Parents take student’s Playboy news in stride

It could have been much worse.

Carey Oroke, a 22-year-old Kansas University senior from Tonganoxie, told her parents on Wednesday evening that her nude photograph would be hitting newsstands the next day in Playboy magazine’s 10-page “Girls of the Big 12.”

“It went really well with my mom,” Oroke said Thursday. “She kind of had a little emotional breakdown for a second because I’m her baby.”

Oroke’s mother broke the news to her father, who didn’t have much of a reaction at all.

“That’s better than being mad,” Oroke said.

Her parents haven’t seen the photo, she said.

Neither she nor her family had received any negative attention over the photograph or a story about it that ran in Thursday’s Journal-World.

Oroke’s brother, who is 10 years older than she is, has received phone calls from his friends, joking about getting his sister’s autograph.

Also appearing in the pictorial are KU students Jennifer Whalen, 22, St. Louis, and Kristin Black, 20, a Wichita junior.

Lawsuit

Trial set for KU student injured in fall on campus

A blind former Kansas University graduate student injured in a 1998 fall on campus may have his day in court after all.

Hugo Pelaez, now married and living in Mesa, Ariz., suffered injuries to his back after falling into an uncovered drainage hole on campus.

He subsequently lost his graduate teaching assistant position at KU and left school. His lawyers in the past rejected a $25,000 settlement offer from KU and filed suit with the intention of seeking $200,000.

Pelaez, who returned to Lawrence this week to give a pretrial deposition, said the trial was set for Nov. 18 in Wyandotte County District Court.

“At this point, I just want this to be done,” Pelaez said.

Barbara McCloud, KU attorney, said the university would not comment on pending litigation.

Pelaez was a GTA in KU’s French and Italian department when he fell in the hole in October 1998 while walking across a paved area near Jayhawker Towers apartments.

A KU maintenance crew apparently forgot to replace a metal grate covering the opening, he said.

Tribal news

Indian gaming leader takes teaching position

Montie Deer, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, resigned Thursday to take a teaching position at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

As commissioner, Deer was the nation’s top regulator of American Indian gaming operations, which last year generated more than $12.7 billion.

Congress created the National Indian Gaming Commission in 1988 to monitor gaming on American Indian reservations and shield tribes from organized crime and corruption.

Appointed by President Clinton, Deer was the commission’s first chairman. Before his appointment, he had been an assistant U.S. prosecutor in Wichita and a Sedgwick County District Court judge.

His resignation is effective Sept. 5.

Gasoline Prices

Pump Patrol seeks deals

The Journal-World has found a gasoline price as low as $1.36 at Sam’s Food Mart, 1910 Haskell Ave. If you find a lower price, call us at 832-7154. Be prepared to leave the name and address of the business and the price. Or visit the Pump Patrol message board at www.ljworld.com/section/gasoline

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