The Mail-Journal, Volume 16, Number 42, Milford, Kosciusko County, 7 November 1979 — Page 4

THE MAIL-JOURNAL—Wed., November 7,1979

4

Editorials

Syracuse to lose its airport — ? Syracuse has the distinct possibility of losing its valuable little airport — and if it does, it’s a pity. On Saturday Charlotte and Don Hayden, owners of the Wawasee Airport, held a public auction of their personal belongings, preparatory to moving to a small farm they purchased in Tennessee. As late as today they had no buyer for the airport, no one who could come up with the money and who had the management skills to operate such a business. The airport has been Charlotte’s love for the past 16 years, and she doesn’t want to see it go to just anyone. The possibility of having the airport close was a major concern of the community evaluation group that met above the State Bank of Syracuse last Monday morning. The airport is of prime importance to the future growth of Syracuse, those in attendance agreed. The Syracuse Town Board and other community leaders should have been on top of this situation long ago and should have faced up to the fact that the town’s purchase of the airport might have been a good investment. Nappanee has, Goshen has, Warsaw has; Syracuse should have also. Syracuse Town Board President Paul Isbell this week told The Mail-Journal, first, there are no funds for such a purchase, then went mute on any further discussion concerning the airport. A town board member, more especially a board president, is on duty constantly and cannot, indeed should not, confine his attention to town affairs only one or two nights per month. This intransigence is detrimental to the town’s best interests. This town board, and boards past, can be seriously faulted for not taking firm action to keep its airport. Mamie This nation said goodbye to a great lady last week. Mamie Doud Eisenhower was laid to rest beside her husband, Dwight Eisenhower, and infant son, Doud Dwight, on the grounds of the Eisenhower library at Abilene, Kan., last Saturday. She was just a few days short of being 83 years old. Mamie Doud Eisenhower won the hearts of the American people with her quiet smile. She died in her sleep last Thursday in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center where she had been a patient since suffering a stroke on September 25 at her home in Gettysburg, Pa. Born on November 14, 1896, in Boone, lowa, she met and married her husband, then a second lieutenant, while on a family trip to Texas. For the next 45 years the Eisenhowers were often separated, especially when he served as supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe in World War 11. Her devotion never wavered, she stood by the man she loved and the country she loved. “I’ve found my career and it’s name is Ike,” she was quoted as saying early in her married life. . She gave up some of her privacy during the years her husband served as president of this great nation (1953-1961) but sought to regain that privacy on their Gettysburg farm as soon as he retired. There they resided until he died in 1969. Her experience as the wife of an Army officer and university president made it easy for her to make the transition to First Lady. Remaining out of the spotlight as much as possible, her interest in the historical traditions of the White House inspired donors to complete the Presidential china collection. Her love for her children prompted her to reinstate the custom of Easter-egg rolling on the White House lawn, a ceremony which had been discontinued during World War 11. Saturday’s service was private with only a handfull of relatives allowed inside the church. Some 1,000 persons gathered outside the small building. Memorial services held on Monday at Fort Myers, Va., overlooking Arlington National Cemetery were more impressive. First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former President Richard Nixon and his First Lady, Pat, were in attendance as were her grandson, David and Julie (Nixon) Eisenhower and the Eisenhowers’ only living son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower of Valley Forge, Pa., and other members of the family. Good news Although millions of Americans are still cigarette addicts, the most encouraging news in recent years comes from the National Center for Health Statistics, which reports that 29.2 million Americans are now ex-smokers. Last year alone some 17,000,000 million Americans had a try at stopping the habit. Os that number, between three and four million actually stopped! It’s encouraging to know that an increasing number of Americans are breaking the habit each year — even as cigarette companies aim ads at the young and vulnerable to get them started early. Blacks and women are not doing as well, in their efforts to stop, as white males. They must try hearder. With heavy smoking the cause of so much serious illness and death, cute, rationalizing remarks about this grim danger are no longer appropriate or fashionable. What's new Modern-day motorists hear much about new approaches to motoring. But a tour of any of the old auto museums shows that very little is actually new. The 1930 Cord, for example, had front-wheel drive. The 1932 Auburn, with the big engine, would travel at speeds above 100 mph. Decades before these classic era cars, there were U.S. and foreign-built electric cars. There are, of course, innovations in today’s cars and trucks. Some are a step backward, because of pollution and energy requirements in today’s environment. But many of today’s dramatic, modern-day advances were offered the public many years ago. Not all that much is actually new. And that Cord still looks good too. What others say — To be numberless Have you ever gotten the feeling that you, as a named individual, are losing out to numbers? If not, stop and consider. You have to have a Social Security number, or you’re a nobody. This same number is your service number if you happen to be a member of the armed forces. It is also your personal identity for tax purposes and even as a licensed driver of a motor vehicle. Your name is not important, but woe to the person who screws up his Social Security number. People have been known to be lost by such errors. Let’s face it, we’re being numbered to death. We have to learn a license plate number, a telephone number and hopefully, we know our house or apartment number. Joining the list of numbered aspects of our lives are credit and bank cards, all numbered and vital to our identity, never mind the name. We also have bank account numbers and lock box numbers, all different. If we are to be forced to give up our identity by name, at least standardize our numbers. Life would be much simple if we had but one number to memorize and remember.

