Series of news reports

[Finken]: You're a conductor in residence at Bethel College in North Newton, tell us about that. [Voth]: They're celebrating their hundredth anniversary this year and this concert will be the last of a year's celebration of that anniversary. I graduated from Bethel College not that long ago, but nevertheless they decided to invite me to come and be a guest conductor of this concert, which will be the Mendelssohn Elijah. [Finken]: While we're talking about it, when is the concert? [Voth]: The concert is May 20th, Friday evening, at 8 o'clock at Memorial Hall on the Bethel College campus. [Finken]: You presently live in Alaska and have lived there for quite some time. Living in in the central part of the United States, Alaska seems so far away. Why did you move to Alaska? [Voth]: Well, I had taught at Bethel College in the Newton area, I taught at Newton High School, I conducted many church

choirs and I thought, to get away for a little while. To see some, some other part of the world, and as these things go then eventually I just stayed in Alaska, one thing led to another and here I am. [Finken]: Sounds like from your credentials that Alaska's lucky that you decided to do that. You've brought some cultural things there, and if you'd like to expand on that I'll let you tell us a little bit about some of the groups that you founded while you've been living in Alaska. [Voth]: Well I think I came at a very appropriate time. I, there was really very little there in nineteen sixty--they had the beginnings of a symphony, and they had a music festival, which was just about it for cultural events at the time and quite frankly I needed work so I started the University of Alaska music department. The University of Alaska had just

started in Anchorage. They had a very large campus in Fairbanks, but not in Anchorage, so I started that, and then as I went along whatever was needed I would just start another organization and it has really, I think, worked both to my and the community's advantage. We needed a boys' choir and the Anchorage Boys' Choir has been going ever since, called the ABCs, and then I taught for fifteen years at the University of Alaska and I decided, having taught all those years in Kansas and in Alaska, I'd like to do something else. So I started an opera company, and presently my work is as artistic director of the opera company. I conduct sometimes but mostly we import conductors now and I'm also the artistic director of the summer music festival, and I have a rather newly-formed group called the Alaska Chamber Singers which are, to my mind, the premiere singers in the state.

[Finken]: Are the events well attended? Would you say that the people in Alaska are receptive of your efforts? [Voth]: Without question. You know, it's a little bit, I think, like the old days when every, a pioneer town had to have an opera house to prove their, that they, you know, lived in civilization. We, in many ways, try harder. And the real advantage of the location is we're at the top of the world, right, we're seven hours from Tokyo, eight hours from London, eight hours from New York. S when the New York Philharmonic goes on tour or to Europe, they have to stop in Anchorage to refuel, so they give a concert there. We have probably had every major orchestra in Europe and in this country perform there. It's a wonderful location because of that for me.

And also it makes Anchorage a very cosmopolitan town. There are many languages spoken there, probably close to forty, international air carriers stop there every day. So it's isolated in one sense, and totally cosmopolitan in another. [Finken]: Funding for the arts here in Kansas has always been a topic, at least recently anyway, and the lack of it. How has the history gone for funding in Alaska? [Voth]: When I first came there was none, but then the Alaska State Council on the Arts was -- of the Arts, I should say -- was formed at a very appropriate time for the arts, just at the same time that oil was discovered in Alaska. And as you probably know working in the arts per capita, Alaskans spend more money on the arts than any other state in the union, but by far. Now whether that's going to continue

now that the oil boom is over is of course of serious concern to us. But you know it really has to be remembered and I make this plea in Alaska and I think the same plea is universal. We really must pay attention to the arts. I love the statement that the arts are the signature of our civilization and of any civilization. We learn more about the Baroque period listening to a Mozart symphony than in any other way. We can tell more about Inca civilization by looking at one of their cave, their drawings, than any other way. And what what we are now

will be explained by the arts in future civilizations. I think that's very often forgotten. [Finken]: You mentioned the oil boom as a credit for the amount of funding that's spent. What kind of support do you get from government leaders? From your governor, from the legislature? [Voth]: Well, of course that's all closely tied with the oil boom, the state coffers were greatly increased and we over the past ten years have gotten millions of dollars for the arts there because of state funding, A very highly professional repertory theatre came to Alaska which just simply had the money to import not only all the artists, the actors from New York but all of the technicians, the cutters, the stitchers,

the carpenters. We really learned about theater. They just, they just sort of imported enough of New York to show us about that. I have enough money support in the opera that we, our singers, pretty much, they're not -- Pavarotti doesn't come obviously and spend three weeks in Anchorage to sing opera but we do have wonderful singers from New York City Opera. We import all of our leads and then the orchestra and chorus is local and isn't that a wonderful mix? The people who come from New York sort of get rejuvenated by the enthusiasm of working with amateurs. You know, you can get a little bit blasé doing the same thing over and over again, but when you see how enthusiastic the chorus and the orchestra and the local comprimario singers are they get infused with a new enthusiasm and they leave behind so

