The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 9

The News Journal, Wilmington, Del t- 1 Tuesday, March 3, 1998, Section JCROSROADS: Discovered ledgers give a glimpse into Wilmington's industrial past B3 Have a Local news tip? Call 324-2774 wmmm f'ifHysQroess Francis Norton, I 9 vlBrNAA official, dies menca Starting as bill collector at 69, he rose to vice president of community relations i Relief Services in India, Norton was promoted to the community relations position. In that job, he coordinated much of MBNA's volunteer work, including the first MBNA volun served in the Navy in World War II. In 1946, he came to Wilmington, and became the first executive director of Kingswood Community Center. In 1954, he was recruited by the Catholic Relief Services to become the first layman to represent the organization in India. After returning to Delaware in 1960, Norton spent five years as the executive secretary of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission.

He later worked as a real-estate salesman and for several social-services organizations before joining MBNA. He also served on the board of St. Patrick's Senior Center, Wilmington, and did charity work with the Newark Senior Center and Bayard House, a home for new mothers. Survivors include his wife, Vivian, and two sons, Francis X. Jr.

of Georgia and Michael of Kansas. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Shipley and Weldin roads. Visitation will be 6 to 8 tonight at the church. Burial will be private.

Contributions can be made in his memory to The Franciscan Center, Wilmington, or Ministry of Caring, Wilmington. MBNA Child Care Center. On his 80th birthday, MBNA made a donation of $100,000 in his name to the Ministry of Caring, and Cawley called him "the perfect example of someone who balances his work with those things in life that are really The Ministry of Caring dedicated Saint Francis Transitional Residence for the poor in his name in 1995 about two years ago. Norton took his first job, at the New York Herald Tribune, at age 12. After working as a Wall Street runner and for he graduated from Manhattan College in 1934.

He lions of dollars and thousands of hours of volunteer work from the company and its employees. Norton, who died Friday at Wilmington Hospital after suffering a stroke, started working for MBNA America as a bill collector in 1982, when he was 69. After President Charles M. Caw-ley learned that Norton had worked with Mother Teresa in the 1950s, when he worked for Catholic From staff reports Francis X. Norton, MBNA America's vice president of community relations, has died at the age of 85.

He lived at 909 Liftwood Road, Brandywine Hundred. "He made MBNA the socially conscious organization it is today," said Brother Ronald Giannone, executive director of the Ministry of Caring which has received mil Francis X. Norton teers for Meals on Wheels and Adopt-A-Family programs. He also helped secure a large contribution to launch the Dover AFB museum gets 'vintage' piece reMiuii nisi 1 1 1,11 i i 1 1 i -re: jj. Vl Gilman drops request, but landowners still seek change The News JoumalCARLA VARISCO Michael D.

Leister, director of the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base, opens the hatch to a C-141 cargo plane, the Starlifter, the first of its type to roll off the assembly line and now part of the museum's collection. "It's like getting a Van Gogh original," he said. i Cargo, fighter planes round out a growing collection Beer could not be reached for comment Monday night. Since the company announced its plan, which had gotten an initial go-ahead from the county about two years ago, community opposition has been lining up. The latest came Monday night, as the Bear-Glasgow Council of Civic Organizations voted unanimously to oppose the rezoning, as the group's executive committee did last week.

Other opponents include the Alliance, an umbrella group centered in Bear, and the two closest neighborhoods to the site, the Villages of Crofton and Newtown Village. Norman Spector of Clairborne, the Bear-Glasgow Council's vice president and planning-zoning chairman, said he expects to testify against the rezoning tonight, whether or not Gilman officials are present. Critics oppose the rezoning proposal, saying Bear-Glasgow already has enough high-density housing and cannot handle added burdens on the congested roads or other strained public services, such as schools. The owners, however, contend that their inherited land is the last piece of a natural triangle of development formed by Del. 7, Smalleys Dam Road and the Christina River and should be allowed to match the surrounding neighborhoods.

By ROBIN BROWN Staff reporter BEAR Gilman Development Co. has dropped its controversial request for a rezoning to build town houses on a group of properties off Del. 7, the owners of the site said Monday night. The decision came the day before a public hearing on the request. Owner Cyndi White said she was informed of Oilman's decision Monday, but isn't sure whether she and the other five landowners still will seek the rezoning.

"We have to talk more about it," White said. The rezoning request to change the six parcels from single-family housing to group housing is slated for a public hearing at 7 tonight in the Council Chambers of the Louis L. Redding City-County Building, Wilmington. Another owner, Ethel Miller Baker, said she was out of state on business all day Monday and was startled and disappointed to learn of Gilman's decision Monday night from White. "I'm numb," she said.

"I don't know what to say." According to White, Gilman spokesman George Beer told her Monday that the town-house project already cut from 240 homes to 200 was being dropped altogether. "He just feels that it's not going to go through for town houses," she said. One of the newest additions to the museum is a Convair F-106A Delta Dart, a model of the last fighter based at Dover. The museum began In 1986 with a single C-47A. By JAMES MERRIWEATHER Dover Bureau reporter DOVER The first C-141 Starlifter to roll off the assembly line is now part of the permanent collection of the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base.

"It's like getting a Van Gogh original," Michael D. Leister, museum director, said. "It's very rare for us to get serial No. 1," he said as he escorted a couple of visitors around the plane's cavernous, stripped-down fuselage. The museum also recently obtained a Con-vair F-106A Delta Dart, a model of the last fighter based at Dover.

