Huck Finn revisited?
Homeless cats, dogs protected at shelter
By BARRY LEE BARNHART
Is man dog's best friend?
An answer to this question is readily provided when one has taken a brief trip through an overcrowded animal shelter. In Lawrence, this organization is known as the Charles Ise Memorial Animal Shelter.
It was chartered on March 26, 1951. Operating as a non-profit corporation, the federal government has ruled that all donations to it are tax deductible.
The shelter is handled by employed managers. The current managers are Mr. and Mrs. Victor Melton who managed the shelter from 1959 to 1968. After a leave of one year, they returned to Lawrence again in the summer of 1969.
The shelter derives its rules from a board of directors who are Lawrence citizens volunteering their help.
Mr. and Mrs. Melton told of the problems of dog and cat populations and what the shelter does to try to solve the situations that occur as a direct result.
The problem is that in the United States there are about 35 million puppies and 50 million kittens born each year. According to the latest census, there are only 55 million families in the United States. The obvious conclusion is that there is a staggering difference in the number of homes as compared with the birth rates of puppies and kittens.
As a result of being homeless, many animals face a cruel existence. Many of the dogs and cats are done away with almost as soon as they are born. In many cases the slaughter is done with lead pipes, clubs, poison, shotguns or gas chambers.
It was because of those reasons that the animal shelter came into existence. Local citizens began the shelter with the hope of giving the animals humane treatment as well as trying to find the animals homes rather than have them mercilessly destroyed.
The shelter managers attempt to cater to the individual needs of the animals they maintain. The shelter accepts all animals. As a general rule, unadoptable and diseased animals are put to sleep only with the authority of a human officer or shelter manager. The shelter does not give or sell animals to laboratories for research. The shelter attempts to reunite any animal that has an owner. Until the owner comes to claim his animal he can rest assured his animal is receiving the best of care.
22 KANSAN Apr.15 1970
The creation, by man, of a shelter designed to provide for animals who are not able to care for themselves is indeed a humane thing to do. Maybe man isn't so bad after all . . . just maybe.
Prof's farm becomes camp
by CHARLENE MULLER
Kansan Staff Writer
Retarded children in Lawrence and the Douglas County area have the opportunity to attend a summer camp owned and operated by Ellis R. Kerley, KU professor of anthropology, and his wife.
The camp, Crescent Hill Camp for Exceptional Children, is located near Lone Star Lake. Kerley said the camping site was on a 30-acre farm he and his wife bought four years ago.
Normal children, ranging in age from 5 to 13, attend the camp from June 8 through July 1, Kerley said. Their fees, he said, go to help cover fees for the handicapped children, ranging in age from 6 to 15, who attend the camp free of charge from the first week in July until the middle of August.
The campers, Kerley said, enjoy a full day of activities from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Their activities include canoeing, hiking, arts and crafts, horseback riding, swimming and athletic games.
Kerley said Douglas County provided the campers with exclusive use of Lone Star Lake and its sandy beach on the weekdays for swimming and boating.
It takes about $6,000 to run the camp for one summer, Kerley said. In the past, he said, the camp received financial aid from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation. The foundation grants money to such camps for a period of two years. After this they should be sustained by the community. Kerley said he did not know if the foundation would be giving money to the camp this year because it had done so for the past two years.
Look what we're hatching for the chic... at the...
at the back of the Town Shop
839 Mass. St.
Uptown
V1 3-5755
This year, Kerley said, the Lawrence Charity Horse Show, June 18-21, will be donating its proceeds to the camp.
Kerley said that because the camp was a non-profit organization, there were a limited number of paid counselors. Volunteers, he said, from the University, town and county help every year.
He and his wife became interested in such a camp when they observed a similar one at Lawrence's Centennial Park four summers ago, Kerley said. They invited children from the park to come out to their farm to horseback ride. It worked out so well,
Kerley said, that the Douglas County Parks and Recreation Department asked them to use their farm for a camp.
The Kerley both have experience in working with retarded children. Kerley worked with the orthopedically handicapped at a hospital for crippled children in North Carolina. Mrs. Kerley worked with handicapped children in Washington, D.C.
The camp has proven successful so far, said Kerley. "We've seen gratifying results," Kerley said, "when handicapped children play in a relaxed environment. Such a camp provides continuity between school sessions."
Museum acquires new art
The University of Kansas Museum of Art has acquired two new paintings and a lithograph depicting the Chrysler "Airflow" sedan of the 1940's.
The two paintings, "Ulysses in the Cave of Polyphemus" by Jacob Jordaens, and one by the French artist Jean-Leon Gerome, will not be exhibited for several weeks, said Bret Waller, Art Museum director. The lithograph, by Claas Oldenburg, will be exhibited first at the Hays art festival.
The paintings were purchased with funds provided by Museum benefactors and funds from the
1969 benefit ball. The lithograph was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ward of Kansas City.
Trash can asks to stay
What is the harried student's reaction to the word "lost"?
A sign on a trash can in the Kansas Union plea, "Under no circumstances, remove me, or I shall be lost!" On the sign one student scrawled, "This trash can is not with it. It is modern to be lost." And, more wistfully, another added, "We are all of us lost."