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The University Daily Kansan
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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Thursday, April 26, 2001
Sports: Kansas baseball team beat Newman University 5-3 last night.
SEE PAGE 10A
Inside: A $100,000 donation by the makers of Viagra will help erect a new building.
USPS 650-640 • VOL. 111 NO. 129
SEE PAGE 3A
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole or Mindie Miller at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Steak house closing leaves KU students unemployed
By Cassandra Taylor and Megan Gragert writer@kansan.com
Special to the Kansan
About 27 University of Kansas students were looking for new jobs Monday after a year of financial problems forced the BarbWire Steak House, 2412 Iowa St., to close.
The restaurant plans to reopen after making menu and marketing changes.
Meanwhile, many student employees found themselves in a tough position with finals coming up and little time to look for a job. Some said they would call parents for money, while others will depend on savings.
Casey Meyer, BarbWire employee and Topeka junior, and said she had filed a claim for unemployment.
Some employees are eligible for immediate unemployment aid, but it takes three to four weeks before the first check arrives.
"I'm going to start looking for employment as soon as finals are over," she said.
The shutdown came as a surprise to many BarbWire employees.
Stacy Rosner, Wichita senior, had worked at BarbWire for about a year.
"I was stunned, shaken up and worried," she said. "It's a bad time right now because it's the 23rd and rent's due on the first."
Steve McMurray,
a manager of
BarbWire
for more than two
"It's a bad time right now because it's the 23rd and rent's
due on the first."
Stacy Rosner former BarbWire employee and Wichita senior
years, said BarbWire went out of business partly because of ownership problems. The home office had not paid bills on time, he said. The local BarbWire had paid for the food on the premises, while the home office took care of all the other bills.
"Outstanding bills would take a couple of months, and we would get cutoff notices," he said.
Bob Langford, a spokesman for Spartan Food Group, the corporate parent of BarbWire, said he was not aware of any bills, paid or unpaid, by the home office. Spartan, based in Madison, Tenn., owns restaurants in other states operating under the names Tumbleweed, Marmolia and Fazoli's.
BarbWire's business problems went even deeper. McMurray said that a year ago Tumbleweed of Tennessee and Spartan Food Group owned BarbWire jointly. The problems occurred when the company started to divide. Four to five months went by before Spartan started paying back bills, McMurray said.
He said Tumbleweed had $80,000 worth of unpaid credit card receipts. So, when Spartan took over, "We were really in the hole," he said.
Financial problems had been long in coming. Gross sales last month averaged $21,500 a week, compared to this time last year, when gross sales averaged $23,500 a week. McMurray said.
McMurray said total sales food costs should be around 38 percent, bar sales 25 percent and labor costs less than 20 percent. But the food costs this year averaged around 40 percent, bar costs 27 to 30 percent and labor costs approximately 25 percent.
"Applelee's is on the TV and radio all the time, and Chili's does a good job of that too," he said of the local competitors.
"We need to come back in and change the menu so it is simpler, faster, better and brighten it up outside," Pittman said.
John Pittman, director of operations for Spartan, said the main reason things did not go well for BarbWire was poor marketing. When BarbWire reopens, he plans to advertise on television and radio.
Editors's note: Cassandra Taylor was a BarbWire employee until the restaurant's closing was announced.
Tax hike would aid universities
Proposal would add $10.8 million to budget
By Cassio Furtado writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas' budget problems could be eased with a beer and a smoke.
Edited by Megan Phelps
Gov. Bill Graves proposed a raise in the state sales tax from 4.9 percent to 5.1 percent yesterday, which would increase the cost of a six-pack of beer by 10 cents and make a pack of cigarettes cost six cents more, adding $10.8 million to the state's higher education budget — the budget that goes to state colleges and universities.
The governor's proposal, which also would give $60 million more to public primary and secondary schools, would
begin Sunday, July 1.
"Regardless of past policy decisions, when revenues are less than projected, adjustments must be made — it is that simple," Graves said in a letter to legislators.
The state's revenue was $206 million less than expected for this year.
He said Graves couldn't focus exclusively on the cuts being made by the Legislature, but that he also should find alternative ways of generating money to fix the state's budget problems.
Don Brown, the governor's communications director, said Graves saw reduced spending and an increase in the sale tax as complementary.
Provost David Shulenburger said he wasn't concerned about how the state would generate revenue. Shulenburger said the University's concern was the need for resources to carry out its services.
"The governor and the Legislature
have to deal with the question of the appropriate source of funds," he said.
