Tomorrow's weather
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Cooling temperatures tomorrow with rain expected most of the day.
Kansan
HIGH LOW 68 51
Wednesday September 30,1998
Section:
Online today
For all those Star Wars junkies out there, students in 1997 wrote, directed and produced Star Wars:The Musical.
A Vol. 109 • No. 29
http://www.newdream.net/~brett/Star-
Wars/images.htm
Sports today
The Kansas soccer team had a tournament scheduled last weekend, but poor field conditions negated the Jayhawks' home field advantage.
SEE PAGE 1B
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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
(USPS 650-640)
The title of KU student body president doesn't come without pressures and paradoxes. But most who have held the office say the experience pays off ...
After the reign
story by brandon cople special to the kansan
.
On a Friday afternoon, when activity in Strong Hall has slowed to a crawl, it is quiet in David Ambler's office inside the Student Affairs suite.
Student Allan is sure.
Amber sits in a high-backed chair a few feet from a sunbeam that warms the room and softens the fluorescent lighting. He's talking about his kids, telling stories about when they were in his care. He can recount precisely what each is doing now that they're grown.
"These are neat people," he says. "If you look at their background, at their upbringing, I think you would find they were taught to value responsible citizenship at some point."
In his cozy office, it's easy to forget that they aren't David Ambier's real children.
They are his student body presidents, the college kids elected to lead student government since Ambler arrived at the University of Kansas in 1977. As vice chancellor, he has worked with them for 20 years. After they leave the University, the presidents may lose touch with the other students they worked with in student government. They rarely lose touch with David Ambler.
True. he loses track of a few of them from time to time. But it's funny how he tends to run into these kids.
Last winter, Amber's plane slid off the runway at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. After the evacuation, as he was milling around on the runway, Amber ran into Jason Krakow, a president from 10 years ago.
Others, such as David Adkins (president, 1882), are hard to lose track of because they're in
Probably more than any other former student president, Adkins, a Republican state legislator and Johnson County attorney, represents the student-political norm at the University of Kansas.
The office of student body president seems to produce a lot of people like David Adkins attorney and business people who live in Johnson County. That's because, Ambler says, the job of running student government attracts people with a sense of community and a lot of ambition. They leave office with managerial and political experience that most college students don't get. They apply the experience, the ambition and the connections, and most of them end up practicing law or running a business or consulting in Leawood or Mission Hills or Prairie Village.
See PAST on page 8A
Former student body presidents Lisa Ashner Adkins (1983), Scott Sullivan (1997), David Adkins (1982) and Dennis Highberger (1984) decorate the University of Kansas version of Mt. Rushmore. Photo illustration/KANSAM
Jane Stoever, Overland Park junior, left, and Aimee Buckland, Topeka senior, write for a letter-writing campaign sponsored by Concerned, Aware and Active Students, a KU activist and advocacy group. The event was held yesterday in the Kansas Union. Photo by Matt J. Daugherty/KANSAN
Groups hold write-a-thon
Few students take note of concerns
By Pallavi Agarwal Kansan staff writer
Some University of Kansas students got together last night to show that a pen and paper can have the power for change.
Nine KU student organizations marshaled forces for a write-aathon, organized by the Concerned, Aware and Active Students, a KU activist and advocacy group.
Only about 25 students participated in the event, which took place from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Kansas Union lobby.
"It is the first time that a writeathon has been arranged with so many groups participating," said Corey Snyder, Topeka sophomore and co-director of Concerned, Aware and Active Students. "We're trying this out."
Students wrote about a variety of different topics.
Some of the participating groups were old-timers at letter writing as activism.
The KU chapter of Amnesty International, a human rights organization, writes letters to prisoners around the world.
"We average 30 letters a week at KU," said Kyle Browning, Overland Park sophomore and club president. "Letter writing has a big impact on improving the conditions of prisoners or helping out their cause."
Last night, the group was writing letters in support of an Ethiopian prisoner of conscience. Tave Woldemasayat.
Julia Gilmore, Clay Center sophomore, wrote a personal letter to the KU Academic Procedures and Policies Committee, urging it to give students the option of alternative assignments if their moral or ethical values interfered with one.
Gilmore, who has written letters before, said they made a difference.
