I
Campus/Area
Wednesday, Sept. 4, 1985
University Daily Kansan
3
News Briefs
Former war prisoner to speak of capture
A former Vietnam prisoner of war will speak to KU naval ROTC students today at 3:30 p.m. in 427 Summerfield Hall. He will address about 159 Navy and Marine Corps midshipman and officer candidates. The speech is open to the public.
The former prisoner, Charles Plumb, Lake Quiva, will speak on "The Philosophies of the POW: the Strength of Character Obtained through the Experience in Hanoi."
Plumb was shot down in May 1967 just south of Hanoi while on a fighter cover mission. He was captured and taken to a Hanoi prison, where he was tortured so that he would reveal military information and political propaganda.
Plumb was freed in February 1973 and returned to his home in the Kansas City area. Among his friends, Plumb received the Purple Heart.
The department of preventive medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center will sponsor a two-hour symposium on its ties with the People's Republic of China at 4 p.m. tomorrow in Rieke Auditorium on the Med Center campus in Kansas City, Kan.
Plumb, now a captain in the Navy reserves, is the author of two books: "I'm No Hero" and "The Last Domino."
Faculty members who have visited China will discuss the health status of the Chinese people and explain their education and clinical methods.
Health series goes on
The symposium concerns the Med Center's agreement with the Medical University of Henan, China, to exchange students and faculty and to share cultural and scientific information.
Activist must move
The symposium, "The China Connection," is the second in a series on international health.
Ringer's father, Wallace, said his son was granted a delay until 10 a.m. today, by which time he was to have his cattle and equipment moved off the 320 acres.
SUA sponsors Clique
The Clique will kick off the new Burge Bandstand series of free dance concerts with a performance at 9 p.m. Friday in the Party Room of the Burge Union.
The band will perform both Top 40 hits and original material.
The Burge Bandstand series is produced by SUA Special Events and features regional bands.
Weather
Today will be mostly sunny, with a high in the low to mid 90s. Winds will be from the south at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight will be clear, with lows around 70. Tomorrow also will be mostly sunny, with a high in the low to mid 90s.
Correction
Because of an editor's error, a story in the back to school issue of the Kansan incorrectly reported that Phi Kappa Theta fraternity owes $6,233 in delinquent Douglas County property taxes for 1983 and 1984. The fraternity owes $14,458 in delinquent taxes for the two years. From Kansan wire reports.
Tests end; Wolf Creek goes on line
From Kansan wires
BURLIINGTON — The $3.05 billion Wolf "Creek nuclear power plant generated electricity commercially for the first time yesterday after 8 years of construction, tests and other delays.
The plant, which is in southeast Kansas, was brought on line at 1:16 a.m. after a four-day shutdown that involved its last federally ordered gasoline plant in Oklahoma for Kansas Gas and Electric Co. of Wichita, lead owner of the plant.
"We are no longer doing the various required tests," Keeper said. "The use of the power from the plant is (now) controlled by systems operators, as opposed to those responsible for testing."
The plant first generated power for customers on June 13, but yesterday
was the first time it has been placed in the hands of its systems operators.
Koerper said affidavits that the plant is providing commercial service are being prepared for presentation to the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Missouri Public Service Commission.
After the affidavits are presented, he said staff members from both regulatory boards would attempt to verify that Wolf Creek had met requirements for commercial service.
The last test completed on the plant before it began operating commercially was Aug. 24 and involved a trip or shutdown of the nuclear
reactor. Minor maintenance followed that process.
Wolf Creek was started again
Sunday, then brought on line early yesterday, Koerper said.
Construction of the plant began in 1977 at an estimated cost of $1 billion.
the estimated cost of $pillion million. Meanwhile, hearings on a proposed rate increase are expected weekly in Jefferson City, Mo., before the Missouri Public Service Commission. The hearings are to run until Oct. 11.
Under one plan, Kansas City Power and Light Co., which with KGE each owns 47 percent of the plant, is seeking a one-year $194.7 million rate increase for its 234,000 Missouri customers
An attorney for the Kansas City utility said KCP&L's proposed rate increase to cover the cost of the Wolf Creek nuclear project would hurt the city's economy.
Carrol Kennett, assistant city attorney for Kansas City, told the commission yesterday the effect of KCP&L's proposal would have many adverse effects throughout the city's economy.
Representatives of the PSC staff and the Office of Public Counsel, which represents consumers before the commission, questioned KCP&L's management practices in building the plant and the facility's $3.05 billion cost.
In Kansas, state utility regulators have until Sept. 30 to decide on rate hike requests by KGE, KCPL and Kansas Electric Power Cooperative, the plant's minority owner.
KGE is asking for a $371 million rate increase — a 101 percent hike — in a five-year phase-in for its 235,900
customers in south-central and eastern Kansas. KCPL is seeking $111 million — a 65 percent increase — in higher rates over four years for its 126,000 customers in northeastern and eastern Kansas.
KEPCO hopes to receive a one-time increase of $27 million — a 40 percent increase in wholesale rates for its 25 member rural electric co-op, and customers of the co-ops would incur increases from 22 percent to 29 percent.
The KCC has indicated that the cost of operating the plant from the day it begins commercial operations until the historic rate cases are decided will be set aside in a separate case. It is also likely whether any of those costs will be passed on to customers and how the costs will be paid.
KU profs stalk Yukon wildlife
By Susie Bishop Of the Kenyan staff
Of the Kansan staff
While most professors and students spent the warm summer vacationing or in school, two professors, a graduate student and two international scientists trekked through the frigid Yukon after mice, ground squirrels and shrews.
"The only thing that was a surprise
was that no one got bif by a bear or
dropped an axe on their foot," Bob
said, the professor of zoology, said yesterday.
