The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 3

THE COURIER-JOURNAL LOUISVILLE, KY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 23. 1990. KENTUCKY PROSECUTOR SAYS VERDICT SHOULD WARN ADDICTS Jury convicts woman of abusing fetus by taking drugs during pregnancy let -f Associated Press CATLETTSBURG, Ky. An Eastern Kentucky woman was convicted yesterday of abusing ber fetus by taking drugs during pregnancy.

The Boyd Circuit Court jury deliberated 35 minutes before finding Connie Welch O'Neal, 33, of Flatwoods, guilty of second-degree criminal abuse of her son, who is now nearly 6 months old. A prosecutor said he thought it was the first case in Kentucky of drug-related pre penalty for all three crimes and the sentences are to be served consecutively. Her lawyer said the jury would have no option but to recommend at least some prison time. The defendant, who had been free on bond, was taken to the Boyd County Jail after the verdict She was arrested Nov. 7 on the possession charge.

The abuse charge was added in January, about a See WOMAN PAGE 3, col. 5, this section natal child abuse. Jurors also convicted O'Neal of possession of a controlled substance, the narcotic pain reliever oxycodone, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Judge Charles Sinnette asked the jury to return this morning for the sentencing phase of the trial. Jury selection for the trial began Monday.

O'Neal could be sentenced to 11 years in prison five for drug possession, five for child abuse and one for possession of drug paraphernalia If she gets the maximum ASSOCIATED PRESS Connie Welch O'Neal Tavern crowd, told to duck, saw twister roar through By JAY BLANTON Staff Writer RICHMOND, Ky. As a tornado lurched across Big Hill Avenue toward Bananas Tav era Monday evening, Tom Mattingly, the tavern's assistant manager, warned the more than 20 people in the tavern. "I saw it coming and I turned around and said, 'Get down, it's a (and) they-ducked," Mattingly said. "And I ran in back and jumped In the back I looked back and the kitchen was gone." No one was seriously hurt but the tornado left its mark. The roof and back of the tavern were-ripped off, a white Chevette in the parking lot was crushed, other cars were tossed about, and debris was scattered for several yards in back of the tavern.

Heavy concrete blocks lay strewn on the pavement on one side of the building. In the exposed back of the bar stood liquor bottles, untouched by the tornado but surrounded by debris. The roof of an adjoining liquor store, Mr. B's, had partially collapsed, exposing several steel beams and girders. Yesterday, people surveyed the damage to the building and tried to assess how and when the rebuilding would be done.

Although it will be a few days before official tallies are completed, the tornado probably caused $300,000 to $500,000 worth of damage to the building, said Don Whitaker, a Lexington-based insurance adjuster evaluating the damage at Bananas. On both sides of the tavern and liquor store were buildings untouched by the storm, illustrating the randomness of the tornado's path. Nearly everyone who saw the damage was amazed that there were no serious injuries. "I'm just in awe of this whole thing, that anyone escaped," said Jo Helen Cloys, who was at Bananas when the tornado hit Cloys, the director of community relations at nearby Pattie A. Clay Hospital, said she was in a booth in the back of the tavern when the tornado hit One man at the tavern, Richard Tolliver, suffered cuts and scrapes, the most serious injury there.

He was treated at Clay Hospital and released. Brushes with destruction occurred throughout Central Kentucky Monday night See CROWD PAGE 3, col. 3, this section i 3 zt A 'i jziJLsr" Officials probe engine, load in Frankfort plane crash From Staff and AP Dispatches FRANKFORT, Ky. Federal officials investigat-ing an airplane crash that killed six people on Mon-, day were focusing yesterday on the plane's engine and the load it was carrying when it crashed moments after takeoff. Scott Strickland, an Investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board in Atlanta, led a three-person team that picked through the wreckage of the single-engine plane, which burst into flames after plunging to earth near the end of a runway at Capital City Airport.

Witnesses said the plane, which was carrying its maximum load of six passengers Monday, appeared to be struggling to gain altitude. Interest in the engine was prompted by reports from witnesses, Strickland said, including Hack Lind-sey, the director of the state Division of Air Transport. Lindsey, who was watching from his airport office, said he heard a strange noise from the plane just before it crashed. Another witness, Dewayne Childress, said he heard the engine roar and then quit just before crash. Strickland said an initial check turned up nothing conclusive.

"At this point, we found no evidence of catastrophic engine malfunction," Strickland said. Federal Aviation Administration records showed the plane was a 1976 Piper owned by two Worthing-ton, Ohio, men. One of them, Donald Uldricks, declined to comment on the crash yesterday. Franklin County Coroner Mike Harrod identified the pilot yesterday as Vernon Davidson, 51, of Columbus, Ohio. According to FAA records, he was licensed to fly multi-engine commercial airliners as well as smaller, single-engine planes.

Francis Smith, chairman of Burgess Niple a Columbus, Ohio, engineering firm that had four employees on the plane, said that Davidson had flown planes for the company for several years and that there had never been any problems with his work. Frank Lowery, a Wortbiagton, Ohio, man who frequently leases the plane and who flew it last week, told the Columbus Dispatch it was a solid craft. "It was in excellent shape," Lowery said. "It was See PROBE PAGE 3, col. 3, this section ASSOCIATED PRESS GRADUATION TRIBULATION: Five-year-old Robert Gonzales didn't appear to appreciate Frances Esche's adjustment of his cap as he and other graduates of the Head Start program in Evansville, dressed for yesterday's commencement Esche serves as a "foster grandmother" in the program.

