The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 13

28 DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER August 17, FGISTM PHOTO BY EVAN VEE Mclntee tries to limit damage from remark DATELINE I0VA Hurt'. 5 tmi i i i I ill 1 1 1 A f- I i I 5 i i A I Bettendorf's Fensterbusches say they live in a normal bouse except for the boat and dock in their front yard. The family, from left, Mark, Kristin, Geneva, Kimberly and Lindsay, li strongly attached to life on the Mississippi. Life on Mississippi lures Iowans John Mclntee "Leave 1986 corn crop infield" ful candidate for the same seat in 1974. Nagle said, "It was talked about as much as anything I've ever seen.

I've heard about it constantly." Jerry Mursener, the consultant for Mclntee's campaign, said "it was poorly handled" and "we'll continue to hear about it but it's starting to fade now." Fight for Farm Vote In a close race, the Democrats believe Mclntee's statement will take away enough farm votes from him to give the race to Nagle. There sre 87,000 registered Democrats, 85.800 registered Republicans and 99,000 registered independents in the district. Nagle strategists believe the key to his success will be to persuade farm and rural voters, who often have voted for Republicans in the past, to vote Democratic this year. Much of Nagle's campaign is built around the "send a message" theme that says Washington will pay attention if a district that has elected Republicans for 52 years now votes Democratic. Mclntee hopes to hold on to the Republican vote and win the seat by peeling Waterloo and university voters from Nagle.

All that makes the political courting of farmers important to both candidates. Mclntee tells voters his four years of experience in the Iowa House make him more qualified than Nagle, who has not served in public office before. Nagle counters that argument by saying his term as the state Democratic chairman, when he successfully led the fight to preserve Iowa's first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, shows he is "street-smart" when it comes to dealing with Washington politics. By DAVID YEPSEN A statement that farmers ought to leave their corn crop in the field this year to solve their storage problems is creating political problems for 3rd District congressional candidate John Mclntee of Waterloo. In what was already a close race between Republican Mclntee and Democrat Dave Nagle, politicians in the district say it may have an effect on the race when it comes time to harvest votes in November.

"I've certainly done a lot of explaining lately," confesses Mclntee, 35. "We communicated poorly." Grain storage problems have become the latest farm issue of the 1986 campaign as candidates scramble to find ways to ease the shortage. Mcln-tee's troubles began in a July 17 letter to President Reagan, where he complained about the storage shortage and outlined some options to solve it. "Another option that should receive consideration is the possibility of encouraging farmers to leave all or a portion of their 1986 corn crop in the field through the winter and then harvest it in the spring," Mclntee wrote. "Many farmers caught by poor weather conditions last fall left their crop in the field and sustained less than 10 percent loss of yield when they harvested this spring.

"They thereby escaped the costs of drying and storage without significant loss of yield. Offering farmers a portion of their loan, perhaps a dollar a bushel, will allow them money to get through the winter until they would harvest next spring. This would delay the glut of com at the elevators this fall," he said. In a press release, Mclntee says his plan was "to encourage farmers to leave a portion of their 1986 corn corp in the field throughout the winter and then harvest it in the spring of 1987." "Dumb Idea" "It's a dumb idea," says Nagle, 42. If there is a severe winter or a lot of freezing and thawing, he said, farmers could lose as much as 75 percent of their crops.

Mclntee said losses last year were only 10 percent for those farmers who were forced to leave their crops in the field. Nagle said that was rare and the idea "would be a disaster not only for the farmer but for the farm supply industry." A few days later, Mclntee backed down, saying the concept was only an idea that might help a few farmers who are forced to leave their crops in the field. He said the idea came from outgoing Republican Congressman Cooper Evans. Evans said it was his idea but said, "I'm not sure how John worded it." Evans said some farmers may not be able to build additional storage or find an elevator to take their corn. "But the bills keep coming in and the poor guy is stuck," Evans said.