much more working directly with our artists than if they just fly out, fly in and fly out and don't have any contact at all. [Finken]: Is it difficult to get some of the, some of the more well-known people to come? Because you tell them, "I'm calling from Anchorage, Alaska, and the opera here," or have you built up a reputation? [Voth]: We have a wonderful reputation, partly because, and I encourage this in all artists, be organized. We are organized. We don't waste people's time. But I'll tell you something, everybody wants to come to Alaska, and we have become very adept at using that [laughter] as a ploy. Come to Alaska. In fact, the singer who will be singing in the performance that I'm conducting here in Kansas will be in Alaska this summer, and he has already hired a fishing boat to take him out for a week after the performance is over. [Finken]: So once again let's highlight what you're doing in North Newton at Bethel College, the times and the dates of the concert. [Voth]: I'm conducting the Mendelssohn

Elijah, with the choruses from Bethel College and the Newton Chorale, and the Mid-Kansas Orchestra. We will be performing on May 20th at eight o'clock in Memorial Hall on the North Newton campus. [Finken]: Elvera Voth, conductor in residence at Bethel College in North Newton. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken. [Man]: Well, I hate to say it, but this photo album is kind of falling apart. Pictures falling out every place. Well, this is about sixteen years old, not one of these new-fangled flip albums. But it does have some special memories in it. I was really kind of a big picture taker when I was a kid, and even though my parents did a fair job of keeping up the pictorial history of the family, if it weren't for me, frankly, we wouldn't have a lot of pictures. And it's

fun to look back on these pictures. You know, we had this big ceiling in our living room. Really high ceiling. And my childhood memory is we had these huge tall trees that always touched the ceiling. Well, the pictures that I have here kind of reveal otherwise. Well, we did have some tall trees, but some of them came far short of the ceiling. I guess pictures don't lie. Looking at this picture of a Christmas tree reminds me of the fact that we used to use our tinsel over and over. We didn't waste it. We'd put it in a plastic bag and save it for the next year. Well, we kind of overdid that because after several years, we had these clumps of tinsel, and as opposed to draping the tinsel over the tree, we would kind of roll it into a ball and throw it on the tree. I mean,

this was tinsel that you could throw, so it was getting kind of old, and kind of moldy, and eventually we had to break down and buy some new tinsel. Well, here's a dinner scene, I was kind of cracked up, my-- I've got some relatives who always like to close their eyes. This is in 1969, it's a dinner table scene, my father's carving the turkey, and we're all posing here, and I wrote here, "A familiar Christmas dinner scene: my sister and my mom both have their eyes closed." My sister was always crazy about emptying her stocking, and here's a picture of her emptying her stocking, and she's just full of joy, and acting really, frankly, very silly. Now thinking about stockings reminds me of something else. My grandmother made me this stocking and I've had it most of my life, and it had a little fuzzy furry Santa on the front of it. And even years after we sold our big family house back in the mid seventies, I

have always gotten out that stocking each year and smelled it. I mean, put my nose right up on the old Santa there and smelled it because, it still smells like home. Here's a picture of me posing with a bunch of gifts I had. Oh, I don't know how old I am here, maybe 12, 13 years old. I've got a big hockey game, and you know, I always chide my son for getting so wrapped up in his toys, but when I look at a picture like this, I remember how many good years I got out of the toys that I had, and when I look back on them, they hold special memories for me. So, I guess these pictures help to remind me that I was a kind once, and maybe I'll understand my son a little bit better. Well, here's a picture of Dad, he dressed up as Santa Claus one year. I told about that last year. And we went out to the airport to greet some people, and he ran out of the runway and greeted the airplane. Well, here's a picture of Dad -- Santa -- smoking a

cigarette and that doesn't look too good for the kids. And here's another picture of him with some girls on his lap as we were waiting for plane to arrive. Well, I shouldn't say girls, I should say women. Well, these are some good memories. I'm glad that we had taken some pictures to help us, remind us of the past because even though our memories tend to get a little faded and rusty, the pictures don't lie. And they're enjoyable memories. [Finken]: This is Street Talk, a time for the public to speak out. Today's question: what did you think about the Surgeon General's mass mailing about AIDS? [Woman]: Well, I knew most of the information that was in the article because it's been on TV, and Channel Eight has had so much on. [Man]: I saw it but I haven't looked at it. I've seen

it a lot on TV to where I assumed they probably wouldn't say much more. [Interviewee]: It doesn't apply to me so I just threw it in the trash. [Woman]: Well, I haven't read through it but I think the idea is certainly good, that it goes out to all the households, and I have saved mine, I just hadn't had time to read it. [Man]: It's no biggie, I mean, [laughter] I don't know what to say about it. It's, just be careful I guess. [Finken]: Did you get the Surgeon General's report about AIDS in the mail? [Man]: Yes I did. [Finken]: What did you think of that? [Man]: It was very informative, I think. I think that it was a wise move to let everyone know 'cause people are, they got their own, you know, ideas of what AIDS is and how they can contract it, but I think it was good to have the facts and for him to send that out. I think it was really good. [Man]: Well, I thought it was quite informative, although I'd been reading a fair amount about it so there wasn't anything really that new, but I think it was a good idea to let everybody know about it. [Man]: It was good. We read it, and uh--or parts

