Special Edition
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Arts and Recreation
No.1
Wednesday, August 20, 1975
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Staff photo by DON PIERCE
Tennis instructor
Dawn Johnson, tennis instructor for the Lawrence recreation department, taught classes from morning to dusk to help ac-
commadecate the city's interest in tennis. Johnson was second in women's singles in the Lawrence open held in July.
Music grows on Farm
By BRUCE SPENCE
Kansan Staff Reporter
When you pull off the winding road into Apple Valley Farm, the view is not a striking one. It is immediately apparent that the buildings, painted red, of course, are all old—very old and not unlike many others sprinkling the Kansas countryside. You can't see a building concept, or dream. If you will, that separates this particular farm from others.
Apple Valley Farm is the brain child of Joe Stoup, Lawrence, and if he has anything to say about it the farm will become one of the biggest entertainment and recreation centers in the area. The farm, owned by Stroup and his wife, Kala, Farmen, is located on Route 1 near Longview Federal Park on the east side of Lake Perry.
THE 63-ACRE FARM, once abandoned and decayed, is now home for a restaurant, a theater, a music and dance hall, an antique store and 275 peach and apple trees. And those, Stroup says, are only a beginning.
Stroup said he would eventually like to
have a music hall seating 500 to 600 people
(the present hall can squeeze in as many as
250) with a stone fireplace so it could stay
open through the winter. The farm
presently operates only from April through
December.
Strop says he especially wants to make Apple turn a center for country and western music.
"I've always been interested in country music and the theory of relaxation," he said. "It's too bad that everybody thinks they have to go down to the Lake of the Oceans, but I hope we hear some good country music when we have so many fine musicians around here."
THE MUSIC HALL HOSTS a variety of activities besides having a small grocery store, where students can spend during the summer, a loose knit group of 35 to 50 people, mostly from Lawrence, meets for folk singing jam sessions. Each session includes a small workshop and features a half hour performance by musicians.
Gloria Throne, coordinator of the sessions, said the jam sessions originated from a Free University folk music course. "We've had musicians wanting to share with each other."
The jam session fitters say it's all a "true" kind of people show up with all kinds of skills.
bagpipes, nose flutes and tamponophones
(don't ask what the last two instruments
are)
"That is the spirit of the Free University," said Throne.
THE PERRY LIONS CLUB uses the hall for bingo games, which it sponsors from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
See APPLE VALLEY page $
University's past recalled
By KEN STONE
Kansan Staff Reporter
In 1882, a student editorial writer to early campus newspaper, the Kansas Times, presented this classmates to expand their social life with these eminently reasonable words:
"All the benefits of a college life do not lie in the number of problems mastered, memorized or the information gained from books."
EVEN IN THE EARLY DAYS of the University of Kansas, which was founded in 1885, boys in calklin booties and hand-underwear could play basketball skills could spend too much time studying.
"To be admitted to the University in 1879," wrote one KU alumnus, "was a privilege. The students of those early days were educated in a very small group, most of them were relaible included."
An early KU faculty member wrote, "I have never seen a more wholesome student body, the product of good pioneer homes and churches."
In the present flurry of bicentennial activities, attention is being directed to what life was like in the early days of this country.
AT THE UNIVERSITY, plans for elaborate theater productions, band tours and lectures have been made. A group of faculty members and students are seeking to have KU recognized as a Bicentennial Campus.
In keeping with this reflective mood, it seems worthwhile to look at what KU students were like in the early decades of the University. What were their interests of school? What did they do for recreation? What was their idea of a good time?
In his recently published book, "The University of Kansas: A History," Clifford S. Griffin, professor of history, considered these questions.
"Most student recreation was innocent," Griffin wrote in a chapter on student life in the 19th century. "In their leisure time boys and girls played together, held public and private parties and dances, went to Lawrence theaters to watch the traveling show." She followed that follower followed the theater with refreshments in one of the city's several ice cream parlors.
"THEY ATTENDED FAIRS and exhibitions at Lawrence Bergrove Grove, joined in the 1880s in the sport out of town, and a celebration inanas River and had picnics on the banks.
"They took trips, played tennis and croquet, and when bicycling became fashionable in the 1890s, began to pedal around. Most of the students most of the time did not transgress the limits of interest, the raffish students were always there."
Some of those disreputable students, whose interest in poker and liquor transcended that of studying, were dealt with severely
At a time when the KU Panhellenic
Association was advertising their "Panhellenic pan-barbaric ball," Chancellor Snow wrote the father of a KU student:
"I regret exceedingly to be obliged to request you to withdraw your son from the University. He has proved entirely unworthy of membership in this institution, having neglected his studies in a most fluent manner.
"HE SPENDS HIS TIME in trifling occupations; reading novels, playing cards. He has been reprimanded for having engaged in playing games for money."
In one memorable prank, during the term of Chancellor Lippincott in 1895, sophomores posed as freshmen and had themselves elected to freshman class offices.
