lifestyles
Photo courtesy of University Archives
Five trucks arrived 15 minutes after the fire was reported. Frank Burge, Unionordon took firemen when they arrived the fire were confined to the tower and western sections of the roof at that time.
After an hour and a half of fighting the five flames of 20 to 30 feet shot off the roof and scorched the center lower of the Union.
The intensity of the flames caved in the roof and leaped to the south addition of the building, caving in that section.
The fire was finally brought under control around 2 a.m. eddy after fire had graced the top two floors of the Union's main section.
Lawrence Fire Chief Fred Searles
The fire, confined to the upper half of the building, apparently started near the Pine Room and spilled immediately to the roof, which was completely destroyed in the older section of the building.
Bill Rowlands, information counter manager and night manager of the Union, discovered the Union fire. "I heard something pop," he said. "it sounded like a light bulb exploding and I got upstairs. I think that everyone in the building noticed the smoke about the same time and evacuated the building."
The Kansas Union was ravaged Monday night by a fire that caused extensive damage to 60,000 square feet in the south half of the building.
Twenty-five years ago, the Kansas Union caught fire. The cause still is unexplained.
"People have really got to make up their minds that they are going to destroy the University. If they accept the student's role, they accept the role as a slave."
A portion of the front page of The University Daily Kansan from April 21, 1970.
Left: A view of the fire, showing the Campile and the burning Kansas Union in the distance.
Above:
Lawrence Fire Chief Fred Sanders said he
warned near an elevator on the 10th floor.
Abbie Hoffman, April 8, 1970, to a crowd of nearly 8,000 KU students in Allen Field House
By Brian Vandervliet Kansan staff writer
Photo courtesy of University Archives
The view inside the Kansas Union ballroom after the fire, which caused $2 million in damage.
was glued by names.
Officials believed the fire was
the work of an arsonist. But no
one was ever caught.
Twelve days after Hoffman's speech, on April 20, 1970, his words became prophecy as the Kansas
The fire began about 10:40 p.m. near the Pine Room on the third floor. It quickly spread and broke through the roof on the west side of the building.
"There were a massive amount of flames," said Ed Jarboe, 45, who was a sophomore at the time. "You could feel the intensity of the heat."
Hundreds of students gath-
rified it up to the Union in a steel pot about once an hour throughout the night.
"It was kind of a hectic situation," he said. "We felt like if we could help, that would be an appropriate situation. We also were interested in what the firefighters were trying to do."
The firefighters were trying to stop a blaze that would end up causing about $2 million in damage. The fire would not be extinguished until almost 4 a.m. By the time it was over, the
bathroom was severely damaged and the top
tral core of the union were destroyed. Rebuilding took more than a year.
Jarboe, now living in Olathe, was one of about eight students from Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall who helped bring coffee to the firefighters. His group made the coffee in the hall kitchen and car-
B. J. Pattee, director of special projects for the
ered to witness the Union's destruction and to assist Lawrence firefighters, all of whom had been dispatched. Early on, about 25 students assisted in bringing in water hoses while others moved valuable furniture or helped keep the crowd under control.
having your home burned down..."
Alumni Association, remembers the Union fire 25 years ago. Back then, she worked in an office on the fourth floor of the Union. While at home, she heard about the disaster over the radio.
"It was a terrible shock," she said. "I was very sad. It was like having your home burned down, with all of the damage and loss."
B. J.Pattee Alumni Association employee in 1970
Pattee, 71, said she believed reports that the fire had been the result of arson. During the
"No one thought that anyone would actually set the Union on fire or give that they could." she said.
Vietnam War, there had been a lot of divisiveness on campus. There had been frequent anti-war protests and racial confrontations. But Pattie, like others, had no idea who would start the fire or why.
According to Kansan files, the week preceding the fire had been exceptionally volatile. Fires had occurred at the Kappa Sigma fraternity and also at a furniture store downtown.
In addition to the anti-war protesting on campus, 28 students at Lawrence High School were injured as fighting broke out between Black and white students on April 15.
Despite an atmosphere of general unrest, Pattee said, the fire had helped to bring the campus together.
"An awful lot of students went in to help put out the fire," she said. "They were protective. It was their University. It was students from both sides of the political issues."
In 1970, Don Marquis, professor of philosophy, was in his third year of teaching at the University. He said that he, along with other professors, spent a night keeping watch of Strong Hall in fear that it too would be torched.
"People were unsettled and did not feel secure," he said. "We were concerned about people burning down the buildings."
Marquis said that student anger against the war had evolved into a dislike for anyone in authority. Although he did not agree with the violent tactics, he said that he felt a certain degree of sympathy for the protesters.
"It was kind of difficult," he said. "I was really torn. On one hand, the war was absolutely immoral, and on the other hand, burning the Union involved attacking something I believed was important."
TV sidekick an unlikely celebrity
By Frazier Moore The Associated Press
NEW YORK—His office door at NBC headquarters says "Telly Salavas," but, no, there's not a shred of doubt that the occupant is really Andy Richter, all 28 years and 6 feet, 2 inches of him, relaxing after a "Late Night" taping.
