VOL. 98 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 148
SPORTS
Texas tennis
Both the Nebraska men’s and women’s tennis
teams visit Texas for the Big 12 Championships
this week. PAGE 9
A&E
Country rocks
^ The Country Melvins blend traditional, old
, style music with quite modem punk for a style
that alienates some but draws many. PAGE 12
April 28, 1999
Revenge of the Clouds
Mostly cloudy, high 60. Cloudy tonight, low 45.
Johnson
dreams
big for
Lincoln
Editor's note: This is the first in a
series of two stories profiling the Lincoln
mayoral candidates. Thursday’s story
will feature Democratic candidate Don
Wesely.
ByEricRineer
Staff writer
For Cindy Johnson, life has always
been a mix of fairy tale fantasy and hard
earned reality.
But Republican Johnson, who is com
peting for the Lincoln mayor seat against
Democrat Don Wesely, has lived in enough
places to know the difference between
dreams and real life.
Bom in El Paso, Texas, as a daughter of
a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States
Air Force, Johnson has lived in many of the
southwestern states - five to be exact.
Johnson, a Lincoln city councilwoman,
first experienced fairy tales 30 years ago,
after her family moved to Arizona, and
decided to take a family vacation west to
Disneyland.
To me, that was like gomg to heaven,
Johnson said.
“I was so excited about going that I
threw up the whole day before I went,” she
said. “My mom and dad thought I was
going to be too sick to go, and it was just
that I was so excited that that’s how I react
ed.”
Despite vomiting, Johnson begged her
mom and dad to go ahead with their origi
nal plans and travel to Disneyland.
“I was so excited for that - going to
Disneyland and then going in and it being
so awesome - seeing how clean it was, and
Please see JOHNSON on 7
Rick Townley/DN
FORMER CITY COUNCILWOMAN CINDY JOHNSON is running for mayor in the May 3 elec
tion. Johnson is a Republican, endorsed by Gov. Mike Johanns. She says her key to com
munication is “not to be adversarial.”
Dickey to
take seat of
Schellpeper
By Jessica Fargen
Senior staff writer
Today there will be a new face sitting in the seat
that the late Stanton Sen. Stan Schellpeper occupied
for 12 years, before his unexpected death earlier this
month.
Republican family farmer Bob Dickey of Laurel
was sworn into office Tuesday, replacing Schellpeper’s
post representing District 18.
Schellpeper, who was a Democrat and also a fami
ly farmer, died of an apparent heart attack on Easter.
Gov. Mike Johanns said of the 26 applicants for the
post, Dickey’s combination of assets made him the best
person for the j ob.
“His experience, education background and com
munity involve
ment would indi- 44
cate he would be
an asset to the / WCLYlt tO be the
Legislative cham
ber,” Johanns JlVSt OYie tO
cqtH fopao o
great deal of Welcome yOU tO the
is due for a great YYlOSt UYliqUe body
Hfea”8e m hls in the world. But
Speaker Doug ,
Kristensen of tOmOWOW morning
ed Johanns for his better get
expedient work to un ”
fill Schellpeper’s WUrYHeCl Up.
spot. Kristensen
then welcomed SEN. DOUG KRISTENSEN
Dickey to the non- ■ ..—
partisan
Unicameral, the only one-house Legislature in the
country.
“I want to be the first one to welcome you to the
most unique body in the world,” Kristensen said. “But
tomorrow morning you better get warmed up.”
Dickey said although he was excited to be a part of
the Legislature, he was saddened as well.
Please see DICKEY on 7
Terr’s goal: increase research at UNL
New NU official wants to improve ranking
By Kim Sweet
Staff writer
Marsha Torr has helped build instruments in
earth-orbiting satellites.
She has served as chief of the atomic physics
branch at NASA in Marshall Space Flight Center
in Cleveland.
Now she is the new vice chancellor for
research at UNL, ready to make the university one
of the top research institutions in the nation.
But despite her lengthy resume, the job won’t
come easy.
With the University of Nebraska-Lincoln lin
gering on the cut-off for the Top 100 research uni
versities in the nation, Torr will have to work hard
to gather resources to improve UNEs ranking.
“It is very important for us to get firmly within
the Top 100,” said Torr, who was previously vice
provost for research at the University of South
Carolina at Columbia. “We should really be in the
top 50-70 research universities in the nation
because of the educational competitiveness those
institutions have.
In order to reach the level of research to put it
into the company of its peer institutions, UNL
would have to double the amount of research and
funding that comes into the university, Chancellor
James Moeser said.
Moeser said it would be a significant chal
lenge, but that Torr, who doubled the amount of
federal research funding going into the University
of South Carolina, was the right person for the job
at UNL.
“We’d like to think that is possible here as
well,” Moeser said.
Along with her track record for bringing in
research dollars, Torr said, she has the experience
necessary to build a successful research program.
While she has extensive experience coordinat
ing research initiatives behind a desk, she also has
the knowledge of what it takes to carry out research
projects.
“I’ve done all sizes and scales of projects, so I
can relate to different issues of finding funding,
putting labs in place and working with different
teams,” Torr said.
Torr will use her broad base of experience in
performing and organizing research initiatives to
bring major projects to Nebraska in the next five
years.
Please see TORR on 7
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