97-03-14 Story Tips for Local Media STORY TIPS This and every University Communications news release is available on the Internet and World Wide Web. To access by Internet, you may reach us through either OASIS (Ohio State Information System), the Columbus Freenet or World Wide Gophers. Our Web address is www.acs.ohio-state.edu. HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS DRAW MANY TO CAMPUS--Mar. 14- 15, 20-22. Cars decorated with high school banners will converge on Ohio State for the annual statewide basketball tournaments at St. John Arena. The O.H.S.A.A. Girls' State Basketball Tournament began March 13. More games are scheduled for March 14, 2-11 p.m., and March 15, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. The O.H.S.A.A. Boys' State Basketball Tournament games will be held March 20 and 21 from noon-11 p.m. and March 22, 11a.m.-11p.m. Traffic around campus, especially Route 315 and Olentangy River Road, will be disrupted during these times. CONTACT: Sarah Blouch or Beth Kelley, Transportation and Parking Services, 292-9341. MUCH COFFEE WILL BE CONSUMED--Mar. 17-20. Students are expected to spend much of the week studying as they prepare for final exams for winter quarter classes. Following their last exam, many students head south for traditional Spring Break festivities. Spring quarter begins March 31. WINTER COMMENCEMENT CEREMONIES--Mar. 21. Commencement exercises for some 1,500 winter quarter graduates of Ohio State will be held beginning at 9 a.m. at St. John Arena, 410 Woody Hayes Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, president and chief executive officer of the Center of Science and Industry (COSI), will be the commencement speaker. A former astronaut and veteran of three space shuttle missions, Sullivan was the first woman to perform a spacewalk in 1984. She flew on the Discovery in 1990 for the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission and on the Atlantis in 1992 for the ATLAS-1 Spacelab mission. CONTACT: Tracy Turner, University Communications, 688-3682. ST. JOHN ARENA TRANSFORMED--Mar. 21. One of the most amazing feats associated with winter commencement is the switch-over at St. John Arena from basketball (till 11 p.m. Thursday night) to commencement (9 a.m. Friday) and back to basketball (at noon on Friday). Following the game on Thursday night, the floor of the arena is covered, a riser is installed and 1,500 chairs are placed on the floor for graduate seating. It is all removed in time for the first game on Friday. CONTACT: Athletics Facilities Operations, 292-6330. CONFERENCE EXAMINES LAND USE DEBATE--Mar. 25-26. The competing demands for land are the topic of a conference sponsored by Ohio State Extension, the Ohio EPA and about two dozen other organizations March 25-26 at the Columbus Athenaeum, 34 N. Fourth St. Growth & the Future, A Land Use Conference for All of Ohio will feature 60 concurrent sessions on issues including housing and transportation, farmland preservation, greenways, urban sprawl, agricultural zoning, protecting rural character, watershed planning, and Ohio planning and zoning enabling legislation. CONTACT: Tim Lawrence, Ohio State Extension, Darby Watershed Project, 644-3162. The person listed as the contact for each item will have the best information about the story. However, feel free to call on our news services staff for assistance with these or other Ohio State news stories--Amy Murray, 292-8385; Ruth Gerstner, 292-8424; and Tracy Turner, 688-3682. -Compiled by Amy Murray, University Communications, (Murray- Goedde.1@osu.edu). [Submitted by: Von Vargas (vargas.12@osu.edu) Fri, 14 Mar 1997 12:50:57 -0500 (EST)] All documents are the responsibility of their originator.