*3
I Sunny and windy today.
I Tonignt, clear. Tomorrow,
more gf the same.
Tighter belt
looks likely,
officials say
By Alan Phelps
Senior Editor_ j
State lawmakers didn’t have much to ask
UNL Chancellor Graham Spanier
Wednesday when he testified before the
Nebraska Legislature’s Appropriations Com- j
mittee on the impact of proposed budget cuts.
“I was surprised that the discussion focused
mQre on our preparations to take cuts, rather
than what impact they might have on students,”
he said afterward.
Spanier said one might get the impression
the Appropriations Committee members al
ready had made up their minds in favor of the
governor’s proposed 1.4 percent, or $4.3 mil
lion, initial budget cut. The Legislature will
debate additional, larger cuts in January.
Senators questioned NU President Martin
Massengale, Regent John Payne of Kearney,
Spanier and representatives from the other
three University of Nebraska campuses on a
variety of subjects, including College Park,
overcrowding at the Omaha campus and the
status of non-traditional student programs, as
well as Omaha radio station KFAB’s new con
" See BUDGET on 3
Search continues
for UNL freshman
By Kristin Karnopp
Senior Editor
Lancaster County deputies are searching
for a University of Nebraska-Lincoln
freshman who has been missing since
about 11:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Candice Harms, 18, was last seen leaving
her boyfriend’s house at 332 N. 22nd St., said
Lt. Allen Soukupof the Lincoln Police Depart
ment.
Todd Scars, a UNL graduate student and
Harms’ boyfriend, said
Harms always took the same
route home: She drove cast
on R Street up to 27lh Street,
turned north to Vine Street,
then drove east to 61 st Street.
Harms lives at 6100 Vine
St.
Scars said that he and
Harms Harms’ father reported her
missing at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Soukup said Harms did not show up for her
classes or her two part-time jobs Wednesday.
A farmer found Harms’ car, a 1987 blue
Chevy Corsica, shortly after 5 pum. Wednesday
at N. 27th and Bluff Road, about two miles
ou»side of Lincoln, said Chief Deputy Bill
Jarrell of Lancaster County.
Authorities found no cvidcnccof foul play at
the scene, Jarrell said, but arc taking the “nec
essary precautions.”
Deputies used dogs to search the immediate
area Wednesday night, he said, and ground and
air searches arc planned for today if Harms is
not found.
She is described as Caucasian, 5 feet 4
inches tall and 115 pounds, with brown hair and
hazel eyes.
....-- r iiiii i nil■———■■ ii—^—^
Erik Unger/DN
Kathleen Keeler, a biological sciences professor, plays the part of ‘guest lecturer’ Elda Walker Wednesday for her
class on the ecology of the Great Plains.
Playing dress up
Keeler spices up science lectures with a dash of history
By Stephanie Purdy
Staff Reporter
Kathleen Keeler may have looked a
bit out of place to those passing by
her on campus Wednesday
morning.
The 1915-style dress, matching wide
brimmed hat and gloves, wire spectacles
and wig made her appear as if she had
stepped out of a Willa Cather novel.
Keeler, a professor in the School of
Biological Sciences, was playing the part
of ‘guest lecturer’ Elda Walker for her
class on the ecology of the Great Plains.
Keeler said she got the idea as a
graduate student at the University of
Califomia-Berkeley.
“There was a faculty member that had
five dress-up lectures,” Keeler said. “I
only saw (Charles) Darwin because all
sorts of people crawled out of the wood
work when he did one of these lectures,
but it was spectacular.
“He hit the same kinds of things you do
in a regular lecture, but there was also a
lot of history — and a lot of fun.”
Keeler began playing the part of
Walker 10 years ago, she said, when she
lectured on general ecology at an 8:30
a.m. class.
“I racked my brains thinking about
what I could do for those people who
wandered in half asleep,” she said. “Going
as Big Bird didn’t really fit the course and
struck me as embarrassing.”
After digging around in the Love
Library archives, Keeler found Elda
Walker.
Walker received her degree at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where
she majored in plant morphology. She
taught at UNL from 1906 until the late
1950s. Walker died in 1971 at the age of
93.
The first time she dressed as Walker,
Keeler said she received a lot of strange
looks.
“People try not to stare, but they do,”
she said.
Reactions from her peers were mixed.
“They thought it was neat, but what
surprised me is they said, ‘I wouldn’t do
that,”’ she said. “I guess standing in front
of the classroom in costume struck them
as strange or scary. For me it was actually
very liberating.”
Keeler’s lecture includes a lot of
history, she said.
Nebraska football, World War I, historical
Lincoln and, of course, prairie grasses are
among topics covered.
To enhance the lecture, Keeler uses a
lantern slide projector with black-and
white and hand-painted slides that date
back to 1915. The slides came from the
teaching collection for the botany depart
ment.
Keeler said students could participate
in the lecture by either dressing up or
asking questions in class.
Two years ago, one student asked
Keeler, “Dr. Walker, do you think we’ll
get involved in the war in Europe?”
Keeler said she had to think quickly.
“I responded with ‘I seriously hope not.
I think it would be a criminal mistake,”’
she said.
Although the lecture is mostly for fun,
Keeler said, it does b*we educational
value, and she plans on continuing the
guest lecture “indefinitely.”
“Breaks in the routine are fun,” Keeler
said. “Biology and science don’t operate
in a vacuum. It’s part of society.
“So if I’m teaching a little bit of
history and having fun, fine. I still taught
about prairies and forests.
“That way everybody wins.”
Boxing adviser violated trust, club member says
By Shelley Biggs
Senior Reporter_
Clifford Walton was “a very
good, very dedicated coach,”
a member of the UNL boxing
club said Wednesday.
Dave Merritt, president of the box
ing club and a member for two years,
said Walton was a well-read boxing
coach with an “only-the-strong-sur
vive” mentality regarding boxing.
“Coach Walton was a good coach,”
Merritt said. “He just got a little too
emotionally driven in terms of his
relations with the other lighters.”
Walton, formerly an associate pro
— 44-—
/ think UNL is losing a great coach and a wise professor, but he is the one
that made errors in judgment that cost him his job.
—Merritt
president of the boxing dub
fessor of chemical engineering and
the boxing club adviser, was arrested
last week on a charge of third-degree
sexual assault.
The victim was reported to be a
University of Nebraska-Lincoln stu
dent and member of the boxing club,
who was at Walton’s house for a
boxing lesson when the alleged as
sault occurred.
After the lesson, Walton allegedly
gave the student a massage during
which he touched the student “in an
inappropriate manner and areas,"
Chief Ken Cauble of UNL Police
reported.
ww
Walton resigned Tuesday as asso
ciate professor, and no longer is the
club’s adviser.He would not return
phone calls Wednesday.
When Merritt, a junior anthropol
ogy major, first heard of the allega
tions against his coach, he discounted
them, he said. But after he heard all
the details of the case he said he felt
Walton had taken advantage of him.
“I trusted Coach Walton like any
one would have trusted a mentor,” he
said.
But Merritt said he believed Walton
manipulated that trust when he gave
him a rubdown once at his house after
a workout.
Merritt said he didn’t think any
thing of Walton offering him a mas
sage at that time, but he said he felt
uncomfortable afterward.
“I was involved in cycling, and I
have had extensive massages — I
See WALTON on 2