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After horrific injury, a sporting life
TREVOR ROBERTS, a McLouth High School senior, throws a pitch during baseball practice Friday. Roberts lost his left leg as a result of a football injury last fall.
By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com
Kevin Anderson/Journal-World Photo
Snow chance
High: 44
LJWorld.com
TUESDAY • MARCH 29 • 2011
Low: 28
Today’s forecast, page 10A
INSIDE
If you ask Trevor Roberts if the road was difficult, you’ll get a quick shrug and a smile. He’s over it. “Just livin’ life,” he said. The McLouth High School senior lost the lower part of his left leg last fall after a football injury. A compound fracture of his tibia and fibula led to gangrene, and a doctor told
him he’d either lose his leg or his life. But today, he’s already back on the school’s baseball team and has plans to play even more sports. And that’s thanks to the many people — both inside and outside the community — who extended a helping hand, Roberts and his guardians said. “There are so many people, it’s just impossible to name them,” said Lisa Humerickhouse, Roberts’ legal guardian. The donations have been coming
from all over the place. Roberts got $3,000 from a man in California he’d never met, Humerickhouse said. A check came recently from the BasehorLinwood school district for a fundraiser. It’s not just money, either. The family has received videos of fellow amputees doing everything from driving a stickshift car to playing golf. “We’ve tried to send out thank-yous,
School board votes to close Wakarusa Valley School
Please see ATHLETE, page 2A
$4M to support cancer center efforts By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com
NCAA TOURNAMENT
Road takes many strange turns A Final Four with no 1 or 2 seeds is a rarity, and blogger Eric Sorrentino reflects on the wild ride. Page 1B NATION
Obama defends Libya intervention President Barack Obama on Monday upheld the U.S.-led military intervention in Libya, saying that it averted a massacre by longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi and that NATO’s takeover of the multilateral mission this week means the U.S. can quickly shift to a support role with less risk and cost. Page 7A
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QUOTABLE
Under his leadership, SRS is a disaster waiting to happen.” — Sen. Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, on SRS Secretary Bob Siedlicki, whose confirmation is expected soon. Page 2A
COMING WEDNESDAY Local Boy Scout leaders are preparing for a 50th anniversary celebration for the Camp Bromelsick property west of Lawrence.
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BERNIE WEST, RIGHT, listens during a school board public hearing Monday regarding the proposal to close Wakarusa Valley School. West is a third-grade teacher at Wakarusa Valley, where she has worked for 28 years. The board voted 6-1 Monday to close the school, with only board member Marlene Merrill in favor of keeping it open.
Action just first of cost-cutting moves By Mark Fagan mfagan@ljworld.com
Wakarusa Valley School soon will celebrate its 50th birthday, but it won’t be open for its 51st. Monday night, members of the Lawrence school board voted to close the school southeast of Clinton Lake at the end of the current school year, a move projected to save the district nearly $500,000 annually and set in motion a long-term plan that would be expected to lead to more closures, consolidations and operational cost savings in the years ahead. “It doesn’t get any easier,” said Scott Morgan, an outgoing board member who’s now been part of closing five elementary schools during his eight years on the board. “But it’s what grown-ups do when you’re faced with this kind of budget issue.” More than 50 people attended Monday’s meeting, which started with a for-
mal public hearing before the board approved the closure on a 6-1 vote. Marlene Merrill, who is seeking re-election, opposed the closure, indicating that the district should keep Wakarusa Valley Morgan open and consider closing “several” schools instead. Closing Wakarusa Valley was one of two major recommendations forwarded to the board by the Lawrence Elementary School Facility Vision Task Force, a 24-member group that met for eight months to come up with a long-term plan for the district’s 15 elementary schools while being mindful of the district’s declining financial resources. The task force also calls for consolidating a list of six schools — Cordley, Hillcrest, Kennedy, New York, Pinck-
ney and Sunset Hill — down to three or four within three to five years, with construction of new or expanded schools through a bond issue. Board members will be expected to chart a course next month for pursing a public process to make it happen. “We may need to put it on a faster track,” said Bob Byers, a board member. The decision to close Wakarusa Valley did not include an opportunity to pursue consolidation. Instead, the task force — after also considering Cordley and Pinckney for closure — settled on the rural site at 1104 E. 1000 Road, opened in 1960 by its own school district and then voluntarily turned over to the Lawrence district a few years later.
Parents’ concerns Monday night, more than a dozen Please see BOARD, page 2A
Survey seeks opinions on city services By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Several thousand Lawrence residents soon will get to give City Hall a scientific earful. The city has started its process to conduct a scientific survey to determine what city services are performing well and which ones could use a bit of improvement. This week the city will mail out more than 4,000 survey forms and ask residents to fill them out. “If you receive the survey in the mail, please respond to the questions honestly,” Mayor Mike Amyx said. “The survey doesn’t take much time, is confidential and can yield good information for us to use in planning
current and future services.” The city last did a citizens survey in 2007. The new survey will be modeled after that one, which will allow the city to see if it has gained or lost ground in par- Amyx ticular areas. In 2007, the quality of street maintenance received low marks, but since then city voters approved a new infrastructure sales tax to bolster streets. The city has done its own review that has suggested street conditions have improved since the sales tax, but this will be the first formal survey asking residents what they think.
Other services that received low marks in 2007 included management of traffic flow and congestion, planning, and development services. Services that received high marks included fire, trash, parks and recreation, police, and water and sewer. Back in 2007, 72 percent of citizens said they were satisfied with the overall quality of city services. The city has budgeted $30,000 to complete the survey this year. The has hired a consulting firm to conduct the survey. The survey participants were selected randomly. Results of the survey will be released later this year. — City reporter Chad Lawhorn can be reached at 8326362. Follow him at Twitter.com/clawhorn_ljw.
The Kansas University Cancer Center announced a $4 million boost in private donations on Monday that will support the center’s efforts to achieve National Cancer Institute designation. The donations announced were $2 million from Tom and Teresa Walsh of Leawood and the Walsh Family Foundation, and $2 million from two Kansas City foundations, the Victor E. and Caroline E. Schutte Foundation and the John W. and Effie E. Speas Memorial Trust. The KU Cancer Center is seeking to obtain NCI designation, which would aid the local and regional economy, creating thousands of jobs and pumping billions of dollars into the area. Jensen But that wasn’t what got Tom and Teresa Walsh to donate. Tom is a KU alumnus and entrepreneur, and Teresa co-founded Silpada Designs, which Avon purchased in 2010. Having personal exposure to cancer among friends and family members, some of whom have died from the disease, Tom Walsh said he and his wife were motivated by the possibility of saving lives. They got interested in KU after hearing a presentation about the efforts going on at KU, and the potential that could be gained if KU were to receive designation. “The survivorship rates increased dramatically,” Tom Walsh said. “It really got our interest.” They met with KU officials and learned how their donation would be most effective, and targeted it for patient care and faculty recruitment. The donation from the Schutte Foundation and the Speas Memorial Trust will create the Schutte/Speas chair in hematological malignancies, a position already filled by Kapil Bhalla, deputy director of the KU Cancer Center. Roy Jensen, director of the KU Cancer Center, called the $2 million commitment “a critical part of the package” that brought Bhalla to KU from Georgia in 2010. David Frantze, co-trustee of the Schutte Foundation along with Bank of America, is a past chairman of the national board of directors for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He said he heard from that organization about the good work KU was doing in drug development and discovery. “Between developing a great cancer center here and the Please see CANCER, page 2A