WRITER: Chad Lawhorn

KU says it will have portion of east side of stadium open for 2026 football season; demo to begin next month

Demolition on the east side of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium will begin next month, and KU leaders now say a portion of the east side of the stadium will open for the 2026 football season. University of Kansas Chief Financial Officer Jeff DeWitt told the Journal-World that demolition on the east grandstands likely will begin in mid-December, just a couple of weeks after KU’s final home football game of ...

KU officially opens conference center at football stadium; project changes 'what's possible' in Lawrence

There was both a ribbon cutting and an anointing Wednesday at the University of Kansas’ new 55,000-square-foot conference center that is attached to the university’s renovated football stadium. “This center meets the high standards of the University of Kansas,” Gov. Laura Kelly proclaimed before a crowd of more than 300 people who gathered Wednesday morning for a ceremony to officially open the ...

Plans filed for upscale apartments in NW Lawrence; former call center space slated for industrial shop

News and notes from around town: — Plans have been filed for a new upscale apartment complex in northwest Lawrence. A Nebraska development company hopes to build about 125 units of “luxury, class A” apartment units near the intersection of Queens Road and Wakarusa Drive. If you are having a hard time picturing the location, it is a farm field at the northeast corner of the intersection’s roundabout. ...

The Emporia Experiment: What happened when a businessman was handed the keys to a state university

It had been 72 hours since Ken Hush had taken over as interim president of his alma mater, Emporia State University. Despite growing up in Emporia, Hush wouldn’t exactly say he was comfortable in his new setting. He had spent more than 20 years as a successful executive with Wichita-based Koch Inc., in its carbon division, which is shorthand for oil, gas and other fuels that power the world. Hush led ...

Girod says a smaller workforce at KU will help the university improve pay for remaining employees

University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod is uncertain how much a voluntary early retirement program for tenured faculty may reduce the size of KU’s workforce, but he does have one belief about the university’s workforce going forward. “When you think about it, you do ultimately need to get to a smaller workforce if you are going to get to a better-paid workforce,” Girod said in a brief interview ...

KU opens multimillion dollar expansion of Kansas Geological Survey; new space to help with critical minerals, water

States like Colorado, Wyoming and Utah may have mountains and canyons that beautifully fill picture windows, but Kansas has one type of window that makes geologists in those state’s envious. A window to the world beneath our feet. The Lawrence-based Kansas Geological Survey has one of the country’s largest collections of core drilling samples, which are cylinders of rock and soil that show the layers and ...