Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 208, Greencastle, Putnam County, 1 May 1985 — Page 3
Time's a-changin' Except in Indiana, where daylight savings time's a 'very hairy thing'
c. 1985 N.Y. Times News Service INDIANAPOLIS —Spring forward? Not in Indiana. For nearly 20 years, intense political pressure has blocked attempts to put the Hoosier State on daylight-saving time. “We don’t like the idea of changing time,” says William Hadley, chief lobbyist for the Indiana Farm Bureau, a powerful group in state politics. “We don’t care what time you set it at, just set it there and don’t change it back and forth.” When a daylight-saving bill appeared in the Indiana Legislature in 1983, only four out of 50 state senators voted in favor. The measure never got started in the House. The Farm Bureau played a major role in killing the bill, observers say. The bureau has been allied with owners of drive-in theaters, who want darkness to fall quickly in the evening so they can show more features. Now, with the number of drive-ins dwindling, a new group has joined the coalition against daylight-saving time: the Indiana Parent-Teacher Association, which argues that it is dangerous to make schoolchildren wait for morning buses in the dark. Remaining out of step with the other states in the Eastern time zone costs Indiana’s television stations millions in lost advertising revenue. Accordingly, the Indiana Broadcasters Association has lobbied hard in the Legislature to put the state on daylight-saving time. “It’s a very hairy thing,” says Ed Metcalfe, president of the association and general manager of WPTA-TV, an ABC affiliate in Fort Wayne. “The issue is such a joke down here. We’re not thought of as being very serious. People say, ‘Oh God, not the time thing again.’” But Metcalfe’s station alone lost $1.5 million in advertising revenue last year, he says. WPTA-TV, like dozens of others, is trapped by the network system. The networks “feed” programs electronically at times scheduled in New York to their affiliate stations. Under contract, the show must be used when it is fed. When network prime time begins at 8 p.m. EDT, it is only 7 p.m. in Indiana at least for six months of the year. “We lose our prime access time, the time between local news shows and net-
The party's over Orr scrubs idea for controversial $1.5 million reception center
By JAN CARROLL Associated Press Writer INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -Gov. RobertD. Orr says his decision to scrap plans for a $1.5 million party house at the Governor’s Residence is proof “that government listens.” Orr announced Tuesday that he was canceling the project and said money appropriated for it would go back to the state’s general fund when the budget cycle ends June 30,1987. “The only wise course is to call a halt to something which so quickly became the subject of such intense controversy,” Onsaid in a statement released by his office. “Continuing to pursue the project can only detract from other more important issues like education improvement where strong
Thacker jury selection to take all week
JASPER, Ind. (AP) Prosecutors say jury selection could occupy the entire first week in the trial of Lois Thacker, accused of involving six friends and family members in a plot to kill her husband. “It’s going to be a slow process,” Orange County Prosecutor Darrell Ellis said as the trial opened Tuesday. Ellis said he expected to spend the rest of the week picking 12 people from the pool of 300 potential jurors summoned. Mrs. Thacker faces the death penalty, and Ellis questioned potential jurors at length about whether they would be willing
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work programs,” Metcalfe says. To confuse matters, a good portion of Metcalfe’s viewers live across the state line in Ohio, which does observe daylightsaving time. Some of Indiana’s borders are lined with pockets of rebellion. In several counties, people live by daylight-saving time, but must conduct legal business by the official Indiana time, an hour later. The rebel counties are in the northwest, near Chicago; the southwest, near Illinois and Kentucky; and the southeast, near Cincinnati. By keeping daylight time, the border Hoosiers can more conveniently conduct business with the out-of-state urban centers that dominate their local economies. “These people live two lives under two time systems,” says Robert Ross, a lawyer in the general counsel’s office of the federal Transportation Department. “They record deeds and birth certificates and legal documents by the time on the courthouse clock, not the time on their pocketwatch.” As the Indiana experience shows, daylight-saving time remains controversial. Arizona and Hawaii refuse to participate, and in other states some grumbling is heard whenever clocks are changed. Ross says the grousing comes from areas near the western boundaries of the nation’s time zones, where there is already a late sunrise and late sunset. “They complain that since their geographical position gives them a form of daylight-saving time year-round, they don’t want (official) daylight-saving time on top of it,” Ross says. Most of Indiana is on the western edge of the Eastern time zone. Six counties near Chicago are on Central time. Two bills are pending in Congress to expand daylight-saving time beginning it in late March and running it until early November. The legislation is strongly backed by corporations that deal in recreational products and services. “Rural people tend not to like daylightsaving time as much as us in the city,” Ross says. “The image is that daylight-saving time is a game played by city people to give themselves an extra hour after work for golf.”
public support is essential. ” The proposed reception center, which could have seated 300 for dinner, has been roundly criticized ever since it was dropped into the $15.2 billion state budget at the very end of the legislative session which ended April 15. Promoters said it was necessary to have a suitable location to entertain important state visitors. Detractors said it would disturb the residential quality of the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood and would cause traffic congestion. Sen. Virginia Blankenbaker, RIndianapolis, whose district includes the Meridian-Kessler area, praised the governor’s decision to abandon the project. “That’s really good news. Now, I think people can concentrate on some of the
to impose capital punishment. Several were excused by Circuit Judge Chad Songer after they said they would not. The rear stairway of the courthouse leading to the judge’s chambers and jury rooms was sealed in preparation for a large audience, but only a few observers attended. It is the first murder trial in Dubois County since 1977. Mrs. Thacker, 26, sat silently beside her lawyers during the questioning. She is charged with murdering her
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The Office Education Association (OEA) at North Putnam High School welcomed new officers for 1985-86, in addition to lauding the efforts of past officers. The new officers will be introduced during the organization's Annual OEA Alumni Banquet at 6:30 p.m. May 8 at Torr's Restaurant. This is the group's 10th annual banquet and past members are encouraged to attend. The cost is $8 and reservations should be made with OEA sponsor
Anti-McCk>skey vote ?
