Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 141, Greencastle, Putnam County, 20 February 1984 — Page 3

Working down on the farm is no picnic, stats show EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) While new safety requirements have made life easier for miners, construction workers and those in many other occupations, farms have emerged as one of the most stressful and dangerous workplaces left in the nation. About 3,300 people died in farm accidents in 1982, according to the National Safety Council. That contrasts with 122 people killed in the same year in the nation’s coal mines, commonly considered among the more hazardous places to work. And a study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found farmers second to laborers in the number of deaths from heart and artery disease, ulcers and nervous disorders. “I’d have to say that paints a pretty accurate picture,” said Harold Hartman, a grain farmer in Haubstadt, Ind. “You never know from one year to another what your weather’s going to be, what your yield is going to be, what your price is going to be or anything,” he said. “And that’s stress.” There are far more people earning their livings on the land than in all types of mines and children, in 1983, compared with 1.1 million mine employees, said the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the lack of control over production and market that make farming so stressful, said Dr. Barry Johnson of the occupational health institute’s Cincinnati office. “We find stress almost everywhere people are caught in jobs that present them with requirements for success that exceed their capacity to control,” he said. Ronald Steinkamp, who farms about 200 acres near Evansville, agrees. “Everybody else prices their product,” he said, “but we ask, ‘What are you going to give us? ’ ” Stress on the farm is nothing new, but is compounded by the huge sums of money farmers risk each season to get out a crop, said Bob Fetsch, an agricultural extension agent with the University of Kentucky. “Farmers today need so much capital that many have over-extended themselves financially and are having a hard time making ends meet. ’ ’ Steinkamp said he and his fellow farmers are acutely aware of financial pressures. “It’s hard to go to sleep at night when you need rain and know that if you don’t get any you’re not going to have anything,” he said. “We say to ourselves there’s nothing we can do about it so there’s no sense worrying about it, but anybody who tells you he’s not worrying is lying.” Financial worries also wear on the farmer’s family to an unusual degree, Fetsch said. “A decision to buy a new tractor may well mean having to put off a new refrigerator or drapes,” he said. Bill Field, an agricultural extension agent with Purdue University who specializes in farm safety, said he believes the problem of stress is overplayed in relation to the number of accidental deaths. “One of the things I get into trouble saying at meetings is that maybe farmers just have more free time now to worry about their problems. I doubt if their problems are any greater than they were 50 years ago, and I would dare venture that running a shoe store in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, is at least as much a source of stress as running a farm.” But Field said he finds most fatal farm accidents are stress-related. “Usually it’s a case of somebody feeling anger, frustration or being in too much of a hurry,” he said. Field said he believes there is far more potential for reducing farm fatalities than farm stress. He noted that 45 percent of all farm deaths involve people under 16 or over 65, and said increasing their supervision “would go a long way toward reducing overall death rates.” Field said he found it frustrating that 75 percent of farm deaths involve either tractors or the equipment pulled behind, yet “people go out every day and buy brand new tractors without rollover protection. ” The actual number of accidental deaths on farms is declining each year, Field said, but continues to rank higher on a percentage bases as other, more closely regulated industries develop new safety controls. “Farming is less dangerous than it was 50 years ago and is getting safer every day, but other industries are getting safer faster.”

Prices effective through vMEISTERt* Sal., Feb. 25,1914 BRAU #<£Z «,*5 s0 S Ky N I IYE 2 -oz. cans $7 99

Blatz 12-pack bottles *2.79 Generic Beer e- P ack *1.49 Moosehead Beer 6-pack bottles *4.69 Reunite Wine 750 mi *2.99 1.5 nter *4.95 T.J. Swan Wine 750 mi *1.99 Mogen David 20/20 Wine 750mi*1.99 Beau Pre Imported French Wine 750 mi *1.99

Escapee surrenders after three-state crime spree

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A convicted rapist armed with a .357-Magnum handgun surrendered peacefully to Indiana authorities after escaping from Kentucky officers and leading police through a three-state chase. The arrest of Danny Ray Stennet ended a spree in which a total of six persons in two states had been abudcted and police officers in Oak Park, Mich., had been shot at. All hostages were released or escaped unharmed, police said. Kentucky authorities said Stennett was serving his life sentence in the West Virginia

