From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Dec. 13, 1973:

• More than 1,200 public school students in Osawatomie were possibly going to start their Christmas vacation early because of a fuel cutback by the Gas Service Company. Ben Adams, vice president of marketing for Gas Service, said the curtailment to Osawatomie, Paola, and 23 smaller communities — most in eastern Kansas — was necessary because of the December allocation by the company’s supplier and would last at least until Dec. 31 and “in all probability … well beyond that.” Some 1,800 students in Paola were not going to get an early break, as the school board there had decided in an emergency session to maintain the school schedule even though they would not have enough natural gas to heat buildings to more than 40 degrees.
• Fifty traffic convictions had been logged the previous week in Lawrence Municipal Court, including 24 speeders who had paid a total of $430 in fines. Twenty-six non-speeding sentences had involved $800.50 in fines and five jail sentences. Two persons had been fined $175 each and had been sentenced to 30 days in jail for driving while intoxicated.