Nuclear knowledge
Ever since 'The Day After' hit town, the subjects of nuclear war and the ultimate results of using ultimate weapons have captured local attention. Now a KU professor is
teaching a seminar on what will be left of the Earth after World War III, planning to keep politics out and scientific analysis in. See story, page 3.
Hot
High, 100. Low, 70 Details on page 3.
The University Daily
KANSAN
Vol. 95, No. 6 (USPS 650-640)
Friday, August 31, 1984
Four KU students tan their toes earlier this week at the Village Square Apart. Bellevue, Neb., sophomore; Susan Glatter, Amherst, Neb., senior; Cathy Hittner mentors, 850 Avalon Road. The bare feet belong to, left to right, Kris Pilgrim. Salina senior and Brenda Bickord, Grand Island, Neb., junior.
KU director of lobbying group resigns
By JOHN HANNA
Staff Reporter
The KU director of the Associated Students of Kansas resigned earlier this week, ASK's executive director said yesterday.
Mark Tallman, the executive director, said he received and accepted a letter of resignation from Chris Edmonds, the KU director of the statewide student lobbying group.
Edmonds could not be reached for comment last night.
Edmonds said in his letter that he was resigning for personal reasons, Tallman said. He would not comment further about the letter.
THE RESIGNATION CLOSELY follows a dispute between Carla Vogel, student body president, Dennis "Boog" Higberger, student body vice president, and Edmonds.
the body vice president.
The dispute between the student body leaders and Edmonds stems from a June request that Edmonds made for payment of
trip expenses to two student-related conventions one in Philadelphia and one in Dallas
Edmonds requested that Student Senate reimburse him for air fare, mileage from Lawrence to Kansas City International Airport accommodations—a bill that came to $776.76
Student Senate rules forbid the payment of money for travel to meetings, forums or conventions, although exceptions sometimes have been made.
"I kind of had a feeling that this could have happened." Vogel said of the resignation.
happened.
VOGEL ALSO SAID Edmonds had cleaned out his ASK office earlier this week. She said the office was empty Tuesday morning.
The two student leaders said they had considered asking Edmonds to leave the ASK post, although the travel request was既重复 rejected and Edmonds was not embarrassed.
hembased.
Higherberg said, "I'd be lying if I said it had not crossed our minds. I've talked to a lot of people who were outraged about it."
people who were our courageous boots
David Ambler, vice chancellor for student
affairs, said last night that, although he did not know of Edmonds' resignation, he knew it was "in the offing" because of the disagreement between Edmonds and Vogel.
"I'm not sure," she said. "The ANNOUNCEMENT OF EDMONDS' resignation yesterday followed an hour-long meeting in the Kansas Union Cafeteria. At the meeting were Tallman, Vogel, Highberger, and Jeff Polack, KU's representative to ASK's board of directors. Polack also is the chairman of the board."
The four met to discuss ASK and its plans for the semester, Vogel said before the meeting.
Tallman appointed Scott Swenson, Topeka junior and former KU ASK director, as a temporary replacement for Edmonds, after consulting with Vogel and Higberger.
Polack and Swenson said the dispute was not a factor in Edmonds' decision. Tallman said Edmonds "expressed a desire to move on."
TALLMAN AND POLACK also said that the Student Senate would set up a campus board of directors this fall to oversee ASK operations at KU.
Swenson will serve until after the Student Senate elections Nov. 14 and 15.
Polack said after the meeting that he expected a board to be set up by October, but could not say what power or how many members it would have.
Vogel said yesterday, "I think this will open. UPk up and bring in new people."
ASK's members include the six Regent universities and Washburn University in Topeka. The student governments of each university provide the financing for ASK
TALLMAN, AS EXECUTIVE director,
appraisal and advice with advice from
government-landed investors.
Polack said that Edmons informed him of the resignation earlier this week. Tallman and Polack said Edmons had requested that they delay announcing his resignation.
Tailman said that he, Vogel and Highberger had chosen Swenson as Edmonds' replacement because of his previous experience as KU ASK director.
