Campus and Area
University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 1, 1987
3
Local Briefs
Hart to return for speeches in Ottawa
Former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colorado, will return to his home-town of Ottawa today to speak at Ottawa University.
Hart will speak at 7 p.m. at the Ottawa University chapel, a spokesman for the university said. He also is scheduled to speak at Ottawa High School tomorrow morning.
Last day to drop for manv schools
Hart is considered the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, although he hasn't formally announced his candidacy yet.
Today is the last day to drop regular, 16-week classes offered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and some schools at the University of Kansas.
Students in those classes may drop today and still receive a withdraw notice on their transcripts. The college and some schools require a petition to drop a class after today.
Services tomorrow for KU librarian
Memorial services for Kermit Seewell, a KU librarian for more than 30 years, are scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow in Danforth Chapel. Mr. Seewell, 61, died March 11 after a long illness.
Mr. Sewell began working in the KU library system as a student in the early 1950s before joining the library staff full time in 1957. For the last 20 years, he worked as a cataloger and Slavic exchanges librarian in the Watson Library Slavic department.
"Although handicapped by deafness and shyness, Kermit will long be remembered by all who came in contact with him," said Gordon Anderson, director of the library's Slavic department.
Library staff members will conduct a memorial tribute at the service.
Mr. Sewell earned bachelor's degrees in history and German literature at KU in 1953 and a master's degree in library science at the University of Wisconsin in 1966.
Central America talk rescheduled
Elliott Abrams, U.S. assistant secretary of state for inter-America affairs, has changed the date of his appearance at the University of Kansas from April 8 to April 2) because of scheduling conflicts.
Abrams will speak at 1 p.m. April 21 in the Ballroom of the Kansas University on "Central America: What Are the Alternatives?"
Corrections
Because of a reporter's error, Gordon Woods was identified incorrectly in yesterday's Kansan. Woods is vice chairman of the University Senate Executive Committee.
Because of a reporter's error, the name of Frank Hempen, Douglass County public works director, is dispelled in yesterday's Kansan.
Because of a reporter's error, the name of convicted murderer Arnold Ruebke was misspelled in Monday's Kansan. Ruebke is in prison for the murders of three people in 1984 near Arlington, Kan.
From staff and wire reports.
House override is no kiss for Agnes
By TODD COHEN
Staff writer
The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday easily overrode, 350-73, President Reagan's veto of an $88 billion highway bill that would allocate $7.2 million for the construction of a south Lawrence trafficway.
The vote came the same day that Agnes The Frog, last year's symbolic anti-trafficway candidate for Douglas County commission, emerged from hibernation and publicly thanked Reagan for vetoring the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole said the Senate would vote Wednesday to either sustain or override Reagan's veto. Lawrence and Doug Emhoff officials are relying on federal money to help finance the roadway.
Rene Wessels, press secretary to U.S. Rep Jim Slattery, D-Kan., who voted to override, said Slattery thought it would be disastrous for Kansas if the Senate upheld Reagan's veto, thereby killing the bill.
An alternative highway bill, offered by Reagan, would delete $42 million allocated for Kansas highway maintenance and projects, including the Lawrence trafficway, Wessels said.
U.S. Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan,
was the only Kansas representative
to vote to sustain the veto. Democrat Dan Glickman and Republicans Jan Meyers and Bob Whittaker voted to override.
However, Kansas' senators, Dole and Nancy Kassbaum, have said that the president is not aware.
Opponents to the trafficway, or bypass, ran Agnes The Frog as a write-in candidate against County Commissioner Nancy Hiebert, a trafficway supporter, in November. The fictitious frog won 1,850 votes, or 28 percent of the vote.
Agnes' supporters, the Committee to Elect A True Amphibian, charged that the roadway would damage the Baker Wetlands south of Lawrence. The area is the home of the endangered Northern Crawfish frog.
In the letter, Simmons told the president, "You were absolutely right in calling the highway bill a *pork barrel* politics at work."
Yesterday, John Simmons, committee treasurer, sent a letter to Reagan on Agnes' behalf.
