Friday, August 16, 1985
Page 2
The Nebraskan
NU player dies from gunshot
From wire and staff reports
Brian Heimer, a' senior tight end on
the Nebraska football team, died Wed
nesday at University Hospital in Omaha
after shooting himself in the head at
his parents' farm four miles north of
Shelby.
His body was found sitting against
an outbuilding by his father Willard.
According to Polk County Sherriff Tom
Siemek, Hiemer had shot himself with
a .22 caliber rifle.
Hiemer was transported by the Shelby
Rescue Unit to Columbus Community
Hospital late Tuesday afternoon He
was then taken by ambulance to Uni
versity Hospital, where he died Wed
nesday at 10:30 a.m.
An all-state performer at David City
Aquinas, Hiemer was a walk-on on the
Nebraska football team in 1981. He
didn't catch a pass in his first year with
the Husker freshman team and wasn't
Invited back to the varsity that spring,
but convinced Coach Tom Osborne to
reconsider.
Hiemer was redshirted in the fall
and began spring practice in 1983
listed as the No. 10 tight end. However,
he worked his way up to the third spot
in the fall, earned a scholarship and
shared the No. 1 position with Todd
Frain last year. He caught 1 2 passes for
174 yards and led the team in touch
down receptions with four.
A mechanized agriculture major with
a 3.3 grade point average, Hiemer was
17 hours away from completing an
undergraduate degree.
"Brian will be greatly missed by all
of us," NU football coach Tom Osborne
said in a prepared statement. "He was
one of the most popular players on our
team. I feel Brian symbolized the good
things in athletics a top student, a
dedicated person, an overachiever on
the football field."
Hiemer died the morning of the
4
I
9
f-hoto Courtesy of UN L Sports Into.
Hiemer
Huskers' media and photo day. The
Nebraska Sports Information Depart
ment cancelled the annual event Tues
day night when it learned that Hiemer
had shot himself. It will not be re
scheduled. However, the Huskers did go through
with their opening day practice as
scheduled Thursday morning.
"Everyone is enough of a competitor
that they try to do their best," Osborne
said after the two-hour workout Thurs
day morning. "I'm sure some players
are affected by it.'
The team is also considering dedi
cating its season to Hiemer, Osborne
said.
"Some players have expressed an
interest in doing something, but we
haven't made any plans yet," Osborne
said. "Whatever we do will come from
the players."
Nebraska receiver's coach Gene Huey
said Hiemer was "a real conscientious
person, a very gentle, compassionate
human being.
"Every coach talks about what great
people their players are," Huey said.
"That certainly wasn't a cliche with
Brian."
Huey, who saw Hiemer working out
in Lincoln this summer, said he could
offer no explanation for the suicide.
"There was nothing that led me to
believe anything was wrong," he said.
Huey said Hiemer wasn't the kind of
person who talked about himself.
"He was very quiet, unassuming,
somewhat shy," he said. "He was the
kind of person you had to initiate a
conversation with."
Hiemer would have turned 22 Sept.
5, two days before the Huskers' opener
against Florida State.
Funeral services for Hiemer will be
at 10 a.m. Saturday, at Sacred Heart
Church in Shelby.
News Brief '
Town In shock' over player's death
SHELBY, Neb. (AP) When Univer
sity of Nebraska tight end Brian Hiemer
walked into Sacred Heart Catholic
Church Saturday night, 8-year-old Becky
Bonsack looked at him with awe.
"She said, 'Mom, there goes Brian
Hiemer.'
in her seat,' " recalled Janice Bonsack.
In this small farming town about 80
miles west of Omaha, that's the way a
lot of residents viewed Hiemer, an all
American hometown boy who made the
grade at one of the nation's top colle
giate football programs.
A walk-on who became a part-time
starter, the popular 21-year-old honors
student seemed to have it all as he
headed into his senior season this fall.
So his hometown reacted with shock
and disbelief Wednesday to the news
that Hiemer had died after shooting
himself in the head at his parents' farm
a few miles outside town.
"The whole town's in shock," said
Mrs. Bonsack, a family friend whose
daughter and 18-year-old son idolized
Hiemer. "I know it must sound like a
broken record, but Brian was the last
person in the world you'd expect to do
a thing like that."
Friends and family acquaintances
said they had no idea why Hiemer
would kill himself. They said they wer
en't aware of any major academic,
social or athletic problems that might
have been bothering the former three
sport star at Aquinas High School in
nearby David City.
"He was a prime student and a top
notch kid," said the Rev. Adrian Her
bek, superintendent of Aquinas High.
"He had a good attitude toward school
and a good attitude toward life. He was
just an all-American kid."
Dave McMahon, Hiemer's high school
football coach, called Brian an "excel
lent student, a great athlete and a good
kid. He was kind of quiet, very polite, a
real friendly boy. You never could get
him riled."
Some Shelby residents speculated
that the pressure of playing big-time
college football may have played a part
in the tragedy.
"Maybe we don't know how much
pressure these young people are under,"
said Naomi Thelan, who works part
time at a downtown bar and luncheon
ette. Several friends said they heard Hie
mer left a suicide note, but Polk
County Sheriff Tim Siemek declined to
comment on the rumor.
Meanwhile, Shelby residents tried to
console themselves over the loss of the
hometown hero they had planned to
honor on Brian Hiemer Day after the
football season.
