Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 12

The Arizona Republic ft This Em -----1fl ft filUSfi' JUT Page 1 REPUBLIC CITY Fountain Hills left powerless by plane crash A small plane crashed south of Fountain Hills Friday, killing one person and injuring three and knocking out all power to the community of 4,500 residents. The victims were in a rented Cessna 172 Sky Hawk when it snagged a power line and crashed while flying low over the Verde River 35 miles northeast of Phoenix, sheriff's deputies said. Identities of the victims were withheld pending notification of relatives. The survivors were taken to Mesa Lutheran Hospital where their conditions were listed as stable. All of Fountain Hills and most of the Fort McDowell Indian reservation were plunged into darkness when the plane brought down the transmission line near the Verde River water filtration plant at 7:40 p.m.

"Witnesses said they heard what sounded like rifle shots," Sheriff's Detective Don Palmer said. "They looked over and saw the plane slipping sideways in the air and go into the ground. "They said it landed wheels down, then sort of ballooned into the air and flipped over." The power line was twisted around the nose and left landing gears when deputies arrived. The aircraft does not have retractable landing gears. Vj5f-A YfW few Aw SECTION July 21, 1979 Heavy rainfall almost puts out big brush fire A large fire on Bureau of Land Management acreage in the remote Arizona Strip was almost brought under control Friday afternoon with the help of heavy rains.

BLM officials said the fire in the Grand Wash Cliffs area, 60 miles south of the Utah line, should be controlled today. Rain throughout the state promised to help end one of the worst fire seasons in Arizona history, fire prevention officials said. "The rain came about 2 p.m. Friday, and the fire took a remarkable turnabout," BLM spokesman Richard Thomas said. "Some of the 150 firefighters at the scene are being released, but we will keep the fresher ones until it is controlled." The National Weather Service said there was a high concentration of subtropical moisture over the state.

Weather officials said the rain is expected to continue throughout the state today. The fire blackened 20,000 acres of brush land in the strip. Thomas said it started as four lightning-caused fires Tuesday night, and by late Thursday, the four had joined. "One oldtime BLM employee in St. George, Utah, has said it is the biggest fire in the strip since the early 1950s," Thomas said.

The fire burned through desert grass and shrubs and was beginning to eat into stands of pinyon and juniper Friday. The fire was at least 15 miles from any ponderosa pine. Thomas said the firefighters were being assisted by five ground tankers, Continued on Page B-7 Rooubnc photo by Earl McCarmev All the victims were inside the aircraft when deputies arrived. Investigators said the plane was rented from Superstition Air Service at Mesa's Falcon Field. Freeway tie-up Department of Public Safety officers wave cattle caused the rig to sway.

Five cows es- traffic past an overturned cattle trailer on I- caped and riders from the Livestock Commis- 17. The driver, James O. Gonzales of Buckeye, sion were called in to round them up. One of said the trailer went over Friday after restless the cows was injured. Stabbing suspect was drug informer in Havasu By STEVE DANIELS Western Arizona Bureau KINGMAN Edward W.

Gilliam, who is awaiting trial in the stabbing death of an 86-year-old Lake Havasu City woman, was sent to Lake Havasu City two days before the slaying by narcotics agents who apparently hoped to set him up as an informer, it was learned Friday. At the time of his arrest last December, Gilliam. 20. of Kingman, was working as an informer for Mohave Countv narcotics officer Terry David Shea, manager of employee services for McCulloch. Local narcotics officers have conducted seminars at the McCulloch plant to inform company supervisors about drug recognition.

