THE UNIVERSITY JAIRY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2008
NEWS
5A
LOCAL
Stores benefit from growing popularity of Halloween
BY MICHELLE SPREHE msprehe@kansan.com
As a child, Kyle Billings vaguely remembers trips to the tiny Fun & Games store in Downtown Lawrence during the Halloween season. Thirty years ago, it sold a small number of costumes, accessories and toys. Billings bought the store 10 years ago and last year, moved it to a building four times larger on 23rd Street to allow for the growing demand of Halloween items.
According to history,com,
the popularity of Halloween has increased so much through the years that Americans spend $6.9 billion on the holiday annually.
which makes it the second-largest commercial holiday.
The Halloween industry no longer consists of only costumes and candy. Andrew Goodrich, assistant manager at Spirit Halloween said decorations, novelty items and accessories were all big sellers in Lawrence because of all the college parties.
"It has exploded in what is offered," said Billings. "Ten years ago it was minimal. But now quality has increased and costs and inventory gets larger each year."
Unlike its competitors, Fun & Games has costumes, wigs and makeup for sale year-round. To meet the Halloween demands, Billings carries more than 1,000
different styles of costumes.
"Some requests we get are off the wall," Billings said. "If we don't have a costume, then I try to help them put something together."
Billings said about 75 percent of his yearly profit comes from the Halloween season.
Sara Rice, assistant manager at Party America, also said that her store relied heavily on the Halloween season for most of its profit. Rice has worked at Party America for 10 years, watching the trends come and go, and says the season is bigger than it used to be.
"I think it's becoming more of an adult holiday," Rice said.
Rice said that most of the
"Guys will be whatever," Rice said. "They won't come in and say, 'I've got to be a cow'."
customers who bought costumes tend to be women. The most expensive costume in Party America is a musketeer girl for $100.
During the past 10 years, the prices of costumes have changed only slightly, but the quality has changed dramatically, Rice said. Once made out of plastic, most costumes are cloth now. The realistic qualities of masks, costumes and face paint have also improved.
If customers are looking for high-quality, realistic costumes, they can go to Sarah's Fabrics.
which rents the theater-quality costumes for 24 hours at an average cost of about $30.
"It makes me laugh when people come in here and say they bought a costume online where it's a costume in the front, but just a thin piece of fabric in the back," said Kathy Barland, Sarah's Fabrics employee.
Billings said that renting was a good alternative if customers didn't want to buy something they might only wear once. In 2006, census,gov recorded 2,077 costume rental establishments in the nation.
"Fewer people I know in the industry are doing rentals," Billings said. "It's a lot of work because if the costumes come back damaged
or stained you have to fix them."
Selling costumes online is a new approach Halloween stores are to reach customers. Spirit Halloween has a Web site with hundreds of costumes for sale for men, women and children. Plus sizes, decorations and accessories are also available online.
Billings started a Web site for Fun & Games last summer. No sales have been made yet but Billings said he was optimistic. Billings said he saw a need for an online store because the holiday was always expanding and he wanted to be able to reach more people.
Will that shrink?
- Edited by Arthur Hur
Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps, right, receives a custom TRL Speedo from VJ Damien Fahey during an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live on Wednesday in New York.
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BUSINESS
More women looking skyward Number of female broadcast meteorologists on the rise
BY KIRSTEN HUDSON editor@kansan.com
"It's an adrenaline rush," said Clark, an atmospheric science major, and one of a growing number of women going into broadcast meteorology.
Kathryn Clark, a tan 20-year-old blonde loves all kinds of weather. But when the sky darkens and a storm rolls in is when she really gets excited. Ever since she was a sophomore in high school, Clark, a Dallas junior, and her dad have gone out in his Yukon SUV chasing tornadoes just for fun.
At the University of Kansas there has been a rise in the number of women taking meteorology classes.
Donna Tucker, associate professor of atmospheric science, said this was the first semester in her 15 years of teaching that an equal number of men and women had taken her senior weather analysis and forecasting class. The class had previously been male-dominated.
Nationally, the number of women in broadcast meteorology is on the rise. Of the National Weather Association's 980 members in 2008, 24 percent are women. That's up from 21 percent in 2006. In 2005, the American Meteorological Society reported that 19 percent of its 545 members in broadcast meteorology were women.
"When I was a youngster myself, all I ever saw were men in the profession," said Erin Little, a broadcast meteorologist at KMBC-TV in Kansas City, Mo. "Now in any station across the country you see women in the field.
"Those that have a passion for it are realizing it's not just a man's profession," she said.
Though more women are going into the field, the ratio of men to women is still disproportionate.
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Katie Horner, chief meteorologist at KCTV 5 in Kansas City, Mo., said part of the reason more women were becoming meteorologists was because of the diminished stereotyping of women meteorologists.
"In the past, women were looked at as weather bunnies," she said. "Now, women have improved their image by obtaining degrees in meteorology — proving they are just as smart as their male counterparts."
But both women and men are likely to have trouble finding jobs in the field when they graduate. Tucker said meteorology jobs were available for about 10 percent of graduates and for 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects opportunities for broadcast meteorologists to remain rare and highly competitive.
The lack of jobs is also driving salaries lower and causing the job's perks to disappear.
rologist of WJHL-TV in Johnson City, Tenn., gathered information from more than 150 broadcast meteorologists in 210 markets. He found that news stations paid for 66 percent of meteorologists' haircuts in 2006 compared with 61 percent in 2008. Also, stations that paid for yearly gym memberships decreased from 19 percent in 2006 to 11 percent in 2008.
Mark Reynolds, chief meteo.
Despite these statistics, Clark said she wasn't worried about finding a job. She's looking into learning Spanish because she said there were only three or four Spanish-speaking broadcast meteorologists in the country.
No matter what happens with a job, though, she can always chase those tornadoes.
"I love all of it. All the good stuff," she said.
Edited by Jennifer Torline
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INTERNATIONAL Mass graves found in Iraqi river valley
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BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials Wednesday reported finding mass graves with remains of 34 people, most believed to have been Iraqi army recruits waylaid three years ago by al-Qaida gunmen as they traveled to a training base near the Syrian border.
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Farmers tipped off authorities last week about the graves, located in the Euphrates River valley near Syria about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, according to a local mayor, Farhan Fitaghan.
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Fitaghan told The Associated Press that two of the remains were women.
Most of the victims were believed to have been army recruits from the southern Shilte city of Karbala who were traveling by bus in September 2005 to a training camp in an abandoned phosphate plant in Qaim when they were stopped by gunmen and taken away, the mayor said.
"We informed the Karbala authorities and invited their families to come and identify their relatives," said Fitaghan,
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the mayor of Qaim. "We held an official funeral procession today and paid all expenses to send the coffins to Karbala."
Associated Press
NATIONAL McCain gains ground with whites, poll finds
WASHINGTON — The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000.
according to an Associated Press-GFK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.
The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.
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ANDERSON CHANDLER LECTURE SERIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS PRESENTS AN EVENING WITH
Andrew J. Jetter
PRESIDENT AND CEO, FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK OF TOPEKA
"Looking Ahead: The Future of Housing Finance in America"
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2008·7:00 P.M.
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