The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 21

The Courier TIMES SECTION 08318103 os A 7-5 SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 1973 Tuition increase coming in Catholic high schools By JAMES HERZOG Courier-Journal Staff Writer St. Xavier, Louisville's largest Catholic school, has announced a 25 per cent tuition increase for September 1973, and the director of high schools for the Archdiocese of Louisville is predicting that smaller tuition Increases will be announced by most other area Catholic high schools within the next few weeks. The director of high schools, the Rev. Joseph M. McGee, also said an interview yesterday that some parochial elementary schools in the archdiocese, which covers 32 Central Kentucky counties, also will raise tuition.

He added, however, that he doesn't expect a general increase among elementary schools. The increase in tuition from $500 to $625 a year was announced last week in a letter to the parents of St. Xavier's 1,375 students from Brother Conrad Callahan, principal of the high school. In his letter dated Jan. 3, Brother Callahan said, "St.

Xavier High School, like all institutions of learning, is caught in a vise of exploding educational cost. In fact, without rigid controls that were im posed a number of years ago our rapidly rising operating cost would have been even more pronounced." The letter said that while the school at 1609 Poplar Level Road is in sound financial condition, it is headed for a deficit during the current school year and must raise tuition. Brother Callahan said, "We realize the new rate will place an added burden on many parents. However, we have always done everything possible to provide financial assistance for those students who need help, and this policy will be Asked yesterday if the tuition increase will affect enrollment, Brother Callahan said, "We hope that it won't Three years ago we increased tuition $140, and didn't lose a great number of students." He said the tuition increase was caused by salary increases and "over-all costs rising." Most of the archdiocese's 13 other Catholic high schools are expected to announce their tuition increases before eighth graders take high school placement tests on Jan. 27.

Father McGee, asked about the prospects for general increases in tuition, said, "I don't see how they can be avoided. Hopefully, they won't be large ones, but I think in almost every case there will have to be some raise." Father McGee said Assumption, a girls' high school at 2170 Tyler Lane with 656 students, has decided to increase its tuition from $400 to $450 annually. The school official said a round of small increases should have little effect on enrollment at high schools in the archdiocese. There are 6,644 students at 13 schools in Louisville and Jefferson County and 276 at Bethlehem High School in Bardstown, according to archdiocese reports. "I think the tuition changes will be small enough that they are not going to cause a drastic withdrawal from the schools," said Father McGee.

He said sharp increases about three years ago caused a 10 per cent reduction in enrollment. Father McGee said rising teacher are a key factor tuition insalaries, adding, "The raise in tuition and Unearthly Wayne Aho lectures on encounter with 'aliens' By GLENN RUTHERFORD Courier-Journal Staff Writer Wayne S. Aho has been traveling around the country for 15 years telling people about unidentified flying objects and visitors from other planets. He, his wife, and two young sons travel in a recreational vehicle, and they haven't been home to Washington state in about a year. Aho, 56, doesn't make much money.

In fact, he says that, thanks to deductions of gasoline and other travel expenses from his income, he hasn't had to pay any income tax for any of those 15 years. Why live this type of life? Aho, a former major in Army intelligence, says he does it because of a personal experience he had in 1956 on the Mojave Desert. There, he says, beings from another world spoke with him through mental telepathy and told him our world is in big trouble. He's been carrying this message to the people ever since. "The worst part of a life like this isn't the financial aspect.

It's the things people say about you behind your back," he said in an interview yesterday. Aho is in Louisville to speak to several civic and social clubs, and it's from speaking engagements like these that he makes his living. don't have any set fee for speeches," he said. "We just take free-will offerings-just whatever people can give us." Aho, a soft-spoken, serious, spindly man who doesn't look the part of a' Staff Photo by Bud Kamenish Herbert Norris holds an Arkansas diamond, left, next to the rough, 625-carat stone which he believes may be a valuable star ruby. nationwide crusader, began his career as a lecturer after his desert encounter with a flying saucer and its occupants.

