The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 39

SECTION 2-18 PAGES COMICS, AND STATE NEWS MAY 10, 1965 rier- TELEVISION, RADIO, SPORTS, The Con State Industrialist, R. L. Stearns, Dies Family Built Coal, Rail Complex In McCreary, Ad joining Counties Special to The -Journal Stearns, Ky. Robert Lyons Stearns, 62, chairman of the board of directors of Stearns Coal and Lumber Co. Inc.

died of a heart attack at his home here Saturday night. He was the last direct male heir of the Stearns family of Ludington, that founded an industrial empire in McCreary County, and three adjoining counties in Tennessee 1902. The lie Stearns Coal and Timber Co. The and formerly maintained, a Louisville office coal lands at one time held title to 130,000 acres. In 1937, him down, so he appealed to the company sold the United Secretary of Agriculture Ezra States surface rights to 47,000 Taft Benson.

In 1955 Benson acres for incorporation into the rejected Stearns' request. Cumberland National Forest. Stearns was graduated from Mineral Rights Saved Hill Preparatory School in reserved min- Pennsylvania. He attended The company eral rights. Princeton University and was graduated from Northwestern In 1963, Stearns sought to University.

In 1926, he came to strip mine more than $15 mil- and joined the managelion worth of coal from the ment of his family's business. national forest's ridges above and around the Cumberland He made his home here until River. Involved were about his death. 1,000 acres. Stearns was president of the The Forest Service turned coal and lumber company and ROBERT STEARNS Sold forest LYONS.

Kentucky and Tennessee Railway from 1949 to 1962 when he suffered a stroke. He was a former director of the National Coal Association, a director of B. R. Campbell and Son a director of McCreary Motors and president of the Stearns Golf Club. He was also chairman of the board of the Kentucky and Tennessee Railway at the time of his death.

Survivors include his widow, Gloria Bradley Stearns. The body is being returned to Ludington, for burial. Associated Press Wirephoto Sergeant, Mother Reunited 38 YEARS OF SEPARATION M. Sgt. Roy Hillinsworth, 39, was only 2 when his parents separated and he went to live with his father.

That was the last time he saw his mother until this weekend when they were reunited in time for a Mother's Day celebration. The seasoned combat veteran (17 awards and medals) said that he had always been told his mother was dead, but he recently located her at Barbourville, Ky. She posed yesterday with son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in the sergeant's Fort Smith, home. Kentuckians Go To Brussels Today Bonn, Germany (-A group of 40 factory managers, mayors, judges and other leading personalities from Kentucky boarded a Rhine steamer yesterday and rode through some of the river's most picturesque country. The vessel will take them to Coblenz, from where they drive back to nearby Cologne, where they are staying.

Saturday the group visited Bullitt Signs Defy Eradication Effort Posters On Poles Made Issue In County- Judge Vote Campaign Courier-Journal North Central Bureau Shepherdsville, County telephone poles in pear to be a hardy variety cated. John B. Cruise, county maintenance foreman for the State Highway Department, sent out a crew about three weeks ago to remove campaign posters from state right-of-way. Neil Farris Protested Neil Farris, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for county judge, protested that the crew tore down most of his signs while ignoring those of an opponent, County Judge Arson Moore. Cruise, while affirming his political support of Judge Moore, said the crew was instructed to remove all illegally placed signs.

He added, however, that the large signs put up by Farris were most notice- Associate Plan In Nursing To Be Discussed Special to The Courier -Journal Lexington, institutes on the development, progress and curriculum of the associate degree nursing program of the University of Kentucky will be presented Wednesday at UK's community college at Henderson and Thursday at Lexington. The institutes seek to explain the program to hospital administrators, nursing service personnel and other interested persons. Theme of the institutes is "A Challenge in NursEducation and Nursing Service." The Henderson college will graduate its first class under the program this month. Northern Community College at Covington will graduate a class next year, while at Elizabethtown Community College and the Technical Institute on the Lexington campus, students will enroll in the program this fall for the first time. Miss Ria Radzialowski, direcor of nursing service at St.

