Tuesday inside
Medal health
Medals designed by University students in enameling class are being displayed in an exhibition at a San Francisco gallery this month. PAGE 3A
Winter break extended Winter break will be a week longer this academic year,and finals for the spring semester have been delayed for a week to compensate. PAGE 3A
Spartans to test toughness
Coach Bill Self and the Jayhawks are expecting a physical battle against
Michigan State. The Jayhawks and Spartans play at 8 p.m. tonight PAGE1B
Kansas may get bowl bid
The Jayhawks could be one of nine Big 12 teams to head to bowls this
season, if Colorado wins this weekend. PAGE1B
Texas finale
Volleyball prepares for its final two games of the season,
against Baylor
and Texas Tech. PAGE8B
Weather Today
49 27
warming up
Two-day forecast tomorrow thursday
4928
partly cloudy
4924
happy turkey day
—weather.com
Talk to us
Tell us your news. Contact Michelle Burhenn-Rombeck, Lindsay Hanson or Leah Shaffer at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
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KANSAN
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
The Student Newspaper of the University of Kansas
Rock Chalk
Vol. 114 Issue No. 67
Lindsey Morris, Tulsa, Okla., junior and member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, embraced Anthony Isaac, Wichita, senior of Pi Kappa Psi, while he attempted to take a picture after hearing their team was chosen for this year's Rock Chalk Revue last night at Liberty Hall. This year's theme for Rock Chalk Revue is "Close Call." The show is March 11, 12 and 13 at the Lied Center.
Revue teams picked
By Abby Mills almills@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Months of work came to an end last night for 14 greek chapters. For 10 others, the work is just beginning.
Performers for the 2004 Rock Chalk Revue were announced last night at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. Five teams, each composed of two chapters, were selected to enter the show.
All teams that competed for the show's five spots have worked since last spring, but one team had an extra long ride.
Members of the Delta Delta Delta and Sigma Nu team arrived seconds before teams were announced because of car troubles.
"The ride home was the most emotional-filled ride of my life," said Mike VanMoorleghem, Sigma Nu member.
VanMoorleghem, Omaha, Neb. sen-
"From the beginning, we promoted variety.
Jessica Mace
executive director of the Rock Chalk Revue
ior, said the group was on the way back to Lawrence from eating dinner at Michael Forbes Grill in Prairie Village when a tire on the limo began making a loud thumping noise.
The group had to travel at about 30 mph for a while, Vanmoorleghem said, but eventually the tire stopped making noise and the group zoomed off to find it was one of the teams selected.
Those teams were selected in part because of how much variety they could add to the show, which plays March 11, 12 and 13 at the Lied Center. Jessica Mace, executive director of the revue, said the skits all fit into the show's theme of "Close Call," but no two had the same setting, costumes or songs.
"Every singleski it is very different from the others," the Woodbury, Minn., senior said. "From the beginning, we promoted variety."
That variety does not extend to participants. Fraternities and sororites were the only organizations to compete for spots in the show this year, although other housing groups have tried out in the past.
The teams were picked last weekend in tryouts. Each team performed a five-minute segment from its show and answered questions from judges for 10 minutes.
But work for the skits began long before last weekend.
Organizations selected partners for the show last spring and started working on their shows in September, when the Rock Chalk Advisory Board announced the theme.
Teams are in charge of every aspect of their shows, from writing the script to designing costumes and choreography.
SEE ROCK CHALK ON PAGE 8A
Two guilty in death of Martin
By Katie Nelson
knelson@kansan.com
Kansan senior staff writer
Two people were found guilty yester
day for killing University of Kansas student Shannon Martin after 30 months, multiple trial postponements and hundreds of investigative leads.
Kattia Cruz, 29,
and Luis Alberto Castro,
33, were sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security prison in Costa Rica's
Martin
capital, San Jose, for the May 13, 2001, murder. They will be eligible for parole in nine years. A third suspect, Rafael Zumbado, 52, was cleared because of lack of evidence. All are Golfito, Costa Rica, residents.
Martin, 23, was stabbed to death while on a seven-day return trip to the Pacific port town. Martin, of Topeka, studied there the year before.
