Leading passer Cedric Hunter could top season assist record tomorrow. See page 7.
SINCE 1889
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, FEB. 4, 1986, VOL. 96, NO. 89 (USPS 650-640)
Rain Details page 3.
Fans to lose 400 seats for remaining games
Staff writer
By Frank Ybarra
Winter
Between 400 and 500 seats in the student seating sections will be blocked off during the remaining five home basketball games. Floyd Temple, assistant athletic director, said yesterday.
Rope or plywood barriers will prevent spectators from sitting in the top four rows of some student seating sections on the ground level of Allen Field House. Temple said.
But even with these seats declared off-limits, some people may have to stand if they wish to see the game, Temple said.
The seats will be blocked off because of complaints to the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation Board about a group of students who want to stand throughout entire basketball games.
The students are standing in areas of the field house where new bleachers were installed last fall. The top few rows of the new bleachers are six feet higher than those they replaced. As a result, KUAC received complaints from several fans who sat behind the new bleachers and could not see the game even if they stood.
An executive committee of the KUAC board decided Wednesday to solve the problem by blocking off some bleachers, but a final decision on which areas would be affected was not made until this week.
Temple said he would make a decision today on exactly how to block off the sections of the field house affected by the decision.
The board decided the sections that will be blocked off are the top four rows on the lower section of the south end and the top four rows of the lower section behind the KU bench.
The northeast half of the top four rows in the north section will be blocked off. The other half of the section won't be blocked off because there is no reserved seating behind that area, Temple said.
11 students still stand, he said, people sitting on the lower rows of the second level directly behind them also will have to stand to see the game. He said that at least six rows would have to be eliminated for the problem to be completely resolved.
"It is not the answer," Temple said, "It's a stoppage measure."
Anthony Redwood, professor of business and KUAC chairman, said the board did its best to find a compromise to the problem. He said it was unfortunate that some people still might be forced to stand throughout the game.
"We can only apologize to the large number of people that are affected and assure them that we'll be making changes for next season," Redwood said. "We sincerely regret the situation."
He said members of the board had been monitoring games against teams such as Louisville and Oklahoma, and they thought enough extra seating would be available to compensate for the lost seats.
Redwood said he would address a meeting of KUAC members at 3:30 p.m. today in the Burge Union and inform them of the decision made by the executive committee.
Local company decides not to lease new buses
Staff writer
By Juli Warren
Staff who brought road leading to four new buses for the Lawrence Bus Co. finally became inaccessible, according to the president of the company.
Duane Ogle, president of the company, said yesterday, "We couldn't work up a suitable lease between the three parties."
KU on Wheels would have used the new buses, but the bus company plans to announce to the Lawrence City Commission tonight that it has withdrawn its proposal to lease buses from the city.
Officials from the three parties — the city, Lawrence Bus Co. and the Urban Mass Transportation Act — have been discussing the proposal to use federal UMTA funds to help pay for the buses, said Price Banks, city planning director.
UMTA would have paid $475,000 and the bus company would have paid $118,000 of the cost of the buses. To get UMTA funds, the city would need to have control of the buses. The city then would be leased them to Lawrence Bus Co.
would recommend tonight that the commission drop the city's application for funds because they no longer had an applicant.
lawrence Bus Co. Banks said the planning staff
Ogle said he was leery of the proposal because the city would have retained the power to establish or change routes.
"The city would be the owner, even though we're paying the local match." Ogle said.
The company had planned to use the buses for KU on Wheels, but Tim Boller, transportation coordinator for KU on Wheels, said the Student Senate Transportation Board wasn't willing to let the city decide routes.
Boller said about $7 of each student fee was used for the KU on Wheels program.
Ogle said the present city commission indicated that they would not change routes but he was concerned that future commissions might.
David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, said the purpose of applying to UMTA money was to help Ogle get buses for KU.
program.
"We're not going to use student fees to run a route that the students wouldn't use," Boller said."
Terry Burkart/KANSAN
The trees in Marvin Grove are lost in a thick fog. The fog is expected to continue through today, the KU Weather Service predicted.
Delegates appointed for study
Fogged in
From Kansan wires
CAPE CANAVERAL Ela
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — President Reagan appointed an independent commission yesterday to investigate the shuttle explosion. NASA sources said the agency's own investigation was looking at the possibility that the booster rocket was assembled incorrectly.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also reported that one of two sea bottom targets that some thought might be Challenger's crew compartment turned out to be a sunken helicopter and a small airplane.
See related story p. 2.
The surface debris search was expanded to as far north as Charleston, S.C.
Searchers have so far retrieved more than 11 tons of debris from Challenger, which weighed more than 310 tons without liquid fuel and solid propellant at time of blastoff.
Pathologists are examining human remains recovered from the Atlantic Ocean to see whether they are those of Challenger's astronauts.
The sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, would not disclose any information about the remains but said the remains had been taken to a hospital at nearby Patrick Air Force Base to be preserved and studied.
At the White House ceremony introducing the new board, NASA acting director William Graham refused to comment directly on the report.
"On the issue of human remains, all I can tell you at this point is that we are sensitive to the issue of personal effects and to the remains of the astronauts," he said. "We have plans to treat them with great dignity and great privacy, appropriate to the respect that we have for them."
The agency acknowledged five days earlier that one bone section washed ashore, but has never said whether it was identified as coming from an astronaut. It cautioned that
See SHUTTLE, p. 5, col. 1
Transactions with minors targeted
Drug distribution laws may stiffen
Staff writer
By Abbie Jones
A bill that toughens penalties for the distribution of controlled substances to minors awaits a vote from the Kansas House, state Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence, said yesterday.
The House Judiciary Committee last month approved the introduction of a bill that made it a class D felony to distribute most controlled drugs to a person under the age of 18 on the first offense, Solbach said.
Controlled substances are any depressant, stimulant or hallucinogenic drug not available by prescription. Alcoholic beverages are not included, state Rep. Edin Bideau, R-Chanute said. Distribution of drugs such as cocaine and opiates would continue to be a class C felony.
Class C felons receive a minimum sentence of three to five years and a maximum of 10 to 29 years. Class D felons receive a minimum sentence of one year in the state penitentiary, Bideau said.
"An adult over 18 best be careful of who they are giving drugs to," said Bideau, one of the bill's sponsors.
Distribution to adults remains a class A misdemeanor on the first offense, but is a class D felony on the second offense
courtney Bideau said the proposal will "rope in pushers who give out free samples in schools," and bring Kansas in line with the two-thirds of the other states which have similar laws.
The present law says that the sale of drugs must be proven before the charge is a class D felony on first offense. Under the proposal, the sale does not have to be proven when the exchange involves a minor, he said.
Sobach, a member of the committee, said the bill was meant to discourage people from distributing
second offense
Persons convicted of class A
misdemeanors are punished by a maximum sentence of one year in the county jail.
See DRUGS, p. 5, col. 4
Fumes send employees to hospital
by Brian Kaberline
Staff writer
Three employees of E & E Specialties, 910 E. 29th St., were treated and released from Lawrence Memorial Hospital after complaining of headaches and dizziness yesterday morning.
missions
Company officials first suspected a game but not think the problem was caused by a faulty exhaust system on a machine in the building.
Keith White, project manager for the company, said.
company, said.
The three employees were Connie L'Ecuyer, 22, Eudora; Russell Hoffer, 47, Liecrompton; and John Otero, 30, Lawrence, said Judith Hefley, hospital spokesman.
White said the workers were part of a crew working with a machine that produces cardboard. Four workers started to complain of headaches and dizziness about 10:45 a.m., and plant operations were halted at that time, he said.
The building was checked for gas leaks and the presence of any toxic
Hefley said the three had an unusually high carbon monoxide content in their bodies.
See GAS, p. 5, col. 1
Mark Mohier/KANSAN
Paramedics hoisted John Otero, 30, an employee of E & E Specialties, 910 E. 29th St., into an ambulance yesterday after he and two other employees complained of headaches and dizziness.
New computer system posts student's records
By Tom Farmer Staff writer
A more efficient system for recording completed academic requirements in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is being phased in, Robert Adams, associate dean of the college, said yesterday.
"Our present system is accurate but it's labor intensive," he said. "We're trying to design a system that is more efficient."
The Academic Requirements Tracking System is a computer program that posts the most up-to-date information on a student's progress toward completing the core requirements for a bachelor of arts or bachelor of general studies degree in the college.
Robert Lineberry, de of the college, said the ARTS system was designed to give information immediately and efficiently.
David Mannering, systems analyst and designer of the ARTS program;
The program will replace the current system of updating students' summary sheets by hand.
Adams began working on the ARTS program about 2½ years ago. It was used last semester for freshman advising. Adams said that within two to three years the system would be used to help advise about 11,000 students in the college.
said the computer system was more consistent than checking requirements by hand.
Instead of clerks checking off the completed requirements individually, the ARTS program extracts the information it needs directly from a student data base, where all liberal arts student records are kept, Mannering said. The program computes seven to eight summary sheets a minute.
Lindy Eakin, college budget officer, said the system cost the amount of Mannering's services plus $4.100 for an IBM mini-computer.
Adams said in the long run the system would be less expensive than the current process.
it will require less people than doing it by hand, and we won't need as much storage space," he said.
Adams said the process would update records once a semester instead of only once an academic year as is the case with the present system.
Albert Cook, associate professor of English and coordinator of undergraduate studies and advising for the English department, praised the new system.
"It it updates fast and it's virtually automatic," Cook said. "Students can even make copies of them to have for their own files. I think it's nifty."