Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 89, Greencastle, Putnam County, 19 December 1983 — Page 3
Orr's Christmas card list has 8,000 names INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Roughly 8,000 people, from precinct committeemen to the president of the United States, are getting Christmas greetings this year from Gov. Robert D. Orr. The card features a quilted wallhanging that depicts the five official governor’s mansions. The piece, commissioned by first lady Josie Orr, is on display in the foyer of the present governor’s residence on North Meridian Street. - “Mrs. Orr is really pleased and proud of the wallhanging,” said Mary Kay Davis, the governor’s personal secretary who supervised the card project. “Following the tradition of sending greetings from our house to your house during the holiday season, this is Mrs. Orr’s way of sending holiday greetings from all of the governor’s houses to your house.” Who gets a card from the governor? “I get the list together with the approval of the governor. It is a composite of a whole bunch of lists, department heads, state elected officials, all of the people on whom the governor relies during the year, including precinct party people,” Mrs. Davis said. President Reagan and Vice President Bush get cards, as do all of the governors of the other states and each member of Indiana’s congressional delegation. Cards are sent to every state legislator and every mayor, regardless of political party, and tocommunity and business leaders around the state. Each member of the Statehouse press corps gets a card and so do newspaper publishers and broadcast executives. The list also includes the volunteers who work on the Christmas card project. “They, of course, get a card addressed by someone else. They don’t address their own,” Mrs. Davis explains with a laugh. All of the cards have the same inscription: “Warmest Season’s Greetings from Governor and Mrs. Robert D. Orr.” But Mrs. Davis said that some are sent out to the governor’s residence for the Orrs to send to family and personal friends and those may bear a special written message. Although most of us don’t start thinking about Christmas cards until after Thanksgiving, work on the governor’s card begins in March when the selection of the card begins. Between postage and the price of the cards, Mrs. Davis estimates that it cost roughly $2,800 to send Christmas greetings from the governor this year. That cost is borne by the Republican State Committee, not by the taxpayers, she said. The mechanics of getting the cards out starts in November and runs through early December. Mrs. Davis estimates that 50 volunteers spend “a month’s worth of hours” getting the cards ready to mail. “On weekends and lunch hours and all the spare time available, volunteers address the cards, then collect them and alphabetize them to cull out duplicates, because there are so many different lists and a lot of people are on more than one,” Mrs. Davis said. “Then in order to get the bulk mail rate, we have to sort them according to zip code,” she said. “I feel like a post office by the time it’s all over, really. That by itself is a grand maneuver.”
Murder-for-hire trial could go to Crown Point jury today
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) - \ psychiatrist who described Wiiliam Vandiver as a menacing “animal” is expected to testify today at Vandiver’s trial for the murder and , dismemberment of his father-.ih-law. j Vandiver’s court-appointed attorneys rested their case Sunday after calling just two witnesses including Vandiver .who was on the witness stand for eight hours. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for Vandiver, who is accused of fatally stabbing Paul Komyatti Sr. and cutting his body up with the aid of the victim’s wife, son and daughter. . Prosecutors said they planned to call as a rebuttal witness
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Dr. George Batacan, a Michigan City psychiatrist who examined Vandiver last spring. If closing arguments follow Batacan’s testimony, the case could go to the jury of five men and seven women by nightfall, court officials speculate. Batacan interviewed Vandiver to determine if the 35-year-old Bemie, Mo., native was competent to stand trial for the murder at Komyatti’s Hammond home last March. In his two-page report, Batacan said Vandiver was not mentally ill but noted he delighted in trying to shock the psychiatrist with a lurid description of Komyatti’s murder. Batacan said Vandiver had an intimidating presence and
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$44.5 million for 'basic' commitments?
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Gov. Robert D. Orr is urging a S7O million package as the first announced component of his 1984 legislative agenda, which also includes generic drug legislation and stiffer penalties for crimes against the elderly. Orr is suggesting spending $26.2 million for programs “over which the state has little or no control” and $44.4 million for programs he said would meet prior commitments. Orr planned to announce his economic development and job creation proposals today and release his legislative proposals on education on Tuesday. Orr said it would be fair to call his threestage announcement “a preview of the State of the State address” he will deliver next month to the Indiana General Assembly. “That isn’t to say that we’ll unveil everything” before the traditional address, he said. At his news conference Sunday, Orr declined to give a dollar figure for the cost of the packages yet to be unveiled, but he said that he thinks a state working balance of about SBO to SBS million is “probably an appropriate level.” The latest revenue forecast which was
Bad extension cord said cause of Shelbyville fire fatal to four
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The death toll in a Shelbyville house fire blamed on an overheated extension cord has risen to four with the deaths of two girls injured in the blaze. Misty D. Self, 7, and Amber Brown, 3, died Sunday afternoon at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, officials said.