Patterson, Bob Hoffmann, curator of mammals at the Museum of Natural History, Jane Junge, 2502 University Drive, and two scientists from Switzerland and China spent three days northwest region of Canada collecting blood and tissue samples from ground squirrels, mice and shrews.
Patterson described himself as a compulsive wanderer and said he would like to return someday to the arctic regions of Canada — only this time with his camera and fishing pole.
He said that although the trip was hurried, cold and wet, it was a success.
"I am used to 40 to 50 degree weather, freezing water and wearing a down vest jacket," he said. "When I came back here I wilted."
Members of the Yukon expedition collected the samples to determine whether any differences existed in
Junge received her master's degree in systematics and ecology in May 1982. Hoffmann said that Junge currently was not enrolled at the university but that she planned to return to work on a doctoral degree.
blood type or changes in heredity patterns and to document the chromosomal makeup of certain species.
"There were a few animals that we didn't find, but on the whole it was a successful trip," said Hoffmann, who was a professor of systematics and esolo.
The samples were frozen in liquid nitrogen and sent to Charles Nadier at the Northwestern Medical School laboratory in Evanston, Ill., to be studied and categorized. The frozen tissues, kept at the medical school, will fill a gap in collections already gathered by Hoffmann on previous expeditions to Alaska and along the west shore of Hudson Bay, sites to the west and east of the Yukon.
Specimens were taken from a particular species of shrews whose chromosomal make up was unknown. Hoffmann said.
He said that results from the specimens taken on this trip would not be available for a couple of years because of a backlog of work currently being processed at North Carolina based laboratory chromosomal information of the shrews probably would be documented earlier.
Hoffmann said that in addition to the scientific research, the international cooperation was essential for the trip.
Patterson left Lawrence on July 11. He drove a truck and trailer to Whitehorse, Canada, where he met Hoffmann, Junge, Francois Catezfil, a Swiss colleague of Hoffmann who is working on post-doctoral research at Yale University, and Gui-Quan Cai, from the Northwest Plateau Institute of Biology in Xining, China.
Bob Patterson, professor of zoology, left, and Bob Hoffmann, curator of mammals at the Museum of Natural History and professor of systematics and ecology, journeyed into the Yukon this summer to obtain data and samples of mammals living in Canadian.
Broen Graves/KANSAN
Engineering school offers new program
By Jennifer Benjamin Of the Kansan staff
The department of electrical and computer engineering has completed its preparation of a degree
program in computer engineering,
a growing career area in the
United States, the associate
chairman of the department said
yesterday.
Don Daugherty, the associate chairman, said the Board of Regents approved $269,000 for the program and additional faculty and equipment last spring.
Planning for the program began in 1982. Daugherty said, and soon after that the department changed its name to the department of electrical and computer engineering.
Before the computer engineering degree was introduced, electrical engineering students could receive only an electrical engineering degree with an emphasis in computers, Daugherty said.
Now students can take the four-year computer program and receive a bachelor of science in computer engineering, he said.
Triple coupons lure buyers
By Kady McMaster Of the Kansan staff
Lawrence grocery stores recently have been waging a coupon war -- offering up to three times the value of coupons -- but managers of the stores say the customers have been the winners.
"It's a tremendous value for the customer and it creates extra business for us," Bob Weigel, manager of Dillon's Store, 1740 Massachusetts St., said yesterday. "But it's a very costly promotion. Hopefully, we can gain enough of the market share to offset the cost."
Four weeks ago, all three Dillon's stores in Lawrence began offering triple value on coupons, Weigel said.
by tripling the value of customers
coupons, he said. Weigel and other
managers said they hadn't decided
when the offer would end.
Since then, competitors throughout Lawrence have sought to keep pace
Jim Roberts, manager of Rusty's Food Center, 901 Iowa St., also said triple coupons hurt the stores that offered them.
"It's an expensive operation," he said. "We're losing money, but we have to keep up with the competition."
All four Rusty's stores in Lawrence have been offering triple coupon value for about two weeks. Roberts said Rusty's offered triple coupon value for two weeks last spring and started offering it again when other stores in town did.
St., and Food Barn, 1900 W. 23rd St.
also offer triple coupon value.
Kroger Super Store, 1015 W. 23rd
Earl Hutchens, manager of Food Barn, said that since his store began offering triple coupons, business had increased 30 to 40 percent. He said soft drinks were the most popular coupon item.
Student shoppers have mixed reactions to the promotions.
Jeanne Fitzgerald, Louisville Ky., graduate student, said she used coupons occasionally but couldn't find too many in local publications.
"I use coupons my mom sends from home," she said.
Pam Tibbs, Wichita junior, said that although she was aware of the promotions, she didn't use coupons very often.
AUTO MECHANICS FOR BEGINNERS
- Does looking under your car's hood baffle you?
- Does the thought of a flat tire leave you feeling helpless?
- Come to this workshop under the direction of a licensed mechanic. Registration is $12 and is due at the first of the three evening classes. Follow-up classes will be Sept. 12 and 19.
- Do you feel like you and your mechanic speak different languages?
For more info, call Brenda Stockman,
864-3552.
Thursday, Sept.5 7-9 p.m.
International Room, Kansas Union
Sponsored by The Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
wants
GRADUATE REPRESENTATIVES for the
COLLEGE ASSEMBLY the governing body of the college
Interested LA&S graduate students should complete nomination forms available at the College Graduate Division 210-1 Strong Hall. Self-nominations are required.
Filing deadline is 4:30pm Monday, Sept.9.
Election will be held Sept. 11 and 12. 210-1 Strong Hall
All LA&S graduate students are encouraged to become involved in LA&S governance.