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DEMOCRACY IN ACTION: BEST OF LAWRENCE WINNERS INSIDE

L A W R E NC E

JOURNAL-WORLD ®

$1.50

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Warmer

High: 81

Low: 49

Today’s forecast, page 8A

INSIDE

REBUILDING LAWRENCE’S

GERMAN HISTORY

LJWorld.com

Business owners: Kan. lacks qualified workers ——

State economy ‘relatively flat,’ official says By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com

Trading cards mark Banned Books Week This week is national Banned Books Week, and in honor of the occasion, the Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Arts Center are releasing trading cards featuring artwork created by local artists and inspired by controversial literature. Page 1C LAWRENCE

Oktoberfest brims with German flair The annual Oktoberfest celebration held Saturday at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church marks the start of autumn with lots of food, beer, music and people dressed in traditional German attire. Page 3A POLITICS

Romney looks to reboot campaign Barack Obama is cruising into the first presidential debate Wednesday with momentum on his side while Mitt Romney, pictured at left, is grasping for his last, best chance to reboot his campaign after a disastrous September. Page 6A

QUOTABLE

We started off with two boys. Now we have 40 alpacas.” — Bruce Koerth, who owns Kaw Valley Alpacas and opened up the farm to the public this weekend as part of National Alpaca Farm Days. Page 3A

Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photos

DENNIS BROWN, PRESIDENT OF THE LAWRENCE PRESERVATION ALLIANCE, which recently purchased and plans to restore the Turnhalle building, 900 R.I., thinks the building project has a chance to create something dramatic. “We don’t know how and we don’t know the details yet, but the end game is for this building to be a vibrant part of our community,” Brown said, pictured Thursday inside the building. TOP: Members of women’s chapter of Turnverein, a longtime German club where members between ages 18 and 30 participated in gymnastics classes, are photographed inside the Turnhalle building in late 1800s.

Stories surrounding 140-year-old community building strange, tragic By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com

ONLINE: See a photo gallery at LJWorld.com

It should come as no surprise that the history of Lawrence’s oldest standing community building is tucked away like thousands of other items in Ernst & Son Hardware. In the downtown Lawrence store that was established in 1905 and greets you at the front door with a fine German name, there are unexpected items propped between a pound of nails, a box of bolts or other goods that the 78-year-old proprietor will try to sell you. It is those unexpected items that will spark the stories of Lawrence’s hid-

den history: an intricately crafted, early 1900s wooden box that once held horseshoe nails from a long since gone German hardware store up the street; a letter from post-World War I Germany that in the days of hyper-inflation took 420 billion marks to mail; a sign advertising Winchester firearms that surely must occasionally recall a painful family memory. Today, though, the item is a bit more straightforward: a pile of papers from a cluttered shelf that includes a master’s thesis on Lawrence’s German-American history. It is a tale that doesn’t often get told, for reasons that are not at all lost on Rod Ernst.

A DATED AND FADED KEYSTONE READS 1869, above the arch to the entrance to the Turnhalle building. It is believed to be the oldest standing community buildPlease see GERMAN, page 2A ing in Lawrence.

MANHATTAN — The state of the Kansas economy is mixed, with some sectors improving while others aren’t, business leaders and state officials are saying. “The economy is still relatively flat,” said Stan Ahlerich, executive director of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors. At the council’s meeting last week, Gov. Sam Brownback focused on some positives, saying the state “had good job creation last year” and “a nice run” of increasing economic indicators. But the Kansas Index of Leading Indicators has been leveling since May and decreased slightly last month. “We hope this is a temporary pause going forward and the upward trend continues,” said Inayat Noormohmad, an analyst with the Kansas Department of Labor. And officials said the 16,800 private-sector jobs added between August 2011 and this August — a 1.5 percent gain — don’t cover the loss of 70,000 jobs during the recession. “We still have a long climb back out,” Noormohmad said.

Not enough qualified workers One of the most startling statistics about the Kansas economy is that building permits have decreased 24.8 percent between 2011 and 2012 while they have increased in the six-state region by 21 percent and nationally by 40.6 percent. Ivan Crossland, chief executive officer of Crossland Construction, and a member of Brownback’s Council of Economic Advisors, said he thought the industry was in a wait-andsee mode until after the Nov. 6 general election. He said there is a serious problem in finding qualified workers, such as mechanics and carpenters. Representative of other sectors also complained about the lack of qualified workers, Please see BUSINESS, page 2A

INDEX Arts&Entertainment 1C-6C Books 4C Classified 1D-6D Deaths 2A Events listings 2B, 6C Horoscope 5D Movies 2C Opinion 7A Puzzles 5C, 5D Sports 1B-8B Television 2B, 6C, 5D Vol.154/No.274 50 pages

Vermont Towers fighting bedbug infestation City, county not sure who should be handling complaints By Karrey Britt kbritt@ljworld.com

They’re tiny, they like to suck your blood, and they’re extremely difficult to eradicate. While bedbugs made national headlines a couple of years ago, make no mistake, they’re still a problem — just ask the managers at Lawrence’s Vermont Towers. They’ve had two bad infestations during the past 18 months and have spent

more than $6,000 trying to get rid of them. Joyce Marsh, regional property manager, said they became aware of the most recent infestation about a month ago and immediately called a pest control company. “We don’t want them, and the residents don’t want them,” she said. “We

are on the tail end of it, and we hope that’s it.” Vermont Towers is a five-story, 60-unit building located at 1101 Vt. that provides housing for lowincome seniors and people with disabilities. Marsh said the latest infestation directly affected four units, AP File Photo but they treated about 14. When Douglas County BEDBUGS ARE SEEN IN A CONTAINER from the lab at the officials received a com- National Pest Management Association Feb. 1, 2011, plaint about the bedbug in Washington. Vermont Towers in Lawrence has had two bedbug infestations over the last 18 months and Please see BEDBUGS, page 5A spent over $6,000 trying to get rid of them.


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