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Group calls for end to ‘woo’ in Rock Chalk Chant By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com
A group of Kansas University basketball fans — numbering more than 350 strong on Facebook — have a request. They love the Rock Chalk Chant during KU games, but it’s that “woo” they’re not so fond of. No one involved can pinpoint exactly when the “woo” began pop-
Not as warm
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ping up after each slow rendition in the Rock Chalk Chant,” of “Rock Chalk Jayhawk, KU.” boasted just more than But a few things seem clear. 350 people on Friday. The woos started beThe anti-woo group coming much more nohas taken a few actions ticeable sometime during to preserve the chant in its the last five to six years original form. Larry Tenopir, and seem to be particua Topeka attorney, wrote a larly prominent among letter to the University Daily students. Kansan last semester arguing that The Facebook group created in the chant stands out because it’s so response, “There is no ‘WHOOO’ different from everyone else’s.
“Others bluster and scream,” Tenopir wrote. “The Rock Chalk Chant is slow, eerie, haunting.” The people who “whoop and holler” during the chant are “destroying” it, he wrote. In an interview, he said students today probably just don’t know how the chant was done in the past. Tenopir — and others — miss the eerie-sounding nature of the chant the way it was once performed.
There’s a reason, Tenopir said, that troops have used the chant in battle, repeating a bit of lore about the chant. “It wasn’t because there was whooping,” he said. Cat Jarzemkoski, coach of KU’s Spirit Squad, responded to a letter from the anti-woo group and agreed to have the members of Please see WOO, page 2A
Local home building reaches new low
Way of life for young farmers may change
Low: 25
Today’s forecast, page 8A
INSIDE KU to take on OU, familiar face today Lon Kruger, who has been all over the map since leaving Kansas State in 1990, has returned to the heartland to coach college basketball at Oklahoma, which will host the KU men’s basketball team today starting at 1 p.m. Page 1B
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Only 95 permits for single-family residences issued by city last year
LIBRARY
$1M raised for expansion project The Library Foundation announced Friday it has raised $1.082 million from 272 donors to help boost expansion plans for the downtown library. Page 3A
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QUOTABLE
There is more horsepower to this economy than most believe. The stars are aligned right for a meaningful economic recovery.”
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
FROM LEFT, SISTERS BAYLEE WULFKUHLE, 10, AND MADISON WULFKUHLE, 13, FEED their 4-H steers on Friday at their family farm south of Stull. Some new restrictions by the U.S. Department of Labor regarding child labor laws would restrict what work kids like the Wulfkuhles can do on their farm.
COMING SUNDAY How many glasses of beer were sold at Free State Brewery in 2011? We’ll give you that number and a host of others.
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INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Horoscope Movies Opinion Puzzles Society Sports Television Vol.154/No.7
6C 1C-4C 7A 2A 8A, 2B 5C 5A 6A 5C 8B 1B-6B 5A, 2B, 5C 22 pages
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Confusion about changes Children of parents who own or operate a farm would still be exempted from the new regulations. But what isn’t clear are what rules apply to youths who work on their grandparents’ or aunt and uncle’s farm, rented land or on a farm that is part of a business entity, corporation or partnership. And that last item is an issue for many local families who have turned farms into corporations for estate-planning purposes. “We are one of the smaller farms in Douglas County as far as conventional agricultural,” said Clint Hornberger, a fifth-generation farmer in southern Douglas County. “We do operate as a corporation. We formed in the ’80s to make the transition from one generation to the next a whole lot easier.” Hornberger said that when he was growing up, he was paid 25 cents for Please see LABOR, page 2A
Please see HOMES, page 2A
agriculture or work in an agriculture background,” Wulfkuhle said.