You'd be surprised. Hefty and moon-faced, definitely not born to run, Richter may be the last of a dying breed: the couch-stationed talk-show sidekick. That couch, of course, is at the right hand of red-haired and even taller Conan O'Brien, who inherited "Late Night" from David Letterman in September 1993.
Back then, before the O.J. Simpson trial made instant celebrities of half the population of Los Angeles, both O'Brien and Richter seemed remarkable for their abrupt, TV-generated fame
Who loves va. baby?
All the more remarkable was the pounding Richter took from critics, who singled him out for many of "Late Night's" perceived sins.
No sweat, says Richter, recalling those early days with something not unlike pleasure: "It was exciting even to be on TV and have BAD reviews written about you."
Fortunately, that brand of excitement is mostly behind him.
"What's great about Andy is, when he does something, you really notice," says Gill, who edits a monthly "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" fanzine from her home in Canon City, Colo. "Andy's not just a yes-man. When he needs to, he can shine."
Just mark the thundering chant of the audience when Richter is introduced: "An-DEE! An-DEE!" Hear the praise of fans like Cynthia Gill.
"We just needed a little time. Like with a friendship: You laugh at things your friends say because you know 'em."
And consider the ratings. Not spectacular, but,
hey, up 6 percent over last season's.
"A show like ours is all referential to something we've done before," Richter says, "so I can see why in our first few weeks people would turn us on and go, 'What the hell IS this?'
Bits that crack up "Late Night" cognoscenti (and leave others just shaking their heads) include "Things We Didn't Get to Make Fun Of," "Staring Contest," "And Andy Richter's Self-Help Tapes" and, of course, "Right Side-Wrong Side"
— during which viewers playing the Official "Late Night" Drinking Game get to take a swig each time Conan calls Andy "the spawn of Satan," Cheers!
By all indications not the spawn of Satan, the oddly charming Richter grew up in Yorkville, Ill.
After film school and a stretch as a production assistant for TV commercials, he enrolled in an improvisation class. "But not to get into Second City and then move on to 'Saturday Night Live,' he cautions. "I just felt, 'This would be fun.'"
It was, and so was playing Mike Brady onstage in "The Real Brady Bunch" and joining Chris Elliott in his film "Cabin Boy."
outside Chicago.
"Getting hired for 'Late Night,'" he says gratefully, "saved me from interviewing to be an assistant manager at a movie theater in Westwood." Now, he gets to be the assistant, if you will, to
"I get to be the guy on the couch and a sketch-comedy performer. I also get to be the smart-ass Ed Bradley type and tape remote bits, shoving a mike into people's faces at the Miss America pageant or the NBA Finals."
And after all that, he gets to go home to his wife of one year, writer-actress Sarah Thyre, with whom he hopes to have children "and a really nice family life."
"I have a great job," he says, but sounding very Andy, adds, "to me it's still a job. And if there were some horrible power failure which meant we couldn't do the show one day and we had to put on a rerun, I'd say, 'Ahhh, that's too bad.'"
Lead Storv
Seeds of our destruction
Three men in recent months have been ordered by judges to continue child support payments even though none is the father of the child he's involuntarily supporting. Blood tests exonerated men in Ramsey County, Minn., and Talbot County, Md., and a Baltimore mother admitted that she committed perjury in identifying a man as her child's father. In each case, however, appeals courts (in Maryland in October and Minnesota in March) ruled that state law requires that the men continue to make the payments.
At a book-signing appearance in Tampa, Fla., in July, astronaut Alan Shepard refused the request of John Williams, 55, to sign a photograph, telling the man he would sign only purchased copies of his new book on the space program. The photograph Shepard refused to sign was a 1961 shot of Williams, then a helicopter crewman, pulling Shepard out of the Atlantic Ocean after his Mercury capsule splashed down on America's first manned space mission.
Among the examples of the continuing economic problems in the former Soviet Union: Lumberjacks in northern Russia were paid at the end of August in
tampons because the employer was short of cash. And in December, Ukraine issued a new bank note worth 500,000 karbovanets and announced that 35 tons of old karbovanet notes with denominations below 100 would immediately be recycled into toilet paper.
In January, Mathew Panak, president of the Warren (Ohio) Board of Trustees, said the regularly scheduled Monday meeting would take place on Jan. 16 even though it was the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday. Said Panak, "None of us is colored. It's not going to affect us." Several days later, Panak changed his mind and postponed the meeting.
In March, U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard agreed to follow Russian cosmonaut customs in their joint mission to dock with a Russian space station. Among the customs was one established by the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, and followed by all subsequent cosmonauts - men and women: to urinate on a tire of the bus that takes them to the launch pad.
In September, a Rotterdam businessman announced his company would start local home delivery of up to 30 grams of hashish and marijuana (which are legal in the Netherlands). In July, a political organization in Amsterdam called the Interest Group for Drug Users reported that it had received about $120,000 from the government to support its work, which includes lobbying for liberalization of drug laws and providing counseling for drug abusers.
Cultural Diversity
News reports on the Kobe, Japan, earthquake mentioned instances in which the Japanese hindered world efforts to help victims. An Associated Press dispatch noted Japanese refusal for the homeless to be treated on a nearby U.S. aircraft carrier or to be treated at a Japanese country club because that would not be fair to those who were not treated in such luxury.