From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for April 5, 1989:

• A Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. repairman performed an unusual rescue in a Lawrence pay phone this week. Charlie Transue had answered a service call for “an unusual case of trouble” and didn’t know what to expect when he responded to the scene, where he found a “very distraught lady” and her grand-daughter. The little girl, who was about 8, had recently acquired a hamster that was only a few days old. For reasons known only to the mind of a child, she had placed the baby hamster in the pay phone’s coin-return “bucket.” When the device closed, the little hamster had apparently fallen or crawled into a small space just behind it, inside the phone. Repairman Transue had taken the phone apart and found the tiny animal unharmed by its telephonic adventure.
• Shirley Martin-Smith, Bob Walters, and David Penny earned places on the Lawrence City Commission this week after 36 percent of the city’s registered voters went to the polls. Martin-Smith and Walters were each to serve four-year terms on the commission, while Penny, who came in third, had earned a two-year term. Barbara Ballard and Alice Fowler had been re-elected to their seats on the Lawrence school board, with John Tacha also gaining a seat.