Mary Hospital, Livonia, will speak at both institutes. coon Alfried Krupp's villa Huegel in Essen and a visit to one of the country's biggest soap and detergent factories will precede a flight to West Berlin Friday. A visit to a big chemical plant near Frankfurt May 18 and to an automobile plant the next day will be followed by lunch in the university town of Heidelberg. The party will leave West Germany May 20. the house where Germany's famous composer, Ludwig Von Beethoven, was born and then went through parliamentary building.

A reception at the U.S. embassy preceded a lunch taken in an castle, the Godesburg, near Bonn. Later the party drove through the picturesque sevenmountain-area and visited Hotel Petersberg, where Queen Elizabeth will be staying when she' visits Bonn May 18. The hotel overlooks a wide section of the Rhine River. Today the party will leave for Brussels to spend the day studying the Common Market.

On Tuesday it will drive to the industrial Ruhr Valley and will be the guest Wednesday of pharmaceutical plant in Leverkusen and an industrial concern in Duesburg. Lunch at German steel ty- Hometown, Kentucky Ferrill's Buffalo Renews Ambition In 1940, Ferrill's sales came to $1,250,000. He was the subject that year of a Saturday Evening Post article, entitled "Big Frog, Little Pond," by Jesse Rainsford Sprague, a writer who specialized in business stories. Destroyed By Fire Two years after Ferrill died, his wholesale-grocery business was destroyed by fire. Since then, many of the other Ferrill interests have been sold.

Jimmy Ferrill, the youngest of Ferrill's three sons and COfounder of the grocery operation, continues to run a building-supplies firm at the edge of town. He said the grocery business was not rebuilt because chain stores have nearly wiped out the "mom and pop grocery stores" that made it profitable. Another vestige of the Ferrill enterprises is the First National Bank of Buffalo. Donohue Ferrill, the eldest son of E. S.

Ferrill, became president of the bank last year upon the death of his brother W. L. Ferrill. Donohue Ferrill lives in Hodgenville, and the day-to-day business of the bank is conducted by its pleasant, white-haired cashier, Miss Mary Lela Parish. Miss Parish has been working at the bank since she was graduated from the old Buffalo High School in 1919.

She recalled that the high school LOUISVILLE Anderson Man Dies In Wreck Lexington Girl Killed signs that bloom on Bullitt primary-election season apthat cannot easily be eradi- able and had inspired the removal campaign. At any rate, Cruise said, he would have the rest of the signs taken down. agAskedast about week, the Cruise matter said he sent the crew back out the day after Farris issued his complaint. "We took down as many (political signs) as we could see," he said, "but they put a lot more up again." He singled out Farris as the worst offender. A reporter riding through Bullitt County last week saw a number of campaign advertisements, including about 20 of Moore's and two of Farris' signs, telephone posters, poles.

Several other Farris signs appeared to be on privale, property. further confuse the matter, Cruise said, it had been determined that some of the sign-bearing telephone poles were not on state right-of-way either. Reformatory Inmate Flees Work Detail LaGrange, Ky. (P) A London man convicted in 1963 of aiding and abetting in the slaying of a state trooper escaped yesterday from the State Reformatory near here. Prison officials said James Edward Roark, 35, walked away from a work detail at the reformatory farm.

Roark was sentenced to 21 years in prison in November 1963 after being convicted in with the May 20, connection, of State Trooper James Tevis. Jackson Post Office Repair Bids Sought Chicago (UPI) The General Services Administration yesterday asked bids on elevator repairs at the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, Jackson, Ky. The work will include installation of a new elevator hoistway and passenger elevator. Cost was estimated at between $25,000 and $35,000.

Bids will be accepted until June 1, 1965. Siren Test Tuesday The Louisville and Jefferson County Civil Defense office will test its emergency sirens at noon Tuesday. More Kentucky News Page 8, Section 2 had been established a few years earlier to replace East Lynn College as the educational and social center of the community. East Lynn was a private boarding school erected in 1879 on a hill overlooking the town. Buffalo High School occupied the same site until it was absorbed eight years, ago by LaRue County High School near Hogdenville.

