The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 10

10-A Stye CtalueBton fiailg Ntiua Monday Morning, May 11,1987 TEX AS BRIEFS Delayed project begins SAN ANGELO (AP) Ground-breaking ceremonies aren't until Saturday, but bulldozers and archaeologists are already crawling over the site of he long-delayed Stacy Dam project. "The thing is that you have equipment there, that it has commenced work," said Owen Ivie, general manager of the Colorado River Municipal Water District. "You see this is a reality after 12 years. We feel real good about it." Opponents of the dam argued that it would wipe out the threatened Concho River snake. But the water district received federal permits to start construction after unveiling a $3.1 million plan to protect the snake.

The water district received a building permit last month, 10 years after applying for it. Archeologists are working near the construction crews, yet another key part of the water district's agreement with the government. In return for a permit, the water district promised to first explore the site for archaeological artifacts. The district is paying $1 million for Prewitt Associates of Austin to examine about 500 cultural sites at the confluence of the Colorado and Concho rivers, where the dam is being built. The Texas Water Development Board has said most of the area would run short of water by 1990 without the dam.

Fines total million AUSTIN (AP) People with outstanding misdemeanors are lining up at police headquarters to pay their fines, spurred by a crackdown that has netted the city $250,000, officials say. Incoming telephone circuits have been so jammed since the program begait that a municipal judge said his wife complains she is lucky to get through to him at the office. Most of the money has come from unpaid traffic tickets, says the police officer who coordinates the program. Sgt. Jerry Staton said during the first week of the crackdown, which began April 25, officers cleared more than 4,000 of 133,000 outstanding warrants.

For those who haven't come clean on their own, the Police Department has 12 officers whose only job is to make sure the crackdown remains successful. So far, those officers have corralled violators, and those that can't pay the fines have been arrested, Staton said. Soviets writing Wright FORT WORTH (AP) Almost 30 years after Congressman Jim Wright wrote a Christmas letter of peace to an imaginary Russian named Ivan, the Soviets are writing back. One letter, addressed simply 'To Mr. Right, Washington DC, came from a young Soviet worker who wrote, "This is an awful misunderstanding existing between our countries.

Please assure Americans that we are not bloodthirsty fanatics of war." The message was among nearly 1,000 cards and letters written to the Fort Worth Democrat following his trip to the Soviet Union last month. During that trip Wright appeared on Soviet television, calling for world peace and offering free U.S.-Soviet flag lapel pins to anyone who wrote. Three sisters from Leningrad wrote about their grandmother's frightening stories about World War II. "Our grandmother lived in Leningrad in time of blockade," the sisters wrote. "She told us how hard that time was.

And though we are young, we are 22, 14 and 12 years old. we cannot see and listen about the war without the shudder. "Let's be friends." Water needed for tracks GLEN ROSE (AP) Water would have to be released continuously from a proposed reservoir on the Paluxy River to preserve dinosaur tracks there, state officials say. But the dam's proponents say that would cut the reservoir's water supply by at least 25 percent which is unacceptable because their underground water supplies are drying up and they need every drop they can get. The proposed reservoir is miles upstream from the Dinosaur Valley State Park, where about 2,000 dinosaur tracks are preserved in the Paluxy River's limestone riverbanks.

Those who want to build the Paluxy Reservoir Somervell County and the cities of Stephenville and Glen Rose don't plan to release enough water from the reservoir to keep the tracks from freezing and cracking in the winter, say officials with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Lawyers representing each side will argue their case before three Texas Water Commission members Tuesday. The commissioners must approve the reservoir plan before construction starts. "I think the tracks are definitely worth saving," says Kurt Ackermann, Stephenville's city manager. "But this is a classic environmental question: at what cost do we spare historical or ecological places? Prisons compete for DALLAS (AP) Texas prisons are competing for federal funds to combat inmates' chemical dependencies, but some state officials question the efficiency of programs administered in a controlled environment.

Of the Texas Department of Corrections' 38,000 inmates, about 30,000 have been identified as suffering from chemical dependencies, but only 12,000 are receiving treatment, officials say. With the present state budget crunch tightening funds, Texas prison officials are competing with other agencies for federal money sent to the state this year to iighl chemical dependencies. Officials at the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse argue that the funds should be preserved for programs directed at indigents. convicted felons placed on probation or newly released convicts. Nuclear plant secured BAY CITY (AP) With the opening of Unit 1 of the South Texas Nuclear Project scheduled for next month, stiffer security measures at the plant are being put into'effect.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires that the project be able to defend itself from an assault covering anything from a gang of international terrorists to a band of anti-nuclear saboteurs or an internal enemy who might be working with the outside force, said Andrew 0. Hill III. Hill has been manager of nuclear security for the project, about 12 miles south of Bay City, since September 1984. He came from a similar security job with the Tennessee Valley Authority and before that was a security inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A pair of chain link fences, topped with barbed wire, now surround Unit 1.

