The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 21

THE COURIER-JOURNAL SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17,1995 EDITOR: HUNT HELM PHONE: 582-4691 FAX: 582-4200 BRIEFLY Hark, th lotto outlets nng Big jackpots feed dreams of Santa Claus coming early (It wasn't statistics in which they had majored.) See, the odds are so long, this may be a jolt But it's easier to catch a stray lightning bolt. Of course, that won't faze any true believer Who's caught in the grip of that Lotto Fever. "I got it bad," said Forrest Miller of Louisville, who had crossed the river to play in Indiana. For Miller, winning would be a kind of revenge. "I'd just be breaking even," he said with a smile.

'I've spent so much money on these tickets." Miller filled out no card, 'cause he had a trick. He plunked down his cash, got his numbers quick. Said he had a method, a method quite slick: "Everyone who's won a big one has had a Quicfe-Picfe." He walked to his car and was leaving the store When he turned and got back into line for some more. And 1 heard him explain as the line made its crawl, "I forgot 1 wanted to play Powerball." (The jackpot for Powerball, the multistate lottery that has longer odds than either Hoosier Lotto or Lotto Kentucky, was $34 million yesterday. While officials didn't know if anyone had won the Powerball or Hoosier Lotto jackpots, they said one winning ticket was sold for the top Lotto Kentucky prize.) million, Cotton was busy.

On Lotto Kentucky they also were betting, For $15 million they hoped they'd be getting. And what would they do with their newfound millions? Quit work or party or change to civilians. Sgt. Danny Walker, an Army recruiter stationed in Louisville, offered his personal guarantee. "I can guarantee you if I hit it, I'll be out of this uniform," he said.

Their change, how it rinfeled, their greenbacks how quickly They made the cash register bulge oh so thickly. In this season of sharing, some folks were no rookies. They were doing for others by By JOHN VOSKUHL Staff Writer Twos nine days before Christmas and many an auto Was crossing the bridge to play Hoosier Lotto. The players were nettled by somewhat long lines, While visions of sugar plu- make that dollar signs Danced in those places where every dream dances. They paid their money.

They took their chances. "I'm gonna be dreaming lottery tonight, said clerk Missy Cotton, even as her fingers tapped the keyboard of the Hoosier Lottery computer terminal at Thornton's Gas and Food Mart in Jeffersonville. With the lottery jackpot at $28 Holidays are for hugs Man dies in fire after guests leave Christmas party By JOHN VOSKUHL Staff Writer Early yesterday, about two hours after the last guests had left their Christmas party, James and Marilyn Sullivan were awakened by the piercing alarm of a smoke detector. And then, according to firefighters, James Sullivan made a fatal mistake. Seeing that a couch was burning in the basement of their rented home in eastern Jefferson County's Owl Creek subdivision, Sullivan tried to extinguish the fire himself instead of leaving.

He died in the attempt. His wife, Marilyn Sullivan, escaped to a neighbor's home and called Mid-dletown firefighters. "When we got the call, it was about a couch on fire," the fire department's Latin American Club brings fiesta to Louisville Why are hoops in our hearts? What makes Kentuckians and Hoosiers so susceptible to basketball fever? Don Barry, a history professor at Florida State University, will lecture on the reasons at noon Tuesday at The Filson Club Historical Society, 1310 S. Third St. Barry's lecture, "Hoops Hysteria," is free and open to the public.

Seats may be reserved by calling 635-5083. Barry played basketball for the Jeffersonville (Ind.) High School Red Devils and was once recruited by a young scout named Bob Knight now coach at Indiana University. Rape at laundry on Westport Road An armed man raped a woman at a coin laundry on Westport Road yesterday morning and took an undetermined amount of cash before fleeing and leaving his victim in a tanning bed, Jefferson County police said. The attacker was about 5-feet-6 and wore a large navy blue jacket and blue jeans. Police said he wore white cotton gloves and a white ski mask during the assault, which occurred about 8:15 a.m.

at Choyce Coin Laundry, 11707 Westport Road. He was carrying a chrome-plated revolver with wood grips, police said. Police asked that anyone with information about the attack call the police violent-crime unit at 574-2105 or Kentuckiana Crime Stoppers at 582-2583. Sewer agency moving offices The Metropolitan Sewer District will officially open its new headquarters at 700 W. Liberty St.

tomorrow. The offices are one block west of the longtime main office at 400 S. Sixth St. the MSD Building, which Jefferson County plans to convert into jail space. The West Liberty offices will include MSD's executive offices, engineering, finance, legal, customer service and industrial wastes departments.

