PLEASANT
KANSAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Vol.87,No.140
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Related story, tornado map
Thursday, May 5.1977
See page five
Twister cuts destructive path across county
Ethel Danley, Route 3, Baldwin, was taken to the KU Medical Center for possible spinal injuries.
Staff photo by GEORGE MILLENER
House falls prey to bulldozing tornado
largest forest cloud sighted in Douglas County yesterday left a path of destruction that included at least 10 farm houses south of Bremerton.
By GARY VICE Staff Reporter
"The clouds were going every which way. But the funnel seemed to move a little south. It was dipping down a little at a time, and then there was a fog of smoke or dust.
"I figured that's when it hit those buildings over yonder."
Those buildings Harry Cox sighted were the barn and chicken house of Joe and Ada Bell Bathfeil.
A dirt road leading east from Highway 59 about nine miles south of Lawrence fortress what happened at the Helffrich home. The first sign of destruction was just past a blockade manned by a volunteer in an Amateur Radio Public Service vehicle.
HANGING FROM A telephone pole was a fence post with its wire mesh twisted wily, cascading into the ditch below. The long grasses on the bank were too tall to reach. The naked odor had dragged a rake over the countryside.
The raking was hahapachar, however. Tree limbs and power lines were lying in the road ahead. The horse ran away.
replaced by uprooted trees nearer the Helfrich's property.
The woods had not been beautiful since stiles in their front yard now were only splintery stubs, stripped borne by the winds. Household items had been scarred by the storm. The look looked as if it had been scrapped by a bullhorn.
Mrs. Helfrich described the experience.
"My husband and I were huddled in the center of the basement. We were kneeling down on the floor because glass and dirt were flying all around. When the roar stoned we headed up the stairs.
"I could see the light from outside when we started up the stairs and when my husband came out, he said, 'We don't have anything.' You don't know what a terrible thing that is to hear."
Helfrich's initial survey proved accurate. The seven-second, twostory structure, which had been designed to mimic the actual heart,
MRS. HELFRICH walked around her property trying to comprehend the extent of her loss.
here, you can come see the garage--no, you can't. It isn't here any more," she said.
"We have nothing left—not the barn, the house,
the chicken house, just nothing."
"IALWAYS GO (to the basement) when there are tornadoes," she said, "but this was the first time I gave my husband to go. He had been outside watching the skyline and he called for me to look at it.
mud-splattered refrigerator and what she thought was her washer and dryer.
She pointed out a few things scattered around—a
"Iran to call KLWN (Lawrence radio station), I was just so nervous. I could hardly describe it to them. The tunnel—it looked just like the pictures. It turned to roar. And it跑了好 long time before it took.
"When we were in the basement, we couldn't hear the crashing of the house. Just that terrible, terrible noise."
When she emerged from shelter, Mrs. Helfried said, she was badly baken and speechless. But the shock was over and two neighbors, Charles and Opal Corel, took in the couple for the night.
But not all of the neighbors escaped the tornado's wreathe. The Lloy Parsons family also was left helpless.
*People have said they're the Parsons) better off than we are, though, because they're nothing left to lose.*
Nixon admits to 'mistakes of heart, judgment'
Associated Press Writer
By HARRY F ROSENTHAL
WASHINGTON-Richard Nixon broke his long silence on Watergate last night by conceding, "I let down my friends, I let them come, I let down our system of government.
But, 1,000 days after he resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal, the former president insisted that he didn't obstruct justice.
"I did not commit, in my view, an impeachable offense," he said.
But of the bush money payments, he said,
"It's possible that it was a mistake that I disguised
His eyes glistening at times during the climactic minutes of the interview with David Frost, British television personality, who has made public statements be made in office.
HE SAID he considered resigning in April 1973, 15 months before he did resign, but remained in office to insure that his foreign policy momentum would be continued.
"IT WAS SO botched up," he said of the water Wayatee was handled by his administration. "I made so many bad decisions, I skinned the heads of the heart, rather than the head."
Nixon, the 37th president and the first to resign from office, was alternately combed with the tense and humiliated only infrequently, in the tense manner that was so familiar to Americans
"By resigning, that was a voluntary impeachment," he said.
"DURING THAT period, I will admit that I started acting as lawyer for their defense," Nixon said. "I will admit that acting as attorney for defense, I wasn't prosecuting the case."
