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TUESDAY • OCTOBER 20 • 2015
Ole Miss eyes KU provost
Living without sight
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Officials say Vitter is top chancellor pick By Karen Dillon Twitter: @karensdillon
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photos
MINDY MIES, 43, HARNESSES HER SERVICE DOG, ADA, as she gets ready to walk more than 2 miles to Liberty Memorial Central Middle School to pick up her twin sons, Cole and Luke, on Oct. 13. Mies, who is blind, makes the trip to and from the school once a week.
For blind resident, independence is key By Nikki Wentling Twitter: @NikkiWentling
M
indy Mies is a daughter, a wife, and a mother to twin adolescent boys. She’s an athlete — a runner and skier (an activity she mastered at a young age during regular trips to Aspen, Colo.) — who also enjoys a good cup of coffee (especially La Prima Tazza’s) and the occasional beer from her favorite, Free State Brewing Co. She’s also a college graduate, having earned a degree in human development from Kansas University in 1997, and a resident of North Lawrence, where her family shares a single-level home off Comfort Court with their menagerie of pets. Mies, 43, also happens to be totally blind. She has been since she was just over a year old, when doctors at KU Medical Center found cancer in her eyes and removed them. For Mies, it’s just how life has always been. “Remember that movie where this guy was blind all his life and then they somehow gave him sight and he freaks out?” she said, sitting next to her German shepherd, Ada, on the couch in her living room. “I can’t remember the name, but that would be me.” Mies later remembered it was the 1999 flick “At First Sight,” starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino. The movie follows Virgil, who has been blind
Please see PROVOST, page 4A
MINDY MIES, HER SONS, COLE AND LUKE, AND HER SERVICE DOG, ADA, cast long shadows on their walk home from Liberty Memorial Central Please see BLIND, page 6A Middle School.
City manager search likely to run past November By Nikki Wentling Twitter: @nikkiwentling
Jeffrey Vitter, who holds the second highest position at Kansas University, is the preferred candidate to be the University of Mississippi’s next chancellor, higher education officials announced Monday. Vitter, 59, has been KU’s provost and executive vice chancellor for five years. Vitter also was a finalist for chancellor of the University of Arkansas, but chose Mississippi instead. Vitter “It was a very tough decision to leave that search,” Vitter told the Lawrence Journal-World on Monday. “It speaks to the passion and infectious enthusiasm that the board (of trustees) showed Sharon (Vitter) and me.” Vitter will travel to Mississippi this weekend for a football game and then will meet next week with members of the university community, and following that, Mississippi’s Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning will vote a final time to hire him. “It will be in the middle of next week,” Vitter said. Alan Perry, president of the Board of Trustees, announced Vitter was the preferred candidate Monday afternoon.
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Let’s just make sure that the process is as open as it can be. Let’s make sure it’s a good process. That’s more important to me than meeting a November deadline.”
The Lawrence City Commission is not likely to name a new city manager in November, the target originally set when the search began in August. At its Oct. 13 meeting, the commission decided to interview eight of the 32 qualified applicants for the position. Those interviews will be — Mayor Mike Amyx held over the next several weeks, said Mayor Mike Amyx, the commission’s point person in the search. “I would love to say it’s going to He said it’s “still early” to know when happen in November,” Amyx said the next city manager will be selected. Monday. “But right now with the con-
sultant trying to schedule all the interviews, that will take quite a bit of time. It may take all of November to get through.” City officials said in early August that they hoped to make a decision by late October and have a new city manager in place by late November. One week after that announcement, former Mayor Jeremy Farmer resigned amid allegations of financial misconduct at Just Food, a local food bank he directed. Please see MANAGER, page 4A
Ex-AG Kline asks court to restore his law license By Peter Hancock Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
Topeka — Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is asking a federal court to restore his license to practice law in Kansas, arguing that he was denied an opportunity for a fair hearing. The 70-page complaint, which alleges that Kline was the victim of an “arbitrary and lawless” process carried out by his political adversaries, was filed Kline Sunday, two years to the day after the Kansas Supreme Court suspended his license indefinitely over his handling of investigations of abortion clinics. Please see KLINE, page 4A
INSIDE
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Low: 61
Today’s forecast, page 6A
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Bike polo business 1D-4D 6A, 2D 1B-8B 1C-2C
Lawrence-based company Fixcraft is manufacturing a new bicycle tailored specifically to bike polo players’ needs. Page 3A
Vol.157/No.293 26 pages