LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD'S KU EDITION
KU profiles
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 199
Student body leader: Political career not out of the question
Grey Montgomery, student body president, places parking, transportation and on-campus child care among his top issues for this school year.
- Grey Montgomery is planning for the future — sort of.
BY ANDREW E. NACHISON
JOURNAL-WORLD WRITER
Grey Montgomery spent each of the past five summers working for his family's newspaper and television businesses in Junction City.
But this summer the 21-year-old Kansas University senior was in Lawrence, working out of an office at the Kansas Union as the university's newly elected student body president.
"I figured it would be a great chance for me to see a lot of things through that I consider to be important issues."
— Grey Montgomery, KU student body president
A double major in journalism and political science, Montgomery plans to push for improvements in the campus parking and transportation systems.
service."
"The summer is the best time to get things done," he said recently. "It's a good time because it's planning time."
"I got involved with Student Senate when I was a freshman," he said. "I was at that age where I was looking for something to do. I wanted to do something with significant
His involvement with the student government appeared to end abruptly in the spring of 1995, when he lost his re-election bid to the senate.
A year later, however, friends convinced him to run for student body president. He defeated Cesar Millan, a senior from Kansas City, Mo., who promised during his campaign to fight student fee increases.
The election was open to about 24,000 graduate students and undergraduates, but only 3,575 of them voted. Montgomery won by 261 votes.
"I figured it would be a great chance for me to see a lot of things through that I consider to be important issues," he said.
Besides parking and transportation, Montgomery wants to renew interest in building a child care center on campus, and he's keeping an eye on talk of increased fees for dial-in access to the university's computer network.
Montgomery's family owns the daily newspaper in Junction City and a FOX network affiliate television station there.
"1 experienced a certain amount of
homesickness my first year at KU, and it's only 100 miles away," he said. "My thinking was go to KU for four years or five years as it will now work out and go out of state for graduate school."
He's considering law school or a joint law-MBA program after he graduates in 1998.
Montgomery, who calls himself a "slightly" liberal Democrat, might wind
up in politics — or he might not.
"I think right now I'm feeling pretty burnt out after the campaign," he said. "Right now I'm leaning toward grad school, maybe working in a business department of a large media company, and then coming back home and working for the family.
"But politics is of course a very inexact art, and you can never plan very well for the future."
The 'Baby book' KU's littlest mascot turns 25 this year
- For the past 25 years, Baby Jay has been a part of KU style.
BY ERIN ROONEY
BY ERIN ROONEY SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL-WORLD
A Kansas University tradition that's had many faces and touched many lives turns 25 this year.
Baby Jay made its first appearance at halftime during the 1971 homecoming game. A giant egg was wheeled out to the 50-yard line. The capacity crowd looked onto the field in confusion as "2001:A Space Odyssey" played over the sound system.
Amy Hurst, then a sophomore from Cincinnati, huddled inside of the egg, anxiously awaiting her moment. Hurst was dressed in a costume made out of chicken wire, fiberglass and crimson and blue material. Her headdress had a set of wide eyes and on her feet she wore bright yellow shoes.
But the weight of the costume did not matter to Hurst, because in just a few seconds she was to become the first Baby Jay. Hurst broke through the shell of the egg, made from wire and tissue paper, and was greeted on the field by Chancellor Archie Dykes.
"I'll never forget that moment," Hurst said. "The sound of the stadium! It was like all 50,000 people inhaled at the exact same time and then said 'Wow!' I was so astonished. It was the coolest thing! The crowd went nuts! It was all worth it. The kids loved it; everyone loved it!"
Hurst was only 4-foot 11-inches tall, but her costume stood another 5 inches above her head. Her costume weighed 25 pounds and was uncomfortable.
Although Hurst graduated in 1974 with a degree in physical therapy, she talks about the event as if it were yesterday.
Hatching the idea
Now a resident of Fort Myers, Fla., Hurst first
became interested in attending KU when she came to Lawrence for a family reunion while she was still in high school. She had a positive feeling about the campus and decided it was where she wanted to go to college.
She became enamored with the idea of being a mascot after seeing the Jayhawk at sports events and talking with her manager at work. Her height was a disadvantage to becoming a mascot, so she came up with the idea of creating a Baby jay.
When she was a freshman at KU, she worked as a waitress in a local restaurant. Her manager was one of the Jayhawk mascots.
All summer long Hurst, her parents and one of their neighbors worked on making Baby Jay. The entire Baby Jay costume cost $52 to build and was conceived in the Hurst family garage. From Hurst's home in Ohio, Baby Jay rode onto the KU campus tied to the trunk of a car.