If the Department of Agriculture were to advance the farmer $1 a bushel on the loan prior to a spring harvest, he said, it would put a little cash in the hands of the farmers. "Last Resort" Mclntee said leaving crops in the field is "only a last resort" and that his statement "was wrongly worded." Seeking to limit the damage the remark may cause, he has been visiting elevators in the district to explain his position that it is something that should be done for farmers forced to leave crops in the field and that he is not encouraging all farmers to do that. But the political damage was done, according to strategists in both parties. Both Mclntee and Nagle are Waterloo lawyers and are working hard to shuck slick images to woo farm and rural votes. The episode didn't help Mclntee's effort.

In addition, polls show Nagle with an early lead in the race. Mclntee's side says Nagle's lead results from Nagle's win in the primary while Mclntee didn't have a primary challenge. That meant far more publicity for Nagle and thus more voter recognition of Nagle's name. Mclntee has now purchased television commercials to even the score and counter any adverse impact of the crop "This is the sort of thing that becomes cafe talk," says Steve Rapp, a Waterloo lawyer and local Democratic politician. Rapp was an unsuccess- By WILLIAM RYBERG Of The Register's Davenport Bureau BETTENDORF, IA.

Mark and Geneva Fensterbusch have a special attachment to their front yard. The first 40 feet of it is grass. Then it turns wide and wet and deep. It's the Mississippi River, stretching for a half-mile to the Illinois shore. They love it.

"I'll be here the rest of my life, I hope," said Mark, 38. "I think going back to .1 house in town, I'd miss the water. It's so pretty out here." Upstream on the riverfront in Le-Claire, homemaker Pat Hansen, 52, agrees. "We love the river," Hansen said of herself and her husband, Glenn, a truck driver. "It's something that's part of us.

Or we're part of it." The Fensterbusches and the Hansens are river people. There are thousands of Iowans like them, from commercial fishermen to factory workers to business executives. All share a common bond: Life on the Mississippi and Iowa's other rivers. Life on the Mississippi Are these people a different breed from inlanders? "I think we feel, we lead a fairly normal life, except for having a boat and dock in our front yard," said Fensterbusch, an executive with the Quad Cities' biggest real estate company. Indeed, while the riverfront is home to some colorful characters, most residents appear to be everyday people.

They're drawn to the river for varying reasons: Peace and quiet. Fresh air. Being able to boat, fish or swim when the urge strikes. Being away from traditional city settings. "Or simply enjoying cool nights in the summer," said Norman Moline, a geography professor at Augustana College in Rock Island, 111.

In the 1970s, Moline conducted several studies of flood plain residents along the Mississippi River in Davenport and along the Mississippi and Rock rivers in the Illinois Quad Cities. "Virtually all residents appreciat-ed the atmosphere of 'river Moline wrote in a report on the Rock River study. One important reason to many is the river's natural beauty. "One of the prettiest sights," said Hansen, "is when the moon is full and shining on the river and the lights of the Interstate Highway 80 bridge are reflecting on it." There's the changing of the leaves in the fall, eagles to watch in the winter and barges, pleasure boaters and fishermen to watch in the summer. The noisy break-up of river ice in the spring is a favorite attraction for the Fensterbusches' neighbor, Ralph Vermillion, 74.

"It crackles and pops," Vermilion said. In the Rock River study, Moline found riverfront residents had a strong sense of "community" among themselves and and "took pride in their perceived self-reliance." The studies showed riverfronts are populated by a mix of social and economic types. Along the Mississippi riverfront, homes range from modest to elegant. They're scattered along the shoreline on streets winding along the river-bank and in small clusters here and there in rural areas. Up-scalc Living The Fensterbusches and their three closest neighbors live in a row of four houses at the end of a long private lane that runs through a cornfield.

The neighborhood lifestyle appears strictly up-scale. The Fensterbusches belong to the Davenport Country Club, and it turns out they swim more there than in the river. Mark Fensterbusch is a vice president and manager of the insurance department of Mel Foster Co. the Quad Cities' biggest real estate agency. The family's three-bedroom home features a huge stone fireplace and sliding glass doors leading to a deck with a beautiful view of the river.

