Subject: Hays: University-Leader Editorial on AIDS Quilt

From: Kevyn Jacobs <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 15:47:30 -0500 (CDT)

FROM THE UNIVERSITY LEADER
FORT HAYS STATE UNIVERSITY
HAYS, KANSAS
EDITORIAL PAGE
APRIL 14, 1995
==========================

>From the editor's desk.....

Yesterday, a press conference was held to announce the plans for Fort Hays
State to host the AIDS Quilt for a couple of days in September (See
related stories, p.1 and p.2).

The Quilt is usually associated directly with the horrible disease, AIDS.

In reality, hosting the Quilt may cause some controversy on campus and in
the community of Hays.

Despite the facts, AIDS is not a "gay disease." Regardless, people still
see AIDS as a "filthy" illness that God created to punish homosexuals. But
despite God's reasoning for creating such a horrible disease, the
assumptions are still present.

The Quilt does not represent the disease itself, but those lives that it
claimed.

In spite of how the victims contracted AIDS, every person whose name
appears on the Quilt was a human who was loved by someone.

When we see each name which has been lovingly embroidered into a quilt,
the impact of AIDS may hit a little closer to home.

We, as students at FHSU, should fell fortunate to host such a megaphone
declaring the impact of AIDS.

AIDS kills. But when a person sees the number of quilt blocks laid out on
the floor of Gross Memorial Coliseum. the number of people that AIDS kills
will become apparent.

Unfortunately, AIDS is present in Hays and should be present in our minds.

The Quilt will give people the opportunity to reflect upon the fact that
soon, every one of us may recognize a name on the Quilt.

Support the Quilt.

-editorial by Connie Ellerman