Only a grade school survives on the hill, with the old frame "college" building standing in disuse on the grounds. Insight into boarding school-and the town as it was at the turn of the century-can be found in a well preserved copy of East Lynn's "annual announcement" for 1897-98. The booklet catalogued studies ranging from "spelling, reading, penmanship, and arithmetic" to "philosophic and classics courses." Never Had Railroad To attract students, the announcement advertised that Buffalo was a "prohibition town" and "one of the most quiet, moral, and religious towns in Kentucky." It proclaimed also that "Buffalo is celebrated for its excellent mineral water," an asset that apparently was lost some years ago when the town well was plowed under in a road-widening project. By 1910, according to Mrs. Elliott's account, Buffalo had a number of enterprises that are no longer in existence.

In addition to the Ferrill businesses, these included a printing office, a hotel, a tobacco warehouse, and a concretebrick factory. The In Crash From AP and Special Dispatches 20 old Anderson County man, Year, Lexington girl, and a Tennessee truck driver were killed yesterday in Kentucky traffic. In addition, a Louisvillian died of injuries received in April. The weekend toll was five. Barbara Mattingly, 16, died about hours after the car in which she was riding a Staff Photo Honors At Lindsey Wilson a OPENING Dr.

John B. Horton, president of Lindsey Wilson College, and Miss Elva Goodhugh, retired head of the school's science department, stand outside the $250,000 science building named in her honor. The Columbia High School will open the building formally Thursday during its eighth annual Founders Day program. The banquet speaker will be Dr. C.

Ralph Arthur, president of Ferrum College, Ferrum, Va. Wish Needs Work, UK Grads Told Special Lexington, Ky. A "beggars on horseback" out willingness or work Wiley A. Welsh, president, calaureate sermon for The baccalaureate vesper service was held at Memorial Coliseum for the 1,792 degree candidates for whom commencement exercises will be held today. Dr.

Welsh said that if one is to wish he needs to examine his wish to see if it is wise or foolish. "To wish for health after having dissipated it with a lifetime of intemperate living is to have an unreasonable wish." But, he added, even a wise wish is not enough for the wisher must also have "sturdy and strong and irresistible and constant and undeniable" will to carry it out. "Whatever you wish for must be wise and must be willed and then must be worked for to be achieved." he said. Areas In Germany Battered By Gales Frankfurt (P)-Gales with gusts up to hurricane strength whipped large part of Germany yesterday, claiming several lives and causing widespread damage. Smaller vessels scurried to safety of harbors after storm warnings were issued for the North Sea and Baltic coasts.

tree on Tate's Creek Pike, eight miles south of Lexington. John Raymond Cornish, Lawrenceburg Route 1, was killed about 12:30 a.m. when car ran off Puncheon Creek Road about 12 miles southwest of Lawrenceburg. State police said the car, driven by Johnny Ellis, 18, Sinai, Anderson County, sideswiped a tree, then uprooted another tree. Was Farm Laborer Cornish's throat was cut.

He was a farm laborer, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Cornish, Lawrenceburg Route The funeral will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Huddleston Sparrow Funeral Home, Lawrenceburg; burial, Vernon Cemetery, Shelby County. William C.

Erwin, 60, of Chattanooga, was killed yesterday when the tractorU. S. Wast McCreary County trailer the driving and overturned 9.3 miles south of Whitley City, near the Tennessee line. Ed Baker, 74, died in a Louisville hospital of injuries received April 25 in a two collision on U. S.

31-W near West Point. The other weekend deaths were reported earlier. to The Courier-Journal tendency in modern life to be to wish indiscriminately with- was deplored yesterday by Rev. College of the Bible, in a bacUniversity of Kentucky graduates. TVA Reports Record Income For Nine Months Special to The Courier -Journal Knoxville, Tenn.

power revenues of $222.3 million during the first nine months of fiscal million over the same period a year ago--were announced yesterday by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The agency said sales to municipal and cooperative systems increased 12 per cent and sales to industries which TVA serves directly also rose 12 per cent. Sales to federal agencies declined 20 per cent. Net income for the nine months was $45.4 million, up $2.7 million over last year. Net power proceeds for the 12 months which ended March 31 were $126.2 million compared with $113.3 million for the preceding 12 months period an increase of 11 per cent.

