Longtime fan shoots for writing success

Mary Burchill is hoping that her 36 years of sitting four rows from the top of Allen Fieldhouse is about to pay off.

Her new booklet, “A Fan’s Guide to KU Men’s Basketball in Allen Fieldhouse,” offers 32 pages of observations garnered during five years of copious notetaking.

It’s also an homage to the frenetic atmosphere she’s loved since watching the Jayhawks’ first game at the fieldhouse in 1955. She and her husband, Brower Burchill, have missed only a half-dozen games since buying their first season tickets in 1968.

“There’s a lot that people don’t see on TV,” said Burchill, retired associate director of KU’s law library.

Among her observations: “The first vestige of corporate sponsorship” at the fieldhouse came early, with a Longines clock installed on the south wall before the building opened; and upon completion of halftime entertainment, when “the court is empty, the floor is dry mopped with red and blue mops.”

The booklet — Burchill ordered 2,000 copies through Kansas Key Press — is offered for sale by nine retailers in Lawrence. She will sign copies from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. today at Southwest and More, 727 Mass.

Wall Street

Dow plunges 108 points as prices rise on oil

Worried investors sent stocks tumbling Friday as crude oil futures topped $55 per barrel and tepid earnings from Microsoft Corp. and the Coca-Cola Co. offset Google Inc.’s strong third-quarter report.

The Dow Jones industrials fell nearly 108 points, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped 2 percent. The major indexes finished the week mixed. Above, traders worked Friday at the New York Stock Exchange.

Oil prices again pressured the market, casting doubt on fourth-quarter earnings and the economy’s health. A barrel of light crude was quoted at $55.17, up 70 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, surpassing the previous record close of $54.93.

Courts

R.R. Donnelley settles race discrimination suit

After a decadelong court fight, printing giant R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a race discrimination lawsuit filed by black workers at a now-closed plant.

The employees complained that co-workers used nooses and Ku Klux Klan costumes to intimidate them. Donnelley also was accused by about 600 black workers of discriminating in its hiring practices and the way it shut down its Lakeside Press plant in 1994.

In settling the lawsuit Thursday, R.R. Donnelley did not admit to any wrongdoing.