Editor’s note:The Kansas Jayhawks’ stellar football season tops this list of top stories from 2007, as voted on by the Journal-World and 6News staff.

The Kansas University football team flocks to its fans after a 43-28 victory against Oklahoma State. The Jayhawks beat the Cowboys Nov. 10 at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater. The KU football team's dramatic success in 2007 has been named the top local story of 2007 by the Journal-World and 6News staff.

1. KU football’s success talk of town

Don’t act so surprised about the Kansas University football team’s dramatic success in 2007. Anthony Collins told you it was coming long ago.

“We can win 10 or 11,” KU’s All-America offensive lineman said during the preseason. “It’s ridiculous how good we can be this year.”

Indeed.

True to Collins’ word, Kansas was ridiculously good in 2007. The Jayhawks went 11-1 in the regular season, shot up the national rankings and eventually earned an invitation to the prestigious Orange Bowl in Miami.

After more than a decade treading in the waters of mediocrity, the ascension to national darlings captivated the city.

Just like Collins said it would.

“Eleven wins? Yeah I knew it from the beginning,” Collins brags, a smirk across his face. “I knew somebody was going to snipe us out, but I didn’t know who. It’s bound to happen : you can’t win everything.”

For a while, even that was in doubt.

The Jayhawks rolled to four September victories against lesser nonconference teams, an impressive run met with skepticism. A 30-24 victory at Kansas State on Oct. 6, though, jolted Lawrence and shot the Jayhawks into the Top 25.

But really, the show was just starting.

A big victory over Baylor followed. Then a road win at Colorado, a road win at Texas A&M, an amazing 76-point explosion in a rout of Nebraska, a prime-time victory at Oklahoma State and a blowout of Iowa State.

Suddenly, Kansas was 11-0 and No. 2 in the nation. Quarterback Todd Reesing was in the Heisman Trophy hunt and coach Mark Mangino was prepared to take home plenty of postseason hardware.

So the question begs to be asked : Just who kidnapped the Jayhawks and brought all these superstars in?

Football fever infected campus like it hadn’t in years. National-championship talk became legitimate before No. 4 Missouri stopped No. 2 Kansas on Nov. 24.

Even after the Border War game, though, men’s basketball was sport No. 2 this fall. Need proof? A Top 25 hoops matchup with Arizona was played with a corner of Allen Fieldhouse empty.

The football team’s season certainly changed the dynamics of the community, if only for a little while. Too bad none of us took Collins seriously over the summer.

We could’ve been prepared for the madness.

“I knew it. I knew from the beginning,” Collins says with a grin. “I knew we were a great team.”

Joyce Shontz, left, and her partner, Danita Long, celebrate their registration for domestic partnership at City Hall. Shontz and Long were one of dozens of Lawrence couples who applied for the city's new Domestic Partnership Registry when it opened in June.

2. Domestic registry program becomes first in Kansas

In 2007, Lawrence became the first city in the state to provide some legal recognition to same-sex partners.

In June, the City Commission approved the state’s first domestic registry program, which allows same-sex couples to file their partnership with the city clerk’s office.

The registry doesn’t grant domestic partners – same-sex or heterosexual – any of the legal rights of marriage, but proponents have said it could make it easier for domestic partners to receive health insurance from employers. That’s because some employers won’t offer health insurance to the partner of an employee unless a government agency recognizes the partnership.

Commissioners approved the ordinance on a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Mike Amyx the lone dissenter. The commission heard waves of support for the project from members of the Kansas Equality Coalition. Some religious leaders unsuccessfully worked to oppose the project just prior to its approval.

Amyx voted against the plan because he said he thought creating a registry was something state government was better suited to do. But that possibility seemed unlikely, supporters said. The state had previously passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Through the last week of December, 30 couples had signed up for the registry, according to data from the city clerk’s office.

A grain elevator is left standing among destroyed homes following a late night tornado May 5 in Greensburg. Most of this southwest Kansas town was destroyed by the tornado.

3. Tornado devastates Greensburg

It was a nearly 2-mile-wide tornado that swept across several western Kansas counties the night of May 4, and it destroyed 90 percent of Greensburg.

Residents of the city with a population of about 1,500 tried to seek shelter in basements as the F-5 tornado that packed 205 mph winds blew away houses and lopped off trees.

According to the Kansas Division of Emergency Management, 12 Greensburg residents died from injuries suffered in the tornado. Three other people died that night outside the city.

Kansas House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney hid in his basement with his daughter as the storm destroyed his house in Greensburg.

After the storm, the Kiowa County Courthouse and a grain elevator were standing along with a few houses and other buildings. Emergency crews and volunteers from across Kansas and other states flocked to help with cleanup.

