tuesday, march 16, 2004
news
the university daily kansar
3A
Students camp to raise awareness,money
By Patrick Cady
pcady@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Bright green mats of AstroTun and a gray and blue dome tent will help carry a grass-roots movement as the University of Kansas chapter of Choice USA prepares for a march on Washington.
Members of the group will be lounging and handing out information on Wescoe Beach from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day until Thursday. They will brave cold and rain to help raise money for the trip and spread information.
Their purpose is to help fight for individual rights, such as the rights to choose to use contraception and to reproduce or not, said Jana Mackey, Hays senior and member of the group.
"We need to raise awareness," Mackey said.
know that's a lot of people.'
Mackey's sale
The group is working to sell 300 tickets at $75 each to help send people to the April 23 weekend that includes a youth conference and a march on the Capitol that Sunday.
Katie Wolff, Shawnee junior, and Jana Mackey, Hays senior, recruited Cristen Bates, Springfield, Mo., senior, and her sister Cara, a freshman at Illinois Wesleyan, in front of Wescoe Hall yesterday. Volunteers will camp out in front of Wescoe Hall until Thursday to recruit participants for the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C.
"It's just the encouragement of seeing a million people," Mackey said. "And if even half of them go back and do work at home, you
The conference and the struggle also represent an issue of empowerment, said Katie Wolff. Shawnee junior and president of KU Choice USA.
"It's a good way to get our generation involved in the woman's rights movement," Wolff said.
As the group works to sell the tickets, it has found opposition in the form of indifference, she said.
"I think the hardest thing is just showing people," she said. "Letting people know that letting their voices be heard on a national level does help."
It's also hard because sometimes activists are few and far between in Kansas, Wolff said.
They also found opposition on a simpler level. Some people just don't know what being an abortion-rights activist means, that it's beyond just being a woman's issue, Mackey said.
"It's always been a contentious issue," Mackey said. "Choice is also the ability to choose to have a child."
Wolff said that the group hadn't found much vocal opposition being in the tent this week except for some backlash early in its
drive for support. In the past, scriptural e-mails overflowed to the group's e-mail account questioning its stance on abortion rights. Also, a rival group posted a rebuttal flier with the same design
and fonts as Choice USAs, said Wolff.
Choice USA's supporters include the Universal Unitarians, Methodists for Choice and the ACLU.
The group is also drawing support from students who hear about its message from events like the camp out on Wescoe Beach.
—Edited by Collin LaJoie
Tornado drill will sound throughout campus
By Neeley J. Spellmeier
nspellmeier@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
Alarm bells will go off today at the University of Kansas as it takes part in a statewide severe weather drill at 10:30 a.m.
The drill coincides with Severe Weather Awareness Week, which began yesterday. This is the second year the University has participated in this drill.
The purpose of the drill is to prepare students and faculty for what to do if an actual severe weather situation were to happen, said John Mullens, assistant director of the KU Public Safety Office. This is the only time the University tests the button that
sets the alarms off in all the buildings, Mullens said.
The drill is to test the alarms. Students and faculty will not have to seek shelter during the drill.
The internal alarms will sound in 20 buildings on campus.
External alarms are also being sounded, both on campus and throughout the county. One of the on-campus alarms is on top of Watson Library, and the other is near the Lied Center.
The alarm system comprises an attention-getting noise maker, followed by a voice declaring an emergency situation. About two minutes of dead air follow this, and then the alarm will go off again. Today, after the second
time the alarm goes off, the allclear signal will sound. If it were a real situation, the alarm would not shut off until it is safe.
Last year the National Weather Service reported that Kansas had 91 tornados, well above the annual average of 52.
In May 2003 a tornado touched down in western Lawrence and nearby areas. It was classified as an F-2 on the Fujita tornado damage scale, which means winds reached 113-157 miles per hour. The tornado was the most significant since 1981, according to an article published June 8, 2003, in The University Daily Kansan.
bversity Danny Hines
No one was killed in last spring's tornado, but 192 housing units and 98 buildings were damaged.
SEVERE WEATHER DRILL
The following buildings's severe weather alarms will sound at 10:30 a.m. today as part of a statewide drill.
Margaret Amini Scholarship Hall
K.K. Amini Scholarship Hall
Anschutz Pavilion/Wagnon/
Anderson/Parrott
Childcare Facility
Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics
Dyche Hall
Eaton Hall
Ellsworth Hall
Haworth Hall — Stewart Wing
JRP Hall
Kansas Union
Mullens said to go to the lowest level possible and to stay away
Lewis Hall/Mrs. E's
Lied Center/Bales Organ Recital
Hall
McColllum Hall — NTS section
Murphy Hall
Strong Hall
Student Recreation Center
Templin Hall/Visitor's Center
Twente Hall
Watkins Memorial Health Center
Source: KU Public Safety Office
from any glass in case of severe weather.
Edited by Cindy Yeo
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