KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2011 / SPORTS
7A
CAMPUS
Relay for Life hits close to home for local couple
BY LAURA NIGHTENGALE Inightengale@kansan.com
When Jenny Donham attended the Relay for Life fundraiser two years ago, she volunteered to support a good cause and spend time with her friends from work. When she walks around the track at Memorial Stadium on April 15, she will walk to fight a disease that has affected her life.
Donham, a health educator at Watkins Memorial Health Center, saw the effect cancer has on a family when her husband, then fiancé, lost his mother to Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. As an only child to his adoptive mother, Jack Donham knew how much his mother wanted to see his wedding. When her health suddenly declined in August, 2009, the couple had to put the wedding plans on the back burner. Doctors told Jack's mom that she had six months to live, but she ended up dying two weeks later.
"Jack wanted to have a really big wedding with all of his family and friends," said Jenny, "And that's what we both wanted but one of the most important people in our lives, especially for Jack, wasn't going to be there anymore."
The couple stalled plans for the wedding for about six months. Once it decided to continue, it wanted to find a way to integrate Jack's mother into
the ceremony she couldn't attend.
Two days before the wedding, the couple drove to Salina to see Don Williams, a favorite country western artist of Jack's mother.
"It really made us feel like she was part of the week somehow and that's something that I think music does a really good job of doing," Jenny said. "We had a beautiful painting of her [at the wedding], and also of my grandma, so she could be there."
Grieving the death of Jack's mother in this important time in their relationship, the couple says, has strengthened its bond.
"I think it brought us closer together," said Jack. "I really don't think I could have made it through it without her, so she helped me out a lot, that's for sure. Just having somebody there was great."
This year, Jack will attend the Relay for Life event for the first time with Jenny and her son. They say that staying awake for the event, which lasts from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and dedicating one night to cancer is one way to recognize those affected by the disease.
"It's a small gesture and a small way to honor these people's lives that are so brave and that go through so much," Jenny said.
Edited by Tali David
Jenny and Jack Donham will be attending the Relay for Life April 15. They will be bringing Jenny's son to participate as well. The family is dedicating the walk to Jack's mother, who passed away in August 2009.
Contributed photo
Google Apps discriminate against blind students
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
CHICAGO - Northwestern University is targeted in a federal complaint filed Tuesday that alleges blind students and faculty face discrimination by the university's use of Google e-mail and other programs.
The complaint, filed by the National Federation of the Blind with the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, asks that Northwestern stop using Google Apps because they do not effectively turn text on a computer screen into synthesized speech or Braille.
The group alleges that the university is in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The complaint also names New York University, and asks that all universities using the Google Apps for Education programs stop doing so.
Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind, said the group knew of one Northwestern student affected by the use of Google.
"Each of these applications contains significant accessibility barriers," according to the complaint, and therefore blind students "are denied the benefits of the technology that Northwestern has adopted."
"The university either needs to suspend using Google Apps until it is accessible, or if it doesn't become accessible, do not use it," Danielsen said.
Northwestern adopted Google Apps for Education in 2007, and students use Google programs for their e-mail, calendar, documents and instant messaging.
Danielsen said, however, that Google Apps are often incompatible with software that turns written words into speech, and blind users are then unable to know what to type in a given field or whether a control is a button or a drop-down menu. In Google's document program, for example, the text is not always audible, so users cannot review what they wrote.
Northwestern University spokesman Alan Cubbage said the campus received the complaint Monday.
Taking care of business
"It will be reviewed by our (information technology) and our attorney's offices sometime soon," Cubbage said. He said the university had not heard from the Justice Department on the matter.
Google said in a statement that company officials met last week with the president of the National Federation of the Blind.
"We left the meeting with a strong commitment to improving our products," Alan Eustace, Google's senior vice president of engineering and research, said in a statement.
Ashleigh Lee/KANSAN
Students participate in a question- and answer session with a panel of business executives, KU alumni and faculty and staff members last night at the Adams Alumni Center as part of the Spring Ettinette Dinner. Students who were invited also had a meal where they learned how to properly dine while doing business.
EXTENDED DEADLINES
Visit studyabroad.ku.edu for 2011 Summer & Fall Semester program availability.
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