Entertainment

City band concert has dance theme

The Lawrence City Band’s third summer concert will feature music built around the theme “Shall We Dance?”

The concert will be at 8 p.m. tonight in South Park.

Robert E. Foster and guest conductor John Lynch will lead the band through a program that includes Reinhold Gliere’s “Russian Sailor’s Dance,” Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Folk Dances” and a “Big Band Polka” medley arranged by Jerry Nowak.

Lynch, director of bands at Kansas University, will conduct the Shostakovich piece.

Other works on the program include “El Capitan,” a John Philip Sousa march; a “My Fair Lady” medley arranged by John Cacavas that includes “I Could Have Danced All Night;” “Big Band Signatures,” arranged by John Higgins; “On the Mall,” by Edwin Franko Goldman, with The Vermooten Swing Dancers; and “Swing’s the Thing.”

The concerts are sponsored by Lawrence Parks and Recreation with assistance from the Rice Foundation. The concerts also are broadcast on radio station KLWN.

Lawrence public schools

Board’s denial may stop housing developments

The Lawrence school board put a roadblock in the path of a plan to gain access to a proposed housing development through the Free State High School campus.

Lance Johnson, representing the Peridian Group of Lawrence, asked the board to sell 2.2 acres northwest of the high school to permit construction of a road connecting 42 single-family homes to Wakarusa Drive.

But the request died at Monday night’s meeting due to lack of board support.

“I don’t see there’s any great gain for the high school,” said Jack Davidson, a board member.

Johnson said denial by the board would make it difficult, if not impossible, to proceed with two housing developments, Westwood Hills and Bauer Brook Estates.

Politics

Congressman hires Lawrence resident

A Lawrence resident has been hired by U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore to work in Washington.

Rebecca Black previously worked as an intern in Moore’s Washington office. She now will serve as a legislative correspondent for the 3rd District Democrat, whose district includes roughly the eastern half of Lawrence.

Black is a 2001 graduate of Kansas University with a degree in political science. Prior to interning for Moore, Black interned at the Democratic National Committee press department in 2000.

Black is the daughter of Mike and Missy Black of Baldwin.