Docking Gateway to beautify east entrance

The sign is gone and the traffic booth has been leveled at the 13th Street and Oread Avenue intersection. Soon the 16-foot-wide Docking Gateway will greet KU students, faculty and visitors between Smith Hall and the Kansas Union. A stone tower pylon encircled by vertical jets of water and a round plaza will stand 20 feet high and read "The University of Kansas" and "Docking Family Gateway" on the northern side.

Scheduled for completion before the fall semester, the gateway will be named for the Docking family, which includes two former governors and several KU alumni. KU alumna Jill Docking, c'78, g'84, and her husband, former Kansas Lt. Gov. Tom Docking, c'78, g'80, l'80, gave $500,000 to KU Endowment to fund most of the $600,000 project.

University resources are funding improvements to the street. A temporaty booth has been set up near 14th Street and Jayhawk Boulevard. Construction of the permanent traffic booth will begin at a later date.

Tom Docking, lieutenant governor from 1983 to 1987, is a partner in the Wichita law firm Morris, Laing, Evans, Brock & Kennedy. Jill Docking is vice president of investments at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in Wichita; in June she will complete a five-year term on the KU Alumni Association national board.

Their gift will be managed by KU Endowment, an independent, non-profit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for the University of Kansas. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.