The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 12

2B DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER December 23, 1990 "i tfc 7 Jv IOWA JOURNAL IMAGES OF IOWA NEWSMAKER Rare visitor A yellow grosbeak, which is native to western Mexico and Central America, has drawn flocks of bird-watchers to Iowa recently. The bird showed up in Dean and Diane Mosman't back yard near Elkhart last month. Sandy Komito, a particularly dedicated bird-watcher, flew all the way from Fairlawn, N.J., Just to see the grosbeak. Get the drift? BOB MOOERSOMNTht Rtelittr QUOTE HI sure don't have to wash like this at home. When I get there, I'll tell you, me and my Maytag are going out Staff Sgt.

Daniel Morrissey of the Army Reserve'i 915th Transportation Company, on hand-washing his clothes in a tub. F0LL0WUP 'J, Siblings seek missing kin Five brothers and sisters from Iowa who were scattered and reared separately are hot on the trail of their missing sixth sibling. Doresa Jones-Dressier, 46, said her other siblings were reunited in March, but their brother Tommy, 48, is still missing. The story was aired on the television program "Unsolved Mysteries" in September and will be rerun Wednesday. Jones-Dressier, who lives in Boring, has gotten 276 tips.

The family lived in Council Bluffs until their parents divorced in 1944 and the children were placed in the Christian Children's Home. The siblings are: Sally Bell, 50, of Ruthven; Florence Taylor, 53, of Siloam Spring, Delbert Heck, 58, of Jay, Okla; and James Heck, 55, of Gentry, Ark. Jones-Dressier said one tip may pan out. After the show aired, she received a call from a man in Nebraska who thinks he may be Tommy. The man must petition a court to open his adoption records.

She said he is 48 and was adopted in Council Bluffs. "I have talked to him and he's a really nice man," Jones-Dressier said. "I kind of hope that it's him." Global warming or no global warming, there's still a ways to go before Iowans are over the winter hump. DATELINE IOWA OUR TOWNS Community service finds niche at Clarke College Station drops gas price Th Rtwiltr'i tow Nwt Swvkt INDEPENDENCE, IA. Unleaded gasoline is back to August prices here.

The per-gallon price was about $1.25 at most HARRY BAUMERTTh RwWtr i. I lndpndnc stations in Independence Friday morning, said Greg Hunter, co-owner of Conoco Express Mart, which set its price at 1.09 for its grand opening. 1DESI 5 MOINES 0 MUM 200 By the end of the day, two oth- er stations matched his price, Hunter said. if'-. ft.

Kum Go, Casey's General Stores and Conoco still were selling unleaded for $1.09 Saturday afternoon. Hunter said Conoco probably would raise its prices in a couple of days. Crash kills Newton man The Rmtter'i Ntwt iarvlc MINGO, IA. A Newton man died Friday when the car in which he was riding crossed the center line north of Mingo on Iowa Highway 117 and col lided with a semitrailer truck. The dead man, Douglas Fair-cloth, 23, of Newton, was a passenger in a car driven by Scott Auten, 24, of Newton, Iowa State Patrol officials said.

School hopes to show freshmen the joy of giving by requiring them to spend some time helping other people. By ADAM RAPP Rttfsttr CWTtpKln( DUBUQUE, IA. Besides parties, tests and roommates, students at Clarke College will recall elderly nuns, soup kitchens and cold fingers when they think of their first year of school. Starting this year, Clarke freshmen are required to perform three hours of community service in order to graduate. Dean of Students Jim Petty said faculty and staff at the school recognized a need to get younger students involved with community service.

"Younger students are seeming to be less altruistic, less interested in helping those who are less fortunate," Petty said. "This echoes the national attitude of 'what's in it for me' instead of selflessness." The college reacted by instituting the service requirement as part of freshman seminar, a nine-week course all first-year students are required to take. "We wanted to introduce these values during freshman year. Instituting community service should whet the appetites for helping others in the future," Petty said. Petty supervised one group of freshmen who constructed a path, three-quarters of a mile long, out of wood chips at the Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.

Most, but not all, were enthusiastic, Petty said. "It's hard to get 100 percent to jump at the idea of helping others, but most of them did. If half of them stay with community service in some way, then the program was a success," he added. Cornell Taylor, a freshman from Rockford, 111., was skeptical about the arboretum project. "At first I wasn't very enthusiastic about building a trail in the cold weather.

But when it was finished it was good to feel the wood chips sliding under my feet as I walked back to my car," Taylor said. "I felt like I accomplished something for someone else." Four other groups of freshmen were assigned to other tasks in the community. One group visited Alzheimer's patients at Mount Carmel, a home for retired nuns. An- PES MOINES) i hum aio 1. i The name of the truck driver was not available.

Auten was in fair condition Saturday at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines. The accident was not weather-related, patrol officials said. Judge: RED letters are OK IOWA CITY, IA. (AP) A judge has ruled that three large, red letters spelling "RED" on the outside of a house are a work of art, not a sign. Clarke College freshman Jennifer Rahe visits with Henrietta Johnston at Luther Manor In Dubuque.