During much of the interview, Nixon discussed a meeting he had March 21, 1973, with John Dean, presidential counsel, when the president was planning to coverup involvement of Nixon's top aides.
"I brought myself down," he said, "I gave 'em a sword and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. I guess if I'd been in position, I'd have done the same thing."
"You're wanting me to say that I participated in an illegal covert. No?"
"I will admit that during that period, rather than acting primarily in my role as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States, or at least with responsibility
"Just can't stand seeing somebody else cry, and that ended it for me," he said. "I sort of cracked up, started to cry, pushed my chair back and then I blurted it out, and I said, 'I'm sorry. I just hope I haven't let you down.' That said it all.
Nixon said that friends had suggested to him that there was a conspiracy to musth him. "The problem is the lack of leadership."
Nixon called Frost the "attorney for the prosecution," exactly the way Frost's staff had characterized his interrogation of Nixon at a rented house near San Clemente. Call I. one researcher for the interview said he was also a substitute for the trial Nixon never had.
"I came to the edge, and under the circumstances I would have to say that a reasonable person could call that a coverup. I didn’t intend it as a coverup. Let me say, if I intended to cover up, believe me, I’d have done it."
for the law enforcement, that I didn't meet that responsibility."
"I LET DOWN my friends. I let down the government. I let down our system of government and the dreams of those all you young men. I'll be a government but think its, all too corrupt."
"YOU KNOW how I could have done it? So easily. I could have done it immediately after the election, simply by giving the whole thing a vote." The whole thing would have gone away."
"I have impeached myself, that speaks for itself."
Again, as he said all through the heat of Watergate, Nixon maintained that he wasn't involved in the break-in at the Democratic National headquarters June 17, but didn't participate in or approve the payment of hush money to the Watergate burglaries.
Frost and Nixon disagreed about what legally constituted obstruction of justice, and Frost bored in, asking Nixon to admit wrongdoing, to abuse of the office and to "putting the American people through two years of needless agony."
ONLY WHEN acknowledging,
"my physical life is over" Dixon's son
presents him.
"I snowballed," he said. "And it was my fault, I'm not blaming anybody else. I'm simply saying to you that as far as I am concerned, I not only regret it, I indicated my own beliefs in this matter when I reigned supreme in the court and mistaken mistakes, fine. If they want me to get down and grove on the floor—no, never."
NIXON RECALLED that when he asked for the resignations of his top aides, H. R. Waldman and he considered him to be the considered resigning, too. But, he said that he stayed in office because he was concerned about approaches to peace union Agreement, and the Vietnam peace union.
NIXON SAID that he might have won in a Senate impeachment trial, but that the impeachment would have left the country without a full-time president.
"I let down the American people, and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life. My political life is over, as far as the handling of this matter is concerned, it was so botched up. I made so many bad judgments."
"I said things that were not true," he said,
be not about the "big issues" of the scandal.
sobbed, along with half the other people in the room.
"I couldn't have done that because I said, 'clemency was wrong.'"
Recalling a meeting with congressional Recallers just before announcing his resignation, Nixon said former Rep. Les Arends, an Illinois Republican, shook and
He said that even though pressures of congressional investigations and Watergate prosecutors caused him to say things that were wrong, "just did it make mistakes on this period."
Storm levels farm homes; one injured
THE DOUGLAS County tornado first struck the home of Olin Heffner, about one mile south of Lone Star Lake. Heffner and his wife, Wilma, were in their cellar when the tornado leveled their home. They weren't injured.
In Douglas County, sheriff's officers, Kansas Highway Patrolmen and a Topeka Police Department helicopter searched the damaged area in vain for a small plane reportedly downed in the state last night. The search had been called off until today.
THE TORNADO was one of several that touched down in eastern Kansas and western Missouri yesterday. Three persons were reported to have been trapped in tornado tore through Pleasant Hill, Mo., about 25 miles southwest of Kansas City. Two tornadoes reported to the Johnson County Sheriff's Department touched down near KS city locations, but no injuries were reported.
The injured person, Etel Danley, Route 3, Baldwin City, was trapped in her mobile home when the tornado struck. She was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and transferred to the University of Kansas Medical Center, where X-rayed for possible spinal injuries, but at a am. today, doctors hadn't decided whether to admit them to the Med Center hospital.
"it only seemed about so big around," he said, cupping his hands together, "but it was a lot bigger at the top. And it sure did a lot of damage."