Prosecutors asked the three-judge tribunal deciding the case for 35-year prison sentences in their closing statements yesterday. The judges decided there was not enough evidence to do so, convicting Cruz and Castro of a lesser homicide charge that carried a maximum 15-year sentence.
The verdict came about 7:15 p.m. central time, after almost two-and-a-half hours of closed-door deliberation, a full day of closing statements from attorneys and final testimony from Martin's mother, Jeanette Stauffer.
The two convicted of Martin's murder will appeal the verdict within the 15-day window Costa Rican law allows, said public defense attorney Christy Vargas.
"There are some blank spaces that still need filling," she said. "They did this because they felt they needed to find someone accountable."
The small courtroom was packed with more than 65 people, including armed police officers, family members, special government agents and the press, said Peter Majerle, a translator for Stauffer.
"There were so many, people were turned away," he said.
Castro entered the courtroom hand-cuffed and visibly shaken, Majerle said. Castro carried a crucifix, rosyand
SEE MARTIN ON PAGE 5A
When Nirvana rocked Lawrence
Grunge band played KU show on verge of fame
By Joe Hartigan jhartigan@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
When Nirvana came to Lawrence to play a show in the fall of 1991, the band rode into town cramped in a van. The next day, the group left in its own luxury tour bus.
Five weeks earlier, on Sept. 24, Nirvana had released Smells Like Teen Spirit, a song that is still recognized as the song that kicked off the grunge movement in the '90s. The opening band was Urge Overkill, a Chicago-based band who is perhaps best known for its cover of Neil Diamond's Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soan.
Nirvana, a band that changed the face of pop culture — at least for a few years — played in the Kansas Union Ballroom on Oct. 17, 1991. The show came about three weeks after the release of Nevermind, an album that would sell more than ten million copies worldwide.
Nirvana wasn't the only big show brought to the University of Kansas that year. Pearl Jam played at Day on the Hill and drew more than 10,000 fans. Primus and Fishbone, at the time bigger draws,
Tickets sold for $7.
Big show. right?
played a Halloween show. Faith No More, Fugazi and the Pixies, among others, also came to town.
The Nirvana show, though, came only days before the band's popularity exploded.
Twelve days after the show, Nevermind went gold, selling 500,000 albums. The band nobody had heard of had become the biggest band in America.
"It was literally the week after they played that I saw the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit," Layla McEniry, a Lawrence resident who saw the union gig when she was 15-years-old, said. "And then that's all you heard."
Brad Roosa was the Student Union Activities live music coordinator who helped bring Nirvana to Lawrence.
'Hardly anyone came'
He had seen Nirvana play at the Outhouse, 1823 N. 150th St., in 1989 and
remembered the place being empty.
"Hardly anyone came to the show." Roosa said of the Outhouse gig. "A hundred or a 150 people."
Two years later, Roosa and a friend took a trip to Los Angeles to talk with talent agents to find some bands to play during the school year.
While in Los Angeles, Roosa and his friend contacted Triad Artists, Inc., Nirvana's talent agency at the time. Agents
tracks from the yet to be released. Nagar
mind.
"We almost fell out of our chairs," said Roosa, who now lives in Austin, Texas. "He played us those cuts, and we were just trying to keep our cool."
The agency told Roosa it'd be looking for "big money" for a Nirvana show because it thought the band was going to be huge. An agent suggested $2,500 for an SUA show in Lawrence. Roosa said.
Roosa kept a possible Nirvana show in the back of his mind when he got back to the University. He said when he pitched the band for a show to SUA's live music committee, which must vote and approve every show, some members didn't know who Nirvana was.
McEniry remembered a giant wave of
The band sold out the Ballroom's 1,000-person capacity.
"They were like, 'Nir-who?' Roosa said. "But they passed it based on my passion for it."
"The show was insane," Roosa, said. "They were fierce — so incredibly tight. They killed."
people in the biggest mosh pit she'd ever seen.
"Kurt was wearing this total grungy, gray sweatshirt that looked like he had eaten, drooled and sweat through," McEniry said. "It was totally raw."
Roosa, looking at a paper plate on which Cobain had written the set list and given to him, said the band opened the show with a song called Jesus and had closed with Territorial Pissings. In between were some soon-to-be classic Nirvana tunes like Lithium and Smells Like Teen Spirit.
SEE NIRVANA ON PAGE 5A