The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 4

THE COURIER-JOURNAL LOUISVILLE, KY. FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1991. KENTUCKY SUN SPOTTED Wolfe sheriff offers farm for drug drop on tapes played in federal court r. nf X'1 Jb im A t74 'V The two also discussed police activity in the area, and Drake said he considered Wolfe County "about the best county going" for moving drugs. The tape also recorded Poole's first $2,000 protection payoff to Drake.

After receiving the money, Drake said, "I really appreciate this." On the same tape, Drake suggested that Stone be used as a lookout and gofer in the operation. Drake admitted accepting payoffs from two area bootleggers and giving some of that money to Stone. Drake kept his head down while the tape was being played and Stone held his face in his hands. On the tape, Drake expressed interest in selling marijuana to Poole and began discussing the different qualities of pot in the area. Yesterday's proceedings also focus6d on taped conversations with Mcintosh and Noe.

On a tape made Feb. 6, 1990, Poole discussed the drug ring with Mcintosh. Mann escorted Mcintosh to the meeting at the Lee County farm of informant James Richardson, a former marijuana dealer. On the tape, Poole told Mcintosh that he thought the sheriff would "be satisfied with this business deal. You make money, we make money." Mcintosh replied, "That's the name of the game, ain't it?" Poole testified that he had paid Mcintosh $2,000 in cash earlier in a nearby barn.

Poole testified that during the untaped portion of the meeting Mann suggested that Mcintosh's son, James, be brought into the circle. Mann said the younger Mcintosh had several friends with the Kentucky State Po- See SHERIFF Page 4, col. 6, this section By ALLEN G. BREED Associated Press LONDON, Ky. Wolfe County Sheriff Lester Drake said it was "no problem" when an undercover FBI agent said he had moved more than 17 pounds of cocaine through his county, according to a secret tape played yesterday in federal court.

On the tape, recorded Feb. 15, 1990, Drake also offered to help transport drugs. He talked of selling marijuana in Ohio and told the agent of the best spots to air-drop drugs in Wolfe County, including his own farm. That was one of several tapes Assistant U.S. Attorney James Arehart presented in U.S.

District Court in the drug trial of six Eastern Kentucky lawmen. The six were charged Aug. 16 with accepting $85,000 from the agents to protect a dummy drug ring. Also on trial are former Lee County Sheriff Johnny Mann, Breathitt County Sheriff Dean Spencer, Owsley County Sheriff Billy Mcintosh, Wolfe County Deputy Sheriff Wilson Stone and Beatty-ville Police Chief Omer Noe. On Feb.

7, 1990, Drake met agent Ron Poole, who was posing as a Chicago drug dealer. On a tape recording made that day, Drake agreed to allow Poole to make drops in his county and even suggested letting Poole use his 365-acre farm and house. "That'll be all right," Drake said on the tape. "There'll be no trouble. It's the ideal place to drop." On that day, Drake also said he would listen for word of drug investigations and alert Poole.

On Feb. 12, 1990, Poole told Drake that he had made a "switch" of 8 kilograms, or about 17Mi pounds, of cocaine. "That's all right," Drake said on the tape. "No problem." Is 1.1 STAFF PHOTO BY BILL LUSTER Alicia Weathers used a telescope and a cardboard box at Rauch Memorial Planetarium on the University of Louisville campus to view yesterday's solar eclipse. Clouds cut Into the viewing time for many trying to watch the big event Patient eclipse watchers rewarded when clouds lift for glimpse of the sun Kentucky Kingdom to get new neighbor a water park clouds, gave a kind of story-of-my-life laugh, and said, "It'll come out now." Three minutes later, Graney saw something he hadn't seen in awhile his shadow.

"Ah ha!" he said, running to a a telescope and seeing slightly less than a whole sun. "It's like a little bite taken out of a cookie," he said. He shared the view. Then, within seconds, he said, "It's gone." It was several more minutes before Graney's second "Ah ha!" "We got it!" he said. "We got it!" He stepped aside and gave Jonathan Drake, 10, a look through the telescope.

What he saw was a light orange disk with a chunk missing. "Oh, he said. "It's cool." Those using the welder's glass saw the same thing, only green and smaller. The clouds stayed away during the moon's biggest blockage of the sun, when it obscured about 18 percent of it. "There's bucketloads of sunspots See PATIENT Page 4, col.

1, this section By GERALD A. RYAN Staff Writer It was 2:45 yesterday afternoon and all was not well. Gene and Shirley Janssen and their daughter, Brittany, 12, were among the two dozen or so optimists who had come to the Southwest Campus of Jefferson Community College to look at, as it turned out, clouds. The partial eclipse of the sun had already begun, but that was taken on faith in the data supplied by Vince DiNoto, an astronomy professor, and Christopher Graney, a physics instructor. The school's two 8-inch telescopes, motor-driven and fitted with solar filters, pointed skyward and offered a more magnified view of clouds than most people need.

People stood around. Some had pieces of shade 14 welder's glass, which is safe for viewing the sun. But only when there is one. "I'll be disappointed if I don't see at least a glimpse of it," Graney said. "It's getting cloudier instead of less," DiNoto observed.

The Janssens decided to leave. Gene Janssen looked up at the Millions awed by the blackout of the century Associated Press SAN JOSE DEL CABO, Mexico The moon's shadow spread a blanket of darkness yesterday that stretched 9,000 miles from Hawaii to South America in what scientists called the eclipse of the century. The eclipse awed millions of stargazers. Some rang bells to bring back the sun; others prepared for the end of the world. It lasted nearly seven minutes in some places and was the longest total solar eclipse since one over Africa's Sahara Desert in 1973, and will be the longest for the next 141 years.