They had the home remodeled after they moved in seven years ago, and they have also added to it. At the river's edge there's another wooden deck, with steps leading to a boat dock. Parked at the dock is their boat, a 20-foot runabout with enclosed cabin and a 228-horsepower inboardoutboard motor. The Fensterbusches said that because they live on the river, the safety of their three children, Lindsay, 5, Kimberly, 3, and Kristin, 1, is a concern. They've dealt with it by having their children wear life jackets whenever they're on the boat dock or in the boat and by not allowing them on the river side of their home without a parent present.

"I think you use the same precautions you use if you live on a busy street in town," said Geneva, 32. "You don't let them play near the street." Spiders and Floods "You have a sense of being out in the open here," Mark said. "I think water for a lot of people is kind of a soothing thing. People tend to be around oceans and rivers and lakes. They're drawn to it." Mosquitoes are no worse than inland, say the Fensterbusches and other riverfront residents.

But spiders are another thing. "You sweep them down one day and they're there the next," retiree Helma Rader of Princeton said. She wages a continuing battle against spiders that like to spin their webs under eaves and along wooden decks and railings. "They say if you want to live on the river you put up with it." Then there are the shadflies and mayflies that sometimes come in impressive numbers. "I've seen them so bad that they literally cover the deck out there," Fensterbusch said.

For some, there's also flooding. The Fensterbusch and Hansen homes were just out of the river's reach during the record flood of 1965. (The Rader home was built just this year). Some residents aren't so lucky. In Buffalo, Judy and David Clark and their four children had to battle flood waters this spring.

The furnace, hot water heater, washer, dryer and refrigerator were moved out of the basement just in case flood waters came in. The Garks built a sandbag dike to keep the river back. Then the dike broke. Flood waters never reached the main living area of their home, but they poured into the basement. The only real damage was to the garage door, but there was mud all over.

"We had to scrape it out," Judy Clark said. living by the river worth all that inconvenience and work? "I wouldn't live anywhere else," she said. Worth It All Moline found that feeling common among riverfront residents. Their reasoning, Moline said, is, "Even if we get flooded, we get so many good days by the river that it's worth it." Riverfront residents usually pay a premium for the privilege of living along the river, if the home is relatively safe from flooding. In some cases, a riverfront borne might sell for 10 to 15 percent more than a comparable home in town, said Don Schaefer, another Mel Foster Co.

executive. The river is something to, be shared, residents say. In LeClaire, Hansen said strangers from as far away as London, New York and Colorado have stopped by to ask if they can look or take a picture from the Hansens' front yard or their boat dock. "The river is like a magnet," she said. And contrary to common thought, the Mississippi is not dirty and smelly, residents agreed.

Occasional dead fish are exceptions. Vermillion thinks the Mississippi has actually gotten cleaner in the last five to seven years. "It was real clean when we came 30 years ago," said Vermillion, a retired security supervisor. Pollution appeared to change that. "All of a sudden, you didn't see any turtles or frogs or water snakes," Vermillion said.

"But they're coming back." Man killed, four injured in boat accident on lake The Rooster's Iowa News Service CLEAR LAKE, IA. One man was killed and four women injured when one boat went out of control, hitting two other boats here Saturday. Doug Hobbiebrunken, 39, of Clear Lake was killed about 1:30 a.m. when his boat struck a boat lift, went out of control and hit two more docked boats before coming to rest on a dock. Four passengers in Hobbiebrun-ken's boat were injured.

Sara Davison, 19, Susie Best, 19, and Lisa Stille, 17, all of Garner were released from St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Mason City. Connie Wellik, 19, was held for Observation at the hospital. Cerro Gordo County sheriff's deputies and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources are investigating the accident. Elsewhere: Jasper County authorities continued to search Saturday for the body of Gregory Schnell, 16, of Lynn-ville, who drowned at a local Skunk River swimming spot near Lynnville Friday.

Lyle E. Tincher, 34, of Ottumwa was killed when the cab of his semitrailer truck ran into the back of a semitrailer truck on South Dakota Highway 25 near Howard, S.D., Thursday. UAW accepts contract with Fisher Controls i Thi Register's Iowa News Service MARSHALLTOWN, IA. United Auto Workers Local No. 893 voted Saturday to accept a three-year contract with Fisher Controls here.

