The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 3

TIIF. WilWElt-JOl RVl. fKIDW, SFI'TKMIUK 2. I-C8 Actions of former official questioned ft mr-" for mining equipment, at the Childers while the findings were being presented to a local grand jury, Blair made a $100 -f li i Shelby Bacon, a member of Mayor William Stansbury's staff, greeted Muhammad Ali when he arrived at Standiford Field yesterday. Louisville lets Ali knoiv it's in his corner already leasing trucks for hauling and shouldn't have needed L's.

Two Letcher County private citizens Tom Lewis and Corbett Hurt Jr. acknowledged that gravel that was paid for by the county was placed on their personal property. When the private roads leading to their homes and to a few others needed repair last November, Lewis and Hurt said, they called Blair's office for help and received authorization to bill the county. Records of the Whitesburg quarry of the State Contracting Stone Co. indicate Lewis trucked in five loads, costing about $200.

Hurt got one load for about $93. Neither saw anything wrong with the practice, and Lewis, a member of the Letcher County school board, strenuously defended it. "If you got a load of gravel on your road, I wouldn't give a damn," he said. "All these judges do stuff like that. They have to to get people to vote for 'em.

"I've paid taxes all my life, and this is the first damn time I ever got anything. I'm retired, and I didn't have the damn money. I wouldn't ask for no help if I had the damn money," he added. A county garage employee apparently used a county-owned trailer late last year to transport equipment belonging to Coal from Matewan, W. to Harlan County in Kentucky, according to two informed sources.

The sources said the employee, John L. Collins, made the trip on county time, but Collins contends he was paid by Coal. (John Collins is not related to County Judge-Executive Collins.) Bill Rowley, a coal miner who then worked for Coal at Matewan, said he drove the mining machinery onto the trailer and noticed that it bore a county seal. Wnile denying that he made the trip on county time, Collins characterized the matter as "a politics thing" and refused to say whether the trailer belonged to the county. BHiL Coal's business got mixed up with the county's again last November when company employee Carlos Lewis charged more than $2,100 worth of supplies to the county, including tires Man die in crash in Graon Count A 71-year-old man was fatally injured at noon yesterday when his car ran off KY 185 in Grayson County and struck a tree, according to state police at Eliza-bethtown.

Boss Geary, believed to be of Louisville, died of a broken neck and head injuries, according to Grayson County Coroner Simpson Wilson. Police said the accident occurred about two miles south of Caneyville. The body was taken to the Dermitt Funeral Home in Leltchfield. Tire Co. near Whitesburg, according to Don Childers, owner of the tire com pany.

Ten weeks later after two state field auditors had begun poring over records of the last year of Blair's administration Blair gave the tire company a check for $2,129, saying had mishandled some bills, Childers said. Childers said Blair directed that it be credited to the county's account. "He said he thought that during the payment of some bills, something wasn't handled right," Childers said. "But when he gave us the check, he didn't tell us what he was paying us back for." No questions were asked last year about the charging of the merchandise to the county, Childers said, "because people like the county judge, the mayor and the circuit judge are the last people you'd question about something like that." Lewis said he picked up tires for Coal at Childers' store several times and didn't recall specifics of any transactions. On Dec.

30, 1977, Blair's last working day in office, paid Letcher County $1,126.82 for "supplies," according to county financial records. Why paid the county puzzles even Lonnie Lewis and Hugh Holbrook, Blair's partners in the company at the time. Lewis, who said he is in the process of buying Blair out, said he had no idea what the payment was for. Holbrook said that he asked Blair about the transaction and that Blair replied, "I took care of it." "That's all I know," Holbrook said. "But never got any equipment from the county as far as I know." Regardless of the reason for the payment, two state officials said it almost certainly shouldn't have been made.

"It wouldn't be proper for his (Blair's) company to do business with the county," said Robert Goodwin, the director of county audits for the state auditor's office. Goodwin said he thought the transaction probably was illegal as well as improper. But Stanley Stratford, the Department for Local Government's legal counsel, said he is not sure about that because the state's conflict-of-interest statute may not apply to local officials. Nevertheless, Stratford agreed with Goodwin that it was improper for Coal to do business with the county while Blair was in office, regardless of whether it was illegal. "Any time you're on two ends of the deal, you can't do justice to both," Stratford said.