of it. It's good information. [Finken]: And that's Street Talk. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken. This is Street Talk, a time for the public to speak out. Today's question, should the government be allowed to ban homosexuals from the army? [Woman]: Ok, I'm probably biased, but yes I do. [Man]: I think it would cause problems amongst the men in the military to have, know there was a homosexual out there with them in the field. [Woman]: Well, I personally don't like homosexual, homosexuality, so I think that's appropriate. [Interviewee]: I don't know, that's kind of kept down on the freedom and everything like that. I don't really think so. [Finken]: Do you think that the government should be allowed to ban homosexuals from the army? [Man]: No. No, I don't. [Woman]: It's a hard question to answer. I really can't give my truthful opinion about it.

I [long pause] I think they do it for a certain reason, and that is to keep the army completely, you know, masculine, so to speak, but it probably is not the right thing to do as long as these people are willing to serve for their country. [Man]: No, I don't, I think that's really not the government's job to do that. [Man]: With the, with the danger of disease that there is now, it probably is a good idea. [Man]: Yeah. Why? I don't know, because I sure wouldn't want to hang around with them, have to shower with them and sleep with them. [Finken]: And that's Street Talk. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken. This is Street Talk, a time for the public to speak

out. Today's question, should tobacco companies be held responsible when a smoker dies of lung cancer? [Woman]: I don't know, it's up to -- if the individual wants to smoke, why, it's really their choice. [Woman]: No. You make a choice to smoke. [Woman]: I think that would be a great idea. My husband died of lung cancer and he was a smoker. [Woman]: No, I feel that -- you know, I'm a smoker myself, and I feel that it's up to the individual, you know. They know that it's, what it's gonna cause and what's going to happen, so I don't think, no. [Woman]: Well, no, because it's up to the customer's responsibility to not use it if it's dangerous to their health. [Woman]: I think so to some extent, because they promote the product. [Man]: I smoked for 40 years and I quit, but I got emphysema pretty bad, and I don't believe that, uh--it's alright for them to manufacture, but the way they advertise it, I don't think it's right, you know. They make it look so good and everything, and I just don't believe it. [Man]: I don't feel, I don't feel

that they should be held responsible, um, but I know that, um, we do, our government does support the tobacco farmers, and maybe if we did some bargaining with them, that, you know, the industry could do something to raise the consciousness of, you know, cancer and the health impact that smoking can have. You know it could be a tradeoff. I don't really think it's, you know, I'm not a lawyer or a judge, but I don't think you would have a leg to stand on to say, you're liable. [Finken]: And that's Street Talk. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken. With just 4 shopping days left until Father's Day, I decided to go around and get some ideas for those of you who are putting it off till the last minute. I know one of the most difficult things about picking out a gift is when you have to buy

something for someone who seems to have everything. Marlene Jones manages Brown's Hallmark in downtown Hutchinson, she had this advice. [Jones]: We have a lot of gift ideas. We have laser craft, which is a very fine product. It's a solid walnut desk accessory item, and the design on them is done with a laser beam. The newest thing in laser craft is a golf design, and of course there's anything that would fit on a desk in that selection. We have a lot of mugs and with any saying on it that you might desire. Here's a cute one, "Bald men don't waste their hormones growing hair." Or another one, "Go ask your mother." For the golfer, we have an entirely new selection of things. One of them would be this towel and on it it says, "God created the universe in six days so he could play golf on Sundays." [Finken]: At Dillard's, it's hard not to notice that Father's Day is Sunday. Signs are hanging from the ceilings as a way to remind us to shop up for our special dads.

Jill Matthews has this advice for people who are hard to buy for. [Matthews]: Well, I would suggest you know, it really depends on what their lifestyle is, but, like, we have golf club polishers, and we have foot massagers, they're like little socks that you put your feet into and they're different, they don't use water, so they're new on the market, so I'm sure they don't have that. And we have little handheld golf games and I think those would probably be good, probably the best. We also have a t-shirt that says "World's Greatest Dad" and "World's Greatest Granddad," and, you know, that's something you can always use. [laughter] [Finken]: Matthews says Father's Day and Christmas are two of the biggest holidays for the men's department at Dillard's. She says Mother's Day is also busy, but the way it's busy is really different. [Matthews]: Well, actually, mothers are better about shopping early than them. Like in the Mother's Day holiday, we always have a really big push on Saturday because all these men have forgotten to buy their gifts and they're in the store. Women do

