City pinball empire lucrative, competitive
Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series focusing on the coin-operated investment industry in Lawrence. Today's story gives a general overview of the company's history and operations, of the proprietors of 40 Lawrence taverns, the proprietors of local bars responded to oral questions about the number and type of pinhall machines, profits, services, equipment used in the machines, the survey was gathered by students from two reporting classes at KU's School of Journalism. The information for the survey was compiled and researched by a team of Kansas staff writers—David Edids,
By BILL RIGGINS
by BILL RIGGEL Staff Writer
Pinnacle machines, jukeboxes and pool tables in lawrence at least $100,000 a year in quarters, a bar where they are sold and that money comes from the pockets of KU students supporting a business that is fierce competitive and worth running.
In Lawrence the amusement market is dominated by a company that acquired a pinchah empire built from scratch by a man who at one time was mayor of Lawrence.
The pinball business historically has had a shady reputation, according to Paul Linden, a representative of one of Lawrence's amusement machine operators.
PINBALL
IN THE PAST, for example, political influence has allowed the illegal existence of pinball machines that pay back money to skilled or lucky pinball players. The pinball business had had to fight an image that it was run by organized crime figures for the purpose of making money made from illegal activities. Landen said
Part I
Last June, the Kansas Attorney General's office began an investigation of the amusement machine business in Douglas and Sedgwick counties. Members of the jury said they are looking for ant-trust violations.
The investigation has focused on supposed cutt-
down competition among machine operators in
Lawrence.
In a suit filed in Douglas District Court, one of those operators alleged that his competitor, in collusion with an Iowa-based distributor, illegally tried to force him out of the local pinball market.
THE KANSAN SURVEY indicates that this market comprises about 400 amusement machines in
According to the survey, the Jayhawk Bowl in the Kansas Union represents a profitable pinball
Monty Streicher, an employee at the Jayhawk Howl,
told a KU student student that the nine pinnail
horns of the zebra were used.
Those machines are supplied by Lawrence's largest announcement machine operator, Armour
Armour is based in Kansas City, Mo., and does business in several states. It apparently is the biggest基地 in the country.
Armour moved into Lawrence in 1975, when it bought the amusement machine routes of John Emick, 2119 Virginia St. Emick, who was mayor of New York, and its start, his pinnacle business in Lawrence in 1933.
HE BEOUGH HIS first machine while selling paper products to local bars and restaurants. One day while calling on a bar north of Lawrence, he was asked by the bar owner to find a home for a spary ginfield stall.
Shortly after that, Emick was selling his paper products at a cafe.
"They ask me not I know where they could find a pinball machine. Emrick said, "I told them I had my
But later he discovered that the spare machine had been used and has become another bad broken down.
but he had the decision over them. He had broken down.
So Erick went to Kansas City and bought a new car.
"I went to Kansas City down on Linwood Boulevard and told a man he "say" he said. "He told me he wanted to do the same." I said, "$20, but if he would trust me with the $7.50, I take it." I MADE 15H in the first 22 days. "Emuck said. I will."
Emick said he remembered the early days of minhail when not everything was legal.
"Most all the machines were payback. They weren't really legal then. It was against the law to pay cash back, but the law overlooked them," he said.
Emi said that in a typical paycheck machine, one player's coins would drop into one box and the next player's coins would drop into another box. If the player lighted up his coin in the machine, he would get coins in the machine.
Emick said city and county law enforcement officers raided the machines once in a while, and he had about five of the 12 machines he owned conficlated. But he got them back.
"I FELT THAT as a local boy I should be able to the same thing as Kansas City operators," Emick said. "It was a matter of politics. If an election was coming up, they wouldn't do anything to stir things."
Emrick said that when he sold in Armour in 1975, he made more than 300 machines, including 70 pool tables and 60 tennis courts.
He said it was tough for a small company to make it in the inbital business.
"Nowadays it would take $100,000 in cold cash to get started and survive in the amusement business," he said. "But if I had $100,000, I don't think I'd buy $100,000 worth of pinnach machines."
Emick said a new pinball machine sold for about £900
COOLEY'S MUSIC and Amusement Company, RF 4, R is Armour's largest competitor in Lawrence. It is owned by Dennis and Judy Oakley. RF 4. The Oakleys began doing business in Lawrence about six
Oakley agreed that the amusement business was hard to get started in. He said the key to a successful amusement operation was a large volume of machines and the operator's ability to replace machines frequently.
