The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 39

3C ahf AnmrtOtt Sunday. April 18, 1982 Political veteran takes traditional stand Director (Continued from Page 1C) become your avocation. You read, meet and talk about it so much. To some extent! it becomes your hobby as well as yodr job." journeyman executive. She appears to have a soft spot in her heart for personnel issues.

"I love what I'm doing," she says. "I'm in it because I like it. When you can say that, your vocation tends to Cobble there's no sandal more fitting for Summer. Dtessed up. toned Cuddlers' sandals will be your favorite wear-with-alls for summer Designed with exclusive fitting features, they feel so perfect, you'll swear you have your own personal cobbleri Prettily perfed leather bands softly cross over to flatter your feet, give a peek at your toes Best of all.

you'll love the easy comfort inside the flexible poly bottoms, tiny pockets of air actually cushion your feet with every step. All around fit. versatility, comfort and your size' By TIM FUNK Capital Correspondent MONTGOMERY Her office, unoccupied a good bit of the time in this election year, is decorated with paintings of Southern scenes. But amid the framed cotton fields are reminders of the political terrain inhabited over the years by State Treasurer Annie Laurie Gunter. To Annie Laurie, with appreciation for your leadership and perserverance in the battle for God, family and country," The plaque is signed by Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist, and members of Eagle Forum, the conservative women's group.

Like Mrs. Schafly, Mrs. Gunter was an ardent fan of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964. In 1968, Mrs. Gunter pinned her hopes on George Wallace.

His American Independent Party candidacy, which she promoted as the head of "Women for Wallace," is com-memorated in another signed plaque on Mrs. Gunter's office wall. IN THE DECADE after the 1968 presidential race, Wallace named Mrs. Gunter to a series of government and campaign posts, including Highway and Traffic Safety coordinator and head of a toothless Consumer Protection Agency. In June J978, the governor appointed Mrs.

Gunter state treasurer upon the exodus of Melba Till Allen, who was convicted of an ethics law violation. Later that year, Mrs. Gunter won election in her own right by defeating Juanita McDaniel, who, like Mrs. Allen, was later convicted of an ethics law violation. Since then, Mrs.

Gunter has been in charge of Alabama's money. And in November, she will ask the state's voters to keep her in charge for another four years. The 62-year-old widow spends most of her time these days making speeches to civics "THEY PUT ALL these crazy things in that platform. I told Bella, 'I'm going to fight you to the but they had all the votes," she remembers. Mrs.

Gunter remains grateful to Wallace for launching her political career, but she vows to remain neutral in the governor's race even if her old boss runs again. "One of the first rules of politics is that you have to run your own race and stay out of others," she says. While Mrs. Gunter gears up for her run for a second term, her 42-member staff quietly tends to the business of keeping about $1 billion in state funds on bank deposit. Mrs.

Gunter is proud of her record. She says between 95 and 98 percent of the state's money has been invested in interest-bearing accounts at all times during her term. She has her critics, though. They claim she has kept too much money in non-interest-bearing checking accounts at rural banks. Mrs.

Gunter's answer is the state treasurer should have the "prerogative to keep some free money in banks that are carrying farmers. We can't let farmers go under in Alabama," she says. THE STATE TREASURER leads the active life of the executive-politico. But her views on the role of women in society remain traditional. "Strident women never get too far," she says.

"The ones who act like ladies do." Mrs. Gunter and her late physician-husband's only child a son who now practices law in Montgomery had grown up by the time she began her sucession of government posts. "A woman's real role is to make a home and raise children," she says. But Mrs. Gunter acknowledges she needs to work.

"I don't know what I'd do without a job. I don't think I could survive. I'm not much for playing bridge or watching the soaps. Why, I don't even have a dog! Star Photo by Kon Elkint Annie Laurie Gunter clubs, women's groups, college audiences. She enjoys regaling her audiences with the story of how she represented presidential candidate Wallace on the 1972 Democratic Party platform committee.

She lost most of the battles on the committee to Bella Abzug and other liberal supporters of George McGovern. Despite federal student aid cutbacks, you still can ride the college tuition escalator without falling off. "Don't lose heart," says financial writer Roger Harris. "Ironically, in these worst times for college costs, it's still the best of times for scrounging around for various loans, scholarships, work-study aids and other resources for meeting those costs." If you don't qualify for a Guaranteed Student Loan or the National Direct Student Loan programs, Harris says, you might check the Auxiliary Loan to Assist Students. "Like the federal stu dent loans, this loan plan is guaranteed by the government only if carries a 14-percent interest rate," he says.

