THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
3A
PUCKETT (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Tanner Grubbs/KANSAN
A portrait of a young Barbara Puckett is displayed next to a signature book for a service in her honor. Puckett, an accompanist for the department of theatre, died Nov. 3. Students and professors sang her favorite songs during a "Celebration of Life" ceremony night at Murphy Hall.
ment held the celebration in her honor to give Puckett's former students and colleagues a chance to remember her.
Puckett has played for hundreds of students through her career as a piano teacher and accompanist. Thirteen of her students sang at last night's service. Whitney Juneau, Lawrence senior, sang "When I Look at You" from The Scarlet Pimpernel, one of Puckett's favorite musicals.
She said Puckett had been her accompanist for eight years, since Juneau was a freshman in high school, and was more a friend than a teacher.
"Because we worked together for so long, I probably did take for granted that she was always there for me," she said. "She really brought me from a little girl in high school who loved to sing to someone who was a strong performer, and I appreciate that so much more than she probably knew."
John Staniunas, chair of the department of theatre, presided
over the service. He said Barbara had been his personal accompanist and close friend, and that her greatest skill was her ability to develop a connection with the singer.
Staniumas said he and Puckett used to travel throughout the Kansas City area and perform musical theater in retirement homes, which he said was a moving experience for both of them.
"I remember one home that we went to, which was for people with Alzheimer's," he said. "So the audience wasn't necessarily attentive, but you could tell they were moved. They were listening."
Puckett had a big presence and an infectious laugh, which friends described as almost like a cackle. She had a passion for jayhawk memorabilia, and in honor of this, Monday night the theater department dedicated a Jayhawk mural in her honor. Friends said she also had a soft spot for little things, such as her two small dogs, one of which she named "BJ" after Baby Jay. Staniunas adopted her dogs
after her death.
Her son-in-law, Mike Christ, said Puckett brought stability to her family and served as a model for her grandchildren, Christ's sons Brandon and Blake. Both wore blue Jayhawk shirts their grandmother had given them for Christmas to the service.
"She did her job well, and she did it with a lot of heart and a lot of love," Christ said. "We'll miss her greatly, we love her dearly, and we'll carry on the things she gave to us."
Puckett's children, Michelle Christ and Sean Puckett, established a fund with the Kansas University Endowment Association for an annual scholarship for a KU musical theater student. Donations can be sent to the endowment association, PO Box 928, Lawrence, KS 66044-0928.
Follow Justin Leverett at twitter.com/schmendric.
Edited by Abby Olcese
At the bar
Howard Ting/KANSAN
Matt Rodriguez, Topeka junior, receives dance lessons from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Robinson Student Center Nov. 5. The two-hour long dance class was led by performers of the Dance Exchange, who later performed their show "Ferocious Beauty: Genome" at the Lied Center Nov. 7.
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HUMPHREY (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
the Natural History Museum. The Snow Anthropology Museum, the museum of Invertebrate Paleontology and the McGregor Herbarium merged with the Natural History Museum in 1994.
Duellman said he saw this accomplishment as one of Humphrey's greatest gifts to the University.
"He turned the museum into a flourishing department," Duellman said.
Krishtalka said Humphrey always had the best advice. He said that from an incoming director's point of view, Humphrey was an incredible mentor and counselor.
"He gave me the advice that no matter how tough the situation is to always be civil and always take the high road," Kristalka said.
After retiring from his position as director, Humphrey continued to teach courses at the University. Humphrey also started summer programs for children during his tenure at the museum and discovered a new species of steamer duck in 1981 while doing fieldwork in Argentina.
"He was always helpful and a wise mentor to have."
"In his distinguished career, he touched many lives through his teaching and guidance at the Natural History Museum. KU is a better institution thanks to his dedicated service," Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said in a press release.
Humphrey's accomplishments during his time at the University are incomparable, Kristalka said, but he will also be missed as a
person, colleague and friend.
person, colleague and friend.
"His shoes are too big to fill," Krishtalka said in a press release.
Edited by Abby Olcese
Humphrey served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II. He graduated from Amherst College in 1949 and received a master's degree and a doctorate in ornithology from the University of Michigan in 1955. Humphrey was a curator at the museums of Yale University and the Smithsonian Institution before being appointed as the director of the Natural History Museum in 1967.
Follow Abigail Bolin at twitter.com/abby_rhode.
Photo of Philip Humphrey courtesy of the Spencer
PANEL (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
held at the University
Saida Bonifield, graduate sponsor of Queers & Allies, said events such as Tranny Talk were important for the community.
"I think it's important to show that the campus protects transgender people," Bonifield said.
The University has made recent strides to protect the rights of transgender people. Last semester, Student Senate expanded a policy to protect people from discrimination based on gender identity. Last month, the University Senate
Executive Committee extended the policy to protect people campuswide, including students, faculty and staff.
Elise Higgins, community affairs director for Student Senate said, that since the change to campus policy, there had been more pressure to pass similar changes on the city level. But a policy similar to the University's has yet to be implemented.
Higgins said these changes were overdue.
"There have been community
forums on the issue and now it's time for a policy change," Higgins said. "It's easy to assume that the issue isn't about them, but it's about human rights, which everybody needs. The trans/genderqueer community has been excluded from the full protection of the law for too long."
Follow Zach White at twitter.com/zachandthenews.
Edited by Abby Olcese
INTERNATIONAL
Guantanamo detainees face trial
Associated Press
BY DEVLIN BARRETT AND LARRY NEUMISTER Associated Press
NEW YORK — Hot sauce and a comb were all an al-Qaida suspect in New York needed to nearly kill one of his guards nine years ago. The bloody episode suggests that security worries in bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 suspects to trial here could be just as big inside the courthouse as outside.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the 2001 attacks, and four accused henchmen would be brought from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York to face a civilian federal trial.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is seen shortly after his capture during a raid in Pakistan. An Obama administration official said Nov. 13 that accused Sept. 11 mastermind Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court.
The prosecution is planned for a court complex just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in the attack blamed on these men.
The courthouse is among the most secure in the nation, ringed by closed-off streets, 24-hour guard posts, anti-truck-bomb
barricades and street video cameras so powerful that they can read the print off a passerby's newspaper.
The Sept. 11 case would be the most spectacular of a half dozen major terrorism trials in New York that have already sent
away the men blamed for the less devastating 1993 bombing of the trade center, a plot to blow up five landmarks in New York City, a scheme to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners over the Far East and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
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