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COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901 VOl. 95 NO. 119 near 20 to 25._
_______ _March 5, 1996_
Schooner or later
Editor earns
local attention
for magazine
By Todd Anderson
Staff Reporter
For years, Prairie Schooner and its edi
tors have been recognized across the nation
for publishing outstanding literary work.
But only recently have the magazine and
its editor, Hilda Raz, attracted much local
attention.
Last month, Prairie Schooner received the
Nebraska Governor’s Arts Award for Orga
nizational Achievement.
And two weeks ago, Raz was named the
1996 Woman Artist of the Year by the Lin
coln/Lancaster Commission on the Status of
Women.
Prairie Schooner, which is supported by
the University ofNebraska-Lincoln English
Department and the UNL Press, has always
had a great reputation nationwide, Raz said.
The Washington Post has called Prairie
Schooner one of the best magazines for
“fabulous fiction,” and Writer’s Digest has
called it one of the top 10 magazines for
poetry.
In fact, it was the magazine’s reputation
that attracted Raz to UNL in the first place.
“My family thought I was crazy; Moving
to Nebraska?” she said.
But the magazine’s high standards and the
reputation of UNL’s English Department
made Raz’s decision clear.
She began working with the Prairie
Schooner as a volunteer poetry reader. Since
then, she has served as the poetry editor, edi
torial assistant, and eventually editor of the
magazine.
Raz, who is the fifth editor and the sec
ond female editor in the magazine’s 70-year
history, has been editor since 1987.
Raz works with a team of associates from
the English Department and several volun
teer readers to sort through stacks of manu
scripts every day.
From those stacks, only a handful of writ
ings can be chosen for the quarterly maga
zine with a printing of more than 3,000.
“We have a very professional staff,” Raz
said. “We’re making the best magazine na
tionally and internationally.”
The magazine recently published several
issues with different focuses, Raz said, such
as Canadian women writers, Czech and Slo
vak writing and Latino writing.
Those special issues were near sellouts,
she said.
“We are constantly expanding the venue,”
Tanna Klnnaman/DN
Hilda Raz, editor of Prairie Schooner magazine, was recently named
Woman Artist the Year by the Lincoln/Lancaster Commission on the
Status of Women.
she said.
The Prairie Schooner also has attracted
distinguished contributors such as Octavio
Paz, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams,
Cynthia Ozick, Eudora Welty and Raymond
Carver, as well as essays, poems, translations
and fiction from Pulitzer Prize winners and
Nobel laureates.
Often these writers appeared in Prairie
Schooner before their major works were pub
lished on the East Coast.
The Prairie Schooner, however, i s the only
top-rated literary magazine that does not pay
its contributors, she said, although it is work
ing toward that goal.
ine magazine continues to aistnoute
awards in the names of former editors and
long-time supporters, such as the Lawrence
Foundation Award for best short story and
the Bernice Slote Award for best work by a
beginning writer.
Aside from editing the Prairie Schooner,
Raz is also an associate professor of English
and a published poet and essayist.
Still, with all the national attention the
Prairie Schooner and Raz have received, lo
cal recognition is the most gratifying, she
said.
“(Receiving these awards) really validates
your work,” she said.
Liability in
oolice chases
aody debated
By Ted Taylor
Senior Reporter
Debate on a bill addressing police liability
in high-speed chases was delayed Monday af
ternoon after two senators attacked the bill —
and its introducer.
One day after an accident following a high
speed police chase
~ . . . ~1 claimed the life of a 16
LegiSlatlire year-old Beemer girl, law
f IfWv makers began to debate
M LB952, which would limit
police liability in chases
that injure an innocent
third party.
Debate on the bill, in
troduced by Sen. Dave
Maurstadof Beatrice, was
-* postponed until March 19
after heavy opposition
from two Omaha senators.
Sens. Ernie Chambers and John Lindsay
dominated the debate on the bill, saying it was
poorly drafted and riddled with problems.
“I think that Sen. Maurstad may believe what
he’s saying,” Chambers said, “but I don’t think
he knows what he’s talking about.
“It sets up more hoops that an injured third
party has to go through to recover. The real is
sue is that it will attempt to make it as difficult
as possible for the injured third party to col
lect;’
Before debate started, Chambers distributed
packets containing more than 50 pages of news
paper articles dealing with police chases —
some dating back to 1974.
Maurstad said his bill was good public policy
because law enforcement officers should be al
lowed to pursue criminals to protect the well
being of society.
He said third parties also should be allowed
to recover damages from all sources involved
in the chase.
Current law states that in cases where police
chases run through more than one political sub
division, damages can be collected only from
the subdivision where the accident or injury
occurred.
Maurstad’s bill allows the injured party to
recover damages from all political subdivisions
involved in the chase.
Chambers and Lindsay said the bill was an
attempt to lessen the fiscal blow to local gov
ernments and law enforcement agencies.
Lindsay said the state, then, would be forced
to pick up the tab for those who couldn’t work
and spent all their earnings paying for hospital
bills.
See CHASE on 2
By Chad Lorenz
Senior Reporter
Representing students who have
been ignored and using poor cam
paign tactics were areas of contention
in Monday’s
ASUN debate,
two days before
the election.
The debate,
sponsored by Pi
Sigma Alpha,
Golden Key Na
tional Honor So
ciety and Mortar
Board, brought
together OF
FICE presiden
tial candidate Justin Firestone and
ACTION presidential candidate Eric
Marintzer.
Firestone said students — espe
cially residence hall students and in
ternational students — thought the
Association of Students of the Univer
sity of Nebraska had ignored them for
too long.
“Everybody knows there’s a politi
cal machine running on this campus,”
Firestone said.
He said residence hall students
didn’t have proportional representa
tion on ASUN committees, such as the
athletic relations committee, which
have only one residence hall student
but two greek representatives and three
at-large members.
Firestone said OFFICE candidates
were committed to listening to what
students truly think, not just claiming
. they represent students.
“That’s why we’re running,” he
said, “because we want to change all
that.”
Marintzer said his party was look
ing to speak for students.
“This is not a political machine.
This is concerned students,” he said.
ACTION will represent students
because its ticket is diverse, Marintzer
said. Its slate of 72 candidates includes
38 women, nine minorities and 11
residence hall students.
“That’s what I call an accessible
government,” he said.
ACTION would work closely with
the Residence Hall Association by
sending Kara Marshall, second vice
presidential candidate, to RH A meet
ings, Marintzer said. And he said he
would continue to talk frequently with
RHA president Eric Vander Woude.
Marintzer said OFFICE couldn’t
represent all students because its 11
candidates include only one woman
and no residence hall students.
“If someone can tell me how that ■
is access, I’d like to know,” Marintzer
said.
“I question how they’ll be able to
represent females on this campus
when they only have one woman on
their slate.”
Firestone said he already had
shown he could fight for women’s
concerns on campus.
“I assure you I don’t have to be a
woman to understand women’s
needs.”
He said he fought for women’s con
cerns in the Committee for Fees Allo
cation when he spoke out against cut
ting funds for the Women’s Center. He
said he was able to convince the com
mittee to save the Women’s Center.
Firestone said he had stuck his neck
out for students in the campaign be
cause it was his duty. OFFICE would
be committed to that duty and would
See DEBATE on 2
J. Christopher Hain recently
quizzed ASUN presidential
candidates Justin Firestone &
Eric Marintzer. The interview
can be found on page 3
