inside fT
1 hursday
Sports
Husker softball team
ranked No. 8, page 7
Arts & Entertainment
Omaha native returns to
Nebraska this weekend with
The Murmurs, page 9
March 2, 1995
Kids hurt when cash is cut, bill foes say
By Chad Lorenz
Staff Reporter
A bill to reform welfare in Ne
braska would harm children, oppo
nents said Wednesday at a hearing
befqre the Health and Human Ser
vices Committee at the Legislature.
Milo Mungaard of the Nebraska
Center for Legal Services said he fa
vored welfare reform but thought
LB455 hadpotential dangers that over
shadowedits advantages.
“We don’t want reform that cuts
children’s benefits and exposes chil
to the risk of
egligence,”
Mungaard said.
The proposed
Nebraska reforms
would be enforced
on adults who fail
to uphold parts of
self-sufficiency
LEGISLATURE contracts.
Under the bill, recipients of Aid to
Families with Dependent Children
would be limited to two years of assis
tance, provided they fulfill a self-suf
ficiency contract to participate in edu
cation, employment search or j ob train
ing.
But Mungaard said if people
couldn’t fulfill that contract and sanc
tions were enforced, their children
ultimately would be penalized.
Sheryl Walker, of Families Achiev
ing Independence and Respect, deliv
ered 500 postcards to the committee
to represent the what she said were the
unheard voices of children.
“Now their hearts are in your
hands,” Walker said.
Sen. Ardyce Bohlke of Hastings
said many of the bill’s opponents mis
understood LB455.
The self-sufficiency contract would
act as a partnership between the re
cipients and the state, she said.
Gov. Ben Nelson said LB455
would make it easier for recipients to
achieve self-sufficiency.
“We want to truly help people who
want to help themselves,” Nelson said.
The reforms would help Nebras
kans thrive, he said, not just survive
by relying on the welfare system.
Toencourage independence, fami
lies would be allowed up to $5,000 in
assets instead of the current $1.000.
Jessie Rasmussen, director of the
Office for Children and Families, said
the two-year time limit would serve as
a motivator for recipients to find jobs.
She said there was more value in
working than just earning a living.
The dignity and work ethic adults
would develop from their jobs would
be a positive influence on their chil
dren, Rasmussen said.
Governor
-- -- ~ :i
optimistic
on regents
By J. Christopher Hain
Senior Reporter
The plan to appoint University of Nebraska
regents is not dead yet.
Gov. Ben Nelson said Wednesday he ex
pected the Legislature’s Education Committee
to advance some type of a constitutional amend
ment allowing the governor to appoint the NU
? Board of Regents. Several senators on the com
mittee agreed.
Sen. Ardyce Bohlke of Hastings, chairwoman
of the committee and sponsor of LR29CA, said
advancing the resolution out of committee
hinged on finding the right mix of appointed and
elected regents.
The committee advanced Monday a version
of the resolution that would have made the
f Board of Regents an 11-member body with
eight,elected and three appointed regents. The
committee voted Tuesday to cancel Monday’s
action.
The resolution, introduced by Bohlke at the
request of the governor, originally called for all
bee REGENTS on 6
Past student
arrested for
multiple theft
From Staff Reports
A former University of Nebraska-Lincoln
student was arrested Tuesday on three counts of
felony theft.
Gail Tvrdy was arrested for stealing three
saxophones — two from Westbrook Music
Building.
UNL Police Sgt. Bill Manning said two
saxophones, together worth $2,500, were
checked out from Westbrook Music Building
by Tvrdy on Feb. 17.
Manning said the third saxophone, valued at
$2,000, apparently was borrowed from a friend.
Manning said whoever checked out the
' .university’s saxophones to Tvrdy was unaware
; that she was no longer a student.
John Gill, band instrument technician at
| WestbrookJVlusic Building, said 400 UNL stu- -
i dents were allowed to check out instruments.
\ ’ Unfamiliar students, he said, are checked for
i identification. j
Tvrdy, who was a music student last semes
i ter, was not considered unfamiliar and was not
checked for identification, he said.
Manning said the saxophones were reported
j missing on Monday and were recovered Tues
' day ana Wednesday at local music stores and a
i pawn shop. Tvrdy apparently had traded them
1 for cash, Manning said.
Scott Bruhn/DN
Greg Snow, associate professor of physics and astronomy, helped discover the top quark, the last of six quarks believed
to be the fundamental building blocks of all matter. The project to find the top quark has been his top research priority
, for five years. j
Professor basks in sub-atomic success
Years of research pay off
in search for definite proof
of the evasive top quark
By John Fulwider
Staff Reporter
Greg Snow has just crossed the finish line.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln associ
ate professor of physics and astronomy found
out last week that the elusive top quark, a sub
atomic particle, had been proven to exist.
Snow got involved with the project to find
the top quark in 1989 while he was an associate
professor at the University of Michigan.
He joined a team of800 physicists searching
for the top quark, the last of six to be proven to
exist. Quarks are believed to be the fundamental
building blocks of all matter. £
Snow’s role in the project included building
a piece of the detector used to find the top quark,
collecting data on particle collisions and com
puter analysis of the data.
Snow said he was excited to be part of the,
discovery.
now it ieeis more tiKe completing a mara
thon,” he said.
Snow said he felt a bit odd being suddenly
famous and seeing his name in newspapers after
working for so long on the project that began in
1982.
“That feels sort of like routine work to me,”
he said. “It’s been hard work and long hours.”
Snow worked at the Fermi National Accel
erator Laboratory in Batavia, 111., where the
Tevatron particle accelerator was used to col
lide protons and antiprotons together at high
speeds.
Those collisions produced sprays of par
ticles and rarely produced a top quark. Snow
said that of 60 million experimental collisions,
only 13 produced a top quark.
Snow also worked at his computer in
Ferguson Hall on UNL’s. City Campus to ana
lyze data from the collisions.
Snow said it was difficult to find the top
quark because it occurred so rarely. And when
?it does appear, he said, it decays in a fraction of
a second.
There are five other quarks, named up, down,
charm, strange and bottom.
The up and down quarks are found inside
Electron
tk
(XI ^'sS ) Atom
v"'x:.7 Nucleus
Particle
Quark#
Courtesy of Greg Snow
protons, which along with neutrons, form the
nucleus of an atom. The other quarks, including
the top quark, are not found in nature and can
only be produced in a particle accelerator.
The top quark is an especially important one,
Snow said, because it is so massive.
Atomic weights are based on the number of
times heavier the particle is than a single proton.
The topquark is about 200 times heavier than a
proton. '■ '
The discovery also is important, Snow said,
because the last quark, the bottom quark, was
discovered 18 years ago in 1977.
