The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 3

T7T MX Mj THE COURIER-JOURNAL SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1995 EDITOR: MARK PROVANO PHONE: 582-4657 FAX: 582-4200 JD 1 BRIEFLY ,1 I is -ma, Candidates use road projects to win support 4 J. 1 ft A i 7 tually promising roads, only that the state should set that as a goal over the next 20 years. Forgy, though, has promised hundreds of millions of dollars worth of road projects some of which he admits he's not sure how to pay for. Much of the money, he said, will come from the federal government, despite the spending cuts Republicans in Washington are proposing. Forgy told a crowd in Paintsville on Oct.

28 that he would widen a two-lane section of the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway from Campton to Paintsville, add interchanges and build rest areas. "I practiced law with Bert Combs for 13 years and Bert Forgy backs improving part of US. 27 By JOSEPH GERTH Staff Writer Ky. Larry Forgy stood outside the Clinton County Courthouse.

Friday and told local folks just about what they wanted to hear. He didn't quite promise them that he would rebuild the main north-south road through town but many in the crowd certainly went home believing that he would. He chided the Democrats for not widening U.S. 127 sooner, and he sent his own man Eugene Goss, who Forgy says will probably be his highway commissioner out to drive the road. It's been Forgy's modus operandi in the waning days of the campaign.

The GOP candidate for The STAFF PHOTOS BY DURELL HAU. JR. Larry Forgy, above left, made campaign rounds yesterday at the University of Louisville-Tulane football game. Lt. Gov.

Paul Patton talked with a supporter before a motorcade and rally in western Louisville. Forgy attacks KERA, media; Race for GOVERNOR 'atton denounces 'smears' By JOSEPH GERTH and RICHARD WILSON Staff Writers COLUMBIA, Ky. Under fire for some of his comments about the Kentucky Education Reform Act, Republican Larry Forgy yesterday called on a couple of principals and a teacher in Adair County to back him up. Forgy's critics say he wants to dismantle KERA, but Forgy insists that he just wants to change parts of it. "I say the ungraded primary should be a local option.

What do you say?" Forgy asked Vernie McGaha, principal of Russell County Middle School. "I agree 100 percent," McGaha answered. "If you really want to give choice back to the schools, why mandate what we have?" A crowd of governor has gone into small Kentucky towns and talked about road projects the type that spur economic growth and he let the voters know he is the one who will lay asphalt from the Mississippi to the Tug Fork. Democratic candidate Paul Patton can play the game too. Although he has avoided making specific promises, Patton went to Laurel County a few weeks ago and told about 500 followers that no one should have to live on a gravel road.

"I think every Kentuckian should live on a hard-surfaced road," he said. "If you give us the time, I think we can get that done." Patton said later that he wasn't ac- entuckians mourn death of gifted statesman was that he was able to happen. He was consumed with what was in the peace process." Marie Abrams, met Rabin recently 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 people 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. 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 avoid 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. Athlete-author to visit Centre Mariah Burton Nelson, a former star collegiate athlete and the author of "The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football," will speak at Centre College in Danville tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. Her talk, in Newlin Hall of the Norton Center, is free.

A four-year varsity basketball player at Stanford University, Nelson became a columnist for the Washington Post after playing professionally in Europe. She writes and lectures on sports and feminism. Girls, boys vote different ways Boys and girls taking part in a voting project this year voted similarly on issues, according to the Kentucky Commission on Women. The commission along with the Kids Voting Kentucky program, Harp Enterprises of Lexington and the Jefferson County Voter Outreach Program created a voting booth for children at the Kentucky State Fair in August. It was part of an exhibit to commemorate the 75th anniversary of women's winning the right to vote.

The commission said it was easier to recruit girls to vote than boys: 1,064 girls voted, compared with 716 boys. Both boys and girls listed crime and violence as the top issue government should tackle, with environment second and health care third. Both also thought drugs were the main cause of crime and violence, and 71 percent of the girls and 67 percent of the boys thought health care should be a right rather than a privilege. However, they differed on when the United States should use military force. Among the girls, 603 said in cases of hunger and starvation, 488 said if U.S.

safety were threatened and 454 said to respond to the mass murder of people. A threat to U.S. safety was the top reason cited by the boys (376), followed by mass murder (272), and hunger and starvation (267). INSIDE China's agreeable up to a point China and the United States can work together on a lot of issues but Taiwan is not one of them, the Chinese ambassador said in a speech at the Kentucky Capitol. B4 Judge is proven right years later Eleven years ago, a federal administrative law judge got into hot water by alleging that federal mine inspectors in Eastern Kentucky were taking bribes.

Now, with six employees of the Pikeville office of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration convicted, the ex-judge feels vindicated. But he said, "I'm saddened over the number of lives that have probably been lost in the interim." B2 32 priests accused of sex misconduct Thirty-two Catholic priests have been the subject of sexual-misconduct allegations in the Covington Diocese in the last 40 years, according to an official of the diocese. B6 BEG YOUR PARDON Because of a production error, the wrong photo appeared with yesterday's story in section A about the death of Jonny Gammage, a cousin of Pittsburgh Steelers player Ray Seals. INDEX Deaths B12 Weather B2 By SHELDON S.