The officers said they have had complaints of company employees smoking marijuana in the McCulloch parking lot and said an influx of California employees to the plant of Mohave County's largest employer "makes it likely there is considerable drug use by plant employees." Flanagan. Flanagan at the time was a member of the Combined Enforcement Unit, a multiple-agency county-wide narcotics strike force. Gilliam's relationship with Flanagan was disclosed a week ago during a pretrial hearing in the murder case in Mohave County Superior Court, but the exact nature of the relationship was not disclosed. A check of court records reveals that Flanagan requested that Gilliam go to Lake Havasu City and indicates that Flanagan may have paid for Gil A former county narcotics agent said, "There are lots of drugs going in and out of there (the McCulloch plant)." He said local agents tried previously to get an informer into the plant "but we couldn't get anybody in there." Shea said he had no knowledge of any undercover activity at the plant and said the company would not knowingly participate in a plan to employ undercover informers. Continued on Page B-2 liam's transportation there two days before Diana Mary Coderre was slain in the bedroom of her home on Dec.

11. In a taped interview with detectives after his arrest, Gilliam said Flanagan wanted him to apply for a job at the McCulloch Corp. chain saw plant. Gilliam never applied for a job with the company, however, according to a spokesman for the McCulloch Corp. "We have no application for an Edward Gilliam and never had one to the best of our knowledge," said PEANUTS I Tm Li'6mT HE'S I I SLEEP MOPE HQ1 FES.

Valley nurse shortage prompts hospitals to recruit nationwide y- V. 4 IN ChuCKs RCOMy PROpmpLV WELL, SETTER IK Jl'ST WENT GONE TO CHUCK! Th lOEMiSsT UE II WE WE DO til cies of 15 percent to 20 percent. But she said that the hospital has managed to continue providing the same level of services by using temporary employees obtained from Valley nursing registries. Memorial has recruited nurses from out of state, including 10 from the Philippines, who are scheduled to arrive in September. Mrs.

Hilger said some graduate nurses are leaving Arizona because salaries are low here compared with those in metropolitan areas in other states. A county salary survey here last fall showed that nurses here were earning an average of S6.44 an hour, and that hourly wages ranged from S4.27 to SI 1.64. Continued on Page B-7 By JERRY HICKEY A shortage of nurses at some Valley hospitals has prompted recruitment efforts in other states and as far away as the Philippines. Reports that services have had to be curtailed at hospitals and an allegation that a shortage of nurses at one has contributed to unsafe conditions could not be confirmed by The Arizona Republic. Elaine Laeger, executive secretary of the state Board of Nursing, said the number of applications by foreign nurses for licenses in Arizona has doubled during the past three months.

The majority of foreign applicants are Filipino nurses, she noted. Cary Hilger, director of nursing for Memorial Hospital, said Memorial has nursing staff vacan Superintendent can't reject school budget, ruling says Robert L. Thomas Bar at Crown King serves up memories By SUSAN CAREY Maricopa County School Superintendent Richard Harris has no authority to reject a school district's budget or withhold the budget from the Board of Supervisors, according to an opinion issued Friday by the state attorney general's office. Upon learning of the opinion, Harris said he would submit budgets for extended-school-year programs in Phoenix Union and Scottsdale unified districts to the supervisors 26 opinion issued by the Maricopa County attorney's office. Mary Carr, president of the Phoenix Union High School board, had requested the initial opinion after Harris rejected the budget approved by her board and the State Board of Education.

In concurring, the attorney general's opinion said Harris "acts only as a conduit performing the ministerial act of transmitting copies of the roadbed became the present bumpy, dusty automobile road. The mines of the Oro Belle and Alexandra have played out on the sides of the Bradshaws, but the old bar is still ringing to the clink of Photo bv Stovo DmMs Continued on Page B-ll The opinion concurred with a June hvsicist Derek Swinson stands on a platform in the Grand Canvon i a ii t. a i caverns mai win oe pan oi me tosnuc-ray telescope. Bob Schmidt patted the scarred, broad expanse of the bar where thousands of drinks had been hoisted, where the muscular arms of miners, cowboys and loggers had rested and where lies, tall stories and maybe a fact or two had been exchanged in beery confidence. "This bar," said the spare, orange-bearded Schmidt, "came around the Horn from New York to San Francisco.

