Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 172, Greencastle, Putnam County, 27 March 1984 — Page 11

Middle-class homeowners main culprits Power companies losing millions to rigging of electricity meters

By WAYNE KING c. 1984 N.Y. Times NEW YORK As the price of electrical power has risen, so has the number of people stealing it, and power company officials estimate that as many as one of every hundred electric power users may also be an electric power thief. The lost revenue runs as high as 3 percent. According to the companies, most thieves are middle-class homeowners, but the growth in power theft has also spawned a new breed of professional criminal, the roving technician who will rig a meter for a fee. The ways of stealing power are as diverse as the ingenuity of the thieves, from those who risk life and limb by ramming a kitchen knife into the meter wiring to wizards whose deft reworking of meter components is detectable only by trained technicians. Power companies are fighting back with everything from squads of police specially trained about power diversion u> computers programmed to detect sharp swings in use and new meters that will not run backward, thus thwarting thieves who might find a way to do that. The precise number of power thieves is hard to gauge despite increased policing by power companies, said Robert J. Griff, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an association of investor-owned utilities. “It’s one of the hardest statistics to track,” he said in a telephone interview from Washington. But he said power companies nationwide lost “1 percent to 3 percent of revenues” to power thieves. Such revenue estimates are difficult to translate into the number of cheaters, however, because commercial and industrial thieves steal more power than the residential power thieves who vastly outnumber them. John Folker, manager of energy diver-

John Folker, manager of energy diver-

Only 14, she's bagged $236,000 showing championship steers

STANTON, Texas (AP) At 14, honey blonde Kody Newman is a typical small town eighth-grader, an honor student and cheerleader who also rodeos, runs track and plays basketball. That’s in her spare time. The youngest member of a prosperous West Texas ranching family, Kody also raises show steers for fun and profit and in 1984 there’s been an abundance of both. In what appears to be an historic first, Kody’s animals won the Triple Crown of Texas steer shows this winter and also picked up a world class championship trophy in Colorado. Along the way, she earned a record $236,000.

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Trevor Ferrell, 11. delivers food and a blanket to Tommy, a hobo living on a Philadelphia street. The youngster, supported by his family, friends and several churches, has been

Banner Graphic Putnam County, Tuesday, March 27,1984, Vol. 14 No. 172 20 Cents H) 3P J §0 (Q) cU HU M edition

sion control for Public Service Electric and Gas Co. in northern New Jersey, said that in the last four to five years the company had seen a 25 percent increase in power theft. He said that 80 percent of the thieves were residential customers and the other 20 percent industrial and commercial but that the revenue losses were just the opposite: 80 percent industrial or commercial and 20 percent residential. He estimated a loss of $25 million a year from theft and said the number of thefts jumped from to about 3,600 in 1983, from 1,200 in 1982. Power company officials are reluctant to give specific explanations of the methods thieves use to steal power, lest they provide a “thieves manual” to people with the inclination to cheat. “There are 50 ways,” said Griff of the Edison Institute. Some thieves find ways to jam or slow the device that records consumption, others use tactics that make the meters record the consumption inaccurately, and still others bypass the company’s meter altogether, using illegal meters or highly dangerous procedures. Officials of New Orleans Public Service Inc. recognized what they termed rampant power theft more than a decade ago and started the country’s first official anti theft division in 1971. “I was appalled at what customers were doing to meters,” said Clarence F. Eckelmann, manager of the meter and service division. “We changed thousands of meters to certify the system again.” In 1971 the company provided information that led to 27 arrests and 25 convictions. Last year the figures were 453 arrests and 447 convictions. Among those caught stealing power, the company said, have been a prominent lawyer, an electrical engineer, a state legislator, a high school principal, a motel owner and an antiques dealer. The company says that 0.2 percent of its

“I’m saving that money,” she smiled one recent evening after school. “When I get old enough, maybe I’ll buy me a car.” A Rolls Royce perhaps? Regardless, she’s more concerned now with a deaf cat named Taffy, a bulldog named Daisy, a cattle dog named Cowboy, a border collie named Tootie and a bird dog named Speck. There’s also an Australian hound named 80, 15 unnamed goats and a tomcat called Pearl: “Pearl was supposed to be a girl,” Kody explained. When not showing steers or riding herd on that menagerie, she ropes and rides barrels in the American Junior Rodeo Association. She was a runner-up for the

distributing food and blankets nightly for three months since he saw a news report about the plight of homeless street people. (N. Y. Times photo)

customers are power thieves but that without strict enforcement it would be 10 to 15 percent. Although prosecutions remain relatively rare, utilities increasingly press for them. Last year two Detroit area car dealers and a junkyard owner were charged with theft of gas and electricity, and a dozen other businesses were raided in the same case. The man who rigged their meters for a fee of SBOO to $2,000, 34-year-old William Jones, known as The Fixer, was given a two-year suspended sentence after he agreed to cooperate with the authorities. Investigators said the Detroit meterrigging racket had spread to Ohio and Florida. Robert Oldham of the Florida Light and Power Co. said about 26,000, or a little over 1 percent, of its 2.5 million customers took part in “power diversion,” the polite term for theft. Most, he said, are middle-and upperincome people. “These are people who want to maintain their lifestyle,” Oldham said. “When necessity forces them to cut back, they look for a way to save, and pay less for electric power. Surprisingly, there are few low-income customers who steal.” The company is now inspecting 300 motel's that professional thieves are believed to have tampered. “These individuals are very sophisticated,” said Curt Bateman, a division superintendent. “They have readjusted the meters, moving one piece one 45-thousandths of an inch, and were able to obtain readings that are one-half actual consumption.” “People are hiring experts to do the job,” Bateman said, “like one man who a year ago worked on meters of 86 houses, all friends and relatives, and slowed meters by adding a small piece only factory experts were able to detect. ” The company is working on computermonitored meters to detect tampering.

