WRITER: Chad Lawhorn

Helicopter company operating multimillion dollar dealership at Lawrence airport, has plans to grow employees, facilities

Lawrence is a town that likes to go round and round about lots of things, so maybe it is appropriate that it is gaining a national reputation for the ultimate whirling machine — helicopters. While locals may picture airplanes when they think of the Lawrence Municipal Airport, the airfield in North Lawrence actually may have more of a national — or even international reputation — for helicopters. The ...

City's sales tax collections soar in latest period; more than $3 million budget surplus now on the books

My Fourth of July party was big, but not this big. Something caused a retail explosion in July that has contributed to a more than $3 million budget surplus at Lawrence City Hall, according to the latest sales tax reports from the state. The new reports are technically the September sales tax reports, but due to normal delays in the state's reporting system, they largely reflect spending that occurred in July. ...

Rep. LaTurner tells Lawrence crowd he 'will never support' COVID vaccine mandates; maskless man escorted from forum

U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner in Lawrence on Thursday declined to say whether he supported longstanding vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, as he was pressed on why states could mandate vaccines for certain childhood diseases but not COVID-19. At the forum, LaTurner — a Kansas Republican who represents Lawrence as part of the 2nd Congressional District — told the crowd at the Lawrence Public Library that he ...

Budweiser Clydesdales coming to Lawrence to honor pandemic volunteers, first-responders; local Bud distributor ranked tops in the country

Some of the hundreds of volunteers who staffed the COVID-19 vaccination clinics at the Douglas County fairgrounds will be back there next week, but this time they won’t have to deliver any shots. Good thing, too, because the line of visitors that will be at the fairgrounds this time would require a pretty big needle. Lawrence’s Anheuser-Busch distributor is bringing the famed Budweiser Clydesdales to the ...

KU again seeking director for Dole Institute; previous hire pursuing other opportunities

The University of Kansas is once again looking for a director for the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics after plans to hire a longtime administrator and fundraiser have fallen through. Donors and other stakeholders of the institute on KU’s West Campus were recently informed that Erica Terry, who was announced in late August as the incoming director, has decided not to take the position. “Today, I’m ...

KU had fewer students living on campus in 2020, but on-campus rape numbers still increased

The amount of time students lived on the University of Kansas campus in 2020 was greatly reduced by the pandemic, but that fact did nothing to reduce the number of sexual assault cases on campus, new numbers show. Both the number of reported rapes and reported fondling cases on campus grew in 2020, according to a federally mandated public safety report that universities across the country were required to have ...