The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 19

V- 4- fc li -i f. 1 -v RANDY EVANS, Iowa Editor, 515-284-8065 ROBERT BORSELLINO, Mktko Ei.itoh, 515-284-8102 Des JOotore Sunbay fleeter Sunday, Skptkmkek 17, 1995, Skctkw Slice of Life The Armstrong First Presbyterian 'Church quilt features 58 scenes 'of life in the Hawkeye State. Iowa JournalPage 2B D.M.Man Shot to Death Chris Little, who wis known quiet, niildnumneredfamily num. was found dead of a single gunsliot. Page 9B (DWAL it Iowa Boy "The community wants to keep it open.

If they didn't want it to be here, it wouldn 't be here. frf TV. I Travels to Indianola Today Gore: Big battle for country in 1996 James Neill, president of the 10-memlKr senior class at Lincville-Clio Community School I I la nur ts i t. a Juanita Suhr, the Lincville-Clio elementary and high school which nine people principal, holds a portrait of Lineville's Class of 1951, in will graduate next dig in, defy daunting odds rrr jv. 7 Chuck Offenburger The goal post toppled early Ames, la.

It was the oddest sort of omen. Two hours before the kickoff of Iowa's big intrastate football rivalry on Saturday, the University of Iowa Hawkeye marching band had just completed its pre-game rehearsal at Cyclone Stadium here. Sousaphone player Robert Rubocki, an 18-year-old freshman from New Berlin, and a couple of his band buddies started jumping up to see if they could touch the crossbar of the south goal post. "I couldn't reach it, so two of them hoisted me up and I grabbed ahold with one arm," Rubocki said. He couldn't believe what happened then.

The whole goal post tipped a good 30 degrees and almost came down. "My heart dropped, and I was very scared," said Rubocki, who let go and felltotheAstroturf. He ran immediately to Hawkeye marching band director David Hen-ning and told him, "Mr. Henning, I've got to tell you I screwed up." Cyclone Stadium maintenance workers arrived in a pickup truck and quickly righted the goal post and the game wasn't delayed a bit. "I'm not proud of this at all," said Rubocki, "but I guess I'll have a story to tell." Indeed he will, as the years unfold.

It might eventually get around to the Hawkeyes being so sure of victory against the Cyclones back in '95 that the Hawk band was tearing the goal post down before the game. In reality, it was no blowout at all, but coach Hayden Fry's stronger Hawkeyes did ring up a 13th consecutive victory over the Cyclones, 27-10. On a beautiful shirt-sleeve day, which was cloudy early but sunny in the second half, a capacity crowd of 49,714 filled Cyclone Stadium. And fans at home watched on a TV network of six stations and two cable systems that blanketed the state. Fans of the Cyclones, who led much of the first half, seemed happy with the spark that new coach Dan McCar-ney has obviously given to what had become a woeful football program.

And no matter how the game turned out, this one-day fall festival of lo-wana was as satisfying as ever. The swankiest tailgate party before the game happened just south of Cyclone Stadium, where there was a Who's-Who turnout of Iowa leaders to dedicate the just-completed, $2 million Reiman Gardens. Built with a $1.3 million gift from 1957 ISU graduate Roy Reiman and his wife, Bobbi, magazine publishers based in Glendale, these beautiful botanical gardens now cover five acres of what formerly was a rough stadium parking lot. The gardens are "the new front door of Iowa State University," said ISU President Martin Jischke. "They're our newest landmark, one that will certainly grow on us all" and then he apologized for that pun to the dedication crowd of nearly 1,000 ringing a big tent.

Besides the Reimans, the turnout there included Gov. Terry Branstad (in black and white saddle shoes, no less), Sen. Chuck Grassley, U.S. Reps. Jim Nussle and Tom Latham, Lt.

Gov. Joy Corning and a dozen state legislators. Branstad, his wife, Chris, and their son Marcus were 15 minutes late for the dedication, having been caught in the mid-morning traffic snarl between Des Moines and Ames. Elsewhere around the stadium, the tailgating was great, with most parties a good mix of both Iowa and Iowa State fans. "What could be better?" was the big sign on "Old Blue," a converted schxl bus that Kim and Sue Pleggenkuhle of Clear Lake provide as party headquarters for a big group of their friends.

