SECTION TWO
FRIDAY, May 4, 1990
Family postpones anguish
By Rich Cornell Special to the Kansar
More than 10 months have passed since Joan Butler disappeared.
want to find out what happened to her.
Her family accepts that she is gone. They just
Any explanation would offer some sort of finality to the struggle that began soon before he tried to make a Father's Day phone call.
"Nothing's going to be final for Joan Butler
ing to be final for me until they find Joan," said Julie Butler, her sister.
"Nothing's going to be final for me until they find Joan," said Julie Butler, her sister.
Joan Butler, a 24-year-old 1987 KU graduate, was last seen Sunday, June 18, 1989, when she left a girlfriend's apartment about 4 a.m., according to preliminary hearing testimony.
A Johnson County District Court judge ruled in March that testimony from that four-day hearing tied Richard Grissom Jr., 29, to three kidnappings and murders, that of Joan and two 22-year-old boys killed in a police attack on Rusch and Theresa Brown, who disappeared a week after Joan.
Grissom's trial for the murders is scheduled to begin Aug.27.
Joan's family simply wants to resolve the matter.
"We just want to find out what happened to her, and we want him to tell us," said Jada Butler, Joan's mother.
She finds it difficult to say Grissom's name. she said.
Testimony from the preliminary hearing and the Butlers' recollections of their search detail their extraordinary efforts to learn the truth about their daughter's disappearance.
Joan had moved from home in Wichita to Overland Park six months earlier with at least one clear-cut goal. She planned to be a media director at an advertising agency within four years.
Her father, in the advertising field at a Wichita television station, considered that a remarkable goal to set.
"You have to be really strong," said Ralph Butler, also a KU graduate. "She was doing well with those people."
Intense Search
The Butlers did not worry on Father's Day, but they became frightened when Joan's employer at Montague-Sherry, a Kansas firm, is arriving firm, called the next day to find out why Joan was not at work.
The Butlers did not know, so they called friends and family in the Kansas City area. No one had seen Joan.
telephone report with the Overland Park police. The next day, he and his wife drove to Johnson County and stayed with a playmate with a nephew and his wife
Jada Butler stayed with the nephew two weeks and Ralph Butler. five.
That night, Ralph Butler filed a
"We attempted at one time to talk about going to a motel and they wouldn't hear of it," Ralph Butler said.
The first week, the Butlers searched the Kansas City area for Joan and her rental car, a maroon Chevrolet Corsica.
Joan's employers and friends that the Butlers had not seen for years helped them search.
Ralph Butler applied his advertising experience, getting help from radio and television stations that toldJoan's tale as it unfolded.
Sunday, June 25, a KU student who read about Joan's appearance in that morning's edition of the Kansas City Star, recognized Corsica that afternoon near his tiltage apartment in Lawrence.
A Lawrence police officer arrived just in time to see Richard Grissom Jr. open the Corsica's trunk. When the officer approached him and questioned him about the car, Grissom convinced him to follow him into an apartment so that Grissom could get some identification. Once inside the apartment, Grissom jumped out a window and ran away.
The next day, Christine Rusch and Theresa Brown, roommates in an apartment complex where she worked, were reported missing.
Investigators had a suspect in all three disappearances, and the Butlers had more reason for concern.
"When the Corsica was found and Joan wasn't, it was a terrible girl," her father said. "It's the worst thing you can possibly imagine."
Hope and fear
Julie Butler, KU junior, and her brothers, Tim, 24, and Chris, 17, relied on TV stories and daily phone calls from their parents to find out how the investigation was progressing.
"When they started linking it to Theresa and Christine, that made me so furious about the Lawrence police," Julie Butler said.
The call about the discovery of Joan's car initially gave them hope that Joan would be found and later, in a quick gave way to anger and fear.
She couldn't shake the thought that Rusch and Brown disappeared just after Grissom's escape.
Iron surrounded the search for Joan. Tim Butler, younger than Joan by less than a year, arrived in Wichita the same day that Ralph Butler reported Joan missing. Tim Butler had been in Phila-
See BUTLER, p. 4b
National climate develops options to Protestantism
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Looking ahead, Baptist specialists on other faiths see a changed U.S. religious environment coming, an atmosphere of floating allegiances; a blending of practices and greater variety.
At the same time, Protestant denominations are seen as becoming more and more alike, with distinct traits. The flow of membership among them
"In the future we going to see less loyalty to a particular denomination and more fuzziness between denominations," said Gary Leazer, an interfaith officer of the Southern Baptist Home Missions Board.
"Individuals will increasingly feel free to construct their own world view from many options present in society rather than being bound by the orthodoxy of their particular faith."
Leazer was among three leaders of the denomination's interfaith witness department addressing a recent conference on the chapelacy, a field that traditionally demands working among mixed religious outlooks.
He told the conference at Golden Gate Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., that people increasingly would take the attitude of religious consumers and shop around for denominations and religions.
"If one denomination does not offer a particular item, people will go to another faith to find it." he said.