The tornado touched down shortly after 7 p.m. south of Lone Star Lake, about nine miles southwest of Lawrence, and skipped into a storm before ascending southwest of Lawrence.
A tornado sliced a path of destruction through southern Douglas County yesterday evening, destroying or damaging at least 10 homes and injuring a church and inuring at least one person.
Mr. Heffner, 73, also lost several out-
sides and 40-foot aloa and a large barge in the storm.
By STEVE FRAZIER
Hefner saw the tornado as it came across his pasture, he said, and he and his wife then took cover. The tornado left only part of the house's walls standing and scattered pieces of tin roofing more than a quarter of a mile away.
"IT DESTROYED everything," Heffner said.
"As soon as the tornado had passed," Pratt said, "my boy and I took out for my wife's father's. My boy got there about the same time the sheer aid did."
The tornado next struck a quarter of a mile to the west at the home of Bill Pratt, Heffner's son-in-law. Pratt and his family ran into their cellar after he saw the tornado leap across the roof, as the funnel uprooted two 40-foot trees in the Pratt's yard and ripened open its roof.
JERRY SEIB Staff Reporters
The tornado next hit the Ira Moore home, less than 200 yards east of Erapfitt's, leaving only a foundation. Connections to two buried homes were discovered, and she was still bissing from the tanks last night.
Only the basement was left on the next home struck by the tornado, a recently completed log house owned by Lehman the durable moved into the house four days ago.
THE EAST borehound tornado reached
HIGHWAY 99 nine miles south of Lawrence, it split into two funnels, according to Dee
Brown, the state emergency officer on Gulf Oil service station on the highway. One of
See TORNADO page five
Field hockey funded; election spending limited
Bv JOHN WHITESIDES
and
LINDA STEWART
Staff Renorters
At its final meeting of the semester last
week, the Student Senate allocated $4,425 to the
student center.
The Senate also approved a bill that would change the spending limits for Senate candidates and give the Senate Election Committee the power to regulate and regulations governing Senate elections.
The $4,425 the Senate gave the women's field hockey program would be combined with $2,600 from the administration to allow the program to continue operation next year.
WOMEN IN THE program had asked the Senate for the supplemental money after Marian Washington, women's athletic foundation, cut funding for the program next year.
Member of the field hockey program told the Senate last night that Del Shankel,
executive vice chancellor, had promised to fund the program an additional $2,500 if the Senate approved the supplemental funding. Shankel also promised that the ad- dition would provide the program $2,500 each additional year the program was in operation.
The bill will provide funding only for next year, and some senators said they didn't want to fund a program that might operate for only one more year. Other senators questioned whether the women's request for funding would become an annual occurrence.
operated on $7,000 last year, they said,
and placed second in the Big Eight.
THE TEAM MEMBERS said that there was no assurance that any program funded by the Senate would stay in operation, but that they wouldn't request funding next year because the Senate already said it would. The team also intercepted athletic awards after this year.
The team members said that if they received the Senate funding, their resulting tax benefits would be reduced.
"I really believe that there are eminently qualified people who want to run for office
Some senators said the $400 limit was fair and would allow more students to consider
THE BILL WOULD also apply a spending limit of $400 or 7 cents a constituent for candidates for student body president or vice president.
The election bill, which will give the Election Committee formal power to enforce regulations governing Senate elections, also will apply a spending limit for Senate candidates of $35 or three cents for the candidate's district, whichever is larger.
Steve Leeben, student body president,
made an amendment raising the spending
limit for student body president or vice
president to $500. Leben said $400 was too
low and wouldn't allow a candidate to reach
enough students.
but don't because they don't have enough money," Steve Owens, former student body vice president, said. "I'm sorry to see people come up here and say we have to spend a lot of money to get in touch with students."
Reggie Robinson, Salina sophomore,
the pastor of the Senate Election
elections were too demoralized.
"The past two elections looked to me like they were up for sale." Robinson said. "There's 24 hours in everyone's day. Time is what is needed to win elections, not money. You need to go out and talk to people and meet people."
Leben's amendment to raise the spending limit to $50 was defeated, and the bill was approved.
THE SENATE ALSO passed a bill bringing the Student Code into agreement with the Buckley Amendment, with a new law prohibiting children from probit parent of dependent students over
See STUDENT SENATE page three