Wednesday, June 25, 1986
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
3
News Briefs
Mall action awaiting group's fiscal study
Eric Strauss, a planner and lawyer with an Overland Park consulting firm, met briefly with Lawrence city commissioners Monday afternoon to tell them that a "footprint of" a proposed lawsuits against Lawrence shopping mall qualified as blighted under state laws.
Commissioners postponed any formal action until the Urban Renewal Agency could study the possibility of being under the blight designation.
Declaring the area blighted would allow the city to condemn property in the 600 block of the Chevron at 4217 Park Avenue into an enclosed shopping mall.
The "footprint" runs from Sixth to Seventh streets and from Kentucky to Massachusetts streets. Although commissioners have already declared the area to be closed, they are porting the designation if it should come into question in future court cases.
Svmphony to play
The Denver Symphony Orchestra will replace the Cologne Radio Orchestra, which recently cancelled its 1986 American tour, as part of the University of Kansas Concert Series. The Denver Symphony will play at 8 p.m. Nov. 5 in Hoch Auditorium.
Andre-Michel Schub, who won the 1981 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will be the featured piano solist with the New York Philharmonic ensemble, associate conductor of the Denver Symphony, will conduct.
Prof receives honor
Rue L. Cromwell, professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and psychology at the University of Rochester, N.Y., has been named the first M. Erik Wright distinguished professor of clinical psychology at the University of Kansas.
C. R. Snyder, professor of psychology and director of the KU clinical psychology program, said Cromwell had a strong reputation as a scholar, researcher and appointment is effective. Aug. 15.
Cromwell will bring his laboratory to KU so he can continue his research on schizophrenia - making the University one of the few U.S. institutions using his research method HISTOLOGY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA has been extensively supported by the National Institute for Mental Health and other grant agencies.
Prof national officer
William Scott, professor of English, was recently elected second vice president of the American Association of University Professors. Scott, who has been a member of the faculty since 1988, began serving his term June 17 to other new national officers.
Scott will help determine the association's policies and programs.
Weather
Today, the forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the upper 80s. Tonight, continued partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. Lows will be around 70. Tomorrow will be partly sunny with a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms. Highs will be in the lower 90s. A 20 to 30 percent chance of rain is expected for this weekend. Highs will be in the upper 80s to lower 90s with lows around 70.
From staff and wire reports.
Professor's slayer awaiting sentence
By Dana Spoor
Sentencing is all that awaits the Kansas City. Mo, man who pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of a university of Kansas professor.
Staff writer
Eugene Avis Jr. was originally charged with first-degree murder in the death of George Hixon, professor of design. But a plea-bargain agreement made by Avis' attorney and the Douglas County district attorney's office Monday morning charged his charge to second-degree murder.
Sentencing will be at 11:30 a.m. July 22.
'We think it is a just plea under the circumstances.'
Rick Trapp Douglas County assistant district attorney
During the next month, officers for court services will conduct a presentencing investigation to determine what sentencing recommendations will present to Douglas County District Judge James Paddock.
The plea bargain agreement included dropping the murder charges
The difference between second-degree murder and first-degree murder is that second-degree murder is done willfully and with intent to cause first-degree charge, the murder is premeditated and deliberate.
Second-degree murder is a Class B felony, which includes a minimum sentence of no less than five years imprisonment and no more than 20 years, and a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment or five years imprisonment and no more than life.
from first-degree to second-degree and eliminating the charge of theft.
Evidence indicated that Hisxon was strangled and suffered blows to his body. His body was found in a cave on the West Lawrence condominium.
According to the original report, Hixson was thought to have been murdered on Nov. 22. There was also a video of the television set and stereo equipment.
"We think it is a just plea under the circumstances," said Rick Trapp, Douglas County assistant district attorney.
Trapp said the court-services officers would present their recommendation to Paddock at the sentencing.
"He is not bound to follow that," Trapp said.
Trapp would not say what recom mendation would be made.
Net profit
Shauna Norfleet/KANSAM
Seven-year-old Scott Wisdom, son of Jeanette Wisdom, 1714 W. 22 St., patiency waits for butterflies and other flying insects. Scott, who hunted yesterday at the playground of Schwegler Elementary School, 2201 Ousdahl Road, has been collecting butterflies for more than a year.
Eerie vestiges of WWII still stand
By Karen Schmidt
Special to the Kansar
Special to the Kansar
Among a string of dilapidated buildings in the east Lawrence countryside are two buildings set apart by a feature - rusted bars on the windows.
The bars belong to an abandoned World War II prisoner-of-war camp that held about 300 German soldiers and were the source of the war's closing days in 1945.
Entangled in tall grass, crumbling and showing the effects of time, the buildings evoke a serene, yet eerie reminder of the past. At one time a ring of armed guards and lights surrounded by one-and-a-half acre traction 24 hours a day.
Park Hetzel Jr., Baldwin City, still
owns the POW camp site, which is near the intersection of 11th Street and Haskell Avenue. He said that because of security reasons, the government would only send about 10 prisoners to the camp at one time.
