The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 13

7 Regional news Marketplace MM! Orion announces it's likely to sell WAVE radio, TV The Courier-Journal, Friday morning, April 4, 1980 ijf jf jr Mi i i v.i, By TOM DORSEY Courter-Journal TV A Radio Critic "There's no waiting line at the Xerox machine to copy resumes," one WAVE employee said with a laugh yesterday. His attempt at humor came in the wake of the stunning announcement that the Norton family is putting WAVE radio and TV and two other radio and four other TV stations on the auction block. The mood at the Louisville station ranges from quiet nervousness to a mood of "que sera, sera whatever will be, will be." "There's no panic in the halls" at WAVE, one veteran employee said. "There's naturally a lot of concern. But there's really no one to blame." If there are villains in this scenario it's the Internal Revenue Service and inheritance taxes.

It's a delicate subject, but as one department head put it, "The lady is 71 years old and she's mortal." The woman in question is Mrs. George W. Norton. She owns about half of the company stockWhat she doesn't own is held by her daughter, Mary Norton Shands, who is the corporation's board chairman. The family broadcasting group was founded by her father in 1933, when he put WAVE radio on the air.

Over the years the business grew into a multicity broadcasting group known as Orion Inc. In addition to WAVE, the corporation owns radio and TV stations in Evansville, Green Bay, Cedar Rapids Iowa, and Es-cabana, Mich. The family is facing the fact that, as things stand, the corporation would find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to pay the inheritance taxes when Mrs. Norton dies. "Huge" is the word Orion president T.

Ballard Morton Jr. uses to describe the amount of those taxes. So what to do? "They did the only thing they could," said one executive. "They decided to explore the option of selling out to pay Uncle Sam." Morton sees it more as a definite plan than a possibility. "I can't say for sure that we'll sell or merge," he said, "but that's the course we're on now." That course has led the family to hire Goldman Sachs and a New York investment firm, to offer the stations for sale or merger.

Morton wouldn't say whether a sale or merger is preferred. "That involves too many complicated tax questions," he said. Questions and rumors about the company's status had started popping up around WAVE'S water coolers. So Wednesday, the corporation put out a memo telling employees what was up and held briefings at which questions were solicited. "I'd say they (the employees) were more surprised than anything," Morton said.

The company tried to soothe wor- See WAVE PAGE 2, col. 4, this section Staff Phot by barbara Montgomery The Cardinals' players from Georgia received a. handshake from from left, Derek Smith, Wiley Brown and Daryl Cleveland. Carter President Carter at yesterday's White House ceremonies. They are, said the players must have eaten "a lot of peanuts in Georgia." Jjt A Cardinal day at the lllSiiilptISP nation's ca mtall: Verbal warning to bars is all Higgins will seek The University of Louisville's NCAA championship basketball team made the rounds in Washington, D.C., yesterday.

Besides i meeting with President Carter at the White House, the Cardinals "i also visited the Senate, lunched in the Capitol Building with mem- bers of Kentucky's congressional delegation, and toured part of the Smithsonian Institution. The team members, their coaches and trainers, and school officials were the best-dressed tourists in town. Most wore three-piece suits and ties. The team including three players from Georgia, Wiley Brown, Derek Smith, and Darja Cleveland presented Carter with an autographed basketball and 3 i era Staff Mota-by KoMi William The champions posed for a team portrait near the Capitol Building yesterday, a red T-shirt proclaiming of as the 1980 champions. ittiiiilil ISPijvi i ilBlllp till iillilp Hip mmm iiipii prostitution," said Alec Van Ryan, Stans-bury's press secretary.

Yesterday Higgins released statistics showing there were four prostitution arrests recently at two of the clubs he closed two at the Club 68, 2819 Seventh Street Road, on Feb. 20; and two at the Harem House Lounge, 2927 Seventh Street Road, on Feb. 23. The chief has said he received reports from his own officers, as well as a letter from County Police Chief Edgar G. Helm, indicating prostitution and other illicit sexual activity were flourishing at a number of locations In the city.

"I intended to get their attention," Higgins said of his raids. City police, the statistics showed, made another seven prostitution arrests in the past year at nightspots in the Seventh Street Road vicinity, including Gub 68, Harem House and the Green Light Stag Bar, 3503 Seventh Street Road, which Higgins also closed. In the same period, city vice officers visited clubs in the area at least 10 times without making arrests, said Carl Yates, a city police spokesman. The results of a computer-aided search of records detailing all arrests and investigations of criminal activity in the area will be released today, Yates said. Of the five clubs the chief visited, three have cases pending before the city ABC office, Johns said.

Gub 68 and the Harem House, he said, were cited in connection with the February prostitution arrests, and the Doll House, 2515 Seventh Street Road, was cited earlier in the year for allegedly hiring underage employees. 4. J1 ml By ROBERT T. GARRETT Cwrtor-JtwiMl Stall Writer Louisville Police Chief Jon J. Higgins wanted to throw the book at three South End nightclubs he visited this week, but had to content himself yesterday with lobbing a lot of verbiage at them.