Volunteers even set up tents for the high school graduation, and U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., delivered the keynote address.

Stories for aid emerged as charitable groups from across the state and region, including Lawrence residents, pitched in any way they could to raise funds, gather supplies or do recovery and repair work.

Now, discussion is centering on how to rebuild Greensburg, as state legislators have approved a $32 million relief package.

Area emergency personnel work the scene of a hit-and-run accident where two construction workers on U.S. Highway 59 were killed Sept. 11 between North 800 and 900 roads at Pleasant Grove. Construction crews had been repaving the road.

4. Highway workers die in hit-and-run

A woman from Washington state faces charges in two counties stemming from the Sept. 11 hit-and-run fatalities of two highway workers south of Lawrence.

Ramona Morgan, 48, was arrested shortly after the incident following a police chase that ended in Osage County.

Morgan is facing charges of fleeing and attempting to elude police and several traffic violations. She also is charged in Douglas County with two counts of attempted reckless second-degree murder. The cases are pending.

The incident occurred when a pickup truck barreled through a restricted one-lane construction zone on U.S. Highway 59 near Pleasant Grove. The truck hit two workers who were pronounced dead at the scene. They were identified as Rolland “Ron” Griffith, 24, of El Dorado, and Tyrone T. Korte, 30, of Seneca. Korte worked for the Kansas Department of Transportation and Griffith worked for a state contractor, Dustrol Inc., of El Dorado.

A Kansas Highway Patrol trooper, along with Osage County officers, stopped a truck driven by Morgan after spike strips were used to flatten the truck’s tires. Morgan’s 26-year-old daughter also was arrested but charges were dropped against her in Osage County. Douglas County has not charged her.

Ramona Morgan hired and then fired her attorney. She was trying to hire a new attorney in time for her next court appearance on Jan. 10. She remains in Osage County Jail on $1 million bond.

5. Deciphera deal draws concerns

City commissioners were working to defend an economic development deal to both the public and the Kansas attorney general as 2007 wound down.

Commissioners faced a bevy of questions over how they handled an economic development incentive package given to Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, a startup company that leaders successfully convinced to stay in Lawrence.

Part of the package – approved by both the city and county commissions – included a unique tax rebate program that had never before been used and never was publicly discussed by the City Commission. But city commissioners were briefed on the idea in a closed-door executive session.

That meeting led to a formal complaint by a citizens group. Ultimately, the Kansas attorney general, Paul Morrison, found the City Commission did violate a portion of the state’s open meetings law, and he ordered commissioners to pay for two hours of training on the provisions of the law.

But Morrison, who recently resigned from office, did not find enough evidence to substantiate allegations that Mayor Sue Hack had violated state conflict-of-interest laws by attending that meeting. Hack owns more than $5,000 in shares of the company, a fact she didn’t properly disclose on state-mandated substantial interest forms.

As the year was concluding, the citizens group – Grassroots Action – also was raising questions about County Commissioner Bob Johnson, who also has an ownership interest in the company. Johnson, though, did publicly disclose his interest in the company through the correct forms.

Both Johnson and Hack have said they were acting in the public’s interest during the entire deal.

At right are the east and westbound lanes of Clinton Parkway looking west from Wakarusa Drive. At upper left, is the South Lawrence Trafficway. This fall, Federal Highway Administration regulators completed a report that recommended building the final leg of the trafficway through the Baker Wetlands.

6. Fed rules on SLT

The controversial South Lawrence Trafficway project won a key regulatory victory in November that should put the bypass project one step closer to completion.

But opponents of the roadway said the key ruling also puts the project one step closer to another federal lawsuit.

This fall, regulators with the Federal Highway Administration completed a long-awaited report that determined building the final leg of the trafficway through the Baker Wetlands is the only feasible and prudent alternative for the project, which has been stalled for more than a decade.

Environmentalists and American Indian groups have bitterly contested the wetland route because they say it will damage a fragile ecosystem and disrespect the American Indian history associated with the property.

Supporters of the road, however, have said a multimillion-dollar mitigation package will replace any wetlands that are lost to the construction project, and will make other improvements that will make the wetlands more accessible to the public.

The decision by the Federal Highway Administration was key to the project’s future because it opens up the possibility of federal funding for the project. It is estimated that at least $130 million is needed to complete the road, which would extend from a point on Kansas Highway 10 east of Lawrence to where the trafficway ends on South Iowa Street.

A shopper leaves the Wal-Mart on Iowa Street this summer. Wal-Mart will have two stores in Lawrence because city commissioners struck a deal in August with the discount store earlier this year to build a store at the corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.