Personally, we would rather be numberless and known by our names. — Danville Gazette

MK November 11,1917 MM November 11,1979 "Lest We Forget”

Voice of the people A column on the opinions of the people of the Lakeland area ... QUESTION: "Do you think people will be able to adapt to a simpler lifestyle because of lack of energy?"

j z Wade Mishler Main Street Milford “I feel we could. We re going to have to.” ijnk* ■ ' ” wll Harry Schultz Milford “I doubt it, because I went through the depression and I don’t think the younger generation can cope with that.” VW’ Les Schoomaker Milford “I believe they will. We’re just going to have to cut down. ’ ’ Pat Harter 301 E. John St. Syracuse “Yes you can do anything if you have to. It’s because the cost is going up and things are getting tight. People can sit down and figure how you can make it. You can do it.”

Dan LeVernier Milford “I’m sure they probably could. They’d more or less be forced to.” Laurie Weisser r 2 Syracuse “Yes, I just think people are smarter than they realize. They can live with resources we have. They can figure something out. There’s a lot of people doing it now. I think at first people will be frantic.” Rosa Niles 619 Mullen Syracuse “Probably younger ones couldn’t. Like children, teenagers. Maybe because they are not used to it. I think my age generation is used to things more than the younger generation.”

Letters to the editor

Another monster is born

Dear Editor: Another Bureaucratic Monster Is Born. President Carter actually fulfilled a campaign promise, (our liberal-controlled Congress delivered) to the National Education Association, by creating a Cabinet-level Department of Education, which most of us will live to regret. The primary purpose of the DOE, according to the liberal Congress is to consolidate the various education programs under one unit; streamlining regulations, in order to be more efficient. The public schools in the past, have been the backbone of our educational system, which has given our beloved nation the highest literacy standards in the world. We can credit most of this to; local controlled schools, prayer, Bible morals, Bible discipline, and dedicated teachers. A cabinet-level department will remove, most of the local control over education policy in the local school and put it in the hand of highly-paid political appointees. We should realize by now that bureaucracies have no one to answer to except the one-worlder (people, who are working for one world government, which is an enemy of God), who appoints them to office. We know that

Not a great sport!

Dear Editor: Last Friday a neighbor and I rushed an injured and bleeding Irish Setter to a veterinarian in Goshen. It was shocking to be told that the injuries were a result of having been shot with an arrow, and even more shocking to hear that this was only one of several incidents of this sort of injury to dogs that had been brought to him recently from the Syracuse area! It appears that some person or persons in our community is finding it great sport to use dogs as the target of their arrows! This unhappy incident happened outside the city limits in

ICbjzin around CU£

“A I i 1 JL t \ BMI wwW'-. SB?**? ■

ANY DAY is a good day for jogging, insofar as Tim Hamman is concerned. And now he’s breaking in his brother Rod, 17 and a senior at Wawasee High School. Tim, a student at Grace College, is a regular winner in races in the area. Saturday the two handsome Hammon brothers, sons of Bob and Nancy Hamman, 311 South Huntington Street, were seen jogging in Wawasee Village. MOTORISTS PASSING the fish hatchery on the southeast shores of Lake Wawasee, have noted that the ponds are drained, but no one is certain why. AT LEAST one person has more than a passing interest in who becomes the next Syracuse postmaster, if and when the current postmaster, Avon Bushong, retires, and this column indicated a week ago that he would. That person is 47-year-old r 3 Syracuse rural carrier Carroll Koble. He has been with the local post office 23 years “come

bureaucracies write most of their own rules and regulations, some of which are unconstitutional, and enforce them by withholding federal funds (our tax money). The department will cost the taxpayers $14.5 billion to start, and it will have some 16,000 employees. Only the Lord knows; how fast it will grow, how powerful it will be, how much it will cost in the years to come. Why does our government think they can solve our problems with more government? Look at the mess some of our schools have gotten in to today, since we have had more government interference. Government is most of our problem and not a solution. Ben Franklin said “Government is at its best, when its at its least.” We can not depend on the Government to solve all of our problems. We need to kick humanism out of our public schools, and put Voluntary Prayer, The Infallable Work of God (teaching the Bible Absolutes, Morals, and Discipline, etc.), and more Dedicated Teachers back in. God is the only solution, not more Government with humanism. Chauncey L. Bennett 72850 C.R.23-R1 New Paris, Indiana 46553

the general area of Wawasee Prep and the golf course. The dog had been shot at least a day before he crawled onto our property and his injury was so severe with so much blood lost that he could not be saved. This kind of sick cruelty, for any reason, is incomprehensible! I write this with the hope that this information will save other pets from the agonizing slow death that this animal experienced and to bring to the attention of all who read this that there is someone in our area who is finding this pasttime entertaining! Yours truly, Sherry Lantz