The main phone number, 540-6000, will not change. Chief judges: one new, one not Thomas Knopf has been re-elected chief judge of Jefferson Circuit Court. Knopf, who has been a judge for 18 years, will serve another two-year term. District Judge Kevin Garvey is the new chief judge of District Court, replacing Virginia Whit-tinghill. 3 post offices open today Three post offices will have special hours today.

The main post office, 1420 Gardiner Lane; the St. Matthews post office, in Shelbyville Road Plaza; and the Okolona post office, 7400 Jefferson will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. The Express Mail office, in the Airport Mail Facility at 4440 Crittenden Drive, near the Watterson Expressway, provides all postal services 24 hours a day, every day. Mammoth Cave closed again With the partial shutdown of the federal government, the National Park Service has suspended cave tours and closed the visitor center, administrative offices and ferries at Mammoth Cave National Park. The Mammoth Cave Hotel and primary park roads remain open.

INSIDE The power of competition Fed up with high blacktopping prices, Letcher County's judge-executive looked into buying an asphalt plant. He said the only blacktop plant in the area responded by cutting its prices nearly 30 percent. B4 State universities find support Many Kentuckians believe the 'state's universities need more public money but they also think elementary and secondary education should be the top priority for any new state spending. They also Jhink community colleges offer good or excellent educations. B3 INDEX B6 Weather B2 Deaths acting as bookies.

Tony Sumpter of Louisville placed 25 bets on the Hoosier Lotto bets made by Sumpter and four of his coworkers at Rohm Haas Kentucky Inc. The five have been betting together for some time, Sumpter said. In the last three weeks, they've won $50 twice. Should they win it all, the jackpot will be split in five equal portions, Sumpter said. He gets no extra share for placing the bets.

"They take care of me at work," he said. "They feed me." More money than sense went into each bet As some folks acknowledged they'd gone into debt. On birthdays, on wedding days, on holidays they wagered. STAFF PHOTO BY JAMES H. WALLACE steep that, at some places, she got off and led him rather than risk a fall.

And one of her patrons remembered her once riding the horse through water so deep that it reached the bottom of the saddlebags. Sometimes her feet froze to the stirrups. "I never did measure the territory, but it seemed like a whole lot of miles," Lucas said. "I covered Bear Creek, and either Brush Creek or Wide Creek, Burton Bend, Tallega, and the schools at Primrose, Monica and Oliver." mem hwwiwuwiiiiihiii 5 ii 1 By MARTHA ELSON Staff Writer Mary (Maria) and Joseph (San Jose) were turned away time after time as they searched for a place to rest during Las Posadas, a traditional Mexican re-enactment of their journey into Bethlehem during the Latin American Club of Louisville's "Fiesta de Navidad" celebration last night. Andrew Araque, 9, of Louisville, and Jessica Byerly, 9, of Henryville, and a collection of small shepherds bravely continued parading around the long supper tables at the Aero Club at Bowman Field, where the event was held, until the 35 or so other participants finally sang out a welcome in Spanish: Entren, santos peregrinos; reciban esta ovaci6n.

(Enter pilgrims; I didn't recognize you!) In Mexico, costumed neighborhood 'Xf Jm, k.J 1 Jarhara Christie, 3, gave Santa Claus a big hug after relaying his list of Christmas wishes yesterday at the Marchman Learning Centre on River Park Drive. Sixty-nine children at the center were invited to a pancake breakfast and photo sessions with Santa. Proceeds from the event will go toward purchasing a CD-ROM system for the learning center's computer. Maj. Mark Stigers said.

