Annual KU health fair draws record crowd

About 500 Kansas University students stopped by Watkins Student Health Center’s 15th annual health information fair Wednesday.

“We had a fantastic response,” said Bill Smith, an educator at the health center. “We probably tripled attendance from last year.”

Smith attributed the fair’s success to its 20 booths being located on the lawn in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall on Jayhawk Boulevard.

Throughout the six-hour fair, workers and volunteers shared information on services available at Watkins and other programs in Lawrence.

Volunteers, such as senior Ryan Bauer, Omaha, Neb., also helped with distribution of free condoms.

“We’ve been doing that for years,” Smith said, “with no negative feedback.” Information on abstinence and postponing sex also was available.

Kansas University

Endowment to announce gift to flight complex

Kansas University Endowment Association and KU officials will announce a major gift to the university on Friday.

Officials have scheduled a 4 p.m. announcement at the Lawrence Municipal Airport.

The gift, from Walter and Jayne Garrison of Rose Tree, Pa., will help the flight test complex of the KU department of aerospace engineering.

Walter Garrison, a KU alumnus, is chairman of the board of CDI Corp., which provides engineering training to businesses and founded the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology.

Renovations scheduled at the KU hangar will add a second floor of laboratories, offices and a conference room. KU officials have said the renovations will cost between $800,000 and $1 million.

In the skies

Flyover to precede KU-Bowling Green game

The U.S. Air Force will conduct a flyover before Saturday’s Kansas-Bowling Green football game at KU’s Memorial Stadium.

Two T-38 Super Sonic Trainers will fly above Memorial Stadium at the conclusion of the national anthem, approximately 5:50 p.m.

The planes will fly in from the south over the Campanile and continue to the north over Memorial Stadium. Maj. Mike Means, a 1990 KU graduate, will be flying the lead plane.

Kickoff for Saturday’s game is scheduled for 6 p.m.

Labor

Bus company workers to vote on unionization

Workers at the private company that runs the city bus system will vote Friday on whether to have a union represent them.

More than 50 workers at MV Transportation drivers, dispatchers, reservationists, utility employees and mechanics are eligible to vote on whether they should join the Amalgamated Transit Union.

Voting will be 5 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday at the company’s Lawrence office at 930 E. 30th St.

A first attempt to join the union failed on a tie vote in August 2001.

The Amalgamated Transit Union claims to be the largest union representing transit workers in the United States and Canada. The union has more than 175,000 members in 46 states and nine Canadian provinces.