The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 4

A 20 THE COURIER-JOURNAL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19. 1982 Title was no easy Kidd's stuff It 7 1 to success Countdown The space shuttle Challenger successfully completed a 20-second test firing of its new main engines yesterday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The craft is being prepared for a launch next month. "Up to this point, everything looks great," said Al O'Hara, launching and landing director for the mission, who said the flight may run longer than the scheduled five days. "I knew he could get there.

He's got good speed." Parks said. "I wanted to get up and block for him, but I couldnt get up." Kidd, whose teams have a 146-55-6 record in his 19 seasons at Eastern, especially stressed his team's kicking game this season, working extra hours on blocking kicks, covering punts, etc. That paid immediate dividends when end Allen Young blocked a last-minute punt in the season opener at South Carolina State, setting up a 20-19 victory. Several other times blocked kicks, or long returns, or good coverage had helped seal victories. "I think any time two evenly matched teams get together the edge goes to the kicking game," Kidd said.

"And I feit we had the edge in the kicking game." However, it was the simplest type of breakdown in Eastern's kicking that allowed Delaware to come back from a 17-0 deficit to a position where the Blue Hens could have won the game with a last-minute rally. Eastern had padded its lead to 10-0 on Jamie Lovett's 37-yard field goal in the second quarter, then went ahead 17-0 after Delaware fumbled the second-half kickoff at its 21 -yard line. Terence Thompson ran for 17 yards and Nicky Yeast scored from a yard away. Then with 9:43 left in the game, Eastern punter Steve Rowe dropped an accurate snap from center and Delaware took over at the Colonels' 20-yard line. A reverse play, with halfback Kevin Phelan passing to Mark Steimer, put the Blue Hens on the scoreboard on the next play.

Eastern's David Simpson blocked the kick for an extra point but was ruled to be offsides on the play. So Delaware, only 1 yt yards from the end zone, went for two points but fullback Rick Titus was smeared by Hardin a yard short of the goal line. Eastern's lead was 17-6. Four minutes later, another Eastern mistake allowed Delaware to close to 17-14. The Colonels' Thompson fumbled at the Hens' 45.

That was followed by two passes for a net 50 yards and a five-yard touchdown pass from Rick Scully to Tim Sager. Scully and Steimer combined on a conversion pass worth two more points. "I stilljtelieve if we don't drop that punt, they don't score," Kidd said. "Our defense deserved a shutout." Eastern's defense held the nation's top two offensive teams to only 21 points in the last two games. Tennessee State and Delaware had been averaging 67 between them.

State gets mixed review on strip-mine efforts 4. Auoctatad Pr relations in Western Kentucky," he said. "I don't know whose fault it is." Some OSM personnel, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the agency or because they want to maintain decent working relations with the state, said the problem appears to be a combination of state inspectors exercising more discretion in Western Kentucky and federal inspectors doing likewise in Eastern Kentucky. Tipton and Grasch agreed that they need more information about the discrepancies, and that both agencies may have to compromise. Perhaps the most important question is whether Kentucky's environment has suffered under the new program.

Some profess to see an increase in shoddy reclamation practices more spoil being cast over hillsides, more inadequate silt control, more improperly built coal-haul roads. The consensus, however, seems to be that it is too early to be certain. "I don't think the environment's in worse shape," Tipton said. "But we'll need at least a year's worth of data to tell for sure." Continued from Page One mine enforcement He said there is no reason for operators to feel complacent; they are being inspected more frequently now than earlier in the year, and are being issued at least as many citations. Tipton's Initial quarterly report, however, points up several ways in which OSM believes that the state has fallen short Kentucky did manage to make one complete inspection of nearly every active mine during the three months, as required by law.

But the law also requires two partial inspections of those sites each quarter, and the state failed to make more than 2,500 of those. Of equal or greater importance, OSM found that state inspectors were three to 12 times more likely to write a violation or non-compliance citation at a mine when they were accompanied by a federal inspector. In a letter written last month to the state, Tipton characterized that finding as "very serious." And during an Interview last week, he said it appears that the state is not writing violation and non-compliance citations that should be written. of Kentucky's regulatory efforts have long maintained that the state has not been sufficiently vigilant in monitoring its strip-mining industry. And some are viewing OSM's report as confirmation of that perception.