"Nobody in Lawrence ever really thought much about having German prisoners next door." Hetzel said. "There was no way for them to get away and no place for them to go. they were very dangerous and hard working, and the farmers were always pleased with them."
The shortage of manpower caused by the war hit the agriculture industry hard. For this reason, the W.J. Small Co., a Neodesha hay and grain company, became the prime contractor in a U.S. government program to help in the building the POW camps and bring in prisoners to help with the farming.
The prisoners would stay for two weeks, in which time they would work in the potato and pea fields and the garden. In the later days of time, they were normally
transported to other camps in Kansas, such as Concordia, Peabody, Ottawa and Hays, or to camps in Nebraska and Minnesota.
The Lawrence camp was built under Hezel's supervision by 10 prisoners from an Ottawa prison camp.
He said that communication with the soldiers was difficult at first because of the language barrier.
"I didn't talk German and they didn't talk English," he said. "But it didn't take long before we could work our way through what I wanted them to do."
The first load of prisoners sent to Lawrence were members of the German Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox."
"Being under the Desert Fox you could be sure they were the pick of the German army," Hetzel said. "It didn't take them long to pick up on
The men slept in tents outside the two main buildings, which were used as a wash room, mess hall and guard quarters. The most soldiers staying in the camp at one time was 125, Hetzel said.
Crew wants depot as boathouse
Staff writer
By Brenda Flory
The University of Kansas crew team and the Lawrence Preservation Alliance have joined forces in an attempt to save the old Union Pacific Railroad depot at North Second and Perry streets.
Scott Long, captain of the crew team, said last week that in June 1983 the team proposed to Union Pacific that the depot be moved to the river.
side and converted into a boathouse
The team wants to move the depot to the south bank of the Kansas River near Seventh and New York streets. The team is now using an abandoned warehouse near City Hall for storage.
"I's a perfect building for us," Long said. The depot has a lot of storage space for boats.
He said he thought the team had a better chance of getting the depot by
working with the LPA.
Union Pacific closed its Lawrence agency in fall 1894. The dep's functions were replaced with computerized customer-service centers, John Bromley, Union Pacific spokesman, said.
"They're interested in preserving a historic building and, we're interested in getting a boathouse." Long said.
Instead of going through the depot, Lawrence customers dial a toll-free number to get the train service they need.
"We felt the building couldn't be used for anything else because it was too close to the tracks." Brunley said. "We should have a light should be demolished or moved."
The depot was declared a safety hazard because it was located near an sharp curve with heavy train traffic. Bromley said.
Darcy Chang/KANSAM
He said the groups had until June 1987 to raise the funds.
"If they don't raise the funds, we will probably tear down the building." Bromley said.
But he said he was optimistic that the groups would meet their goal.
In a joint venture in March, the crew team and the LPA created the Save the Depot Task Force, which consists of eight members.
citizens who are interested in preserving, historic buildings, said Betty Alderson, president of the organization.
Efforts by the city to get developers interested in relocating the building failed in the spring of 1984.
The LPA is composed of a group of
Union Pacific Railroad depot.
The task force is in the process of getting an advisory board and forming a fund-raising plan, said Craig Patterson, chairman of the task
"Actual action can't take place until we have funds." he said.
Bromley said that the railroad had donated the building and $10,000 to the groups. The demolition costs would have been about that amount, and the groups will receive the money when they show the railroad that they have the funds to complete the project.
The cost of the project is estimated at $500,000. The task force has more than $3,000. Patterson said.
He said the original plan for moving the building called for a piece/bypiece operation with the crew team as the main labor force.
The task force sought advice from a contractor in San Antonio, Texas, who had experience in moving depots. The plan now calls for the building to be moved in two sections, Patterson said.
Culture Farms to appeal case at circuit court
By Rachelle Worrall
Staff writer
The arguments are the result of an appeal by the attorneys for Culture Farms over the Culture Farms mall lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City.
Oral arguments begin this morning in the Culture Farms Inc. mail-fraud case at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
The arguments will be heard by a three-judge panel, Linda Bugg, a Denver court clerk, said in a telephone interview Monday.
Culture Farms and affiliated companies were ordered to shut down on June 10, 1985. Craig Stanciffe, attorney for the Kansas Securities Commission in Topeka, said yesterday.
Five of the 12 persons who were indicted September 12, 1985, have pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, cloacite罪。
rine lengthy Culture Farm cases was first brought before the commission because of possible violation of the state's Securities Act on three counts, he said. The commission was to determine whether Culture Farms was an unregistered security agent to sell the securities and whether Culture Farms had committed securities fraud.
The commission found misrepresentation and a scheme to defraud customers with a Pyramid-Ponl媳, he said.
The case is now being tried on a federal level as a mail-fraud case, and only fraud must be proven, he said.
Two KU professors, Akagi, chairman of the microbiology department, and Delbert Shankel, professor of microbiology, received a grant in January, 1985, to do quality-control research on the cultures.
Both Akagi and Shankel have been out of town and were unable to be reached for comment.
Only the attorneys representing the prosecution and the defense were required to be at the oral arguments, Bugg said.
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