A box car that had been converted to a home had been completely destroyed in a fire at 9:45 the previous night. The three occupants of the home, located about 2 miles west of Lakeview, had lost nearly all their possessions. The fire was believed to have been started when a pipe from a wood or coal heating stove had caught the roof on fire. The Lecompton Fire Department had arrived on the scene and had poured water on a propane tank to keep it from exploding, but the house was a total loss.

An estimated 225 to 250 men were out on strike against three Lawrence Paper Co. facilities, two in Lawrence and one in Fremont, Neb. About 200 of the men were said to be Lawrence employees. Contract negotiations had broken down between the company and Local 73 of the American Federation of Grain Millers, which represented the workers.

Brenda Noble, a 19-year-old sophomore at Haskell Indian Junior College, had been crowned Homecoming Queen. She had come from Broken Arrow, Okla., to study printing at Haskell.