From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 21, 1989:

• It was reported today that a balloon released by a Lawrence child in mid-January had come to rest in Emma, Missouri, a town about 60 miles east of Kansas City. First-grader Vincent Clark had sent off the balloon as part of a massive launch by all East Heights elementary school students as part of a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. Randy Meyer, the Emma resident who found the balloon, wrote to the school, using information on the card attached to the balloon. “I called your school yesterday and found out that you sent your balloon up on Martin Luther King’s birthday, which was January 16,” Meyer had written. “It must have been up in the air all that time because the string isn’t dirty.” Meyer said he had found the balloon while fishing in his father’s pond about a mile off Interstate 70.
• Winter left the Lawrence area with a parting shot this week as snowflakes started falling about an hour after the official start of spring. Forecasters estimated nearly an inch fell in the storm, but the ground was too warm for any measurable accumulation.