Triple murderer hangs self Death-row incident ruled suicide

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. (AP) A state prison inmate sentenced to die in the electric chair for a triple murder hanged himself from a twisted bedsheet in his death row cell, a prison official says. The body of David L. Hollis, convicted in the 1982 murders of his estranged wife, a neighbor and her child, was found Sunday morning, prison assistant superintendent Robert J. Bronnenbergsaid. Hollis’s death is an apparent suicide, although the investigation will continue, he said. “The investigation remains open,” he said. “At this point, it appears to be self-induced strangulation.” The inmate’s left wrist had been slashed in an unsuccessful suicide effort and blood was found in a plastic bucket, state police detectives John Pavlakovic and James Bonfield said. Hollis apparently bandaged the wrist wound with a red bandanna, then rigged a noose from a bedsheet and tied it to a hook on the wall. Hollis’ cellmate, whom Bronnenberg declined to identify,

Two die in Knox County plane crash

OAKTOWN, Ind. (AP)-The weekend plane crash that killed two U.S. Army soldiers and seriously injured another happened because the pilot “apparently ran out of altitude before he was able to make a turn to line up with the runway,” said Stephen J. Reismg, another pilot at the scene. The single-engine plane crashed nose first in heavy fog early Saturday as it failed to make an emergency landing at a private airstrip near here,

greencastle decorating We < re Overstocked. Stk We must sell as much / \ 8 88 inventory as possible / II wQ \ j' liySll before March Ist I ' 8 8® EVERYTHING IS ON SALE! I OFF CLEARANCE SALE; PAINT SPECIALS INTERIOR EXTERIOR v+o** 0 * Wall Sh ' eW $4,35 F ° Ur 56050,18 G,oss • * • $5 * 99 m ll11 Dull Lustre $ 6.950ff Four Seasons Flat Oil .. $ 5.990ff J Glamour >5.39 off Four Seasons n 0 I Fresh-Kote Latex House $ 5.390ff nJJJ/ ***** Semi-Gloss ... $ 3.89 off Porch and Floor >5.69 off rs f) IA ** ,ci J Fresh Kote Flat.. >3.29 off Fresh Kote Latex House >4.18 off l % f‘-* r **'*** JLM Sale subject to sock only gallons only ~Hr ri GREENCASTLE DECORATING syncs 1890 1002 Indianapolis Road, Greencastle, Ind. 653-9215

state penitentiary in Marshall County, West Virginia, when he was brought to Kentucky. According to a Laurel Co. jailer Stennett was returned to Kentucky for sentencing on rape and kidnapping and was being returned to W. Va. to finish his life sentence there. He was en route from London, Ky., back to W. Va. when he and Owens overpowered two Laurel County, Ky., sheriff’s deputies Saturday morning at a suburban Cincinnati gas station on Interstate 71, authorities said. Stennett and Owens forced the deputies to ride with them in their patrol car before releasing

found the 23-year-old Hollis dead at 2:15 a.m. Hollis’ death sentence was currently under automatic review by the Indiana Supreme Court, the prison official said. Lake Superior Court Judge James L. Clement had originally sentenced Hollis on Nov. 12,1982, to die in Indiana’s electric chair on Feb. 27,1983 the first anniversary of the triple murders to which he had pleaded guilty. Hollis had pleaded guilty Oct. 8, 1982, in the stabbing and strangulation deaths of his estranged wife, Debra Hollis, 18, of Hammond; neighbor Kim Mezei, 18; and Ms. Mezei’s son, 2-year-old Craig A. Mezei. Both women were found handcuffed.

authorities said. Killed were the pilot, Warrant Officer Prince Alexander, 37, of Fort Rucker in southeastern Alabama, and Private Robert A. Webber, 18, of Portage, Deputy Sheriff James A. Wilson of the Knox County sheriff’s department said. Injured was Pfc. Lawrence M. Demko, 23, of Hammond, he said. “We got a report that the plane was going down and was about of fuel. That was at six o’clock. The plane was found at

them on Interstate 275 in Ohio, according to a statement by the suburban Blue Ash, Ohio, police department. Six other people, including a 10-year-old Michigan boy and his parents and two sheriff’s deputies, were abducted before the man, identified as Danny Ray Stennett of Ashland, Ky., reached Fort Wayne Saturday night, police said. Stennett, 32, apparently fled to Fort Wayne after he and another convict, Carl Dwayne Owens, 26, of Barbourville, Ky., were involved in a shootout with police in Oak Park, Mich., a Detroit suburb, Oak Park police