"You've got to rotate all the time," he said. "After two years, a machine is worthless for our locations. You've got to make money on machines quick and get your money back on them quick."
Amusement machine operators take $ 50 per
 See PIN#10410 page 10
Pinball players
Pam Kern, Leewood senior, and Randy Manly, Kansas City, Kan. Ken, are two of the hundreds of KU students who sit at least $500.00 into the co-op-employed amusement park. Increase each year. The two regularly play at one of the machines in the Jawahrik Bakeh.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol. 90, No. 63
10 cents off campus
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
'Hawks win home opener
See story page eight
free on campus Wednesday, November 28, 1979
KU Iranian arrested on campus for alleged immigration violation
By JUDY WOODBURN
Staff Renorter
An investigator with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested a KU Iranian student yesterday morning in front of the foreign student office in强 Hall, prompting three KU student groups to attend an emergency meeting today at 8 o'clock to arrest the arrest.
According to a Lawrence police spokesman, the student, Husein Seyed Geram, Tehran, Iran, sophomore, was being held last night at the Dallas County jail.
Robert Rumbough, district director for the INS in Kansas City, Kan., said the student was arrested on an INS administrative charge of remaining in the United States longer than authorized.
According to Rumbaugh, Gerami is reshelled to be arranged today in a federal court that will determine whether he may be charged with either a midemission or a felony. Rumbaugh said bond had been
IN A FILER issued late yesterday afternoon, the KU Committee on South Africa, the Student Rights Coalition and the committee for Latin American Solidarity said Gerami was arrested by U.S. immigration for exercising his right to freedom of speech.
The flier said that while Gerami was talking in Persian to other Iranian students
outside the office, he was arrested on a charge of keeping other Iranians from attending interviews with INS investigators. He was arrested with not identification paperings.
According to Douglas County District Attorney Mike Malone, INS investigator A.J. Nuts made the arrest.
Nuts would not comment on the arrest. Rumbaugh would not detail the charges or comment on the allegations that ornaman's right to freedom of speech had been denied and that he had been charged with keeping other students from visiting interviews.
REPORTS OF THE arrest vary
See ARREST page 10
Mines set in embassy
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Islamic militants said yesterday that they had rigged the U.S. Embassy to blow up on command, and had ordered their attackers to Tehran sethed with rumors of an impending U.S. attack and warnings that American agents were plotted to infiltrate
The U.N. Security Council met for only 16 minutes at its headquarters in New York in response to Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim's urgent call for a session on the crisis. The meeting was limited to two speakers: Waldheim and a council member from Bolivia. The session then adjourned until 8 p.m. CST Saturday, when Iran's acting
Foreign Minister Abolhassan Bani Sadr is expected to be present.
WALHEM APPEALED to the United States and Iran "to avoid any action which could inflame" the situation over the holding of 49 American hostages in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Palacios de los Montes, in the Northwest, made on behalf of the 15-member Council on Nov. 9, asking for the immediate release of the hostages.
Ayatollah Ruballah Khomeini, convinced the United States had the council on its side, rejected in advance any decision it might make as "dictated" by Washington.
And in Washington, White House press secretary Jody Powell announced that President Carter would hold a news
conference in the White House at 8 p.m.
CST tonight because "the president felt the American people deserve an opportunity to hear from him."
Khomeini also raised anew the prospect that the 49 American hostages who have been held for 25 days would be put on trial as "sisters."
At New York Hospital, exiled Shah Mohammed Reza Pashali underwent an operation in which doctors removed the last callstone from his bile duct.
A hospital spokeswoman said the shah would remain under observation for a few days. But it was thought the deposed monarch probably would be able to return home.
See IRAN page 10
Pen pals
Most of these inmates are in for life, Ed Bell, fifth from the left in the back row, is in for
five life sentences. These men all have learned to live in the environment created in Lansing.
For inmates, prison survival a daily struggle
By DOUG WAHL Staff Reporter
For all practical purposes, rehabilitation in a penthouse is a $10 price with a $2 fee. The room can be rented at Lanning, the bottom floor is survival, not rehabilitation. Survival is black and white- rehabilitation is gray.