7. Sixth Street Wal-Mart gets go-ahead

Last summer saw an end to a long legal standoff between city commissioners and the world’s largest retailers.

Commissioners in August approved a new set of plans – and ended a lawsuit – that has cleared the way for a second Wal-Mart store to be built in the city. On a 4-1 vote, commissioners agreed to allow the retailer to build an approximately 100,000-square-foot store – less than half the size Wal-Mart once requested – at the northwest corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.

The deal was struck in August, but the seeds for it were planted in April. Voters elected a new crop of city commissioners who did not as staunchly oppose the project as previous commissioners had.

City Commissioner Boog Highberger was the lone commissioner to vote against the plan. He sided with neighbors who cited concerns about traffic cutting through their neighborhood.

Supporters of the project, however, said Sixth Street was built to handle the large amounts of traffic, and said the retailer had followed all the city’s development rules.

The deal came as a long-awaited trial was about to begin. Wal-Mart and the local development group – led by businessmen Doug Compton and Bill Newsome – alleged that the previous city commission had turned down the project for political reasons.

Jason Rose stares at the media during court proceedings. Rose was sentenced in June 2007 to 10 years in prison for setting a fire at Boardwalk Apartments in October 2005. The fire killed three people and injured many.

8. Rose gets 10 years for Boardwalk fire

In June families of the victims injured and killed in an apartment building fire sat in a courtroom and watched as Jason Allen Rose was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

A month earlier, a Douglas County jury found Rose, 21, guilty on three counts of involuntary manslaughter, one count of aggravated arson and seven counts of aggravated battery.

Rose was charged following an investigation into the October 2005 fire that destroyed a three-level, 76-unit, blocklong apartment building at Boardwalk Apartments in western Lawrence. The fire killed three people and injured many more.

“Our wounds and the wounds of our families are a constant reminder of what has taken place,” said Leigh McHatton, who survived the fire despite third-degree burns to her hands and feet.

Rose showed little emotion at either his trial or his sentencing.

In October, the families of the victims who were killed – Kansas University student Nicole Bingham, social worker Yolanda Riddle and electrician Jose Gonzalez – filed lawsuits against Boardwalk Apartments and Terrace Management Services. They claimed the apartment building was a fire trap and that the apartment complex and management company were negligent for failing to have adequate fire suppression and alarm systems and adequate escape routes.

9. State rejects coal plants in western Kansas

In an unprecedented environmental decision, Kansas stunned the nation Oct. 18 by rejecting two proposed coal-fired electric power plants in western Kansas.

The decision by Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby was noted as the first time a governmental body in the United States refused the construction of coal-burning plants based on concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.

Environmentalists were overjoyed while developers of the plants vowed to overturn the decision either through the legislative process or on appeal before the Kansas Supreme Court.

Under the proposal, Hays-based Sunflower Electric Power Corp., in a partnership with two other companies, planned to build two 700-megawatt plants near its existing plant outside of Holcomb.

Approximately 85 percent of the power produced by the plants was to go to out of state customers.

The plants came under heavy criticism from environmentalists. A Lawrence couple filed a lawsuit seeking to deny the permits, and the Lawrence City Commission wrote a letter in opposition to the proposal.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, at first supported Sunflower’s plan, but then opposed it. That put her at odds with top leaders in the Legislature, which is sure to affect the political climate during the 2008 legislative session.

A gathering of Kansas University students stand in silence during a solemn moment of recognition and remembrance of the tragic events that occurred at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va. About 120 students, KU staff members and Lawrence residents attended the April vigil at the Campanile.

10. Virginia Tech shootings felt locally

It was a difficult spring for those in higher education.

In mid-April, Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, shot and killed 32 of his classmates.

Students at KU rallied together, holding vigils and remembrances for those who died, while KU administrators looked for ways they could respond if a similar incident occurred in Lawrence.

Within a month, KU had rolled out a text message alert system that the university used for the first time in early December. In that case, it was used to alert students of an impending snowstorm.

But KU did have concerns about a shooter on campus soon after Virginia Tech. In early June, a maintenance worker called the KU Public Safety Office to say he’d seen someone carrying a rifle near Wescoe Hall. The campus went into lockdown until a search could be made. Technical glitches delayed the e-mail notifications of the situation, and the text messaging system was not yet active. But no gun was ever found.

Spring wasn’t any easier for those in Lawrence public schools. Just three days after Virginia Tech, phone calls were placed to 911 threatening violence against an unspecified school.

Hundreds of parents pulled their children out of class in Lawrence and elsewhere in Douglas County.

In mid-December, a federal judge sentenced Michael Parker to 84 months in prison for making the calls. Parker maintains his innocence.