Vol. 99, No. 44 (USPS 650-640) THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN PUBLISHED SINCE 1889 BY THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Thursday October 27,1988 U.S., Soviet cooperation frees whales The Associated Press BARRON, Alaska — Two whales trapped for almost three weeks in the arctic ice pack were freed yesterday by Soviet and United States icebreakers. "The whales are loose and in the channel and headed out," said LT. Mike Haller, a spokesman for the Alaska National Guard. "They looked good all afternoon. To look at them, you'd have heard they had their bags packed and were ready to head south." Ron Morris of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and rescue coordinator said, "They're in the main lead, and I can't help but think they'll keep on truckin' I don't know how much more we can do. The work to free the migrating California gray whales progressed rapidly Tuesday when two Soviet ice-breaking vessels began smashing the ice that kept the pair imprisoned. A third trapped whale is thought to have died last week. Morris, who followed the whales by helicopter, landed a little after 8 p.m. to say that the whales had moved from the final manmade breathing hole to the path the Soviet icebreaker Vladimir Arseniev cut Tuesday night. Rescue officials were worried that the whales would have trouble breaking air holes through the partly frozen cut, but about 4:30 p.m. rescue workers found the two whales and found a small breathing hole and were sharp it. One of the whales was bleeding enough to stain the water red. Spectators watched anxiously for several moments, waiting for the whales to surface in the new waterway cut yesterday by the whales when they heeded when the whales broke the surface. As darkness fell, the whales were swimming back and forth in the channel. Officials nightfall. Scientists and others involved in the rescue might never know the whales' fate. Rescue officials decided not to put electronic tracking tags on the already stressed animals. "A lot of people really didn't want to bekent," said Jim Harvey, a federal minister. Haller said plans were being made in Harlow to thank the Soviets with *s* party, but Mr. Harley Before the whales were freed, as the Soviet icebreakers drew near, the whales were "acting in a very excited manner, almost like they can sense freedom," said Sgt. Ian Ian Robertson, an Alaska National Guard spokesman. By midday, the Soviet icebreakers were a quarter-mile from the line of breathing holes being cut by Americans working in the opposite direction, he said. Later yesterday, rescuers began to use a tractor-like device propelled by pontoon augers to clear the ice cut by the icebreaker, Robertson said. The breakthrough in the effort to free the whales caught in an early freeze came after more than a week of delays and disappointments. Roof collapses at building site Workers escape unharmed By Mark E. McCormick Kansan staff writer The roof of a partially constructed building in northwest Lawrence collapsed yesterday, as workers narrowly escaped falling Hoobler said. "I've been around here 13 years, and the most I've run across was three or four." Hoolber said the roof probably collapsed because of a loosely supported frame. The wind wasn't Rex Johnson Sheriff's retirement end of an era Story by Jay A. Cohen "There was one time, when we had a skating session at the YMCA. He Xebo looming Douglas County Sheet "I went out there," Johnson said, "and they told me there was a kid in the basement with a gun. If you go down there he's gonna shout," and I said. "Ah, he's got no reason to shoot me." "Course they forgot to tell me it was a machine gun" he said. Ask people what sticks in their minds about Johnson and they'll tell you it's the way he talks to people. "If Rex had just a little bit of background information," said Douglas County District Court Judge Michael Malone, "he would talk to them about a brother or an aunt or good o'l Uncle Charley . . . pretty soon the gun would be put down and the guy would walk to the car with Rex's arm around his shoulder." stoneau said, "When you first see him, this big sheriff with the sunglasses, your first impression might be that he's the stereotypical country sherif. That 'not Rex at all." Who Johnson is, his friends and family say, is one of the most compassionate men that I have ever met. "Rex likes to say he's just a dumb country boy," said Frank Case, who used to own a gas station where Johnson hung out as a boy. "I'd say he dumb like a fox." Johnson has been the sheriff of Douglas County for longer than most KU students have been alive. It'll be twenty four years when he retires at the end of this December. "Travis Glass was one of Rex's idols. Johnson's longtime friend Joe Kelly said, "I'll be there tomorrow." He first joined the sheriff's office in 1933, when Sheriff Travis Glass hired him to be the county judge. "My father was an alcoholic," Johnson said. "Wonderful man when sober but . . . I sometimes think that one's of the reasons I wanted to be in law enforcement. I wanted to work with people the way I was never able to work with Dad." Glass, like Case, was there when Rex's father wasn't. For example, Wilbur "Nanny" Duver, Johnson's high school football coach, had faith in Johnson. He known as "Nanny" the story goes, because he once cried when a pet "People can be vicious," Johnson said. "There were some people, they used to say 'Ol' Rex Johnson, he'll never amount to much, he's no good.' But there were people who had faith in me. They made me what I am today." "I always called him Mister Duver," Johnson said. Johnson raised his right arm, which is about half the size of his left, a birth defect. "I was feeling kind of handicapped in those days," he said. "Mr. Duver put a stop to that." "We never lost a game," he said. "And my mother," Johnson said, "she's worked hard all her life, worked at Weaver's downtown there for 30 years." Betty Metzger, a rural Lawrence resident who remember Johnson as a high school Photo by Laura Husar 10 that "We never lost a game," he said. student, said that family affection went both ways... "Rex Dean always treated his mother like a queen, he's real Sir Walter Raleigh type," Metzger said, "pitching bales with the best of them," despite his arm. "And I can hardly remember Rex Dean losing his temper," she said unprompted, and paused. "Well, at least not to the point of profanity." But Johnson admits he can be a bit bullheaded. "Rex has got a temper." Malone said, "But I think his wife. Shirley, helps him a lot, he calms him down, gets him to see things in perspective." They were married 34 years ago, on Halloween. Frank Case said they chose Halloween because it was the only way Johnson could get that day off. When Johnson, a Republican, was elected sheriff in 1965, the couple moved into the old two-story jail, where the Law Enforcement Center is now. "It was kind of confining." Shirley Johnson said, and laughed. She prepared three meals a day, seven days a week, for prisoners, while raising four kids. Allen, who was 9 at the time, Date was 5, David, and Susan who was born in 1963. "I think they're the ones who went through the most, who gave the most." Rex Johnson said. "It's not easy being the sheriff's family." "You learn from your kids." Rex Johnson said, "Dick Stanwix and I, we used to wear the real butch haircuts, and didn't think it was going to be any better when it starts to happen in your own family." Malone said Johnson and Stanwick, Lawrence Police Chief for 18 years who retired last year, were boyhood friends who went every morning to talk over the day's problems. "Oh, we had our battles back in those days, in the late sixties," Allen Johnson, now a captain in the Lawrence Fire Department, said, and laughed. you learn it's not the beard or the face but what's inside a person that's important. Those were real trying times, a lot of people thought we should have been up there breaking heads. I used to lay awake at night trying to figure out what's right decision about this or that situation. Allen Johnson agreed that it wasn't always easy to be the sheriff's son. “It’s the passing of an era,” Malone said. “You’ll never see their like again.” After 24 years as sheriff, 30 years working for the sheriff's office. Johnson is retiring on a date and another person to take over a county that has changed considerably during his tenure. "Still, I tell you," he said, "I'm probably going to shed more tears in the next two months than in my whole life. I used to think that it was weak, wrong for a man to cry, but as you get older, you see things a little harder." Johnson reads a quote from Hubert Humphrey that he'd recently noticed in a maga "A man who has no tears has no heart" "I was just glad to know I'm not the only one" "I can do it." Rex Johnson, Douglas County sheriff Soviets to launch shuttle tomorrow The Associated Press MOSCOW — The Soviet Union said yesterday it will launch its space shuttle Buran on an unmanned mission this week, following months of elias similar to those that plaged ne maiden voyage of its U.S. counterpart. A government commission set the lunch for 6:23 a.m. Moscow time atriday (10:23 p.m. CDT Friday) after receiving reports from specialists following several thousand tests of the Buran and its booster rocket, ne Energia, the official news agency 'aass reported. "Buran" is Russian for snowstorm, an appropriate name since the first snow of the season fell this week in Moscow. Soviet media did not say how long Buran's mission would last. If the test flight is successful, a mission could be delayed or cancelled. Soviet officials have not said when. Preparations for pouring nearly 2,000 tons of liquid hydrogen, oxygen and hydrocarbon fuel into Energy, billed as the world's most powerful booster rocket, are to begin today. The rocket is carrying more than 100 tons of cargo into Earth orbit, and up to 20 tons to the planets Mars and Venus. Soviet officials have said the first flight would be pilotless to prevent accidents like the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion of the U.S. shuttle Challenger. Seven astronauts were killed in that blast. State-run television yesterday showed the white delta-shaped Buran, with its name emblazoned in red, attached to the Emergion a launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Central Asian stepses of the republic of Kazakhstan. Launch was originally planned for the first half of this year, but was postponed as technical problems arose, officials said. Fraternity to abolish pledgeship end hazing By David Stewart