Vol. 99, No. 44 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISIED SINCE 1889 BY THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Thursday October 27,1988
U.S., Soviet cooperation frees whales
The Associated Press
BARROW, Alaska — Two hawks 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 thought 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.
whales would have trouble breaking air holes through the partly frozen cut, but about 4:30 p.m. rescue workers found the two whales in a small breathable hole and were sharing it.
One of the whales was bleeding enough to stain the water red.
Rescue officials were worried that the
Spectators watched anxiously for several moments, waiting for the whales to surface in the new waterway cut yesterday by the whales, who sheered when the whales broke the surface.
As darkness fell, the whales were swimming back and forth on channel. Officials plants lamps in the bellows of the helicopter.
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 be said Jim Harvey, a federal marine biologist.
Haller said plans were being made in Harrow to think the Soviets with a party, participate.
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
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
Allen Weichert
Vacation slides aid University planner's decision making
Story by Mark Fagan
Allen Wiechert is like any other vaca tioner. Almost.
Instead, he takes pictures of such exciting and remarkable things as plugs, stop sign stepping, and skipping.
He takes his family when he travels all over the country to places like the Grand Canyon, the Ozarks and the streets of Boston.
But you wouldn't know it by the photographs he takes. His family isn't in any of the
"When I show slides of my vacations to people, they quickly fall asleep," he admitted.
Wiechert has been at the University for 20 years, the last 10 as University director. He's been taking pictures and using them as a source of inspiration. Since his arrival at the University of Kansas.
But this private collection of pictures, carefully labeled in the handwriting of a 26-year architect, tells the story of the man who makes decisions about where students walk, talk and go to class. He is the University director of facilities planning.
Photo by David Brandt
"If somebody says 'I need this,' I can pull out a slide and we can take a look at it," he said. "I like to see how people handle their problems. I like to have a record of it."
Wiechert's collection fills five notebooks and an entire drawer in his Strong Hall office. And the pictures, though some are overexposed, come in handy.
Wiechert said his slides offered guidance in most of KU's construction and renovation projects.
"There have been times when you can dig out one slide and that's all it takes," he said.
"Back in the mid to late '70s, our signs looked terrible," he said, holding up a slide on his Parking "sign which even he omitted to parking." Of course, I did it in black and white."
A new campus graphics system was but one of his many projects. In his 20th year at KU, Wiechert has watched the campus to reorganize, renovate and expand.
The slides have helped particularly in coming up with a new campus graphics
That's what Wiechert likes. Variety is what keeps him going.
"There's everything from a very simple warehouse-type facility to a very complicated, technologically advanced facility." "There's a whole spectrum of projects that keep the work interesting."
After graduating from Kansas State University in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in architecture, Wiechert went to work with several architectural firms in the Kansas City area. For the next six years, he dealt mostly with buildings for higher education.
And there's no sign of it letting up.
Alb there no sign of it being so. "There's always a reason for a steady activity of major capital development, particularly at KU," he said. "And it's been very much of the variety. It not just classrooms and offices. There's been quite a collection on campus."
in 1968, Wiechert took his next career step, coming to KU as the assistant to the
vice chancellor for physical plant, planning and development.
"I decided I'd better give it a try or else I'd spend the rest of my life wondering what it would've been like," he said. "I guess I've liked it. I've been here 20 years."
And the job keeps him busy. Just ask his secretary.
“He does his dictation in the car,” said Carress Dollar, Wiechert’s secretary for six months. “He just can’t waste time driving to work.” He worked Wednesday. I don’t know how he does it all.”
But Wiechert makes the best of it
"I just try to take advantage of every
things," he said. "I have very
few hours to do it."
When he's not in the office, he's spending his time on the road, either on the way to the University of Kansas Medical Center, or the state planning office in Topeka. He even spends some Sunday evenings in his office in the chancellor's suite.
"He's gone quite often," confirmed his wife, Sandra.
But his experiences are not limited to the Lawrence area. He's hiked the Grand Canyon three times. The last time was four years ago, when the Wiechers and their friends from Kirstin, Brendan and Megan, spent a week hiking and camping in the canyon.
