From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Jan. 10, 1988:

• Fire from a propane heater this week caused $30,000 damage to the foundation of Kansas University’s new science library, which was under construction. Firefighters had been called at 5:55 p.m. to the site, which was located between Hoch Auditorium and the Military Science Building. Lawrence Fire Capt. Jerry Karr said that the fire had caused considerable damage to a recently poured concrete wall by destroying the wooden form in which it had been poured. A heater had ignited propane leaking from a tank, causing a small explosion and setting the concrete forms ablaze.
• Kay Kent, health officer and administrator of the Douglas County Health Department, said today that she “didn’t personally see anything startling” in a 124-page report released last week by the Kansas Bureau of Vital Statistics on the nearly 100,000 “vital events of 1988.” Birth and death rates in the county had remained very steady, with county rates in the two categories consistently below the statewide figures. The cancer rate for Kansans was 2.3 percent below the national average, and the state’s rate of death by homicide or “legal intervention” was 46 percent lower than the national average. The average number of inhabitants per square mile in the state was 30; however, in 21 counties, mostly in western Kansas, population densities were less than five per square mile. The densities ranged from Wallace County, showing 2.2 people per square mile, to Wyandotte with 1,149.