tend to buy two, three weeks out, and so we don't have to hire any extra help per se, but we do run all of our part-time and our full-time full-time that week, so. [Finken]: As for long distance use, I talked to Fred Anderson with AT&T about how many people actually pick up the phone to say happy Father's Day as compared to other holidays. [Anderson]: Okay, well, Christmas is our most popular holiday followed very closely by Mother's Day. Father's Day ranks third but it's about equal with Thanksgiving and Easter so it's pretty hard to determine which of those three holidays is really number three. It sort of jumps back and forth each year. [Finken]: Can you give us any ideas of numbers? Of how many calls are placed on those days? [Anderson]: Okay, well, we estimate that Father's Day, there's usually about 35 million calls. Last year there were about 33 million calls so we're estimating a slightly higher number. Mother's Day, there were approximately 46 million calls, and Christmas, you get up around 50 million calls. [Finken]: Anderson

says the heavy area of calling will be from the East and the Midwest to Florida and to the Sun Belt. Marlene Jones is the manager of Brown's Hallmark, she says cards are still a very popular gift item for Dad. [Jones]: Well, of course we have greeting cards for dad, for father, for husband, for brother. We have greeting cards for mom, a Father's Day poem for mother, we don't even overlook Mother on Father's Day, and this one says, "Although you're often neglected upon this joyous day, if there were no mothers, there'd be no Father's Day." [Finken]: Father's Day is this Sunday. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken. Who won last night's vice presidential debate? Well, naturally, George Bush says Dan Quayle, and Michael Dukakis says Lloyd Bentsen. Now let's ask Matt Lundy with the Dukakis campaign in Kansas what he thinks. [Lundy]: Well, I think there was a clear-cut winner. Without a doubt Lloyd Bentsen proved what

we've been talking about all along, that he is a very strong leader, he's the type of individual who can step right into the number-one position. [Finken]: Looking at the other ticket, Jack Brier is helping with the Bush campaign here in Kansas. While he thinks his man Dan Quayle did well last night, he isn't calling either candidate a winner. [Brier]: Well, it's hard for me to be impartial first, but I really do think there was a winner and the winner was the American people. They got to see, for 90 minutes, what two candidates for the second highest office in the land looked like. [Finken]: In an interview before the debate yesterday, Brier said, because it was being held in Omaha, he thought a great number of Midwesterners were going to be paying close attention to farm issues. However, today Brier says the issues facing the farm belt were not stressed enough by either Quayle or Bentsen. [Brier]: Well, I thought the questions were good, but frankly I didn't sense from either candidate the tremendous commitment that we feel to agriculture by

their very actions. I thought it was interesting that Senator Bentsen criticized, on the one hand, the fact that in his mind the Reagan administration didn't care about farmers or the farm economy, and on the other hand, at the same time, he criticised the administration for increasing the help to farmers by tenfold. And I thought, gee, that's an interesting way to not have your cake and eat it too. [Finken]: The most talked about line from the debate is Bentson's rebuke to Quayle's claim that he has as much congressional experience of John Kennedy. Bentson said, "You're no Jack Kennedy." President Reagan today called Bentsen's remark a cheap shot and unbecoming a senator of the United States. But Matt Lundy says the comment was legitimate. [Lundy]: I think the comment that Lloyd Bentsen made there, as you pointed out, the reason he resented the comparison was because of the goals of the two individuals and how different those two goals are. And that's why he objected to the idea of Quayle trying to compare

himself to Jack Kennedy. No, I think it was a fair statement. Dan Quayle is not Jack Kennedy and I don't think he should try to compare himself to Jack Kennedy. Jack Brier disagrees. [Brier]: Well, it's not a question of fairness, it's a question of what purpose it serves. The question, if you remember, related to experience. And for Senator Quayle to say that he has the exact same amount of congressional experience that Senator Kennedy had when he ran for the presidency is a true statement, and to try and turn it into some personal characterization I thought was inappropriate. Particularly by someone who wants to be president or who wants to be vice president in terms of Senator Bensten. [Finken]: Did the showdown last night between Bentsen and Quayle help to persuade any undecided voters? First of all with the Dukakis campaign, Matt Lundy. [Lundy]: I think this election year, more than any other election year, people are looking at the entire ticket. They're looking at the top, they're looking at the bottom of the ticket. They want to feel comfortable and know that if something goes wrong, the number two man can step into the number one

job, and I think, as I've said before, they're looking at this more than ever before. And as a result of last night's debate, Lloyd Bentsen addressed the issues and showed that he is, he's very mature. He's got the skilled leadership. He can address the issues. He can address the questions, the complex issues that may surface as a vice president who all of sudden finds himself as president. And Dan Quayle left us once again wondering what would happen if all of a sudden he gets called into the number one position, and Dan Quayle, at least as of last night, still had no answer. [Finken]: And now the comments of Jack Brier, who's rooting for George Bush in Kansas. [Brier]: It's interesting because I have made a couple of three phone calls asking that very question as Republican county chairman, and the responses have been that, no it really didn't have any impact in terms of those people who had already made up their mind or those who have not yet made up their mind. So I think that the next 33 days are going to be far more critical than this debate. [Finken]: An

