12A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY JAYA KANSAN
WEDNESDAY MAY 2007
COMMEMORATION
Memorial honors victim
Chabad, Hillel remember Virginia Tech professor Librescu
BY TYLER HARBERT
Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who tried to barricade the door to his classroom to save student lives during the Virginia Tech massacre, was killed on the day after national Holocaust Remembrance day.
To honor the professor's life and commemorate his heroic deed, students in Chabad and KU Hillel held a discussion Tuesday night in the Kansas Union featuring a PowerPoint presentation about Libresco.
Marni Green, Buffalo Grove, Ill., sophomore and Chabad member, created the PowerPoint tribute because she wanted to remember the Virginia Tech victims and especially honor Librescu.
"I wish I would have met him in person," Green said. "He seemed like such a wonderful man."
Lou Frydman, associate professor emeritus of social welfare, took part in the tribute by speaking about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
Frydman, who was 12 years old
when he was taken to the first of three different concentration camps during the Holocaust, said he came from an extended family of more than 40 members. But on the first day of his capture, that number dropped to only two: just him and his brother.
Although he laughed and joked throughout his questions and answers Tuesday night, Frydman said that wasn't the case during his two-year time in the camps.
"There was no humor in those camps at any level," he said.
He had been liberated from the Dachau concentration camp at the end of the European fight during World War II and said he was fortunate his struggle didn't leave him with nightmares or other disorders after the war.
He said surviving the Holocaust set him up for a life full of possibilities and without barriers. He said the concentration camps also made him able to size up situations almost immediately, and he also picked up the Yiddish language quickly.
"It was a matter of survival." Frydman said.
Green and Caitlin Tew, Allen, Texas, sophomore and Chabad member, also helped organize a Good Deed Dedication in memory of the Virginia Tech victims. Tew said any student on campus could promise to do a "Mitzvah," which is a good deed in Hebrew, write the deed on a postcard and attach it to a large poster board in memory of the victims.
Green said the poster board would be kept on a wall in the Chabad House, 1201 W. 19th St., as a permanent memorial.
She said she hadn't committed to a deed yet, but was considering either saying hello to a random stranger or reaching out to somebody who was lonely. Students can get involved in the project by going to www.jewishku.com/vtech.
Kansan staff writer Tyler Harbert can be contacted at tharbert@kansan.com.
- Edited by Ryan Schneider
HAITI
Officials to investigate capsized boat
BY STEVENSON JACOBS ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Turks and Caicos police tugboat pulls a capsized migrant boat during rescue operations off the coast of this Caribbean island last Friday. The sailing vessel crowded with Haitian migrants overtured in moonlit waters a half-mile from shore in shark-infested waters. Haitian migrants claim a Turks and Caicos naval vessel rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized last week, killing dozens of people, a senior Haitian official said on Tuesday.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian migrants claim a Turks and Caicos naval vessel rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized last week, killing more than 60 people, a senior Haitian official said Tuesday.
Jeanne Bernard Pierre, the director-general of Haiti's National Migration Office, said the migrants' account has not been confirmed but Haiti would consider it "criminal" if found true.
"The survivors say the accident wasn't an accident, it was provoked. They say they were hit twice by a coast guard boat from the Turks and Caicos," Pierre told The Associated Press by telephone from the Turks and Caicos Islands, where she was meeting with survivors at a detention center.
Turks and Caicos Police Inspector Hilton Duncan declined to comment on claims the migrants boat was rammed, saying the sinking is under investigation.
Earlier Tuesday, the governor the British Caribbean territory, Richard Tauwhare, told reporters the vessel capsized while it was being towed by a police boat in rough seas, contradicting earlier claims by local officials that police arrived only after the boat capsized.
Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 61 from Friday's pre-dawn capsizing of the migrant-laden sailboat off the Turks and Caicos, after more bodies were found drifting in the Atlantic Ocean, the government of the British Caribbean territory said.
Some of those who died were mutilated by sharks. More than a dozen migrants were still missing and presumed dead.
The 78 survivors from the estimated 160 migrants aboard the boat were being held in the Turks and Caicos, about 125 miles north of Haiti, until authorities could repatriate them.