Indy boy, 6, killed by accidental shotgun blast
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A 6-year-old boy was shot and killed when a shotgun held by a friend of his mother discharged, apparently accidentally, police say. Jeremy Spears of Indianapolis was struck in the chest by the blast early Sunday evening and died an hour later in Wishard Memorial Hospital, police said. Brian W. Cleary, 19, accidentally fired the 12-gauge shotgun while disassembling
described him as “an animal.” Batacan’s report quotes Vandiver as saying he stabbed Komyatti repeatedly with a “14inch fish fileting knife.” “The old goat took too long to die. I stabbed him again. I must have stabbed him 100 times.” During his lengthy testimony Sunday, Vandiver denied he killed Komyatti, claiming his brother-in-law the victim’s son did. “I observed Paul sittin’ astraddle his father, a stabbin’ him in the back,” Vandiver drawled in a deep, even voice. He said when young Komyatti came out of his father’s bedroom, his mother asked him what happened. “He’s dead,” Vandiver quoted the youth as saying.
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released last week projects a $228.7 million working balance on June 30,1985. Funding the programs that Orr outlined Sunday is expected to leave the state with a $l5B million working balance. Orr told a rare Sunday news conference in his Statehouse office that several programs require additional funding from that included in the two-year budget approved earlier this year. The governor is suggesting adding S3O million for federal highway matching funds, $2 million to start new programs at state supported universities, $500,000 for 75 additional
The Saturday morning fire killed Orville L. Watts Jr., 27, and his 5-year-old son, Bradley. Firefighters found Watts dead in the house, and Bradley died 90 minutes later in a Shelbyville hospital. “The extension cord that the Christmas tree lights were plugged into showed internal
the weapon at his father’s house, police said. One witness told police the boy grabbed the barrel of the shotgun just before it went off. The boy’s mother, Candy Spears, 23, was in the room when the shooting occurred. “The little boy was lying on the floor right in front of the TV. I heard the gun go off, then Candy screaming,” said Cleary’s sister, Ruth A. Cleary, who was in another room.
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heating, and we feel that’s probably the cause of the fire,” Shelbyville Fire Chief Robert W Buckley said. The blaze started underneath an artificial Christmas tree and spread to the tree itself, then to a sofa. A motorist who saw the smoke called firefighters shortly after 7a.m.
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participants in a home care program for mentally ill patients and sl2 million for Project SAFE, used to help the elderly and the poor heat their homes in winter. The package also includes $9 million more for school desegregation in Marion County, $5.2 million for Department of Correction construction, $lO million in Medicaid funding, $600,000 for special education, $400,000 in flat grant school funding that is based on attendance, and $1 million to be added to a contingency fund. Unlike the first portion of his legislative agenda, which carries an estimated pricetag of
The girls were found unconscious in their bunkbeds, officials said. Misty was Watt’s steddaughter, and Amber his niece. Firefighters extinguished most of the fire within five minutes while other firefighters wearing air masks and protective coats looked for the vic-
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December 19,1983, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic
S7O million, the two generic drug law and proposals won’t dip directly into state coffers. The generic drug law has stalled in past sessions of the General Assembly, but Orr said that he had “felt this out with legislative leadership and everybody believes that it’s now time that we move.” Orr said that the S3O million for transportation matching funds will be used to obtain about $75 million in federal funds, which will be added to about SIOO million of highway improvement money already included in the current budget. The additional matching funds would be used for bridge replacement, bridge reconstruction, road resuracing and spot improvements and modernizations. The $lO million increase in Medicaid funding would meet changes in state nursing home regulations planned to take effect July 1, 1984, in addition to phasing in funding of day programs for the handicapped. The $1 million to be added to the $8 million contingency fund will cover costs of the governor’s task force on Marble Hill and the public defender’s office.
tims. “He was dead at the scene when we found them. The others were unconscious and had what looked like secondand third-degree burns,” Deputy Fire Chief Dick Sebastian said. The Shelby County coroner’s office said Watts and his son
died of smoke inhalation. Witnesses said that Watts had returned from taking his wife, Becky, 25, to a Morristown nursing home where she is a nurse’s aide. Sebastian and a neighbor, Vicki L. Baiting, 33, said the family had moved into the home after another January fire •
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