ABC news poll rates Bentsen the clear winner in last night's vice presidential debate, and so does a panel of debate judges assembled by the Associated Press. I'm Nancy Finken. For the past couple of years, visitors at the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson couldn't help but notice the memorial to the Challenger crew. Photographs of the crew and a model of the shuttle have been seen by thousands of people. Cosmophere director Max Ary says the display has personal touches from visitors who were moved to add things on their own. [Ary]: I remember very distinctly the two weeks following, following the Challenger disaster. We had large amounts of flowers and displays and so on that people were bringing in, and ever so many days we'd just have to take out one group of flowers to get ready for the next group. Poems, we have a roll of paper here that's probably four or five hundred feet

long that we set out on a table by the memorial, and during the next two weeks, several thousand people came and just put their, wrote their thoughts down. And it's a very moving thing to look at. And, like I said, several hundred feet long now. And some very profound and poetic and deep feelings that the American public were expressing about the Challenger. And we're keeping that around because I think somewhere down the line it's going to be very interesting to open up and read again. But we still, even as of a couple of weeks ago, we had people who brought a bouquet of flowers in, and someone put a small apple in front of the picture of Christa McAuliffe. And and so it was that type of feeling that was still very prominent. [Finken]: But now Ary says it's time to move on. Today at three o'clock, the majority of the Challenger memorial will be dismantled, the black ribbon on the right solid rocket booster will be removed, and the pictures of the crew will be put away until a

permanent display is built showing all the lives that have been lost in space exploration. [Ary]: It was always scheduled to be a temporary memorial to begin with. We set it up literally on the day the Challenger exploded. We meant to leave it up for a couple of months and then take it down after everyone kind of forgot about it. People didn't forget about it. And I think the reason is that we weren't flying in space. We all knew that it was because of Challenger is why we weren't flying in space. So that always just kind of hung in our minds, and every time we started to take the memorial down the public wouldn't let us. And so the memorial that supposed to last for two or three months stayed up for over two and a half years. With a successful landing of Discovery today and, meaning that we are really back on track, we think very definitely it's time to put Challenger behind us. Don't forget about it, but put it behind us and start looking forward now. [Finken]: Max Ary is the director of the Kansas Cosmosphere. I'm Nancy Finken.

[Lynn]: Radon. Should we or should we not be concerned about it? Recently the federal government released a report showing radon to exist in dangerous levels in houses throughout America. A number of Kansans, like concerned Americans everywhere, immediately dug into their pockets to pay for tests to learn just how serious a problem they had. But before their tests were in, the State Secretary of Health and Environment Grant Stanley announced that radon is not a significant problem in the sunflower state. Joining us now is Harold Spiker, a spokesperson for the secretary. Mr. Spiker, is radon a big deal or is it not? [Spiker]: Well, as you know we completed a statewide survey of 2,031 homes around the state. And of all the measurements that we did, we certainly didn't find any measurements that were anywheres near the kind of measurements they found in other states such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey where they've measured radon

levels in homes of upwards of of hundreds and even thousands of picocuries per liter. So we certainly don't have problems like that here in Kansas, apparently, and we just did not want people to be panicky and overreact. Basically, we did identify that there is a potential for some homes in Kansas to have elevated radon levels. [Lynn]: But are we talking about levels that are sufficient enough to really cause any harm? Well, the -- as indicated, we certainly didn't find the high levels that have been found in other states. And the risk estimates from radon are based on long-term exposure. EPA's risk estimates are based on an individual spending seventy-five percent of their time in the home for a period of 70 years, which is an average lifetime. So it's a long-term risk, and the higher the radon level, and the longer you are exposed to that level,

the greater the risk. The point I think that we wanted to get across to people is that the screening measurements that people do with the charcoal test kits are not suitable to evaluate one's health risks from radon. They're just an indicator to identify potential radon problems, or elevated levels. If you do get a a reading above 4 with the charcoal test kit, then you definitely need to go back and follow that up with a longer term, more accurate measurement before you start thinking about doing any remediation to your home. Then if that reading comes back, that annual average reading comes back above 4, then you may want to consider doing some, taking some actions to reduce the radon levels in your home.

