From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for June 21, 1987:

• About 25,000 Lawrence telephone customers had been without service for an hour on a recent Saturday morning due to a power outage at the city’s central telephone switching office, 745 Vermont. Southwestern Bell workers were still trying to determine the cause of the outage that had killed service to all phones with an 842 or 843 exchange as well as some Kansas University phones with an 864 exchange. Sgt. Dan Affalter of the Lawrence Police Department said that the lack of phone service left people vulnerable in emergency situations. “We’re totally at the mercy of technology now,” he sighed.
• Against long odds and strong competition from other states, Kansas was hoping to land a $4.4 billion federal superconducting supercollider project. State Sen. Jim Allen, sipping a cup of coffee at Shirley’s Cafe in Overbrook today, tried to envision the changes that such a project would bring to the small towns of Osage County. The proposed supercollider, which was being wooed by about 25 states, was expected to bring about 3,000 new skilled jobs as well as 4,500 temporary construction jobs. Once in operation, the project was to have an estimated federal payroll of about $250 million a year. Kansas officials had submitted for consideration a site surrounding Pomona Lake, an area that they said met or exceeded all DOE requirements for geology, transportation, water, skilled workers, and nearby universities and metropolitan centers.