8P9RT8 Quick learner Former Comhusker two-sport star Darin Erstad has become a solid first baseman in the past three months for the Anaheim Angels. PAGE 10 BA & E ‘Heads’ is mindless “8 Heads in a Duffel Bag” is a dismal comedy about a mobster who is given the task of delivering a bag ful of severed heads to his angry boss. PAGE 12 MON (AY April 21, 1997 Wem Your Rubbers April showers, high 58. Stormy tonight, low 40. A . im1 II 11111111 VOL. 96 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 142 Wamrly Senator Jeronie Wsnior dies of cancer By Matthew Waite and Paula Lavigne Senior News Staff State Sen. Jerome Warner may have spent more time in the Legislature than in his fields, sometimes raising more issues than crops, but both friends and colleagues said Nebraska lost one of its best friends Sunday. Warner, the man considered to be the dean of the Legislature and ir replaceable by his fellow senators, lost a lengthy battle with prostate cancer at noon Sunday. He was 69. The senator’s funeral will be 11 a.m. Thursday at First Plymouth Congrega tional Church, 2000 D St. A member of the state’s one-house Legislature for 35 years, Warner had checked into Tabitha Nursing Home in Lincoln two weeks ago. He continued work on key property tax bills that were making their way through the Revenue Committee, of which he was the chair man. Warner, because of pain from the prostate cancer he was diagnosed with in 1996, made infrequent trips to his office. One of his last legislative moves was to help get the Revenue Committee’s tax package out of com mittee and into floor debate. Warner’s desire to stay with the Legislature, even though the cancer was progressing into his bones, was characteristic of his desire to put Ne braska first. From friends and neighbors in his hometown of Waverly to the governor and fellow senators in the Legislature, all said Warner was a public servant and friend to all. Warner’s longtime neighbor Art Althouse, whose crops grew next door to Warner’s, said the senator was a good neighbor whose political life was always first. “He cared about others, and, often times, in the community we felt he would give up some of his own work here to carry out things more impor tant to the people of Nebraska,” he said. Some Waverly farmers may have chided Warner on raising more weeds Please see WARNER on 7 UNL’s Earth Day festival begins today Seventh-annual celebration will feature environment friendly modes of transportation. By Tasha E. Kelter Staff Reporter While organizers of the seventh annual Earth Day Fair .expect almost 200 people to pass through during today’s celebration, they want to see them get there by walking, biking or taking the bus. This year’s Earth Day celebration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is (me day before the official holiday, will focus on alternate forms of transportation. Displays will feature ways to com mute and cut down on polluting the environment like using electric cars, buses and bicycles. One of the many booths will fea ture information about the electric car, and several more will be run by local bike shops. Brande Londine, fair co-coordina tor and junior environmental studies and sociology major, said University Parking Services will promote bus passes, and University Police will use their bicycles to illustrate some forms of alternate transportation. A — The Campus Recreation Center’s Outdoor Adventures program will pro mote hiking, biking and other outdoor activities, she said. This year’s Earth Day* festivities, celebrating environmentalism and pro moting recycling and other Earth-con scious habits, will be in the greenspace north of the Nebraska Union from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today. The fair, sponsored by Ecology Now, will feature food, booths, speak ers and music. The agenda includes: ■ A speech by Recycling Coordi nator Dale Ekart at 10:30 a.m. ■ A speech by Walt Bleich, direc tor of Nebraska Citizen Action, at 11:30 a.m., which will address environ mentalism and legislation of Sustain Please see EARTH DAY on 7 Lincoln residents* faith as well as their homes By Lindsay Young Staff Reporter Virginia Skipper could hardly sleep in her own room without feel ing the drips coming out of the leaky ceiling above her. Delores Sanders’ arthritis pre vented her from scraping the lead paint off her walls and repainting them. And Rosa Anderson just wanted to make her first home something with which she, and its former resident who now lives in a nursing home, could be happy. On Saturday, the houses of these three people, along with eight others, received help to make them nSwHivable during the first “Hand and Fleart” project sponsored by -Ih6 campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With the help of more than 150 volunteers, Habitat for Humanity was able to repaint walls, install drywall, build porch railings, fix fences, remove carpet and finish other fix-up jobs on homes throughout the Lincoln area. Supplies were paid for by do nations to Habitat for Humanity, and the labor was completely vol untary. Homeowners were spared all costs. Volunteers repainted the inte rior of Sanders’ house. Sanders said money was a big factor when some one needs a lot of work done on a house. “When you are low-income, you need all the help you can get. I Daniel Luedeht/DN PHIL SCHWANKE, a freshman electrical engineering major, paints the eaves while Jason Potato, a freshman arts and sciences major, holds the ladder steady. 44 It’s hard to believe how much Nebraska young people do for us.” Rosa Anderson homeowner really appreciated it,” Sanders said. Skipper’s ceiling in various parts of her home was damp and leaky, and “you could see big brown blotches on the ceiling,” she said. She said that because of ambi tious volunteers, things moved very smoothly, and her ceiling was soon fixed and the interior of her house was repainted. ' Because of the work the vol unteers did, she said she would be able to commit herself to the Lin coln Literacy program in Lincoln. She said she hasn’t been able to work with the program because of the shape of her house. Anderson also was happy with the project. Volunteers painted Anderson’s porchfailing great and white, painted much of the interior Please see HABITAT on 3 Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide fl/eb at http:/Jukuw.unl.edu/DailyNeb ,