state

The women and the boy were stabbed with a butcher knife, police said. Hollis was arrested a day later on Feb. 28,1982, in Griffith where he had held two men at gunpoint for 13Vfe hours before they escaped. Lake County sheriff’s deputies had treated Hollis as suicidal. A few days after hisafter he bit his wrist and used his blood to scrawl the message, “I will be joining you soon, Debbie,” on his cell wall and bunk, Maj. George Nestorovick said. There are no closed-circuit TV monitors in Indiana’s death row, but Bronnenberg said inmates are usually checked at one- to two-hour intervals. He said he was unsure when the

about 6:20,” sheriff’s dispatcher Rudy J. Wittrock said. The aircraft was believed to be a private plane en route to Hammond, trying to land on an airstrip on the property of Green Construction of Indiana Inc., which is three miles west of this northwestern Knox County community. Demko was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, about 15 miles south of here, Wittrock said. The hospital’s nursing supervisor

said. Stennett and Owens left a woman abducted in Ohio in a motel room and were attempting to abduct a woman in Oak Park, but her screams attracted police who gave chase. The suspects turned and fired at officers, disabling a patrol car, Oak Park Police Lt. John Dalton said. The two split up and fled on foot. Police asked residents to keep their doors locked as a manhunt got underway. The search for Owens continued Sunday in the Detroit area. “We will be seeking warrants

last time Hollis’ cell was checked before he was found. Hollis was found slumped, sitting on the floor with his legs in front of him, with his head hanging in a noose made out of a twisted bedsheet. The noose was suspended from a clothes’ peg on his cell wall, about four feet off the floor, the prison official said. Bronnenberg said investigators haven’t found the object that Hollis used to slash his wrists. “It could be something we’re overlooking; it could have been flushed down the toilet. We’re thinking it was destroyed by Hollis before he continued with the hanging,” the assistant superintendent said.

said Demko was in critical, but stable condition in the intensive care unit Saturday afternoon, with multiple injuries. Reising, a pilot for the construction firm who was at the crash scene Saturday morning, said a sheriff’s deputy told him air traffic controllers advised the plane to make an emergency landing at the private runway. Reising said the plane crashed, nose first in a field off the firm’s property.

February 20,1984, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic

for kidnapping, attempted kidnapping and assault with intent to murder...for firing at the officers,” Oak Park police Lt. John Dalton said. The three Michigan hostages were Francis Quinn, his wife, Violet, and their son, Kim, according to FBI spokesman John Anthony. They were abducted at gunpoint at 10:30 p.m. Saturday from their home, said Fort Wayne Police Det. Carl R. Alfeld. They escaped at 6:30 a.m. Sunday when Stennett fell asleep in their car in Fort Wayne, Alfeld said. Anthony said the family returned to their

JOIN THE NEW WEIGHT WATCHERS 8 QUICK START PROGRAM. IT’S QUICK. IT’S SAFE AND IT WORKS.

E-X-T-E-N-D-E-D »5 OFFER! Join Weight Watchers before March 3, 1984 and receive *5 off the registration and first meeting fee. Not valid with any other discount or offer.

WEIGHT WATCHERS MEETS WEEKLY IN GREENCASTLE: Sherwood Christian Church, Kirkwood Drive Tuesdays Tima given is for new member registration. No contract required. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WEIGHT WATCHERS IN GREENCASTLE OR OUR 66 OTHER CENTRAL INDIANA LOCATIONS CALL TOLL FREE 1-600-692-6020. ((Quick Start PROGRAM FROM WEIGHT WATCHERS

home late Sunday. Trooper Greg C. Bricker of the Indiana State Police said that about an hour later, Stennett broke into the home of Charles P. Barrett, 31, tied up Barrett’s wife, Cheryl A. Barrett, 27, and forced Barrett to drive him in Barrett’s car northwest to Noble County. Cromwell Town Marshal Michael Hartman spotted Barrett’s car at 8:59 a.m. and radioed other police who set up a roadblock at the junction of U.S. 6 and Indiana 9 at Brimfield. Brimfield is about 35 miles northwest of Fort Wayne.

Lose pounds before you lose patience. The new Weight Watchers Quick Start program helps you lose weight faster than ever before while you eat 3 wellbalanced. satisfying meals a day, plus snacks. Easy-to-follow menu plans make it a snap. We ll also teach you good eating habits that keep lost pounds lost for good! Call Weight Watchers today and start quick!

A3