Next it was carried to the town of Alexandra in 1878 and then, in 1898, it was moved to the town of Oro Belle where it stayed until 1916 when it came here." "Here" is the saloon in Crown King. There's no mistaking it. It's the only bar in town, it's two stories high and has the word "Saloon" across its false front in large white letters. Foster parents indicted in death of 3-year-old United Press International Team sweated to assemble telescope in cool caverns Western Arizona Bureau Schmidt points out a nondescript table in his saloon where he said a Mexican woodcutter would sit at nightly poker sessions. "He was good at poker and when he got together a rich poke he took off for Mexico," said Schmidt.

"We know him today as Pancho Villa." While the famed Mexican bandit and revolutionary is gone and the saloon's upstairs cribs are empty of painted ladies, the bar is still lively and holds weekly dances. Jan Wilson, a tall statuesque blonde who mans a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout at Horsethief Peak, sings for the band during the dances. Across from the saloon is the Tie Restaurant, which gets its name be-, cause it is constructed of wooden ties from the old railroad. Paul M.

Turley, who spent six years GRAND CANYON CAVERNS team for what was to become a six' It is a cool 56 degrees year-round day underground ordeal. Sections of the telescope were too large for the elevator that carries tourists and equipment into the caverns. The sections had to be transported on top of the elevator and lowered by ropes through holes The saloon is a bit of living history. In fact, the whole town of Crown King is history, a still functioning tie to the past when Arizona was young, bold and in love with its own sense of glory. Crown King was a rich silver mine, a king of a mine that crowned the top of the Bradshae Mountains in the midst of the Prescott National Forest.

A railroad track was built up the side of the mountain in a series of in the cavern walls. More than 6,000 pounds of equip' The Department of Economic Security on July 12 suspended three employees with pay while an investigation of the case was conducted. (Department Director Tom Mc Laughlin said foster-care manager Betty Roy of Casa Grande and caseworkers Hilda Wishman and John Ar-mand, both of Coolidge, were suspended. (The department not assess responsibility for placing the child until the investigation is completed, he said. (Charles' brother, Jason, 7, also had been placed with the Carranzas but was removed from the home before Charles' death, officials said.

(Their mother, Dorothy Baze of Montana, told a reporter Jason complained that Charles had been beaten.) CASA GRANDE A Casa Grande couple has been indicted by a Pinal County grand jury in the death of a foster child. Acting Police Chief Phil Bain said Friday that Hector Carranza is charged with second-degree murder and his wife, Raquel, is charged with criminal neglect in the death of 3-year-old Charles Baze. Arraignment is scheduled Monday in Superior Court at Florence. The boy died July 5 at Maricopa County Hospital in Phoenix, two days after his foster parents took him to Hoemako Hospital in Casa Grande. Bain said the Carranzas told authorities the boy had fallen from a tree.

Doctors said the boy died of massive head injuries and his body had many bruises. ment were dropped into the cav' in this maze of caverns 21 stories below the surface. But University of New Mexico physicist Derek Swinson was breathless and sweating by the time he reached the Halls of Gold, a dimly lighted chamber several hundred yards from the cavern entrance. Swinson and a team of UNM technicians arrived here last week to assemble a cosmic-ray telescope to detect high-energy cosmic rays which bombard the Earth from outer space. The telescope had been pre-assembled and broken down in a university warehouse.

But the advance planning did not prepare the erns via the elevator but had to be carted by four-man teams wearing rope harnesses through the dark tunnels of the caverns to the Halls of Gold. in I he Arizona Republic composing room, rescued the former blacksmith's shop two years ago. He jacked up and leveled the building's decaying floors, built a barbecue on top of the old forge and preserved the bellows and blacksmith's anvil. For music he has a 1938 upright Zenith radio that cost him $100 but Continued on Page B-2 Hauling the equipment was an switchbacks. There was no room to turn around so the locomotives would travel forward to the end of one switchback, go in reverse up the next switchback and forward again up the next incline.

The railroad lasted to 1927 when the tracks were removed and the exhausting job not usually associ ated with science. Continued on Page B-2.