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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1999)
i SPORTS a) The king and the Duke ^ All the players on the Duke basketball team can jump, run and shoot, making them the prohibitive J favorites for the NCAA Tournament. PAGE 7 ME American renaissance Visiting instructor Linda Anfuso is spreading her message of Native American heritage through art and serious lectures. PAGE 9 TUES IAY March 9, 1999 The Worst Is Over Partly cloudy, high 40. Cloudy tonight, low 25. VOL. 98 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 ~NO. 117 Hopkins receives 20-year jail sentence 66 What my client did was not manslaughter. It was first-degree murder” Scott Helvie Hopkins’ lawyer By Josh Funk Senior staff writer The man who confessed to the 1995 murder of a Lincoln teen-ager received the maximum sentence for manslaughter Monday as part of a plea agreement. Timothy Hopkins w'as sentenced to 20 years in prison for manslaughter for the murder of 17 year-old Michael Schmader. On Oct. 18, 1995, Schmader was brutally beaten and stabbed to death in an Antelope Creek storm-drainage tunnel under 48th Street. Schmader’s body went undiscovered until Dec. 22,1995, when two other teen-agers found it. Hopkins, 20, will serve the manslaughter sentence consecutively with a 15-to-20-year sentence handed down in December for the use of a weapon to commit a felony. Under Nebraska law, Hopkins must serve half of both his sentences before he is eligible for parole. With good behavior and time served, Hopkins could be paroled in approximately 16 years. Last week, Hopkins was the state’s main witness in the murder trial of Tony Galligo, 19, who Hopkins claimed was an accomplice in the crime. But Galligo’s jury apparently did not believe Hopkins’ testimony. Galligo was acquitted Thursday after he testified that he was a witness - not an accomplice - to the murder. During the trial, both Hopkins and his lawyer, Scott Helvie, said Hopkins was guilty of first-degree murder. “What my client did was not manslaughter,” Helvie said. “It was first-degree murder.” Please see HOPKINS on 2 Slip-sliding away — TAYLOR MUNDERLOH, 7, prepares to sled down the hill on the east side of Fredstrom Elementary School on Monday afternoon. All area public schools were closed because of a snowstorm early in the day. Vrtiska presses for funding Peru State ■ The Table Rock senator sponsoring LB650 wants $6 million to brace the college. By Jessica Fargen Senior staff writer Sen. Floyd Vrtiska is getting used to par ents of prospective college students stopping him at football games or calling him with the big question: Is Peru State College going to close? LB650, heard by the Appropriations Committee on Monday, would give the Table Rock senator more confidence when he tells those people that if they send their children to Peru, it will still be there four years later. Repeated debate about closing the 133 year-old college has taken a toll on recruitment and retention, said Vrtiska, who is sponsoring LB650, which would appropriate about $6 mil lion for renovations at Peru. “When you have that concern hanging out there all the time, it makes it difficult,” Vrtiska said. Twenty-five senators have signed onto the bill, and Gov. Mike Johanns has put money for Peru in his budget. A 1998 Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education report recommended limited renovations to Peru in lieu of closing or moving it. But the report also stated that Peru had to do something about its 47 percent fresh man retention rate and about a dozen other depressing statistics. Committee members said they wanted con crete information on how Peru expected to cor rect its problem areas and meet yet-to-be set benchmarks recommended by the commission. “I’m only willing to make these invest ments if we have firm, definable benchmarks,” said Omaha Sen. Pam Brown, who signed onto the bill. David Powers, with the Coordinating Commission, said timelines for the bench marks should be set by April 1. Those timelines could then be relayed to the Appropriations Committee, he said, before the final state bud get is set. If the Legislature is going to stand behind the report, some committee members also wanted more commitment from the communi Please see PERU on 2 Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at dailyneb.com , Program committed to tenacity Honors students make a point of increasing scholarly success Editor's note: This is the first in a three-part senes that will take an in-depth look at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Program. ByIevaAugstums Senior staff writer Last fall, more than 1,350 potential UNL students were identified as the cream of the crop of their high school graduating classes. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Office of Admissions then began extensive recruiting efforts hoping to persuade some of those students to apply for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Program. As of last week, the admissions office received more than 850 applications requesting admission to the program. About 65 percent of those students will be admitted to the program. To stay within the program's budget, about 400 of those admitted will be allowed to enroll. “It's a difficult and lengthy process,” said Kristine Stelzer, assistant director for honors recruitment. “We want to give every applicant an equal opportunity to fur ther their academic abilities.” Stelzer, who has been recruiting honors program students for the past three years, said the demand to be in the honors program was 20 percent higher than last year. Honors Program Director Patrice Berger said the increase stemmed from students seeking an intense intellectual experience in a small university communi ty, strong recruiting efforts and scholarship opportuni ties.“There’s an expectation we must continue to pro vide and uphold,” Berger said. “Our purpose is to pro vide all of our talented students the opportunity to engage in a rigorous education.” Accepting the challenge The university admissions office seeks to recruit “students far and beyond the ordinary,” both in-state and nationwide, Stelzer said. “The honors program provides a challenging and creative academic program for talented and highly motivated students,” Stelzer said. “We are looking for students who are ready to accept that challenge.” Ryan Minert, a freshman computer engineering major, said he applied to the program just for that rea son. Please see HONORS on 2