May Day, for example, freshmen,
may accomplish an assignment
a time longer than graduation.
Starting in the early 1890s and lasting until 1905, May 1 was set aside by the various classes of the University for expressions of class pride.
But the pride gave way to open warfare when it came to whose class flag would fly from the May Pole erect near old Fraser Hall.
HUNDREDS OF STUDENTS would fight over the right of their respective class to fly their flag from the pole, which often was greased with various substances to prevent the opposing class from scaling the pole and removing their flag.
At first the flag pole was made of wood, and the sophomores or freshmen, whowever
KU Mayday flight.1900
While the sophomores were making a mockery of student democracy, Charles Elwall "an interested student of chemistry" ingrated some "supherneted gas."
The odor of rotten eggs carried to all parts of the building, but the prankster Elwell was caught red handed by none other than Chancellor Lipincott himself.
Infiltration must have been a popular sport for the campus rugos of the late 19th century. Although the sophomores who disguised themselves as freshmen were particular mission, another pair in the 1890s were doomed from the start.
Gritiff's notes, used in the preparation of his history of KU, report the following comments:
TWO WHITES BROKE into an all black party without being immediately detected. They had smaired lamp black on their hands, and arms, and had curled their
"When one of them was just engaging the attention of a blushing creole on his left," the notes report, "a small boy of color and stature behind interrupted the proceedings."
"Look heah, you white trash, wat you up heash? You ain't no niggers, better blink!"
Of course KU students weren't all engaged in brushes and stunts of this sort. On
came last, simply chopped it down. But later a metal pole was used and a team effort was required to remove the offensive banner of the opposing class.
Some of the class fights became so rough and bloody that the faculty tried to legislate against them. One year, a committee was appointed to confer with different members of the different classes to determine a less bruising form of rivalry.
In 1896, a meeting of freshmen and sophomore class representatives decided to give up the annual May Day flight in favor of a more sedate form of competition.
They voted to stage a football game between their classes.
No record was found on the results of that game, but it would be reasonable to conclude that the game didn't sate their thirst for victory. On May Day brawl returned the next year.
DURING THE HEIGHT of this insanity, a writer for a student humor magazine, Automobile, sarcastically urged even greater heights of mavem.
"Pause not, good friends," he wrote, "let free thy brutal, brassic passions; fair eyes look on and see in thy savage work. Show by you the strength of civilization and of civilization and of learning chafe thee."
"Fill myself to satiety, gorge myself with blood and brutality. What! do thou stoo
See STUDENT LIFE page 4
City sports complex a baseball heaven
By ARNOLD LYTLE
Kansas Staff Reporter
Baseball lovers in Lawrence can watch any of four games on a summer evening and never have to move more than a few feet, or pay more than a quarter.
How? By visiting Sports Complex two blocks west of 25th and Joes streets.
two blocks west of 25th and Iowa streets. ON A GIVEN NIGHT a spectator can see two to four consecutive slo-pitch softball games on one diamond; four consecutive games of the Houk and Holcom leagues, played by junior high age boys on two other teams. In aid of a Babe Ruth league or American Legion team game on the main diamond.
In these days of inflation, few bargains remain as good as seeing ten ball games in the cool summer evening air of Lawrence for only 25 cents.
The sports complex occupies more than half of a 40-acre tract, the rest of which will be developed later into a more complete community park.
Fred DeVictor, director of Lawrence parks and recreation, said that the compulsory nature of the courts, handball courts, a picnic shelter and playground equipment. Nine of the 40 acres, however, belong to Lawrence's unified schools, venturing there will be an annual open house.
PLANS FOR THE park were initiated in mid-'60s when the city bought the land, and since then the park has grown.
February after 23 years as director of parks and recreation. When the land was purchased the area was still largely undeveloped.
The park will be bordered on the west by Lawrence Ave. and on the south by 27th St, when those streets are finished, according to DeVictor. That part of Lawrence will be rapidly developed in the next few years, he said.
Parks and recreation was aided in developing the park by Lawrence's status as a Class A city in Kansas. That status allows the city to spend up $100,000 on parks in a year without resorting to a voter referendum.
Various weather and construction problems prevented the sports complex from returning to its regular season. When it opened in mid-July of 1973, the price tag was estimated at $25.000.
In 1971 the city spent $18,000 to have the field graded, and then applied for federal aid from the Land and Water Resources fund. The sum of $104,000 was granted in January 1972, with the stipulation that the city match that amount.
Two mills of the city tax levy each year go to the parks and recreation fund.
THE PARK IS NAMED for the late Louis Holom. Lawrence farmer, who spent more than 50 years working with youth baseball programs.
See HOLCOM'S BASEBALL page 2
Theater for the young
Staff photo by DON PIERCE
Ric Averill melts his act in the imminent dressing room at the Lawrence Arts Center. Averill writes and produces plays for children. See related story page 3.