Bennett Webster was cited Oct. 18 by Iowa City officials for having a sign in an area where zoning doesn't permit it. Webster was fined $50 and told to remove low.CJty MOINES other group worked with elderly residents at Luther Manor, a nursing home. Another repainted a barn at Four Mounds Park and the fifth group spent an evening serving meals at The Pantry, a soup kitchen for the homeless. Jennifer Rahe of Dyersville was one of the freshmen who visited Luther Manor.

"It was lots of fun listening to their stories about the 'good old she said. Volunteer work has a long history at Clarke. In the past, students have traveled to Japan to teach English and to Ecuador to help street children. Other students travel to Appalachia to help poverty-stricken families. Students also make an annual trip to Washington, D.C., to work in soup kitchens and demonstrate at the Pentagon for cuts in military spending.

Last school year, more than 40 students, a record number, made the trip. Petty said he believes Clarke is the only college in the state requiring volunteer work as part of the freshman experience. "Most campuses have expressed an interest to bring back community service," he said. "Hopefully our idea will spread." OUR PEOPLE the sign. 0 J0 Webster testified that he bought the letters for 1 1 at an auction.

He said they didn't refer to anyone or anything in the house. Johnson County District Associate Judge John Sladek overturned the citation. Sladek noted that, like art, the letters "stimulated reaction, particularly on behalf of the city zoning department." "The court can only speculate on what the reaction would have been had the three letters been blue and placed in a fashion spelling red," Sladek added. Convenience store robbed MUSCATINE, IA. (AP) A man robbed a convenience store here Saturday morning right across Woman's holiday gift: Sweets for the sweet 80B MODERSOHNTht Reenter DES MOINES the street from the police station.

Police said a man armed with an automotive tool walked into the Petro-n-Provision store and demanded money about 7 a.m. The robber, who had not been MuKdln) caught by Saturday evening, struck the female clerk and escaped with $200 dollars. The clerk was not seriously hurt. Smoker sets bed on fire Tht RwtiMr'i lew Ntwt Strvkt DAVENPORT, IA. A disabled Davenport man who was smoking in bed was in critical condition Saturday from burns suffered after he set knew she'd be handling quite a volume, so she started just before Thanksgiving.

How many hours a day does it take between Thanksgiving and Christmas to come up with all that candy? "Oh, mercy, 1 don't know," Hensley said. "I spend an awful lot of time. Today I've worked in the kitchen practically all day." What she brings out of the kitchen is a hit all around. Donald Scholz of Rochester, has been receiving candy from Hensley for the last 23 years and told her she made better sweets than Russell Stover's, Hensley said. And her not-so-longstanding fans seem to agree: Hensley's great-grandson, Ryan, turned 1 recently, and "I think it was in May my daughter tells me, 'Now, you have to make Ryan some peanut butter cups because that's what he Hensley's followers are everywhere.

"The little ones at church, they'll say, 'May Belle, when are you going to make some peanut They've got my number at church there, some of the little ones. I imagine some of the older ones have got my number too," she said. With all that popularity, Hensley agrees she easily could go into business. But when she's received money for her candy, it hasn't been the same for her, she said. "I sold some to a friend of mine down the street, and you know, that really spoils it for me," she said.

"It puts pressure on you. And I just don't get the kick out of selling it like I do giving it." Hensley doesn't even flinch at the temptation of so many pounds of candy in her kitchen each year. "Everyone says, 'I wonder how you stay she said. "I say, 'I don't eat For 23 years now, May Belle Hensley has been making and giving away pounds and pounds of Christmas candy. By KRISTINA CAMPBELL Rtvlitw StH Wrlttr She's been told her holiday goodies are better than Russell Stover's, but May Belle Hensley of Marshall-town doesn't earn the same kind of money as the famous chocolate maker for the candy she gives away.

Hensley, 76, has been making candy and giving it away at holiday times especially around Christmas for more than two decades. We're not talking about a plate of fudge here and there we're talking about 12 different kinds of candy that amount to between 125 and 175 pounds of sweets each year. Her candy-making hobby is a 23-year tradition with some recipients, Hensley said. "Every year I say I'm going to quit," she said. But she keeps on making candy from caramels and maplenut cream centers to peanut clusters and peanut-butter cups and she keeps on giving it away to people, such as doctors, neighbors, friends and relatives, who touch her life.

With two children, seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, Hensley ought to be able to stay pretty busy just feeding her relatives. But around Christmas each year, she lets loose and sends off samples of her sweets. Hensley likes to start making candy in early December so it's fresh when she ships it out, but this year she himself and his bed on fire. Eugene Carter, 52, was being treated Saturday at a Moline, 111., hospital with severe burns on 50 percent of his body, a nursing DvnporP DCS MOINES 0 200 supervisor said. When firefighters arrived at Carter's apartment Friday afternoon, his bed was burning and he was still in bed, said James Neumann, division chief of the Davenport Fire Department.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital said Carter has difficulty walking. May Belle Hensley and some of her confections..