The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 2

Saturday, Sept. 9, 1989 Page 2A ulljr Amiifltott Rep. Gerald Willis to auction off lumber mill lose monev on the retails," he said. "I had hoped to By Jenny Labalme Star Stall Writer we dealt with different timber processing and we had our own customers," he said. "But this has been a tough year for the industry." Ed Cone, vice president of insurance and marketing with the Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association, attributes the tough times to a poor housing industry.

"The lumber industry is mostly dependent on housing, and although interest rates are down housing rates have not come back up," he said. "Retail demand has been level, but wholesale demand has been down." Willis said 98 percent of his business was wholesale. His mill sold 6 million board feet of yellow pine per year. "We were losing money on the wholesale; we didn't not the only ones affected by the shutdown Willis estimates about 15 independent lumberers who supplied lumber to him, with a total of 50 employees, might feel a pinch. Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce President Mike Clayborne was unsure what impact the mill closing would have on the local economy.

"There's no question that there's a ripple effect," he said. "But Piedmont has a strong industrial economy and I know several companies up there that are expanding and hiring more workers, so maybe some of hose laid off will find jobs with them." Piedmont Mayor James Bennett, who runs Pied-nont's only other lumber business, expressed regret ver the closing. "GERALD AND I were never competitors because turn things around, but by July 4 I decided I'd have to close up." Willis is not alone. Other Southeastern lumber mills have had to close their gates in recent years. Cone says during the past four years his organization has seen a 15 percent drop in membership due to lumber companies going out of business.

"There's been a vast decline in companies like Gerald's in the past 20 years in the Southeast and Northwest," he said. Willis would not disclose what his losses were. He says his Immediate future will be concerned with tending to the more than 7,000 acres of timberland he owns and to his legislative duties. PIEDMONT In one month, state Rep. Gerald Willis of Piedmont will do what he hoped he'd never have to auction off his lumber mill.

He said a slump in the lumber industry forced him to close his 25-year-old business two weeks ago. "This was a decision I regretted having to make," he said. "But for the past 16 to 17 months it hasn't been feasible to produce lumber for the size we are." Willis laid off 27 of his 29 employees, starting a month ago. He said he believes most of them have already found other work. Nine, he said, are collecting unemployment benefits.

But Gerald Willis Lumber Company employees are Reagan Siegelman sets campaign theme From Page 1A bruise The blood had collected on the top of the right side of the brain, Weinberg said. President Bush tried to phone his predecessor from Air Force One en route from New Orleans to Washington, but Reagan had already entered surgery "I hope it's all right pray it's all right," Bush told reporters. The Reagans arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday and checked into the clinic Thursday. They left the clinic Friday morning and he later checked into St. Marys, said a hospital spokeswoman who would not be identified.

REAGAN, AN accomplished rider, was thrown from a bucking horse July 4 while visiting the ranch of William Wilson, a friend, near Cananea, Mexico, about 30 miles south of the Arizona border. He was flown to an Army hospital in Arizona and kept about four hours, declining a doctor's suggestion that he remain overnight for observation. He was described as suffering from scrapes and bruises and advised to avoid stressful exercise for a few days. The Reagans have a long relationship with physicians at the Mayo clinic, in this city 70 miles southeast of Minneapolis. Mayo doctors took part in Reagan's care while he was president, and in October 1987, two Mayo physicians were part of a team that treated Mrs.

Reagan's breast cancer. 0 Frank Iossi, communications director at the clinic, said he would not comment beyond Weinberg's statement. Mary Ellen Landwehr, a clinic spokeswoman, said that, at the Reagans' wish, the clinic would not announce the names of doctors who performed the operation. Assoc ated Press Former President Ronald Reagan waves to crowd as he leaves hotel for clinic neurosurgery at George Washington University Hospital, said it would not be surprising if the jolt from a fall, particularly with an elderly person, would cause a collection of fluid on the "This is usually because a little blood vessel gets torn and causes some blood to leak into the space over the surface of the brain," said Laws, who is not involved in the surgery. He said it is common practice to remove such fluid collections, even if they are causing no problems.