"The state is doing a fairly good job, but it's not as good as it should be," said Tom FitzGerald, an attorney with the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky. "You look at this report and you're glad that OSM is still around. The agency will be critically important 4o keep the state from drifting back to the bad old days." Grasch maintains, however, that the statistics are inconclusive and may suggest more of a philosophical Continued from Page One said that four or five teams his team had played were better. Even Kidd, who recently interviewed for the West Point coaching job, didn't realize how good this team was. At the beginning of the season he had replaced three important members of his defensive secondary and much of his offensive line.

At midseason he had lost four defensive ends through injuries. But the words of the critics hurt more. "I really didn't expect this. It's just unreal to think we went undefeated," he said, soaking wet in his clothes after having been tossed in -the shower. "Every game we had went right down to the end.

These kids were so coachable and they had so much pride. They won every game that was close." "I felt we had something to prove to their whole team," said Eastern safety Frank Hardin, who knocked down four Delaware passes as the Blue Hens completed only 13 of 32 throws. "They were talking last year about how the better team hadn't won." That had come after a 35-28 loss to Eastern in the first game of the playoffs, before Eastern lost to Idaho State 34-23 in the Pioneer Bowl in Wichita Falls. The momentum in yesterday's game swung to Eastern early in the second quarter, one play after Delaware's Paul Hammond had dropped an easy touchdown pass. That led to a 31-yard field-goal attempt by Delaware's K.

C. Knob-loch, but Eastern's Gus Parks raced in from the left side to block the kick. The ball took one bounce and came up into the arms of 220-pound defensive t.id Richard Bell, who raced 77 yards into the end zone for the game's first score. It was Bell's first touchdown since high school and came after Parks' sixth blocked kick of the season. "We knew they were blocking down a lot and I knew if I got the proper jump on the ball I could block it," Parks said.

"He had a little hitch (in his kick) and I'd been noticing that on the film." Kidd agreed that the blocked placement was a designed play, with Bell in- position to pick it up. The only question was whether the hefty Bell could outrun the fleet Delaware backs. "The ball just happened to bounce up to me," Bell said, who wondered at the time if he had enough speed to score. didn't see anyone, but I felt the guy's presence behind me so I angled across the field as I ran. I don't know if I saw his shadow behind my foot or not." And The Alan Qfymtmas on those three points, but contends that it is taking steps to improve on each.

Grasch also agreed that Kentucky did not make enough inspections during the three-month period. But he noted that the hiring of more inspectors, coupled with an expected decrease next year in the number of permitted mine sites, should enable the state to make more inspections in the future. "We'll be a lot closer the second quarter than we were the first" he said. One important matter that remains unresolved is that of consistent enforcement in the state's two coalfields. During the three-month period, OSM reviewed enforcement action taken by the state and made 112 joint inspections with Kentucky personnel.

According to OSM's report, the agency found state enforcement action in Western Kentucky to be "questionable" more than 50 percent of the time with respect to several categories of violations. In Eastern Kentucky, OSM disagreed with the state's action in those categories no more than 17 percent of the time. OSM also Issued 16 10-day notices to the state through Sept. 30. Nine of those OSM notices were issued in Western Kentucky, even though the number of mine sites there makes up only a small part of the state's total.

"We see the statistics indicating that OSM acted one way in Western Kentucky and another way in Eastern Kentucky," said Grasch of the state Department of Surface Mining. "In Western Kentucky, they questioned what we did more often than they agreed with it." Tipton declined to characterize OSM's enforcement actions as being overly aggressive in the West or too passive in the East. "But we haven't been too successful in developing good state-federal tions they'd just as soon not taiK about "But I felt like I'd abandoned them; now this is helping me a lot" Valdez said he was waiting to hear from Dobson's family; he was scared that maybe they'd just as soon be left alone. "I'd like to get a letter or something though," he said early last week. The something came Thursday night Floyd Smith, Carl Dobson's stepfather, called Valdez.

"I told that boy that he can't go on punishing himself all his life over something like this," Smith said. "I told him that if he wanted to come here, that'd be all right. I'll be more than glad to see him; we'll try to help him all we can." Valdez is, of course, elated. He knows there's still a train load of problems ahead he's getting sicker by the day and he's out of work. "I don't know how I can get the money together to fly to Louisville, but I'm sure gonna try.

Sure gonna try." He's taking some drafting courses at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, and though his body is covered with welts, he's hoping something can be done to ease his sickness. There are still times when he knows he hasn't yet conquered the guilt times when his life seems to be going nowhere. "Sometimes I just feel useless, and that's terrible," he admitted. Yet he also knows that at least some help is on the way, help that's been a long time in coming. And Carl Dobson's family knows they're in a position to perhaps give Armando Valdez his best Christmas present ever.

