The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 1

1 I N'll'lMr1 I Film fare Tuesday Strike back at allergies Ragweed's blooming, but you have options for obtaining reflief SPORTS, 1C Atvvood riding rare break Speedway launches just a few to stardom SPORTS, 1C Markets switch their brand Foodmax, Bruno's go to Albertson's format BUSINESS, IE August 25, 1998 getting foul Vulgar, juvenile humor finds growing audience in movies, television TOMORROW IN BUSINESS A94 V70 Complete weather forecast on 6B TheTENN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE A GANNETT NEWSPAPER UP ESSEAN PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID IN NASHVILLE, TN Copyright, 1998 VOLUME 94, NO. 237 5 SECTIONS Nashville Zoo closing its doors early I irTC" ''S i' A The elephants, birds and jaguars will be the first to make the move to the 200-acre Grassmere park. The Joelton site will be used as a breeding and quarantine facility, and home for aging animals that cannot be put on display. "This clearly says Grassmere is our focus and our future," said Kim Drake, director of the zoo capital campaign, which has raised $3.5 million. Yesterday afternoon, Ed Sann-waldt of Clarksville took his family to Grassmere.

The family prefers Grassmere because of the giant tree-shaped jungle gym, he said, adding the zoo move is a good idea. expected to lose a half-million dollars this year. The number of projected Grass-mere visitors this year is 180,000. The jungle gym, a new exhibit called The Unseen New World and the Croft House restoration have contributed to the increase in visitors, Schwartz said. All of the zoo's education staff and programs will move to Grass-mere in October.

So what will happen to the lions and tigers and the other zoo residents? They will move on schedule over the next several years. Animals that are on loan here will go back or to other zoos. for another two to four years, when it moves to the Nolensville Road site. Officials are building exhibits and raising $10 million. But financially and from a marketing standpoint, it makes sense to close the Joelton site now, said zoo director Rick Schwartz.

"Attendance in Joelton dramatically dropped. More so than we expected," Schwartz said, adding that many people believe the Joelton zoo is already closed. This year's projection was that 150,000 people would visit the zoo half the number that visited in 1996, the last year the zoo was operated as a single facility. The zoo was Grassmere already pulls more visitors By CARRIE FERGUSON Staff Writer The Nashville Zoo will close its Joelton site in October and concentrate on getting the increasingly popular Grassmere Wildlife Park ready for the zoo's move. The zoo has experienced a significant erosion of visitors in the past year, while the number of people going to Grassmere has increased, officials said yesterday.

The zoo was not expected to close P. CASEY DALEY STAFF Deanna Saccone, 2, checks to see what her dad, Darren, thinks of goat trying to chew his shoelace at the Nashville Zoo in Joelton. oofca fa South Forestry, fears rising in ru i 0)1 cq 2 ii. I Am IJftfl ir i 1 mm K'j New York Times News Service WASHINGTON The United States believed that senior Iraqi scientists were helping to produce elements of the nerve agent VX at a factory in Khartoum that American cruise missiles destroyed last week, administration and intelligence officials said yesterday. Evidence the administration has cited as justification for the attack consisted of a soil sample secretly obtained months ago outside Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries, the officials said.

Officially the administration has refused to describe its evidence in detail, or say how it was obtained. The sample contained a rare chemical that would require two more complex steps to be turned into VX, one of the deadliest nerve agents in existence. The chemical has no industrial uses. The United Nations and United States have long agreed that Iraq is extremely skilled at many kinds of VX production, having worked for years to perfect the best process. The officials also said there was evidence that senior Iraqi scientists had aided the efforts to make VX at that factory, and at another plant The connection with Iraq emerged as a key part of the administration's argument for why it was justified in launching cruise missiles at a plant in another country without any warning.

The officials disclosed the information, four days after the U.S. strike, to try to counter claims by the Sudanese government that the factory was a benign commercial venture that produced half of Sudan's medicines. The United States, however, rebuffed calls from Sudan and other countries to turn over its evidence. At the United Nations, the Security Council yesterday put off a request by Arab nations to send inspectors to search the rubble in Khartoum for signs of chemicals related to VX. "I dont see what the purpose of a fact-finding study would be," Peter Burleigh, the deputy American representative to the United Nations.

"We have credible information that fully justifies the strike we made on that one facility in Khartoum." The officials said the soil sample contained traces of a "precursor chemical" called ethyl methylphos-phonothionate, or EMPTA. There would be no viable explanation for the presence of that chemical, they said, other than the production of VX. PHOTOS BY D. PATRICK HARDING STAFF A crane swings to grab logs at a chip mill in Caryville, Term. A growing demand for trees raises concern that area forests are threatened.