"They usually continue to enlarge and could ultimately cause symptoms," said Laws. The Reagans have lived in Los Angeles since he left office in During his two terms, Reagan was hospitalized several times, recovering from various ailments at a speed doctors called impressive for a man his age. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt. A bullet one inch from his heart was removed, but by Oct. 30 he was declared in excellent health.

On July 13, 1985, he underwent successful surgery for cancer of the colon. Later examinations during the balance of his second term showed no recurrence. He also had surgery during his second term for enlargement of the prostate, for skin cancer and for Dupuytrin's contracture, a condition that caused his left hand to curve inward. Based on the Mayo Clinic's statement, Henry Brem, a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, characterized the operation was a fairly minor procedure. "Patients usually do beautifully in something like this," said Brem, who was not among doctors performing the surgery on Reagan.

IN THE CASE of subdural fluid, surgeons drill a series of holes and then use a saw to remove a piece of the skull, he said. The fluid is then drained, the dura stitched back together and the piece of skull replaced, Brem said. The procedure normally takes one to four hours, he said, and usually requires a week's hospital stay. Dr. Edward Laws, chairman of Siegelman said, "in the last two years Georgia has acquired five new forestry companies that each pay five times (in property taxes) what those in Alabama pay.

Yet Alabama has seen only one new company open in that same time span. "In other words, Georgia has five times the growth with five times the taxes." Siegelman called on Alabama to establish the same property tax levy on large timber interests as used in Georgia. That would require a constitutional amendment to alter What is known as the Lid Bill and establish a separate assessment category FOREST PROPERTY in Alabama now is taxed at the same rate as agricultural land, residential property and historical buildings. Siegelman said "powerful special interests" hide behind their legislative influence and don't pay their fair share of taxes: "It's time we had a governor that was strong enough to grab those big mules by the halter, sit them down and finally say you have to carry your share of the burden because the people of Alabama have carried it long enough. "The huge out-of-state land corporations and the special-interest timber owners have had a free ride In this state for too long, a free ride on the backs of Alabama school children.

They are cheating our children and robbing them of higher paying jobs." Siegelman said his property tax plan would generate another $100 million for education, but he was careful to note that it would not affect small timberland owners. He also said 90 percent of the $100 million in property taxes would remain in the counties where it would be raised and would be used locally for education. At one point, Siegelman used a term popular with Republican Gov. Guy Hunt, who has opposed additional revenues for education. Siegelman called for more "accountability" in education.

He did not say what he meant by the term, however. "Our state's financial resources are very limited, and they are being spread thinly to meet a variety of needs," Siegelman said. "Future spending on education must be carefully targeted. But we can't just throw more money at a problem; priorities must be set, waste must be eliminated and innovative programs must be implemented." Siegelman's opponents for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination are expected to be former Gov. Fob James; Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association; Clement Clay "Bo" Torbert, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court; and U.S.

Rep. Ronnie Flippo. By Frederick Burger Star Political Writer BIRMINGHAM Saying that the "free ride has got to end," Attorney General Don Siegelman set a populist theme for his Democratic gubernatorial campaign here Friday, calling for wealthy absentee corporate landowners to pay their fair share of property taxes. In what aides billed as a speech designed to "set the battle lines" in next year's campaign, Siegelman also announced support for a constitutional amendment to establish a state lottery. He said a lottery could generate, conservatively, between $80 and $100 million in new funds for educa-tionilealso proposed that 10 percent of the lottery's revenues be returned to taxpayers in the form of an income-tax credit.

Most of his remarks were addressed at what he described as the critical need to improve education. He said his revenue proposals could generate $260 million more for education without increasing taxes for the small farmer or the average homeowner. Siegelman decried what he asserted has been a lack of leadership in the state. He did not cite anyone by name. "I have been appalled by the stagnation and lack of leadership in this state," Siegelman said to a luncheon audience of about 50 members of Leadership Birmingham.

