Merchants try to ease Husker fans’ suffering
Tire-slashing victims to get gift certificates from businesses
Please come back, Nebraska football fans, even if your team has beaten ours for 35 consecutive years.
That’s the message Lawrence merchants, in conjunction with the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, want to send to Nebraska fans whose tires were slashed last weekend while they were in town to attend Saturday’s football game at Kansas University.
So the bureau is putting together a package of gift certificates to send to about 25 Cornhusker fans who reported slashings to police.
“We can’t have people going away thinking poorly of Lawrence,” said Doug Holiday, chairman of the bureau’s board of directors.
Holiday, general manager of Hereford House restaurant, 4931 W. Sixth St., is contributing gift certificates from his business, as is The Salty Iguana Mexican Restaurant, 4931 W. Sixth St., and members of Downtown Lawrence Inc., bureau director Judy Billings said. Other businesses and restaurants are welcome to join in.
The Kansas University athletic department also is getting into the act and will contribute one free ticket per vehicle for the next game Nebraska plays in Lawrence, Holiday said.
The Nebraskans came to town Friday and spent the night at Lawrence motels and hotels before going to Saturday afternoon’s KU-NU football game. They discovered the slashed tires Saturday morning.
Judy Billings, left, of the Lawrence Convention and Visitor's Bureau, and Maria Martin, of Downtown Lawrence Inc., have teamed to send gift packages to Nebraska football fans who were the victims of tire slashings over the weekend in Lawrence. The packages include gift certificates to Lawrence businesses.
It will be two years before Nebraska returns to play KU in Lawrence, but Billings hopes those receiving the certificates will return for a visit before then.
“We don’t want them to become fearful that this will become a pattern; it certainly hasn’t been, and I wouldn’t expect it to be,” Billings said. “We just want them to feel welcome no matter when it is.”
In addition to the certificates, Mayor David Dunfield is preparing a letter that apologizes for the incident and asks the victims to return. The letter also will be sent to the Lincoln, Neb., paper as a letter to the editor.
“Obviously our city’s reputation is suffering because of a couple of people’s actions,” Dunfield said.
Police still are investigating the incidents and no arrests have been made. Detectives have viewed a security videotape from Quality Inn, 801 Iowa, and two possible suspects and a vehicle can be seen, Sgt. Mike Pattrick said.
The suspects are shown at a great distance, however, and police are determining whether the tape can be enhanced, Pattrick said.
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