Summer Session Kansan
Page 9
THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM—Artist Tom Swearingen, left, pauses from painting background so taxidermist George Young can place a mounted bird in the new diorama of the Natural
History Museum. The spring flowers, most of them made by hand, will look just as "blooming" next winter.
Expert Studies Cretaceous Area in Kansas
Rock chalk, stone posts, and fossils of winged reptiles, toothed birds, and microscopic sea shells—are all symbolic of the famous Cretaceous area in west-central Kansas, the locale of a major field trip this fall to be attended by geologists from all parts of the country and this month being studied by a representative of the State Geological Survey.
Tuesday, June 15. 1965
Donald E. Hattin, professor of geology at Indiana State University and summertime member of the Kansas Geological Survey staff, will spend about a week and a half in the valleys of the Saline and Smoky Hill rivers in Ellsworth, Russell, and Ellis counties and in the valley of the Smoky Hill River and tributaries in Trego, Gove, Lane, and Logan counties.
In late June, Hattin will do field work along the outcrop area of the Greenhorn Limestone — famous among other things for the "Fence-post" bed that was a source of stone posts for settlers on the treeless plains of north-central Kansas. He will spend most of his time in the northern and southern parts of the Greenhorn area, which stretches southwest-northwest between Republic and Washington counties to northern Ford county.
As a leader of the planned trip, Hattin is now gathering material for a guidebook and scheduling stops; the trip will be held in connection with the 1965 meeting of the Geological Society of America in Kansas City in November.
He also will visit localities in the counties in between: Ness, Pawnee, Rush, Barton, Ellis, Russell, Ellsworth, Lincoln, Osborne, Mitchell, Ottawa, Cloud, and Jewell.
A "Project Head Start" for 24 children who will enter kindergarten next fall will be conducted for eight weeks this summer by the KU department of family life. Frances D. Horowitz, department chairman, is director of the project, which has a grant of $5,878 from the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity.
Family Life Dept. Sponsors Nursery
The children, all from disadvantaged areas of the city, will meet five afternoons a week at the KU Nursery School.
Regular summer session staff faculty will devote time to the project, which will have laboratory application to KU's teaching program. The University's share of the project is 10 per cent.
Both devout and casual gardeners may be envious of the "ever-blooming" spring flowers being prepared for exhibit in the Museum of Natural History.
The animals and birds in the exhibit are real, but mounted; some of the grasses and stems are also real and green, but no longer growing.
Museum 'Gardeners' Outdo Green-Thumbs in Exhibits
Yet the artificial flowers and leaves have been nursed into blooming with more care than even the most devoted of the outside green-thumb gardeners exercise.
Taxidermist George P. Young and his assistants "grow" flowers for the glass-enclosed display cases.
Young says the near-accurate reproductions are possible by working with real materials as a base. He goes into the field to make collections of leaves, stems, petals, and grass. These are then set in plaster or clay and molded into a plaster dish. Another impression casts two molds in linotype metal, still complete with veins and leaf serrations.
Johntz's nickname is "Topper" and this isn't the first time he he'sopped the grade hurdle without knocking down a "B." He also made straight A's at Shawnee Mission High School and barely missed it at Harvard where he won a degree in economics in 1959 with a 2.9, or the upper one-four of 1 per cent of his class rank.
John H. Johntz Jr., Wichita, has become the first law student in the history of the Law School to graduate with straight A's.
A hydraulic press with controlled heat and pressure molds sheets of celluloid acetate between the metal molds to come out with an impression of the real leaf in plastic sheets.
THE TIME-CONSUMING and tedious job of cutting around each leaf or petal by hand is done with very small scissors. Museum assistant J. W. Campbell supervises this procedure and does much of the work himself. Campbell says a jig-saw can be used to cut a stack of larger leaves or petals without serrated edges, but most of the small flowers, like violets, are formed and trimmed by hand.
Wichitan Scores With Straight A's
Artificial stems are made by wrapping wire with cotton and covering it with a liquid plastic. Artificial grass is made from a mold with a main rib, and the blades are then trimmed in toward the center rib. Some trees are made of papier-mache and then covered with natural bark.
