I IS p o B T»_ _i_l_ FRIDAY
Last home meet Exorcising the demons March 14,1997
The Nebraska women’s gymnastics team com- Jon Spencer and his band the Jon Spencer Blues
petes at home for the final time this season on Explosion delivered an intense performance
1_ Sunday against Penn State. PAGE 9 Wednesday at Omaha’s Sokol Hall. PAGE 12 Blustery flurries,
VOL. 96 COVERING THE'TTNfVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 121
Ruwe plans for action, tsamwoifc
By Kasey Kerber
Staff Reporter
Experience.
It was the one thing that separated Curt Ruwe
from being just your average kid in Hooper —
population 881 —to being die 20-year-old presi
dent of the Association of Students of die Uni
versity of Nebraska in Lincoln.
Ruwe’s ADVANCE party won the elec
tion Wednesday with 67 percent of the unof
ficial vote.
The junior secondary education major
said he never expected to become president
when he first started working with ASUN
his freshman year.
“It seemed so far away,” Ruwe said. “I
thought to myself, ‘Why even think about it?”’
! Now Ruwe has plenty to think about as
ASUN president-elect. And, in part, he has
his experience to thank for it.
Ruwe said his experience as Teachers Col
lege Advisory Board vice president, College
Republicans secretary, Alpha Tau Omega sec
t retary and; ASUN Speaker of the Senate gave
’-•* * him the leadership skills and contacts he
r needed to become ASUN president.
Ruwe said he hopes to use that experi
ence — and that of his current executive of
ficers —to shape the ASUN senate next year.
“We have three executive officers who
have held positions in and outside of ASUN
and are perfectly capable of passing their ex
perience on to the new senators,” Ruwe said.
Ruwe said he also has faith in the leader
ship of the returning senators to ASUN.
“Everyone who got elected is qualified,”
Ruwe said. “But to have senators who have
been here before and know how ASUN
works is a big advantage.”
Ruwe called the working relationship
among ADVANCE candidates “teamwork,”
and hopes that senators and executive offic
ers — new and old — can work together to
accomplish their party’s goals.
And such accomplishments, Ruwe said,
should take less time to achieve than last
year, when ASUN held its first four meet
ings without passing any legislation.
‘We have senators right now who are al
ready working on projects,” Ruwe said.
“Chances are that we will not go through
several meetings without any legislation.”
Among the issues Ruwe hopes to work
with in his new administration are the bev
erage alliance, the deferred maintenance bill,
technology fees and the recently killed leg
islative bill that would exempt students from
jury duty.
Ruwe said he also wants to weak with his
election challenger, the KEG party, if it is recog
nized as a student organization later this year.
“KEG really impressed me with its hard
work,” Ruwe said. “A lot of the ideas were new
and fresh. I hope they don’t stop offering input”
ASUN goals aside, Ruwe isn’t sure what
he wants to do once he graduates from UNL.
“It’s either going to be teaching high
school, Peace Corps or law school,” Ruwe
said. “I know they’re pretty different, but at
this point I can’t decide.”
Ex-Husker
charged
with assault
of student
By Matthew Waite
Senior Reporter
A former Husker has run afoul of the law
again, this time for assault.
Jon Vedral, a former wingback who just
weeks ago pleaded guilty to
drunken driving, was ar
rested by the Pierce County
Sheriff’s department for
third-degree assault in
Osmond.
vearai, zz, was ar
rested March 2 after an al
leged assault inside a
home in Osmond. He was
booked into jail and re
leased on a $400 cash
bond.
Vedral is accused of attacking a 22-year-old
male who was a Wayne State College student.
He was apprehended by police on a city street
shortly after the assault was reported.
_ Third-degree assault is punishable by six
months in jail, a $500 fine or both.
The incident occurred March 2 after Vedral
and several other former Husker football play
ers competed in a local benefit basketball game.
Vedral is scheduled to appear for arraign
ment April 10 in Pierce County Court.
That court date will be one day before he is
to be sentenced in Lincoln for a drunken driv
ing charge he received in December, just be
fore he was to play in the Orange Bowl.
In December, police officers observed
Vedral driving erratically, running over curbs
in Lincoln. He was pulled over after he failed
to stop at a stop sign.
Vedral was the Huskers’ starting wingback
at the time and was practicing for his last colle
giate football game in the Orange Bowl against
Virginia Tech.
Football Coach Tom Osborne suspended
Vedral froth the team, and he did not partici
pate in the Huskers’ win.
Lane Hickenbottom/DN
CURT RUWE became ASUN president-elect Wednesday, winning 67 percent of the vote.
Senators argue trying youth offenders as adults
By Erin Schulte
Senior Reporter
Any juvenile—no matter what age
— who committed murder would be
tried as an adult under the provisions
of a bill heard Thursday by the Judi
ciary Committee.
LB289, introduced by Sen. Kate
Witek of Omaha, also would try in
adult courts juveniles 14 or older who
had committed violent felonies such
as kidnapping, sexual assault, use of a
deadly weapon to commit a felony or
assault on ah officer.
Attorney General Don Stenberg
spoke in favor of the bill.
Stenberg said juvenile arrests have
increased by 200 percent since 1984.
The juvenile justice system was not set
up to deal with the kind of violent
crimes that happen today, he said.
“Juvenile justice was set up to deal
with minor crimes, like hubcap steal
ing,” he said.
Right now, juveniles know they can
get away with a lot, he said. He said
die worst reprimand they can receive
is spending two to three months at a
rehabilitation center.
“There’s no serious punishment for
their crimes,” he said.
Kris Morrissey, director of policy
for Voices of Children in Nebraska,
spoke against the bill. She said re
search from other states showed the
threat of being tried in adult court had
no significant effect on deterring ju
venile offenders.
Morrissey also said a judge may be
more likely to give a lenient sentence
such as probation to a juvenile because
judges did not want to throw them into
an adult jail. Therefore, she said, send
ing juveniles to adult courts could
mean even less punishment than what
a juvenile court may have given.
Also heard by the committee was
a bill that would formalize rules about
training and certification of court ap
pointed special advocates, or CASAs.
If LB301 is not passed, Nebraska will
lose federal funding for the program.
CASAs are volunteers who appear
in court to represent children who can
not speak for themselves. Often,
CASAs provide details on a child’s
home life that attorneys or case work
ers are unable to give because of huge
caseloads. CASAs often work on cases
in which a court is trying to decide
whether or not to remove children from
their homes.
Paige Beard, chairwoman of the
Nebraska CASA Association, said
there are more than 200 volunteers in
Nebraska who act as CASAs.
“Judges find the CASA reports in
valuable in deciding the child’s fu
ture,” Beard said.
Sandra Benton, a Fremont attorney
who had worked as a prosecutor in ju
venile cases, said the CASAs had been
beneficial to her cases many times.
In one case, a 3-year-old girl and
1-year-old girl lived with negligent
parents. Because of the information re
ceived by the court from a CASA, the
children were removed from die home
just in time, because on the same day
they were taken from the house, their
father died from a drug overdose.
George Moyer, a Madison attorney,
testified against the bill on behalf of
the Nebraska Association of Trial At
torneys.
Moyer said “immunity” wording in
the bill — which would not hold
CASAs civilly liable for acts or omis
Please see JUVENILE on 6
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