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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (July 7, 1994)
JULY 7 1994 VOL. 93 NO. 159 UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA LINCOLN Inside: Malone Skin Cancer Gump War Room —Page 2 —Page 3 —Page 9 —Page 10 Courtesy of Herbert Stwtz Jason Levkulich/DN Mike Fen and Anne Draper stand by one of Whittier Junior High School’s exits. The image would grace Whittier’s last yearbook cover in 1977. While university officials debate its fate, the Whittier building deteriorates with each passing day. Whittierschoolunitedneighborhood By Brian Sharp Stall Raportar Sunday, March 5,1977. On sidewalks ihroughout Lin coln. chalked messages plead for the life of a neighborhood school. One message reads: “Without a junior high, our community would die." Tuesday, March 7, 1977. The Lincoln Board of Education votes 5-1 in favor of closing Whittier Junior High School. It was ruled a victim of changing times. But some neighbors saw it as the final blow from a city that had de stroyed their home. By that time, the city owned more than 80 percent of the Malone neigh borhood. Bancroft Elementary School had been closed. And now Whittier. Their neighborhood was being Closing the former model jr. high school hastens demise of working-class community squeezed out. Industry on one side. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln on another. And the city developers were jumping right in the middle. In 1923, Whittier had opened with a price tag of $780,000 in the poorer section of Lincoln. It was where the bluc-collarworkers lived. Where chil dren rarely went to school more than five or six years. Whittier was heralded as both a local and national model for junior high schools, and would later be mir rored in Irving and Everett junior high. In his dissertation, James Keill quoted then Superintendent. M.C. Lcflcr as saying the board chose the Whittier sight because, “it was in a poorer section and they figured if it could be built there — thereby have a demonstration of what it would be. that you couldn’t prevent it from go ing to the better sections of the com munity — which resulted in exactly the way they figured.” By the 1930s, Whittier was thriv ing, the Malone neighborhood was a close-knit community and the univer sity was just a small school on the other side of the tracks. Holbert S. Bradley grew up there. “There was nothing but kids,” Bra dley said of the old neighborhood. Malone spread out in all direc tions, from 14th-lo 22nd streets, and Vinc-to S streets. And the schools were packed, Bradley said. Then he went away. Years later, when he came back, what he found was not his home. “They (the city) look a lot of the community out,” he said. “There were no children left.” . In the years before it closed, enroll ment at Whittier had fallen from 1,250 to less than 300. Many families had been “relocat ed” elsewhere in the city. The air base had closed. But those weren’t the only reasons for the decline. In 1969, Goodrich Junior High was opened. Boundaries were shifted and trans fers were easy to come by. Whittier had a reputation by then, an image— and it was a bad one. To many, Whittier was seen as a rough school, in adcclining, industri al neighborhood of low income fami lies and minority children. But the decisions made by the school board inopcningGoodrich were “chief grounds on which federal agencies or the courts frequently charge school boards in civil rights eases,” accord ing to an article in the Lincoln Jour nal. dated March 9, 1977. • See WHITTIER on 3 Birth control doesn’t mean STD control By Angela Jones Staff Reporter While most sexually ac tive young people take precautions to prevent pregnancy, few protect them selves against sexually transmit ted diseases. A recent survey by the Alan Guttmachcr Institute shows that more teenagers use oral contraceptives rather than condoms. “Oral contraceptives arc a highly effective method of birth control, but they offer no protec tion against sexually transmit ted diseases,” said Susan Pow ers-Alcxander, director of Edu cation and Training at Planned Parenthood of Lincoln. “Teenagers must realize that if they choose to have sex, condoms provide the only pro tection against all STDs,” said Peggy Clarke, president of the American Social Health Associ ation. “While the rate of teenage pregnancy may be stabilizing, the rate of STDs among teens is soaring.” The Guttmacher survey indi cates that sexually active young people are twice as likely to choose oral contraceptives as condoms. Of those surveyed ages 15-24,50 percent use birth con trol pills, 22 percent use condoms, 9 percent use other contraceptive methods and 19 percent do not use any method. Two-thirds of the 12 million new STD infections in the U.S. each year occur in people under 25. See STD S on 2 Contraceptive Methods of Choice Ages 15 to 24: llrth Control Pill* No protection Ages 19 and under: I Source: Amarlcnn Social Haatth Ataociatlon DN Graphic