Higgins asked the city Alcoholic Beverage Control office to caution owners of the three clubs that he shut down Tuesday night that "known prostitutes" were frequenting their premises. But Higgins conceded that any penalty harsher than a verbal warning would be difficult to obtain. He closed the three clubs during a two-hour Inspection of five lounges In the Derby City Strip area. Higgins, who said he did not witness nude dancing or illicit sexual activity at the clubs, stopped short of asking ABC officials to levy fines or suspend the clubs' liquor licenses. He Instead urged city ABC administrator James R.

"Buddy" Johns to summon the owners to a meeting and to give them a "clear warning" that they should not allow "persons of 111 repute" to frequent their establishments. Johns, who toured the nightspot area last night and found "things were quiet," said he did not want to prejudge the cases against the three clubs. But he also said he would "continue what he (Higgins) had started and try to clean up that prostitution if It's humanly possible." Higgins' closing of the nightspots Tuesday night raised questions about the legality of his action and spawned allegations about his personal conduct The city legal department yesterday said researchers could find "no express power by ordinance or statute to allow the closing of the clubs." However, Mayor William B. Stans-bury, defending his appointee's actions, issued a statement saying Higgins "exercised his discretion" as the city official whose duty is to "protect the health, safety and morals of the city of Louisville." Higgins closed the nightclubs "In order to prevent crime," Stansbury said. The mayor "fully supports" the chief In "any moves that can be made to fight iiillllli nv lip 0 Ay Beg your pardon Because of a reporter's error, the "Sholom" in Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom was misspelled in an article about Passover in Wednesday's Staff MMta by tcottn William A tired Darrell Griffith, center, and other team members relaxed yesterday while they toured Washington after leaving the White 1 Because of a reporting error, the name of Frank Leezer, who was honored for his role in apprehending a would-be rapist, was misspelled in a story in yesterday's Courier-Journal.

ittlJ In the doll-drums? Moreland? Doctor Judy to the rescue Byron Crawford A 1 MORELAND, Ky. Judy Baker never remembers playing with dolls much as a child. Judy one of 10 children born to Wolford Francis St Amour, a Chippewa Indian who worked as a fishing guide in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Gladys Froeliegh, a German mother guesses there just. weren't that many dolls around. Then, as a student at Michigan State University, while studying art and design, she got Interested in costuming older dolls.

Her interest in design and psychology ultimately led her Into a rather unusual career: designing clothes for wealthy overweight women. "It is not a very easy profession," clothes for real people and started a doll hospital. She and her husband, Or-vllle, who spent much of his childhood in Kentucky, were living in Sarasota, at the time. When they moved to Moreland, in Lincoln County, less than a year ago, Judy brought her equipment with her and put a sign in their front yard beside Highway 127 that says "Doll Doctor." The difference between a doll hospital and a doll doctor, the Bakers explain, is the same as the difference between a surgeon and a general practitioner. Her patients range from fine china dolls, 200 years old, to those found in last year's Christmas stockings.

Some are brought in wrapped in blankets, as if they were real. Whatever their ailment, Judy can usually fix it "I always give an estimate before I start the work," she says, "and some I refuse to take usually because they're too costly." Even so, some doll owners gladly agree to pay several times what the doll is worth just to have it repaired. One of Judy's patients is a 100-year-old china doll whose head and shoulders were broken into 12 pieces when a granddaughter sailed her down grandma's stairway. The bill for her "treatment" will be about $50. tion.

There are several Indian dolls, one of which reminds her of her grandmother, a doll made of oil cloth that was used to teach Red Cross nurses how to handle a baby back during the war, a doll made of rawhide pressed into a mold, which Judy says is "the ugliest doll I've ever seen" i. but I worth about $1,000, and shelves full of others. About modern-day dolls, Judy, has a grim assessment. "They're terrible," she says. "They're made -to be played with a few days and broken." But I've a hunch she'd ratheh be fixing new-fangled dolls than trying to fit a size 56 woman into a size 14 dress.

ntt, Tho Courltr-Journal But Dr. Judy is capable of far more difficult surgery. In her kitchen sits a small custom-made kiln In which porcelain figures are often baked after repairs. On the shelves in her emergency room are glazes, epoxy bonds, china paints, and a host of other tools and materials with which she can almost rebuild a doll If need be. She is a member of the Doll Artisan Guild, whose publications keep her up to date on the latest advances in doll repair and collecting.

She even makes and outfits her own porcelain dolls for sale. Judy has a rather Impressive collec Courier-Journal columnist says Judy, who is overweight herself, "trying to fit a woman who wears a size 56, when she Insists she only wears a size 14." Judy finally gave up trying to design.