The Iowa Barnstormers pro football team from Des Moines had their own tent, with 10 of their players hosting family, friends and fans. And, as always here, one of the biggest parties was thrown by car dealer Joe Pritchard, 31, of Britt and his pal since boyhood, Phil Wellik, also 31, an insurance agent who will soon move to Emmetsburg from Wausau, Wis. The two of them split for college Pritchard going to ISU and Wellik attending Iowa and like many others, they settle the year's "bragging rights" at this game. Pritchard's auto dealership bought IOWA BOY Please turn to Page 9B The vice president warns that Democrats must save the government from GOl 'right-wing By JONATHAN R0OS Km nsrmSrut Wkitkk Sioux City, la. Vice President Al Gore warned fellow Democrats here Saturday that next year's election will be a battle to save the government from "right-wing extremists," who already control Congress.

"What you do next year will determine whether or not we continue to move in the right direction and make more progress, or make a radical right-wing U-turn and go in a direction that would mean division and heartache and economic trouble and serious jeopardy for America," Gore said at a fund-raising dinner attended by more than 400 Democrats from the Sioux City area and neighboring states. Gore rallied the Democratic faithful by listing the accomplishments of the Clinton administration and warning them of the consequences if Clinton is not re-elected. "Having seen what they've tried to do in the Congress, what do you think our country would be like if the same right-wing extremist groups that control Newt Gingrich's Congress gain control of not only Congress but also the White House and through the White House the Supreme Court?" Gore asked. "I shudder to think what they'd attempt to do to the values we hold dear, to the values we know and love These groups put ideological zealotry way above common sense," he said. Gore said "mainstream Republicans are shaking their heads in dismay and asking their families, 'Whatever became of the party of Abraham The vice president also urged support for the Clinton team in its budget battles with Congress.

Visited Farm Earlier in the day, (iore visited a South Dakota farm just a few miles north of here. Wearing a dark plaid shirt, blue jeans and black cowboy boots, the vice president discussed agricultural policies with a group of farmers on a sunny day splashed with fall colors. With his audience seated on straw bales in front of a white barn with green trim, Gore said that if GOP budget-cutters get their way, GORE Please turn to Page 4B Iowa Brothers' Invention Do you need a cold drink? Pull up a seat The KoolerSeat combines a lawn chair and a cooler into a picnicker's dream. By THOMAS R.O'DONNELL Ot Tin Kl.clMl.H'.s Amis Hi i Ames, la. It was a typical early spring day.

Eric Jacobs and his brother, Ryan, were taking it easy, lounging in the garage of their parents' Waterkx) home. Ryan was sitting on an insulated cooler. Eric was sitting on a lawn chair. It was the kind of moment in which history is made. Eric looked at Ryan.

Ryan looked at Eric. "It was weird, like ESP," Eric, a student at Iowa State University, recalled. Both were hit with the same idea: A cooler that also is a lawn chair. Six months later, the KoolerSeat may be on its way to stores. Ryan, 18, and Eric, 20, have dreams of millions of picnickers, parade watchers, sports fans and beach bums relaxing on their invention.

A company is on the verge of licensing the Jacobs brothers' invention, said Karen Brady of ISU's Office of Intellectual Property and CHAIR Please turn to Paje 3B JEFFREY I'm graduated. A similar number of students spring from the school. Ti LJi high school down the road was too enticing. Parents envied the academic or athletic offerings and encouraged consolidation. But Lineville is more isolated.

The town, population 289, is the largest in this corner of Wayne County. Corydon, the county seat, is 20 miles away. Humeston, home to Mormon Trail High School, isjustasfar. To the south, a firecracker's throw away, is Missouri. And no district along Iowa's border has ever managed to merge with a district across state lines.

