sports roe TUESDAY
End of the Line Dinner’s Ready! October 5,1999
With four receptions for 116 yards and a touch- In its production of “The Dining Room,” the
down against OSU, Husker tight end Tracey UNL theater department presents a captivating FALLING BACK WTO
Wistrom is becoming a favorite target. PAGE 9 portrayal of dysfunctional families. PAGE 12 Mostly sunny, high 77. tonight, low 47.
VOL. 99 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 32
Voters to decide new school issue
■ If bond proposal
passes, $100 million would
be used for construction.
By JoshKnaub
Staff writer
Lincoln residents will decide
whether to build two new high schools
in a vote today.
Voters will decide on a $100 mil
lion bond that would fund construction
of schools, which would be built at 14th
Street and Pine Lake Road, and 33rd
Street and Fletcher Avenue.
If the bond proposal passes, it will
raise property taxes in Lincoln by 8.33
cents per $100 of property value. This
would cost the owner of a $100,000
home $83 per year.
The bond is supported by a citizen
group called Yes! On Schools. The
group has purchased television, radio
and newspaper ads and participated in
more than 50 community meetings,
said Richard Hoppe, spokesman for the
group.
Hoppe said no visible groups have
organized against the bond.
The bond does have its opponents,
though. Loudest among them are John
Baylor and Patrick Combs, talk show
hosts on KLIN-AM (1400).
Baylor and Combs have urged vot
ers to reject the bond in hopes the
school board will respond with a less
expensive option.
Hoppe said most bond opponents
list cost as their No. 1 concern with the
bond proposal.
He said the cost argument usually
comes from those not informed about
the price of equipping schools with
space for computer equipment, voca
tional education facilities and modem
teaching equipment.
“Almost everything is done on
computers,” Hoppe said. “And comput
ers just take more space.”
Hoppe said other area high schools
had been built for less money but that
the cheaper schools were of a lesser
quality.
The new buildings were designed
to last at least 80 years.
Mayor Don Wesely is among the
bond’s supporters.
Wesely held a news conference
Monday near the site of one of the pro
posed schools.
He said the neighborhood was sym
bolic of why the new schools were
needed.
“In 1993, this neighborhood didn’t
exist,” Wesely said. “Six years later, the
area is growing rapidly, and there is
more growth planned.”
Hoppe said the most important
thing Yes! On Schools will be doing
until the polls close today is calling
bond supporters and reminding them to
vote.
Election officials estimate that only
a quarter of eligible voters will turn out
for the'election.
Hoppe said an early opinion poll
indicated that 60 percent of Lincoln res
idents supported the bond.
“But with school bonds, that num
ber tends to fall as time passes,” Hoppe
said.
Please see VOTE on 7
Life in the fast lane
Nate Wagner/DN
PAUL MSELMAN of LTR Towing attaches a lifting rig to a track, which tipped in an accident Monday. When the track’s brakes failed, Rusty Hunt
of Quantum Electric Inc. decided to make a sharp left-hand turn at the comer of Holdrege and 17th streets to avoid hitting a car. The track tipped
onto its right side. Hunt was not hurt and was cited for driving without a Commercial Drivers License and for driving a track with faulty brakes.
Post columnist recounts reluctant leaders
By David Koesters
Staff writer
Students need to know how to deal with a more
diverse and changing America in the 21st century,
a Washington Post columnist said Monday.
Juan Williams, writer and political analyst,
spoke to a full house at the Lied Center for
performing Arts as part of University of Nebraska
Lincoln^ Homecoming Week.
Williams discussed how students need to be
leaders for America in the coming century.
‘Today as we sit here... we have the ability to
see people who have occupied this century and see
how they changed our understanding of it,”
Williams said.
Williams gave examples with stories about
Nelson Mandela and Thurgood Marshall and how
they never expected to become leaders but merely
rose to the situations presented before them.
Williams said he met Mandela, and Mandela
told him he didn’t want to be a revolutionary as a
child. Instead, he was rebelling against his parents.
Mandela said when he became a lawyer, he
started to notice the racial problems in South
Africa. He recognized his need to take a stand.
Wiliams said Marshall went to college just to
have a good time. But in the 1930s, he went to a
theater and sat in the white-only seats. He was
almost arrested, and it was then he realized there
was a serious problem in America. As a lawyer, he
started to take on cases dealing with racial issues.
Some present-day issues Williams addressed
were the Mexican-American population boom,
poverty and how segregation is still apparent.
“It’s a reflection of our society getting more
and more comfortable with segregation,” he said.
Freshman Matt Vincent said he learned a lot
from Williams’ speech.
“I thought the issues were kind of old, but he
made than more up-to-date,” he said.
Sophomore Caroline Stephenson agreed.
“I think it was a very eye-opening lecture on
telling about the things we are going to have to deal
with.”
Williams ended his speech saying that just as
people look back to the 1950s at what people did to
fight racial problems then, someone in 2050 will
be looking back at die turn of the century and ask
ing: “What were you doing?”
Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at dailyneb.com
Activists
examine
YOiteclay,
history
By Dane Stickney
Staff writer
Russell Means and Frank LaMere found
a way to make their audience laugh, shout
and stand in admiration on Monday.
Means, a famous American-Indian
activist, spoke about the history and results
of the hatred of American Indians at the
College of Law on the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln’s East Campus.
Fellow activist LaMere spoke about the
ongoing conflicts in Whiteclay, where he
and Means were arrested in July.
UNL’s College of Law’s Equal Justice
Society sponsored the speakers.
The presentation began with LaMere
telling an emotional story about being
involved with various protests near
Whiteclay, where tensions have flared
between American Indians living on the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation and Nebraska’s
state officials.
' “I am here to build bridges, to make
things better for our children and your chil
dren,” he said.
Two years ago, LaMere came to speak to
the College of Law about the growing prob
lems at Whiteclay, he said. Since that time,
he has been impressed with the efforts that
the college has made to help the American
Indians’cause.
“(UNL) law students have formulated
petitions in support of our efforts at
Whiteclay,” he said. “They have tried to con
vince the government and Legislature that
they must take action. I would like to
acknowledge their work of demanding jus
tice in a forgotten comer of Nebraska.”
LaMere gave an especially emotional
presentation about a protest march in
Whiteclay on July 3, when Nebraska state
troopers blocked die American Indians from
Please see ACTIVISTS on 3