WASHINGTON (AP) - The ruling Democrats of the House are installing one of their own in a disputed Indiana congressional seat, but bitter Republicans promise they will make it hard to do anything else. The House was expected today to seat Frank McCloskey from the Bth District of Indiana on the basis of his four-vote win over Republican Rick Mclntyre in a recount supervised by a Democratcontrolled task force. “There will be no Republicans in the chamber when he’s sworn in,”, predicted Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., after a Republican motion to declare the seat vacant for a special election failed 229-200 Tuesday. Nineteen Democrats voted for the motion with no Republicans against it. “We will do our best within the parliamentary rules to keep the House shut down,” said Rep Guy Vander Jagt, R-Mich., chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee. But House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, D-Mass., told reporters, “We’ll maintain a quorum and do business.”
really good things that came out of the legislative session. That was all kind of pushed aside with this explosion of the reception center,” she said. “People are just not in a frame of mind to have what you call ‘icing’ on government. They look at education, highways, roads, libraries and all of the other things that government should be funding. It was not an issue that was showing sensitivity to the public.” Orr said the center was meant to serve the public “not as a personal convenience for first families. Time may yet convince people that a project like this would more favorably utilize the existing public use of the governor’s residence and its grounds. It is a worthy idea and future governors and legislatures should explore it.” Orr added that “for all of us, but
husband, John Thacker, to collect his SIOO,OOO life insurance policy. Thacker, 31, was killed Nov. 3 by two shotgun blasts in an ambush on a rural road near his Paoli home. The trial was moved to Dubois County due to heavy publicity about the case in Orange County, where Thacker was killed. Six other people have been charged. They are Mrs. Thacker’s sister, Connie Busick; her mother, Mary Music; a cousin, Charles Music; and three friends of the family, Twauna Wilder, Donald R. Buchanan and James L. Hart.
Veronica Cook at 522-6282 or Missy Duncan at 522-1542. New and past officers include (from left) Carla Leonard, president; Robin Hacker, vice president; Marcy Martin, secretary; Lena Curran, treasurer; Bonnie Sample, historian-reporter; Lisa Spires, District VII vice president; Debbie Walls, past vice president; and Cheryl Faller, past treasurer. Not pictured is past president Missy Duncan. (Banner-Graphic photo by Becky Igo).
state
Republicans say seating McCloskey is the latest in a series of indignities laid upon them by the Democratic majority. It has forced them, they say, to resort to confrontation. Soon after Tuesday’s vote, the Republicans tied up the House floor with procedural motions. The Democrats countered by adjourning the session, cutting off not only debate on a State Department bill but also Republican plans for a full night of speeches on the Indiana seat. Republicans said the storm of outrage would not blow over.
especially to those who sincerely criticized the project, this is a good example that government listens.” The governor pledged that he and his wife Josie would continue to make the residence “available to the degree that the facility will allow” to community organizations and charitable groups that have used it in the past. Orr’s press secretary, Mark Lubbers, said the governor took seriously the concerns about how the project came about and whether it would fit into the neighborhood. “I think the root of both of those concerns is at the same place: that is, the lack of knowledge about it which was clearly our fault created a situation where it was an easy target,” Lubbers added.
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Seating McCloskey is “the most notorious example of raw political power,” said House Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-111., and will “poison the wells of civility.” Gingrich, leader of a band of young militant Republicans, said the outcome proves the Democrats are “a leadership of thugs.” “I think you’re going to see a much tougher and a much more militant Republican Party,” Gingrich said. “I think it changes permanently the nature of the Republican Party of the House.”
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May 1,1985, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic
Education cuts only aid budget SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - Education Secretary William J. Bennett accepted an award at the University of Notre Dame honoring him as educator of the year and told law students, including some demonstrating against his appearance, that student aid cuts are needed to help balance the federal budget. Bennett said the cost of maintaining the growing federal budget deficit threatens to devalue the dollars spent on education. “At some point the money we’re pouring into this isn’t going to mean anything,” he said. Bennett appeared at Notre Dame to accept the Educator of the Year award from the Thomas J. White Center on Law and Government of the Notre Dame law school. The secretary is the first recipient of the award from the public policy study center. At a press conference before his talk, Bennett said Congress might be spared the task of weighing future budget cuts in federal education if it accepts President Reagan’s compromise budget proposal. “I must say the Department of Education is touched rather lightly in this package,” Bennett said during a news conference at the University of Notre Dame. “If we can get it, I’m not sure we’ll have to tinker much more.” The Reagan administration proposes denying Guaranteed Student Loans to students from families with incomes above $60,000, regardless of family size, and capping loans for eligible students at SB,OOO a year. The income ceiling is a compromise reached with Senate Republican leaders who opposed the original ceiling of $32,000 in family income. He defended a remark made Monday in Washington, in which he said large families with incomes over $60,000 “should do your family planning a little better or find other means” to pay for their children’s education. “I was simply making the point that families should plan for the education of their sons and daughters,” he said Tuesday.
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