Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 111, Greencastle, Putnam County, 11 January 1985 — Page 2
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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, January 11,1985
Earhart's adventure 50 years ago HONOLULU (AP) Fifty years ago today, and two years before she vanished, Amelia Earhart took off from Hawaii to begin her solitary conquest of the Pacific sky. On Jan. 11, 1935, after, a flight lasting 18 hours, 16 minutes, Miss Earhart’s Lockheed Vega landed in Oakland, Calif. “Lady Lindy” had become the first to fly alone between Hawaii and North America. “She always wanted to do something for aviation, to find out something,’’ Muriel Earhart Morissey, 84, says of her sister. “In those days, you just had to go by trial and error.” The flight is commemorated in a bronze plaque at Wheeler Air Force Base on Oahu, to be unveiled at 4:44 p.m. (9:44 p.m. EST) today, 50 years to the minute after her plane rolled down the tarmac a half century ago. Mrs. Morissey traveled from West Medford, Mass., to the Hawaii ceremonies with Grace McGuire, 36, who hopes to retrace and complete Miss Earhart’s ill-fated 1937 around-the-world attempt later this year. Martin Jenson, 84, the sole living survivor of the 1927 Dole Derby civilian aerial race between Oakland and Hawaii, also is expected. “I’m tired!” were Miss Earhart’s first words as she climbed from her plane in Oakland after 2,400-mile flight. “I’ve been sitting down a long time.” An estimated 5,000 people were on hand for her landing. Although it had been eight years since an airplane made the first Hawaii-California flight, Miss Earhart’s feat was front-page news. It was a first among many. Amelia Earhart was the first woman passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight in 1928 and, in 1932, the first woman to fly the 1,800-mile route from Newfoundland to Ireland alone. She was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic and the Pacific. “By successfully spanning the ocean stretches between Hawaii and California, following your successful transatlantic flight of 1928, you have shown the ‘doubting Thomases' that aviation is a science which cannot be limited to men only,” President Franklin Roosevelt said in a letter which reached the aviator a week after the trip. “Because of the swift advances in this science of flight, made possible by government and private enterprise, scheduled ocean transportation by air is a distinct and definite future possibility,” he said. Before she left San, Francisco to prepare for the flight, Miss Earhart had said: “Anything I can do to help close the gap loetween Hawaii, as an integral part of the United States, and the mainland, will be a work into which I can throw myself wholeheartedly.” Two years after the HawaiiOakland flight, on May 20, 1937, Miss Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan left Oakland aboard a Lockheed Electra headed east, hoping to girdle the globe. The flight, nearly completed,
Shaw first South Carolina execution in 23 years
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Joseph Carl Shaw, a former altar boy and military policeman convicted of killing two teenagers, went to South Carolina’s electric chair today in the state’s first execution in nearly 23 years. Central Correctional Institution officials began preparing Shaw about 3 a.m. and strapped the 29-year-old man into the electric chair before dawn. He was jolted with 2,400 volts of electricity and was pronounced dead at 5:16 a.m., said Deputy Corrections Commissioner Doug Catoe.
Banner-Graphic "It Waves For All" USPS 142-020 Con solidation of The Daily Banner Established 1850 The Herald • The Gaily Graphic Established 1883 Telephone 653-5151 Published daily except Sunday and holidays and twice on Tuesdays by LuMar Newspapers, Inc. at 100 North Jackson St., Greencastle, Indiana 46135. Entered in the Post Office at Greencastle. Indiana, as 2nd class mail matter under Act of March 7,1878. Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier 'l.lO Per Month, by motor route '4.95 Mail Subscription Rates R.R. in Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months '15.75 '16.00 '17.25 6 Months '30.30 '30.80 '34.50 1 Year '59.80 '60.80 *69.00 Mail subscriptions payable in advance . . . not accepted in town and where motor route service is available. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed In this newspaper.