14 Indicted On Charges Of Gambling Courier-Journal West Kentucky Bureau Paducah, 12-month investigation here has led to the indictment of 14 men on charges of gambling or permitting gambling on their premises. Named in the true bills were Finley Peck, Charles (Fats) Hutcherson, Clif Shemwell, Carney Davenport, Wilson McManus, Will Wilson, William Tolbert, Frank Harper, Willy E. Williams, Paul Cornwell, Vance (Rooster) Crump, Maurice (Red) Levin, Oscar Scarborough, and Milfred Smith. All were released on bonds. Commonwealth's Atty.

Albert Jones, who joined police in the investigation, said authorities were aided by information furnished by Joe Benton Carter, 39, who has been indicted on a murder charge in the fatal beating of Otis Palmer near here March 12. By PHIL NORMAN Courier -Journal North Central Bureau Buffalo, Ky. This LaRue County community of about 500 persons is identified to a remarkable degree with the story of one man's success. The man was E. S.

Ferrill, who started with $410 and built an improbable group of wholesale and retail businsses that occupied most of Buffalo's main street and attracted national attention. Since Ferrill died about 20 years ago, the town has lapsed into the serenity to be expected of a small, rural community. There are perhaps 20 stores and other retail establishments, but most of the wholesale business is gone. Still Bears Inscription In the middle of the town's little core of commercial buildings is one in which Ferrill started "his first business, a drugstore, and in which he kept his office. The building still inscription, S.

Ferrill, 1883," but it now houses a pool hall. Signs of renewed ambition are evident in Buffalo, however. Streets are clogged by heavy equipment being used to install the town's first water system. Gas service was extended to the community two years ago, and an industrialdevelopment committee has been formed. A proponent of the new activity is Dr.

John V. Davis, a chiropractor who is head of the water commission and a member of the industrialdevelopment group. "It was Ferrill's-ville for a long time here," he observed, "and we're trying to make a comeback." Buffalo is strung out along THE LATE E. S. FERRILL seems contemplative in this photograph taken some 25 years ago in his drugstore office in Buffalo.

KY 61, in a section about 60 miles south of Louisville, seven miles from Hodgenville, and three miles from Abraham Lincoln National Historic Site. It is surrounded by rolling countryside chiefly for tobacco and dairy farming. Started With Salt Mrs. Clint Elliott, a student of LaRue County history, says the town was founded about 1850 when James Creal built house and a grist mill on the banks of the North Fork of the Nolin River. Soon the town had three stores, one of which was purchased by E.

S. Staff Photo BUFFALO'S MAIN STREET has changed little since Ferrill used this row of buildings as a center for his once-thriving businesses. Ferrill's name is embossed Ferrill. then about 20, with money he had earned running his father's nearby farm. Ferrill started his wholesale operations by buying barrels of salt in Louisville and selling them to general stores around the county.

At the peak of his success, he ran the drugstore, a hardware store, and a bank in adjoining buildings on the main street. On the other side of the street was his booming wholesale-grocery business. He also had a lumber yard and a stove factory. He dealt in buggies, farm implements, fertilizer and numerous other commodities. on the building (second town, which thrived in the days of the horse and wagon, has never had a railroad.

Nonetheless, Buffalo is holding its own. It has, in fact, gained some 100 residents since 1940. Most of townspeople are retired farmers or commuters to such places as Ft. Knox and Elizabethtown. the dominating influence E.

S. of Ferrill, Buffalo has a tradition of doing without formal town government. Joe Ragsdale, the chief of the volunteer fire de- from right) where he had partment, recalled that the town had a mayor and a council about 20 years ago. "Some liked it, and some didn't," he cided to quit related, and the deofficers, time. Lions Club Active Ragsdale noted that the Lions Club has been active in community affairs, and the fire department has undertaken such tasks as collecting donations to pay the town's street light bills.

When LaRue County Water- his drugstore and office. District No. 1 prepared to extend water lines from Hodgenville, it found that it needed permission from Buffalo of. ficials. Since there were no officials, water chairman Davis said, the district had to initiate court action to have the town "unincorporated." Buffalo's appearance will be changed this summer when Buffalo Baptist Church builds a $125,000, colonial-style redbrick church to replace the white frame structure that now rises in the middle of town..