Discovery launch is a success
Bv United Press International
But not without another delay.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The delay-prone shuttle Discovery shrugged off its *neer-do尔* image yesterday with a stunning maiden blastoff and the first successful launch of a shuttle-borne satellite in nearly seven months.
But not without attention, Discovery flashed to life and roared away from its oceanside launch pad at 8:42 a.m. EDT after a seven-minute delay while three private airplanes were chased out of the launch danger area. Observers in Tampa, Fla., 130 miles away saw its geyser-like trail of smoke.
About 45 minutes later, commander Henry Hartfield, co-pilot Michael Coats and crew members Charles Walker, KU alumnus Steven Hawley, Judy Reskim and Richard Sparks, said that rude out Discovery's blastoff abort June 2 — were safely in orbit 184 miles up.
THE SATELLITE BUSINESS Systems' SBS 4 direct-to-home television relay station, one of a record three-satellite payload, was kicked away from Discovery at 4:40 p.m. EDT.
4. 40 p.m. ELI.
About 45 minutes later the satellite's onboard solid rocket motor fired smoothly, ending fears of a repeat of the February losses of two shuttle-launched satellites because of rocket failures.
"We're up here celebrating," said astronaut Steven Hawley, a KU alumnas. "The deploy was just absolutely phenominal as it could be, the equipment worked completely perfectly. It was nice and easy."
The deployment highlighted Discovery's first day in space in a six-day test of America's third and new space freighter. A second satellite was to be launched today and a third tomorrow.
"AMERICA HAS ALWAYS been greatest when we dared to be great," President Reagan told engineers earlier at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We will be leaders in space, because the American people would rather reach for the stars than reach for excuses why we shouldn't."
Discovery's launch followed a countdown that was interrupted for 24 hours — the third postponement in two months — while technicians checked for bugs in a new computer system.
The shuttle's two earlier launch tries in
See SHUTTLE, p. 5, col. 1
KU student sees two cultures in Nigeria
By HOLLIE MARKLAND
Staff Reporter
Under the grueling Nigerian sun, vendors in the Benin juju market haggled with customers over the price of dried bats, opiates and alligator and monkey heads.
But after a few months, Bill Wilcox,
Lawrence junior, grew accustomed to the
sights and sensations of life in Nigeria.
Wilcox was the first KU student to study for a full year on a KU study abroad program at the University of Benin.
The 29-year-old student said a big problem facing Nigerians was the clash between Western values and the way of life to which they were accustomed.
'IT'S HARD WHEN YOU're taught Western values at school and then go home and your mom is making animal sacrifices in your back yard,' he said.
This clash of cultures also caused problems for Wilcox.
"I kept asking myself what it meant to be in Nigeria," he said. "I would go on campus and it would look Western. Then at the market, I met an ancient woman who told me to sleep with either her or her daughter so the child would have a cascada nose."
He explained that having light skin and caucasoid features was a status symbol for some Niterians.
WILCOX LEFT THE United States in September 1983 and began classes in political science and English in October 1983 at the University of Benin in southern Nigeria. He finished classes in June 1984 and returned to Lawrence in July.
"I don't want people to get the idea that life there is that primitive," said Wilcox. "There
The University of Kansas had not previously sent students to the West African nation for a full year of study because of the extreme cultural changes the student would have had to adjust to, Wileo said.
are some modern places, but      it is a
primitive way of life."
Executive Vice Chancellor Robert Cobb, a personal friend of the registrar at the
Student finally gets OK to go to Poland
See NIGERIA, p. 5, col. 1
Staff Reporter
A KU student's weeks of hand-wringing are over.
By JOHN EGAN
are over.
Paul Szeptycki, Lawrence junior, will leave for Poland Sept 20 on a one-year academic exchange program. He will start his studies at the University of Warsaw Oct. 1.
1.
For days, Septykci's chances of studying in Poland were in doubt. Members of a KU Polish studies committee had received a program about two weeks ago saying that the ministry of education in Poland refused to extend an official invitation that would allow him to study at the University of Warsaw.
