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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2004
kansan.com
Do You Like Sports?
We Offer a Variety of Leagues and Competition Levels in Every Sport
Fall and Adult Leagues Now Forming in:
Volleyball Basketball
Sign Up and Join a League Now!
Deadline for Registration is Sept. 1st
call 832-7920 for details or visit the community building 115 W. 11th st.
Registration Forms/enrollment Available on the Web at www.lprd.org
LA VRENCE
PARKS &
RECREATION
PIPELINE PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS:
COMING SOON TO
BOTTLENECK
Saturday, 8/21
TRUTH CELL all ages
Saturday, 8/28
Sunday, 8/29
GHOSTY
with HIGHDIVE
all ages
AKA'S all ages
Monday, 8/30
MISERY INDEX
with ALL THAT REMAINS
Tuesday, 8/31
HELLO SUPERWORLD
with MISSION 19
MELVINS
all ages
Sunday, 9/05
LIMBECK
Monday, 9/06
THE HIGH STRUNG / EMMA FEEL
7pm all ages
Tuesday, 9/07
CATHY RIVERS / NATHAN BROOKS
Saturday, 9-13 BUT JOEY LUOOO all ages
ANYTHING BIT
Bourne THE SLIP all ages
Monday, 9-13 MONSTER MAGNET BONGZILLA
Tuesday, 9-14 BROTHERT PAST THE UNIT
Every Thursday Neon $7.5 draws $1 Shots
Thursday, Neon $7.5 draws + $1 shots
BEAUMONT
Saturday, 8/21
LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Thursday, 9/16
BROEANS
GRANADA
Thursday, 3.8
UMPHREY'S MCGEE
GRAND EMPORIUM
2023 Main St., Kennesaw City, MD
3232 Main St, Kansas City, MO
Monday, 8/27
MIKE WATT
Monday
MINT
MATT
for a complete listing of batternck and Painting shows via
www.ninelineproductions.com
Airport to celebrate 75 years of service
BY STEPHANIE FARLEY
sfarley@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITE
The wheels are on the ground and the plane is navigating down the runway. As the plane elevates, so does your stomach, which begins to churn. All you can feel is air, and the view is bigger than anything you've experienced on the ground.
This Beechcraft Staggerwing D17S will be one of the restored airplanes on display during the Lawrence Municipal Airport's open house Saturday. The open house is in honor of the airport's 75th anniversary.
"It's just entirely different. You just aren't earthbound anymore, that's all," said Delbert Erhart, operations manager for 21 years at the Lawrence Municipal Airport.
On Saturday, the Lawrence Aviation Advisory Board and Hetrick Air Services, Inc., will sponsor an open house at the airport from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. celebrating the 75th anniversary of the airport.
The airport, located at 1930 Airport Road in north Lawrence, was dedicated on Oct.29,1929,with an estimated crowd of 6,000 people attending.
Debbie Van Saun, assistant city manager, said the open house gave some University of Kansas students and Lawrence residents an opportunity to see a facility that they might not see otherwise.
The airport is celebrating the anniversary. Van Saun said, because it is a nice way to commemorate the past and look into the future.
Rick Bryant, aviation board chairman, said the open house included events for everyone.
The morning kicks off with a fly-in breakfast from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. the event is open to the public with adult tickets costing $5 and child tickets $3.
ing 35 and smaller Airplanes, including the KU jet and a World War II German Messerschmitt-109, and aviation businesses, which include the KU department of aerospace engineering, will be on display during the day. The sponsors will give away door prizes.
Helicopter rides will also be available throughout the day for a to be-determined price.
During the years, the airport has played an important role for the University. Kevin Boatright, interim executive vice chancellor for university relations, said the University
could not do all it does with aviation if not for the airport.
The University has two planes - a prop plane and jet at the airport.
Kansas University Endowment Association donated the jet to the University.
The combined usage of the planes for the fiscal year of 2002-2003 was 284 flights. Med Center staff made 173 flights, Athletics Department employees made 43 flights and Chancellor Robert Hemenway flew 14 times.
Boatright said University of Kansas Medical Center staff and physicians used the planes the most.
Boatright said Roy Williams, former men's basketball coach, used the jet to fly back from Los Angeles about the time he made the decision to leave the University.
Other University departments and organizations will show how they use the airport during the anniversary event.
Mark Ewing. aerospace department chairman, said one of the department's hangers would be open on Saturday with displays of its two planes and some helicopters.
Student organizations such as the rocket system development organization, satellite construction group and student model aircraft will also have displays.
The Endowment Association once owned the airport, Van
I was proud of it. afforded me some good memories."
Everett Buhler Co-operator of the Lawrence Municipal Airport
Saun said, but it sold the property to the city for $1. Daryl Beene, senior vice president of the Endowment, said the Endowment sold the airport near 1929.
Beene said it was the town-and-gown spirit of cooperation between the city and the University and always trying to help the city that allowed the airport to be sold for $1.
The airport started out in 1929 with four runways, with improvements starting in 1936. The airport now has only two runways.
Van Saun remembers not visiting the airport until her freshman year of college. Van Saun said she had a friend whose mother flew, and she flew Van Saun and her friend to Wichita.
"I remember it because it was a small plane," Van Saun said. "I can't believe I did that."
The airport is for general aviation, which means the city owns it but leases it to fixed-
base operator Hetrick Air Services, Inc. Private jets and planes use general aviation airports.
The airport does not deal with charter or commercial flights. Van Saun said the airport handled about 30,000 operations - arrivals and departures - every year, averaging 100 operations per day.
The airport and its users have experienced changes over the years. Erhart, former owner of Erhart Flying Service, remembers when the airport gave penny-a-pound rides, where if you weighed 150 pounds you would pay $1.50 to ride in the plane.
Erhart said he loved aviation, but had to retire from it because of health reasons.
"I dream about it a lot.
Erhard said.
Erhart said he would wake up the morning after dreaming about being airport manager again or handling another operation.
One of Erhart's favorite things to do, he said, was to go up in a plane right after it had snowed when everything was still white.
It has been about 45 years since Everett Buhler, co-operator of the airport from Dec. 31, 1945, to 1947, flew a plane, but he can still remember what it feels like to fly.
"It's a release from being ground-bound." Buhler said.
Buhler, who operated the
airport when the runways were made out of cinder — a hard ash-like substance left over from burned coal — and not concrete, said he left aviation because he could not afford the financial burden anymore.
Buhler said a lot of his flight students were covered under the GI Bill, which meant the government paid for the students' flying lessons.
However, Buhler said, the government was often behind in their payments to him by as much as seven or eight months.
"I love to fly," Buhler said. "And I had a lot of enjoyment flying, but I had to make a living for a family and flying wasn't part of making a living at that time." Buhler said.
Buhler, who is 85 years old, remembered one night he and his wife of 63 years, Helen, ate dinner out at the American Legion.
Legion.
A child named Hank came up to him and asked if he was Everett Buhler. Buhler told him that, yes, he was.
Hank looked at him and said Buhler had taught him how to fly.
"It if hadn't been for the financial burden of the airport at the time, I may have been in it forever, for all I know," Buhler said. "I had a part of that airport out there, and I was proud of it. It afforded me some good memories."
Edited by Anna Clovis
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