But in Leister's assessment, among museum centerpieces, the C-141 ranks second only to the C-47A "Turf and Sport Special," which participated in the D-Day paratrooper drop at St. Mere Eglise and chalked up other impressive combat notches. The 35-year-old C-141, built by Lockheed-Georgia is one of only four models left in service. In 1979, the Air Force, looking for more airlift capacity, lengthened the plane's fuselage by 23 feet and designated the new configuration as the model. In-flight refueling capability also was added.

The Air Force, however, is slowly phasing out the C-141 in favor of C-17s now rolling off off the assembly line. Before the much larger C-5 came along, the C-141 was the military's largest cargo plane and for decades was known as the workhorse of the airlift fleet. "The C-5 is a lot more comfortable," Tech. Sgt. Bryan Bollinger, an Air Force Reserve flight engineer, said, as he sat behind the controls of the C-141.

"The C-141 can be extremely hot in the front and extremely cold in the back." The museum got first dibs on the plane by Previously, the museum limited itself largely to the history of DAFB. The museum already had a version of the C-141 among its 23 aircraft, but that hardly generates the excitement of having the very first of the models. According to Leister, the plane is being retired after only 8,000 flight hours but they were extremely tough hours. The Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base is open from 9 a.m to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Admission is free.

The museum is accessible through DAFB's south gate on U.S. 113. From April through October, the museum hosts Community Appreciation Day on the third Saturday of each month. Coming attraction: Museum Director Michael D. Leister says a retiring edition of Air Force One the same one that in January, with President Clinton aboard, got stuck in the mud in Illinois will become part of the museum's permanent collection.

Peterson lawyers fight over evidence Admissibility of items seized from dorm after baby's death at issue virtue of its designation last year as the national museum for the Air Mobility Command, which is the equivalent of the parent company over Air Force airlift and tanker The plane was used exclusively for testing, called on to push the envelope to identify the outer limits of C-141 capabilities. See PLANES -B2 Delaware may be a key to Campaign 2000 GOP consultant says favorite sons take edge from Iowa and New Hampshire knew the crime was committed in Delaware. That made the warrant "defective," Gioiella said. They also argue that the warrant permitted police to seize "all records, documents, papers that relate to the delivery, pregnancy or disposal of the fetus and any correspondence to or from Amy Grossberg to Brian Peterson." They say the tape does not meet that criteria. Attorneys for Peterson and his co-defendant, Amy S.

Grossberg, previously have filed arguments asking that evidence seized from her dormitory at the University of Delaware including a bloody shirt and a letter she wrote to God and incriminating statements he made to police be excluded from their trial, which is scheduled to begin May 4. President Judge Henry duPont Ridgely has scheduled a hearing Thursday to decide what evidence, if any, will be suppressed. See BABY B2 By TERRY SPENCER Staff reporter WILMINGTON Attorneys for Brian C. Peterson Jr. filed arguments Monday stating why evidence seized from his dormitory room linking him to the alleged murder of his newborn son should be thrown out.

In documents filed with the Superior Court, attorney Russell M. Gioiella of New York City argued that the search warrant for Peterson's Gettysburg (Pa.) College dormitory was fatally flawed and that detectives overstepped the warrant's bounds when they seized a tape from his answering machine. "It is the defense position that all items seized from the dorm room of Brian Peterson should be suppressed," Gioiella wrote. In their latest arguments, Peterson's attorneys argued that Gettysburg detectives cited Pennsylvania law to their local judge, who issued the warrant even though they Rep. Tina K.

Fallon, R-Seaford, a legislative icon in Sussex County with 20 years of House service, is facing an unprecedented challenge from Guy Longo, who is finishing his seventh two-year term as Seaford mayor. Sen. Richard A. Hauge, R-Windy Bush, who won his seat 10 years ago after a primary battle, is facing a primary challenge from Ernest Cragg of Woodbrook, a retired insurance executive. And, Rep.

Jane Maroney, R-Tal-leyville, who came to the House the first year Fallon was elected, staved off a primary challenge from Cliff Werline in the last two elections. This year she will see a new opponent: Republican Benjamin H. Deeble Jr. of Stonecrop Road. candidates trying to build up a head of steam.

"I think this is the year 2000 you throw away the rule book," Morgan said. Rep. Michael N. Castle, R-Del, agreed the scenario of a wide-open presidential field bodes well for Delaware's primary prospects. "We could come into our own in 2000," he said.

But other kinds of primaries are giving the party fits. Primary challenges to veteran Republican state legislators are popping up all over apparently for unrelated reasons as the 1998 election campaign gears up. "This is the time of year when incumbents look carefully over their shoulder," said Sen. Steven H. Amick, R-Newark West.

state Republican Executive Committee. "I can count 29 potential Republican presidential candidates and 9 or 10 Democrats," he said, with no clear front-runner. Morgan, one of the architect's of the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, said the expected presence of favorite-son candidates in both Iowa and New Hampshire could make those states less attractive as testing grounds to other candidates. Delaware, whose primary comes only four days after the New Hampshire vote, "is much more a microcosm of the nation than New Hampshire," Morgan said. "That gives Delaware the potential for being a better indicator" of a candidate's strength and a more attractive place to spend time for By NANCY CHARRON Dover Bureau chief DOVER Delaware could assume an important position in Republican politics as the 2000 presidential race approaches, a prominent GOP consultant and demographer predicted Monday.

The state's fledgling presidential primary also could take on a greater role in 2000 elections, John Morgan Sr. told a meeting of the.