Pierre said the survivors told her they received no warning before being hit, and that the Turks and Caicos vessel threw them a line and tried towring them in before the boat capsized.
"We would think that would be criminal if it really happened that way. We have to wait for the results of the investigation, before pronouncing (judgment) ourselves," she said.
The U.S. Coast Guard said in a press statement Friday its officials were notified by Turks and Caicos police at 5 a.m. that the migrant boat capsized while being towed by a police vessel at 4:20 a.m. But Turks and Caicos officials later denied the report.
Pierre said she met with Tauwhare on Tuesday and was told that an investigation would take three weeks.
Asked to provide one of the migrants for an interview, Pierre gave the phone to a man who identified himself as Jean-Vanel Moncent, 21. Moncent began describing the ordeal when the call was cut off. Reached on the phone again, Pierre said she had been informed that migrants were not allowed to speak to the media.
It helped Bell find a name for the fugitive wallaby: Tarmac.
Bell said it was the first escape for any of the animals being shipped to the Roo Ranch.
"It is a good reminder for people who are transporting live cargo to check their kennels and make sure they're in operating order," she said.
TOPEKA — The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday repealed sex education policies enacted last year, the latest move by the moderate majority to undo efforts by conservatives when they dominated the board.
BY CARL MANNING ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Bell family plans to open the Roo Ranch, which has about 50 kangaroos and wallabies, on Memorial Day weekend. It would join other animal-oriented attractions in the Black Hills such as Bear Country USA, Reptile Gardens and Trout Haven.
Board repeals sex education policies
ASSOCIATED PRESS
One rescinded policy recommended that schools stress abstinence until marriage, while the other urged school districts to get parental permission before students could attend human sexuality classes.
KANSAS SCHOOLS
WILD ANIMAL
Wallaby escapes during flight Marsupial has few minutes of freedom during layover
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A wallaby is settling into a new home in the Black Hills after getting out of its kennel during a flight change in Salt Lake City.
The 5-pound. 7-month-old male Australian marsupial escaped Thursday but had only a few minutes of freedom.
BY CARSON WALKER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Roxy Bell, whose family owns The Roo Ranch near Deadwood, said vibration during the flight likely loosened buckles on the side of the kennel.
Airport workers caught the young wallaby within five minutes after it hopped across the tarmac, said Marissa Snow, a spokeswoman for SkyWest Airlines, based in St. George, Utah.
The wallaby - a smaller, stock
ier version of a kangaroo — did not kick its way out of the kennel, she said.
In fact, a young female wallaby in the same cage stayed put.
"I just don't want them to get a bad reputation. You know, 'Mean kangaroo gets out,'" Bell said. "They're not mean. They're very tame."
The pair arrived in Rapid City late Thursday, Bell said.
This photo provided by Roxy Bell shows a 5-pound, 7-month-old albino wallaby on Tuesday in Deadwood, S.D. His owners at The Roo Banch named him Tarmac because he escaped from his cage Thursday for a few minutes while being transferred to a different airplane at the Salt Lake City airport.
On a 6-3 vote, the board replaced the policies with one that recommends "abstinence plus" sex education programs and leaves it up to the 296 school
But conservative member Kathy Martin, of Clay Center, said most parents want the standards enacted last year. Wagnon said the new standards take effect immediately.
"Abstinence until marriage is the best message we can give our children," Martin said.
districts to decide whether to get parental permission.
"It's a matter of emphasis," said chairman Bill Wagnon, of Topeka.
Wagnon said the goal was "to describe the curriculum standards in terms of 'it's more than just simply an encouragement of abstinence', but we want a balance and comprehensive educational program about sex."
Wagnon said he didn't view the changes as a repudiation of what the conservative majority did.
She said the old standards
"emphasized self-control over birth control," and the new standards "fail to give a true picture."
"It's a matter of reflecting the current board view on how these things should be done," he said.
It was the second major change for the 6-4 moderate bloc since taking control in January. Wagnon said the final major change could come Wednesday if the board hires a new education commissioner to replace Bob Corkins, hired by conservatives in 2005. His hiring touched off criticism because he had no experience as a school administrator, and he resigned in November after the new board was elected.
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