Lawrence High School - Red and Black Yearbook (Lawrence, KS)

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for an in- south of gymnasium, ing to the ¥ plans, it should be completed for the second semester of school in 1980. To HA AUi@W EXSAhireSOM FTO1I gp ypot only do people, their moods and seasons of the year change, but things such as school buildings go through many phases. Lawrence High School's buildings and grounds have grown and will continue to grow to meet the students' needs. The school was in the middle of a 15 year construction program referred to as Phase 1,11 and III. Under Phase I, music rooms, vocational and printing rooms and a new gym were built. Teachers and students breathed a sigh of relief when the confusion from Phase I died down. They then were barraged by the rat-a-tat of jackhammers and the sickening odor of hot tar from the Phase II construction of a science wing, swim- ming pool and junior high auditorium. Although the plans for the science wing were well underway before the summer of 1978, no apparent develop- ments were made until after the school year began. It was expected to be com- pleted for the 1979 fall semester classes. The new wing will have four laboratory classrooms for science teachers Stan Roth, Ed Judd, Roland Anderson and Bob Beyer. rooms to be that the En- social studies V math teachers will be located to- gether in their re- spective departments. In the science wing, halls will connect the two existing buildings and make it easier for people to pass from one to the other. An elevator for the handicapped will allow everyone to have access to all rooms on both floors of the school. Workmen broke ground This will cause reassigned so glish, and in March door pool the girls' Accord- | the west of the pool, a parking lot will have spaces for 120 cars. The L-shaped pool will be heated v and will have diving facilities.The diving area of the pool will measure approximately 371 ft. by 28 ft. and the swimming area will be 75 ft. by 43 ft. The blueprint includes plans for a southern exposure of windows and six outside en- trances and one from the girls' gymnasium. Besides being used for class- es, and eventually competi- ng tion, the pool will be avail- able to the public because the city contributed $100,000 of the $700,000 cost of the facility. Another part of the Phase II con- struction, the auditorium for West Junior High, also began in March; how- ever, it was expected to be completed in October. Phase I lasted five years and so will each of the other phases. To pay for the different projects, the Board of Educa- tion set aside two mils for each phase. Sounds of hammers, saws and loud machines make it hard for students in some classes to hear, but Stan Roth, biology teacher, finds a way with a loud speaker to ovorcome the noise problom. Roth will be one of the teachers to move into the new science wing.

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 By the 1980 spring semester this L shape in the ground is scheduled to be a new swimming pool located on the south side of the new gym. Construction progresses on the wing as workers smooth out cement for a wall. Walt Fuller, construction worker, holps get a beam into place ■for the new science wing.

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Nuclear energy gains attention Some were frightened, some were solemn and others were skeptical after seeing the movie China Syndrome. Many who walked out of the theater in Lawrence were handed anti-nuclear power literature, but no one realized at that time that what they had just seen on the screen would be re-enacted closely in real life in just a few weeks. On March 28 the public learned that something had gone wrong with the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa. For several hours Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials battled against a possi- ble melt-down, the worst possible nuclear plant disaster. Some radiation leaked and pregnant women and pre-school age children were advised on March 30 to leave the five- mile radius. A combination of human error and me- chanical failure caused radioactive water to flood the containment structure, radioactive steam to be vented to the outside air and a radioactive gas bubble to form at the top of the reactor. The plant was brought under control and within a couple of weeks most Pennsylvanians had returned to their homes. What will happen to the plant was still un- known. Benjamin Freisen, chairman of the Un- iversity of Kansas radiation and biophysics, said that everyone must be pro-energy unless people want to accept a lower standard of living. Energy has been our substitute for ser- vants, Freisen said. He mildly supported nuclear energy because, he said, coal is more dangerous and puts out more nuclearized material than other energy sources. If there were an alternative right now to nuclear energy, more benign than coal, I'd support it, he said. Anne Moore, a full-time volunteer for Lawrence Residents for a Radioactive Free Kansas and the Kansas Natural Guard, strongly opposed nuclear power. I believe people can create change, she said. She and other anti-nuclear people were will- ing to non-violently disobey laws to stop nuclear energy, she said. Tho containment structure for a nuclear reactor at Wolf Creek looms over 10,500 acres of land.