_spobts_ _*ii_ TUESDAY
A tale of two halves His own private Iowa December 2j, 1997
Nebraska dominated play against Tulsa in the first half but the UNL student Patrick Delin is hoping to complete
i Golden Hurricane came back to post a 85-69 victory Monday his first film by early spring and get a taste of BRRR
night giving NU its first loss of the season PAGE 7 Hollywood in the com state. PAGE 8 Cloudy, high 35. Low 25,50 percent chance of snow.
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VOL. 97__COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 68
Board refuses
to hear Williams
■ Gov. Nelson denies that
letters describing the
inmate’s childhood are
‘compelling new evidence.’
By Ted Taylor
Senior Reporter
The state pardons board will not
meet today to discuss clemency for
death row inmate Robert E.
Williams, Gov. Ben Nelson said
Monday.
In a morning news conference
Nelson said there would have to be
“compelling new evidence” pre
sented to the board before a new
hearing could take place, and as of
late Monday afternoon, he said,
there was none.
“I am not aware of anything that
would be a compelling reason to
preempt the judicial system that has
seen a decade and a half of appeals,”
he said.
Nelson also noted that he and the
other two members of the pardon
board, Secretary of State Scott
Moore and State Attorney General
Don Stenberg, voted unanimously
in 1995 not to accept another
clemency application from
Williams.
Williams, 61, is scheduled to die
in the electric chair shortly after 10
a.m.
He has been on death row since
1978, a year after confessing to the
murders of two Lincoln women,
Catherine Brooks and Patricia
McGarry. In a three-day, three-state
rampage, Williams also shot to
death an Iowa woman and shot and
left for dead a Minnesota woman,
who lived.
Please see WILLIAMS on 3
THE ACCOMADATION RESOURCE CENTER helps students and university employees with disabilities by
I letting them try out equipment that could assist them.
i UNL steps up disability aids
By Kelly Scott
Staff Reporter
Even after Kelli Kellogg hurt
her shoulder and back while work
ing at the post office, she wasn’t
going to let her disability keep her
from being successful at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
And neither was the university, she
said.
By using Services for Students
with Disabilities, Kellogg was
e approved to receive special accom
modations while being a student to
help alleviate the constant pain she
suffers from her injuries. The pain
is so severe she has trouble taking
notes in class and sitting at a com
puter. Her injuries are permanent.
She received more time on
tests, could use a computer for
essay exams, got help from a note
taker and had a separate room to
take tests. She also had letters sent
to her instructors to explain her sit
uation.
This was the help she needed to
stay in school, she said.
The sendees offered to UNL
students with disabilities have
improved in the last 12 years, said
Christy Horn, director of the
Accommodation Resource Center.
Those improvements have allowed
Kellogg, a junior news-editorial
and criminal justice major, and
more than 300 other disabled stu
dents, to stay in sehdof. '
■ Two UNL offices - Services
for Students with Disabilities and
the Accommodation Resource
Please see PROGRAM on 6
Journalists prepare
to watch execution
^ By Ted Taylor
Senior Reporter
At JO a.m. on a normal day, Omaha
World-Herald Lincoln bureau chief
Bill Hord and The Associated Press
reporter Robynn Tysver would be sit
ting in their offices working on stories.
But today is not normal.
At 10 a.m. today, Hord, Tysver and
three other media witnesses will watch
a man die in the electric chair.
To them both it’s a job; a job they
I did sot ask for, a job both nearly
declined and a job they aren’t taking
lightly.
“Tam nervous about it,” Hord said
Monday, less than 24 hours before the
scheduled execution of Robert E.
Williams. “It’s something that really
puts you through a lot of thoughts you
otherwise wouldn’t entertain.”
Tysver, in her fourth year as an AP
reporter, said she was “very” nervous
about her assignment today.
“I’m nervous about what my reac
tion will be,” she said. “I hope I remain
professional throughout the execu
tion.”
When asked whether a tear or some
sign of emotion might come across her
face she paused.
“I hope not,” she said.
Hord, Tysver, Butch Mabin of the
Lincoln Journal Star, Tracy Overstreet
of KRTI radio in Grand Island and
Brad Stephens of Omaha’s KETV
Channel 7, have been asked to be offi
- *
cial witnesses to Nebraska’s third exe
cution in four years.
It is their job to report to the public
the final moments of Williams’ life; his
final words, his final movements, his
final expressions. They are also to
report the number electrical jolts it
takes to put Williams to death.
It’s a job required of the media that
helps to maintain a civil society, Tysver
said.
“Journalistically I thought it was an
obligation,” she said. “Someone has to
be in that room who is not directed to
the government.
“It would be a horrid, horrid day
when executions are held behind
closed doors.”
After die execution, the media wit
nesses will be taken into a packed visi
tors room where about 50 members of
the media from across Nebraska and
surrounding states will be waiting with
cameras, tape recorders and note
books, hanging on every word they say.
The witnesses are the people who
will bring the results of the state’s ulti
mate act of punishment that just took
place inside the prison to the state’s cit
izens outside the prison.
In the 2 Vz weeks since he knew he
would be a witness^ Hord said, he has
struggled to find a way to better pre
pare himself for what he could see
today.
“How do you do that?” he said to
the prison warden’s advice that the wit
Please see MEDIA on 6
NU proposes new calendar
By Sarah Baker
Assignment Reporter
The University of Nebraska
Lincoln Academic Senate will take
another step in the process of chang
ing the academic calendar today.
The senate will hear two new
proposals concerning the academic
calendar at its monthly meeting at
2:30 in the Nebraska Union.
' The first proposal, from the NU
Calendar Committee, includes three
separate resolutions: One that initi
ates a set of programs to commemo
rate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth
day; one that institutes a fall break
and asks to hold classes the day after
Labor Day; and a third part that pro
poses spring break be moved up one
week on the calendar.
The second proposal, submitted
after it was unanimously approved at
the town hall meeting Nov. 21,
specifically asks for King’s birthday
to be celebrated with a day off and be
deemed an official holiday at UNL.
Leo Sartori, professor of astron
omy and a member of the Calendar
Committee, said he was optimistic
about the proposals.
“We have considered instituting
a Saturday in the calendar as a make
up day for students who miss their
lab classes because of the holiday,”
Sartori said. “Only a small fraction
of classes will meet on the day, and it
will be at the discretion of the
instructor.”
Sartori said he had talked with
faculty members in the chemistry
department, and they were willing to
compromise on the holiday.
“I think it’s a small inconve
nience to achieve a shared goal,”
Sartori said.
Curt Ruwe, Association of the
Students of the University of
Nebraska president, said he was glad
the senate was considering all its
options.
>: <&
“I think if the Saturday is put at
the beginning of dead week, most
students are studying then anyway,”
Ruwe said. “I don’t think it’s a bad
idea.”
Pat Kennedy, Academic Senate
president-elect and professor of
marketing, said she didn’t see much
conflict with the proposals.
“I think both of the resolutions
will pass,” Kennedy said. “I think
this whole thing has been blown out
of proportion.”
Ruwe said ASUN was working to
collect student opinions on the issue,
but as of yet the results are ambigu
ous.
“We are going to continue to
brainstorm,” he said. “This is just
one possibility.”
Read the Daily Nebraskanon the World Wide Web at http://www.unl.edu/DailyNeb
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