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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details. page 2
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Wednesday
March 11, 1987
Vol. 97, No. 113
(USPS 650-640)
Hayden proposes bill to aid state's 'brain drain'
Merit scholars would be given tax credit on student loans for living, working in Kansas
By CHRISTOPHER HINES
TOPEKA — Kansas soon may be paying its honor students to stay in the state to head off what Gov. Mike Hayden calls the Kansas "brain drain."
Staff writer
Hayden yesterday submitted a bill to the House that would give national merit scholar's a tax credit on their student loans if they decided to live and work in Kansas after they graduated from college. The graduates can now state tax credits to help repay their loans.
Hayden said in a press statement accompanying the bill that the state needed to provide incentives to keep those students who
excelled from leaving.
"We need their minds and their energies," he said. "Kansas can never keep all of her sons and daughters at home, nor should we.
"However, too many of our best and brightest leave the state for career opportunities elsewhere, never to return to their native state."
"I understand the problem," said State Rep. John Solbach, D-Lawrence. "But I don't believe you can make people stay in Kansas."
State Rep. Bill Bunten, R-Topeka, chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, said the financial costs of the program would have to be looked at in light of the budget restraints now confronting the state.
"I guess it’s a good idea," Burten said. "How much will it cost is always the most important."
David Prager III, a lawyer with the Kansas Department of Revenue, said he was waiting for the Legislature to send over the bill to determine its financial costs to the state.
"I know the state has set up similar programs for medical students and teachers," said Prager, who drafted the bill. "But for now, we can only estimate its cost and
Prager said Hayden had not asked for a cost estimation when he originally requested the bill be drafted.
benefits."
Kansas had 142 national merit scholarls in 1985, 145 in 1986, and is expected to have 146 this year. National merit scholars are high school students from all over the nation who gain the highest scores on the PSAT and SAT college entrance exams.
The bill would award $16,000 over a six-year period to Kansas high school honor students who graduated after 1984, with no student allowed to claim more than $4,000 a year.
Kansas high school honor graduates who
attended an accredited university in another state, but then returned to Kansas, also would be eligible for the tax credit on their loans.
Hayden said the honor student tax credit was an important step to the future economic development of the state.
"To attract these students after they graduate we must provide career opportunities and incentives to put their talents to work for Kansas," he said.
"Kansas has long exported our most basic and valuable resource to other states and countries. This program will help reverse the problem by the door for a return of our finest students."
Easv does it
Kansas City, Kan., juniors Stepheny Donaldson and Brian Daniel balance on a rail behind Murphy Hall. The two took a break yesterday afternoon from clearing the set of the play "Brighton Beach Memoirs."
Counsel says immunity could hamper North case
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh asked the House panel on the Iran-contra scandal yesterday to delay granting immunity to Oliver North and two other key figures for 90 days so he can build evidence for possible criminal indictments.
Two Republicans on the special panel said they favored waiting for Walsh to solidify his evidence, but made no promises they would adhere to his request for a 90-day delay.
The House and Senate investigating committees are under stricter deadlines than Walsh, and members want to speed up the process by granting immunity to the key witnesses.
ses. Walsh fears that such action could jeopardize any criminal cases he is building.
Walsh said he would make the same request for a 90-day delay when he meets with the Senate panel headed by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. That committee is pressing for "use" immunity for North and former national security adviser Jooin Doindexter to allow them to fill in the gaps in the Iran arms-contra aid controversy.
The two men, said to be the only administration officials who know the whole Iran-contra story, have refused to testify unless granted some sort of immunity from prosecution, citing their Fifth Amendment right against possible self-incrimina-
tion.
Rep. Michael DeWine, R-Ohio, said after the 90-minute Capitol Hill meeting instigated by Walsh that the group will discuss or vote on Walsh's request.
"He made a very strong argument," said DeWine, who said Walsh believed the delay in granting immunity to North, Poindexter and a North associate, Richard Secord, was necessary for him to put his case together.
"There is an inevitable jeopardy to prosecution from a premature grant of immunity." Walsh said after the meeting. "I asked the committee to defer consideration of immunity for North and Poindexter . . . in order for us to proceed with our prosecution."
Organ donations can bring joy to recipients,family of deceased
Staff writer
By JENNIFER WYRICK
Thirty-five year-old Jack Umbehr was chopping firewood in January on his land near Topeka when a limb from a falling tree hit him on the head, killing him.
But some of Jack Umbreh's organs in today because of his wife's incestation.
"After Jack died, the first thing that came to my mind was to donate Jack's organs because he was so sick," Barbara Umbree said yesterday.
"We were disappointed because we couldn't keep Jack's blood pressure high enough to be able to transplant his vital organs," she said. "But we did donate two of his heart valves, and his skin, bones and eyes."