"The Alabama ship of state is afloat, but we are stuck in the middle of the ship channel rocking back and forth. "We are standing still while the flagships of our sister states steam steadily by Alabama has more potential than any of these states. However, we have simply lacked the leadership. The school children of Alabama are crying out for help. It is time Alabama had the leadership to answer that call." SIEGELMAN, WHO is considered a frontrunner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in a field of five active candidates, said that "out-of-state land barons are robbing our children of their future, all in the name of profit and greed." They are accomplishing that, he said, by using political clout with the Legislature to keep property taxes low on their vast acreages.

Property taxes are a primary source of state education funds. Siegelman did not name his corporate targets, but an aide later said that one reference was directed at the Kimberly-Clark Corp. Siegelman said Kimberly-Clark is the largest landowner in Cleburne County, holding 42,000 acres of timberland there. But he said the company pays only 93-cents-per-acre tax on it. Just across the border in Har-relson County, Siegelman said, Kimberly-Clark pays 14 34-an-acre tax on the same type of land.

"To rub salt in the wound," Rape victim describes ordeal After making a call, he allegedly pulled out a The Associated Press an home in a middle-class neighborhood of northeast Denver. She was tied up, beaten and left in a basement crawlspace and her home was set ablaze, but she managed to escape. A neighbor, Donnie Russell, 18, was arrested Thursday in Oklahoma City and faces extradition to Colorado. The 30-year-old victim described her assailant as a "nice, quiet kid" who once baby-sat her children and often spent-time with her husband waxing cars. The victim said the ordeal began when her assailant asked to use her telephone Wednesday morning.

handgun, pointed it at her and demanded all her money and jewelry. "I kept saying. 'Oh, come and thought he was kidding," the woman told The Post. "Then he put the gun to my head and I knew he wasn't playing." THE WOMAN gave him all her cash $3 and a credit card She said the little cash angered him and he wrapped her head in duct tape, leaving only her nose exposed. DENVER A woman who was raped, slashed and left to die in her burning home with her head swathed in tape says she snatched a knife from her assailant and lunged at him, screaming, "I want to live! I've got two babies!" The woman, whose next-door neighbor was arrested in the attack after she wrote his name in her own blood, described her ordeal in a telephone interview with The Denver Post from her Denver General Hospital room.

The attack occurred Wednesday in the wom Retire I From Page 1 A Jacksonville. Former councilman Pink Junior Wood and current Mayor Bill Rob-ison said they believe the move is good for Mrs. Williams but they said they had to be convinced. "At first I said, 'No, you shouldn't Wood said. "After she explained, I went along with her.

Besides, he said, "It was already made up in her mind." the Memorial Centennial Park project that began while she was on the council. She also traveled the world extensively. But when Mrs. Williams looks back on her Calhoun County experiences and accomplishments she was named one of Alabama's five outstanding women in 1981 it's her years as a teacher that she most important. "Carpenters and architects build buildings," she said, "Teachers build character in people." One former student, in fact, calls Mrs.

Williams one of the two biggest influences on her life. "She made probably the dullest class exciting and interesting," said Kay Brown Howard of Jacksonville, who had Mrs. Williams for economics and democracy as a senior at Council. Toward the end of her first term, she was elected mayor by her fellow council members after Norwood Hodges resigned the post. After completing her second term as mayor in 1984, she decided not to seek re-election.

But Mrs. Williams remained an active civic force she continued to play a major role, for instance, in Tests Crash From Page 1A From Page 1A eluding an old-age inspection. "I tested it and there were no problems," the pilot said. Leivestad said the plane had flown four or five trouble-free flights since then. school districts can be subject to state takeover partly on the strength of standardized test scores.