I The current contract would have xpired at midnight Saturday, a union spokeswoman said. The company agreed to give workers hourly raises Of 20 cents, 30 cents, and 35 cents for the first, second and third years of the Contract, respectively, i Earlville man indicted for Tipton bank robbery CEDAR RAPIDS, IA. (AP) Rick Lee Pottebaum, 18, of Earlville has been indicted by a federal grand jury for the July 22 robbery of United Federal Savings Bank in Tipton. He is accused of taking $3,920. Pottebaum allegedly led law enforcement officers on a high-speed chase in a stolen car and lost officers near the Mississippi River.

He was arrested the next mornh.g in Geneseo, 111. Dubuque official seeks ban on swimming in Mississippi The Register's Iowa News Service DUBUQUE, IA. The director of the Dubuque parks and recreation department called for a ban on swimming in the Mississippi River at Riverview Park beginning Sept. 15. Gil Spence said the proposed swimming ban is the result of the high cost of liability insurance.

Mary Miller, former president of the Dubuque County Conservation Society, opposes the proposed ban, saying it would be unpopular with park users and would not halt swimming at the park. Iowa Wesleyan to install college's 25th president The Register's Iowa News Service MOUNT PLEASANT, IA. Robert J. Prins will be installed as the 25th president of Iowa Wesleyan College Oct. 5.

Bishop Rueben Job of the Iowa Annual Conference will read the charge And Byron Johnson, chairman of the Iowa Wesleyan College Board of Trustees, will administer the oath. Anamosa man sentenced to 50 years for murder The Resistor's Iowa News Service CEDAR RAPIDS, IA. Brad Yahnke, 19, of Anamosa has been found guilty of the January 1985 shooting death of Joni Heims, 18, of Cedar Rapids. Yahnke has been given a mandatory 50-year sentence for the second-degree murder conviction. Linn County District Judge Thomas Horan overruled defense motions for a new trial.

Prosecutors alleged that Yahnke shot Heims when he broke into her home to cover up evidence that he had stolen or purchased marijuana from her. Lawsuit seeks payment for unlawful phone calls CEDAR RAPIDS, IA. (AP) Tele-connect Co. of Cedar Rapids has filed a lawsuit in Linn County District Court to collect nearly $10,000 from William Shirley of Des Moines, whose son allegedly used access codes without permission to make long distance calls. The suit alleges Shirley's adult son, Andrew, has admitted under oath that he obtained the codes and made the calls between August 1985 and January 1986.

The suit seeks $1,300 for new code 'numbers, $963 for the calls it alleges were made and $7,631 for attorney fees and expenses of investigating the case. lovan vanishes during bus trip to Boise, Idaho FBI arrests man in extortion try of Sosch family By PAULA YOST Register Staff Writer Almost four years after West Des Moines newspaper carrier Johnny Gosch disappeared on his Sunday morning paper route, FBI agents have nabbed a man who allegedly attempted to swindle the boy's parents. According to an FBI news release, David James Schultz, 36, of Syracuse, N.Y., was arrested in a Tulsa, cafeteria Saturday after he told FBI agents posing as John and Noreen Gosch that their son was alive in Mex-ico. Schultz said he would help the Gosches find their son for $2,500. Schultz faces extortion and fraud charges and is scheduled to appear Monday in Tulsa before the U.S.

magistrate for the northern district of Oklahoma. The arrest marks the second extortion attempt against the Gosches. On Aug. 22, 1985, Robert Herman Meier II of Saginaw, was convicted of fraud for collecting $11,000 after he told the Gosches their son was being held as a slave in Mexico. Noreen Gosch said Saturday she received a call at 5 a.m.

Friday from a man claiming he possessed information that would lead to her son's whereabouts. "He wanted us to fly to Tulsa and meet him. He even went to the trouble of reserving seats on an airline for us," she said. "He told me he would not call again. He specified an airline and booked passage for our flight.

He said he would contact me at 8 o'clock Saturday He did not go into too many details pver the phone. He was very vague, so we just kind of followed orders." Gosch said she notified the West Des Moines police and the FBI. "They decided to send FBI agents in our place because we had no idea who we were dealing with," she said. Johnny Gosch disappeared Sept. 5, 1982, while delivering the Des Moines Sunday Register.