February 9,” he noted, when a reporter caught up with him making the rounds south of town early this week. r u fV 3/ ' •>1 Carroll said, “Os course I’m interested in the job. and if I can prove myself eligible I intend to fight for it.** He said he knew nothing about Bushong’s retirement “until I saw it in the paper last week.” He has been a clerk and carrier since February 1947, has been a resident of the community for 35 years and graduated from Syracuse High School in 1950. He is the oldest employee at the local post office in years of service other than postmaster Bushong, he added, Carroll and his wife Carol are parents of three sons: Mark, 22, Craig, 20. and Steve. 17. WITH THE selling of the Wawasee Airport the lakeland community will suffer a severe loss, unless, that is, its present owners, Charlotte and Don Hayden, can negotiate a sale to a party as interested and able at operating a local airport as they have been. Charlotte, in the main, has owned the active airport for 16 years, and has proved herself a highly competent aviator, instructor and business woman in the community. Her services have extended to transporting blood, patients and industrial parts, and more, for the residents of the area. At the present time Charlotte and Don are negotiating to sell the 51-acre airport, its hangers, buildings, including their very pleasant home, its 2,200 1 /2 foot runway. It is their fondest wish to make the sale to someone who can operate the airport in its present form. The Ha dens will move to a 100acre farm they have purchased near tiny Goodspring, Tennessee, in Giles County, in south central Tennessee. They want to raise cattle, “not exactly the genteel life one might think,” Charlotte says. Mrs. Hayden admits to fighting a battle to keep the airport open against economic odds and certain harrassments concerning rezoning of properties near the airport. Most of this has been duly reported in these columns. She has been an active member of the Women’s Advisory Committee on Aviation (1971-*73), and remains an inactive member of this important national aviation committee. Mrs. Hayden commented that, although her airport like others is taxed three cents per gallon of gasoline, plus an airplane tax, for ADAP (Airport Development Aid Program) funds, her proprietary airport does not qualify as a fund recipient. A

city, county, state or federally owned airport does qualify for these very important and necessary airport improvement funds, she noted. Mrs. Hayden commented, almost as an understatement, “The average person doesn’t realize the dedication it takes to keep a small airport running.” She is an outstanding aviator in her own right, and she has taught a host of people in this area to fly. These people will be in the forefront of those missing her winsome approach to flying. In the longer term, the community will miss the Haydens and the service they have provided, almost unheralded, until the service is no longer available. LAST WEDNESDAY was the last day the South Shore Country Club was to be open, a sure sign that winter is approaching. Some of the club's personnel will be going south to help owner Tom Tuttle manage the Deer Creek Country Club at Deerfield. Florida. Kent Hare, an outdoorsman, brought in a number of wild duck he had bagged as a farewell dinner for the club's dining personnel, his wife Kay being one of the group. AMONG REAL estate people FSBO means “Fastest Source of Business Opportunity,” so one of the better of the litter informs this column. MRS. JOSE Olivares, visiting her mother. Lena Warner, at 300 East Carroll Street, for the past three weeks with her son Mike, left Monday to return to their San Antonio home. THIS COLUMN counts among its most avid readers (and critics) Merl Smith. The past week, for example, our good friend took umbrage to our editorial, “Clean Air and Discipline.” Merl holds that jobs should take precedent over clean air, in the simplest explanation of his views. We invited his views in. writing, but so far none has been forthcoming. The best example of cleaning up the air we can think of is London. From our high-up hotel room there we could view the myriad of chimneys over the city which only a short few years earlier they were all belching the smoke of burning soft coal. Almost every room in London has a coal burning fireplace for heating. • With that country’s Clean Air Act all this smoke is gone and the British government has subsidized the sandblasting of their smoke-charred buildings. London is looking beautiful again, and we could see no sacrifice of jobs. LOOKING IN at the annual Calvary United Methodist Church Christmas Bazaar Friday evening and Saturday, the affair was reported by June Laudeman to be a big success, with many people doing their Christmas shopping early. Mrs. Laudeman reported good cooperation by local business, adding, “Syracuse is a great little town with many worthwhile activities to keep people active and interested.” JUDGE JOHN and Mariane Hagen observed their 30th wedding anniversary on Monday, exhiliarated by this plus the fact that their young, 28-year-old attorney son Steve was winding up his campaign for Mayor of the city of Ligonier.

zjl 11J —| "In God We Trust" did not become the official motto of the United States until 195 6. THE MAIL-JOURNAL (U.S.P S. 325 840) Published by The Mail-Journal every Wednesday and entered as Second Class matter at the Post Office at Syracuse, Indiana 46547. Second class postage paid at 103 E. Main street, Syracuse, Indiana 46567 and at additional entry offices Subscription: $lO per year in Kosciusko County; sl2 outside county. POSTMASTERS: Send change of addressforms to The Mail-Journal, P.O. Box 188, Milford, Indiana 46542. 10l /”/