"My little boy thought he was the
greatest," said ateary-eyed Jerry Vrbka,
whose farm is about two miles from the
Hiemer farm, "he had his picture taken
with Brian at last year's spring game.
He really looked up to him."
Hiemer was a football, basketball
and track star at Aquinas, where he
played on the school's 1980 Class 01
state championship football team. He
won postseason honors as a place
kicker and basketball player and fin
ished second in his class in the state
high jump competition.
Hiemer was also a member of the
National Honor Society, worked on the
school's newspaper and yearbook and
was elected Prom King his senior year.
"He worked so hard to get where he
was at, and now this," Vrbka said. "It
just doesn't make sense."
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Iraq claims it destroyed
Kharg Island terminal
BAGHDAD, Iraq, (Reuter) Iran's importrant Kharg Island oil termi
nal was "destroyed" Thursday by Iraqi warplanes which left the valuable
facility in the northeastern Persian Gulf in ashes, the Baghdad command
said.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of the report car
ried by radio and television stations in Baghdad, which interrupted
programs to announce the High Command communique and play military
marches and national songs.
Later Iran reported that an Iraqi warplane was shot down in the
Northern Gulf at roughly the time that Iraq reported the attack on Kharg
Island.
The Iranian news agency IRNA, received in London, made no direct
reference to Iraqi reports of the Kharg Island raid, which the Baghdad
military communique timed at 3:10 p.m. (7:10 a.m. EDT).
It quoted an Iranian military bulletin as saying an "intruding" Iraqi jet
was brought down by a ground-to-air missile in the northern area of the
Gulf at 3:25 p.m. Kharg Island, about 30 miles west of the Iranian
mainland and some 1 10 miles southeast of the southern Iraqi coast, lies in
an Iraqi-proclaimed war zone.
Botha offers no apartheid reform
DURBAN, South Africa, (Reuter) South African President P.N. Botha
Thursday dashed hopes of fundamental changes in apartheid, and warned
that he would consider sterner measures to end the racial unrest.
' In a speech lasting more than an hour Botha said he was committed to
negotiations with South Africa's black majority but proposed no specific
reforms. As he began talking, the white-minority government clamped a 10
p.m.-4 a.m. curfew in the nation's biggest black township of Soweto
outside Johannesburg where an estimated two million blacks live, and in
Alexandra, north of the city.
Botha said he and other "reasonable" South Africans would not accept
the principle of one-man one-vote in a unified state which "would lead to
domination of one group over another."
"I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority
groups on a road to abdication and suicide," he said in a speech, which
was transmitted live by some foreign broadcastng organizations.
Botha's speech was certain to disappoint South Africa's Western allies,
who are under increasing pressure to apply sanctions against Pretoria and
who were hoping for liberal, fundamental reforms to apartheid, the system
of strict racial segregation that permeates South African life.
Boat misses trans-Atlantic record
LANDS END, England, (Reuter) Nine British sailors attempting the
fastest-ever crossing of the Atlantic abandoned their $2-million power
boat Thursday in a violent storm just hours away from setting the record.
A spokesman for the organizers of the attempt said the crew members
were spotted by a Royal Air Force plane in lifeboats 138 miles off the
soutwest coast of England and an accompanying helicopter picked them
up.
The boat, the Virgin Atlantic Challanger, later sank.
The attempt to win the coveted Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic
crossing was financed by Richard Branson, the millionaire owner of Virgin
Records and Virgin Atlantic Airplane, who also skippered the boat.
Rockwell awarded B-l contract
WASHINGTON, (Reuter) - The Air Force Thursday awarded the Rock
well International Corp. an $8 billion contract to build 82 airframes for
B IB bombers.
Rockwell delivered the first B-1B to the Air Force on June 29. The
Pentagon has ordered 100 of the intercontinental bombers, which will
replace America's aging fleet of B-52s.
Kerry plans no active rally for LB662
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) Gov. Bob Kerrey said Thursday he won't make
an all-out effort to defend a school consolidation law that faces a state
wide referendum vote, but Kerrey indicated he will speak for the the
controversial measure when an opportunity arises.
At his weekly news conference, the governor said it would be wrong to
use his executive powers to blunt the referendum, which will appear on
the 1986 general-election ballot.
"...somewhere inside of me it just does not seem proper for me to do
anything other than indicate my support for retaining the law but now to
try to organize from the governor's office some effort," Kerrey said.
Kerrey said his defense of LB662, narrowly passed by the 1985 Legisla
ture will be similar to his efforts last year on behalf of Amendment 4,
which allowed agricultural land to be classified separately from other
types of property for tax purposes.
Secretary of State Allen Beermann announced Wednesday that the
summer-long petition drive against LB662 has collected 50,252 signatures
from registered voters, easily enough to place the repeal question on the
1986 ballot.
Woman sentenced in loan conspiracy
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) Dana Saylor-Robinson, one of four people con
victed in a loan conspiracy case that also involved Lincoln developer Newt
topple, was sentenced Thursday to one year and one day in prison.
Susan K. Wilson and Connie H. Kahle, who were also convicted in the
case, received suspended sentences from U.S. District Judge John B.
Jones.
The sentencing of Copple was delayed until later in the day because his
attorney was involved in a trial.
Copple and the others were convicted by ajury in June of conspiring to
manipulate loans illegally at a bank and a savings and loan association in
Beatrice.
