The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, August 27, 1997, Image 1
—LPOJLLS -*U-WEDNESDAY AWOL All that Jazz August 27, 1997 Nebraska senior Jonah Kiptarus has not returned Musician and music promoter Butch Berman to the NU cross country team for fall practices. enlightens Lincoln residents about a national FEELING HOT, HOT, 40T PAGE 6 treasure. PAGE 9 Partly sunny, high 91. Partly ch iJ ' tonight, low 75. HuskerFury calls all fans By Amy Keller Staff Reporter As student seating for football games has moved farther from the action, a group of students has found a way to get seats closer. They call themselves HuskerFury, and they want students to bleed Husker red, as their slogan goes. HuskerFury’s goal is to get stu dents to support all Husker athletics by getting them involved. “We want students to feel a part of the program, not apart from the program,” said Barry Swanson, assistant director of marketing for the Athletic Department. His depart ment started the club this fall. Amy Boe, an intern with the Athletic Marketing Department, said the group would be a liaison between teams and fans. “Sometimes there seems to be a breakdown between the individual student and the Athletic Department ... We want to increase relations with the UNL student,” she said. Swanson said the organization exists to promote all 22 sports at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: the 11 men’s sports and the 11 women’s sports. The club has a membership fee of $15, which pays for running the organization, special hospitality rooms at certain events and a T-shirt, which members receives when they join HuskerFury. HuskerFury has a point-based system where members get a point Please see FURY on 6 Trio puts new spin on service . ■ Three friends start Lincoln’s first bicycle courier team: Fat Tire. By Darren Ivy Staff Reporter Three guys in Lincoln decided to take their hobby of bicycle rid ing one step further. “I have been a biker for several years, and I thought it would be cool to get paid for riding my bike,” said Chris Van Ooyen, founder of Fat Tire Lincoln Bike Messengers. Van Ooyen came up with the idea for a bicycle messenger ser vice two years ago, but he couldn’t find any partners, and he didn’t have money to start one himself. So, he enlisted the help of his cycling buddies: Ryan Korb and Jey Henk. The three attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln together; Korb is still enrolled. The three rode mountain bikes together for several years before deciding to open the business in June. The name, Fat Tire, was inspired by the large tires used on mountain bikes, Henk said. Bike messengers have been around for more than 100 years, Van Ooyen said, but Fat Tire is Lincoln’s first such service. “We want to show Lincoln that there is an alternative way for trans porting packages and goods,” Van Ooyen said. Because the friends are from Nebraska, they didn’t want to leave the state to start a bike messenger service. They looked into starting a business in Lincoln and discovered that initially each of the owners would have to pay about $ 100 to $200 to get the business started. Van Ooyen said his service Daniel Luedert/DN CHRIS VAN OOYEN (left) and Jey Henk (right) are two of the co-founders of Fat Tire Lincoln Bike Messengers, Lincoln’s only bicycle courier service. delivers benefits. Delivering by bike is good for the environment, Van Ooyen said, and it saves time. Fat Tire guaran tees that the riders can deliver a package anywhere in Lincoln with in an hour. A final advantage to shipping by bike is cheaper rates. Fat Tire’s rates are $7.50 for 15-minute downtown delivery, $6 for 30 minute citywide delivery, $4 for one-hour citywide delivery and $3 for half-day city delivery. Van Ooyen said they divided Lincoln into three zones, and an additional $1 is charged for each zone the riders have to cross to deliver. Now that school has started, Van Ooyen said they will be offer ing special rates for UNL students. The rates will be half price for stu dents who show a valid ID, except for the S3 half-day rate. Van Ooyen said there will be some stipulations about what they will deliver for students. The pack Please see FAT TIRE on 2 -—-----I Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http:/ /www.unl.edu IDailyNeb Administration warns students to stay off seats By Erin Gibson Senior Reporter When 8,000 students pick up their season football tickets this week, they will also receive a mild threat from the Athletic Department and ASUN: If you stand on the bleachers at football games this year, you will sit at the top of Memorial Stadium’s south end next fall. “If the cooperation doesn’t happen,the consequences have been laid out: Next year the stu dents will be further removed from the action,” a flier handed out with all football tickets states. The flier encourages students to stand during football games in the concrete foot wells of the bleachers if they wish to keep the same-quality seats next year, said John Anderson, ticket manager. u We re asking them to continue to stand, but... not on the actual bleachers John Anderson Football ticket manager “Obviously, standing is part of the atmosphere,” Anderson said. “We’re asking them to continue to stand, bu+ to stand in the foot wells and not on the actual bleach ers.” About 4,500 student seats are at the bottom of the South Please see SEATS on 6 Lincoln builds wall around federal building By Darren Ivy Staff Reporter More than two years after the bombing of Oklahoma City’s federal building, Lincoln is working to ensure that something tragic doesn’t happen here. The city is building a 2-foot wall around the Robert V Denney Federal Building and Court House, 100 Centennial Mall North. Officials hope the wall will pre vent an act of terrorism like the one that killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, said Mike Sisk, director of Nebraska ~ Property Management Center. The project will be paid for with taxpay ers’ money that was set aside for spe cial security projects, Sisk said. After the bombing of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, President Clinton mandat ed a security assessment of all feder al buildings to try to make sure anoth er disaster doesn’t happen, Sisk said. At Lincoln’s federal building, a security committee was formed to assess security needs and recommend changes. One of the recommendations was to build the 2-foot high wall around the entire federal building. It will be completed by May, Sisk said. “The agency felt it needed the changes for better protection,” Sisk said. Sisk said the main reason the wall was built was to prevent terrorists from parking their vehicles next to the building. The wall would protect the build ing from a car veering off the road and going through a window into the day-care center or other parts of the building, he said. “We have a day care with children in it, and hopefully the wall will pre vent anything from happening to them,” Sisk said. Other changes at the federal building include replacing doors on the east and west entrances, replacing underground storage tanks to meet a 1998 Environmental Protection Agency regulation, planting trees and plants and adding other safety mea sures that Sisk said he couldn’t talk about. Sisk said the new trees and plants will help the federal building blend in better with downtown Lincoln. The $ 1 million of improvements started in May; Sisk expects the con struction to be done by May 1998. Lincoln Mayor Mike Johanns said the downside of the project is the cost. But if the security committee thought the improvements were nec essary, he said, then the workers’ safety is the first priority. Please see WALL on 3