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Bret Spainhour, assistant band director at UNL, discusses field maneuvers for Saturday’s football game with John Balcer, senior
head drum major.
Fine tuning
New band assistant hopes to pep up music
By Ingrid Youngquist
Staff Reporter
Working with a nationally rec
ognized band program is
the most exciting aspect of
coming to Nebraska, said
Bret Spainhour, UNL’s new assistant
director for athletic bands.
“When the opportunity to work
with and arrange for the athletic groups
here arose, I leapt at the chance,” he
said.
Spainhour will lead the volleyball
pep band, the men’s and women’s
basketball pep bands and assist the
Comhusker marching band.
He also wi II assist die concert band.
Since arriving at the University of
Nebraska - Li ncoln, S pa i n hour al ready
has pul in many hours working witn
the marching band during its pre
season camp and morning rehearsals.
Spainhour said he had enjoyed
observing how band director John
Klocckcr worked with the band.
“I give a lot of credit to Klocckcr,”
he said. “I will be better as a teacher
because of the chance to observe how
he handles the band.”
In addition to directing the bands,
Spainhour said, he plans to do quite a
bit of writing and arranging for them.
Last year, the men’s basketball
band played about 20 songs that he
had arranged.
Spainhour’s history with athletic
band programs can be traced back to
his undergraduate college days at Illi
nois State University where he was
part of the 400-picce marching band.
He also had the chance to work
with the marching band at the Univer
sity of Iowa while he worked on his
master of arts degree there.
‘‘Iowa’s band is larger, but they’re
not as good," he quipped.
Spainhour comes to UNL from the
University of South Dakota in
Vermillion, where he was assistant
director of bands for the past three
years.
His move to UNL, he said, is the
first lime he has gone into a job with
out having to fix things.
While at Nebraska, he said, he
hopes to be a positive influence on the
band program. rv ....
“In a material sense, I nope to
provide quality musical arrange
ments,” he said, “and I also hope to
affect improvement on an * already
very good system.”
Spainhour said he hoped to get to
know and become friends with the
students — to influence them as a
teacher and listen to them “as a big
brother or a younger uncle.”
Another of his goals is to bolster
the women’s volleyball and basket
ball bands by giving them a bigger
selection of arrangements and work
ing with them to improve their perfor
mance.
Spainhour already has written two
tunes and fixed the arrangements ot a
couple of other tunes to the Chicago
show that the marching band will
perform at the Sept. 26 football game
against Arizona Slate.
In arranging music for the bands,
Spainhour said, he likes to work with
classic rock tunes from the 1960s and
1970s because they arc identifiable,
and they have personality.
“When you are arranging for pep
bands, you are providing an entertain
ment commodity for people to listen
to,” he said. “It should be upbeat and
identifiable and should have lasting
value . . . unlike some of the digi
talized music you hear today.”
Spainhour said he was influenced
See SPAINHOUR on 6
Black grad
says key
to survival
is attitude
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
A good altitude is your best
friend at a predominantly
while university; one UNL ;
graduate student loW a group
of black students.
Olga Davis, who is work ing on her
doctorate in speech communication,
told a group of incoming freshmen
and returning students Sunday at the
Culture Center that their “attitude will
determine their altitude.”
“Attitude has become a key to
overcoming stereotypes,” she said.
“When you show that you’re sure and
confident about yourself, people who
may be prejudiced will have to stop
and think when they come across
someone like that.”
i^uvisuciivcrea inc spcccn loopcn
the Black Student Orientation Pro
gram, attended by about 100 students,
administrators and faculty members.
The Alrikan People’s Union spon
sored the program.
“I’m not here to sell you a success
story or to preach a freshman pep
talk,” she said, but to give lips on
survival at a predominantly white
university.
Davis began her presentation with
a poem entitled “No Crystal Stair” by
African-American poet Langston '
Hughes. She then spoke of the atti
tudes black students may face at UNL,
and said that a minority student’s
college career “is no crystal stair.”
Davis said she spent some “very
dark days here at U NL” before height
ened awareness of multicultural di
versity on the campus. That darkness,
she said, helped light the way to her
success by making her draw strength
from the challenge, rather than be
come discouraged by it.
“If we don T manage our attitude, it
will manage us,” Davis said. “If we
manage it, it will propel us up those
stairs.”
Jimmi Smith, director of Multi
cultural Affairs, told the students that
UNL’s Culture Center could be a
source of power for m inorily students.
“You own some land on this cam
pus,” Smith said, “and that’s what
power has always been about: the
ownership of land.”
Smith said no students were at
UNL “to be what you were yesterday,
but to see what you can be tomorrow.”
Davis agreed.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,
but overcoming the stereotypes can
be a positive thing. But only if we tell
ourselves that’s what we’re going to
do.”
Brrr! Temperatures drop in Burr Hall
By Trish Spencer
Staff Reporter
The word “brrr” is taking on new
meaning this fall for students
living in Burr Residence Hall
on UNL’s East Campus.
Last fall, Burr residents escaped
hot temperatures by retreating to the
hall’s air-conditioned basement or
sitting in front of full-power fans,
Keith Zaborowski, residence director
of the Burr-Fedde complex, said.
This fall, thanks to 120 window air
conditioners installed in Burr rooms
this summer, the basement is deserted
and the fans are off.
Burr is the next to last residence
hall at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln to gel air conditioning,
Zaborowski said.
Ncihardt now is the only UNL
residence hall that is not completely
air-conditioned. The Piper wing and
the TV room are the only air-condi
tioned sections of Ncihardt. Love
Memorial Cooperative for Women
also does not have air conditioning.
Air conditioning was installed last
year in Fcddc, Zaborowski said.
It took 30 UNL employees and
S140.000 to install the custom-de
signed air conditioners, MikcBorchcr,
maintenance manager for the Burr
Fedde complex, said.
New blinds for the windows also
have helped move Burr from the 1950s
into the 1990s, he said.
Over the past six years, installation
of a TV room, a sand volleyball court,
a computer room and a kitchen have
improved life for students living in
Burr-Feddc, Zaborowski said.
The additions may be responsible
for the long list of female students
wanting to live in Burr, he said. This
fall is the first time there has been a
wailing list of students wishing to live
in the residence hall.
Mall owner hopes low rent
attracts shops to Centrum
By Susie Arth
Senior Reporter
he owner of the Centrum
Shopping Plaza is taking a
new approach to lure more
businesses to downtown Lincoln.
Jack Irons, who bought the shop
ping center in April, said he had
devised a plan to prove to city
officials that Lincoln’s downtown
was alive and thriving.
Thc^lan, he said, is to attract
new stores into the Centrum by
charging only 10 percent of sales as
rent until Christmas.
“In this business, that’s pretty
much free,” he said.
Irons said the plan would ben
efit both the Centrum and store
owners.
The Centrum, he said, would
look more attractive to shoppers
when it was full of tenants. And
store owners would have a chance
to make profits in a no-loss silua
~ See CENTRUM on 6