From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for March 21, 1990:

An area woman reported spotting a spectacular light show in the northern sky this week. Margie Hinrichsen, who lived northwest of Lawrence, said she had noticed colored lights in the sky about 8:15 p.m. on previous night. “The sky turned orange, like orange sherbet,” she said. “Then it started turning this beautiful red, a deep red. And rays of vertical white light started coming down like rain through the red.” Hinrichsen reported that the event had lasted about 10 minutes before facing away. It sounded like the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, according to astronomy professors at Kansas University, but the celestial phenomenon was rarely seen this far south, said KU associate professor Tom Cravens. Cravens added that he would have expected to have heard reports from nearby northern states about the sighting, saying, “If we’ve seen it here, they certainly would have seen it there, more intensely.” Hinrichsen said she had called the KU Information line, and that the person she had talked to said one other person had called about the lights.