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COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901_VOL. 95 NO. 147 April 26 1996
^ ^ nto® I councilmany stdnds in front of the Ohiya Casino on the Santee Reservation in Knox
■■ County.
Santee struggle to keep casino
by josntra uiinn
Staff Reporter
SANTEE — Clarence Campbell, Sr.
stands at the end of a room filled with slot
machines, keeping an eye on the two dozen
or so people sliding dollar bills into them.
He is a security guard for the Ohiya Ca
sino, in the village of Santee, less than a mile
from the South Dakota border.
While “ohiya” isthe Sioux word for “win,”
there is no guarantee this noisy room will
remain open for long.
The room is no extravagant Vegas-style
casino. It is small and cramped with 68 video
slot machines — tighter when many of the
games are being played at once.
One of the players stands up from the
machine she is sitting at and waves. She is
ready to cash in.
Campbell sees the woman. Noticing his
co-worker is busy, he walks over and escorts
her to the cashier’s window, where the woman
eagerly accepts her winnings of $22.
He guides the woman through the room to
' - *
the tront door, waving goodbye as she gets
into her car and drives away.
“This is my job,” he said. “It’s my respon
sibility to take care of the property and the
people and make sure nothing happens to
either of them.”
Campbell takes his job very seriously. It
is one of the few available in this village of
600 people in northeast Nebraska.
“I lived here when I was younger,” he
said. “I left here when I was about 16 or 17
years old, and there was no employment
then, either.
“Jobs have always been hard to come by
around here.”
Campbell was working in Yankton, S.D.,
about 50 miles away, when die casino opened
Feb. 2. Hoping he would be able to both live
and work in Santee, he applied for a job. To
his surprise, he got one.
But even now, the 60-year-old Campbell
has no assurance that he’ll be able to con
tinue working there.
The State of Nebraska, having deemed
the casino illegal, is trying to shut the cafe
turned-casino down.
The recent seizure of $87,194 of the
casino’s earnings from the Marquette Bank
of Yankton by federal marshals, as well as
the threat of a possible $25,000-a-day fine
for violation of a pending federal closure
order, may have some workers looking over
their shoulders.’*
But not Campbell.
“There’s no fear here,” he said. ‘There’s
really nothing to worry about; we Indian
people have been harassed all our lives.
What’s this compared to everything else
governments have done to us?”
Campbell said hfc had noticed a change in
the community since the casino opened.
“The Indian people here are proud of this
place,” he said. “We’ve never had a problem
in here. We used to have an alcohol problem
in the village, but now I see people trying to
sober up.
“We know this is a place for economic
development, and we want to keep it.”
For Campbel 1, the state’ s attempts to close
See SANTEE on 10
UNL Police
get invited
to Olympics
By Erin Schulte
Staff Reporter
The ability to control rowdy fans at
Comhusker football games may have helped
send two UNL bicycle police officers to the
summer Olympic Games — to work as secu
rity guards.
When Officer Brian Peters and Cpl. Brian
Scusa sent in their applications to work at the
Olympics more than a year ago, neither ex
pected to ever take the trip to Atlanta.
“We just thought we’d throw our hat in the
ring,” Peters said.
Although they’re not sure what Olympic of
ficials saw in their applications to volunteer as
security guards, both agreed it was probably
their experience working with crowds of more
than 75,000 people at Memorial Stadium on
football Saturdays.
“We’ve had over 100 sellout games,” Scusa
said. “There’s always crowds, but we never have
major incidents. It’s given the university a good
See POLICE on 9
Pop reduced
to 25 cents
From Staff Reports
A quarter can’t buy a lot these days.
Pay phone calls, newspapers and postage
stamps have all risen above the 25 cent mark,
but right now at UNL, 25 cents can still buy a
can of pop.
The price of pop has been reduced in 36
machines during dead and finals week on City
and East campuses at the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln, said Gene Meerkatz, manager
of Vending Services.
“We were just trying to create goodwill and
pass on a deal to our students,” he said.
“They support us all year, every year, and
this was our way of saying thanks.”
Machine prices have been changed in build
ings students use frequently, Meerkatz said.
From Nebraska Hall to Westbrook Hall,
from the Beadle Center to East Campus Rec
reation, from Nebraska Union to the Plant Sci
ence Hall, machines have been adjusted to sell
pop for 25 cents.
“There’s a lot of work in changing the ma
chines and changing them back,” Meerkatz
said.
The half-price tradition may continue in
future semesters if vending services doesn’t end
up losing too much money from the venture.
Travis Heylng/DN
Jan Berringer speaks to reporters.
Berringer’s mother says thank you
By Mike Kluck
Senior Reporter
One week after her son’s tragic death, Jan
Berringer is still shocked and overwhelmed
by the number of people her son affected.
Berringer said the cards, letters, gifts and
condolences she and her family had received
since Brook Berringer’s fatal plane crash last
Thursday had helped her and her family start
healing.
“Knowing that others too share my
family’s grief and pain helps us get through
these difficult days,” she read from a pre
pared statement at a press conference Thurs
day morning in Memorial Stadium—where
the former NU quarterback helped his team
win back-to-back national championships.
“I need to tell the people of Nebraska and
others across the nation how much their sup
port has meant and how it has helped my
daughters and I deal with our pain.”
“I need to tell the people of
Nebraska and others across
the nation how much their
support has meant and how
it has helped my daughters
and I deal with our pain. ”
JAN BERRINGER
mother of Brook Berringer
So many cards and letters have been sent
to the family’s home in Goodland, Kan., that
Berringer said the mailman didn’t stop at
the mailbox anymore. He instead parks in
the driveway to deliver the mail.
Kansas Sen. Bob Dole has called and sent
the family flowers. Berringer said Dole
promised to send her and her two daugh
ters, Nicoel Nasseri and Drue Berringer, in
dividual letters.
The family also has received flowers and
condolences from every Big Eight school,
along with many other universities.
But the letters and remembrances from
children have made the biggest impact.
“School children have been sending me
letters they’ve written and pictures they’ve
drawn,” Berringer said. “That is especially
heartwarming to me, not only because I’m
a school teacher, but because Brook loved
children and was particularly compassion
ate with those who had difficult changes in
their lives.”
Berringer, a fourth-grade teacher in
Goodland, said she believed every child in
Goodland had sent her a letter.
See BERRINGER on 3