Can the Jayhawk football team defeat the Aggies this weekend? The Kansan's Ryan Schneider answers all the big questions in this week's Friday Five. 1B
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOL.117 ISSUE 37
Football player Eric Washington is in intensive care at a Kansas City hospital, but a source close to the team says he's moving around and laughing. 1B
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE1A
BOARDWALK REMEMBERED
Boardwalk was engulfed in flames in minutes and burned to the ground within hours. Many of the factors that contributed to the speed off the fire's progress were built into countless other Lawrence apartments.
BUILT FOR DISASTER
Part 4: Apartment complexes can be death traps
BY FRANK TANKARD PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JARED GAB
In the flaming orange hours after midnight on Oct. 7,2005,many residents of Boardwalk Apartments had two ways to escape death: the bedroom window or the burning stairway beyond the front door.
Leigh McHatton, a KU senior living on the second floor, chose the stairway. She was left with third-degree burns to her hands and feet and second-degree burns to her face. Doctors said her reddish skin may look normal in about six years.
David Heller, a KU senior living on the third floor, chose the window. For 20 minutes he clung by his fingertips from a ledge as flames spewed from his apartment and covered his face in ash. He dropped onto the hood of a parked
A year after the Boardwalk fire killed three, injured 20 and left more than 80 homeless, KU sophomore Danny Doherty goes to bed each night in his third-floor apartment at Hawks Pointe III knowing that in case of fire, he has the same grim choices for escape as McHatton and Heller.
car, smashing it, and someone caught his head before it hit the pavement. He considers himself lucky.
Doherty and countless other KU students live in apartment buildings that share some of the same safety problems as Boardwalk inadequate exits, possible firewall damage, and a lack of sprinklers and central fire alarms that modern codes often require.
SEE BOARDWALK ON PAGE 4A
Part 5: Mother remembers impact of daughter's death
BY DAVID LINHARDT
Nicole, a Wichita senior, was supposed to have graduated in May 2006. She was supposed to visit the Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado with her mom as they did each year.
Nancy Bingham had planned a birthday party for her daughter Nicole the weekend of Oct.12,2005. But instead, when the day came, she found herself signing Nicole's cremation papers.
She was supposed to die from a dangerous heart arrhythmia that gave her heart a 9-percent chance of stopping each day, if she
were going to die at all.
Nicole Bingham died in the Boardwalk Apartments fire on Oct.7,2005.
Nancy hung up the phone. A friend of Nicole's had just called; there had been a fire at the Boardwalk Apartments. No word from Nicole. She hadn't been at work that morning, either.
Nancy had planned to come to Lawrence for Nicole's birthday on Oct. 12, and now she had a different reason.
Several contradictions were running through her mind. Nicole could still be alive. But, she would have
ONLINE
SEE BINGHAM ON PAGE 5A
To see the rest of the series, more photos from the series and to leave comments, go to kansan.com/boardwalk.
PART6
The court process moves on for Jason A. Rose, the Lawrence man accused of setting the deadly fire. SEE PAGE 5A
BY ERIN CASTANEDA
A Rock the Vote page, "We Will Rock the Vote," on Facebook now allows students to register online. Young Voter Strategies, a nonpartisan political organization at The George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, coordinated the Rock the Vote registration program on Facebook.
Register to vote; now pass it on
The power of peer persuasion is the motivation behind Rock the Vote and Facebook's union Tuesday to encourage young adults to register to vote.
"Peer-to-peer contact is the most powerful force in politics," said Hans Reimer, political director of Rock the Vote. "You talking to your friends about the importance of registering and you trying to register your friends to vote works better than anything else."
The organization's goal is to educate political campaigns about ways to reach young voters. Heather Smith, director of Young Voter Strategies, said the organization had done about 12 briefings on Capitol Hill since February and met with about 100 campaigns or consultants.
"If peer-to-peer is sufficiently effective, I think it will have a lot of consequences for how you reach young people online." Reimer said. "And in turn, how you engage them in the process."
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He said once young adults registered to vote in 2004, 80 percent of them voted. What deters some, he said, was knowing how to register.
The nonpartisan organization Rock the Vote registered 1.2 million young adults in 2004 through its Web site. Reimer said it was easy, to get young adults to vote; the hard part was getting them to register.
"Young people can go to our Web site, fill out the form, print it out, sign it and mail it in," he said. "So it gets around the administrative problem of young people asking, 'Where do I take this? The DMV? The library?' "
Katie Loyd, community affairs director of Student Senate, coordinates voter registration and election education efforts across campus. She said students had the power to change local politics through their participation.
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SEE VOTE ON PAGE 5A
ARTS
5
Play explores mystery of vanished student
BY DARLA SLIPKE
Macy sat next to the Leaches on Wednesday night and watched the rehearsal for his play performed by the English Alternative Theater. Macy said it was "nerve-wrecking"
Harold and Alberta Leach watched with tears streaming down their faces Wednesday night as different scenarios of their son's mysterious disappearance were depicted in the rehearsal of a play by University of Kansas graduate student Tim Macy.
Eighteen years ago, Randy Leach then a Lincoln high school senior, disappeared on the night of a pregraduation party. The mystery of his disappearance was never solved, but Macy examined the circumstances surrounding it in his play, "Leaves of Words."
The play presented various scenarios that could possibly explain Leach's disappearance, including suicide and him running off to California.
But the Leaches were grateful for Macy's work.
waiting to see how the Leaches would react to the play, which showed their son being killed multiple times in gruesome ways.
"At intermission, they turned to me and said I did a good job," Macy said.
Stephen Lim, professor of English who advised Macy during the play-writing process, said that the hardest part of writing the play was filtering through all of the information.
The investigation surrounding Leach's disappearance has been ongoing for eighteen years. He said he would like Macy's play to generate more awareness of his son's disappearance and encourage people to come forward with information.
Harold Leach, who welcomed the idea of the play, said Macy did a "fantastic job." He said the play was done in "very good taste."
SEE THEATER ON PAGE 5A
'Leaves of Worlds'information
Where: Lawrence Arts Center, Ninth and New Hampshire streets
When: Today and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
Cost $6 for students and $10 for others
Anyone with tips or information about Randy Leach's disappearance should call Harold and Alberta Leach at 785-840-6270
index
Classifieds. ... 5B
Crossword. ... 6A
Horoscopes. ... 6A
Opinion. ... 7A
Sports. ... 1B
Sudoku. ... 6A
All contents, unless stated otherwise.
© 2006 The University Daily Kansan
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