Sprinklers To Be Installed
Chief: Sprinklers could have saved Stewart

All student residence halls and fraternity and sorority houses on the Nebraska Wesleyan University campus will have sprinkler systems installed as soon as funding allows, university interim President Joe Gow said Saturday.

The Lincoln Journal Star reported that Gow made the announcement following comments from Lincoln's fire chief that a sprinkler system might have saved the life of 19-year-old Ryan Stewart.

Stewart died early Friday morning from a fire at a Wesleyan fraternity house that had no sprinkler system. He died at St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center soon after firefighters found him in the burning building.

Three other students were critically injured in the Phi Kappa Tau house fire. Aaron McGuire, 20, of Sioux Falls, S.D.; David Spittler, 20, of Elkhorn; and Travis Mann, 22, of Beatrice remained in critical condition this weekend, all suffering from smoke inhalation.

Sprinkler installation likely will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Gow said.

"We'll find the money," he said. "Everyone agreed we need to do it."

Four Nebraska Wesleyan residence halls do not have sprinkler systems, and a fifth has sprinklers on its lower level only.

Friday's fire began in the second story of the fraternity house, firefighters have said.

It's not clear whether any fraternity or sorority houses on the campus have sprinkler systems.

For the past two decades, state and city law has mandated that all new dorms and Greek houses have sprinklers, but older buildings are not required to have them unless they're being remodeled.

Some former members of the fraternity said that in the months before the fire, fraternity members had discussed renovating and adding sprinklers to the house.

"We never raised enough money -- only enough for a little new carpet here and there," said Chad Doane, a former member of Phi Kappa Tau House Corp., which owns the fraternity building.

Fraternity supporters had been working to kick-start a fundraising drive for renovation, said Richard Odgers, a member of the Phi Kappa Tau board of governors.

Nebraska Wesleyan officials now say those plans have moved to the forefront.

"It's our No. 1 priority," Gow said.