[Lynn]: What happens if a person is exposed to radon for any length of time? Say they've spent their life in a basement. [Spiker]: Well, there are no acute effects from radon. It doesn't cause your eyes to burn, or it doesn't cause sore throat or anything of that nature, they're just, the only known effect is that, is an increased risk of developing lung cancer. And again, it's based on a long term exposure, over a long period of time. [Lynn]: Do we have any, anywhere here in the state where we have relatively high concentrations of radon? [Spiker]: Well, we did identify areas -- well, not so much areas, but we did have measurements that were significant and probably should be followed up on with alpha track measurements in the survey. But so far we have not been able to identify specific areas as such. We will be working with the Kansas Geological Survey to see if we can identify

correlations between geology and soil type and other factors with the results of the survey. But at this point in time we just have not had an opportunity to do that. Now, in the survey results that we issued on September 12th, the north central, northwest, and southwest part--regions of the state, turned out to be the highest, where they had approximately, over 40% of the measurements were above 4 picocuries per liter. And again these were screening measurements though, and that simply means that those homeowners should consider following up then with a longer term measurement to see if they do have an elevated radon level over a long period of time. [Lynn]: Okay, now I keep hearing that term, and seeing it, 'picocuries.' What are they? [Spiker]: A picocurie is simply a measurement of radioactivity. A picocurie is equal to 2.2 or approximately, let's just say 2

radioactive disintegrations per minute. So, a picocurie per liter of air would mean that, in the home for example, would mean that there were 2.2 radioactive disintegrations per minute in each liter of air. [Lynn]: Harold Spiker with the Kansas Health and Environment Department. You can write to the department for more information on radon. Also, they will be happy to supply you with a list of approved radon testing programs. In Hutchinson, I'm Cheryl Lynn. [Finken]: And I'm Nancy Finken. Some hospital administrators and officials at the Kansas Hospital Association seem to agree with Kassebaum. Roy White, administrator at Saint John's Hospital in Salina, says their hospital lost about one point eight million dollars in Medicare payments during fiscal 1988. In fiscal year 1987, the hospital wrote off about one point five million in lost Medicare payments. The problem, hospital officials say, is because the

Medicare payments set by the federal government are not in line with the actual cost the hospital needs to charge to provide the service. The write-off comes then when the balance from the government and the hospital don't match up. White says that balance cannot be passed on to the patients. [White]: By Medicare law, hospitals that are participating Medicare hospitals, for services that are covered by Medicare we must accept a, the payment that medicare pays, and cannot bill the patient for the difference. And that's by law. There are some deductables that the patient must pay, but once they've paid their deductables then you cannot bill beyond that which Medicare pays. [Finken]: At Hutchinson Hospital, administrator Gene Schmidt is also concerned about the Medicare system. Just recently, the hospital had to write off over $70,000 on one patient because the Medicare payments were insufficient. [White]: The patient died during the month of September. The patient had been

transferred to our hospital. The patient was suffering from cancer. He was in the hospital for over sixty days. He ran up a bill, actual bill of $96,502. His DRG that we talked about earlier, his diagnostic related grouping payment was $9,893. When a patient's in the hospital for a long period of time, the government does kick in some additional funds for what they call 'outliers.' In this case, they paid an additional $12,398 when it became apparent that patient was going to be in the hospital for a long time and needed a lot of service. Well, the long and short of the payment for this patient, an actual patient, is that we wrote off seventy four $74,211 on this one patient. And this is what we're talking about in Medicare's shortfall. Medicare pays a flat amount regardless of what the bill is, and it was originally set up

and hospitals were told that this is an incentive program. It's an incentive program the government set up. They set it up to--for them to gain in eighty percent of the cases and the hospitals to gain in twenty percent of the cases. So first of all it was a stacked deck. Then the government kept being stingy in terms of the amounts that they would increase the payment each year while inflation continued, so we have these kinds of problems where hospitals are losing huge amounts of money in terms of caring for Medicare patients. [Finken]: So how are hospitals able to compensate for this loss in Medicare payments? Gene Schmidt says it depends on the size of the facility. [Schmidt]: The hospitals that are terribly, drastically affected are the small rural hospitals. We still have a big enough institution, we have enough patients of all varieties, we have other activities that we engage in that help to keep us more solvent. But the small rural hospitals that have eighty and eighty five percent of their

patients Medicare patients, they're really being hurt. [Finken]: Schmidt says, when Medicare leaves a shortfall in the budget, someone's got to pay. That someone is usually other patients not on the Medicare program. [Schmidt]: If Medicare does not pay their fair share, someone else has to pay more than their fair share. In other words, charges need to be increased and people end up paying more if some segment of the population gets a free ride or gets by with less than their fair share. We think it's a an equity issue. It's very very important that Medicare live up to its promises. The politicians keep going around the country saying they'll add more and more benefits, but they seemingly don't have more more dollars to pay for those benefits. So it, it begins to have a little bit of a false ring to those of us in the health care profession, to think about adding benefits and not adding dollars to the Medicare pool. [Finken]: What administrators like Gene Schmidt and Roy White along with the Kansas Hospital Association are asking is for Kansans to write to their