"OUR BIGGEST cost is labor-time." Young says. "Some of the work is done by students, either as part-time employment or as part of the class work for a course in museum techniques."
At the recent KU Law Day, Johntz was awarded the C. C. Stewart $100 award for the most outstanding senior, was named to Order of the Coif, the highest legal scholastic recognition, was named for the best comment articles in the KU Law Review, which he served as editor first semester, and won an award for all A's in all property courses.
Museum artist Tom Swearingen tediously paints the background for the displays.
"We try to make everything as ecologically right as possible." Young explained. "If we can't find or use the right natural material we make it so it looks natural."
Young said many exhibits are provided for through individual contributions or memorials to the KU Endowment Association.
The fact that there are not too many fat people walking around Mt. Oread is an example of health being enforced by environment.
This Hill May Be Reason Few Fat People Around
This was one example of the trends in health education given by Dr. Helen M. Starr, director of health, physical education and recreation for Minneapolis, Minn., who directed a Health Education workshop for school administrators and curriculum coordinators at KU last week.
"The hilly terrain at KU makes students and faculty get some of the exercise they need. We have more health-informed people than ever before, but we need many more who have the self-direction and self-discipline to practice intelligent decisions about their health," Dr. Starr said.
THE MAIN PURPOSE for the conference, the first in this area, is that more schools are recognizing health education as a subject in itself, and want trained teachers to present the facts and coordinate community and home efforts for good health in daily living.
Areas being emphasized in schools, national magazines and by young people are tension and mental health, alcohol, smoking, crash diets, self-medication and pill-exchanging, and health fads for which more information needs to be disseminated. Dr. Starr said.
Geologist Added To Survey Staff
The basic geology division of the State Geological Survey has added a new member to its staff-Philip H. Heckel, who will complete work for a Ph.D. degree in geology from Rice University, Houston, this summer.
A native of Rochester, N.Y., Heckel received his pre-college education in that city. He then attended Amherst College, Amherst, Mass., where he received his B.A. degree magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1960 he entered the graduate school of Rice University, where his studies in geology have been supported by National Science Foundation graduate fellowships and a Humble Oil and Refining Co. fellowship.
Heckel's geologic interests are in stratigraphy-paleoecology-study of formation, composition, sequence, and correlation of rock strata and of relationships of ancient organisms and their environments. At the Kansas Geological Survey he will be doing research in this area.
MIXED SUMMER LEAGUES
START JUNE 22
Sign Up Now At The Jaybowl and enjoy bowling in air-conditioned comfort.
Summer Rates
- Bowling - 35¢ per line
- Billiards - 70¢ per hour
- Table Tennis - 35¢ per hour
OPEN
8:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. Weekdays
1:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. Sundays
"THESE IS NO EASY way to diet, and many pills can be quite harmful. Facts and self-discipline are needed for every aspect of good health. Young people especially want to know about their health and its risks, and educators and communities must support them in this," she emphasized.
Dr. Starr, who has taught in the health and physical education departments of the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Minnesota, practices her own health education in two dramatic ways.
For the past 23 summers she has coached the "Aqua Follies," a professional touring group of girls skilled in water ballet and synchronized swimming. She also trains quarter horses, many of which she has purchased in the Midwest, and rides Western-style herself for exercise and pleasure.
Stewart Receives Strickland Award
Robert B. Stewart, KU graduating senior and ASC president, is the 1965 recipient of the Agnes Wright Strickland honorary award of life membership in the Alumni Association.
Stewart, of Vancouver, B.C., received the award at the Class of '65 farewell breakfast. About 50 other KU seniors received life memberships as graduation presents from their parents.
Stewart served as president of the student body this year while completing a major in accounting.
The Strickland award was established in 1953 by three of Mrs. Strickland's children — Charles E. Strickland of Mason City, Iowa, and 1941 graduate and a 1963 Alumni Association distinguished service cite; Frances Strickland of Wichita, a 1921 graduate, and Howard Strickland of South Haven. Mrs. Strickland, an 1887 graduate, died in 1952.
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"The Man from Button Willow" John Wayne in "RED RIVER"
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