"The buyer is trying to buy as low as possible, and the seller is trying to sell as high as possible." In May of this year, while the state's audit was drawing to a close and contribution to state Auditor George L. Atkins. Atkins, a Democrat, is running for governor. Goodwin said he was not aware that Blair had contributed to Atkins' campaign, and he said that neither he nor the two field auditors had received any hint that they should proceed differently because of it. Atkins, whose campaign treasurer confirmed that the money was received, said he did not recall the contribution.

But he said he saw nothing wrong with it, because of the relatively small amount of money involved and because it did not affect the audit. "It probably was given to someone who didn't even know we were auditing the county," Atkins said. "And if there was a thought of prejudicing our work it wasn't successful," Atkins said, "because we went to the grand jury with our report." He added, however, that he did not think the contribution constituted an attempt by Blair to influence the audit. The May grand jury examined county finances but did not vote on an indictment against Blair. Commonwealth's Attorney Peyton Reynolds said he recommended that the jury not vote because it had not heard all the evidence.

The case was then considered in August by a second grand jury, which took testimony from 22 witnesses over several days before voting not to indict. "There was a lot of evidence," Reynolds said. "I don't know why there were no indictments. "I felt bad, to be honest with you. I sort of blamed myself at first, but then I decided that I had done the best I could." Several members of the August grand jury were asked by The Courier-Journal for their opinions of the evidence against Blair, and two who agreed to speak publicly provided some insights into why the panel exonerated the former county judge.

"I just couldn't make head nor tail out of it," said Sherman Rose, a retired coal miner. "We just couldn't agree on the evidence, and you have to have proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that a man's guilty before you indict him." That, however, is not the legal standard that must be met by a grand jury, and Reynolds said the panel was told "a dozen times" that it needed only to find "probable cause" for an indictment not absolute proof of guilt. Luther Meade, a coal operator and a Democrat, expressed a different reason for voting against an indictment. "There's wrongdoing on both sides, Democrat and Republican," he said. "They're all rotten, and if you don't indict 'em all, you don't indict nobody.

"Why hang one and let the others go free?" Continued from Page One year term that began in 1974. He did not run for re-election last year. Here is a closer look at The Courier-Journal's findings: Employees of Coal charged Letcher County for more than $5,700 worth of gravel about 1,350 tons in the last three months of 1977, according to the records of State Contracting Stone Co. of Whitesburg, where the gravel was bought. The three employees who hauled the gravel denied that any of it went to Coal or to private individuals.

Lonnie Lewis, his son Carlos and Hugh Holbrook (who is no longer connected with L) said they picked up the gravel because county roads needed repairs. They were not paid by the county for the hauling. But Collins Is skeptical that Blair's company would donate the use of its trucks for dozens of gravel runs, noting that those trucks cost $10 to $20 an hour. Besides, he said, the county was Treatment of trusty investigated Continued from Page One kircher for permission to question Fulton and 15 other inmates. O'Rourke was told that Fulton had been transferred to the Kentucky State Reformatory near La Grange early in the week.

A spokesman in the committee's office said O'Rourke had planned to visit the prison yesterday "about the Fulton matter" but did not. O'Rourke was not available for comment yesterday. A state police officer, who asked not to be quoted by name because the investigation is in progress, said there were reports, mainly from prisoners at the maximum-security institution in Lyon County, that Fulton had been "spreadeagled and had his head battered against a wall" after being subdued by Bordenkircher and taken to the main prison. "You can put that to rest. I know that is not so," he said.

He said Fulton, who was serving 37 years for two convictions for armed robbery and escape, had a cut on his forehead and scratches on his arm. Bordenkircher also suffered scratches in the struggle in which he said he disarmed the man who was a trusty working at the warden's residence. Bordenkircher said it was reported to him that Fulton fell on some steps as he was being taken to prison. However, he said, "I know nothing at this time that would indicate that Fulton was injured seriously." Dewey Sowders, superintendent at La Grange, said a physician's report there showed that Fulton had a gash on his head and scratches "but there was no evidence from the examination that he was beaten, or anything like that." He said Fulton told La Grange officials that Bordenkircher instructed guards who took him from the residence "not to hurt me (Fulton)." Fulton was taken to La Grange at Bordenkircher's request. "I think taking him there was in the best interest of myself, my family, Fulton and the institution," he said yesterday.