SHAFER Staff Writer Leaders of Louisville's Jewish community 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 process," 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 about 200 cheered. Lt. Gov. Paul Patton, Forgy's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, spent most of yesterday working crowds in the Louisville area The Race for GOVERNOR and continuing to denounce what he called a smear campaign against him.

In Columbia, Forgy also focused on the assessment test required by KERA. "I say that we have got to work on the KIRIS test," Forgy told Billy Rogers, principal of Sparksville Elementary in Adair County. 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 now any horrible tragedy will play out," she said. Alan Engel, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation in Louisville, was with Rabin for 12 days in Denver during the mid-1980s.

En-gel was with a Jewish organization -ii 1 i 1 i 1 1 t. political system because people elect the chief executive. Engel recalled that Rabin said, "I hope someday we will get there" to elect the head of state by popular vote. Next year, for the first time, the Israeli prime minister will be directly elected. Al Cheistwer, executive director of the Jewish Community Center in Louisville, met Rabin around 1973 and again four years ago on a trip to Israel with a group of directors of Jewish organizations.

Rabin, who was a top Israeli Army officer before his political career, "was a very dedicated individual," Combs always said to me he was very optimistic that I would be governor someday and he always said to me, 'Larry, finish my Forgy said yesterday. "Hal Rogers and I are going to finish Bert Combs' road." As a Lexington television commentator in the late 1980s, Forgy said, he shamed the Democrats into building the Junior Williamson Rest Area along the Mountain Parkway at Slade in Powell County. "It should be named for me," Forgy said, instead of for the Pike Countian who for years shined shoes in the legislative lounge in Frankfort. "It should be the Larry Forgy memorial toilet. It's the only toilet from Prestonsburg all the way down to Campton, and there's been many a dignified woman that has not been able to excuse herself along that parkway down there and (has) corn-See ROAD Page 4, col.

5, this section Cheistwer said. "He dedicated his life to his country as an Army person making sure it was a secure state. When he became a political leader, he was committed to creating a peaceful Israel and ensuring that it would survive among the Arab countries." Cheistwer said he was most shocked yesterday that the alleged assassin was an Israeli. "We don't expect this kind of violence" among countrymen, he said. Cheistwer described Rabin as "a very serious, modest individual who relied sometimes on silence to communicate his message.

(But) when he talked, people listened." Rabin also impressed Kentucky Attorney General Chris Gorman, a Catholic who was among eight attorneys general to meet with Rabin for more than an hour in Israel in early September to review Israel's legal system. They "met eyeball to eyeball," Gor-man said yesterday. "I got the impression that he was a moderate, very practical man who really believed in peace." it up in words that I do remember: 'They 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. Surveys of readers found that Pack Horse patrons preferred books about travel, adventure and religion. Thirty-five Pack Horse librarians from Harlan, Bell, Whitley, Clay and Knox counties gathered in January 1939 at Union College in Barbourville for a course on mending books. Miss Hattie Davenport, supervisor of the Pack Horse Library in Cumberland County, reported that her library consisted of 1,099 books and 3,526 magazines.

A 1938 newspaper article said that new Pack Horse libraries were popular in Pulaski, Pike, Garrard and Ohio counties. With the passing of the WPA, the Pack Horse libraries soon faded away, but the concept remained. By 1946 several Kentucky counties had started bookmobiles rolling over many of the same trails that Pack Horse librarians had traveled by horse in earlier days. That service remains a legacy of the book women in many Kentucky counties. "That test is totally unfair," Rogers responded.

Margaret Taylor, a teacher at Sparksville Elementary, said the test punishes bright students who aren't good writers. "I have a boy in my room he's good in science and math, but when he gets his scores back, he's going to think he's a dummy, and he's not," she said. The mood in Columbia was festive as Republicans, smelling their first chance to win the governor's race since 1967, became boastful at times. Tom Handy, Forgy's running mate, got the crowd going by explaining the difference between himself and his See FORGY Page 4, col. 5, this section there, and Rabin, then a member of the Israeli national legislature, spoke to the United Jewish Appeal.

Engel said he felt that he "actually did get to know" Rabin. Engel ate with him and chaperoned him around Denver. Even then, "I thought he was truly a leader. He had a vision of what peace ought to be," Engel said. He remembers Rabin as "very warm, down to earth.

Despite his stature, he dealt with everyone on an even basis. No one was better than anyone else." Engel was struck by Rabin's saying that the United States had the best i' 4 ii 1 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 the Department for Libraries and Archives five books bearing the 4 h1 If I if luktsJ "His gift make things totally going on Book women' brought hope to isolated Kentuckians mm I ,1. 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 footpaths, among the cliffs and laurel thickets.

They brought warmth and imagination to the hard lives ot 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 wom en" were memorable moments. "Most people have never heard of the book women," said Dalarna Breetz, director of 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 some 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 lt. BYRON CRAWFORD COLUMNIST STAFF PHOTOCOPY BY BYRON CRAWFORD 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. 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 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. Each library had one clerk who stayed in the headquarters to collect, classify and mend the books and.