Lawrence CVB seeks entries for photo contest

The Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau is looking to local photographers to capture what’s most enticing about Lawrence.

Entries for the organization’s 2003 photo contest, which celebrates National Tourism Week, May 10-18, are due by 5 p.m. Friday at the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, 734 Vt.

The contest includes five categories: Lawrence: A City of Arts; From Ashes to Immortality; The People of Lawrence; Let it Snow and Sporting Lawrence. Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau staff will evaluate entries for originality, artistry and content relative to visitors.

Entry forms are available at the Chamber of Commerce office, 734 Vt.; the Lawrence Visitor Information Center, 402 N. Second St.; the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.; and at businesses throughout Lawrence.

For more information, contact Ashley Holverson at 865-4492 or cvbadmin@visitlawrence.com.

Sandcastles to adorn KU’s Wescoe Beach

Kansas University students will hit the beach — Wescoe Beach, that is — for a sandcastle tournament today.

The Student Union Activities-sponsored annual tournament, held in front of Wescoe Hall, will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Prizes of $100, $50 and $25 will be awarded. For more information, call 864-SHOW.

Petition seeks review of KU assistant’s firing

The union representing graduate teaching assistants at Kansas University has presented a petition to Provost David Shulenburger urging him to review the firing of an assistant who taught Arabic courses.

Leaders of the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition presented the petitions, with more than 100 signatures, Tuesday morning.

Abdel-Rahman Al-Gibaly was fired in the middle of the fall semester. Naima Omar, the assistant professor of African and African American studies who oversaw Al-Gibaly, said he was “incompetent.”

GTAC officials have argued that Al-Gibaly had 15 years of college teaching experience and that the problem was more of a personality conflict with Omar.

GTAC leaders asked Shulenburger to review the firing in February. He wrote a letter in response saying he had no plans for such a review.

‘In Cold Blood’ case in focus on ‘River City’

This week on “River City Weekly,” former Kansas state pardon attorney Chuck McAtee talks about the 1959 murder case that rocked the nation and inspired the book “In Cold Blood.”

The brutal slayings of Herbert and Bonnie Clutter and their children Nancy and Kenyon near Holcomb attracted intense national attention. The case culminated in the executions of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock on April 14, 1965, at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing.

McAtee focuses on his relationships with Smith and Hickock, and friendship with author Truman Capote, who chronicled the crimes in his book.

“River City Weekly” premieres at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays with encore presentations at 7:30 weeknights and 9 a.m. Saturdays on Sunflower Broadband Channel 6.