Buffoons? Music for the home November 24, 1998
Colorado has looked like it at times against Folk singer Laurie McClain left Lincoln and a
Nebraska ov er the last six years. Can they rev erse haunted past behind to make a career in Nashv ille. GlVE THANKS
the trend Friday'? PAGE 7 Now she’s returned ... with an album. PAGE 9 Partly sunny, high 62. Partly cloudy tonight, low 35.
VOL. 98 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 65
Mike Warren/DN
COURTNEY HILL, a UNL senior broadcasting major and the NU Cornhusker Marching Band’s fea
ture twirier, will take the field at Memorial Stadium with a baton in her hand for the last time
Friday in the Huskers’ game against Colorado.
Senior to toss her last baton
Friday at final home game
By Eric Rineer
Staff unter
Courtney Hill wasn't always sure she wanted
to keep twirling her baton.
At an international competition at the
University of Notre Dame in South Bend lnd„
during her high school years. Hill almost blew up
inside.
“The flag instructor yelled at me before 1
competed that day. A lot of people heard it. and it
was embarrassing.
“But 1 went out there and went on the floor. It
was hard.”
Fortunately for Hill, and Nebraska, she stuck
with her game.
Now the feature twirler for the University of
Nebraska Comhusker Marching Band Hill has
won more championships than the Cornhusker
football team.
This Friday, the senior twirler will perform for
the last time in college at home when she steps
onto Tom Osborne Field during the halftime show
of the Nebraska-C'olorado football game.
The senior from San Antonio has been a cen
ter of attention at Nebraska halftime shows for the
past five years.
And despite being perfect through most of the
way. she's had her share of ups and downs.
The biggest field goof she says she's ever suf
fered came during a football game in high school.
Performing her last trick of the halftime show.
Hill lost her step during a complicated move
while double tossing her baton. Then she hit the
floor.
“1 saw my feet come up. and I fell. My baton
landed right beside me. I just laid there. It was the
end (of the show) anyway."
It wasn't Hill's first, or last, twirling blooper.
Another of her biggest goofs came during a
pre-game practice one rainy day at Memorial
Stadium.
Hill took off for a leap on the icy turf and
ended up falling on her behind.
"1 slid nght past the band members and kept
going all the way to the fence," she said.
But the most embarrassing moment of all
came during competition.
"I slipped on a rhinestone from somebody
else's costume, and I landed face first. I stood up.
mumbled something under my breath and kept
Please see TWIRLER on 2
Kerrey still undecided
about presidential bid
By Brian Carlson
Staff writer
Bob Kerrey continues to consider a bid for
the presidency in 2000, knowing he would
relinquish his seat in the U.S. Senate if he ran
for the nation's highest office.
That consideration makes the Democratic
senator's decision a difficult one, said Steve
Jarding. Kerrey's national political director.
“If he is re-elected to the Senate, he will be
one of the leaders and most powerful mem
bers of that body,” he said in an interview from
Washington. D.C. “It's tough to give that up.
especially when a run for the presidency
would be a bit of a roll of the dice at best"
Kerrey, who unsuccessfully sought the
Democratic nomination for president in 1992.
has pledged to make his plans for 2000 know n
by the end of this year.
In the meantime, Kerrey has traveled
extensively and has had a number of speaking
engagements.
The week after the Nov. 3 election, Kerrey
went to Argentina to participate in an interna
tional conference on global warming. On
Nov 17. he spoke at the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York, arguing that the
United States should develop a missile
defense system and work with Russia to slash
both nations' stockpiles of nuclear warheads.
He appeared in Iowa this weekend to meet
members of the Iow a Democratic Party,
whose candidates received campaign contri
butions from Kerrey's political action com
Please see KERREY on 3
Dunagan may avoid jail
Freshman to enter plea agreement next month
By Josh Funk
Senior staff writer
The UNL freshman accused of murdering
his father last fall is expected to enter a plea
agreement next month that could mean no jail
time.
On Thursday, Matthew
Dunagan's lawyers with
drew a motion to suppress
evidence and scheduled a
plea hearing for Dec. 18 in
hopes that the case would
not go to trial.
“We are trying to get an
agreement together with
the prosecutor,” Dunagan's
Dunagan attorney Michael Hansen
said, though he would not comment on details of
the case or the pending agreement.
Hansen said that ideally, the agreement
would include no jail time tor Dunagan.
But after the prosecution and defense reach
in agreement, it will be up to the judge to decide
:he sentence.
The Lancaster County Attorney's office,
arosecutor in the case, declined to comment.
Dunagan, now a Regents Scholar at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will have
:ompleted his first semester of college just pnor
:o the December hearing.
Though he was 17 at the time of the shoot
ing, Dunagan's case was held in district court
aecause of the seventy of his crime and because
:he juvenile court would lose junsdiction when
ie turned 18.
Last September, police were called to the
Dunagan s southeast Lincoln home where Matt
Dunagan's father. John, was lying on the living
room couch with three shotgun wounds in his
:hest.
Please see DUNAGAN on 2
Endangered bat DNA examined
By Kelly Romanski
Staff writer
They come from an island 10,943
miles from Lincoln.
They're sometimes called “flying
foxes,” and they are in danger of extinc
tion.They're Rodrigues fruit bats, and
University of Tennessee graduate stu
dent Lisa Comeaux is doing her part to
keep them alive.
Comeaux was at the Folsom
Children's Zoo on Friday to take DNA
samples from the 19 female fruit bats
permanently housed there.
She said her goal is to determine
the ancestry of Rodrigues bats bom in
captivity. This information will be used
to ensure that bats are not inbred in a
future breeding program.
"Research shows that inbreeding
Please see BATS on 2
ill
Nikki Fox/DN
THE RODRIGUES FRUIT BAT, or “flying fox,” is found
in the wild only on Rodrigues Island, which is east
of Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The
Folsom Children’s Zoo has 19 bats - all females. All
males in captivity in the United States are at Lubee
Foundation in Gainesville, Fla.
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