However, he still finds time to relax. Wiechert and his wife occasionally take out their 14-foot Flying Junior sailboat after Wiechert has always been a fan of the outdoors.
"One of the nice things about Clinton Lake is 1 can be off work at 5 and on the lake at 6."
Wiechecht and his family have canoeed in the boundary waters of Minnesota, hiked in the Sierra Nevada mountains, white-water rafted on the Green River from Wyoming to Colorado, hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail and white-water rafted in the Ozarks.
"The only way to enjoy it is to go down in it," he said.
Last summer, Wiechert and his wife spent two weeks at the University of Alaska for the annual meeting of the Association of University Architects, of which Wiechert is president. One of the university's branch offices in Tahoe, island, is two miles inside the Arctic Circle.
"We try to do something like that once a
he said," I like to experience places a
[of] nature."
Allen Wiechert, director of facilities planning.
On June 21, the summer solstice, the couple chartered a plane from the Fairbanks bankus to Fort Yukon. The plane left at 8 p.m., but it never got dark. On the longest day of the year the sun never sets, there.
"It was among the most exciting trips we've ever been on," he said.
As a child living in Independence, Kan,
Wiechrem remembered sharing a more tame
of the world.
"I was taking pictures at midnight, without a flash." he said.
"Like on a Memorial Day weekend, we'd go to the river and campup, fish and eat."
sometimes under the stars, experience
nature and cook on an open fire. We'd just
nature and cook on an open fire. We'd just
As a person who enjoys the outdoors, Wiechert said he was sensitive to the amount of green space on campus, which had decreased in recent years. He said
progress must go on, but certain spots, such
Patel Lake, were safe as long as he rem-
mended.
"Somewhere down the road, someone else will make the decision about our designated green space on campus," he said. "But today, I feel it's sort of sacred ground."
The Associated Press
University Daily Kansan PROFILES/Wednesday, October 26, 1988
Soviets to launch shuttle tomorrow
MOSCOW - The Soviet Union said yesterday it will launch its space
title Buran on an unmanned misst
this week, following months of
mys similar to those that plauged
maken voyage of its U.S. couart.
government commission set the ich for 6:23 a.m. Moscow time urday (10:23 p.m. CDT Friday) r receiving reports from special-following several thousand tests ie Buran and its booster rocket, Energia, the official news agency s reported.
3uran" is Russian for snow,
an appropriate name since first snow of the season fell this
k in Moscow.
reparations for pouring nearly 9 tons of liquid hydrogen, oxygen hydrocarbon fuel into Energia, id as the world's most powerful iter rocket, are to begin today, while developing more than 100 tons of cargo Earth orbit, and up to 20 tons to planet Mars and Venus.
viet media did not say how long its mission would last. If the flight is successful, a mission two cosmonauts is to follow, but et officials have not said when. viet officials have said the first it would be pilotless to prevent collision or osion of the U.S. shuttle Challen-Seven astronauts were killed in blast.
ate-run television yesterday ved the white delta-shaped in, with its name emblazoned in attached to the Energiaon a ch pad at the Soviet Union's ionur Cosmodrome on the Cen-Asian stepses of the republic of akhstan.
unch was originally planned for first half of this year, but was poned as technical problems e, officials said.
raternity abolish ledgeship, and hazing
David Stewartian staff writer
KU fraternity will abolish its gye system after this year in oneto a national anti-hazing fraternity's president yesterday.
in greenfield, president of the Beta Tau fraternity, 1942 Stewive, said yesterday that the ZBTeme Council abolished plegnationally for ZBT chapters at a last month in Chicago.
members of the Supreme Council meet with local ZBT members in rence this weekend.
eenfield said that ZBT had ges this semester and would inure to have them in the spring, to introduce the new system gall 1989.
eenfield said the decision was e in response to a nationwide hazing movement.
he message to all the fraternis that hazing is out," he said. eenfeld predicted that other rrites would follow suit.
Please see ZBT, p. 9, col. 6
7