SPBBTS ABE Back to work What to wear? Big 12 Women’s Basketball Coaches and players Don’t let assembling the perfect Halloween per met the media Wednesday to discuss the upcom- sona scare you. Whether you go gothic or as your _ ing basketball season. PAGE 10 grandma, do it with style. PAGE 8 VOL. 97 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 48 Power posse plans post-snow provisions v?-' By Ted Taylor Senior Reporter if£f’ The wagons are circled, the weapons are drawn and the reinforce ments have been called Troops from near and far are weary, but ready, to work through the weekend - all day and night if needed - to get power restored to the remaining 20,000 Lincoln area residents who still do not have electricity. Lincoln Electric System adminis f trator Terry Bundy said Wednesday LES’s 70 line-repair technicians have been joined by about 200 private-elec tric contractors from across the region to help assist in getting the lights turned back on in areas of die Capital City. The power posse could grow to 400 by Sunday, Bundy said. “The support from outside die com munity is almost overwhelming,” he said. Crews have already been working around the clock trying to repair fallen power lines Sunday’s massive snow storm caused Warmer temperatures and melting sno$ allowed workers to getabetter feel fdfthe severity of the problem Tuesday, Bundy said, but fallen tree limbs contin ues to be a major obstacle in getting por^ea* restored. “It’s just been a massive destruc tion,” he said, that was worse than they originally thought. Initial repeats by LES Tuesday after noon said there were only about 5,000 customers without power, but revised figures later in the day indicated the Sandy Summers/DN KEVH COLE, associate mechanical engineering professor, takes a look at Der Viener Schllnger Friday afternoon. First-year engineering students have been enlisted to Improve the launching distance of the Fairbury Brand Meats hot dog shooter. Engineering students schling wiener-launch ideas By Ted Taylor Senior Reporter Ifyou’regoingtohaveahotdog launcher, it might as well be the best damn hot dog launcher around. Fairbury Brand Meats, the official hot dog of Husker athlet ics, thought as much, so it began searching for a way to increase die fire power needed to fling its fairly famous Fairbury franks. It wanted its cute hot dog shaped shooter to be a lean, mean hot dog-slingin’ machine. Lucky tor rairbury, Kollin Hotchkiss is a volleyball fan. The associate civil engineer ing professor happened to be in the crowd at an early season NU volleyball game and something away from the action on the court caught his eye. “I noticed they were picking up a lot of drag and wind resis tance,” he said critiquing the hot dog’s flight pattern that night. “It looked like an opportunity.” So Hotchkiss got up from his seat in the NU Coliseum and introduced himself to the man * pulling the trigger of Fairbury s “Der Viener Schlinger.” “I told him there was probably a way to improve his efficiency” Hotchkiss said. The Hotchkiss way involves the first-year students of the College of Engineering and Technology. And now, after a few meetings and a handshake or two, finding a way to improve the launcher’s efficiency (that to you and me is flinging frankfurters as far as they can fly) is an introductory engineering class project. Fairbury’s future in the frank furter-flinging business now rests in the. hands of two classes, Associate Professor Suzanne Rohde’s Mechanical Engineering 100 and As$ociate Professor Dean Sicking’s Civil Engineering 112. About 170 University of Nebraska-Lincoln freshmen and sophomores are responsible, in four weeks, to improve the exist ing plan - or construct from scratch - the best damn hot dog launcher in the world. And you thought engineering Please see HOT DOG on 2 Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http:// www.unl.edu IDailyNeb number was closer to 20,000. Bundy said the power company has a new, more efficient plan of attack that it hoped would the pace of getting more homes lit. Instead of having one crew go and cut broken tree branches and remove limb§, and another crew to come and fix the {fewer, he said, “super crews” have been formed to take care of it all in one trip. Mayor Mike Johanns said Lincoln was at die disposal of the power compa ny. I /N “We are committed to help LES,” he said during a morning news conference. “My direction is clear. Whatever we have, on the city side, to help LES restore power, that is where we’ll be.” But Bundy hesitated to say when he thought Lincoln’s week of darkness would finally come to an end. “Monday is a long way away,” he said assuring those without power that crews would be working through the weekend. “I cannot tell you with ary degree of confidence what our end date will be.” l . 1 cultural message delivered By Lindsay Young StaffReporter Students, while they should think of them selves, also need to think of those who are differ ent, a cultural diversity speaker told students Wednesday night. Ray Davis, executive director of the Washington, D.C., Student Coalition Against Racism, told students that looking at the big pic ture will help in cultural understanding. “If we don’t have diversity we shortchange ourselves,” Davis said. Davis was brought to campus by the Diversity Council and the University Program Council. He spoke in the Centennial Room in the Nebraska Union. Event Coordinator Jamie Grayson said UPC wanted to co-sponsor the event wife the Diversity Council because “of the climate of campus last semester, there is a lot of tension between the races.” naving uavis come ana speaK, sue saia, was one way of promoting racial diversity. Davis told students about diversity with social action. SCAR focuses cm this aspect. Davis said there is a difference between racism and the three words - prejudice, bias and discrimination. Prejudice, bias and discrimination are not specific, but racism is, he said. “We’re talking about a system where a set of prejudices or biases or discrimination is based upon race ” To combat these attitudes, diversity is needed, he said. And, diversity is for all people. “Whatever lineage you are, you should be celebrated for that,” he said. “We’re all different and we’re all special.” He said all groups should work together, though, and not separate, to accomplish diversity anH understanding The university is the ideal place to do this, he said, but it isn’t being done. Often, separatism prevails. “They need to create an environment where there is a better understanding of different people and different cultures. I think it’s important that there is a global understanding,” Davis said. He said it seemed there were some good Please see DIVERSITY on 6