congressmen and women in Washington in support of more funding for Medicare programs. But one way or another, it seems to spell out more money out of citizens' pockets. Again, Gene Schmidt. [Schmidt]: The reason the Medicare program was set up was to somehow equitably distribute the health care expenses of senior citizens. We may argue all day as to whether we equitably set up or pay for the Medicare benefit, but on the other hand we haven't devised much fairer a way of doing it. We think it's, it is fair that everyone helps pay for the Medicare patient, if we indeed have a federal program for health care for the elderly that's to be sponsored and paid for by everyone. The unfairness comes if you're a young person who gets sick and you have to pay because you come to the hospital, then you pay much more than your fair share. You pay an inequitable amount if you end up paying for someone

else who, for whom the government does not pay their fair share. We still have to look at the fairness of a taxing mechanism, and thus far that's been the only -- or the fairest way, may not be the only way, but it's been the fairest way to pay for all of the, of the health care of our senior citizens. So it -- we don't think it should be a sick tax that's based on whether you come to the hostpital or not, and that if you come to the hospital that you end up paying terribly much more than what you should be paying because the government isn't paying their share. [Finken]: Hutchinson Hospital administrator Gene Schmidt. In Hutchinson, I'm Nancy Finken. [long pause] [background music] [Man]: Logging the great Northwest Join me now in welcoming them all the way from the state of Washington. The International Lumberjack Show! [Carol Kinley]: Hey, how you doing? [applause] [Finken]: Carol Kinley serves as the show's

emcee. She and her hustband Les along with two other lumberjacks have been doing three shows a day at the Kansas State Fair, and for each show hundreds of people have gathered around Lake Talbot to watch the group demonstrate lumberjack techniques. Some of the events include axe throwing, log rolling, and underhand chopping. [Carol Kinley]: There you go, he's going to be standing up on top of that block and chopping between his feet throughout the cut. He's using a six pound razor sharp axe made in Australia. It takes fifty to sixty hours to to set up one axe. [Finken]: I might add, Robbie is swinging this axe between his legs without any protection for his feet like steel-toed boots. It looks like all he's wearing are regular canvas tennis shoes. [Carol Kinley]: Timer's ready! Contestants ready! One, two, go! [cheering] Come on, Robbie! You'll notice he is chopping in a pattern, he puts chipper hits in and driver hits. He goes halfway on one side, then he'll turn and chop the other half. He put his drivers in, now he's turning. Now's the time to really cheer him on, that's the last half of that log. [cheers] Come on, Robbie! Show them what you got! Come on! Hurry up, come on! Come on, Robbie! [Finken]: Robbie ended up chopping that

block in half in 32 seconds. Les Kinley is a lumberjack by trade. It's his job to fall trees in Washington state. He says he's been doing it for fourteen years. [chainsaw buzzing] [Les Kinley]: I was 20 when I started. I didn't know there was any of this type of thing going on. And then I was told about, there was a college in Spokane, and I went down and, you know, watched them and seen what it was, and it looked really interesting to me. Especially the log rolling and another event we call obstacle pole. [Finken]: Although the lumberjack show is all geared toward competition as Les said, Carol explains how some of it got started way back when. [Carol Kinley]: Axe swinging started back in the olden days when the guys were out in the woods and had so much equipment to move from tree to tree that they would take their axes and throw it to the tree that they were heading to next. And they got real good at it because they didn't want to go on the other side and pick it up. But now it's all been

tailored to competition. Of course trees don't grow twenty feet exactly apart, apart, in the -- you know, that nice beautiful bullseye isn't always written on those trees, is it? So it's all been tailored to competition. We're going to go out and do some-- [Finken]: The lumberjack show sure knows how to get the audience involved. One lucky little boy practically stole the show when he was chosen to help in a chainsaw demonstration. [Carol Kinley]: You tell the folks your name. [Matthew]: Matthew. [Carol Kinley]: And how old are you, Matthew? [Matthew]: Three. [Carol Kinley]: Three? And where do you live? [Matthew]: Hutchinson. [Carol Kinley]: All right! [applause] Now, are you a good helper? [Matthew]: Yes. [Carol Kinley]: What do you do to help at home? [Matthew]: Help my friends pick up my toys. [Carol Kinley]: [laughter] All right, help your friends pick up your toys! All right! Well, do you think that you could help Les? [Matthew]: Yes. [chainsaw revving] [Finken]: Matthew

and Carol stayed back as Les fired up the chainsaw and began cutting the wood. Les would cut a little bit and then show Carol and Matthew his end product. It always turned out to be to their dissatisfaction. At the end though, Les made a few more cuts in the log with the chainsaw, and it was up to Matthew this time to tell everyone what Les had made. [Carol Kinley]: What's that, Matthew? [Matthew]: Chair! [applause] [applause] [Les Kinley, faintly]: Gosh, how'd I do that? [Carol Kinley]: Well, we don't know how you did it, we thought you were the expert here. Well, Matthew, are you all ready to go to work now? Do you know what we're going to have you do? [Matthew]: No! [Carol Kinley]: Well, I tell you, do you know that mess we were talking about? We're gonna let you clean it up! [laughter] Would you do that for us? [Matthew]: Yes! [Carol Kinley]: He is an awfully good sport! Aww, I like this guy! [applause] [Finken]: But Matthew didn't have to clean up after all. Much to his delight, he got to leave the fair that day with a great big smile and a new chair to boot. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy

Finken. Six people from the Philippines are in Kansas for the next couple of months as part of an exchange program through the International Rotary Clubs. I had a chance to talk with two of the group leaders, Joey and Ressi Benedicto. Joey is a businessman working in one of the largest companies in the Philippines and his wife is a homemaker. Their six week stay in Kansas gives them a chance to study and exchange ideas in several areas, including education, social, and business issues. [Joey Benedicto]: I've been looking for business ideas which can generate employment for my country. You know, employment, the unemployment rate in my country is very bad. But it's, it's assuming positive indications now. Those are the things I'd like to look into in the United States. [Finken]: Ressi says they don't feel homesick for their native land yet. [Ressi Benedicto]: No, I feel at home, because it's more like the Philippines, you know? Yeah, your way of, how children behave,

and we have been stay -- we have stayed for how many, we checked in Friday, last Friday. We flew we arrived Friday and we stayed in a one host family at Witchita, and now here also at Hutchinson, and I mean, that we find that that the children that we stayed with are obedient to their parents, and really just, do something like that. And very Filipino. [Finken]: I asked the Benedictos to comment on Corazon Aquino's ruling as compared to Ferdinand Marcos. [Joey Benedicto]: Well, I think the business prospects in the Phillippines are positive. I think there is much confidence and-- [Ressi Benedicto]: Investors begin pouring in, to pour their money into the country. [Finken]: Under Corazon Aquino's rule, would you consider the state of the Philippines stable? [Joey Benedicto]: Well, so far there have been coup attempts, right?

But they have not been successful. And I think Corazon Aquino will hold on until 1992, at the end of her term, becuase I think she is the only person who's got popular support, mass popular support. [Finken]: How would you feel if Ferdinand Marcos was allowed to come back into the Philippines, even for a visit? [Joey Benedicto]: I think a majority of the Filipinos would not like him in the country. I think there is, a small minority of Filipinos who are fiercely loyalist. Fiercely loyal to Marcos on a personal basis. They think they can create trouble. [Ressi Benedicto]: Those who were hurt during his time, I don't think, and mostly, more Filipinos who were hurt than have, you know, those under only his graces were the ones who flourished, or whatever. [Finken]: Any final comments about Kansas? Did you know anything about our state before you got here? [Joey Benedicto]: Well, yes, from the

encyclopedia. [laughter] But I'm, I am pleased to see that Kansas is a great, it's a great country, you know. It's blessed, it's got plenty of plants. There are only two million people in Kansas, and I think Kansas is even bigger than the Philippines, and the Philippines has sixty million people, all packed into their [unclear]. So much land and so much wealth for so few. I think you should increase your population. [laughs] [Finken]: Joey and Ressi Benedicto are in Kansas as part of a Rotary international exchange program. They'll be in various parts of the state for six weeks. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken. [long pause] Prison spokesman Les Harman says Donald McGuire

was reported missing at about 12:40 this morning from the institution's minimum security center. Harman says McGuire apparently escaped through his window and climbed the fence. The fence is not electrically charged except at the gate, and there are no bars on the windows at the minimum security facility. [Harmon]: Well, a search was initiated immediately. We of course are using our own canine teams. We have institution staff as well as assistance from the Hutchinson Police Department and Sheriff's Offices and the highway patrol in assisting in searching the area and trying to identify and capture the escapee. [Finken]: Harmon says it's been over a year since there's been an escape at KSIR. He says in the past, the prison has been very successful in recovering those escapees, rating it at about ninety five percent. But he says it's not always easy trying to determine where they may have gone. [Harmon]: Each one is kind of an individual situation.

Obviously we'd, we do make efforts to try to check those areas that they, they have previous contacts with such as family, girlfriends as you mentioned. We, We hit those areas and kind of watch them. [Finken]: Harmon says McGuire is serving at two to ten year sentence stemming from four burglary convictions in Wyanndotte County. McGuire began serving his sentence at KSIR in August of 1986. Harmon says he probably would've been able to see the parole board soon. The minimum security prison houses 212 inmates at this time, and, like practically every prison in the state, it's overcrowded, something Harmon says makes counting the inmates more difficult. [Harmon]: It was originally built for 96 inmates, and then it was expanded to accommodate 160. And since then, we have had to double-bunk in that area to get to 212 in there. [Finken]: The prison escapee is nineteen year old Donald

McGuire. He's five feet eight inches tall, weighing approximately 145 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing prison jeans and a blue shirt. For KHCC and KHCD, I'm Nancy Finken.