Warsaw INVER. TWO UNIVERSITY of Warsaw faculty members who participate in the exchange program arrived in Lawrence this week. Their arrival . seen as a positive sign
"In our best judgment, there is no obstacle to him being able to go." Gerald Mikkelson, chairman of the committee and associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, and Soviet and East European studies, said yesterday. "Just the fact that they (the Polish professors) arrived is all we needed."
Yet Szeptykci still has not received an official invitation to study in Poland. Mikkelson said that bureaucracal inefficiency in Poland or muddled communications between KU and Polish officials might be holding up the official invitation
— prompted the Polish studies committee to green the light for Szeptyk's trip.
"NOTHING THAT HAS happened in this case has been out of the ordinary, by the time we arrived."
Now that the committee has given the go-ahead for his trip, a relieved Szeptycki, 19, said he felt "much better. Relaxed and happy."
Szeptycki heard the news last night. "They
know if they send me they wouldn't turn me back," he said about the trip.
In the next few weeks, Szepytcki said, he will need to buy his airplane ticket, a suitcase and other "little knickknacks" needed for traveling.
ALTHOUGH HE IS EAGER to study in Poland, Szeptycki said he was worried about leaving the comfort of the United States.
"I'm a little concerned," he said. "I'm concerned about the day-to-day necessities. The day-to-day things you take for granted."
The day after things were over,
He added, "If it get the midnight munchies,
I won't be able to go to Mama J's (a
Lawrence pizza restaurant)."
Despite missing his favorite midnight snack, Szepytcki says he is even more troubled about the depressing aura that now prevails in Poland.
"Nobody smiles on the street anymore," he said. "Everybody kind of goes on and does their job."
Bug invasion has city sweeping, swatting
By JULIE COMINE
Staff Reporter
Merchants sweep tiny bodies from their windowsills. Students reaching for boxes of cereal find specks covering their kitchen counters.
Beneath street lights, neon signs and light bulbs, dozens of dead insects litter the sidewalk.
The annual invasion of the leaf hoppers has begun.
The pesky bugs - most no bigger than the tip of a pencil - reach their peak population during late summer, said Robert Beer, professor of entomology.
THEY'RE ATTracted TO the light." Beer said. "When they get on something that too hot, they get themselves cooked. Janitors are sweeping them up by the pounds."
The leaf hopper is found in grassy, weedy areas throughout the world. It feeds on vegetation with a needle-like part of its mouth. The bug injects the needle into plants and sucks up juice with two soda-straw tubes.
DICK BIVINS, ASSOCIATE director of facilities operations, said that campus
This third generation of leaf hoppers matures into pest swarms by September.
Each winter, a few leaf hoppers in the Lawrence area find shelter in crevices close to the ground. The surviving bugs reproduce in early spring, and their offspring then reproduce in early summer
"Then they're growing up, they can't fly, so you don't notice them." he said.
"Then they develop wings and suddenly they're all over the place."
crews weren't having extra clean-up problems because of the bugs.
"We sweep them up and throw them away," he said. "It's just something we have to live with in this part of the country."
Ray Patterson, physicist papi supervisor at KU's electric shop, said that crews this week were "de-bugging" lights along campus streets and in campus buildings.
"All kinds of insects get attracted to the heat and light," he said. "But once they get inside, it's not so easy for them to get out. The reflector gets clogged with bugs, which will kill the light."
While the leaf hopper may be annoying to those trying to keep a clean kitchen or sit beneath a patio light, it can do serious damage to farmers' fields.
PAUL MORSE, WHO grows potatoes at Riverview Farms in DeSoto, said he sprayed his field four or five times each summer to save his crops.
"Those leaf hoppers — they'll take your whole potato field if you don't spray," he said. "It's a big problem because sometimes you can't even see them."
The sheer number of leaf hoppers makes them dangerous, said George Byers, professor of entomology.
"They're extremely numerous and extremely mobile." Byers said. "They move easily from one plant to another, attacking as they go along."
out the leaf hopper doesn't have to feast for long on a plant to do damage. Many leaf hoppers carry plant viruses, transmitting thousands of diseases to thousands of plants each year.
plants each year
'ONE INFECTED LEAF HOPPER'
See BUGS, p. 5, col. 5