The men of Europe were hitting on the “Women of KU” Tuesday.
The “Women of KU,” a swimsuit calendar feature on the World Company’s kusports.com (www.kusports.com) Web site, received tens of thousands of hits Tuesday morning.
Normally, a few hundred viewers a day might hit the site, which features photos and video clips from the swimsuit calendar, created by University Calendar Productions of Lawrence.
The surge in viewing was caused by a story that appeared Tuesday on a Norwegian news Web site, “Nettavisen.”
Nettavisen (www.nettavisen.no) ran four photos from the swimsuit calendar and a story, with a link taking viewers back to the kusports.com site in Lawrence.
By Tuesday afternoon, nearly 25,000 hits on kusports.com could be traced directly from Norway, France and Sweden, according to Web site logs.
The following translation of the story was provided by Jim Helyar, curator in graphics at Kansas University’s Spencer Research Library, and Charlotte Anderson, a Norwegian translator in Lindsborg, Ks.
“How in the whole world could you get a trip with 20 attractive women? A student in Kansas found the answers. You can see the pictures here from the tour.
“Roy Ben-Aharon got the idea when he was bedridden with a broken foot after a basketball accident according news bureau PA.
“Together with four friends, he scraped together almost 70,000 (Danish) kroner to establish the company, University Calendar Productions.
“They offered 20 beautiful girls a free tour to the tropical bathing pearl, South Padre, on the Gold Coast of Texas.
“On the tour, there was also a photographer and makeup experts.
“In return for paying their way on the trip, the girls posed for the calendar, Women of KU. KU stands for the University of Kansas.
“The only negative part of the trip was they had to get up at 4 a.m. to avoid the heat while the picutres were being taken.
“Investments will ensure that the tour to South Padre will become an annual event. At the same time, the money will provide printing costs for the calendar.”
Frank Wiles, programmer for the World Company, said the Internet traffic going out from kusports.com to Europe was very noticeable in the morning, causing him to investigate.
“For about four hours, you were sending out sixfold the amount of data,” Wiles said.
Wiles said the last time he had seen that kind of a surge on the kusports.com site was over the summer when KU head basketball coach Roy Williams was considering leaving for North Carolina.
