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House fire voted top story of year
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Early on the morning of Sept. 17 — a Sunday morning, a morning set aside for church and family — fire trucks blared down New Jersey Street.
It was a house fire, and people were trapped inside.
In a matter of hours, a longtime Lawrence family had lost five members, including four children.
The deadly house fire at 1205 N.J. tops the Lawrence Journal-World/6News list of the most important news stories of 2006.
In a poll of Journal-World readers and staff members, the deadly blaze topped a list that included violent acts of nature, politics and the criminal mind — stories that, for better or worse, changed the face of our city.
Here, in the order they were ranked, is a look back and ahead at the top stories of 2006.
1. The Glover family fire, 1205 N.J.
As his family struggled to come to grips with the loss of Charles Glover and four of his grandchildren, the city mourned alongside them.
The fire killed Glover and his grandchildren: Nolan Vender, 13; DaVonte Brockman, 11; Mario Johnson, 2; and Mariyana Johnson, 13 months. Glover’s wife, Learlean, suffered injures in the fire but survived.
The cause of the blaze may never be known.
In the weeks after the fire, the community did its best to help ease the pain of losing loved ones.
The Lawrence Youth Football League retired the jersey of DaVonte. The church Charles Glover belonged to opened its arms to family members. And donations of everything from money to burial plots poured in.
“This is so wonderful,” Learlean Glover said at the time. “It’s so hard, but I have to make it.”
Just last week, the Glover family experienced its first Christmas without the family patriarch and, moreover, the children who had filled the holidays with joy.
Late one night a few days before Christmas, Charlie Glover Jr. fought through his emotions, trying to explain what this first Christmas would be like without them.
“It wasn’t just my father,” he said. “He lived a full life. But it’s the kids.”
Lawrence residents were rattled awake Sunday, March 12, when straight-line winds reaching more than 90 mph wrecked homes, businesses and parts of the Kansas University campus in the worst storm to hit the area in years.
The storm produced howling winds, a yellow sky and the sound of trees crashing in yards.
Historic Danforth Chapel at KU lost its roof and was closed for weddings for months.
The first church established in Kansas Territory, Plymouth Congregational, had its spires ripped apart.
The storm also gave us that word, now an integral part of Lawrencians’ vocabulary: microburst.
The word means a wave of wind pouring down from the tops of storm clouds. But for many Lawrence residents, it meant tree limbs torn through homes and cars, downtown storefronts demolished, insurance companies and government officials declaring the city a disaster area.
After 16 years on the job, Lawrence City Manager Mike Wildgen resigned in March, ushering in a new era in city leadership.
Wildgen resigned under mounting pressure stemming from problems with planning and infrastructure.
After a nationwide search, city commissioners on Sept. 29 hired David Corliss, assistant city manager and a longtime member of Wildgen’s management team.
“My desire is not business as usual,” Corliss said at the time. “It is to be better at business.”
Since then, Corliss has said he won’t rest on the laurels of a nice downtown and nice neighborhoods, instead striving toward improvement in the city — specifically in the job market and other factors that hinge on economic improvement.
He also promised that he won’t be content simply telling commissioners what they want to hear.
That was the headline that blared from the front page of the Journal-World on Nov. 8, the morning after the Democratic party wrangled power back both in Kansas and across the country.
Republicans for more than a decade held both chambers of Congress. Kansas representatives were no exception. But with the election of Nancy Boyda, of Topeka, over Republican Jim Ryun, of Lawrence, for the 2nd Congressional District and the defeat of state Attorney General Phill Kline by Republican-turned-Democrat Paul Morrison, many pundits began referring to Kansas as a “purple” state, a blend of traditional Republican and Democratic values that broke down party lines.
Some pundits called the election a referendum on the administration of President Bush, claiming that the win for Democrats was ultimately a loss for Bush’s policies at home and abroad.
“Her win also shows that even in the reddest of red state, people have simply had enough of George W. Bush,” political blogger Diane Silver said of Boyda’s win.
But others said the election also represented changing values in Kansas.
“There’s a shift toward people voting for candidates who reflect their views,” said Kansas City attorney Joe Kronawitter, who ran for the Kansas House in 2000. “The mere fact that she (Boyda) was elected is demonstrative of the idea that people in Kansas don’t vote strictly along party lines.”
This year saw one longtime Kansas voice fade into the distance, and another, new voice — this one shouting “lack of institutional control” — blare to the forefront.
It also saw a killer “B” sting the men’s basketball team for the second year in a row.
For the first time in 60 years, the broadcasts of Kansas sports were without the voice of university legend Max Falkenstien, who retired this year. For the final stint of the men’s basketball season, Falkenstien was honored in every venue the Jayhawks played and had his unofficial number “60” retired in Allen Fieldhouse.
