AP Top Kansas News at 5:45 a.m. CDT

Friday, November 20, 2009

Correction: Emergency Landing

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- In a Nov. 18 story about a commercial airplane making an emergency landing in Wichita after losing an engine, The Associated Press erroneously reported the plane's altitude at the time of the incident. The plane was at 1,500 feet, not 15,000 feet.

------ Nebraska, K-State to play for Big 12 North title

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- The North Division representative in the Big 12 championship game will be decided in a back-to-the-future matchup Saturday night.

Nebraska (7-3, 4-2 Big 12) and Kansas State (6-5, 4-3) will play their most meaningful game against each other in a decade, since their days as the dominant teams in the division.

For Bill Snyder, a win and a berth in the Dec. 5 title game in Arlington, Texas, would rival any of his many accomplishments in his first run as the Wildcats' coach. Snyder, 70, came back after three years in retirement to revive a program picked last in the North after being left in a shambles by Ron Prince.

Bo Pelini, Nebraska's second-year coach, won nine games in 2008 and a share of first in the North but lost the tiebreaker to Missouri. For him, a victory over the Wildcats and an outright division title would mark another milestone in his effort to return the Cornhuskers to national relevance after they slid to mediocrity under Bill Callahan.

"All we've done right now is put ourselves in a position to have this opportunity," Pelini said. "Being in this position won't do us any good if we go out there and lay an egg on Saturday. I still believe we have not played our best football yet across the board. I think there is still so much out there for our football team."

Kansas State faces an all-or-nothing situation. If the Wildcats lose, they won't be invited to a bowl because they're allowed to count only one of their two wins over Football Championship Subdivision opponents toward the required six-win threshold.

------ Kansas State president: $845K in payments proper

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Compensation for Kansas State University football coach Bill Snyder accounted for most of $845,599 in questionable payments cited by a state audit. The university's president said Thursday that none of them were improper.

President Kirk Schulz told the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees the state's higher education system, that Snyder did nothing improper -- something the coach himself has said repeatedly. Schulz later said the same is true for a former athletic director and former university vice president.

But a new report released Thursday by Schulz did criticize Kansas State's past management. Schulz also said the university is changing some business practices to prevent future questions about its management and its dealing with groups affiliated with the university, including the athletics department.

The latest report is a response to a state audit released by the regents in June, when Schulz became president. That audit was an exit review of retiring President Jon Wefald's tenure.

The June audit questioned 13 expenditures by the athletic department from May 2003 through June 2006. They included payments to Snyder; former Athletic Director Tim Weiser, and Bob Krause, a former vice president who'd also served as athletic director.

But Schulz said the payments seemed questionable only because the department didn't have adequate documentation. The follow-up report, compiled by a committee Schulz appointed, included a list of the transactions, the dates, amounts and recipients.

------ Former players say Kansas coach is abusive

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- University of Kansas officials are willing to talk with former players about allegations of abusive behavior by football coach Mark Mangino -- and two former players had plenty to say on Thursday.

Former Jayhawks receiver Raymond Brown recalled how in 2007, after his younger brother was wounded in a shooting near his home in St. Louis, teammates gathered around and warmly pledged their support.

A few days later, Brown said, an angry Mangino ordered him to the sideline during practice and made a shockingly insensitive comment.

"He went off on me yelling, which is fine," Brown told The Associated Press. "I kept saying, 'Yes, sir, yes, sir,' to everything he was saying. A teammate asked me what happened. Then he started on me again and I said, 'Yes, sir,' and he said, 'Don't you 'yes sir' me. I'll send you back to St. Louis where you can get shot by your homies."'

Brown and another former player also told the AP that Mangino made insensitive comments about a player's father being an alcoholic.

Mangino declined to return calls Thursday but defended himself later Thursday night on his weekly radio program, saying there were "people who are embarrassing this program just for their 15 minutes of fame."

------ Loss of federal acres hurts hunters' public access

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- Some of the nation's best hunting for pheasant, quail, turkey and deer today can be found in the vast Kansas prairie.

With nearly 97 percent of the land in the state privately owned, the 271,000 hunters who come here each season have had to depend mostly on a popular state walk-in program that pays landowners to let people hunt on their land.

But hunting access in places like Kansas and other states with little public land may shrink in the coming years as millions of acres across the country come out of the federal Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers not to farm environmentally sensitive land.

About half of the 1.06 million acres enrolled in the Kansas hunter walk-in program are also in CRP. The majority of that CRP acreage now in the access program is expected to be used for crops as CRP contracts expire in the coming years, said Jake George, private lands coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Kansas is not the only state facing the loss of hunting access as farmers who had enrolled their idled land in both programs start farming it again. But in Kansas, the hunter access program is "extremely important" because the state has so little public land available, he said.

"In Western and Midwest states that have expiring CRP acres, a lot of their public access program opportunity for hunting is tied to CRP," said Jennifer Mock Schaeffer, agricultural conservation policy analyst for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in Washington.

------ Stoops stands by ex-assistant Mangino

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops is sticking by his former assistant -- Kansas coach Mark Mangino.

Mangino is facing an internal investigation by the school over an undisclosed personnel matter.

Mangino has conceded he's lost the support of some people but says he has not lost his players.

Stoops says Mangino has always been close to and concerned about his players.

Mangino was OU's offensive line coach in 1999 and the Sooners' offensive coordinator in 2000 and 2001 before become head coach at Kansas.

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------ KU science building to be named for Hemenway

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- The University of Kansas will name a life sciences building in Kansas City, Kan., after former University Chancellor Robert Hemenway.

The Kansas Board of Regents on Thursday approved naming the three-year-old Kansas Life Sciences Innovation Center for Hemenway, who stepped down as chancellor in June after 14 years in the position.

The innovation center is located on the campus of the KU Medical Center. The facility focuses on research about liver disease, reproductive sciences, neuroscience and diabetes, among other areas.

Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little says Hemenway oversaw the university at a time it expanded its research efforts and helped make the region a hub for bioscience.