Thrill-seekers and scientists flocked to view the eclipse, which blackened a 160-mile-wide path 9,320 miles from the western Pacific to near Sao Paulo, Brazil. Guatemalan Indians rang bells and banged pans to bring back the sun. In the Amazon, despite Brazilian government efforts to calm the fears of rural resi- See MILLIONS Page 4, col. 1, this section tween the two parks isn't final. He said Ocean Avenue will have a separate entrance, with a proposed admission of $4 to $6, but he indicated there could be a smaller fee for amusement park visitors.

He said plans for Ocean Avenue will not affect the four-slide Squid water complex at Kentucky Kingdom. They call for a pool that will create waves up to 6 feet high, suitable for surfing exhibitions and other water demonstrations, Mulcahy said. The pool will accommodate at least 400 people. Ocean Avenue will be built across Ring Road from the main part of Kentucky Kingdom, or behind the Thunder Run wooden coaster. The parks will be tied together by a boardwalk and pool system.

Mulcahy termed the water park definite, with the foundation work to begin this fall. He said the decision to proceed with it came after Kentucky Kingdom officials debated for months whether to try to incorporate more water rides into the existing park or See STATE Page 3, col. 4, this section By SHELDON SHAFER Staff Writer Buoyed by encouraging attendance figures, officials of the Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville said yesterday that they will open an adjacent $2.6 million, 6ft-acre water park called Ocean Avenue next June. The water park will have a large wave pool, a complex of at least three water slides feeding into one pool and a children's lagoon, as well as locker facilities, restaurants and extensive landscaped open space, officials said. The park will be self-contained, but will be tied in with Kentucky Kingdom on the grounds of the Kentucky Fair Exposition Center.

Ocean Avenue will employ up to 200 seasonal workers and will operate on the same schedule as the amusement park. The water park, which will be financed with Kentucky Kingdom revenues, is being designed by Aquatic Amusement Associates Ltd. of Cohoes, N.Y. Kentucky Kingdom General Manager John Mulcahy said the arrangement be Panel sets ground rules for redistricting process A turtle twosome Samantha finds pet paradise joining snappy social scene BYRON CRAWFORD CI Vvf I is districts for state offices, a state's congressional district lines are supposed to encompass exactly equal numbers of people a standard that Meyer called impossible to meet in practice. Redistricting, which must take place every 10 years, after each U.S.

Census, is ultimately the legislature's job, but Meyer said his panel will hold public hearings at which anyone may submit a plan. All such plans should adhere to the standards approved yesterday, he said. Those standards include: Reliance on final official census data and the voting precinct maps on file with the state Legislative Research Commission. The U.S. Commerce Department is to announce by Monday whether further adjust- See PANEL Page 4, col.

6, this section By MICHAEL JENNINGS Staff Writer FRANKFORT, Ky. A legislative panel set ground rules yesterday for redrawing Kentucky's congressional districts. The standards, based on other states' practices and federal court guidelines, aim to make the minimum changes necessary to existing districts. "We're not going to throw out all our tradition and start with a clean slate," said Sen. Joe Meyer, D-Cov-ington, co-chairman of the interim subcommittee on redistricting.

Changes in district lines could still be considerable, however. Due to its stagnant population growth, Kentucky will lose one of its seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new district lines must be drawn with great precision. Unlike "She really has two personalities.

She'll attack anything when she's in the tank, because she thinks it's food," Bitzer explained. "But when she's out, I've never had any trouble with her." The turtle likes having her head, neck and legs rubbed, and doesn't mind being petted by strangers, as long they don't pick her up by her tail. "Sometimes when I'm driving down the road, she'll get under my arm and start nudging me, wanting to get in my lap," Bitzer said. "She really likes to be held, and when she's in your lap sometimes she just gets like a rag doll. You can pull her arms and legs and do anything with her." Samantha's veterinarian, Dr.

Jack Nightengale, believes that if she stays healthy, she could live to the age of 140, and Bitzer's friends are already urging him to provide for Samantha in his will. But for now, he and the turtle are having the time of their lives. "It was just last year, really, that I started taking her out to different places," said Bitzer, 27, who is single and a construction worker. A local saddle shop made a har- See SOCIALIZING Page 4, col. 6, this section Todd Bitzer sure knows how to liven up a pool party.

He just takes along his pet snapping turtle, 35-pound Samantha. "I always know when there's a dirty swimming pool, because she wants to get in it," Bitzer said. "If there's chlorine in it, she'll stick her head down to the water and pull it back when she smells the chlorine." Bitzer got the turtle 20 years ago, when he was 7 years old and Samantha was no bigger than a quarter. His older brother found her near their home in Anchorage in Jefferson County. Samantha hibernates from November through most of March in a small tank in Bitzer's basement.

The rest of the year her home is outdoors in a large, galvanized water tank where she usually stays submerged, and comes out only long enough to eat fish, chicken and an occasional snack of dry dog food. Corrections clarifications Bolla International Wines subsidiary to Frabo. The brothers contended that FBIW shareholders had to approve the sale. Because of an editor's error, a story yesterday identified Joseph Richardson as chairman of a new political action committee formed to promote Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Greene. Richardson is the PAC's treasrrer.

Because of a reporter's error, yesterday's Tipsheet omitted the date that the Bobby Lanz Band would play for happy hour at Louisville Downs. The happy hour is today. Because of a reporter's error, an article in yesterday's business section said two Bolla brothers contended that Frabo shareholders had to approve the sale of a Fratelli 1 i i' i mi li it i STAFF PHOTO BY BYRON CRAWFORD Todd Bitzer of Jefferson County holds Samantha, the 35-pound snapping turtle that has been his pet for 20 years..