/ NEWS / THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
It's a musical life
Howard Tina/KANSAN
William Goldenberg and his sister Susan Goldenberg present a concert of classical music representative of the natural beauty of living things, which was sponsored by the Spencer Museum of Art Wednesday. One of the pieces that William Goldenberg performed was Clair de Lune, which is French for "moonlight," composed by Achille-Laudé Debussy, a French composer during the late 19th century.
CULTURE
KU grad helps refugees find work
Josh Hafner/KANSAN
Andrew Zardar. Hire him owner, chats with employee Shiyam Khanal, a refugee from Bhutan. Zardar drives his employees to and from temporary jobs in Kansas City, Kan.
BY JOSH HAFNER jhafner@kansan.com
Andrew Zarda usually begins his carpool home at 4:30 p.m. Small talk on the ride is difficult for Zarda because he's the only native English speaker in the car, but that doesn't stop him from striking up a conversation with three coworkers in the backseat who nod with polite smiles.
"Shyam, what kind of work did you do today?" Zarda asked.
Zarda, Harvest Hiring owner and a 2009 School of Business graduate and KU almusn, drives employees like Shyiam Khanal, a refugee from Bhutan, to and from temporary jobs in Kansas City, Kan., four to five days a week.
"Today my work is in an inside room, in the bathroom cleaning," answered Shyam Khanal from the backseat with another smile. "Vacuum cleaning." Khanal seemed unaffected by the daily grind, perhaps because he's working his first paying job in 17 years.
Khalal and the other refugees in the car are from Bhutan, a small Buddhist country landlocked between China and India. They are now exiled in Kansas City after spending years in Nepali displacement camps when they escaped the Bhutanese government in the 1980s.
According to the Department of State, more than 85,000 refugees still live in Nepali camps today.
That number was once higher, but the United States offered to accept up to 60,000 refugees in 2006. Three years later, Khanal and Lila Rai, another Bhutanese refugee, are here, on their way home from work.
Zarda founded Harvest Hiring, a contract labor company that trains and connects Bhutanese refugees with employers seeking additional labor, to address the growing population of Bhutanese refugees in Kansas City.
"Our goal is to help out the workers as much as possible," he said. While brainstorming business ideas last spring, Zarda worked with refugees on volunteer projects in Kansas City, He spoke with his father, Bernie Zarda, an entrepreneur in the area, and discovered that many companies needed dependable and temporary labor throughout the year. With his father's help, Zarda founded Harvest Hiring last June. Since then, 12 of the company's contract workers have been hired as full-time employees by clients. "Andrew picks us up and drives us long, long distance," Rai said. "He's a very helpful man."
Rai and Khanal are two of about 150 refugees from Bhutan living in the Kansas City area. According to David Stettler from Mission Adelante, an outreach group for refugees living in Kansas City, about 100 new refugees expected to settle there over the next four years. Currently, 23,000 Bhutanese
refugees live in the U.S.
Zarda said the refugees in the U.S. faced complex challenges, including difficulties with health care, education and employment. He said many refugees were either born without citizenship in displacement camps or lost it during the conflict in Bhutan. Because of this, they were unable to secure paying jobs, and instead performed chores of daily life in the camps. Many are receiving their first wages in 20 years.
"It was really fun the first time I got to give out paychecks to some of the guys," Zarda said. "They come from a country with a caste system and all sorts of stuff. Here, they know they can improve their life and they love that opportunity. They love that idea."
Back in the car, Zarda pulls into the gravel lot of an old brick-brown apartment building. It was Khanal's turn to be dropped off. Instead, Khanal invited Zarda inside to visit his family. They were greeted by Khanal's wife, two daughters and son, who offered him mango slices, orange soda and stories about their day. Khanal's daughter, a high school senior, talked about her journalism class at school. When the visiting was over, they said goodbyes, and Zarda turned out of the gravel lot and began his drive back to his home in Lawrence. It's a long commute, but Zarda doesn't mind.
"I'm loving this," he said. "I'm learning so much."
Edited by Michael Holtz
CRIME
Fugitive hid from law for 38 years
Man convicted of murder vanished after getting parole
BY MATT GOURAS
Associated Press
HELENA, Mont. — A hitch-hiker originally sentenced to be executed for the 1951 killing of a Montana man who picked him up during a blizzard has been found running a wedding chapel under an assumed name in Arizona, 38 years after he skipped out on parole.
Frank Dryman was found after the victim's grandson hired an investigator who tracked the fugitive to his Arizona City notary and chapel business, where he was known as Victor Houston.
Now 78. Dryman was awaiting extradition proceedings after his Tuesday arrest by the Pinal
ahry shirli
ff's office. A hearing was
scheduled for Thursday
morning in
Arizona.
"I think this sends a message to other fugitives that they are
never off the radar screen," Bob Anez, Montana Department of Corrections spokesman said. "It's imperative that individuals be held accountable for their actions."
since he never knew his grandfather Clarence, and knew little about the murder.
In 1969, after just 15 years in prison, he was paroled. The Montana Department of Corrections said that today, the soonest a person sentenced to life in prison could gain parole is 30 years.
"... with perseverance and good investigative work, we almost always find them in the end."
Dryman disappeared three years later. No Montana offender had been missing longer.
Newspaper clippings from the time say that Clarence Pellett stopped to pick up Frank Dryman in 1951 during a spring blizzard near Shelby, a small town in northern Montana.
"He just went into thin air in 1972," said Clem Pellett, the victim's grandson. "I don't think that my grandfather's death was well represented; it just got lost in all the ideologic conversation of the time."
Dryman initially received a hanging sentence after a quick trial in 1955. His case became the focus of a battle over the death penalty and frontier justice, and he received a new sentence of life in prison with the help of the Montana Supreme Court.
Pellett, a surgeon in Bellevue. Wash., pursued the case after first learning details last year while digging through old newspaper clippings in storage. He said the issue was never discussed in the family.
Pellett said he was driven by a sense of curiosity, and does not feel like he needs any revenge
PAUL BABEU Pinal County Sheriff
The private investigator hired by the grandson used scores of documents the family dug up from old parole records, the Montana Historical Society and Internet searches to trace Dryman to the Cactus Rose Wedding Chapel.
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said that Dryman had blended into local society and even cultivated friendships with previous county sheriffs.
Pellett told Montana corrections officials of the discovery. Officials said Dryman acknowledged his identity to officers.
Pellett, who ran a cafe, was shot seven times in the back as he tried to run away, according to the accounts.
Prosecutors in Arizona said they did not know if Dryman had an attorney. A call to the wedding chapel Wednesday was not answered.
The Montana Department of Corrections said that Dryman will be sent back to the state prison. He will face a parole revocation hearing within the next few months — and possible resumption of his life in prison sentence.
They can run from the law, but with perseverance and good investigative work, we almost always find them in the end." Babeu said.
Pellett said he has learned his family has a long, coincidental history with Dryman. Records show that Pellett's great aunt once testified in support of Dryman when the then 16-year-old was accused of robbing a liquor store.
"They can
But Pellet, 56, said he would like to finish writing the family history of the long trial.
Pellett, who decided to hire a private investigator on a whim during a dinner party conversation, said he is not driven to see Dryman punished.
"I want to see if he wants to talk to me?" Pellett said. "I just want to get information. There are holes in the story he could really add to"
"The legal system will handle it," the grandson said. "Whatever they decide is fine with me. I mean he is 78 years old."
"She came to his defense so that he was not labeled as a delinquent," Pellett said.
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