The craft, Aho said, changed shapes and dimensions several times during that strange evening in May 1956, but most of the time, he said, it appeared to be a doughnut-shaped crimson sphere. Aho was in the Mojave Desert that spring to a convention of flying saucer "believers" held annually at Giant Rock, near Twelve Palms, Calif. During one night of the convention, Aho said some mysterious force began applying pressure to each side of his lower back, forcing him to move first one direction, then another. "The superior beings guided me into the desert," he said, "and led me about all night long." Aho said he walked some two miles into the desert before the flying saucer descended. Then, in a series of philosophical telepathic exchanges between himself and the "superior beings," he learned that the world is in grave danger.

"I've been told that the world is still headed toward a nuclear disaster," he said, "and it won't be the United States or Russia that drops the first bomb, it will be some small nation. But after it starts, the nuclear war will spread throughout the world." In addition to the encounter on the Mojave, Aho said he's received other telepathic messages from the "superior beings," though he's never seen them face to face. One message came last March the cost per student are almost directly proportional. There are also other costs that go up annually, like insurance. "I'm sure some of the elementary schools will raise tuition, but at the same time there won't be a general increase," Father McGee said.

There are about 970 pupils in 79 parish elementary schools in the archdiocese, according to parochial school figures. The last series of major tuition increases at the Catholic high schools occurred three years ago. The Rev. Thomas P. Casper, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Louisville, said tuition at Louisville's Catholic high schools ranges from $250 to $500 a year, with St.

Xavier and Sacred Heart Academy, a girls' school at 3175 Lexington Road at the top of the list. Elementary school tuition ranges from nothing to about $250 annually, Father Casper said. Father Casper said tuition increases will "naturally put that much more tion." But he added, would be hard pressure on the family, paying the tuito tie tuition to any enrollment fluctua- Staff Photo by Glenn Wayne S. Aho, who says he was contacted on Mojave Desert by beings from another world, Louisville for lectures. The photo next to him UFOs, he said.

while he was visiting the Hawaiian island of Maui. "I was told that 'the Armageddon has now he said. Aho said he believes this means the world may have come to the brink of some manmade disaster such as the nuclear war. His speeches and encounters with aliens have brought him some attention from the government. "The Central Intelligence Agency interviewed me for over two hours in 1956," he said.

"But they refused to release any information about the interview to the public." After the CIA interview, Aho said, he visited every member of the Senate and House of Representatives, trying to get them to hold public meetings about flying saucers. "I met several senators and representatives who said they'd seen flying saucers themselves," he said, "but they didn't want their names used in public." Aho, his wife Jeanette, and her two sons by a previous marriage will pack up their camper and head out of Louisville within a few days. "We think we're going up to the Milwaukee area for a couple of lectures," he said. "We sometimes go until the last dollar is spent, but then someone usually comes through," Mrs. Aho said.

"We just go where the spirit leads us. Sometimes you just have to depend on the Lord and faith." Rock or ruby? He has one or the other By BILLY REED -Journal Staff Writer What weighs 4 ounces, looks like an ordinary ol' grayish rock and may be worth thousands of dollars? The answer is a 625-carat star ruby that currently is in the possession of Herbert L. Norris, the proprietor of a modest jewelry business on the second floor of the Speed Building, 333 Guthrie, in downtown Louisville. Well, at least Norris THINKS the rock is a star ruby. He can't be certain until the rock is cut.

"It could be any price and it could be worth nothing," says Norris, with a shrug. "With an uncut stone, you can't tell its value until you have it cut." The rock surely isn't much to look at. About the size of a golf ball, except that it's lumpy and rough and has six sides, more or less. Surely not the sort of ruby that you see in the movies or read about in "Tales of the Arabian Nights." "There ain't no precious stones which are impressive in the rough," says Norris. "To look at it, you'd never guess it was a star ruby." Besides his jewelry business, Norris also operates the Kentuckiana Lapidary and Rock Shop, a rather unusual enterprise catering to people who want to make their own fine jewelry.

These do-it-yourself jewelers buy rough stones and cutting equipment from Norris, who obtains the stones from distributors or from persons who accidentally discover stones and wish to sell them. Norris got his 625-carat rock-er, ruby -from Aubrey Cole of Louisville, who found it in a gorge at Rock Creek, N.C., in June 1967. Norris won't say what he gave for the rock, just as he refuses to speculate on how much it could be worth. to the Guiness Book of wAccording. the value of rubies has been rising since 1955, due to the drying up of supplies in Ceylon and Burma.

