VOL. 98 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 131
SPORTS
Full-court pressure
Despite a 4-3 win over Colorado this weekend,
Nebraska’s men’s tennis team still has a long and
difficult road to the NCAA Tournament. PAGE 9
■ . . ' ■ • ’ f
A & E
Plains people April 5,1999
The Center for Great Plains Study has organized an
Impressive festival and symposium of artists and DARK DAYLIGHT SAVINGS
lecturers to celebrate the plains culture. PAGE 12 Cloudy and windy, high 55. Cloudy tonight, low 40.
Early morning fire destroys Lincoln church
u
The building
can be
replaced. But
the labor of
love is gone.”
Maurice Champion
Garthe
church rector
By Josh Funk
Senior staff writer
An early-morning fire destroyed a
Lincoln church on Easter SQhday, forcing
the congregation to relocate.
No injuries were reported in the fire
that leveled St. David’s Episcopal Church,
88th and Holdrege streets, and caused
$700,000 damage, Southeast Lincoln Fire
Chief Steve Phillips said.
Fire teams were called tojhe church at
6:23 a.m., and by 7 a.m. word had started
to spread to parishioners.
“This is definitely not how I planned to
spend Easter,” Church Rector Maurice
\
Champion-Garthe said.
After hearing of the fire from a parish
ioner and the sheriff, Champion-Garthe
went to the church to help in any way he
could.
As he drove in, Champion-Garthe said
the flames were visible from 84th and
Adams streets over the hill.
Sunday night fire inspectors had not
determined the cause of the fire which
started in the attic of the church and spread
quickly.
The church burned until 9 a.m. when
firefighters declared the blaze under con
trol.
Only a remnant of the offices and
classrooms on the west end remain stand
mg.
Champion-Garthe said the most diffi
cult part of losing the building was the
“labor of love” his congregation invested
in finishing the building itself.
The handmade communion rail and
custom-made kneelers for the pews may
be lost, but die people are still there.
“The budding can be replaced,” said
Champion-Garthe in a voice made raspy
by a day filled with thick clouds of smoke
and long talks with parishioners. “But the
labor of love is gone.”
After word spread, at least eight area
churches offered the congregation a place
to worship both for Easter and long-term.
Champion-Garthe said church leaders
called the 100-member congregation and
arranged to hold services Sunday evening
at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 60th and
A streets.
The events of the day inspired a new
sermon, Champion-Garthe said.
“I scrapped what I had written for the
morning and went straight from the heart,”
Champion-Garthe said.
The church must now work together to
rebuild, but Champion-Garthe said the
most important element is already in place
- the people, because they are the church.
“Today is Easter and as Christ has
risen, so will we,” Champion-Garthe said.
“The important thing is we have the peo
ple.”
1
U.b. agrees
to send in
gun ships
■ Pending NATO approval,
2,000 ground troops and 24
Apache helicopters will be sent to
Albania, escalating the conflict.
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a risk-laden escala
tion of the American military commitment, the
United States has agreed to send 24 Apache heli
copter gun ships and 2,000 troops to Albania, giv
ing NATO the ability to directly attack Serb troops
and tanks in Yugoslavia, the Clinton administra
tion said Sunday.
To protect die Apaches, U.S. troops will man
18 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems deployed to
Albania as well with short- and medium-range
missiles that can take out Yugoslav air defenses
throughout Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians are
under continued attack. Some 14 Bradley Fighting
Vehicles, military police and intelligence officers
are included.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said
deploying the Apaches and rocket launchers was
“a logical expansion” of the nearly two-week-old
NATO airstrikes to halt Yugoslav Slobodan
Milosevic’s military drive against Kosovars in die
Serbian province.
iNAiu leaders meeting Monday must approve
using the weapons, followed by President Clinton.
The Pentagon said it could take up to 10 days to
deploy the Apaches from their base at Iilesheim,
Germany, because many U.S. military cargo,
planes also are being used for humanitarian aide.
‘It’s to give us the type of tank-killing capabil
ity that the bad weather has denied us,” Bacon said.
“It will give us the capability to get up close and
personal to the Milosevic armor, (to) units in
Kosovo, and to do a more effective job at eliminat
ing or neutralizing the forces on die ground.”
He acknowledged the increasing risk to U.S.
forces.
“Obviously, close-in engagement is by defini
tion riskier than more distant engagement. Bid the
army is trained to cope with that,” he said.
Amid the growing refugee crisis in the
Please see TROOPS on 8
Ryan Soderlin/DN
UNL JUNIOR JUSTIN DARLING hangs on to a bucking bull out of the chute at the 41st annual UNL
College Rodeo at the Saunders County Fairgrounds on Saturday in Wahoo.
^B^^B ^p^k BB The dimly lit, dust-filled air was almost enough to
BB ^^B B^ B make you choke, but not quite. The sandy, dirty ground
B B and metal and wooden bleachers played background for
I ^^B ^UB ^^B ^^B an intimate crowd of about 200, and die smell wasn’t one
^^^B ^PB B^B most people would seek out.
hh Although most of the crowd was probably there for the
excuemeni-cnargea annospnere, me ians experiences couia
never compete with that of the riders themselves - experiences
^Bfe^B ^B^B that encompass emotions of pain, disappointment and, at best,
The 41st annual UNL College Rodeo, which took place
Friday and Saturday at the Saunders County Fairgrounds in
^^^B ^^^B ^B^B ^B^B Wahoo, rounded up cowgirls and cowboys from the Midwest.
^B^B ^MB ^B^B ^B^B It was UNL junior Justin Darling’s final college rodeo
UNL.
C Cadau Raved “The bulls were excellent,” said Darling, a bull rider and
OTORY RY DARAH BAKER criminal justice major. “This weekend was cool because the
Photos by MATT MILLER amd RYAN SODERLIN Please see RODEO on 7
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