"I was sure that the costume wasn't good enough," Hurst said. "I was terrified. The first thing my family and I did when we got to campus was go to the alumni association. I was positive everyone wouldn't like it."
Before school ended in the spring, Hurst took her idea to the KU Alumni Association. The association humored Hurst by telling her that if she made the costume, she could be the Baby lay.
KANSAS UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
In addition to football, basketball and alumni event appearances, Hurst used to take the costume to parties and let other students try it on. Many larger male students who tried on the Baby Jay costume got it stuck on their heads.
But the alumni officials loved the costume, and so Baby Jay hatched with Hurst during the home-coming game that year.
The Baby Jay costume was not very user-friendly even to Hurst, who was the intended wearer. It was virtually impossible to see out of the eyes, and the
Fly or fall
Baby Jay makes her debut in the fall of 1971. Twenty-five years later the mascot is still adored by students who identify with the endless spirit it embodies.
fiberglass frame would leave bruises on Hurst's thighs when she moved.
"Subconsciously, I was always afraid of falling over," Hurst said. "Odds of getting up on my own were zero. When I would run out ahead of the team, I was horrified that I would fall down and all that would be left on the field was a flattened Baby lay."
Despite the discomfort, the style of the original
See Baby Jay, page 12C
Alumnus takes up Kunstler's legal reins
- Ron Kuby has gone from student radical at Kansas University to the defense counsel's table in some of the nation's most publicized court cases.
BY RIC ANDERSON
JOURNAL-WORLD WRITER
In the summer of 1975, Ron Kuby put his belongings in a backpack, stuck out his thumb and hitched a ride that ended with a place in Lawrence lore.
Mike Malone, Douglas County district judge: "The law enforcement (officers) thought he was going to be the next terrorist in Lawrence. I'm serious. But I never saw him that way. I saw him as a man who knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly the line between what was legal and illegal and stayed on the legal side."
Jim Denney, Kansas University police director: "I have no ill feelings toward Ron Kuby at all. I had respect for him then, I have respect for him now. And obviously, what he's done with his life says it all."
Archie Dykes, former KU chancellor: "I don't remember who made the decision to arrest Kuby. I don't remember making the decision."
Kuby's name may sound familiar, and it should. After making local headlines as a student radical at Kansas University in the late '70s and 1980, Kuby has argued some of the nation's most publicized court cases as a member of trial attorney William Kunstler's law firm.
It was Kuby who sat across the courtroom from Bernhard Goetz, representing one of the men Goetz shot Dec. 22, 1984, in a New York subway tunnel. Colin Ferguson, the man accused of killing six people and wounding 19 in December 1993, was a client, as were a defendant in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, flag burners and cop killers.
"Today, I'm in court trying to get charges dismissed against a member of the Latin Kings," he said during a recent interview, referring to a New York gang. "This fella had a gun planted on him. The cop who frisked him ... we call him Magic Fingers Murphy because the first time he searched him, he could feel through this heavy cloth jacket a plastic bag containing about a half of a joint. Then the second time he searches him, he comes up with this big, heavy .38 handgun. Huh! Imagine that!"
School days
In the summer of 1975, Kuby was living in Maine and caught in a stormy relationship with a woman he'd met in the Virgin Islands. A friend suggested he move to Lawrence. With no money, no car, no job and no friends waiting for him, he packed up and started hitching.
"It seemed like a splendid idea," he said.
"We arrived in July 1975. It was 100 degrees; dust in the air. We'd gone from South Portland, Maine, on the ocean, to a place where you can feel the weight of the land all around you."
He had long hair then, and ran around much of the time in cutoffs, sandals and T-shirts. In the spring of 1976, after spending a semester on welfare, he enrolled at KU. His majors: anthropology and West Indian history.
"I moved into a big house filled with hippies at 345 Mich. And I met up with a real nice dog in March of '76 who was drinking from a paddle in front of my house." he said.
He also met some friends, like Tim Miller and Norm Forer. Today Kuby reverentially refers to Miller, an associate professor of religious studies at KU, and Forer, emeritus professor of social welfare, as "chronic malcontents" who helped him learn to "agitate."
"Given the brilliant minds that we had, I'm surprise we didn't seize state power," he said, laughing.
"He was always absolutely lively, vigorous. Always doing something, always had a project going. Just a firebrand," Miller said.
There were hours of discussions about politics, Kansas history, KU administration. At night, Kuby flipped burgers and poured beer at the Cafifi Bar and Grill.
"From my part, it was sex, drugs and rock
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See Former KU student, page 13C
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