"A flawless ruby of good color is now, carat for carat, more valuable than emerald, diamond or sapphire says Guiness. A star ruby generally is considered to be one of the most precious varieties of ruby. It gets its name from the fact that, when held under light, a bright sixpointed star clearly is visible. The largest known ruby of gem quality, according to Guiness, was a stone of Burmese origin. In July 1961, a large broken ruby was found in the United States, the largest piece weighing 750 carats.

Guiness estimates that a flawless sixcarat ruby of good color may be worth much as $33,600, or $5,600 per carat. Applying that standard of valuation to Norris' ruby, it would be worth 500,000. However, that figure may well be grossly exaggerated. For one thing, the cutting process would reduce the gem's size con- Ex- Louisvillian governed Canal Zone Ex-Rep. Maurice Thatcher, 102, dies Maurice Hudson Thatcher, former congressman from Louisville and governor of the Canal Zone during construction of the Panama Canal, died at 10:15 a.m.

yesterday in his Washington, D.C., home. He was 102. He was the last surviving member of the Isthmian Canal Commission, on which he served from 1910 to 1913 while it directed the building of the canal. He also was the oldest living former member of Congress. Thatcher was a Republican member of the House of Representatives for five terms, from 1923 to 1933, representing what was then the 5th District.

During that time he served on the Appropriations Committee and sponsored acts that established Mammoth Cave National Park, provided for permanent maintenance of the Lincoln Birthplace Farm, created the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery at Louisville, provided for construction of the present Post Office, Customs and Courthouse Building in Louisville, and established the Gorgas Memorial Institute in Panama City for the study of tropical diseases. He served the institute as general counsel and was its vice president from 1939 until 1969. His major interests in Congress, and later, included national parks, highways, public buildings, Pan-American and tion because there are so many other factors involved." Four high schools are directly under the archdiocese's direction. They are Bishop David, 5144 Dixie Highway; DeSales, 425 Kenwood Drive; Flaget, 4420 River Park Drive, and Trinity, 4011 Shelbyville Road. The other 10 are owned and operated by religious communities.

is in "a state of uncertainty right now" Father Casper said the all Flaget because Loretto High School for girls, 723 S. 45th may close at the end of the school year. recommendation to make Flaget coeducational is being considered, and Father Casper said there will be no change in Flaget's tuition until "this situation stabilizes." The superintendent said he expects tuition at Trinity, which is $450 a year, to remain unchanged. He indicated tuition at Bishop David and DeSales may go up. The principal of one of the area's 8 allfemale Catholic high schools said she has discussed the tuition situation with other principals and been told that several are planning tuition increases.

HUD scores housing units in Newburg By JAMES HERZOG Rutherford the is in is of siderably. And for another, the ruby may not be flawless, or of good color, or it may not even be starred. To find out for sure if Norris' ruby is a gold mine or just another, ol' rock would require an expenditure $500 to $1,000, which is what Norris says it would cost him to have the ruby cut. However, the jeweler apparently isn't curious enough to have the job done, nor does he seem particularly anxious to sell the ruby. "No, I wouldn't sell it for $1,000," he says.

"It's worth that much to me as a specimen. I don't have any plans for it right now." Nevertheless, Norris can't help but dream about the ruby's possibilities. Without much prodding, he will you A story about a jeweler who bought a rough emerald for $700 and sold it to Tiffany's for $100,000. And when he tells the story, Norris' twinkle as if they were, well, star rubies. Courier-Journal Staff Writer The director of the local U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) office said yesterday that an Atlanta construction company has failed to meet HUD standards in its work on 71 new houses in the Newburg urban renewal area. Virgil Kinnaird said it is his recommendation that the Jefferson County Housing Authority not accept any of the units in the federally financed project from the Litchfield Construction Co. until they are brought up to standard. Fourteen of the homes already are occupied by families who eventually are supposed to buy them. But it is up to the authority whether it accepts the units, Kinnaird said, adding that they could meet the county's plans and specifications.

