10
Tuesday, April 7, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Four years marked with success and controversy
Continued from p. 1
wrong.
They just didn't vote for the best man.
Other commissioners were appalled that Longhurst had acted without consulting them.
Longhurst said his response to them was: "I would not say or do anything unless it was the right thing to do. If this commission isn't happy with the things I'm doing, I'll step aside. But if you are, then get out of my way.
"People don't want politicians to be honest," Longhurst says. "If you tell it like it is, you're going to get fired. I don't have any patience for that."
Leader. not follower
That impatience for protocol and rules for the sake of rules dates back more than twenty years, beginning at the late 1980s, before it secured for a tour of duty in Vietnam.
Longhurst, born in Pennsylvania before moving as a child with his family to Corrales, New Mexico, dropped out of college at the University of New Mexico in 1964 and joined the Marines.
In 1966 he left for a tour of duty in Danang, Vietnam. A recruiting officer told him that with his brains, a quick series of promotions was in the cards.
But in Danang, Longhurst never
went on a dangerous mission. He encountered no enemy deadlier than boredom.
Because of his tendency to be sassy with his superiors, he said, he spent much of his time cleaning toiletis. There were no promotions.
"In the Marine Corps, you're not supposed to think or have initiative, and there's a very good reason for that," he said.
Returning to the United States in 1967, Longhurst had no desire to go back to school. Nor did he care much for going to work for another person, prompting him to start his own business.
His parents since had moved to Lawrence. Longhurst used the basement of their home to set up a printing shop he called House of Usher. Longhurst said he'd always be a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, author of the horror story titled "The Fall of the House of Usher." But he named his business after his mother, whose maiden name is Usher.
For the first few years, it was a business he ran alone. Income went as low as $200 a month. But in 1973, the business prospered. It has not stopped growing. Today, he said, the House of Usher employs 22 people.
Making foreign policy
It was with that record as a successful businessman that Longhurst ran for city commissioner in 1983. In
On his first night on the commission, Longhurst was elected mayor by the commission members.
his election campaign. Longhurst promised to promote business and economic development in the city
Almost immediately he began to do the things that would earn him both praise and scorn.
In 1883, a group of Soviet athletes visited Lawrence, and a banquet was held in their honor. Longhurst, who attended the banquet, found himself sitting next to an athlete who knew no English.
Since Longhurst knew no Russian, communication between the two was limited to nervous smiles, nods and an occasional grunt, he said.
Finally, desperate to get his Soviet guest to understand him, Longhurst pointed to his then 13-year-old son, and gestured that the boy was his son.
The Soviet athlete understood. He pulled out his wallet, took out a picture of a young boy and gave it to Longhurst. The boy, he gestured, was his son.
There was no trouble communicating after that. Longhurst said.
It was an electric moment. Longhurst remembers. Suddenly the Soviet athlete was a parent much like himself, not a national enemy.
"We understood each other," Longhurst said. "All of a sudden he wasn't that alien."
The excitement of being able to communicate with the athlete led
Longhurst to call on President Reagan and then-Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to meet in Lawrence to see if they could iron out their differences.
"It was crazy," Longhurst said.
"But I was sincere."
Domestic dissent
That began Longhurst's four-year association with the idea of superpower peace, culminating with his trip to Moscow in February at the invitation of the Soviet government
It also began his association with a kind of politics that some Lawrence residents considered so liberal as to be abhorrent.
"There are many who think the city shouldn't have a foreign policy," said Ernest Angino, a colleague of Longhurst's on the city commission and a candidate for re-election. "There were many who didn't approve of his trip to the Soviet Union. I have a feeling his timing was just wrong."
In March 1986, the city commission, with Longhurst's prodding, passed an ordinance restricting the sale of handguns. The ordinance was in response to the 1985 suicide of a KU student, who killed herself with a handgun she had bought only a few hours earlier.
The public furor resulting from his initiative, Longhurst said, was something he'd never seen before.
confiscate every firearm in the state," he said. "You shouldn't be able to walk into a store and buy a gun the way you would a toaster."
Many Lawrence residents disagreed. For several weeks during the commission debate on the ordinance, Longhurst's son received phone calls from people who told him they were going to kill his father.
That controversy, Longhurst says,
significantly damaged his chances for
a Senate run.
Despite his apparently liberal positions on superpower peace and the handgun ordinance, Longhurst could sometimes appear to govern from
"My God, you'd think I'd asked to
In 1895, he argued against community development funds to the Council on Community Services, a welfare group that had been conducting studies on shelter and nutrition needs for the homeless. As a result, the group was forced to disband.
"David has been the most outspoken opponent of funding human services on this commission," said Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, then the group's coordinator. "I just wish his peace efforts extended to those in need in our own community."
the other side of the political spectrum.
Fall positions available for
The University Daily Kansan Business Manager
and Editor
Application deadline is today. Applications available in 200 Stauffer-Flint or 119 Stauffer-Flint
The Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs is having an informational
informational
activities for summer and fall.
meeting regarding
New members are welcome!
time: 6:30 p.m.
place: 507 Summerfield Hall
date: April 8,1987
CONTRA AID & NICARAGUA
WHERE IS THEROAD LEADING?
TUESDAY, APRIL 7
7:30 p.m.
PIONEER ROOM BURGE UNION
SPONSORED BY
K. U. DEMOCRATS
AND
COLLEGE REPUBLICANS
CONTRA AID DEBATE
College Republicans vs.
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Public Invited:
7:00 p.m. TONIGHT Pioneer Room BURGE UNION
IMPORTANT NOTICE
STUDENT SENATE ELECTIONS
Polling Places
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Wednesday, April 8th
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