8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2007
WILLIAMS (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Web site, the plan was implemented because of the low rate of turnover. Last year, the renewal rate was about 90 percent. If renewal rates fall below 60 percent on an even year, Select-a-Seat will return to an annual basis until renewal rates return to 80 to 90 percent.
Marchiony said that similar systems are in place in athletic departments around the country.
"We needed to raise money," Marchiony said. "This was a way to raise it that give benefits to those that donated not only to athletics but who had a history of donating to athletics."
Louise Ecord, development associate with the Williams Fund and Jennifer Berquist, associate director of the Williams Fund, worked
the week as moderators of the draft process. Both started working for the Williams Fund before the creation of Select-a-Seat.
"It wasn't initially easy to make some of the calls asking for donations," Ecord said. "But in college sports today, you have to have the resources to compete. You need to have facilities to keep up."
Ecord said that despite the busy week, which only had 20-minute lunch and dinner breaks between the non-stop flow of ticket holders, the process went off without a hitch.
Edited by Rachael Gray
Select-a-Seat donor point system
While most points are earned by donating money, the Athletic Department's Web site lists many ways to accumulate them
1 point per account for every $100 donated to KU Athletics beginning July 1, 1978.
2 points per account per sport, per year, for purchasing non-football season tickets, beginning fall of 1984.
1 point per account for every football season ticket purchased per year since fall 1984.
5 points per full-priced reserved football season ticket purchased up to four (20 points), 1 point for every ticket thereafter (began 2004
season).
2 points per account for every year of donating to the Williams Educational Fund since 1978.
1 point for every year of employment with the University of Kansas
10 points if attended the University of Kansas.
10 points per account if member of Chancellor's Club.
10 points per account if member of KU Alumni Association.
10 points if member of K- Club.
1 bonus point per account
per $100 gift to KU Athletics
(current giving cycle only).
> NATURAL DISASTER
Two firefighters die in NY blaze
BYVERENA DOBNIK ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — A blaze that killed two firefighters in an abandoned skyscraper being dismantled next to the World Trade Center may have been harder to combat because of plastics required by a federal agency to control asbestos, the governor said Sunday.
The blaze broke out Saturday on the 17th floor of the former Deutsche Bank office building, which has been a toxic site since it was damaged by falling wreckage when the trade center's twin towers collapsed and contaminated by toxic dust.
During demolition work, the federal Environmental Protection
Agency had required that polyurethane sheets be used to prevent asbestos and other harmful debris from escaping. Gov. Eliot Spitzer said at a news conference.
The polyurethane "may in fact have made this fire harder to fight", Spitzer said.
Questions about other complications also were emerging on Sunday, including why the partially gutted building's water supply did not work, forcing firefighters to run hoses up to the 17th floor.
"The standpipe was not operating. We don't know why yet," fire department spokesman Frank Gribbon said.
Spitzer said the latest air-quality tests for asbestos and other fine particulate matter had been negative.
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M-R 8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
F 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
SAT 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
SUN Noon to 5:00 p.m.
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M-F 7:30 a.m.to 10:00 p.m.
SAT10:00 a.m.to 10:00 p.m.
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M-R 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
F-SAT 10:00 a.m. to 5 p.m.
SUN Noon to 5:00 p.m.
Buyback available every day at the cashier's window.
Anna Faltermeier/KANSAN
Donations, court side seats go hand-in-hand under Select-a-Seat system
BY THOR NYSTROM
tnystrom@kansan.com
Unsaved seats
》ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT
Scott Haun, Lenexa graduate student, calls a KU men's basketball season-ticket holder who failed to show up for the season ticket seating draft Thursday evening in Allen Fieldhouse. Some people were upset this year because of how season ticket sales were handled.
Cheering on Jayhawk basketball in person soon might be just a fond memory for students after they graduate, when time is no longer the currency used to acquire premium seats.
The relationship between the Select-a-Seat program and the Williams Educational Fund has created a sort of bidding war between fans for the best seats in Allen Fieldhouse.
Critics say that the new system has forced some longtime season ticket holders from their seats because they cannot donate enough money to the Williams Educational Fund.