Leazer said the mega-trend of pluralism would further swell the shifting of members among denominations. Already, Gallup poll statistics show a shopping increase in that phenomenon.
For example, in 1955, only one in 24 Americans left the faith of childhood to join another denomination, but by 1980 there were about three in three — a third of all members.
Concurrent with that trend, Leazer said denominations would be becoming more alike, as differences in educational and economic status of African arrows. Closer ecumenical relations also have furthered that process.
Although Southern Baptists formerly have remained outside the major ecumenical bodies, other denominations for years have discussed deep emphases and have greater understanding and mutual enrichment.
As a consequence, worship of the different denominations has become more alike, including that of major Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics. In some cases, close attention is needed to tell them
See RELIGION, p. 4b
To make it to top start in basement professor suggests
The Associated Press
No. it is not a myth.
NEW YORK — It is still true that the surest way to top of the a large U.S. industrial corporation is to find low-level work and work your way up.
The myth, created in recent decades, is that now it's more common to move into the top job by bouncing from one company to another, eventually leveraging into the chairman's office.
But Eugene Jennings, examining his research all the way back to 1939 — it is the largest corporate mobility data base of its kind — found that it was far more common to name a chief from within the company.
That finding upsets what has become a given in many popular accounts of making it to the top. But it is conclusive.
Jennings, professor emeritus of management at Michigan State University, set out in the late 1940s to study mobility patterns, or ascendancy in U.S. industry. In effect, his interest was "making it in America."
Jennings, who pioneered so-called mobility studies, said that three out of four individuals named to the top spot in the 1980s were what he called natives, compared to only 48 percent in the 1960s.
Because this was his intent, he excluded birth elites and privileged elites, namely founders, children of founders and investors and their proxies, who probably entered the company by raiding it or buying it.
He found that in every category he defined, natives were more likely than what he called migrants to head the United States' large industrial towns and that the pattern was being even more pronounced.
With these exclusions, he was able to concentrate on mobility patterns and trace the routes to corporate success.
He found, for example, that natives outcored migrants in every age group, among the early arrivals or those who achieved the top job at 48 years old. The normally ages (age 57.5 years) and late arrivals (68 years or more).
In spite of what some executive recruiters might like to hear, he found that even when migrants assumed the top job, they rarely did so without first becoming subordinate, working their way up from there.
Age and experience, he found in his review, remain extremely important in naming a chief. The widely held
'Most companies look inside the company for their chief executives, not outside.'
— Edward Jennings professor at Michigan State University
notion that chief executive officers are younger these days is also a myth. The fact is precisely the opposite.
Since the 1960s, the average age at which chiefs are appointed has risen steadily and is now more than 58 years. In that time, the number of younger chief executives has declined.
Tenure has risen. Chiefs remain in the job longer than they used to. Tenure during the 1960s was less than seven years on average. It is now over three decades longer. In creatively, boards wipe compulsory retirement rules.
Jennings found, for instance, that fewer rather than more chiefs have had the experience of living and working abroad for the company. He said that while he was running foreign operations, they had done it from the United States.
It is a myth, too, Jennings said, that corporate boards turned to migrant chiefs when the company was in trouble. He said they turned to other leaders that often experienced, home-grown chiefs are treasured by boards.
A popular notion is that more chiefs of U.S. industrial companies have had global experience, the better to deal with the emerging global economy. To some extent, the impression is false.
As popularly described, he said, "The global manager is a myth." He found instead that industrial companies have been developing native software to the U.S. office rather than sending home-office managers abroad.
From that data have come numerous books, including the seminal "Mobile Manager" in 1984, and "Routes To The Executive Suite" and "Executives in Crisis" in the 1970s.
Jennings, who for three decades has advised corporate chairmen on the grooming of potential successors, began his studies with live data in 1949 and researched records back to 1989.
Swimmer gives her all to craft
By Christine Reinolds
Kansan staff writer
From a 4.0 grade point average to the 1988 Olympic trials, Barb Branger flings herself into everything she attempts.
But her extremist way of living almost drove her to leave the very thing she loves — swimming.
"I was so upset," Pranger said about the 1990 NCAA Women's swimming Championships held in March, when he considered never swimming again.
The meet was the turning point for Pranger.
"I got burned out on swimming," she said with disbelief. "It was pretty much my life up until NCAAs."
At the NCAA meet, Pranger swam her worst time of the season in the first race, $3\frac{1}{2}$ seconds slower than her personal best, and placed last.
"I should have placed in at least the top 16 and probably the top eight," she said. "Instead I finished dead last."
Pranger decided swimming wasn't worth it. But the second race changed her mind.
"When I went down on the block and the gun went off, a decision was made," she said. "I said to myself, 'It's not time to quit yet.'"
After the championship disappointment, the team took two weeks off.
"I had to do some deep soul-searching and decide that I wanted to swim again," she said.