"I would say they would not be acceptable, and the county usually relies on us for expertise," Kinnaird said. Jack Leeth, executive director of the housing authority, last night said he had been keeping an eye on the project and doesn't what HUD is being critical of "because I haven't heard from them on it." Kinnaird, who toured the area Friday and talked with some local residents, said HUD is dissatisfied with: Floor systems, including floor joists (supports on which floors rest). "Poor" flashing work (pieces of metal for waterproofing roofing joints). Poorly planned brick veneer work on the units. Stoops and crawl spaces under houses that don't meet specifications.

The homes are modular units that were produced by Jones Homes a Tennessee Kinnaird said. said he will meet Monday Litchfield officials and "discuss the lack of quality and the defects we have found." If Litchfield doesn't upgrade its work, "we would be unwilling to let it do business in the state with other housing authorities, by virtue of past performance," the area HUD chief said. The three- and four-bedroom houses initially were financed by HUD under its "Turnkey III" program. Under Turnkey, a private developer builds housing and turns it over to the to manage. Families selected authority, Turnkey must be able to buy their homes eventually.

In December, however, officials of the Jefferson County Housing Authority said they were negotiating for federal funds to buy 24 of the 71 homes outright in order to house poverty-level families. years ago, in 1893, when he became clerk of Butler Circuit Court. He was assistant attorney general of Kentucky from 1898 to 1900 and assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky from 1901 to 1906. In 1908, he was named to the state's highest appointive office, state inspector and examiner.

After practicing law in Louisville through the early years of the centuryand marrying Anne Bell Chinn of Frankfort in 1910-he was appointed by President William Howard Taft as a member of the Isthmian Commission in 1910. A month later he became head of U.S. civil administration in the Canal Zone. With the canal nearly finished, he returned to his Louisville law practice in 1913 and held several posts in city government. After his congressional service he remained in Washington, while maintaining many ties with Kentucky.

As a congressman, Thatcher had obtained a ferry to carry travelers across the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, and in 1962 he cut the ribbon to open the $20 million toll-free Thatcher Ferry Memorial Bridge there. "For some strange reason," he said, "those who signed the canal treaty in 1903 never seemed to give any thought to crossing the canal after it was finished." One of Thatcher's longtime interests was genealogy -he was a descendant of William Brewster, leader of the community of Mayflower pilgrims. He also was active number of social and civic organizations and was a 33rd degree Mason. His wife died in 1960. Survivors include a cousin, Howard R.

Thatcher of Baltimore, and a niece and nephew by marriage, Mrs. Prue Mason Darnell, of Louisville, and Franklin C. Mason of Frankfort. The funeral will be Tuesday at Lee Funeral Home, Washington, D.C., with burial at Frankfort (Ky.) Cemetery. Thatcher once estimated that he had composed more than 1,000 verses, some published in newspapers, magazines and the Congressional Record.

At Christmas each year, he composed a poem for friends. In 1967 he wrote: My last was not, in truth, my last, despite Expectancy and what computers say For oftentimes skilled Nature takes delight In adding to long lease a lengthened day. OHIO RIVER 3 ST. ST. 1 21ST 15TH BARD 5 STOWN 4 PRESTON a 2 MAURICE H.

THATCHER Ex-congressman, Canal Zone governor dies Canal Zone matters, and aviation. He was active in assuring construction of the Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville the Veterans Hospital in Lexington, and worked for establishment of Ft. Knox as a permanent military post. He was nominated for a sixth House term in 1932 but decided instead to run for the Senate and lost that race. Thatcher remained active--pursuing interests as varied as pending legislation and the writing of verse until nearly the end of his life.

Last October, he was presented the Silver Good Citizenship Medal of the Sons of the American Revolution. Thatcher was born Aug. 15, 1870, in Chicago, and grew up in Butler County, Ky. His public career began 80 Staff Map The old yule (tree) passes the Louisville Sanitation Department will conduct Beginning tomorrow, two-week effort to pick up Christmas trees throughout the city. The tree a scheduled for: Tomorrow and Tuesday in Area Wednespickups are in area Friday and Saturday in area Jan.

15 and day and Thursday 17 and 18 in area 5, and Jan. 19 and 20 in area 6. 16 in area Jan..