"These tests that were once used only as instructional aids now assess class achievement, school achievement, and district achievement through student's scores," the report said Cannell said in an interview Friday that in addition to the test data he gathered from all 50 states, he placed an ad in the trade journal "Education inviting educators to describe cases of test cheating Cannell said he received over 300 letters from present and former teachers and school administrators admitting that they or colleagues had tampered with tests or helped students improperly All demanded anonymity, Cannell said One Tennessee teacher wrote that teachers in his school "spent the morning teaching the lest and the afternoon giving it." In a number of states, Cannell wrote, scores are "much higher than any other indicators which often correlate with school achievement," Cannell wrote. SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT of Geor gia's second-graders, for example, scored above average on the Iowa FEW STATES randomly audit test scores to uncover improprieties, according to the study. California, one the few that does, caught 50 schools cheating during the last three years on the statewide achievement testing program. According to the report: Only 16 states forbid test administrators to receive the tests earlier than the day the test is to be given. Fpur others are instituting such guidelines.

Six states forbid teachers from reading the test booklets; seven others plan to. Only a dozen states require that test booklets be sealed. Drafts of the report were reviewed this summer by a dozen testing authorities, child psychiatrists and educators, including Chester Finn, former assistant Education Secretary and now a professor of education at Vanderbilt University. Finn, in a telephone interview, called the report "a constructive and useful piece of work." "If Cannell is right, and his track' record is such that he probably is, slates are so lax and sloppy in organizing test security that it's like letting Exxon monitor water quality in Prince William Sound," said Finn. Test of Basic Skills, and 75 percent of Kentucky's third-graders scored above national norms on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, "despite the fact that Georgia and Kentucky have among the lowest literacy rates, lowest college entrance scores and lowest Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores in the nation Howard Carroll, a spokesman for the National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher union' said the union hadn't seen the report and couldn't comment on it directly.

But he added: "We would certainly deplore any cheating by teachers We don't feel it's widespread But the report certainly indicates this obsessive pressure on schools by the marketplace to increase student scores on standardized tests And we deplore that." Scott Thomson, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals; said: "We do have educational malpractice, let's not kid ourselves, just as we have medical malpractice." But he added that it's not improper for schools to use old versions of a test to help students prepare for a newer version, and he said it was possible that some teachers were incorrectly identifying that practice as cheating age." Test publishers have responded that it's expensive to re-norm tests as frequently as critics like Cannell demand. They say the improved scores, in fact, show that schools are getting better. And they defend their tests as useful tools to identify pupil or group strengths and weaknesses. Those tests, taken by students in all 50 states, include the California Achievement Test, the Stanford Achievement Test, the Metropolitan Achievement Test, the Science Research Associates Test, the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Cannell allegations were largely confirmed in 1988 by a Department of Education-sponsored fol-lowup study.

MANY STATES HAVE on new standardized test requirements during the 1980s as part of the drive for higher school standards. Teachers, principals and school administrators have found themselves under pressure to make their schools, and themselves, look better through higher scores In some states, teachers' careers can "now be made or broken and Lordy, Lordy Vickie's I 40 found within a radius of a few hundred yards, which would appear to indicate the plane did not explode in air. Officials declined to speculate on the cause of the crash, but did not immediately raise the possibility of sabotage. "There is no way of finding out the cause of the crash right now, because we haven't found the black box," the plane's flight recorder, said Rasmussen. The plane, built by the General Dynamics, was 35 years old.

Its engines were refitted about 20 years ago. Partnair chief pilot Per Erik Ing-jer said he brought the plane from Canada to Oslo one week ago where it had undergone a five-week comprehensive maintenance check, in- For tho record A list of checking account features published Friday of last week incorrectly listed the monthly charge for regular free checking accounts at SouthTrust. Customers must pay a 16-atmonth fee if they fall below the minimum balance. LPADIJ to im 5 ss PAINT BY RITA COPPOLA fTol Oil -Water Color 1 Mam Rnh Rmi'i Torhnln, tn Land a Seascapes No Talent la Necessary Coma be Creallvel Classes Start Sept. 11 Unn C.

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