"Ever since I started swimming I've wanted an Olympic gold," Pranger said with an embarrassed grin and sparkling eyes. "I think that is every swimmer's dream. I want to be the fastest swimmer in the world."
"When we started back to practice, I was so psyched and excited to be back that I actually started running Robinson from my derm." she said.
Pranger discovered she could not live without swimming.
"A lot of people don't have dreams.
"I think you have to have a dream and
that to be for yourself. Not for your
patron, not for your coach. For
you," she said.
This philosophy of achieving goals for oneself is slightly new to Pranger. Since she joined the KU swim team, coach Gary Kempf has stressed to Pranger the importance of swimming and achieving success for herself.
"She experienced burnout to a degree," Kempi said. "She was swimming to please others and not herself. She was trying to uphold an image she thought everyone had of her, I told her that for Barb to be successful, Barb would need to swim for herself."
Kempi knows she is an extremist.
"When she has highs, they are high," Kempi said. "And when she has lows they are extreme lows. That's Barb in life. My job is to make sure she operates at a consistent level and levels out the roller coaster."
As a little girl, Pranger's mom
motivated her to swim.
"I took all the lessons I could take," she said. "Then my teachers recommended that I swim on a team. So I did."
She remembers the first day she learned to swim the butterfly stroke, one of the fastest and most difficult strokes in swimming.
"It's like a surge of power. The flow of the stroke is more fluid compared to the other strokes," she said.
Pranger tries to explain her love for the sport, but explaining why she has devoted most of her life to swimming is hard to put into words.
"I don't know," she said. "I mean I love the water and the fitness aspect, and I enjoy being in an individual where I can be challenged daily."
The last semester of her senior year, Pranger moved to Deerfield, IL, to train for the 1888 Olympic trials. She has not spent a summer at Washington, family since her sophomore year at安徽工业 High School in Davenport, Iowa.
Her social and family life have suffered for her swimming career, but Pranger has no regrets.
"During high school, I saw my family because our vacations were built around my swim meets were held — Colorado, Florida and Alabama," she said. "But since coming to college, I do miss my family."
"I think my swimming cut into my relationship with my brother. Since I went away to college though, our relationship is much better."
Pranger said that in high school she never experienced an active social life and therefore did not miss it.
Christy Dyer, Little Rock freshman, is a good friend of Pranger's and is not connected with her swimming life.
"Now most of my social life is the team," she said. "And it's neat to have a group to go out with."
Barb Prander member of the Kansas swim team.
"I like to have some classes without swimmers," she said. "That way I meet other people."
"She's great all-around," Dyer said. "We like to go out dancing and just talk. She is very understanding and almost always cheerful."
"She has incredible strength," Garcia said. "When we race, I
Since the trials, Pranger has made steady improvement in her 100-meter butterfly. She swam the 100 butterfly in 1:02.59 at the trials, in 1:01.88 in the summer of 1899 and said she hoped to eventually swim below the minute mark to make the 1992 Olympic team.
Dreams of gold
"Below a minute is doing well," she said. "But by 1992, it will take a low $5, if not a $8 high."
Janelle Garcia, a Nebraska swimmer who rivaled Dr. Kramer in the 100-yard butterfly during the 1989-90 season, will be begged mentally and physically.
Pranger plans to take her 100-meter butterfly to the 1992 Olympics, and Garcia agreed she has the potential.
always know it's going to be a good, hard race. There's a lot of competition between us."
"She will definitely be at the trials." Garcia said.
Tailing to Meagher blew Pranger's concentration out of the water.
Pranger has had some unforgettable life experiences.
At the 1988 trials, Pranger, a cheerful 17-year-old, stood and chatted with swimming great Mary T. Meagher, who has the world record of 57.93 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly.
"I was talking to my idol," she said. "I just couldn't believe I was swimming against Mary T. All I remember about the race was standing on the block and then climbing out of the water after the race."
Ouest for perfection
back.
On a normal workout day, the sophomore swims four to five hours a day, six days a week. She usually tackles 7,000 yards (four to five miles) a day, which is as far as swimming from Allen Field House to Haskell Indian Junior College and
Her typical day begins at 5 a.m.
She swims from 6 to 7:30 a.m. and
then attends classes from 8:30 a.m.
to 12:30 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., she works
out with weights until her second
workout from 3 to 5:30 p.m.
Since her freshman year, she has taken about 15 hours a semester, maintaining a 4.0 GPA and a balance between student and athlete.
"In my spare time," she said rolling her eyes, "I write some poetry, play my wooden recorder and definitely shop!"
Her extremist attitude also carries over into her schoolwork.
"When I get tests back and I scored a 90 percent, I'm disappointed because it wasn't a 88 percent," she said. "I guess I'm an extremist, perfectionist and procrastinator. That's a scary combination."
One month ago, she would not have admitted that.
But through analyzing her mistakes at the NCAAs and talking to family and friends, Pranger realized that to keep herself on an even keel, she must acknowledge her extremist way of approaching life.
"I know I'll be an 80-year-old woman still out there swimming," she said.
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