Sowders said that Fulton was under maximum security in segregation but that after a certain time they would be required to let him join the prison population. State correctional rules permit segregation of a prisoner for up to 90 days. After a review, he may be held 90 days longer. If he has violated no prison rules, he must be allowed out of segregation. Dr.

David Bland, Kentucky commissioner of corrections, said yesterday he has prohibited the housing of any prisoners at staff residences. He said that as far as he knew Fulton was the only trusty living in a staff house at the time of the Eddyville incident, but that there had been no stated ban against it. Bordenkircher asked that no other inmate be assigned to his residence, which is a few hundred yards from the main entrance to the prison on Lake Barkley in Western Kentucky. Bland said the ban would have no effect on the status of 37 other trusties who live outside the states' prisons. He said the 37 are not referred to as trusties but as minimum-security people.

Bland said the reformatory, which had 1,766 inmates yesterday, had nine minimum-security inmates living in buildings outside the reformatory and that Roederer Farm Center, near the reformatory but separate from it, had four. But he said none had lived in staff houses for many years. Bland said 12 inmates are assigned to the executive mansion and one to the lieutenant governor's mansion in Frankfort, but that they live in separate buildings on the ground. He said the inmates "fall under custody of the state troopers at the mansions; they are quasi-superintendents, I'd say." Bland said the mansion force is credited to the minimum-security Frankfort Career Development Center. The staff there handles such things as furlough approval and pre-parole reports.

He said that the prisoners have cooking, serving, janitorial, gardening and other duties and that he has asked State Police Commissioner Kennneth E. Bran-denburgh to give them job classifications for rehabilitative training "just like any other inmates." "Cooking is a good occupation and you'd be surprised at the roles the inmates play when large numbers of people visit the mansions in terms of welcoming them and making them feel comfortable," he said. 1 4" itMMMMMIiillb Staff Photo by Koith Williams fight, made sure that he was introduced as a Louisvillian. "I love my hometown and I wanted my hometown to have the credit," he said. Two billion people saw his fight Friday, he said, and he was particularly delighted to call their attention to Louisville.

He told a story about a slave who, although he had reached a high place in a king's household, often put on in private the garments he had worn as a slave, so that he would never forget his origins. "Whether you become a doctor or a lawyer or are in any profession, it pays to be successful. But at the same time, you must never forget from where you came," he said. At one point, Ali turned and introduced former Gov. A "Happy" Chandler to the crowd.

"I've always heard about this man and had never met him," Ali said. (Ali had met Chandler shortly before as the champion was being escorted from his room in motel by security personnel and state police for a private chat with Carroll in a nearby room.) "Happy Chandler," Ali said. "I've always wanted to meet you. When were you governor?" "I was governor twice," Chandler said, laughing. "That makes you a two-time champ," Ali said.

"Welcome home, and God bless you, son," Chandler said as he and Ali entered the governor's room. Ali had arrived at Standiford Field from Chicago shortly after noon. He was met by about 50 people, including Louisville Mayor William Stansbury, representatives of state government and fans. The Transit Authority of River City, the Louisville area's bus line, provided free shuttle buses to take passengers to the stadium. Panel will consider naming school for Ali Jefferson County School Superintendent E.

C. Grayson said yesterday that he will appoint a committee to study a suggestion that Central High School be renamed in honor of Muhammad Ali. Grayson said the committee also might look into proposals that, instead of renaming the school, officials should try to build a sports stadium near the school and name it for the heavyweight boxing champion. Jefferson Fiscal Court voted ear.ier this week to ask the school beard to name Central for Ali. Grayson said in a press release that school board policy permits schools to be renamed "only upon closing and reopening," although at least one school recently had been renamed even though it hadn't been closed.

The advisory group will include Central graduates, people who live near the school and others. Grayson gave no indication of when the committee would report. Cougar is native to Canada The only long-tailed cat native to Canada is the cougar, also called puma mountain lion, panther and catamount. to forward to your office the attached ($1,300 check)," Sheehan wrote. The senior Hunt, who is from Danville, could not be reached for comment.

