From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for June 26, 1974:

• A burn-off of wheat stubble in a field north of the city limits had caused dense smoke to billow across the Kansas Turnpike east of Lawrence today, causing one wreck and contributing to another. One person had been injured in each crash. The first wreck, at 3 p.m., had occurred about three miles east of the East Lawrence interchange, where a van had struck the rear of a station wagon which had slowed when entering the smoke. The second crash had occurred about six minutes later, about 10 miles east of Lawrence, when a truck owned by the turnpike authority was making a U-turn to return to the first accident scene. The names of the owners of the property or the persons who had set fire to the stubble had not yet been obtained by firefighters or turnpike officials.
• An announcement by the U.S. Postal Service today revealed that mail leaving Lawrence would be processed in Kansas City, Mo., beginning July 6. Local residents were cautioned by Lawrence postmaster Jack Harris to deposit city mail in boxes marked “local.” Kansas City was to be one of 21 bulk mail centers around the country planning to use technical means to sort mail, reducing the cost of sorting 1,000 letters from $7.50 to $1.50, according to Ted Bland, Kansas City, Mo., postmaster. Bland explained the changes at a meeting of the Lawrence Postal Customer Council attended by about 37 persons. Several women walked out of the meeting after Bland also made a statement, unrelated to the change, that he wouldn’t hire women if he wasn’t forced to do so. One of the women, Susan Schott, promotion director for the University Press of Kansas, said today she might resign from the council.