Joe and Pat Hirt, of Lake Quivira, have only nine points in the current system. They came to Lawrence on Thursday to select their seats as
ous year.
part of the second-to-last group. The Hirts said that they have problems with a ticket system where cash can outweigh loyalty.
"I think they had a great deal for 20 or 30 years," Marchiony said of former season ticket holders. "While we certainly appreciate that loyalty, there are fans that have been just as loyal who have not had access to those seats for 20 or 30 years but have been willing to donate money. Those people are just as loyal and passionate about Kansas athletics as the folks that had those seats for 20 or 30 years."
"My son-in-law's aunt had been a season ticket holder for 30 years, and she got squeezed out by the new system," Joe Hirt said. "I know she wasn't happy. If you've been here, to have someone else come in and just essentially buy your tickets, I don't think that is right. I think it's hard to push people out who have supported this University for years, and I think that is the wrong image to covey as a University, that the rich get their choice of tickets."
cash donations. Fans receive one point for every $100 they donate.
The University's system offers points for longtime season ticket holders in football and basketball, and for those who have donated to the Williams Fund in past years. Detractors think that these bonus points pale in comparison to the point fans can earn through large
Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said that other athletic departments around the country implement a similar system.
"We needed to raise money," Marchiony said. "Our system was designed that way so that Kansas athletics didn't put a particular price on a seat. It is strictly based on how much people want to give, and it is an absolutely fair process."
Raising money is certainly no longer a problem for the Athletics Department. Prior to 2004, when the points system went into effect, the Williams Fund grossed about $5 million each year. With the incentive for season ticket holders to accrue points, that number has increased to more than $11 million annually.
Before 2004, season ticket holders were given the same seats if they renewed their tickets from the previ-
The Hirts began purchasing season tickets last year so that they could spend time with their daughter, Rock Chalk dancer Annie Hirt. They said that they don't mind the system in their specific situation and that they understand why, as new season ticket holders, they have more limited seat options than long-time ticket holders.
BY SCOTT BAUER ASSOCIATED PRESS
- Edited by Chris Beattie
WINONA, Minn. — Severe storms deluged parts of the upper Midwest during the night with as much as a foot of rain, causing flooding that washed away bridges and roads and killed at least four people, authorities said Sunday.
》 NATURAL DISASTER
Flood ravages upper Midwest, claims four lives
Part of Winona and smaller
towns in southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin were evacuated, officials reported.
Rushing floods in Minnesota killed two people in their vehicle near Stockton and two others in vehicles near Witoka, said Bob Reinert, the Winona County administrator and spokesman for the county's emergency operations center.
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Houston County authorities were investigating reports of two additional fatalities, one near Houston and one near La Crescent, and Winona County authorities were looking for three people reported missing.
National Guard Capt. Paul Rickert of the National Guard says 88 soldiers and two helicopters were sent to Winona to help with security around the small cities of Elba, Stockton, and Pickwick. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty visited the area Sunday and declared a state of emergency in six counties.
Across the Mississippi in Wisconsin, up to 12 inches of rain triggered a mudslide that pushed a house onto state Highway 35 in Vernon County, said Wisconsin Emergency Management spokeswoman Lori Getter. No injuries were reported.
"They've been pulling people out of stalled cars, and evacuating them out of their homes," Getter said, adding that the Wisconsin National Guard was placed on standby.
The Pine Valley West apartment complex in Wisconsin's Richland County was evacuated as a precaution, with 10 of them taken to the Pine Valley Health and Rehabilitation, a nursing home, said Donna Gilson, a spokeswoman at emergency management's Madison headquarters. Emergency management officials initially said 18 nursing home residents were evacuated; Gilson said confusion resulted from the similarity of names.
Numerous roads and bridges were washed out or closed in both states Sunday and several towns were evacuated, officials said.
Nearly 80 people living near small dams in Vernon County were evacuated, Getter said.
"In our situation we've evacuated the city of Stockton, which is probably the hardest hit," Reinert said in Minnesota. Other small cities were also evacuated as well as low-lying portions of Winona, he said.
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