The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 21

THE COURIER-JOURNAL 1T1 FTl TT" SUNDAY, A 1 Mjf NOVEMBER 5, 1995 I 4 Wf EDITOR: HUNT HELM I 1 1 i PHONE: 582-4691 FAX: 582-4200 JL JL JLL JLL BRIEFLY Hotel implosion ctioo! showcase allows ts to see options La I MAIN STREET TT Brothers Building MARKET STREET Commonwealth to MILKER Convention Center HOTEL JEFFERSON -i jyj st. Hyatt Regency VIEWING FOR PUBLIC East ol Second Street 71 STREET CLOSINGS Closed from 7:30 to 8:1 5 a.m. today for Milner Hotel implosion: Third Street from Main to Liberty streets. Market Street from Fifth to Second streets. Liberty from Fifth to Second.

Second from Muhammad Ali Boulevard to Main Street. Jefferson from First to Fourth. These streets will remain closed until about 11 a.m.: Third from Main to Liberty. Jefferson from First to Fourth. staden By JOHN C.

PILLOW Staff Writer Christian Moore is in quite a quandary. Christian, a fifth-grader at King Elementary School, has to choose a middle school for next year. As an aspiring musician who plays the flute and violin, she is drawn toward the music program at Noe Middle School, but she's also considering Johnson Middle. "All my friends go to Johnson," she explained. She was among the more than 1,500 students and parents who attended the Jefferson County Public Schools Showcase of Schools at the Commonwealth Convention Center.

All of the county's elementary, middle and high schools could send representatives, and 60 schools did, said Diane Porter, who oversees the school system's magnet and Advance programs. In an atmosphere that resembled a trade convention, students and parents could learn about Shawnee's aviation program, Central's pre-law flj A hard right cross Church group ready to fight for community or Moore's photography and graphic arts classes. The showcase began Friday and ran through yesterday afternoon. "The parents are telling us they really appreciate the process because they get a lot of questions answered," Porter said. Charlotte Jackson, a teacher at Knight Middle School, said the showcase was really for the students.

"There are so many options avail-See SCHOOLS Page 4, col. 4, this section Jt because it is a spiritually based organization. "There is no power that God is not involved in," he said. "This is the way to go. It must be through the church.

If it is going to last, it has to have that spiritual commitment." Other projects CLOUT has targeted or will soon include school suspensions, drug trafficking, what it says are too many liquor licenses in the West End, and discriminatory lending practices. CLOUT is supported by private 1 4 By JOHN C. PILLOW Staff Writer At its founding convention yesterday, a group called CLOUT honored a pair of Louisville's former heavyweight champions: Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Ellis. The symbolism, of course, is that CLOUT, an interdenominational coalition of churches, hopes to have the power to knock out some of the problems the organization thinks are plaguing the community. Ali was unable to attend, but Ellis talked about the teamwork involved in boxing during his acceptance speech.

"It may seem to be an individual sport, but there are a lot of people behind the guy in the ring," he said. Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together is hoping that it can get even more churches to toss their hats and money into the ring. What started four years ago as an informal round-table discussion by a handful of ministers has turned into an organization of 27 churches. About 400 people attended yesterday's founding convention in which officers were installed for the coming year. The convention, which featured song and prayer as well as candidates and campaign speeches, was held at Greater Salem Baptist Church, 1009 W.

Chestnut St. "It has been a long time coming. A very hard struggle," said the Rev. Joe Graffis, pastor of St. Augustine Catholic Church.

"The exciting thing is that churches who have common interests, who should have been working together all along, are now working together," he said. CLOUT has already had some success in promoting its agenda. Earlier this year it secured an agreement with the Transit Authority of River City to install passenger shelters along Dixie Highway, and it has gotten city sanitation officials to pay closer attention to vacant lots. CLOUT'S efforts are focused primarily on southwestern Louisville and Jefferson County and the West Bridge meetings are postponed Two public workshops planned by the Ohio River bridge study group have been postponed until a public-relations firm is brought in. The hearings had been tentatively scheduled for Nov.