"Had they done what they were supposed to do, they'd just have property damage this morning." Neighbors who gathered outside the house at 10813 Quince Court yesterday were stunned. "It's devastating," said Bob Atkins, who had attended the Sullivans' party, which ended shortly after midnight. Scorched decorations were visible through the windows that firefighters had shattered when they arrived about 2:30 a.m. yesterday. Off the front porch, a Christmas flag Santa Claus face on a field of blue swayed gently in a light breeze.

County police had not yet deter- See FIRE Page 4, col. 4, this section groups go from house to house between Dec. 16 and 24 to celebrate Posadas, ending with a final celebration on Christmas Eve. Later, the children broke a piftata and members told of special memories of Christmas in their native countries, which also included Venezuela, Peru and Nicaragua. Members of the club, which is more than 20 years old, say such get-togethers help them stay in touch with their roots and introduce cultural traditions to non-Latin American members of the club, which has about 100 paid members and a monthly newsletter mailing list of almost 300.

Gloria Marshall of Louisville, originally from Nicaragua, remembers the joyous midnight Mass on Christmas See CLUB Page 4, col. 4, this section Grace Caudill Lucas, 83, still lives in eastern Lee County, where she was a pack-horse librarian during the Great Depression. In a 1935 photo at left, she led her horse, Bill. and they loved poetry." Lucas has fond and misty memories of one humble mountain home where a good woman with a big family and scarcely enough food to go around always insisted that she stay for a meal when she brought books. "I didn't want to eat, because I thought I'd be taking something away from the children, but she would make me eat," Lucas said.

"I've thought about that so many times." i I WL. 1r "i 'j Louisville ruiivnu FALLS children from a previous marriage, and for 5ft years I was with my children on my own. I had to make a living for them." Times were hard. "Son, they was so hard you couldn't hardly crack 'em, she said. "It wasn't only one; it was about everybody.

About the only work there was around here, besides grubbing and making moonshine, was railroading, and there was a few pensioners. They was the only ones that had a dollar. "We had enough to eat. We had our own hogs and our own cow. But many of a night my children and me went to bed with just milk and bread (for supper), and it's still good enough for me." She doesn't remember exactly when she switched from a Works Progress Administration sewing project to the pack-horse librarian's job; her best guess is that it was about 1934, when she would have been 22.

"I got paid $28 a month and worked about three days a week. I had to hire my horse. I paid 50 cents a day for the horse, and fed it. It was just a big black horse. Bill, I think, was his name." Lucas doesn't recall ever having any trouble with the horse, but she rode him around some cliffs so Times were tough, but the book woman was tougher 1 1 -wmmm wm if iA 1 if fill i A 1 4 1 1 i CANYON FALLS, Ky.

Grace Caudill Lucas was one of Kentucky's "book women," a pack-horse librarian during the Great Depression. Finding her was not easy. But my recent story about the Pack Horse Library caught the attention of Karen Hubbs of Morning View, who called to say that at least one of the book women was alive and reasonably well. She is 83 and still living in Lucas Hollow in eastern Lee County, where she once rode a horse through the hills to deliver books to schools and homes. She met me at her cozy white frame house and showed me to a BYRON CRAWFORD COLUMNIST seat in front of a stove.

A well-worn Bible lay on the arm of her chair. It was her favorite book, the book woman said, the best book she'd ever read. What did she remember about being a pack-horse librarian? "You mean besides riding a horse?" she asked. "Well, when I first started, you know, that WPA was a big thing for us paupers. That's what they think of all of us hillbillies, that we're just poor, poor, poor.

But I worked at sewing before I started on that, because I had two One of Lucas' best friends, Carlie Lynch, 86, was a teacher at the Monica School when Lucas was a book woman. "She's one of the finest women who ever grew up in this area," Lynch said. "She would come every two weeks. I must have had 45 children in the one-room school, and when she would come they'd be so tickled. There weren't many books, but we would pass them around and try to let as many children read them as possible.

They loved books like 'Robinson 0.