GtJaigH- « « if ft W ' fl H? 4 f ♦ ♦ ■£ /Mi* - | * X/ V \ • ♦ B I I 11 <V ! I V- * •Up • , B ♦ O* ♦ ♦ ♦ Mi * ■ ♦'♦* < * H ♦ li * ♦ * 11 i • ® ♦ z ♦ * 1 1 i- * I hflfll ♦ ♦** * j AMELIA EARHART Historic trip recalled ended 850 miles short of Hawaii, under circumstances which may never be known. The Wheeler plaque has been placed near the the main entrance to the base in central Oahu. For today’s ceremonies, the Air Force had also hoped to display some Earhart memorabilia buried beneath a monument in Diamond Head Crater. Beneath the 2,000-pound stone monument, dedicated to Miss Earhart less than four months before she vanished, is a copper box believed to contain her flight plan between Oahu and Oakland, some newspaper clippings, two poems and other mementos. The Air Force offered to preserve the items and renovate the monument if the box’s contents could be briefly displayed, but the Honolulu City Council said no. Council Chairwoman Patsy Mink said the box was a “time capsule,” not intended to be opened. Amerlia Earhart sister wished the council had said yes. “I think it would have been fun to see what she put in there,” Mrs. Morissey said.
“First I want to say I’m sorry to all three families, the Swanks, The Taylors and the Hartnesses for the grief and loss they have suffered,” Shaw said in a last statement. “I realize their grief will continue, but I hope they have some peace once all the publicity about me ends.” Catoe said that while Shaw was being strapped into the chair, “there was a last minute call to the governor’s office just to check to see if there was a last-minute granting of clemency,” but there was none.
Merger proposal studied
Cabinet shuffling continues
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan, shifting three veterans of his administration into new Cabinet-level jobs, is asking them to study a proposed merger of two of their departments and elimination of the third. But White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that does not necessarily mean the president will try again to get Congress to abolish the Energy and Education departments, as he pledged to do in his 1980 campaign. That proposal died after congressional critics objected that it would produce no savings. Reagan announced Thursday he will nominate Donald P. Hodel, secretary of energy since 1982, to be secretary of the interior, replacing William P. Clark, who is resigning to return to California.
world
12-year low reported for net farm income
WASHINGTON (AP) - Net farm income dropped to a 12-year low of $6,793 per farm in 1983, a year when government acreage curbs and drought cut crop yields and depleted inventories, says a new report by the Agriculture Department. The 1983 figures, issued Thursday by the department’s Economic Research Service, showed that average income plummeted 27 percent from $9,306 per farm in 1982. It was 47 percent below the 1981 average of $12,723 per farm. According to agency records, the 1983 average was the lowest since farmers netted $5,184 in 1971. The record high was $13,259 per farm in 1979. In eight states, farmers showed an average loss in 1983. Those were: Illinois, minus $5,845 per farm; Indiana, minus $1,545; lowa, minus $1,891; Maine, minus $3,405; Missouri, minus $506; South Carolina, minus $639; West Virginia, minus $860; and Wyoming, minus $6,765.
29 percent flunktests
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The dean of the Indiana University School of Education says a higher number of prospective teachers flunked competency tests than he had anticipated. Howard D. Mehlinger said Thursday that 29 percent of 206 students failed to pass a reading competency test given to prospective teachers at four IU campuses. Results announced Thursday also showed that 21 percent failed the math and writing tests. Mehlinger said he was not too upset about the results since this is the first time the test has been given. To be admitted to the teacher education program, students must pass basic com-
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DANIEL ORTEGA Castro his guest
Shaw pleaded guilty to killing Tommy Taylor, 17, and Carlotta Hartness, 14. in October 1977. He also admitted raping and shooting to death 21-year-old Betty Swank 12 days earlier, but received a life sentence for that crime. When the generator powering the electric chair was turned off, applause rang out from a crowd of about 40 death penalty advocates who shivered in the cold across the street from the prison. One man paced Thursday night outside the state Supreme Court with a sign
To replace Hodel, Reagan picked John S. Herrington, chief of the White House personnel office since 1983. The president named William J. Bennett, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities since 1981, to succeed T H. Bell as secretary of education. Bell has resigned. Rounding out the latest in a series of personnel shuffles, Reagan decided to nominate Richard G. Darman, deputy to White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker 111, to be Baker’s deputy secretary if the staff chief is confirmed as secretary of the treasury. Baker and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan are proposing to swap jobs. Speakes said the president had instructed Hodel and Herrington, if confirmed by the Senate, “to conduct a study
The bookkeeping method used by the agency includes the value of inventory changes from year to year. In 1983, when net farm income was $16.1 billion, compared with $22.3 billion in 1982, most of the decline was due to smaller farm inventories. Although 1984 figures are not final, department economists have indicated a sharp increase in net farm income as crop production returned to more normal levels and inventories were rebuilt. Overall, farm income last year is expected to be in the range of $29 billion to $33 billion. In 1985, the outlook is for decline as production costs increase and government payments are reduced. Department economists say net farm income could be in the range of sl9 billion to $24 billion. The top states in 1983 net farm income were: California, $2.99 billion; Florida, $1.49 billion; Texas, $994 million and Wisconsin, $972 million.
petency tests in reading, math and writing. The university developed the tests two years ago to screen students who lacked certain skills. Students may upgrade their skills through college classes or self-study, Mehlinger said. Those who failed may take the test at least twice more. The test will be given twice a year. “We must not permit young men and women to become teachers who lack rudimentary skills in reading, writing and mathematics,” Mehlinger said. “If all colleges preparing teachers in Indiana take similar steps, we can reserve teacher education for average and betterthan- average college students,” he said.
