KU student group cancels Tangerine Bowl bus

By Terry Rombeck     Dec 16, 2003

Bowl apathy has claimed another victim — a bus trip to Orlando.

Only 12 Kansas University students signed up to ride a chartered bus to the Tangerine Bowl organized by Student Union Activities. Leslie Heusted, program director for SUA, said 45 students were needed for the trip by Monday’s deadline for it to go on as scheduled.

For a minimum of $255, students could take the 23-hour ride to Orlando, watch the game Dec. 22 and spend two nights in a hotel. The group would return to Lawrence at 2 a.m. Dec. 24.

“I think it’s more the timing than the price,” Heusted said. “We’d be getting home really early Christmas Eve, and some of the students I talked to said, ‘OK, I get home at 2 a.m., then I have to drive five hours to get home.'”

Heusted said SUA had no options to offer students who signed up.

“It’s really just up to them,” she said. “We were very clear to them we needed to fill a bus to go.”

Latest reports show KU has sold about 2,000 of its 12,000 allotted tickets. Only about 100 students had signed up for free game tickets offered by the athletic department.

The SUA trip isn’t the first canceled because of a lack of interest. Travellers Inc., a Lawrence travel agency, earlier this month announced it would not charter any flights for the KU-North Carolina State matchup, which begins at 4:30 p.m. central time.

Travellers President Walt Houk said he initially thought there would be enough interest for three chartered flights to Orlando.

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