I think there are a lot of families who couldn’t do what they do if they don’t have From driving tractors to vaccinat- their kids helping them.” cmetz@ljworld.com
ing calves, farm families worry that changes to federal laws governing what work youths can get paid to do on the farm could change their way of life. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed changes to the rules that prevent young workers from being paid to do certain tasks in the agriculture industry. Those laws, known as agricultural hazardous occupations orders, hadn’t been updated since 1970. The intent is to bridge the gap between rules for farms and the more stringent rules that youths not working in agricultural settings have to follow. “Children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said. But farmers, including those in Douglas County, say family farming isn’t like any other industry. And
— Brenna Wulfkuhle those rules would go beyond changing how farmers do business to eroding the fabric of farming communities. “I think there are a lot of families who couldn’t do what they do if they don’t have their kids helping them,” Brenna Wulfkuhle said. Wulfkuhle, who with her husband, Mark, operates Rocking H Ranch three miles south of Stull, has three daughters under the age of 16. The family also employes a high school student. For Wulfkuhle, there is much in the proposed changes that raises concerns. “To me, there is a lot of integrity and a lot of just good work ethic that comes from kids that are raised in
clawhorn@ljworld.com
The streak is over, and the pain continues for those in the Lawrence home-building industry. Since at least 1956 — as long as the city has been keeping records — builders have started at least 100 new single-family homes each year in Lawrence. But 2011 is the year that the popped housing bubble finally drenched a piece of pride for the Lawrence construction industry. According to a new report from City Hall, the city issued 95 permits for single-family homes in 2011. “I’ve been telling my suppliers and my employees that survival is success these days,” said Kelly Drake, owner of Lawrence’s Mallard Homes. The city’s previous low for single-family home starts was 102 units in 2008. That was followed by 110 units in 2009. In other words, three of the worst periods on record have happened in the last four years. In 2010, 146 new single-family units were started. “We used to sell around 16 to 20 houses per year,” said Frank Salb, owner of Salb Construction. “(In 2011) we sold three.” Mallard said he continues to
Update to labor laws could prevent youths from doing certain tasks By Christine Metz
— Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands. The nation added 200,000 jobs in December in a burst of hiring that drove the unemployment rate down to its lowest level in almost three years. Page 6C
By Chad Lawhorn
Woman proud to have Kansas’ only ‘JAYHAWK’ license plate PAMELA BARKER of Minneapolis is the owner of the coveted “JAYHAWK” license plate. Before a 2010 law limiting vanity plates went into effect, 42 people had license plates honoring the Kansas University mascot.
By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com
Ever since a 2010 law changed how vanity license plates worked in Kansas, the 42 people who had the license plate “JAYHAWK” suddenly went down to one. Before that law, the same plate could be registered in each of Kansas’ 105 counties. Today, there can be only one across the entire state. The license plate went to the person who had it the longest, and that was Pamela Barker, a 59-year-old hardware store owner in Minneapolis, a town about a half-hour north of Salina in Ottawa County. She doesn’t remember exactly when she got it, but she
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knows the first car it went on was a red 1970s Corvette. But when her children began to get old enough to drive, that was the end of that car. “It had way too big of an
engine,” she said. The license plate is now on a Chevy Tahoe, and it’s a hit at football tailgates, Barker said. Barker is a KU alumna,
graduating in journalism in 1976, and is a pretty big KU fan. She’s been a member of the Williams Education Fund and a member of the advisory board for the KU Endowment Association’s Chancellor’s Club, which supports fundraising for academics. Anne Hall, a Lawrence resident and Barker’s daughter, remembered the letter from the state that went out to all plate owners detailing the new rules and how most people would have to give up their plates. Only one would be allowed to keep it. “At the bottom of the letter, it said the only person is you,” Hall said. She doesn’t plan on giving it up soon, either. As long as
she keeps renewing it each March, she’ll keep it, Barker said. Her husband, three daughters and two sons-in-law all attended KU, too, she said. “Unfortunately I am about to acquire a son-inlaw who is a Wildcat,” she said. He’s a pretty good guy, though, she said. So good, she allowed him to take one ticket for the recent KUK-State game in Allen Fieldhouse. “I told him, ‘Be true to your school and cheer, but please don’t wear purple and sit in my seat,’” she said. — Higher education reporter Andy Hyland can be reached at 832-6388. Follow him at Twitter.com/LJW_KU.