KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2010 / NEWS
3A
LAWRENCE
Turning would-be trash into items for sale
Jessica Lusk, a senior at Washburn University, sits with some of her items for sale at Refurniche, 1845 E. 1450 Road. She said she started the store because she saw furniture being thrown out as a kid.
BY JENNY TERRELL jterrell@kansan.com
Next week, while students are finishing up finals and moving their belongings, Jessica Lusk will be driving around scoping out treasures hidden within the trash.
Lusk, a senior at Washburn University and the owner of Refurniche, a Lawrence used furniture shop, views the end of the academic year as the key to furnishing her store.
After searching for jobs online, Lusk, a 2004 graduate from Lawrence High School, decided to give Lawrence what she believed it needed — a sustainable furniture store.
As a child growing up in Lawrence, she noticed how many students left furniture behind at the end of spring finals.
"So many students are moving into town and need furniture for good prices, and there are students who are leaving town and not taking their furniture with them," she said.
During finals week last May, Lusk said she put up flyers on bulletin boards at apartment buildings and on campus advertising that she was accepting furniture and home decor for the opening of her consignment store. Now stuff just comes in.
"Once word got out, it just snowballed, and more and more people found out that there was a place that they could bring their stuff." Lusk said.
Refurniche, 1845 E. E. 1450 Road, right off of US 59 North, is housed in a building that belongs to Lusk's father, which had been vacant for a couple months. Lusk began paying her dad rent as soon as she opened the doors in September of last year. Lusk said business had gone
well and that she saw customers of all ages. She also said her product turnover was pretty fast and that she had regulars that come in about once a week to see what's new. The winter was slow, Lusk said, she didn't know if the business would make it to spring.
Refurniche is open Thursday through Saturday so she can attend classes at Washburn and meet with consigners, others who buy and sell used items, early in the week, which ensures she has new items
each Thursday.
Lusk's love for antiques and furniture began when her mother took her and her brother to garage sales each weekend in the summer.
"They would wake up in their pajamas in the car, ready to go," her mother, Rennette Lusk, said. "Even Grandma and Grandpa came along. It was a family thing."
Lusk continues to find unique items at garage sales and on Craigslist to fill her store.
She said KU students were also interested in her store's newest product line, vintage clothing. Susan Dark, a Lecompton resident, has been buying and selling clothes online for more than 10 years and now has a spot in Refurniche.
"Susan is one of the reasons why I was able to make it as a student," Jessica said.
Dark, who is knowledgeable about vintage and antique items, fills in for Jessica when academics collide with store hours.
Lusk is finishing up her final semester at Washburn, earning a degree in communications. She said starting her business was her solution to the job search in this economy.
"Many people could be really successful in a business if they joined something that they loved to do with something that provides good service for people," Jessica said.
Edited by Jesse Rangel
NATIONAL
Woman with knife stopped by deputy
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.
— A woman who stabbed and wounded four people in a busy Target store Monday afternoon was arrested when an off-duty sheriff's deputy pulled his gun and ordered the woman to the ground as screaming shopper ran from the building, authorities said.
Several shoppers who saw off-duty deputy Clay Grant pull out his weapon feared he was a gunman and began running and screaming, adding to the sense of panic, Mankini said.
Layla Trawick started randomly stabbing people with a blade about the size of a kitchen knife at about 12:45 p.m., Los Angeles sheriff's Sgt. Josh Mankini said. The 35-year-old Antioch woman was arrested with the help of private security guards and booked on suspicion of attempted murder.
Associated Press
NATIONAL
Arnold vetoes bill to ban smoking
The widely-supported bill would prohibit smoking in state parks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SACRAMENTO, Calif. Cigar-smoking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation Monday that would have banned smoking at all California state parks and beaches, saying the bill crossed the line of government intrusion.
In a letter to California senators, the governor said state parks and local governments were already permitted to ban smoking on a case-by-case basis.
"There is something inherently uncomfortable about the idea of the state encroaching in such a broad manner on the people of California," Schwarzenegger wrote to lawmakers.
Many of those legislators have
previously been invited into the governor's smoking tent at the Capitol.
The author of the bill, state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, had argued her bill would help reduce litter along with the threat of wildfires and second-hand smoke. She crafted the legislation so smokers would be allowed to light up in parking lots and at campsites in parks.
"I'm sorry the governor did not agree with this widely supported effort to increase public awareness about the environmental threats carelessly tossed cigarettes are doing to our marine life and to the great outdoors." Oropeza said in a statement.
Hundreds of communities nationwide have enacted smoking bans at municipal parks and beaches. Maine is the only state to ban smoking at its state beaches. But anti-smoking groups say no state has banned smoking throughout its entire park system.
The bill was supported by environmental groups that organize
beach cleanup days throughout the U.S., where cigarettes are the No. 1 item collected by volunteers.
Schwarzeenger told lawmakers the best way to discourage people from leaving cigarette butts at beaches and parks
The governor's veto surprised Angela Howe, an attorney for Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit environmental organization based in San Clemente that had hoped Schwarzenegger would follow the
is to increase fines and penalties. His position put him at odds with the California Ocean Protection Council, which in 2008 recommended the state ban smoking at
all state beaches to help reduce polluting marine debris.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER California governor
"There is something inherently uncomfortable about the idea..."
council's recommendation.
"We're very dismayed to see the governor has not prioritized clean and healthy beaches, especially since our coast lines are a driving force to our California economy." Howe said.
bacco company, Commonwealth Brands, had publicly opposed the ban, arguing it would infringe on smokers' rights.
At least one to-
DREAM (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
is legal for undocumented students to attend college. Including Kansas, eleven states allow undocumented students to go to college.
"it's about allowing people to fulfill what they came here to do," David Valdiviezo, a freshman from Kansas City, Mo., said. He is also a DREAM Act supporter, otherwise known as a "dreamie."
Valdiviezo said people who don't support the Act just need to be more educated.
He said he knows between six to 10 students at the University who are undocumented.
"Once they get to know individuals and why people are truly here, they open up a lot," he said.
Fleming said the biggest problem undocumented students have is that they were brought to the U.S. with their parents.
"You can't hold a four-year-old, a newborn, or a 10-year responsible for a law they didn't know they were breaking," she said.
In order to garner support from the University, Fleming sent an e-mail to Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little asking her to write a public letter to endorse the Act.
Without hearing from Gray Little, Fleming reached out to organizations affiliated with the University, such as the Hispanic Alumni Association, to write letters to the chancellor's office, as well.
After a month of e-mailing the chancellor asking for support, Fleming got Gray-Little's public endorsement of the DREAM Act in an e-mail last week.
"We needed her to step out of the shadows," Fleming said. "It was really critical that we needed her to publicly endorse the bill."
Fleming sent the endorsement to Kansas representatives and senators in support of the DREAM Act, including Dennis Moore, D-Lawrence. Fleming rallied at Moore's office in order to get him to support the bill on April 10 and he publicly endorsed the bill April 19.
While Fleming stood in the March for America rally of 200,000 people in D.C., a woman not supporting the cause asked her why she was there, because she "wasn't even Mexican."
Fleming laughed, and asked what her point was.
"Not all undocumented people are from Mexico," she said. "It was so empowering standing there among people of every nationality fighting for the same cause."
Erin Bigler, a sophomore from Wichita and another "dreamie" at the University, has also spent the semester participating in rallies and marches in support of the DREAM Act.
"It's our America," she said. "It's not just my America."
Edited by Anna Archibald
See a copy of the chancellor's endorsement at kansan.com/documents.
JAYHAWKSUMMER.com