TV 43 72 law may let Hooker use governor's mansion UTimKpr pnttino rmoht IpciH AD0Ut 01 tne creases in timber llITlDer Cutting mignt leaa production in the U.S. is supposed to come tO industry, environment Clash from the South," Jacik Siry, a research associate in natural resource economics and forest By ANNE PAINE policy at North Carolina State University. He staff Writer presented projections for 1991 through 2020 Tennessee trees are becoming a hot com- from a U.S. Forest Service report to Gov. Don modity as timber cutting slows in the Pacific Sundquist's Forest Management Advisory Northwest and consumers' desire for paper Panel recently.

and wood increases. 'We're not sure if the South can sustain it." The forestry industry says it's a great op- Tennessee is one of the states that will see portunity for landowners to make money, but much more cutting, he said, activists say taxpayers will suffer from a While some Southern states already are scarred and damaged environment removing more trees than they are growing, While voices on both sides of the issue give Tennessee is among those where the opposite widely differing accounts of how serious a is true. State foresters boast that the ratio threat exists for forests, a growing body of here is l-to-3. forestry research shows that Tennessee and But data used to determine this is 10 years other nearby states had best be prepared. old.

Some experts see the South as the setting of Little current information is available on Spotted Owl War Part 2. tne trend as new cniP mills are built that can Efforts to protect the Northern spotted owl, gobble up trees by the thousands daily to a species not found in this region, were a make paper, particle board and other prod-flash point in a battle that erupted over the ucts, and creeping development wipes out timber industry's long-standing rights to cut more forests. trpfxi inrinriini? old ernwth forests on "WeVe seen a huge increase in harvesting v. By DUREN CHEEK Staff Writer Pack your bags, governor. John Jay Hooker may get to use your house for the night Hooker, the Democratic nominee for governor, said yesterday he wants to use the governor's mansion on Cur-tiswood Lane for a campaign fundraiser and has found a 1972 law that will let him do just that "There is a statute that prohibits the use of state property for campaign purposes unless you give the other people the right to use the property," Hooker said.

State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson said he doesn't know whether the law requires Sundquist to turn over the keys of the mansion temporarily to Hooker. He has asked state Attorney General John Knox Walkup for an opinion on the matter. An aide to Republican Gov. Don Sundquist, Hooker's Nov. 3 election opponent, declined to comment when I Turn to PAGE SA, Column 1 Dublic lands in the Northwest since that last survey," said Doug Murray, a Activist Doug Murray tosses an oil filter left on a 400-acre site cleared of trees in Scott County.

In the South, the focus is mainly on private lands, where most trees are found. Turn ,0 PAGE 2A Column 1 Yazoo City's renowned comedian Jerry Clower dies at age 72 By ELLEN MARGULIES and his love of the state of Missis within a month, selling more than Aug. 4, shortly before performing in Hiawassee, at the Georeia reari. He never said darn or gosh or shucks in any of his albums," Rice said. And the act was no act Offstage, Clower, 72, was "exactly the same," his manager said.

"He lived his life strictly according to Christian principles. Arguably he was one of the best-known Baptists in the world, right there next to Billy Graham. His love of family, his love of Lord sippi" are the things hell be best remembered for. A member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1973, the Liberty, native honed his comedic skills spinning long yarns for his customers at the Yazoo City fertilizer company. He cut his first album, Jerry Clower from Yazoo City, Mississippi Talk-in', in 1970.

The album went gold Staff Writer Jerry Clower, the big man famous for his blazing red suit and his clean country comedy, died last night in a Jackson, hospital, five days after bypass surgery. The Grand Ole Opry star was discovered 32 years ago selling fertilizer at Mississippi Chemical said Tandy Rice, his personal manager. suu.uuu copies. His most recent, Peaches Possums to Clanton, Alabama, with love, Jerry Clower, is scheduled to be released in the fall, Rice said. Clower, a lifelong resident of Liberty, is survived by Homerline Wells, his wife of 51 years, four children and several grandchildren.

The MCA recording artist fell ill "I fell in love with him the minute I met him," Rice said last night "I was there when he started. I was the one who encouraged him to start He was always proud our deal was sealed with a handshake." Gower's standup comedy act was clean as a whistle. "He was a standup comedian, a male Minnie Mountain State Fair. He returned home and was briefly hospitalized before undergoing open heart surgery six bypasses last Thursday at the Jackson Miss. Baptist Medical Center, Rice said.

The cause of death was cardio respiratory arrest Funeral arrangements were incomplete last night 1 jbcCqih: Local News, Sports ft Entoftsinflwnt 30 fj Heath Nam SA, 1D Horoscope 20 Movtoa 3D -c Nafonsd News 4-5A uvmg BusJnsss To subscribe 242-NJEWS DsRvsry probtsms: 254-5661 or 1 -80XM2-8237 rorpsrsonsi sstnctj, csf during trnso times; Monday-Friday: 5:30 am to 6 pjn Saturday: 6:30 am to 10:30 am Sunday: 730 am to 12:30 pm To iwch ouf wwaroofni 259-8095 nsYmtaOtsroessesficofn I over the ocean Hurricane Bonnie's erratic behavior is making forecasters crazy trying to precfict landfall. The storm churned out in the Atlanta yesterday with 1 1 5 mph wines On 5A. IMS to get boost British-bom David Lowes Watson is in Middle Tennessee to help United Methodist church leaders avoid burnout disillusionment and other pitfalls. On1B. I bsnsdsctbs Government mortgage programs to help minorities obtain loans wont work without an energetic commitment by banks, ban officers say.

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