13 and 14 but are now likely to be held in early December, said Norm Nezelkewicz, transportation director for the Ken-tuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency. The Ohio River Major Investment Study group recently agreed to hire Creative Alliance to release public information and gather public comment as the study group progresses. The contract is for about $50,000. Trash takes a holiday City sanitation officials have al tered this week's scheduled garbage and recycling pickups to accommodate two city holidays. City offices will be closed Tuesday on Election Day and also on Friday for Veterans Day.

There will be no pickups on Tuesday, but all collections for the remainder of the week will be moved to the following day. Sanitation workers will work Friday and Saturday to ensure normal service. Don't forget your library cards A reception on Wednesday will mark the Westport Middle School library's assumption of a new, part-time identity as the Westport branch of the Louisville Free Public Library. Starting Wednesday the school's expanded library will serve as a public library Monday through EAST COUNTY Thursday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The reception will be at 6:30 p.m. at the school, 8100 Westport Road. Is that a charity or just a rip-off? The National Charities Information Bureau, a watchdog group, has issued a list of tips to prevent consumers from being taken in by frauds posing as worthwhile charities during the holiday season: Hang up on callers who say you've won a prize in a drawing or contest you have not entered, i Change your mind about donating to any organization that tries to send a messenger or delivery service to pick up your contribution.

(The organization might be avoiding the U.S. Postal Service to preclude its exposure to federal mail-fraud charges.) Never give credit-card numbers to strangers. Make contributions only by checks made out to the charity. If you have any doubts about a particular organization, insist on written information about it, its goals and the percentage of each dollar that will be used for true charitable activities. Family seminar set this week The third annual "Fall Institute: Children and Families First," a support training seminar, is scheduled for Wednesday through Friday at Executive West.

It will include workshops on mental-health services, parenting, abuse and neglect, education, developmental disabilities, juvenile court and violence. -The goal of this year's conference is to unite such children's support systems as schools, workplaces, churches, human service agencies, recreation facilities and neighborhoods. To register or for more information, call 852-0049. INSIDE China, America and Taiwan China and the United States can work together for economic development and world peace, China's ambassador to the U.S. said in Frankfort yesterday.

But Taiwan remains a major question. B6 BEG YOUR PARDON Because of a production error, the wrong photo ran with yesterday's story on Page A 2 about the death of Jonny Gammage, a cousin "of Pittsburgh Steelers player Ray Seals. INDEX Flllin IMlUmiMlllll The co-presidents of CLOUT, the Rev. John Burke, left, and the Rev. Larry Poyntz, congratulated each other yesterday during the founding convention of the interdenominational coalition of churches.

STAFF MAP BY STEVE DURBIN Kentucky mourns Rabin's death He was 'consumed' with peace process By SHELDON S. SHAFER Staff Writer Local Jewish leaders who had met Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed deep sadness yesterday over his assassination and described the fallen leader as completely dedicated to achieving peace in the Mideast. "His gift was that he was able to make things happen. He had the respect of so many people. He was a statesman and totally consumed with what was going on in the peace pro-.

cess," said Marie Abrams, who was among a group of U.S. Jewish leaders who met with Rabin in Tel Aviv just nine days ago. Abrams is vice chairwoman of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, which strives to build a national consensus among Jews on Jewish issues and on public policy. She and her husband, Ronald Abrams, and Lewis Cole, all from Louisville, were among 25 council officials who met with Rabin recently for nearly an hour; the council officers go to Israel each year to keep abreast of Israeli issues. Marie Abrams said she had met Rabin about a half dozen times over the years.

The first thing Rabin said at their last meeting, Abrams said, was: "Whenever we've had to fight, we've fought. But when we have a chance for peace, we must pursue it." She said Rabin seemed optimistic but also realistic about the chance of peace with Israel's Arab neighbors. Rabin and Shimon Peres, who was named acting prime minister last night, "were indeed an incredible team, in terms of what they started," Abrams said. She and other Louisville Jewish leaders seemed hard put to speculate on how Rabin's death will affect the peace initiative. "It is hard to assess See RABIN'S Page 4, col.

4, this section STAFF PHOTOCOPY BY BYRON CRAWFORD STAFF PHOTO BY PAM SPAULDINQ donations and dues from member churches. It has a budget of $95,000 for 1996 and $100,000 for 1997. "Some of the issues that we are facing are much more involved and difficult to tackle than what we've dealt with in the past. It is going to take a lot of work," Burke said. The rewards are great, said Tom Brito, the group's vice president and a member of St.