KEA to fight ban on political activity PRIMARY '90 Labor helps Perkins raise more money than Cecil tion in and contributions to school-board campaigns. Allen said the KEA board also took the position that seniority within a school building should determine who will be transferred under the school-reform law's limited ban on employment of a principal's relative in the principal's school. The KEA urges that if a principal's spouse had more seniority at the school than the principal, the principal should be the one transferred, Allen said. He See KEA PAGE 3, col. 5, this section By MICHAEL JENNINGS Staff Writer FRANKFORT, Ky.

The Kentucky Education Association has decided to file a court challenge to one of the most controversial parts of the state's new public education law: a ban on school-employee participation in school board campaigns. KEA President David Allen said the organization's board of directors voted unanimously last Saturday to try to get the ban declared unconstitutional. The KEA claims the ban violates the free-speech guarantee in the Bill of Rights. Allen said the board endorsed a rec ommendation by attorney John Frith Stewart to "proceed with all haste in seeking that the law be declared unconstitutional" as limiting political freedom. Allen said that the first step would be to ask a court to issue a declaratory judgment and that it would be up to Stewart to choose an appropriate court Stewart, of Louisville, declined to comment yesterday.

The Task Force on Education Reform, which proposed the ban, justified it as a way of shielding school affairs from undue political influence. The KEA endorsed most of the reform plan, but has strongly protested its limits on participa- A honey of a job Rockcastle County man is struggling to keep alive bee families dating to 1882 MOUNT VERNON, Ky. A Rockcastle County beekeeper is hoping he is not the last guardian of two old families of honeybees that came through the Cumberland Gap with his ancestors in 1882. Matt Powell 60, says his forebears brought "two little log hives of bees" to the Crooked Creek section of Rockcastle County in a wagon train from Virginia. "They've always been called the big red bees and the little impossible, he said, because no documented records exist, and many of the handed-down stories have been lost to time.

Now, Powell is fearful that the bees are in danger of extinction. A tracheal mite that blocks the breathing tubes of honeybees has infested many of his hives and has killed a large number of bees. Bee expert Dr. Thomas Webster of Kentucky State University says the mite, which entered By MIKE BROWN Staff Writer WASHINGTON Rep. Chris Perkins has continued to raise and spend more money than Democratic primary challenger Jerry Cecil, thanks to contributions from organized labor.

Perkins, a member of the Education and Labor Committee and a strong labor supporter, reported getting $18,350 from union-sponsored political action committees in the 5 54 weeks that ended May 9. That was 87 percent of all the PAC money Perkins got in the reporting period, and, as in the past, PAC money was Perkins' main source of campaign funds; individuals gave less than one-fifth of his total. The mandatory campaign-finance report: filed by Perkins and Cecil for April 1 through May 9 are the last ones due before next Tuesday's Democratic primary. Here is a brief look at the financial condl tion of the two candidates: During the period, Perkins raised $26,005 and spent $19,119, ending May with $28,137 in his treasury. Of total contrl butions, $21,000 came from PACs and $5,001 from individuals.

The report shows that Perkins paid $2,641 off a loan he took out during his 1988 cam paign, leaving $42,923 still owed on the debt For the year, the Perkins campaign haj raised $75,955 and spent $48,358. Cecil, a retired military officer makinj his first bid for office, raised $6,910 anc spent $5,279 in the reporting period, leaving his campaign with $4,847 in the kitty as May 9. The contributions include from Ashland Oil's PAC For the year Cecil has raised $11,355 am spent $6,507. The campaign owes him $4,901 he spent out of his own pocket It is unusual for a large Kentucky corpo See LABOF PAGE the United States in 1984 from Mexico and was discovered in Ken BYRON CRAWFORD black ones," Powell explained. "Between the Owenses and the Hales, the Aliens and the Vanzants, who were all together in the wagon train and who spread all up and down Crooked Creek, tucky at Elizabethtown in January 1989, is taking a heavy toll on honeybees all over the United States and Can ada.

"Many states are claiming perhaps 50 'yr '''A mikiimjAi those bees stayed in that country until just a few years ago." percent losses," Webster said. "There is a treatment for it menthol, the same The old beekeepers finally died, and young people either moved away to the thing that is used in cough drops and ciga- rettes. The vapors kill the mites." cities or lost interest in bees. Many of Honey is not damaged by the mites. Powell, who now maintains only about 40 hives, worries that even if the mite does not destroy his precious family of bees descended from frontier stock, a lack of Interest in beekeeping among young people in his area will.

"I guess I'm going to drop mine down to just a few little hives to play with," Powell said. "Of course, I intend to keep them till I die, and I guess that'll wind up the long history of these bees." those whose bees had been in their families since the original settlers arrived either sold or gave their hives to Powell. "I wound up with the last ones that my great uncles and distant cousins had, from one end of Crooked Creek to the other, and I've kept most of those bees up to 150 or 160 hives at one time," Powell said. "Apparently they didn't get mixed with anything else, and they did real well." William Eaton of Winchester, a retired Kentucky Department of Agriculture bee specialist, examined the so-called "big red bees" a few years ago and decided that, in all his years of working with honeybees, he had never seen any like them. Tracing their lineage might be next to Corrections clarifications Because of a reporter's error, the wronj high school was listed for professional goli er Russ Cochran yesterday.

He played fo the Paducah St Mary's team. Matt Powell Jr. is dedicated to maintaining the history of his bees. STAFF PHOTO BY BYRON CRAWFORD.