February 16 1999
Reporters for the Home Garden Cable Television special, International Housewares Show 1999, interviewed Sawyer and six other winners about their designs. The interviews will air at 9 p.m. Feb. 21 on HGTV.
Sawyer, an industrial design major at KU, placed second for her design, The BottleBuddy -- a baby bottle and then some. Her device mixes and heats powdered baby formula simultaneously in a device that can be held with one hand.
Sawyer said she got the idea while baby-sitting for a newborn last summer. Sawyer is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Sawyer, 15205 S. Locust, Olathe.
The national competition was sponsored by the National Housewares Manufacturers Association, which invites the winners to show their designs to prospective buyers at the association's trade show in Chicago in January. Sawyer said she is in the process of obtaining a patent.
Sawyer developed the idea in her industrial design class, taught by Ronald Bruce Kemnitzer, associate professor of design. Her design was chosen from among 244 entries across the nation, including 19 entries from KU. All the students in the design class entered their projects, Sawyer said.
Another KU student, Mark Thomas Krasne, Clarendon Hills, Ill., senior in industrial design, received an honorable mention for the Cookie Creator, which slices rolls of cookie dough.
Krasne is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Krasne, 254 N. Jackson, Clarendon Hills.
Story by Camille Payne, University Relations, (785) 864-8860