One ‘Tickle Me” Elmo doU and a grinch who didn’t want to part with it started a chain reaction of holiday warm fuzzies Tuesday. A Lincoln family whose house burned down & earlier this month will receive donations from - more than 500 KFRX radio listeners thanks to quick thinking by the station’s announcer. The donation spree started when a woman 1 with a ‘Tickle Me” Elmo doll, an impossible 's to-find Christmas toy, called into the station - looking to sell the doll. The doll usually retails at about $25, and she was asking $100. Dan Tooker, one of the two “Doughnut Holes” on the station’s morning program, took her call at about 6:15 a.m., and decided to put the woman on the air — and on the spot. “I threw her on the air and beat her up a little bit and said, ‘This isn’t the spirit of Christmas,’” Tooker said. Tooker told her she could make amends for her greediness by donating the doll to a family v that needed it. The woman said she’d think about it, hung up and never called back. Listeners were appalled. “People were really upset that Christmas had turned into that, that people were hawking and DAN TOOKER, a disc jockey at KFRX in Lincoln, took the air Tuesday morning with Tickle Me Elmo to encourage people to bring in gifts for a Lincoln family whose house recently was destroyed in a fire. scalping toys,” Tooker said. “So I said we’re gonna change it. We’re gonna adopt a family.” Tooker told listeners about a family he heard about who had built their dream house this year, only to have it bum to the ground early in De cember. “From that point, it just exploded,” Tooker said. “Because of one woman being a Christ mas grinch, we were able to turn it around.” They received offers for donated clothes, food and toiletries. Then they got an offer for a free “Tickle Me” Elmo. One person donated $250. A queen-size bed and a bedroom set were donated in the afternoon. Land and Sky donated its warehouse for furniture storage until the fam ily can move things in. One woman, whose mother had just died, offered to let the family go through the mother’s house and take any Please see GIFTS on 6 attentioii-gettw^_ * "^™^™BB^^HH!!!S FTS NOT DASHER — or Dancer, for that matter. But at Leon and Barb Bindenagel’s reindeer ranch in rural central Nebraska, some flightless relatives of Santa’s four-legged helpers are easy to spot. Please see story on page 8. ' Students to get discounts Local Internet access providers extend rates to UNL By Josh Funk Staff Reporter Even though students will not be able to use the university’s free dial in modem pool, they will get a dis count rate from local Internet access providers. On February 1,1997 the university will shut down its modems, and stu dents who want to access their e-mail or the Internet will have to subscribe to a local access provider or travel to a campus computer lab. For students switching over to lo cal Internet providers this spring, pro viders say they will have faster, better service than they had with the modem pool. Ruth Michalecki, Telecommunica tions Center director, said students will tt Once people get past the idea that they have to pay for something that was free, they will see the Internet opening up to them and realize that what they got free wasn't very much." Ruth Michalecki telecommunications Center director realize how limited their access was through the university modem pool. The university has negotiated a special rate with Internet Nebraska and Aliant Communication’s NAVIX to offer similar rates and services to stu dents. There are three basic monthly us Please see INTERNET on 6 Kwanzaa week celebrates African-American culture By Kelly McNally Staff Reporter Happy Kwanzaa! For one week in December, about 13 million African-Americans will celebrate Kwanzaa. The holiday was started by Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga on Dec. 26, 196& Karenga was a leading theorist of The Black Movement and devel oped Kwanzaa because he believed African-Americans needed a non-su pematural religion to unify them cul turally. Kwanzaa, a Kiswahili wend mean ing the first fruits of harvest, is cel ebrated from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is represented by a principle. African Americans are reminded to practice unity (umoja), self-determination (kujichagulia), responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), pur pose (nia), creativity (kuumba), and faith (imani) during this time period. These principles reflect the social and spiritual needs of African-Americans. Seven symbols reflect traditional and modem concepts, which evolved from African-Americans’ lives: • A straw mat (mkeka). • A candle holder (kinari). • Seven candles (mshumaa). • An ear of com (muhindi). . * ----- - - - . ... - - - *