Burdett Loomis, interim director for the Dole Institute of Public Service and Public Policy, did not think letter writing by students had much impact on legislation.
Barbara Ballard, Kansas representative and assistant vice chancellor at the University, disagreed.
"Students have the lowest voting numbers and so don't have much lobbying power," he said.
If legislators belonged to a constituency with universities, they had to be responsive to the needs of students, she said.
Snyder agreed that students did not have much legislative power but said that eventually group letter writing could help increase their presence in political life.
Alarm goes off in Strong Hall; fire does not cause major harm
Students and faculty were evacuated from Strong Hall yesterday morning because of a small electrical fire at room 300g.
Lawrence firefighters responded to a call at 9:23 a.m. In Strong Hall.
Jeff Drilling, Leawood junior, looks into one of the four cameras for a new bar security system installed at Bleacher Sports Bar, 806 W. 24th St. Drilling, who works as a doorman at the bar, demonstrated how the new system worked last night. The system has four cameras that videoteam an incarnation before they enter the bar. Photo by Aquastus Anthony Piazza/KANSAN
Captain Lexie Engleman of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical said the fire was already out when firefighters arrived.
"Someone on the scene probably used an extinguisher and put it out," she said.
"It was contained to the outlet box," Engleman said. "It didn't go into the structural members of the building at all. It wasn't anything big."
The fire caused only minor damage and did not spread far in the building.
Sgt. Troy Malien of the KU Public Safety Office said the fire was caused by wiring in the room
Mari Eilyn Swims, Glen Eilyn, III, sophomore, was in class at room 335 when the fire occurred. She said her class evacuated the building but that many people did not leave.
"There was an electrical short in a wall outlet." Mailen said. "They're doing a lot of rewiring in Strong. This was apparently some of the old wiring that hadn't been changed out yet."
Swims also had class at room 300g, where the fire occurred, at 11 a.m. yesterday. She said that the room was not seriously damaged from the incident.
"I didn't hear any fire alarms go off," she said. "It didn't seem like the whole building was empty."
Kelli Raybern
Cameras protect pubs from underage drinkers
By Augustus Anthony Piazza and Jason Poarce Kansan staff writers
A Lawrence bar owner avoided a possible fine and bar-license suspension when Lawrence police caught an underage University of Kansas student drinking an alcoholic beverage in the bar.
ers Sports Bar, 804 W. 24th St., said that the student had used her sister's identification to pass as more than 21 years-old.
Dannie Thompson, owner of Bleach
"When an officer took her aside
and asked to see her license, she said she didn't have one," he said. "But we had it on tape, and the girl confessed."
Bleachers; Bull Winkles Bar, 1344 Tennessee St.; Cadillac Ranch, 2515 W. 6th St.; Flamingo Club, 501 N. 9th St.; and Louise's Bar Downtown, 1009 Massachusetts St., have installed a new identification-check system to shield itself from incurring fines and suspensions.
The system uses four video cameras that record footage of bar patrons presenting their identification to bar employees. One camera records a close-up of the identifications, while the other three are positioned to record different angles of the entrance area.
"People are getting good enough now at making fake ID's that you can't tell what's real and what's not, so we had to find a way to protect ourselves," said John Davis, owner of the Cadillac Ranch and Bull Winkles.
Davis said that he would look into an option to market and sell more of these systems in the future.
He sold systems, which cost $3,000,
to local bars that were interested.
Davis developed the system after he was unable to find systems that he had read about.
THIS WEEK'S ALCOHOL AGENDA
Today
Today
Alcohol and Beverage Control
Bar security
Rising beer prices
see page 3A
Thursday
Fridav
Alcohol-free Greek housing University housing regulations
Friday
■ Role of the university
■ Question and Answer with Chancellor Robert Hemenway
■ Alcohol use across cultures
"We are going to see a lot of bars going to this system or one like it." Davis said. "We have no choice if we want to stav in business."
The development of the system Davis said, stemmed from tighter state drinking-establishment regulations
The new Alcohol Beverage Control regulations, which took effect July 1, state that any Kansas drinking establishment that receives nine minor-inpossession tickets within four years will lose its liquor license.
Drinking establishments are subject to fines between $100 and $1,000 per violation, depending on the number of previous offenses against the drinking establishment. Also, the business can
See GOING on page 3A