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Skidding Nebraska beats March n, 1997
The Nebraska baseball team hasn’t lost faith after Antone Douglas, who is also known as All Ayz,
an 11-game losing streak. Today, NU tries to end is an Omaha rap artist with a new album, “Last AllOl
the skid at Kansas State. PAGE 10 Breath: 24th Street Stories.” PAGE 12 Sunny, high 65.
VOL. 96 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO.T18
S — -. " ..- .....
Out of fear, she delivered her baby
alone in her Smith Residence Hall room.
Now, a former UNL student knows the family
she has would have supported the one she created.
By Paula Lavigne
Managing Editor
hursday night, Kimberly Coffeen
was alone in her room.
By Friday morning, the 18
year-old freshman had a roommate for life.
That was Jan. 24. It marked the end of
more than nine months of a hidden preg
nancy and lonely nights full of tears in a resi
dence hall room.
V A1*1 il marked a choice: adoption or ac
ceptance. For Katherine Grace Coffeen
Spencer — only hours into this world —
that choice was to be her future.
Last May, Kim and her boyfriend chose
not to use birth control — once — after
prom and weeks before Kim’s graduation
from Marian High School in Omaha.
It wasn’t her choice to become pregnant,
but by September, she knew she had to make
a decision. Abortion was not an option.
Confronted by fear, in her first semester
of college and away from home, Kim de
cided to take on one of the hardest tasks
any woman can face — childbirth.
She hid the pregnancy, delivered the baby
by herself—putting both mother and child
in grave danger.
She did this alone out of fear she would
disappoint those who loved her. Only later
did she realize that the people she feared
would turn her away, would have embraced
her and supported her when she needed
* them.
Now they do.
Hiding inside
Kim took a pregnancy test in May, but
the results were “hazy,” she said. Over the
summer, though, she was car-sick too many
times to not suspect something else. In Sep
tember, the test was 100 percent positive.
That was when she and her boyfriend Cletus
Spencer decided to hide Kim’s pregnancy
from everyone.
Kim said they figured if they didn’t tell
anybody, they could give the child up for
adoption and no one would know — espe
cially the four people who brought Kim and
Clete into the world.
“The biggest thing was that we didn’t
want to disappoint our parents,” Kim said.
“I’m an only child, and to come ih‘aii3S%*
‘Yeah, I’m 18, I’m pregnant.’ Just to see
the look on their face.
“I do everything in life because I want
to please them and please myself. To me,
being pregnant was a big disappointment. I
thought my parents expected the most Of
me.” *
In her scenario, Kim said, her parents
would have kicked her out of the house and
cut her off from the family.
So Kim devised, as her father would later
say, “the perfect crime.” She wore baggy
sweatshirts, bib overalls, jogging pants and
sweaters. And she said she denied the life
growing inside her.
In the fall, she started as a freshman
news-editorial major at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. She moved from Omaha
to her Smith Residence Hall room. Kim
fended off the stress, she said, because she
put all her pressure into school.
Some of her friends who saw her every
day said they thought she was pregnant, but
figured she would admit it if she were. And
they were dispelled by Kim’s complaints of
menstrual cramps.
Her mother and father saw her almost
Please see GRACE on 7
. Lane Hickenbottom/DN
KIM COFFEEN holds her healthy baby girl, Katherine Grace Coffeen-Spencer, at her parents’
heme north ef Omaha about two weeks after dolharing the baby by herself In her Smith natldoaca
Hall room January 24. Coffeen hid her pregnancy from family and friends far more than nine
months.
Hall security adequate,
aysrj:
By Kasey Kerber
p T v Staff Reporter
-
There woe few surprises in Monday’s AjSUN
debate between KEG and ADVANCE, as Doth
parties held firm to the points they’ve promoted
I throughout their campaigns.
§ Technology was once again a key point of
| the ADVANCE party, while “administrative ac
i countability” continued to be the main thrust for
f KEG.
% But Monday’s debate — the final bout be
: tween the two parties before the Wednesday As
| sociation of Students of the University of Ne
t braska elections—featured an emphasis on rep
|BW[pPWjlPMl.
resentation and politics.
Both parties felt it was important to lobby in
the Legislature—whether for bills that directly
affect university students or bills that address a
non-university issue that students might still care
about.
But KEG and ADVANCE had different
views on a handful of other issues, including how
to deal with the NU Board of Regents.
Curt Ruwe, presidential candidate for AD
VANCE, said being informed and showing an
Please see DEBATE on 6
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
The university’s recent $50,000 settlement
with a former student who said she was. raped
twice in residence halls will not pressure the
university to increase safety measures in the
halls, a school official said Monday.
Doug Zatechka, director of housing at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the uni
versity meets or exceeds federal standards for
campus security. UNL would not step up its
current “good security” to avoid future law
suits, he said.
“How much do you make the hall become
a prison?” Zatechka asked. “I don’t know
what else we can ultimately do.”
^ The University of Nebraska issued a state
ment Friday saying it agreed Feb. 13 to pay
former student Kathy Redmond $50,000 in
an out-of-court settlement among Redmond,
Please see SAFETY on 6
Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http: / / www.unl.edu I Daily Neb
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