Bebe Hunt referred all questions to Sheehan. The Ambassador was valued at $1,000 when it was transferred from the University of Kentucky to the finance department in 1976. The origin of the $1,000 figure for the Scout could not be determined. The Scout was valued for tax purposes at $1,500 when it was transferred from state ownership in March, 1977. Lambert said yesterday the $1,300 check has been deposited in the state treasury.

No reply has been made to Sheehan, he said. The new finance and administration secretary, Roy Stevens, was asked if he thinks the $1,300 provides full payment for the two vehicles. "I don't have any judgment about it one way or the other," Stevens said Continued from Page One there were more cheers from the crowd that police estimated at Louisville was paying tribute to its most famous son and Ali savored every minute of it. William Summers, Louisville radio station owner and member of the Jefferson County Board of Education, was master of ceremonies. He said the tribute was a "great occasion and long overdue." Lenny Lyles, Louisville businessman and former professional football star, said it was an honor having taught Ali in school and having been his friend over the years.

Joe Martin, the champ's first trainer, told the audience the familiar story of how he came to know Ali when, as a youngster, someone stole his bike. Martin recalled that he invited the young man to try his hand at boxing. And there was a special message from President Carter, delivered by U.S. Sen. Walter "Dee" Huddleston, D-Ky.

But the highlight of the event was when Carroll proclaimed this the "Year of Ali" and presented him with the Governor's Distinguished Service Award. Carroll said he signed the proclamation because "no single day or week or even month ever could contain the deeds of this man." Carroll said this was the first time during his administration that the distinguished service award had been presented. The private and public receptions climaxed a week of proposals for honoring the champion proposals that range from renaming Walnut Street as Muhammad Ali Boulevard to erecting a statue in his honor. About 1,500 people came by invitation for the governor's reception in the Executive West Motor Hotel. Introducing Ali as "a most distinguished Kentuckian and American," Carroll led a cheer for the champion.

To the packed ballroom, he said, "We have here in this room just a few real good friends from Louisville and the surrounding area." As Carroll introduced Ali as "the heavyweight champion of the world and The Greatest," the crowd exploded into a roar. Carroll said he would make no long speeches and he didn't, immediately turning the microphone over to Ali, who seemed delighted with his reception. "I am glad to see so many people in here from my hometown," AH said. "It's the last place I expected. "There's an old saying that a prophet is never honored in his own hometown.

And I didn't expect such an honor here." He explained to the crowd that he has always considered Louisville and Kentucky his home, and that he's always tried to say good things about them. As is his custom when speaking to a hometown audience, Ali immediately began to point out people he had known most of his life. "That's Lawrence Montgomery, my next-door neighbor," he said. He talked about Joe Martin, who started him on his boxing career, and Fred Stoner, who trained him. He mentioned Central High School, where he graduated, and Centennial Baptist Church, which he attended as a youngster.

And he told the audience that he has always, and especially during his last It- Ml i lit A hi-lo hemline A dress with a dancing hemline it's the ongoing look for dinner and disco. SUPERSTITION'S black polyester swirls high in front, dips to accent your high-high heels in back. Absolutely smashing for disco dancing! 5 to 13. D-345 Juniors, Fourth Floor and all Stewart's stores. 38 Hunt's father pays state for car; i Vi i 5 4 Continued from Page One $1,000 value assigned to the said 4-wheel drive vehicle," Sheehan wrote.

Sheehan's letter did not mention the $300 payment for the Ambassador referred to earlier by Bebe Hunt. Sheehan refused to discuss the matter in a brief telephone interview yesterday. Lambert, now deputy finance and administration secretary, said yesterday that no request for payment had been made to the Hunts or Sheehan. In explanation of the payment, Sheehan wrote to Lambert: "One of the results of the recent publicity concerning the (vehicles') pur-Chase has been a pattern of harassment from the media upon members of tho family of my said two clients. "This harassment has now affected the health of other members of my clients' family.

"In an effort to protect the health of mv clients' families, it has been decided nffiriMitiir iBifMhfi -rVIr i 4.