HOMECOMING
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University Daily Kansan, October 26, 1984
Page 4
Jackie Kelly/KANSAN
Vendors climb many, many stairs during a KU football season. The people selling soda pop in the stands collect up to 18 percent of the gross profits, or 11 percent to 12 percent if they are hired vendors for campus and community organizations.
Stadium alive with vendors
By GWEN TOMPKINS Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Memorial Stadium awakens between 10 and 10:30 a.m. on game days — the same time many students wake up to begin preparing for the afternoon's game.
The first signs of life at the stadium appear when 16 to 20 backstreet sellers stroll in and begin setting up their stands.
The athletic department coordinates the backrest and program selling, which members of the track, baseball and swim teams sell.
The backrests are sold for $1. The workers get 10 cents for each one they sell and 15 cents for each one they pick up from the stands after the game.
WILLIE PUCKETT, SPRISTER on the track team, and Scott Huffman, pole-vauturer, said they averaged $35 to $40 a game selling backrests. Both said their profits were spent on living expenses.
Teresa Watkins, a Topeka senior who sells programs, said. "There's no time for other jobs unless you're not into school." Watkins said.
The concession stands are run by different campus and community
organizations as a fund-raising activity, Kevin Remick, concessions manager, said merchandise was provided by Kansas Union concessionaires. The revenue is 12 percent of the gross profits after sales taxes are deducted.
The organizations are committed to sell concessions for the entire athletic season — football or basketball and sometimes both, he said.
JON WEAVER, GLENWOOD Springs, Col., senior and treasurer of Kansas Crew, said the group made about $150 to $200 a game. Most of the money goes toward paying the salary of one of the crew team's coaches.
The Omega Psi Phi fraternity operates one of the four novelty stands. They sell souvenirs ranging from playing cards and cups to sweatshirts and ties.
Cedric Keith, Kansas City, Kan. senior, said the money raised paid for chapter functions.
At noon the people selling soda pop to spectators in the stands arrive.
The organizations raising money by selling soda pop in the stands will receive 18 percent of the gross profits. Remick said organizations only made 11 or 12 percent of the profits if they hired vendors.
UNDER THE BLEACHERS, three
On the field, the band begins the game play while the stands pop up.
Kansas Crew workers serve popcorn, soda pop and candy to people stocking up on snacks before finding their seats.
During the first series of plays on the field, the work begins to slow down. Puckett and Huffman start packing up the backrests and Watkins picks up her box to take her sales pitch into the stands.
Throughout the first half of the game, most of the traffic in the corridors under the bleachers is the soda pop vendors coming down for refilled trays.
While the concession workers prepare for the rush at halftime they can keep track of the action on the field and the roar of the crowd above them.
In the middle of the third quarter, the concession stands start to close down. The workers close up the windows and begin taking inventory and packing the merchandise.
As the stadium begins to empty after the game, the backrest sellers meet at the 50-yard line under the press box.
When the crowd is gone the workers begin collecting the back-rests that litter the stands.
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Alumni picnic is new event
By BENGT LJUNG Staff Reporter
Homecoming is a time for alumni to reminisce about college days and fondly remember when Daisy Hill was nothing but a field.
The Kansas Alumni Association wants to preserve those feelings at a picnic and dance tomorrow.
"It seems like the longer the alumni are out of school, the more they need to return and hear of the University," Donna Neuer, director of membership services at the University Association, said last week.
THE PICNIC BEFORE the football game is new this year and replaces previous years' formal lunch in the Kansas Union. Last year, the lunch was similar to the pre-game brunch for members of the alumni club at the alumni Learned Club in the K-12 "Bools" Adams Alumni Center.
"We decided it was time for a change," Neuner said. "We wanted to try the picnic idea and to try to use an ice cube with the game atmosphere."
The picnic will begin at 11 a.m. just southeast of the stadium and will last until the start of the game. Neuer said that a band playing German "Oomphah" folk music will be there, with no more there for a pre-game rally. The picnic is sponsored by the Alumnies Association, the Kansas Union, the
KU Athletic Department, and the Parents Day, Band Day and Homecoming Committee.
For the first time, KANU Radio will broadcast live from the Homecoming Dance in the Kansas Union Ballroom from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. toorrow Clyde Byson's Crimson and Blues Alumni Swing Band will play swing music of the '40s.
"WE REALLY WOULD like to encourage students to come to the dance as well as alumni and the general public," Neuner said. "Students can get in for half price with a student ID."
Planning for homecoming is a continual process for the Alumni Association staff of 20 and intensifies when the fall semester begins. In 2016 has had a committee planning its 25-year reunion since August.
The class of '59 will have a cocktail party and dinner at 6:30 tonight at the Alumni Center and a dinner at the chancellor's residence.
Elaine Claiborne, Minneapolis, and her husband, Ron, who graduated in 1959, said, "We just thought it was a grand place to live," she wrote. "Come back because we appreciate the early influence in our lives."
KALA MAYS STROUP, president of Murray State College in Murray, Kentucky, former KU
dean of women and a 1959 graduate, said, "I'm looking forward to seeing my classmates. Mike Gottfried was the coach of Murray State and many people will be sending their greetings."
Other members of the class of '59 are KU athletic director Monte Johnson and Bill Billings, who was the director of Preence's most influential alumni.
Bill Witt, senior class president in 1959 and pastor of the Fairfield, Calif. Presbyterian Church, said, "I'm really excited about it. I'm looking forward to hawk so I have an emotional affinity to the University of Kansas."
In other homecoming activities, the School of Law expects about 150 alumni for its annual Law Society Meeting in Green Hall before the game. A cocktail party will be after the game at the Alvamar Golf & Country Club for law alumni.
The Alumi Association is strictly a "friend raising" organization and leaves the fund raised to the Alumi Foundation association, Neuner said.
THE SCHOOL OF Business will have an informal reception before the game in the Kansas Union English Room.
Registration in the Kansas Union is a service for alumni to find old friends, but fewer people have taken advantage of this service in recent years, Neuer said.
Homecoming revelry planned
- Floats and bands will take a new route in this year's Homecoming Parade.
- The parade, at 1:30 p.m. today,
begins at the K.S. "Blogs" Adams
Alumni Center, 1265 Oread Ave.,
and winds through campus along
Jayhawk Boulevard to the Chi-
omega Bungeum The
Bungeum and finds a by student
groups and organizations are
featured.
- A football game between the Jayhawks and the Oklahoma Sooners will be the highlight of the weekend. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in Memorial Stadium.
- Pre-game festivities include
the first homecoming picnic 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in a tent south of the stadium. Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for children.
- A shuttle bus will provide free rides to the picnic from parking lots south of Robinson Gymnasium and from the Frank R. Burge Union parking lot to the picnic for lunch-ticket holders.
- The KU Board of Class Officers will announce the winner of the 1984 Honor for the Outstanding Progressive Educator, the HOPE award, during pre-game ceremonies.
- Five KU Alumni Association members will receive the 1984
Fred Ellsworth Medallions for "unique and significant service to the University" during pre-game ceremonies.
- Clyde Byson's Crismond and Blues Alumni Swing Band will play 'dogs but goodies' from 1 to 4 p.m., in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
The event will be broadcast live by KANU radio. General admission tickets are $5, but half-price tickets are available to students with student ID's.
Tickets for the pre-game picnic and the dance are available at the KU Alumni Association, 1266 Oread Ave., or by calling 847-4560.
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