Shayla Vandavee, Platte City, Mo., sophomore, said a sales tax hike, even if it increased the price of beer and cigarettes, would be helpful to the University.
She said that because most KU students were consumers of both products, the campus would be a good source of revenue.
Graves' plan comes after the House Appropriations Committee cut $1 million dollars from the University's current budget at its meeting Monday.
The Legislature's plan would give higher education $16.6 million next year — $4.2 million less than was appropriated in this year's budget.
Lindy Eakin, associate provost, said on Monday that, if approved by the Legislature, the cut would be devastating to the University.
He said the University had three salary payment periods left in this fiscal year
and, at this point of the year, had no alternatives to save money.
The Kansas Senate budget-writing committee rejected Graves' amendments to the state's budget Friday that would have given the University $2.8 million to pay utility bills and to restore money for an instructional technology first allocated three years ago.
After Graves' original budget recommendations in January, KU administrators announced in February that all schools, departments, academic units and administrative offices would have their budgets cut by 0.57 percent in fiscal year 2001, causing a halt on hiring faculty and staff.
For fiscal year 2002, the cut would be 0.98 percent, which would amount to almost $2 million.
- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
— Edited by Jason McKee
Logan Fleming. Olathe senior, sits alone at a table at Wescoe Terrace while preparing to inject himself with insulin before lunch. Regulating glucose levels is a constant struggle for diabetics
Most students live on fast food and keggers, but diabetics must maintain a healthy diet
Logan Fleming woke up in the mid- middle of the night weak and woody. The lanky senior untangled himself from his sheets and crawled to
the foot of his bed where a ladder led 10 feet down to his bedroom floor. Halfway down, a bout of dizziness made him stop and regain his composure before he reached the floor.
Fleming quickly opened the refrigerator door and bit into a bagel. Within minutes, he felt stronger and his head cleared. The late-night snack helped him overcome the low blood sugar that he gets as a Type 1 diabetic. Also known as juvenile diabetes, this
Story by Michelle Ward Photos by Matt Daugherty
While no one knows for sure how many Type 1 diabetics are at the University, it most likely follows the national average, meaning Fleming is about one of 70 to 100 KU students who suffer from this form of diabetes. It strikes more than 30,000 Americans each year, including 13,000 children, which means 35 children are
type is the most severe form of diabetes, affecting more than one million people.
afflicted each day. Type 1 diabetes also shortens diabetics' average life span by more than 15 years.
Diabetics can suffer dizziness and convulsions and can go into a coma and even die unless they consistently monitor levels of glucose level, using diet, exercise and insulin injections to keep blood sugars normal. Type 1 diabetics are insulin-dependent because the disease strikes the
pancreas, which produces insulin.
The constant maintenance and strict daily routine diabetics need to stay healthy contrasts sharply with college life. While diabetics need fruits, vegetables and healthy foods along with regular sleep and exercise, student life includes pizza, fast food, late nights cramming for tests and parties centered around kegs of beer. Complicating the matter is that for the first time, student diabetics are away
See DIABETICS on page 6A
Department chooses unusual Rock of the Week
By Sarah Warren
writer@kansan.com
kansan Staff writer
Professor's gallstone on display in Lindley
As a professor of geology, Don Steeples has seen a lot of rocks, but his eyes bulged when he saw a rock that his body created: a gallstone the size of a huge unshelled pecan.
In fact, the stone, removed in
surgery Friday, impressed one of Steeples' colleagues so much that the two-inch long calcium and cholesterol deposit is now on display in the Rock of the Week case on the third floor of Lindley Hall.
Roger Kaelser, professor of geology and the man in charge of the Rock of the Week display case, said that it just seemed right to put the stone in the case, especially because it was made by a department employee.
we ve nad kidney stone and bladder stones in the Rock of the Week
before," Kaelser said. "So, we decided to put it in because gallstones and things like them are pseudo-rocks."
Other pseudo-rocks to grace the case include a bladder stone from China the size of a tennis ball and a stalactite, an icicle-shaped deposit of calcium carbonate, from an airconditioning duct.
And while the stone rotates on a little turtable as Rock of the Week No. 650 along with a poem Steeples wrote, he is adjusting to life with
See PROFESSOR on page 3A
Don Steeleps, professor of geology, had a gallstone the size of a huge unshredded pecan. The gallstone, a two-inch calcium and cholesterol deposit, is on display on the third floor of Lindley Hall.
Photo by Christina Neff/KANSAN
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