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Obama to visit KU on Friday President Barack Obama will be visiting Kansas University on Friday, KU officials announced Saturday. “We are honored to welcome President Obama to the University of Kansas,� said KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little. “We are delighted for the opportunity to visit with him about our mission of educating leaders, building healthy communities and making discoveries that change the world.� The KU Office of Public Af-
fairs and the White House will release more information on the president’s visit as it becomes available, likely early next week. The event may or may not Obama be open to the public, the KU release said. A little over a year ago, Obama visited Osawatomie, about 55 miles southeast of Lawrence, delivering a major
speech on the economy and defense of the middle class. Obama has Kansas connections. His mother and maternal grandparents were born in Kansas, and in 2009 he picked then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to serve as his secretary of Health and Human Services. Despite his connections, the president failed to win the state in either the 2012 or 2008 presidential election. He did, however, carry Douglas County in both races. Obama will be the third sit-
ting president, but the first in nearly a century, to visit Lawrence. Watkins Community Museum Curator Brittany Keegan said President Woodrow Wilson delivered a brief speech from a stopped train in 1916 on his way to speak in Topeka about preparing for World War I. President Theodore Roosevelt visited Lawrence in 1904 and again after his presidency in 1910 to dedicate a fountain. — Staff Reports
Hopping around downtown with Toad
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
TIM “TOAD� EASUM, WHO OWNS TOAD’S DELIVERY SERVICE, DRIVES HIS MO-PED on his daily route in downtown Lawrence. For 23 years, Easum, 47, and his mo-ped have been making the trip to downtown Lawrence most Mondays through Saturdays to do whatever errand needs doing for downtown businesses.
Man has been making deliveries for 23 years Lawhorn’s Lawrence
Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
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t first, Mike Amyx orders biscuits and gravy. Everybody standing around Amyx’s chair at his downtown barber shop at Ninth and Massachusetts laughs. They know Amyx isn’t going to have biscuits and gravy for breakfast. “Ah, just the usual,� Amyx says. And so Tim Easum takes the few dollars Amyx pulls from his pocket and plods
Low: 44
‘Here I am’ Perhaps you are confused, though, because not many Please see TOAD, page 2A
INSIDE Arts&Entertainment Books Classified Deaths
Today’s forecast, page 10B
about downtown, Easum usually can fill you in on it. Anybody who has ever been to Amyx’s barber shop — or the barbershop of Amyx’s brother just up the street, for that matter — probably has heard Easum explain it at one time or another.
The highs and lows of K2 ———
Records detail origin, boom of synthetic drug By Shaun Hittle sdhittle@ljworld.com
In 2009, a mysterious product called “K2� hit the shelves of the Lawrence herbal store Persephone’s Journey. It was labeled as an incense, but no one was fooled; smoking the substance produced a marijuana-like high. The best part? At the time, the compounds were legal in Kansas. Little was known about where the mixture was coming from, what was in it or how it was made, but one thing was crystal-clear: Customers loved it. On any given day in fall 2009, a line could be seen snaking out of the store along J. Sloan Massachusetts Street. A trio of men, indicted last week for their role in selling and manufacturing the synthetic marijuana product, were warned about the murky legal territory of their multimillion- C. Sloan dollar K2 operation, as well as the potential health dangers of the substance. But the millions of dollars the sale of K2 raked in were too just too much to resist, according to federal court documents reMiller leased last week. Jonathan Sloan, 32, of Lawrence; his father, Clark Sloan, 54, of Olathe; and Clark’s brother Bradley Miller, 55, of Wichita, all face charges in the case, in which prosecutors allege the men made more than $3 million selling K2 and other synthetic compounds. If convicted, the men could land behind bars for the rest of their lives. Please see K2, page 6A
See more about the K2 saga
online at LJWorld.com.
Afternoon storm
High: 72
out the door to go fetch the usual. Outside, Easum explains that there is a simple reason why Amyx won’t be covering anything in sausage gravy today. Sure, cholesterol may be the simple answer, but there is more to it than that. “His wife would kick his butt,� Easum says. That’s the way it works around here. If there’s something more to know
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SPRING GAME
Vol.155/No.104 36 pages
Quarterback-wide receiver combination shines in the Kansas University football team’s spring game Saturday. Page 1B
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