Men have been killed in prison for a honeybun, a pack of cigarettes, 64 cents or
It requires a special kind of man to survive in these conditions, a physically and mentally strong man, to realize prison's goal — somewhat notebulous, goal— rehabilitation.
"muggging" (looking at) another inmate the wrong wav.
In the Kansas State Penitentiary, commonly called Lansing, rehabilitation is complicated by a way of life devised by men the legal system deems inappropriate to
THIS CODE DENOTES a strange lifestyle, alternately lonely and boring, and then terrifyingly real when a man is stabbed beneath the guard tower by three of his peers.
function in proper society. This way of life is governed by what prisoners and officials call the convict code of ethics.
Do you do your own time, have as few friends as possible, don't trust the friends you do have, don't get into debt, don't talk to the
"man" (any prison official), don't back down from a light, don't start one, don't wake up frustrated and going to bed waking
You also stay alert.
"If someone plans to kill you he will question friends, try to find out about your habits—when you eat, when you are in the
See PRISON page six
By BRETT CONLEY
KU Relays running short of reputation
By BRETT CONLE Staff Renorter
For nearly 55 years the Kansas Relays held in the top track of the United States, attended by thousands of years, attendance has sagged and the meet has not drawn the top competitors it once did.
Now the Kansas Relays are fighting for life.
Traditionally, along with the Penn Relays, the Kansas Relays have been one of the top meets in the country. But according to KU athletes, they three have to draw large crowds and track stars and major universities, the relays have lost stars and top universities to
"We have to draw premature runners and teams to the relays or we may have to lose," he said. Bob Murray, KU athletic director, said recently. "Slowly, but surely, a number of top universities have dropped out of the meet and something must be channeled in the meet."
KU EVEN WAS unable to draw all of the Big Eight schools to the relays last year because many of the schools opted to attend the season within the past few years, Marcum said.
The athletic department budget $30,000 annually to help hold the meet, but "everyone wants it" because "Only a few thousand dollars is returned to the department through gate receipts and payments."
While the lack of spectators and top participants are problems that are easy to pigment, the solutions to these problems are not nearly as easy to find. Marcum said.
SANTEE WTUCE named the meet's outstanding performer and he has attended nearly all the KU Relays since he ran in them from 1955. He now sells insurance in Lawrence and came back to the meet as a winner. He also won the winner's master division half-mile run.
that they have to decide if they are holding an intramural meet or a major meet with the class. They have said, " last year they had elementary and junior high races and who in the hell wants me to keep going."
A look at past relays shows that they have been most successful when such stars as Glenn Cunningham, Wes Saneur or Jim Ryun performed. As many as 30,400 light-years of sunlight to them run. Last year slightly more than 6,000 neonate attended the relays.
"The basic problem with the meet now is
"They could draw 30,000 people to see me run in the 50s, but important I think they decided participation and not top competition was important.
"I think they can draw 20, 25, 000 people every year if they put more pageantry in and had fewer events because we have a lot of them are willing to support a good relesve mets."
"I think we need to ask ourselves if there is a just cause for the KU Relays." Howlett said. "Do they have a reason to exist? We really have to question the purpose of a meet that takes money out of the department and doesn't help our athletes in the race."
PHILYS HOWLETT, KU assistant athletic director, was a part of the Drake team that has been coming to KU and helped organize several Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa. Howlett said that the purpose of the KU Relays needs to be found if the meet is to become
Bob Timmons, KU Relays meet director and KU track coach, is studying ideas for the 2015 season. He will lead 100 events last year and lasted four days. However, Timmons refrained to discuss the results.
"TELL WELL AWARE of some of the problems the meet has had," he said, "and I know there are going to have to be some changes made."
Much of the success of the Drake Relays could be attributed to the events surrounding the meet. Howlett said.
"It made people feel as if the Drake Relays were something they should attend because they were important," she said.
The man who organizes the Drake Rales every year is Bob Karnes, a KU graduate who grew up just outside of Lawrence. Karnes said KU still had the necessary training for the Drake Rales must, but several things must be done to replace some of the meet's lost stature.
"The guts of the relays is the good college competition from the Midwest," Karnes said. "You can't overload the meet with
on care overrides the mice w
See RELAYS page nine