Most common cancer also
among most preventable
by Martna Dunn
Staff Reporter
The days when bronzed goddesses
crowded the Hollywood big screen
and lined the pages of fashion maga
zines are over — pale is in.
Actresses’ livelihoods depend on
their looks, said Joleen Huneke, a
cancer control administrator for the
Nebraska Department of Heal th. Con
sequently, when they are told that the
sun will damage their skin and make
them age faster, they will do anything
possible to prevent that, she said.
However, the trend in Hollywood
doesn’t seem to be spreading across
the country very fast.
According to the American Cancer
Society, about 600,000 Americans are
diagnosed with skin cancer each year,
making it the most common form of
cancer.
Huneke said skin cancer rates are
increasing dramatically. She blames
this to a careless attitude toward the
sun.
“People are not taking near the
precautions they need to be,” Huneke
said.
Since most young people don’t
know anyone with skin cancer, she
said, they think it won’t happen to
them.
“When we ’re young, we think we’ re
invincible,” she said.
Heather Anderson, a business ad
ministration major at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, said she sun
bathes everyday the weather is nice,
despite the danger.
“1 do hear (the warnings) but 1
think it won’t happen to me,” she said.
Anderson said she thinks she looks
better when she’s tan.
“Its just like when you wear make
up and do your hair, you think you
look better,” she said. “When I’m tan,
I think I look better.”
Through the past several decades,
the tan has been promoted as a healthy
look, Huneke said.
This attitude isn’t as dangerous for
people who tan easily, she said, but
people who bum need to be more
-M
Its just like when you
wear make-up and do
your hair, you think
you look better.
“When I’m tan, I think I
look better.
— Heather Anderson,
UNL student
-ft
careful.
Huneke said people who have fair
skin, red pr blond hair and blue eyes
arc more likely to develop skin cancer.
This group needs to take more precau
tions when going out into the sun, she
said.
These precautions include wear
ing sunscreen with a Sun Protection
Factor of at least 15, or wearing a
long-sleeved shirt and a wide-brimmed
hat that covers the neck and cars, she
said. It is also best, she said, to avoid
the sun’s most intense rays, which
occur from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Huneke said she thinks education
is the key to eliminating skin cancer.
“With more knowledge, things
change,” she said. “Look at smoking.
It used to be the thing to do, now it’s
not.”
But old habits die hard, she said.
Older people who have been in the
sun their whole lives and not had any
bad side effects are going to be hard to
reach, Huneke said. They think if it
hasn’t happened yet, it won’t ever
happen, she said.
This belief couldn ’ t be more wrong,
she said, because skin cancer is a
disease thatdevelopsovera lifetimeof
sun exposure.
Education should begin early, she
said, so children will develop healthy
habits. Huneke said if children learn
the dangers of sun exposure and how
to protect themselves, they can avoid
skin cancer.
Huneke said she knows it is unre
alistic to ask people to stay out of the
sun.
Whittier
Continued from Page 1
The superintendent in 1977, John
Prasch, effectively told the board that
if federal agencies were to look at
Whittier, they might say the board’s
actions approached segregation.
Whittier became a school with a 34
percent minority enrollment, in a sys
tem that was 2 percent minority as a
whole, the Journal reported.
Herbert Slortx was principal at
Whittier when it closed. The vole was
not unexpected, he said.
There had been talk of the school
closing since 1970, Stortz said, but it
had just been talk.
In the end, it came down to what
was best for the kids, he said.
“I think they tried as long as they
could to keep it (open),” Slortz said.
“It finally reached a point of no re
turn.”
Whittier had 38 faculty on staff for
only 300 students when it closed. Not
only was it inefficient, Stortz said,but
there were quest ions as to what qual i ty
of education was being provided.
“What kind of band can you have
when you only have 15 or 18 members
in the band?” Stortz said. “But we still
had a band.”
UNL now owns much of the old
Malone neighborhood, including
Bancroft and Whittier.
Bradley said it was no surprise.
“There were two plans at one time,”
he said. “One was made public and
one wasn’t.”
The public plan showed a North
east Radial connecting 48th Street to
downtown and slicing through the
Malone neighborhood. The other
showed the university pushing it’s
way in.
“The university gets what they
want,” he said. “It will happen more. ’
Other messages scrawled on a side
walk that Sunday read:
“You know we need it—I know we
need it — If only they would realize
it.”
“Keep Whittier open and keep our
tears away.”
Before they left Whittier that year,
.students and faculty put together a
time capsule and buried it in one of the
walls of the old school.
Included in the mementos was a
broken egg — to symbolize the stu
dents.
The time capsule remains. - -
James Mehsling/DN
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