Meanwhile, an NCAA investigation hit the university athletic department with sanctions for major violations in several sports programs, including men’s football and basketball, and women’s basketball.
The allegations included boosters paying players improper benefits and academic fraud for a former assistant football coach providing answers to test questions for two athletes.
Punishments included loss of scholarships and other sanctions.
But the biggest hurt for KU fans may have come March 17, when the Bradley Braves knocked KU out of the men’s NCAA tournament, 77-73.
But now, KU basketball is up an running again, surely charging toward another high seeding in the NCAA tournament. And David Lawrence and Chris Piper have taken the reigns from Falkenstien for football and basketball, respectively, joining Bob Davis for commentary on radio broadcasts.
2006: The Year in Photos
A shooting outside the Granada nightclub the morning of Feb. 5 killed one and injured another. It also caused some to call for a plan to revamp downtown gun and bar regulations.
City leaders toughened local weapons laws downtown, increasing punishments for anyone bringing a weapon near a bar. Plus, the city continues to discuss new licensing for bars in Lawrence, giving the city another means of control for clubs that some consider troublesome.
The violence downtown certainly didn’t begin or end with the Granada shooting. Since then, someone fired a gun inside Last Call, a downtown club that has seen its share of violent incidents and gun violations in 2006.
Residents have argued in letters and public message boards about how to stop the seemingly increasing trend. In 2007, city leaders will try to decide what they can do to keep downtown streets safe.
Legislators breathed a sign of relief July 28 when the Kansas Supreme Court approved a three-year, $466 million funding plan for public schools and dismissed a lawsuit filed in 1999.
The lawsuit dominated state politics, particularly during the last two legislative sessions. In 2005, some legislators, including House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, accused the court of overstepping its constitutional bounds after the court said the school finance system failed to adequately fund education for all students.
In the midst of a heated special session in 2005, a divided Legislature approved a $290 million plan, which the court accepted as a down payment before the three-year plan passed in 2006.
Kansas Supreme Court Justice Lawton Nuss recused himself from the case and was admonished by the Commission on Judicial Qualifications for his March lunch meeting with two legislators during which they discussed pending funding plans in the Legislature.
School finance will still be a major issue this year as legislators must find extra money to fund the final two years of the new plan.
Challenges also remain for school administrators to hire quality teachers and comply with federal test-score regulations.
It was a case of the world’s largest retailer versus city leaders bent on controlling the ebb and flow of city commerce.
The city officially killed a proposed Wal-Mart store on the corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive on Oct. 24 after months of wrangling by both sides to balance development and concerns about traffic, design specifications and, ultimately, how much retail the city really needs.
City commissioners, led by Mike Rundle, Boog Highberger and David Schauner, voted against the proposed 99,840-foot-store by a vote of 3-2.
This occurred despite an earlier legal agreement between the city and the developers wanting to build the store.
The contention won’t end there. Attorneys for Wal-Mart have restarted a lawsuit, alleging that the city wrongfully denied the retailer a permit. If Wal-Mart succeeds, the store would be even larger than the one the city rejected in October.
The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in April.
9. Cat Tracker fatal bus accident
One Kansas State football fan died and another was seriously injured the morning of Nov. 18 when a fan bus went under an overpass on the way to a Kansas-Kansas State football game at Memorial Stadium.
The incident, in which the two fans were standing on top of the Cat Tracker bus, has since raised more questions than answers as prosecutors mull over possible charges in the case.
John P. Green, of Shawnee, died that morning, and Chris D. Orr, of Salina, spent weeks in Kansas University Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., with serious head injuries following the wreck.
“This is as unusual as much as it is tragic,” Lawrence police spokeswoman Kim Murphree said at the time.
Since then, subsequent investigation found that the bus driver, Brent Simonsson, had a history of driving under the influence and didn’t have a license to operate the bus at the time.
District Attorney Charles Branson has been collecting information from police, but has yet to file any charges.
Following a four-hour standoff, a Lawrence woman emerged from a trailer and fired a revolver at officers then was shot and killed by a detective.
Friends described Marsha L. Mace, 36, as loving and fun but also unpredictable. After their investigation, police said they believed she attempted “suicide by cop” and succeeded.
According to dispatch recordings, Mace said she was “done” while alone inside her father’s trailer on Sept. 24 at 110 N. Mich. during the standoff. Also, she told a dispatcher she had been diagnosed with brain tumors and had her home foreclosed.
“She was a fun-loving, vivacious girl. She really was a good mother, and she was a good friend. She did have bad times like everyone else,” Mace’s sister, Marketa McKenzie, said at the time.
Police and witnesses said officers acted in self-defense. A police review determined no internal policies or procedures were violated. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is still analyzing evidence for a report, and Branson will have his staff review reports to determine if the shooting was justified.
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