Will of the Community Neill, the soft-spoken senior class president who, by the way, also is president of the MERGERS Please turn to Page 8B MOW Small schools By MARK SIEBERT 1ISTKK Stah Wkitkk Lineville, la. They've all heard the speculation: tiny Lineville-Clio Community School would be forced to close. James Neill, president of the 10-member senior class, has heard it. So has Juanita Suhr, the principal who doubles as a music teacher. Mike Snyder, the athletic director, coach, bus driver, gym teacher and former janitor, has heard the gloomy forecast, too.

In fact, he's heard it since he was a kindergartner here in the late 1960s. Conventional wisdom said the school was just too small to withstand the financial and political pressures that had led to school mergers in so many of Iowa's rural communities. Mergers and closings have whittled the number of Iowa districts with high schools from 437 in 1984 to 353 this fall. At the height of the merger activity, the state's top education official predicted that districts of fewer than 1,000 students and Lineville-Clio is way below that would have a difficult time staying open. But at the start of a new school year, there are signs this most recent era of school consolidation has come to an end.

And the Lincville-Clio Community School District its decaying, 80-year-old brick school, 16 full-time teachers, part-time superintendent and 115 students in 13 grades survived. Again. There are myriad reasons why some small districts managed to survive. In Lineville, geography, community loyality and creativity all played a role, said Suhr, the school's principal. For one thing, it and other small school districts have found they couldn't go it alone.

"What we see more of is schools trying to help each other," Suhr said. Shared Resources Lineville-Clio shares a superintendent with the Fremont and Russell districts. Students in Spanish classes are sent across the state line 'What Am I Paying My Tuition Sally Johnson, a science teacher at Lineville-Clio, answers a student's question during a biology class. Despite the school's small size, it offers a variety of classes. to the school in Mercer, Mo.

For sports, high school students wanting to play volleyball or football are sent to Mormon Trail High School in Humeston. On a recent afternoon, Snyder, the athletic director, was buying uniforms for the boys' basketball team, trying to talk the salesman into a good deal for "the smallest school in the state." His concern for the girls' team is not uniforms but whether enough players will come out to field a team. For comparison's sake, consider that the median-size district in Iowa is about 670 students; Lineville-Clio's entire district of 115 students is dwarfed by a single grade at Valley High School in West Des Moines, the state's largest high school last year with an average of 546 students in grades 9-12. For some small districts, having a larger Students getting lost in the translation can't understand the foreign accents of graduate students teaching their courses. When he's taking notes, "I'm three sentences behind them because I'm still translating," said Kamp, a junior in civil engineering from Des Moines.

Officials at ISU and the University of Iowa say international teaching assistants are one of the most common concerns of parents and students. Their complaints often sound like that of Heidi Christiansen, a senior in history and secondary education from West Des Moines: "If they can't get someone in front of a classroom who can speak and communicate with me, what am I pay ate student, said he passed the tests easily. He's now teaching one recitation section and one lab each week and staffing the department's help center. "There hasn't been any problem where the students have said, 'Excuse me, could you say that "Feng said. At ISU, there were 780 graduate students doing at least some teaching last spring semester, associate vice provost John Dobson said.

Of those, about a third are not U.S. citizens, although it's not known how many of those also are not native English speakers. Teaching assistants are graduate LANGUAGE Please tuni to Paje 6B ing my tuition for?" A 1993 survey found 72 percent of ISU undergraduates had taken at least one class with an international teaching assistant. Some 60 percent said they'd had a problem with a foreign teacher although some of the complaints had nothing to do with the teacher's mastery of English. University officials say they're doing their best to ensure teaching assistants can be understood before they go into the classroom.

Both require graduate students to pass comprehension tests. Those who fail must take special classes or are assigned non-teaching duties. Ye Feng, an ISU physics gradu At ISU and the of complaints about the foreign accents of graduate teaching assistants persist. By THOMAS R.O'DONNELL (H Tilt Rt: ilSTt.R'S A.MKS 1(1 KK.M Ames, la. Dave Kamp doesn't really know Chinese or Hindi, but after all the international teachers he's had, he figures Iowa State University owes him extra credit in foreign languages.

Kamp's complaint is a common one among students at ISU, Iowa and other major universities: They.