Monday October 28, 2002 Vol.113. Issue No.46
Today's weather 47° Tonight: 40°
Tell us your news Call Jay Krall, Brooke Hesler or Kyle Ramsey at 864-4810
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Tigers take down Jayhawks, Whittemore injured p.1B
Anna Clayton, 6-year-old Lawrence resident, feels the wing of a flying fruit bat held by Heather York, Lake Geneva, Wis., graduate student, at the Natural History Museum. The museum and SUA hosted the family- or ented Hallowen festival Saturday, where kids explored the darkened museum with flashlights.
Festival spooks, entertains kids
By Molly Gise
By Molly Gise
mgise@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Hundreds of pint-sized ghosts, vampires, butterflies and fairy princesses haunted the halls of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum Saturday night.
The museum worked with KU Memorial Unions to put on Dark at the Top of the Hill, a Halloween festival for children.
The annual Halloween event brings local kids and their parents on campus for a fun and educational experience, said Brad Kemp, assistant director of the museum.
the museum "It's a community event," Kemp said. "It gets people who normally wouldn't come to campus to come up here with their kids."
Dark at the Top of the Hill was presented in the Kansas Union and the Natural History Museum. The museum turned off its lights for the event.
ned on her night
The costumed kids shone flashlights
in the darkened building to catch a glimpse of the living and the dead among the museum's collection of creepy critters.
Next door at the Kansas Union, they bowled with pumpkins, listened to scary stories and took turns singing "skaraoke."
More than a thousand people attended the event. Kristen Wheeler, an Emporia senior who works in the public education department of the museum, said the event raised interest in the museum and in science.
"It gives us a chance to really interact with the public and to show them the fun of what we do in the museum," Wheeler said.
Museum workers taught the kids at the event about the scary things on display.
At one table, a woman helped kids make bat masks and answered questions using a mounted skeleton of a bat.
SEE HAUNT ON PAGE 6A
Brandon Baker/Kansan
The Mosasaur perches and breathes fire above exiting participants at the Halloween festival at the Natural History Museum. "It gives us chance to really interact with the public and to show them the fun of what we do in the museum," said Kristen Wheeler, Emporia senior and museum employee.
Rock Chalk volunteers raise money for charity
By Todd Rapp
trapp@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A routine fundraising activity led Havden Geis to a inspiring encounter.
Volunteering at the Brandon Woods Retirement Community Saturday morning Geis met Dorothea, a 101-year-old Lawrence resident.
"She has a mind as bright as a teenager, fully intact," Geis, Dodge City sophomore, said.
He said Dorothea had graduated from the University of Kansas in the mid-1920s, and had lived in Lawrence her entire life.
"She realized the things she has been through, the things she has seen," Geis said.
Geis was one of 150 students who volunteered Saturday morning in the first annual Rock Chalk Fest.
Volunteer events were followed by a fund-raiser at the Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St.
The Association of University Residence Halls, the Center for Community Outreach, the Interfraternity Council, the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Panhellenic Association helped with the event.
Students volunteered at locations including the Community Drop-off Center, the Lawrence Humane Society, the Pelathe Resource Center and the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence.
More than 100 people attended the Granada fundraiser, which cost $5 for admission and $10 for a T-shirt. The event raised $500 for the House that Greeks Built.
The events were successful and can only get better, said Jennifer Huang, Rock Chalk Revue community service coordinator.
"I think there are a lot of things we can work on, but it was a good start in incorporating organizations outside of the greek community." Huang said. "I think, judging by the success this year, it was a good idea to build on."
Geis said meeting Dorothea motivated him to get more involved with the older people in the community.
"There is so much to learn from the older community," Geis said. "People need to take advantage of those kind of experiences."
Edited by Chris Wintering and Amanda Sears
Women's conference focuses on confidence
By Erin Beatyte
beattye@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center hosted its eighth annual women's conference yesterday in the Kansas Union.
The goals of the conference were to provide information to enhance opportunities for success, to increase awareness of women's issues and to interact with other women, said Kathy Rose-Mockry, Emily Taylor program director and associate director of the Student Development Center.
She said the program was mainly directed toward KU women, but anyone was welcome.
About 20 people attended the conference, which consisted of breakout sessions, a roundtable discussion and a speech by Mary Lou Wright, coowner of the Raven Bookstore, 8 E. Seventh St., in downtown Lawrence.
"It's really irritating to read 'A white man equals success if you do this, this and this,'" Robertson said.
Not all of the attendees were female. Jason Robertson, Kansas City, Kan., senior, said he attended the conference because he was getting a leadership minor and wanted a balanced perspective after reading a number of books that were based on a male perspective.
SEE WOMEN ON PAGE 5A
Student's project lends hand to seniors
By Jena Goeepfert
jgoeepfert@kansan.com
kansan staff writer
Minnie Pearl Thomas said she rarely had visitors to her east Lawrence home, but Saturday afternoon her living room was filled.
Seven fraternity members came to visit the 82-year-old, who has had two strokes and almost never leaves home. Thomas reminisced about her life in Lawrence and told stories about her grandchildren. She sang and played the tambourine while volunteer Chris Beck, Newton freshman, played songs on the piano.
For the last three weeks, volunteers from Beta Theta Pi fraternity have worked on Project Help, doing yard work, helping with household maintenance and talking with senior citizens
Eric Braem/Kansaan
SEE SENIORS ON PAGE 6A
Project Help founder and Beta Theta Pi member Jacob Williams talk with Minnie Pearl Thomas of Lawrence about her past. Williams and other volunteers from his fraternity work with senior citizens as part of the Topeka senior's leadership curriculum project. "That's what I need, somebody to talk with," Thomas said Saturday when the group visited her home.
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