And scholarships are out there. "In fact," he says, "there's an estimated billion dollars a year in scholarship and tuition-assistance grants waiting to be plucked from various donors." The trick is to find out who is doing the offering. Consult high school and college financial aid offices, your state department of education and local civic and professional organizations to see what they offer. Don't toe reluctant to apply. Since housing costs affect the rising cost of college, you might want to consider cooperative housing.

In a cooperative house at the University of Michigan, students lopped off $450-1500 the normal dormitory bill for the school year by working four to six hours a week. Harris compares searching for all the available financial aid to taking a course: "There's plenty of hard work involved, but if you master the course, it could be the most important grade of your financial life." Mastering collegecosfs can earn a high grade Staying ahead Mi ie a covered, in aenvewear by Merona 45 fjA yk If you're a sport who loves exercise and loves color, too, MERONA's 100 cotton activewear is for you. MERONA is famous for men's and women's clothes that play hard and look terrific, too. Left, the rugby pullover made famous by TV exercise show host Richard Simmons, 34.00. Cotton twill, elastic waist short with snap back flap pocket, 20.00.

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Bicycle courtesy of G.F. Wilson. well fleeced By JANE BRYANT QUINN NEW YORK If you are like most people, you have a combination of too much insurance and too little. Too much auto, theft and fire insurance against small losses; too little against large losses. Too much protection against small medical bills.

Too little life insurance. You are paying top dollar for this inefficient mix of coverage mostly because the insurance industry makes it attractive for you to buy this way. If you thought through your insurance program right from the beginning, you could improve your own security, and that of your family, at no extra cost. Why not raise the deductible on your auto and homeowners policies to $500 or even Small losses occur more often than large ones, so they are the most expensive to insure. No one likes to face an unexpected cost.

But the plain fact is most middle-class Americans could handle a $500 casualty loss (especially when everything over the first $100 can be deducted from your income taxes). IT IS NOT UNUSUAL to find people saving $50 by buying lower liability limits on auto policies then spending $50 to insure losses from small theft. In the normal course of life, "homes need new roofs, new paint; transmissions drop out of new cars," writes Andrew Tobias in "The Invisible Bankers." "Yet we manage to face these risks without paying someone else handsomely to take them." The Insurance Services Office tallied more than 700,000 auto insurance claims paid under full-coverage policies in 1978, Tobias reports. Nearly four claims out of five were for $200 or less. On $10O-deductible homeowners insurance policies, 60 percent of the claims were for less than $400.

Insurance policies are priced to encourage you to insure Small claims. There is an army of agents, underwriters, adjusters, paper-pushers and vice-presi-dentsout there to feed, and small claims are their bread and butter. BUT IF $500 deductibles became the rule, and small claims were done away with, insurance would be cheaper and you could more readily afford protection against huge losses like a major auto accident that is your fault, or having your house burn to the ground. Why not confine your medical insurance to "major medical," if you have to buy coverage yourself? Major medical charges you with the first $1,000 or so of bills every year, then takes over to cover catastrophic costs. Private health insurers developed major medical as a way of lowering health insurance costs for people not covered by group or company plans.

Why buy any form of whole-life insurance, including the new product called "universal For the same price you can often buy four times the insurance protection, in low-cost term insurance. Life insurance agents send me many variations on the following letter: "When I hand a poor widow her insurance check, they "she never asks whether the policy was term or whole life." I wish I could trap one of those agents between two widows getting insurance checks at the same time one from a-whole-life policy and one from a term policy. The "poor" widow with the smaller whole-life check would have the agent's hide. AMERICANS HAVE BEEN gradually shifting to term insurance from whole life. Term policies are the cheapest form of life insurance, and the easiest to price-compare.

But many of the families who can least afford the expensive brand are persuaded to buy it, leaving themselves with poor protection for the dollar. More competition in life insurance might light a fire under the industry. Tobias suggests you be allowed to buy life insurance over-the-counter at the bank (as people now do, in limited amounts, in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut). And why not? The sooner state legislators quit protecting the insurance industry from competition, the faster it will restructure Itself to sell better insurance products at a lower price..