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City to consider requiring deposit for running event By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
The Color Run, an unusual event that involved splattering about 7,000 runners with colored corn starch in downtown Lawrence last fall, is making a return. This time, Lawrence City Hall leaders are sug-
gesting that green be a prominent color. City commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting will consider requiring organizers of the popular run to make a $20,000 deposit with the city to ensure that streets are properly cleaned after the event and that volunteers are on hand during
the race to help control traffic at intersections. The deposit would be refunded, unless there was a problem with cleanup or other matters during the race. “It could have gone a little better last year,” City Clerk Jonathan Douglass said of the 2012 cleanup efforts. “It wasn’t terrible,
but we’re trying to figure out a way to improve the process.” Organizers hope to hold this year’s event on Sept. 14, with the run beginning and ending near Watson Park. The route will include Tennessee, Kentucky and 18th streets. Those streets will be closed on race day from
about 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., when cleanup is expected to be completed. Organizers say they expect about 7,000 or more runners this year, Douglass said. Attempts to reach representatives with The Color Run weren’t successful Friday. The concept — runners wear white at the begin-
ning of the race and periodically get sprayed with a color compound — has taken off nationally. According to the group’s website, the races have exploded in popularity since their debut in 2012. The group plans to host 100 events across the world in Please see RUNNING, page 2A
Learning to adjust to life after brain injuries
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Students with cognitive, intellectual issues coping with ‘invisible disability’ By Ben Unglesbee bunglesbee@ljworld.com
If that sounds like a drawback to you, perhaps you are not sufficiently schooled in the topic of porch couch wisdom “We meet new people that way,” Travis Morris, a roommate of Parrish’s, says with a laugh. Well, most of the time they meet them, but not always. “One of our other room-
After a 2010 car accident left Amanda Thompson with a severe brain injury, the onetime pre-law student at Kansas University had to relearn everything, including how to feed herself. A year later she returned to campus to begin school again. Coming from having to reacquire skills she learned as a child back into a university environment overwhelmed Thompson at times. “It was terrifying,” she said. Thompson slowly realized her own limits and pushed herself to start asking for help from instructors, friends and the university’s accessibility staff. Now she is on pace to graduate as a speech, language and hearing major. But when she first returned to campus, Thompson often felt alone, and she still does sometimes. Over time she has re-learned how to live college life, and hopes her experience can help the often overlooked population of students with brain injuries and cognitive disabilities. And Thompson’s experience might prove instructive for another KU student who suffered a traumatic injury earlier this year and hopes to return to school someday.
Please see COUCHES, page 6A
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Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo
KANSAS UNIVERSITY JUNIORS TRAVIS MORRIS, OF KANSAS CITY, KAN., AND MONTE PARRISH, OF TOPEKA, sit on their front porch couch with Morris’ dog Bacchus on Friday. Officials are looking at an ordinance that would ban upholstered furniture from porches.
The comfy confines of a porch couch Lawhorn’s Lawrence
Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
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mere lawn chair should be required to bow down — or fold, at least — in front of the majesty of the couch that sits on a porch in the Oread neighborhood. “It is a great couch,” Monte Parrish says of the tattered — well, let’s say multicolored — couch that has a place beneath the “Go Chiefs!” banner and next to the barbecue grill. “Look at it, it’s enormous.”
It does stretch out like a limousine, and while its creature comforts may not be limousine quality, I can attest that it is comfy — maybe even to the point of having gained a reputation. “About once every other week, we find someone who has wandered down from one of the bars and fallen asleep on our couch,” Parrish says.” Usually frat guys who don’t make it past dollar night.”
Local educator hikes Appalachian Trail to inspire students By Giles Bruce gbruce@ljworld.com
Mike Harris doesn’t have anything left to prove. He served in the Air Force for two decades, retiring in 2002 at the rank of lieutenant colonel. Three years later, he hiked the entirety
of the Appalachian Trail. In 2008, he began serving as an aide to special-needs students at Lawrence’s Sunflower Elementary School. It was working around children that inspired him to return to the Appalachian Trail, at the age of 54, to see if he could best his time
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he said. “This time, I wanted to tell kids, if I can do this, they can really set goals and do whatever they want to do.” Turns out Harris was up to the challenge. He completed the 2,200-mile trek in four months, about twothirds the time of the av-
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from 2005. The paraeducator — classroom name “Mr. Harris” — wanted to show his students that, with a little determination, they too can accomplish similar feats. “The first time it was just a lifelong dream of mine, to hike the Appalachian Trail. I’m a big outdoors person,”
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erage Appalachian Trail hiker — roughly 75 percent of whom don’t even make it to the end. In averaging more than 19 miles a day, he outwalked and outlasted hundreds of people: While he was about the 500th perPlease see HIKING, page 6A
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President Obama’s proposed financial aid reforms for college students miss the mark in several critical areas, says a KU professor. Page 3A
Harris
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