Augustine parish. "What we've done is empower people People see what they can accomplish when they pull 'Book women' brought hope to isolated Kentuckians urn- mtvwmmWk "vSi 1 End areas that are neglected or underserved, according to their residents. With its officers installed and an agenda firmly in place, CLOUT's real work begins now. "Talk is cheap, talk is cheap, talk is cheap. It's time to get to work," said the Rev.

Larry Poyntz, pastor of Grace-Hope Presbyterian Church. Poyntz and the Rev. John Burke, pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church, were elected CLOUT's co-presidents. Poyntz said CLOUT will succeed Each library had one clerk who stayed in the headquarters to collect, classify and mend the books and magazines and four to 10 carriers who rode the mountain trails, taking books, magazines and newspapers in suitcases, saddlebags or string bags to isolated schools and mountain homes. Several weeks ago, on his mother's birthday, Frankfort lawyer Bill Elam gave tne Department ior Libraries and Archives five books bearing the stamp of the Pack Horse Library that his mother, an Eastern Kentucky teacher, had saved.

"I remember standing with my mother on the porch of a long-gone rural Kentucky school when I was a child and she was a schoolteacher," Elam said. "She tried to explain to me the Pack Horse Library. She summed it up in words that I do remember: "They COLUMNIST brought us Some places were so remote that book women often had to go part of the way on foot. One carrier traveled a section of her route by rowboat. Most of the materials used by the Pack Horse libraries were donated by libraries in larger cities.

New York, Cincinnati, Buffalo and Dayton libraries sent their discarded and damaged books and periodicals to the Pack Horse Library in West Liberty, where they were mended and distributed to readers around Morgan County. Pack Horse carriers traveled an estimated 52,000 miles in three years, reaching approximately 85 percent of Morgan's rural families with deliveries of nearly 118,000 books. IP '7 Sixty years ago, as the nation struggled to recover from the Great Depression, the Pack Horse Library brought hope and temporary escape to remote hollows and rugged hillsides in many of Kentucky's counties. Words and pictures of grand and glorious places, mystery, romance and adventure rode in saddlebags on the backs of horses and mules, up rocky creekbeds, along muddy foot paths, among the ciirts ana laurel thickets. They brought warmth and imagination to the hard lives of many who lived beyond the reach of telephones and electricity, whose humble homes were lighted by coal-oil lamps and whose walls were covered only with newspapers.

For these people, the visits of the "book women" were memorable moments. "Most people have never heard of the book women," said Dalarna Breetz, direc BYRON it i CRAWFORD 1. --i tor of field services for the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. "I don't know of any original book women who are left, but there could very well be spme still living, and I would be truly delighted to hear from one. Basically, I consider the bookmobile librarians to be the descendants of the Pack Horse librarians." In 1934, Leslie County had the first Pack Horse Library, followed by Harlan.

But within five years there were 30 Pack Horse libraries. And for a few pages in time, the Works Progress Administration Pack Horse Library served a grateful multitude with stories and pictures from around the world. One of the Pack Horse Library's "book women," who delivered books to people In remote areas of Kentucky 60 years ago, Is pictured making a stop at a cabin In the southeastern part of the state. Surveys of readers found that Pack Pack Horse Library in Cumberland Pack Horse libraries soon faded Horse patrons preferred books about County, reported that her library con- away, but the concept remained. By travel, adventure and religion.

sisted of 1,099 books and 3,526 maga- 1946 several Kentucky counties hari Thirty-five Pack Horse librarians zines- started bookmobiles rolling over from Harlan, Bell, Whitley, Clay and A 1938 newspaper article said that many of the same trails that Pack Knox counties gathered in January new Pack Horse libraries were popu- Horse librarians had traveled by 1939 at Union College in Barbourville lar Pulaski, Pike, Garrard and Ohio horse in earlier days. That service refer a course on mending books. Miss counties. mains a legacy of the book women in Hattie Davenport, supervisor of the With the passing of the WPA, the many Kentucky counties. 4 Deaths B12 Weather B2.