Eagle Day set for Sunday

Raptor enthusiasts and a live eagle will be at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds on Sunday for the Jayhawk Audubon Society’s annual Eagle Day.

Thor Holmes of the Kansas University Natural History Museum will kick off the festivities at 11 a.m. with a presentation titled “Who’s at Home on the Prairie?”

A speech on bald eagles nesting in Kansas will follow at noon, a discussion of raptors and the West Nile virus is set for 1 p.m., and the final talk — “A different look at Lewis and Clark” — will be at 2 p.m.

Eagle viewing excursions will begin at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., weather permitting, and various exhibits will be available at the free event. Thunderbird Theatre from Haskell Indian Nations University will perform at 3 p.m.

The event also is sponsored by Chickadee Checkoff, the Corps of Engineers and Westar.

Above, a bald eagle braves the cold and snow at Bowersock Dam. Wednesday’s snow accumulation was 1 inch.

Police

KU student reports rape

Lawrence Police are investigating an allegation of rape reported last week by a 19-year-old Kansas University student.

The woman said the rape occurred between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Friday at a location in the 1200 block of West Campus Road. She told police she had been out with the man at bars before the incident and that the rape occurred while she was intoxicated.

Police are continuing to investigate, and no arrest has been made. No other details have been released.

Lawrence schools

Students questioned about smoke bombs

Three juvenile boys have been questioned by Lawrence Police in an investigation earlier this month into smoke bomb incidents at Central Junior High School.

Police said Wednesday that information about two 14-year-olds and one 13-year-old had been turned over to juvenile prosecutors in the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office.

On the afternoons of Jan. 7 and Jan. 9, smoke bombs were set off in the school hallways, damaging a carpet in one of the incidents, police said. Damage was listed at $100.

The boys have been suspended from the school at 1400 Mass.

Kansas University

Former museum official’s son donates $100,000

The son of a former director of the Kansas University Natural History Museum has donated $100,000 to KU, officials announced Wednesday.

Benjamin D. Hall made the donation in memory of his mother, Mary Hall, a 1924 KU graduate who worked to preserve prairie lands in the Flint Hills. Mary Hall died in 1988 at the age of 87.

Benjamin Hall, who made the donation with his wife, Margaret Black Hall, is a 1954 KU graduate in chemistry and professor at the University of Washington. His father was the late E. Raymond Hall, who directed the Natural History Museum.

The donation will establish an award for outstanding graduate and undergraduate students studying plant systematics, ecology, evolution or biogeography.