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THE SANCTUARY OF FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 1000 Kentucky St., has been recently renovated. This photograph is a panoramic image created from five individual images.
Renovations add new life, soul to church
LJWorld.com
Wireless network gives KU a global edge By Matt Erickson
By Rebekka Schlichting
merickson@ljworld.com
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When Maxine Graves, one of the oldest active members of First Christian Church, walked into her church recently, she got tears in her eyes. The 88-yearold woman was stunned. She never thought it would look as beautiful as it does now. “I think it’s great progress,” said Graves, who has attended First Christian since 1950. “It’s time we did something. The whole sanctuary needs to be done every so often because things get so worn.” Renovations to First Christian Church, 1000 Kentucky St., started in mid-August and ended on Dec. 28. The road to improvement did not stop the congregation from worship. They still met every Sunday for service. One Sunday in October, they met in the church parking lot under a tent. The church was built in 1908. In 1962 and 1991, additions were made. The old building’s climate was at the mercy of a boiler system, which meant almost every room was uncomfortable during cold winters and hot summers. “In the sanctuary, we had the old-fashioned radiators from 1908,” the Rev. David Rivers said. “In the winter, no one would sit in the middle because all of the heat was on the outside.”
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH CHOIR performs during church service Sunday. Renovations to the church included cosmetic and mechanical upgrades. An open house is planned for Feb 3. The entire building now has a central heating and cooling system. The main floor also went through some major changes. The carpet is new. The walls are painted different shades of green to complement the original stained-glass windows. And the chancel includes a giant wooden cross, wooden baptistry and stained-glass chalice.
“The new carpet and the new paint are representative of the excitement that’s going on in the church now,” said Glenn Prescott, church moderator. “There’s a renewed enthusiasm in the community for LINK and what the church does.” LINK, the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, provides a hangout place at the church and lunch four
times a week for needy people and families. The church also is home to the approximately 30-year-old Giving Tree Preschool and a new program called the Helping Hands Closet, which helps homeless people transition into housing by providing various household items.
Holed up for days in libraries in Vienna or Warsaw, Poland, poring through 100-year-old documents, Nathan Wood has often wished he could just pop onto the Internet on his laptop. He could use Google Translate to check a Polish word or phrase he didn’t know, or look up an article referenced somewhere. But half a world away from his home base at KANSAS Kansas Univer- UNIVERSITY sity, wireless Internet access is often impossible. So when Wood read last month that KU had become one of a handful of American universities to sign onto eduroam — a service widespread in Europe that allows faculty or students from a participating education or research institution to log onto a secure wireless network at any other one — he immediately wrote a thankyou note to the KU Information Technology office. “For me, this was a really good relief,” said Wood, an associate professor of Eastern European history at KU.
Please see CHURCH, page 2A
Please see WIRELESS, page 2A
Education issues likely to resurface in Legislature this year By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
State Rep. Kasha Kelley has never served on the House Education Committee before. In her first four terms in the Legislature, the Arkansas City Republican has mainly been known as a leading conser-
vative voice on the tax and budget committees. So it came as something of a s u r p r i s e Kelley when newly elected House Speaker Ray Merrick named Kel-
Despite her lack of experience in managing education bills, Kelley said she’s aware of the hefty load of issues that could come up in the 2013 session. Those include fallout from the pending school finance lawsuit and the possibility of revisiting Gov. Sam Brownback’s
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ley to serve as chairwoman of the education panel in the upcoming session. “The speaker asked me if I would chair the committee, and beyond that I think you have to ask him,” Kelley said in a recent interview when asked how the appointment came about.
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plan to overhaul school finance, as well as a recommendation from the governor’s School Efficiency Task Force to narrow collective bargaining rights for teachers. “My modus operandi when I get into a new situation is that I try to be all ears for a little while and just lis-
ten and understand where people are and what their interests are,” Kelley said.
School finance Last year, Brownback introduced a plan to dramatically overhaul the formula used to decide how Please see EDUCATION, page 2A
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Vol.155/No.7 36 pages
A group of re-enactors brought several historical figures to life at Constitution Hall in Lecompton. “Kansas Territorial Characters” stages a town hall meeting from the Bleeding Kansas era, with appearances by John Brown and Jim Lane, among others. Page 3A
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