Peace of mind. 1W2, Tht Couritr-JawrMl difference in approach than in results. "I'm not overly concerned about a sign being down at the entrance of a permitted site," he said. "I'd like to see it up, but I'm in favor of telling the operator to please put it back up instead of writing him a non-compliance. "I'd rather see our inspectors get on the site and check for more important problems.

"We're dealing with an industry that's a tremendous asset to the state. We want to see that it operates in an environmentally sound manner, but there can always be a question over how far you take that" Mike Vaughn, manager of OSM's area office in Madisonville, said his inspectors address violations somewhat differently. "It's not my job to say that regulation's not too important," Vaughn said. "If we see a violation, we write a 10-day notice," which allows 10 days to get the problem corrected. In addition to the matters of inspection frequency and the number of violations written, OSM also found flaws in the state's approach to problems with explosives, groundwater monitoring and prime farmlands.

The report concluded that explosives-related violations were not cited on a consistent basis, and that state personnel need more training in blasting and in evaluating operators blasting records. It also found that the state may be inadequately enforcing the law with respect to groundwater monitoring, and apparently is too quick to agree with operators that prime farmlands have not been used for crop production. A determination that such lands have been used to produce crops requires operators to meet stricter standards when those areas are mined. The state essentially agrees with OSM's criticisms of its performance After talking with Valdez a session or two, Flores realized the former Marine was still haunted by the past. "Over the years that nagging guilt never left him," Flores said last week.

"What he needed was a catharsis; he needed to talk with that boy's parents." So Flores and Valdez started searching for Carl Dobson's family. They knew his parents lived in Louisville, but there was something they didn't know. Dobson had lived with his mother and stepfather, so Valdez and Flores were searching the Louisville telephone book for a Dobson family that didn't exist. "It took a real trick of fate to find them," Valdez said. That and a lot of luck.

About 10 days ago, Flores called The Courier-Journal looking for help. He told the city desk about his client's problems, and his call was transferred to the paper's library. Maybe someone there could find a copy of Dobson's obituary that would shed some light on the family's whereabouts. That was the trick of fate. It just so happened that Pat Chapman, a member of the library staff, went to school with Dobson.

"We ran on the track team together," he said. He knew that the people Valdez was searching for were Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Smith. Thanks to Chapman, Flores called Dobson's sister, Jo Brown, and then was able to tell Valdez that he'd found the family.

"Man, I tell you it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me," Valdez said. "I wrote them a letter and said I'd like to come there to see them. I know I might be opening up some old wounds, and I don't want to invade their privacy. This might bring up alot of ques Guilt haunts Marine whose pal from Louisville died in Vietnam GiveHimThe Warmest Of Gifts: A Rodes Sweater i a ..) Crew Necks Paine Shetland wool, 4600 Rodes Shetland wool, 2850 Vee Necks Alan Paine Lambswool, 6400 Thane Lambswool, 4000 Lord Jeff wool blend, 3CT Continued from Page One though his company commander ordered him to try. "I didn't know what to say, and I was sick, man, really sick," he said by telephone from his Los Angeles home.

Valdez didn't know it at the time, but he'd been doused with chemicals Agent Orange they call it now and not too long after Dobson was killed, Valdez came face to face with death, too. A mortar hit his bunker and he was severely wounded. He was unable to speak for quite a while; unable and unwilling to write to the people in Louisville. "I got back to the states in '68," he recalled. "Spent a year in the hospital, the Oakland Naval Hospital.

Then got out and spent six months in jail (for being drunk and disorderly and disturbing the peace). I went crazy for a while." He married, had four children, including a little girl who was born partially deformed, a result, he thinks, of Agent Orange. Eventually he became nuclear engineer for a California power company, but the guilt over his friend's death wouldn't leave him alone. "I wasn't too violent, but I'd hit the wall and things, and I had nightmares. I'd wake up running for my life." He lost his job, lost his wife and family, lost his self-respect and sense of worth.

And he kept getting sicker. There were two things working to ruin his health the illness he blames on Agent Orange and the guilt He only knew that his life was coming apart at the seams, and that he needed help if be was to save his sanity. Then several months ago, he met Gabe Flores, a Veterans Administration counselor in Los Angeles. I Louisville Orchestra Present Music For Your Enjoyment: 68-piece Chamber Orchestra Oxmoof Monday, December 20th 70PM 0 sWlLE.