"No doubt local pork-barrelers are disappointed with your veto, but taxpayers and people who care about the environment are appauling."
United Press international supplied some information for this story.
Dannv Rav/KANSAN
A yarn decoration hangs near the ceiling in an architectural studio in Marvin Hall. Because of fire hazards, the dean of architecture recently formed a committee to redefine regulations governing how students can decorate their work areas. See story page 12.
Legal Aid clinic assists residents; students receive credit for work
By CAROLINE REDDICK
Staff writer
Mary Bennett panicked when her landlord called her at 9 a.m. one day to tell her she had to move out of her apartment by 5 p.m.
"I was hysterical," said Bennett, a Lawrence resident who was a week late with her rent. "I have a 15-month-old baby and I didn't have a vehicle. There was no way for me to move my things."
Bennett said that she called the Salvation Army and was referred to the Douglas County Legal Aid Society, Inc. A Legal Aid lawyer told her that she didn't have to move out until three days after being served a formal eviction notice by someone in the sheriff's office.
"They really took care of me," she said. "I was really panicky when I called, and he reassured me. He said, 'They can't do that, they're using scare tactics. They can't throw you out on the street.'"
"So after that I calmed down. Even just three days would give me time to pack and find a place to go," she said.
KU's School of Law. It provides legal services to Douglas County residents who meet financial guidelines. It also provides services to non-Douglas County residents who are being tried in the county and qualify financially.
Legal Aid is a clinical program in
Third-year law students certified by the Kansas Supreme Court handle the program's cases, said Jan Henry. Legal Aid office manager
Dennis Prater, associate professor of law and director of Legal Aid, said that the financial guidelines were based on government statistics.
"All our clients meet the test for very low income under federal poverty guidelines," Prater said. "As a general rule, University students don't qualify because we attribute their parents' income to them."
Prater said that about 15 percent of Legal Aid's clients were students, but the majority of those were Haskell Indian Junior College students.
He said that Legal Aid lawyers did not work on felonies, for business interests or for fee-generating personal injury cases.
Legal Aid handles about 1,000 cases a year, Prater said. He said about a third of the cases involved domestic
relations, a third involved criminal defense and a third involved a mixture of cases, such as landlord/tenant disputes.
"We get a lot of referrals from the court system," Prater said. "We serve basically as the public defender's office for the municipal court. Some district court cases are handled by social services refer clients."
Law students who work in Legal Aid receive three credit hours a semester for a minimum of 10 hours of work a week, Prater said. Usually 25 law students are in the program, and most carry eight to 10 cases at a time. He said that most students involved thought the work was well worth the experience.
Michael Waddell, third-year law student who works in legal Aid, said that it provided a practical application of his legal education.
"And of course it helps us in one area we're never taught in law school and that's how to deal with people," Waddell said.
Ccyndi Hurst, Lawrence resident went to Legal Aid recently for help in a domestic relations case.
City will help studio
By TODD COHEN
Staff writer
The cameras will return to Lawrence this summer to film a movie, a man who already has produced one movie in Lawrence announced last night.
The producer, Doug Curtis, made the surprise announcement at a Lawrence City Commission meeting after commissioners agreed to pass a resolution of intent to issue industrial revenue bonds for the construction of a movie studio in Lawrence.
Curtis said filming of "Spring Chicken" would start in July under the direction of Hoyt Caston, a KU graduate.
The movie Curtis filmed in Lawrence last year. "Nice Girls Don't Explode," will have its premiere at 8 ontuned at the Granada Theater, 1020 Massachusetts St.
Curtis, a KU graduate, wants to build Oread Studios in the University Corporate Research Park, 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive.
The resolution he requested would help his company, Oread Entertainment Group, get the Internal Revenue Service's approval to make industrial revenue bonds tax-exempt. Curtis said. IRS approval could be granted within 90 days, he said.
