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OTTAWA HOMICIDES
Before tragedy, a friendly barbecue ——
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo
STUDENTS PARTY AT A TENNESSEE STREET HOME in the Oread neighborhood before heading out to the bars on Stop Day, May 10. Nowhere in the city does the Stop Day sentiment of “do it while you can� hang heavier than in the Oread neighborhood — the residential neighborhood largely east and north of the KU campus.
By Ian Cummings
A night of partying on Stop Day Lawhorn’s I Lawrence Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
t isn’t exactly a dish I had heard about on Food Network, but I like the sound of it: rum ham. An exuberant female who probably is not going to become the next Rachael Ray is trying to explain. I catch bits and pieces, such as the involvement of a plastic swimming pool in the back yard, a keg of beer next to the swimming pool, and multiple people enjoy-
ing both devices. But I’m still a little confused about the ham and the rum, until a slightly calmer voice chimes in. “We bought a ham, we soaked it in rum, and then we just ate it,� says Joe Schuler. “It wasn’t hard.� Not hard, but perhaps genius. And people say there is no intellectual activity among Kansas University students on Stop Day.
Friends of victims, murder suspect try to comprehend deaths
Maybe you have forgotten Stop Day — the day has damaged many a memory — but it is the one classfree day that separates the last day of classes from the finals testing period. (In case you somehow missed it, it was on May 10 this year.) For some, this Stop Day is the last one. There are just a few finals and a Please see OREAD, page 2A
icummings@ljworld.com
Andrew Helm says he can’t understand what happened to his friends. They were all together just a short time ago — Helm and his wife and sons, Kyle Flack, Andrew Stout, Kaylie Bailey, and Bailey’s young daughter — laughing, grilling hamburgers and planning surprise gifts for each other at Helm’s home in Gardner on a rainy Friday afternoon. Now four of his friends Flack are dead and one of them is facing a capital murder trial, accused of killing them. It’s clear that some terrible things happened at 3197 Georgia Road, a farmstead Please see BBQ, page 10A
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION
Details of today’s KU commencement First all-21st-century class to receive diplomas
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
KANSAS UNIVERSITY STUDENT Matt Shorman poses for a photo with his father, Gary Shorman, of Hays, Saturday in front of the Kansas Union. Matt will graduate this weekend from the School of Behavioral Sciences.
Kansas University’s annual commencement is set for today, and officials expect about 4,000 graduates to parade through the World War II Memorial Campanile, down Mount Oread and into Memorial Stadium beginning at 10:30 a.m. Gates to the stadium are set to open at 9 a.m., and the formal program inside the stadium will begin at 11:30 a.m. The program is scheduled to wrap up at 12:30 — before, according to National Weather Service forecasts, storms and thunderstorms are expected. If bad weather threatens, KU will announce plans to delay the
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Internet service in her house since she was 3. By eighth grade, she carried a smartphone with wireless Internet access. “That’s when I got that first touchscreen phone,� she said. “It was slow, but it was cool because I was one of the first people to have an all-touchscreen phone.�
When the graduating seniors walk across a stage to get their high school diplomas this week, they will represent the first purely 21st-century class in America. Perhaps as much as any other Please see DIPLOMAS, page 7A person her age, London Koehn, a graduating senior at Lawrence High School, exemplifies what Lawrence High, Free State scholarship winners. that experience has been like. For one thing, there has been Pages 8A-9A
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ceremonies by 9 a.m. at alert. ku.edu and through local media. Parking on campus will be free — on a first-come, firstserve basis — and the parking garages next to the Kansas Union and Allen Fieldhouse will be open. Free shuttles will run to the stadium beginning at 8:30 a.m. from the Fieldhouse parking garage and nearby parking lots. More details on parking, the schedule and more are available at commencement.ku.edu, where the ceremony will also be streamed live online.
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Vol.155/No.139 32 pages
The day after KU’s commencement ceremonies has been the traditional start of the road construction season in Lawrence, and on Monday motorists won’t be able to miss it. Page 3A
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