he received a monthly computer listing of Blue Select patients who had chosen him for their
primary-care doctor
"I've been getting a blank sheet here the past couple of months," he said.
Johnson said he did not think the changes in the state employee health plan were disrupting the Leavenworth medical community.
"There's a lot of murmuring in the woods, but I don't think there's any great storm." he said.
Betzen said Blue Cross officials expected positive results from changes in the state employee health plan. Instead of losing money again, Betzen said the company would move to $7 million left in its 1989 state employee reserves, she said.
Graham Bailey, another Blue Cross spokesman, said that even though 1989 claims could be filed until two years from now, Blue Cross reserves the right to file at a size of 1989 reserves with a formula developed through experience.
Betzen could not say how much of the expected surplus was attributable to a stabilized risk group and how much was attributable to 1989 premium increases.
"We apparently did some things right," she said.
KUAD
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING CLUB
Meeting: Tuesday, Oct. 17 Featuring:
Leo Burnett Company, Inc. of Chicago
Free buffet at 5:30
Presentation at 6:30
Alderson Auditorium,
Kansas Union