Ortega assails U.S. at fete
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) With Cuban leader Fidel Castro and 4,000 other guests looking on, former guerrilla Daniel Ortega was sworn in as Nicaragua’s president and gave an inaugural address assailing the United States. Castro, who like Ortega wore a military uniform, was believed to be the only foreign head of government on hand Thursday for the inauguration of Ortega, the 39-year-old coordinator of the leftist Sandinista junta that took power in 1979 after overthrowing the pro-American Somoza dynasty. The Cuban president, whose arrival was not announced in advance, was embraced warmly by Ortega at the airport. Castro, 58, overthrew the pro-American Battista regime and established leftist rule in Cuba 26 years ago, and Cuba was a supporter of the Sandinista revolution. Carlos Nunez, president of Nicaragua’s new National Assembly, draped the blue
saying, “The electric chair is too good for scum.” Earlier this week, a group of businessmen gave merchants bumper stickers showing an electric chair and the phrase “Use It!” About 150 death penalty oppbnents staged a brief candlelight vigil at the Statehouse steps in a cold drizzle Thursday night, while 20 people demonstrated outside the governor’s mansion. An ecumenical church service for Shaw was attended by about 300 people.
of their respective departments and to propose reorganizational options to the president.” “These options should be designed to recognize the interrelationship of energy, natural resources and defense policies,” Speakes said. The spokesman said Bennett had been directed to study the Education Department “to determine the proper organizational structure and role of the federal government in education.” “Although the president has often stated his belief that the Education and Energy departments could be eliminated, he feels any such reorganization should be fully studied and considered before any final decisions are made to reorganize,” said Speakes.
No support for gas tax increase, House Democrats insist
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Instead of raising gasoline taxes, House Democrats say they want to trim excess budgetary fat and use that money to boost highway spending. “There is no sentiment for a gas tax increase,” said Minority Leader Michael K. Phillips of Boonville. “I don’t think there’s any sentiment for any increase in a user’s tax.” The Transportation Coordinating Board has recommended raising the gas tax by four cents immediately and by another penny for each of the following for years, along with increases in car and truck registration fees. Asked what the flabby areas in the budget are, Rep. B. Patrick Bauer, DSouth Bend, said Democrats want to look at the Orr administration’s economic development program. “What we want to determine is whether we are getting enough bang from our buck,” he said. Phillips and Bauer outlined the Democratic budget priorities at a news conference Thursday. The focus was on more money for public schools, a tuition freeze at state universities and phasing out the sales tax on residential utility bills. Phillips said his caucus favors spending $lO3 million more for public schools during the 1985-87 budget cycle above the increase already recommended. That would work out to an average of SI,OOO more per classroom in 1986 and $2,000 more per classroom in 1987, he said. Democrats believe that the money in the “rainy day” fund could be used for the educational improvements and for tax relief in the form of doubling the state income tax exemptions for taxpayers and their dependents, he added. “It’s not a concrete position,” Phillips said. “It is a starting position, one that there is substantial support for.” Budget hearings began Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee and Speaker J. Roberts Dailey, R-Muncie, warned the members that they must be like Scrooge in evaluating funding requests for the 1985-87 state budget. “In a sense, you’re going to have to have a ‘Bah, humbug!’ spirit. ... You’ve got to get a little bit of Scrooge into you when you
and white sash of office over Ortega and swore in the new president for a six-year term. The ceremony took place in the outdoor Plaza of the Revolution alongside Lake Managua. An estimated 40 nations were represented at the ceremony, but most delegations were relatively low level. “We are not warlike nor militaristic,” Ortega said in his address. “The war is forced on us by the United States and we can only end this aggression if we can convince the American government that this revolution cannot be defeated.” For the Sandinistas, Ortega’s election on Nov. 4 with 63 percent of the vote and his inauguration were seen as crucial to gaining international acceptance and badly needed economic aid from West European democracies that have grown uneasy with the Sandinistas’ authoritarian rule. In his speech, Ortega said the United
Avanti pinning hopes on new $40,000 convertible
