Unless Mother Nature decides to provide an unusual late-July cold front, the heat of a Kansas summer may end up frying the thousands of people expected to attend the dedication of the Dole Institute of Politics.

“It’s going to be 60 degrees and cloudy,” Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical Chief Jim McSwain jokingly predicted.

Richard Norton Smith, the institute’s director, said he’s received many complaints about Kansas University staging the dedication event in July.

But he said he and Dole wanted the event to coincide with Dole’s 80th birthday.

“I assure you, I wish he wasn’t born in July, too,” Smith said.

And because many of the expected attendees have lived long enough to have served in World War II, officials are working to make sure that medical care will be readily available during the weekend.

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical will have members stationed at key locations and events throughout the weekend.

“We’re going to have a medic unit out at the airport all three days while the planes are out there,” McSwain said. “We’ll have medic units and other teams of people at the Dole center anytime there’s activities going on.

“We’re pretty much deploying all our reserve medical equipment, and extra people with medical supplies when they’re having their special events,” he said.

Terry Brown with Museum Professional Inc. of Hamel, Minn., adds items on the life and career of former Sen. Bob Dole to one of the display cases along the walls of the grand hallway at the Dole Institute of Politics. The official opening of the center is Saturday, and Brown and several other workers were busy Tuesday putting the finishing touches on the 1 million building in preparation for dedication.

Lawrence Memorial Hospital also will be prepared.

“There are plans for large numbers of people,” said Belinda Rehmer, hospital spokeswoman. “We have procedures that we do to make sure we’re ready for large crowds, and we’ve been reviewing our procedures to make sure they’re up to snuff.

“It’s not exciting,” she added, “because it’s the same thing we would do for a football game.”

Joan Harvey, director of emergency services for the hospital, said an extra emergency room physician would be on duty during the weekend.

“Additional staff will be on because of the additional people who will be in Lawrence,” she said. “That’s more for the volume (of people), not for the dignitaries.”

McSwain said attendees would be urged to take it easy.

“We do have some concerns, and that’s why we’re going to have people up there,” he said. “We’re hoping people will use good common sense, rest and not try to overdo it.”