He was 12 years old 1 at the time. Another Des Moines youth, Eugene Martin, then 14, disappeared from his Des Moines Sunday Register newspaper route Aug. 12, 1984. C.R. man finds success selling Avon By LISA COLLINS Register Staff Writer A Des Moines woman has spent the last week searching for her 18-year-old daughter who disappeared earlier this month while traveling by bus between Des Moines and Boise, Idaho.

Patricia Lynn Funk left Des Moines Aug. 4 on a Trailways bus due to arrive in Boise on Aug. 6, but her grandfather, Claude Combs of Parma, Idaho, said she wasn't at the bus station when he went to pick her up. Her baggage, however, had been claimed. Sharon Ewing told officials her daughter went to Boise to live and find a job.

But things changed from ordinary to eerie when Ewing received numerous phone calls Aug. 7 at her home in Des Moines. The caller didn't say anything and hung up. On Aug. 8, she received a similar call but with the sound of a girl crying in the background.

She asked: "Patricia, is this you, and if it is, are you OK?" A girl's voice on the line said, "No," continued to cry and hung up, Ewing told Boise police. Boise Police Sgt. Richard Robb said Saturday that Ewing told him she's "sure it's her daughter's voice. She's very worried." Ewing could not be reached for comment Saturday. Robb said police have circulated fliers with Funk's picture and description throughout the Boise area.

Her name has been entered into city' and county computer records as a missing person. "It's possible she just struck out on her own and is trying to find a job somewhere and has no idea people are worried. Or maybe she got here, and felt that no one liked her and is hitchhiking back to Des Moines. Then there are a lot of other possibilities that I'd rather not think about," Robb said. CEDAR RAPIDS, IA.

(AP) When Avon comes calling on folks in northeastern Cedar Rapids, it may not be a woman who rings the doorbell. It could very well be 33-year-old Bruce Carter, a door to-door Avon salesman for the past four years who quit his longtime factory job last year to go into the business full time. Not only is Carter something of a rarity in what traditionally has been women's work, he also has proven that he can push cosmetics with the best of them. Avon District Manager Bonnie Jerow of Monticello, who is in charge of 200 sales representatives, said she considers Carter among her top money-makers. He consistently has been in the upper 10 percent in sales in the district, and this year he stands a good chance of cracking the list of the top five salesmen.

"Bruce is the first really successful man I've had in 13 years as district manager," Bonnie noted. "I've had others mostly men who sold products at work but usually they haven't worked out." Bonnie now has four other men peddling Avon products, but Carter is the only one who does it as a full-time occupation. He admitted that it is an unusual line of work for a man. But he said stereotypes can be deceiving. "One of the first women I called on was so beautiful she could have been a model," Bruce said.

"But she was a construction worker." A native of North Dakota who grew up in Minnesota, he had spent 14 years after graduation from high school working as a meat packer at the Louis Rich turkey plant in West Liberty. In 1982, friend Ken Ruzicka encouraged him to supplement his income by going door to door in the evenings for Avon. Ruzicka, who shares a home with Carter here, had sold Avon products for several years to co-workers at Rockwell-Collins. "It was slow at first," Carter recalls. "I was real shaky and nervous.

I'd never done anything like it before. It was hard enough for me to sell any product. It was even more of a challenge for a guy to be in what was then a woman's job and still is. "In the big cities, there are a lot of men in it. But around here, nobody ever heard of an Avon Once his women customers got over the novelty of having a gentleman caller and were assured he would stay in the business, sales picked up.

"When he first called on me, I thought it was some kind of joke," said Deb Tegler of Cedar Rapids, a regular client for the past year. "It took me by surprise to have a man say he was an Avon representative." As soon as he established bis territory and built up a list of steady customers, prizes started rolling in. "I was always winning something," Carter said. Unfortunately, most of the awards he earned for outstanding campaigns were not all that useful: frilly negligee, party gowns, fancy pants outfits and other feminine clothing. Seismic center in New York eirKNn York Times NEW YORK, N.Y.

A $50 million national center for earthquake research will be established at the State University of New York at Buffalo..