Commissioners passed the resolution after presentations by Curtis; Jerry Jones, coordinator of the Kansas Film Commission; Bobby Patton, chairman of the KU theater and media arts department; and Ray Barmby, vice president of Blunt Ellis & Loewi, a Kansas City, Kan., brokerage firm.
Actress Marj Dusay, a Kansas native who starred in the CBS-TV soap opera "Capitol" also spoke.
Barmby, who has agreed to sell the bonds for Curtis, said that tax-exempt status helped attract investors. Without the exemption, investors are taxed for interest earned on the bonds, he said.
Curtis has a 50 percent chance of winning IRS approval, Barmby said. If the IRS does approve, Curtis will be eligible to receive bond values worth $3.5 million, he said.
The project would proceed even if IRS rejects Curtis' application, Barmby said, but construction would be delayed and costs could double.
"Tax-exempt bonds are special incentives to cause things to happen now rather than later." Curtis said.
If all goes well, construction of the 28,000 square-foot studio could begin in August and be completed next April. Curtis said.
GLSOK hopes to reduce prejudice through awareness
Staff writer
Rv PAUL SCHRAG
Events such as Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week are necessary because prejudice against homosexuals is rampant in the United States. KU gay rights advocates said this week.
KU'S Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas, the third-oldest university gay organization in the country, has faced opposition in the past. But by focusing attention on homosexuality one week each year, GLSOK supporters say they hope to work toward ending prejudice based on sexual orientation.
GLSOK officials said GALA week, which continues through Saturday, had been sponsored annually at KU for about 10 years.
"The fact that it's controversial and that some people are bothered by it shows the extent to which homophobia exists in our society," said Todd Rowlett, GLOSK secretary.
The fight against what many people have termed homophobia, fear or prejudice toward homosexuals, is progressing but has a long way to go. GLSOK supporters said.
"Obviously, we haven't been totally successful because we are still here," said Craig Miller, former GLSOK president. "A clause in our bylaws calls for us to disband when gay and lesbian people are accepted as productive members of society and when people aren't judged by their sexual orientation.
"Unfortunately, that goal is still a long way off."
GLSOK officers said the group existed to provide a support system for gay students, to educate the public about homosexuality and to promote gay rights.
GLSOK traces its roots to the founding in 1969 of the KU Gay Liberation Front. This year, typical attendance at GLSOK's biweekly meetings has been about 20.
GALA week events continue today with a speech on developing a healthy gay/lesbian identity by Elizabeth Gowdy, Lawrence graduate student and social welfare research assistant, at 6:30 p.m. in the West Gallery of the Kansas Union.
Tomorrow will be the annual "Wear Blue Jeans If You're Gay Day," which GLSOK officials say is intended to show that a person's
sexual orientation shouldn't be an issue of concern to others.
Also tomorrow, Jack Bremer, director of Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread Ave., will speak on "Christianity and Alternative Sexual Orientations" at 7:30 p.m. in the West Gallery of the Union.
GLSOK faced controversy most recently in fall 1984 when more than 2,500 people signed a petition requesting a campus vote on Student Senate financing for GLSOK. But Miller said she was unsure whether she was ties with financing after that. He said the group had won acceptance as an organization with a right to exist.
Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare and GLOSK faculty adviser, said that GLSOK had made an impact at KU but that society's
prejudices required many years to change.
"Homophobia hasn't changed hardly at all," he said. "It might even be a little worse with the connection people make with AIDS."
Dailey said identifying AIDS as a homosexual disease was narrow-minded and inaccurate. It was only an accident, he said, that AIDS first appeared in the United States primarily in the homosexual population. The disease originated in Africa among heterosexuals and is affecting an increasing number of heterosexuals in the United States.
statutes of the percentage of homosexuals in the population range from 5 percent to 10 percent, Dailey said.
THURS: 75° Pitchers 4 p.m. - 3 a.m. $1.00 cover
CONGRATULATIONS
INITIATES
WE LOVE YOU
Renting has always been smart. Now it's easy too!
Come shop apartments. We'll find the best for you Absolutely Free!
GREAT PLACES Where renting is easy and smart!
345-8777