WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2002
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3A
KU historian to speak to White House senior staff
By Kyle Ramsey
kramsey@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The director of the Dole Institute of Politics and presidential historian, Richard Norton Smith, will speak to 60 members of the White House senior staff tomorrow as part a periodic lecture series at the White House.
Smith will discuss 10 rules by which historians judge presidents to be successes or failures. Smith has written biographies of presidents Hoover and Washington.
"We've had a tremendous response to Richard since we announced he was coming," said Kasey Pipes, associate director of strategic initiatives at the White House. "People view him as one of America's greatest
historians. We're glad to have him."
The lecture series features a guest speaker once or twice a month to talk about issues pertinent to the job responsibilities of the White House staff, Pipes said.
This is the first time Smith has participated in the series.
Smith has gained national recognition as a presidential historian through his appearances on C-SPAN and the PBS television show News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
"It's great for KU and great for the institute that we have a director of that caliber," said Erik Nelson, associate director of the Dole Institute.
Smith, who is in New York interviewing for his latest biography, was not available for com
ment yesterday.
Tonight, Smith will speak at a National Press Club roast for his friend Brian Lamb, founder of the C-SPAN cable network. Lamb spoke Sept. 17 at KU. He is the recipient of the press club's Fourth Estate Award.
The annual award honors the recipient's lifetime achievements in American journalism. Previous recipients include Walter Cronkite, David Broder, Helen Thomas and Theodore White.
Last year's recipient was syndicated columnist Robert Novak. Novak came to KU last week as the speaker at the annual Anderson Chandler Lecture, which was sponsored by the School of Business.
Edited by Jessica Hood
Smokeout rewards quitters
By Lindsay Hanson
Ihanson at kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
John Nowak/Kansan
The reward for quitting smoking during tomorrow's 26th annual Great American Smokeout will stretch beyond health benefits.
Mark Armstrong (right), Mission senior, takes smoke break break outside the Art & Design building while Josh Adams, Prairie Village, junior, supplies a light for Nick Economidis, Kansas City, Mo. senior. When asked about quitting for the Great American Smoke-Out, Adams said, "I'm going to keep on smokin."
Smokers who surrender their cigarettes can register for prizes. University of Kansas peer educators and a health, sports and exercises peer training class will be at the information booth at Wescoe Beach from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be a table for smokers to surrender their cigarettes.
The American Cancer Society recognizes every third Thursday of November as the Great American Smokeout.
The society estimates 47 million adults in the U.S. are smokers.
The society wants smokers to reevaluate their habits tomorrow, but some smokers say quitting isn't as easy as throwing out the
cigarettes for one day.
Alex Binci, Naples, Italy, senior, said he wouldn't be kicking the smoking habit tomorrow, although he was trying to eventually quit.
"As a smoker, I hate when people tell me, 'smoking's bad for you,'" he said. "If someone really wants to quit, they should just quit."
Binci said he had quit buying cigarettes to start the quitting process. He said other people would be donating their cigarettes to him tomorrow instead of the Smokeout table.
"I bum enough people's cigarettes — that's my donation," he said.
KU graduate uses college experience as basis for novels
—Edited by Melissa Shuman
By Louise Stauffer
Istauer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
University of Kansas graduate Steve Monroe has published two novels, both influenced by his time spent in Lawrence.
Monroe graduated in 1985. A major in general studies, he said his main activity in college was hanging out at Bullwinkle's bar. But that's not where the influence for his stories came from.
Monroe said his college years and his reporting experience as a freelance sportswriter for The
Daily News of Johnson County influenced his writing.
His fascination with KU basketball led him to
use the 1957 NCAA basketball championship between Kansas and North Carolina as the setting for his first novel, '57, Chicago which was published in April 2001. Though a basketball game
is the background of '57, Chicago, the story focuses on a bookie, fight promoter and boxer.
"I wanted to put a bookie through hell," Monroe said, reasoning that the triple overtime factor in the game would do it. Wilt Chamberlain and the Jayhawks are mentioned several times throughout the book.
Monroe's agents are selling movie rights to his two books, '57,
Chicago and '46, Chicago. The second book, '46, Chicago, was
published in August.
It is about a cop who survives World War II and later finds himself suspended from the police force and hired to investigate a kidnapping. Movie rights to his third book, So Smooth, which is not yet published, are also being sold. Monroe is working on a sequel to '46, Chicago that will be based in Kansas City during June 1946.
His books have been reviewed by USA Today, Esquire and The Chicago Tribune. The Chicago Tribune compared the dialogue to that of The Sopranos television show.
Edward Barlow, assistant to Monroe's agent, David Halpern, at
The Robbins Office in New York City, said Monroe's writing style was similar to that of James Ellroy.
"He's very gifted at description, and can be very funny at times," Barlow said.
Monroe did not begin working on '57, Chicago until he was in his early 30s. Being a full-time real estate agent in Chicago, he said he had to make time to write. Monroe, now 40, said he couldn't have written a novel while in college because he needed to gain knowledge from personal experiences.
"You need to get out and live
your life first, then write about what you know," he said. "You don'tknow anythingwhen you're in college."
Although Monroe was only a sports reporter in college, he said the experience helped him set deadlines for writing books and organizing his time.
"You can't worry about critics," he said.
Because his sports writing angered people at times, Monroe said he was able to accept criticism when it came to his novel as well.
Edited by Erin Ohm