symbolic silver belt buckle as a 12-year-old and, in 1983, the national champion in optional roping for girls 13 through 15. Aside from all else, the showing of grand champion steers at Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston in the same year compares favorably to horse racing’s Triple Crown and the Grand Slams of golf and tennis popularized by the likes of Jack Nicklaus and John McEnroe. By necessity, Kody won her triple with three different steers. Grand champions are sold at auction. And that’s a bummer, contends Kody, who says its heartbreaking to surrender her prize animals for slaughter.

Street ministry 11 -year-old's efforts filling more than stomachs

By WILLIAM ROBBINS c. 1984 N.Y. Times PHILADELPHIA - At home, Trevor Ferrell is a quiet 11-year-old who studies enough to get average grades, sometimes squabbles with his brother and sisters, swims in season in the family pool and rides his minibike around the cul-de-sac on their quiet suburban street. But each night as he moves among his people, Trevor becomes something more. An inner glow seems to light his face. He moves with a confidence that also fills his voice. Trevor’s people are Tommy, a bearded figure in grimy clothes huddled on a steam vent beside mounds of snow in bitter cold; Betty and John, hugging themselves for warmth under a storefront awning; Scape, who sleeps on a boxboard-layered fire escape; Static, so called for the way his hair stands out, living from street to street, and Vince and Marcella Williams, who sleep on a secluded corner. Trevor’s people are the street people of Philadelphia. Aided by his father, Frank, his mother, Janet, his neighbors and his and several other churches, Trevor has adopted them. And as word has spread about the family’s ministry, more and

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The familiar fairy tale "Goldilocks and The Three Bears" or, as it might be known today, "Where's the Porridge?", is a classroom play being rehearsed by pupils in the Roachdale Nursery School. Mecca Adams (front) had the role of Goldilocks, while the three bears were played by (from left)

The Roachdale Nursery School rhythm band rehearses a number at the Nazarene Church, where classes meet Monday through Wednesday. Becky Asher (left) is in her

more help has poured in. Friday night he spread a blanket over Tommy’s shoulders, handed soup, ladled by his father, and sandwiches to John and Betty and many others, and lifted the edge of a blanket to touch Scape, gently nudging a shoulder. “Scape?” he said. “Scape? Are you all right? Want some coffee? How about some hot soup?” Trevor touches a shoulder or a hand, but Friday night, it was clear, he had touched something deeper. Pale and weary at the end of the night after a stressful week that capped three months of a nightly ministry, suffering a headache and perhaps fever, Trevor sat, confined by a worried father to the front seat, when their station wagon reached 11th and Winter Streets, where a crowd had gathered “Where’s Trevor?” asked Michael Mines, wearing a warm soldier’s coat the boy had given him. “Where’s Little Buddy?” asked one. “Where’s Little Jesus?” asked another. “Take him home and give him some hot tea,” advised a man named Eugene. “Have you given him Tylenol?” asked Rasheem, an epileptic veteran of the Vietnam War.

Paul Hodgen, Missy Coffman and Rodney Porter. Teacher Becky Asher and assistant teacher Cindy Almanza plan to present the play on graduation day in May. (BannerGraphic photo by Bob Frazier)

13th year as teacher. Her assistant is Cindy Almanza (Banner-Graphic photo by Bob Frazier)

“We’re going to pray for Trevor and your whole family,” Eugene told Farrell. Friday night came a day after a visit by Trevor to City Hall to meet Mayor W. Wilson Goode and receive a commendation from the City Council for his ministry to the street people. His mission began, Trevor recalled, on a cold night last December when he saw on television the street people huddled over their steam vents. “I asked my father if people really lived like that,” Trevor said. “He said, ‘Sure, they are right here in Philadelphia,’ and he said, ‘lf you want to see for yourself I’ll take you down there.’ ” Trevor asked if he could take a blanket and one of his pillows along. Both of those went on the first block past City Hall, to a man on a grate near the brownstone front of one of the city’s most exclusive clubs, the Union League. “You should have seen his face light up,” said Trevor. Almost every night since then, Trevor and Ferrell, usually accompanied by Mrs. Ferrell, have returned, sometimes with Trevor’s 14-year-old brother, Allen, or his 16-year-old sister, Liza, or Jody, 8, his

youngest sister. Now, as word has spread, they return with more. Contributions pile up in their yard as the Ferrells, a Presbyterian family, visit churches where Trevor tells of the street people’s needs and as he distributes leaflets to stores. When checks began coming in, Ferrell, the owner of a television shop, arranged for Trevor to incorporate and seek tax exemption. The family’s goal now is to get a building for a downtown shelter. Trevor, a sixth-grader, finishes his homework in the afternoon before the nightly missions, he said. “To tell the truth, Trevor is not exactly great at studies,” Ferrell said, though “he has a high 1.Q.” How long will they continue the nightly missions? both father and son were asked. “As long as we can,” each said. As Friday night began, telephone calls interrupted preparations. One call, the father said, was from a film-studio executive seeking a meeting to discuss a possible motion picture. What would he do, Trevor was asked, if the result would be a lot of money? Trevor responded, “Get a building.”