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - Avanti Motor Corp., the nation’s smallest handtooled production line carmaker, expects its new $40,000 convertible to become a significant part of its small, but booming, business. Avanti owner Stephen H. Blake said he received at least 15 orders for convertibles during the first, week it was offered for sale as many as he had expected to build in one month. “I think it’s a very, very important part of our future,” Blake said during an interview Wednesday in his office just off the production floor. Two completed convertibles have been shipped to auto shows in Los Angeles and Detroit, he said. The first ordered convertible should be ready for shipping “in about six weeks,” he said. The convertible was offered for sale beginning Jan. 1. Avanti market surveys conducted two years ago indicated a resurgent demand for convertibles, Blake said. American automakers had stopped building the once-popular ragtops as buyers turned instead to ordering air conditioning, he said. High-speed superhighways and air pollution also contributed to their demise. But in 1984, 100,000 convertibles were sold in the United States, and Blake attributes the comeback to a bit
get on this committee,” said Dailey, referring to the penny-pinching character immortalized by Charles Dickens in “A Christmas Carol.” The Budget Committee, a bi-partisan panel of senators and representatives, already has recommended a $15.2 billion spending plan for the period from July 1, 1985 through June 30, 1987. The sum represents $6.5 billion in general fund money, $3.49 billion in dedicated funds and $5.2 billion in federal funds. The biggest share of the budget pie goes to local schools, accounting for $3.7 billion or 24.6 percent of the total. Other major spending categories are welfare, with $2.5 billion or 16.5 percent of the total, followed by transportation, $1.57 billion or 10.3 per cent; higher education, $1.38 billion or 9.1 percent; and general government, sl.lß billion or 7.8 percent. B ills filed Thursday would: —Double the minimum amount of insurance coverage drivers must carry. The current limits are $25,000 for the injury or death of one person; $50,000 for injury or death of two or more people; and SIO,OOO for property damage in any one accident. —Establish collective bargaining rights for public employees with a no-strike clause. —Require chimney sweeps to be certified by the state. —Allow the Department of Financial Institutions to tell a bank when it is going to be examined. Currently, examinations must be made without notice. —Specify that the school year couldn’t begin until a school corporation and its teachers’ union have agreed on a written contract. —Change the definition of a gambling device to exclude slot machines that are more than 25 years old and aren’t used for gambling. —Allow the natural grandparents of an adopted child to visit the child if visitation rights had been granted by a court prior to an adoption order. —Allow certain immediate family members to receive a summary of the diagnosis, treatment plan, prognosis and medication provided for mentally ill and developmentally disabled persons in inpatient and clinical facilities.
States had sent “nightmares” to Nicaragua to spoil the dreams born with the revolution. The Sandinista government estimates more than 8,000 U.S.-backed rebels roam the jungles and hills of northern Nicaragua, waging hit-and-run warfare almost daily. Ortega’s speech was largely a repeat of standard accusations, but he also said he would welcome normalization of relations with the United States and called for ratification of the so-called Contadora peace plan for Central America. Western diplomatic sources, who spoke only on condition they not be identified, said Castro was expected to confer privately today with the foreign ministers of the Contadora group Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Panama. The Contadora group has been trying for the past two years to come up with a regional peace plan for Central America.
of nostalgia. “People miss it,” he said. “They miss having their hair blowing in the breeze.” Production facilities and price will limit the number of motorists who'll breeze along in Avanti convertibles. Avanti expects to build only about 380 of its low-lined, long-hooded luxury cars in 1985. Sales on a similar number of cars produced in 1984 totaled $lO million, almost double the sales of only two years ago. But factory space in the building where Avanti was first produced by the now-defunct Studebaker Corp, may prevent production from rising much above 1985 levels, Blake said. With its $40,000 list price, and nearly SIO,OOO in optional equipment, the Avanti convertible competes with Jaguar, Mercedes, Porsche for the dollars of professional people and entrepreneurs, Blake said. The standard Luxury Coupe model lists at $30,000. The convertible was redesigned “from the ground up” to create more structural rigidity in the absence of the rollbar built into the roof of the coupe, he said. The fabric for the top, a vinyl canvas, also is used on pleasure boats and other luxury convertibles. “It’s very expensive topping material. The most expensive you can buy,” he said