OUTDOOR LIVING & LANDSCAPE SHOW CONTINUES TODAY
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Kansas com AT LEAST 28 DIE IN TORNADO OUTBREAK
SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2012 75 CENTS
Shocker stars from historic season will speak at WSU
Wichita State at the Valley Tournament The Shockers beat Indiana State 72-48 on Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
Today’s semifinal game vs. Illinois State 1:30 p.m. on FSKC, Ch. 34, and KNSS, 1330-AM, and follow along with a live chat at Kansas.com/Shockers
Sunday’s final If the Shockers win today, they will play for the championship at 1 p.m. Sunday on KWCH.
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1964-65: TRIALS, TRIUMPHS Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press
Jeffersonville, Ind., firefighters search the Henryville Middle School following storms Friday.
Storms destroy two towns in Indiana
Photos courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Wichita State University Libraries
The 1964-65 Wichita State University men’s basketball team. For full coverage of the Shockers, please turn to Sports, 1D. BY FRED MANN The Wichita Eagle
ne of them remembers the racial tensions that year. The team bus had to pull up almost flush against the rear door of the arena in Tulsa so they could avoid being pelted by rocks when they exited the bus. That was one of the problems during that 1964-65 Wichita State University basketball season. Another was the loss of their two best big men at the semester Sharif break — two future first-round NBA draft picks, including a consensus All-American and probably the best Shocker basketball player ever. To have any title hopes, the remaining Shockers, who had rolled to a 13-3 record Stallworth and a No. 3 ranking behind the two stars, would have to win the Missouri Valley Conference title without them, then
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BY KEN KUSMER AND BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press
HENRYVILLE, Ind. — Powerful storms leveled small towns in southern Indiana, transforming entire blocks of homes into piles of debris, tossing school buses into a home and a restaurant and causing destruction so severe it was difficult to tell what was once there. As night fell, dazed residents shuffled through town, some looking for relatives, while rescue workers searched the rubble for survivors. Without power, the only light in town came from cars that crawled down the streets. From the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes, the storms touched nearly all walks of life. A fire station was flattened. Roofs were ripped off schools. A prison fence was knocked down and scores of homes and businesses were destroyed. At least 28 people were Please see STORMS, Page 3A WSU basketball player Mohamed Sharif, known in 1964 as Kelly Pete, shoots against Brigham Young in December 1964.
PRESIDENT, ISRAELI LEADER TO MEET
win the NCAA regional tournament without them, and go to the Final Four without them. And they did. The starting players who were left, while short, were smart about the0 game, fundamentally sound, cohesive and well conditioned. And they could shoot. All five came from within 45 miles of Wichita “We worked together, and that’s how we won,” said Mohamad Sharif, the former Kelly Pete, a rugged guard from Wichita East High School and the team’s top defender. “You have to think. That’s the key. It’s a thinking game.” Sharif, who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., said he still meets guys from teams he played against that year who wonder how they kept winning after 6-7 Dave Stallworth and 6-10 Nate Bowman departed the team. “It blew their minds,” Sharif said. “That’s why I’m so proud of my teammates. We believed in ourselves. We utilized what we had. We didn’t worry about what we didn’t have.” Sharif is one of four members of that team who will return to the campus for the WSU Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series on Tuesday at the Marcus Please see WSU, Page 4A
Obama tells Iran military Conviction upheld in 2006 murder of girl option is not a ‘bluff’ ELGIN ROBINSON JR. CONVICTED OF CAPITAL MURDER IN KILLING OF 14-YEAR-OLD CHELSEA BROOKS
$1,000 to kill Chelsea, a middle school student who was nine months pregnant with Robinson’s child at the time of her death. Marc Bennett, Robinson a Sedgwick County deputy district attorney who helped prosecute Rob-
BY ROY WENZL The Wichita Eagle
BY MARK LANDLER New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama, speaking days before a crucial meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, stiffened his pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, even as he warned Israel of the negative consequences of a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obama, seeking to reassure a close U.S. ally that contends it has reached a moment of reckoning with Iran, rejected suggestions that the United States was prepared to try to contain a nuclear-armed Iran. He declared explicitly that his administration would use force — a “military component,” as he put it — to prevent Tehran from acquiring a bomb. But the president also said he would try to convince Netanyahu, whom he is meeting here Monday
©2012 The Wichita Eagle and Beacon Publishing Co., 825 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS 67202.
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Elgin Ray Robinson Jr.’s conviction for the murder of 14-year-old Chelsea Brooks was upheld by the Kansas Supreme Court on Friday. Robinson was convicted of capital murder, rape, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. He had offered to pay a friend
inson, said he was pleased with the court’s decision. “I know the Brooks family cannot forget what happened to Chelsea, but I hope they can now forget about Mr. Robinson,” Bennett said. The court’s decision means it will be unlikely Robinson will ever get out of prison; the only appeal avenue left to him now would be in the federal courts, “and he would face a difficult
task there,” Bennett said. Robinson was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, plus 247 months, after a jury failed to reach an agreement on whether he should receive the death penalty. Robinson sought a new trial, in part arguing that the court erred in failing to suppress evidence about Internet
Please see UPHELD, Page 8A
WICHITA WILL RETAIN RIGHT TO DRAW FROM EQUUS BEDS
City, state reach agreement on water rights major droughts under the governor’s water conservation plan. But nothing formal has been spelled out. Meanwhile, Gov. Sam Brownback plans to sign two water conservation bills – the first major parts of his legisla-
BY BRENT D. WISTROM Eagle Topeka bureau
TOPEKA — City and state officials say they’ve reached a general agreement on how to address concerns about Wichita’s ability to draw water from the Equus Beds aquifer during
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tive agenda this year – in a ceremony at Garden City High School on Monday. One of the bills allows farmers to store up water rights from one year to the next as long as they don’t pump more than they are allowed over the course of five years.
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That sparked concerns earlier this year from Wichita, because the city has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in an aquifer recharge project north of the city limits. That project is the primary reason Wichita’s
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