Barbara Umbehr and others in her situation often find donating a loved one's organs to be a positive experience because of the joy it can bring to someone in need. March has been designated as National Eye Donor Association or Eye Bank Association of America.
"Often, the gift of an eye or other organ can be a positive experience for the family of a deceased person." said Jean Jones, executive director of the Kansas Eye Bank at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
There is a great deal of awareness throughout the nation of the beneficial aspects of organ donation, Jones said. She attributed the increase in part to many states passing a "required-request" law.
Last session, the Kansas Legislature passed the law, which requires doctors to ask relatives of dying or ill patients to consider organ donation
Jones said the law heightened
awareness among members of the medical profession, hospitals, families and communities of the importance of donating organs.
"The Kansas Legislature should be commended for getting the law on the books," Jones said. "Death is inevitable, so the least that we can do is create something positive. Point out to families that they have the family donate organs, offering these families a choice, can often be therapeutic."
The new law has created a substantial increase in the amount of corneal tissue donated to the Kansas Eye Bank. Jones said donations had increased an estimated 40 to 50 percent since the law went into effect July 1.
In many cases, potential donors are victims of a motor vehicle acci-
See EYE. n. 6. col. 3
INSIDE
Guard Evente Ott is the only member of the women's basketball team who remembers the last time the Jayhawks played Northeast Louisiana, the Jayhawks first opponent in the NCAA tournament. See story page 13.
Memories
The Kansas University Endowment Association is midway through its annual telephone campaign to raise unrestricted funds for the University of Kansas. See story page 5.
Phone talk
KU profs debate death penalty
By JOHN BUZBEE
David Gottlieb and Emil Tonkovich, both law professors who have testified before legislative committees this session, say they just want to give state legislators the facts on the death penalty. But their facts are different.
Two KU professors have carried their death penalty debate from the classroom to the Capitol in the state's continuing struggle whether to reinstate capital punishment.
Staff writer
Tonkovich said yesterday that the death penalty was cost-effective. Gothic said it wasn't. They both arguments on numbers, not emotions
Gottlieb bases his estimate of the death penalty's cost on state predictions of the number of death penalty cases. Tonkovich said the state's estimate was eight times the national average.
Gottlieb said, "I think they may be a little bit high. I think Professor Taylor was good."
The death penalty would be very
See DEBATE p. 64 col 4
Local man pursues peace with Soviets
By TODD COHEN
Staff writer
A couple of weeks ago, four Kansans were invited to a Moscow peace conference.
The group included an attorney general, a mayor and a city commissioner. But it was the fourth member, an insurance agent named Bob Swan, who was contacted by the Soviets first.
For four years, Swan has pursued the idea that Lawrence be the site of a "Meeting for Peace" summit to Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
And he was a founder of Athletes United For Peace, a group that brought Soviet athletes to the 1983 Kansas Relays.
He also founded the Elbe Alliance, which brought Soviet World War II veterans to Lawrence in 1985 during the 40th anniversary celebration of the 20th anniversary of at least Germany's Elbe River.
But Swan, 44. a New York Life Insurance agent, does not fit the stereotypical anti-nuke activist mold
He pursues his peace work as if it were an insurance policy, using organization and heavy promotion. No spontaneous demonstrations here. He prefers to be a "citizen dispatrol."
It didn't begin that way, though. While on a business trip to New
"It was just an incredible, energizing event," he said. "What impressed me so much about that was it was a real cross-section of Americans. This wasn't a fringe affair. It wasn't a single arrest all day."
Returning to Lawrence, he learned that a nuclear disaster movie, "The Day After," would be filmed here. He started attending college and attended Justice meetings and soon after hit upon a way to pursue peace.
Jersey in 1982, he decided to cross the river and walk in a New York City disarmament march.
"It left an imprint on me for life."
Because of a policy he designed that insured athletes against career-ending injuries, Swan had worked with many sports figures and recognized their immense popularity.
"I had been thinking about how
children could play a role in society."
unless one could play a role in society
... to create an awareness of the
nuclear threat." he said.
The invitation to Soviet athletes to attend the Kansas Ralies, which went through the Soviet embassy in Washington, followed. It sparked the Lawrence summit idea.
The summit is important, Swan said, because peace with the Soviets is possible. The Soviets simply want respect.
Bob Swan, chairman of the Lawrence Meeting for Peace Committee, displays a bulletin board in his office covered with peace-promotion memorabilia. Swan was one of four Lawrence residents invited last month to the Moscow peace conference.
Swan's optimism and open feeling toward the Soviets is deep. Because both his brother and step-sister died young, leaving him the family's sole survivor, he feels a
"There's the opportunity to build a different kind of peace, if we're willing to work with Soviets as partners."
See SWAN, p. 8, col. 1
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