An electromagnetic wire system detects any movement in the 20-foot-wide security alley between the fences. The system sounds an alarm and turns on remote TV cameras monitoring the invaded area. The security fences will be extended around Unit 2 when it reaches fuel-loading time in about 18 months. For now, workers there can come and go with less red tape. Real estate glut is helping state's economic recovery DALLAS (AP) Fallout from Texas' real estate glut should aid the state's struggle to recover from its 1986 recession, say members of the Dallas Morning News Board of Economists.

Texas real estate is cheap again, and the bargains are being noticed by companies trying to cut operating costs and by investors with deep pockets, the economists said at their semiannual meeting last week. "My phones are ringing off the wall with people talking about putting substantial sums of money into investments in Texas," said M. Ray Ferryman, director of Baylor University Forecasting Service. Investors perceive real estate prices in Texas cities as "incredible buys," Ferryman said. "They also see incredible opportunities to move businesses here from a cost standpoint." J.C.

Penney Co. said it will save up to $70 million a year in administrative costs by moving its headquarters from New York to Dallas next year. Although the board members largely agreed that Texas' competitive advantages are improving, not all agreed on what those advantages will bring. The J.C. Penney move will benefit the area and the state, said Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Enterprising at Southern Methodist University.

"But I don't think we'll see a lot of major corporate relocations," he said. "Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston had the lowest price increases of any major metropolitan areas in the United States last year," Weinstein said. "In contrast, Boston and New York had the highest. That's a complete reversal from a decade ago when Texas metro areas' rate of inflation was ahead of other major "It's true our cost structures are attractive again, but we have a lot of competition out there. We've got plenty of cheap real estate and affordable homes, but so do a lot of other metropolitan areas around the country," Weinstein said.

Other board members said local firms should not be ignored in ef- forts to build the area economy by attracting firms from outside the state. "I hope we entice with true long-run advantages rather than attracting companies with just glitter and attracting them with temporary money benefits to get them here," said Barbara Reagan, chairwoman of the SMU economics department. "That seems unnecessary and very unfair to businesses that are already here." The average rent for office space in Manhattan is at least twice the average quoted per- square-foot rate in Dallas and four times the rate available in Houston, according to a recent report by the Office Network, a nationwide affiliation of real estate brokerage firms. But quoted rental rates can be deceiving. In depressed real estate markets, the effective rents paid are often well below the landlord's quoted prices.

Real estate foreclosures reached a record 748 properties in Dallas County last month. Lenders saddled with foreclosed property are looking for buyers but so far have had limited success in selling Texas real estate. Board members say that trend may soon change. "There's a lot of talk about buying the assets and liabilities of Texas financial institutions in the kinds of deals that are being structured right now," Perryman said. "There's a lot of talk about buying financial institutions, too." "Everything I hear says there is a substantial amount of money out there that is willing to bet on Texas solving its problems on a long-term basis," he said.

George Kelly, forecasting manager for Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. in Dallas, said it was just a couple of years ago that board members discussed whether the Dallas-Fort Worth area had lost its competitive advantage. "We talked about how expensive everything had gotten. How housing prices had gotten out of line, how high-priced real estate had become, how much it cost to get someone to cut your lawn," Kelly said. "We basically said it was a time bomb and that it would stop." Snow White is settled and lives happily ever after in El Paso EL PASO, Texas (AP) After platonically palling around with the seven dwarfs for more than seven years, Snow White settled happily ever after in El Paso.

Retired Disneyland Snow White Leslie Reyes, now a homemaker and cosmetics consultant, leafed through her scrapbook of impeccably mounted photographs. "Here I am in the Hollywood Lane Parade. All the celebrities in do this parade. And. oh! this is a little girl who used to come see me all the time here she is in a Snow White costume her mother made for her.

Here I am with Alice in Wonderland. She was my maid of honor." The scrapbook holds the memories of the 29-year-old Mrs. Reyes, a native Californian who lives in El Paso now with her husband, Joe David Reyes, a jazz-fusion musician, and 5-year-old daughter Jennifer. "I love children, that's what kept me at Disneyland so long," Mrs. Reyes said.

She worked at the Anaheim. park for seven and a half years, starting as a Cinderella Dancer in the 1974 Disneyland Christmas Parade and ending up in the business and promotion end of the park. She's looking forward to the Snow White reunion at the California Disneyland later this month. Disney is inviting everyone who has portrayed the character at any of the three Disney parks (California, Florida and Japan) to a reunion in honor of the 50th anniversary of the film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." "There are only a certain number of us (Snow Whites), and we all were special in our own way. I'm more excited about this than my class reunion." As Snow White, she met some of the most adored celebrities in the United States; signed millions of autographs; rode in parades; made national and international commericals for major companies, including United Airlines; and helped open the Los Angeles Rams-United Way fund-raising drive, only one of many times she had her photograph in newspapers and magazines.

Mrs. Reyes was a dancer and a high school junior in 1974 when she decided to audition for the Original Snow White is found ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) Disneyland's first Snow White has been found at long last, not by a handsome prince but by a friend of hers who tipped off park officials. JoAnn Killingsworth, who portrayed the fairest of them all the day the amusement park opened, had been sought through all the land as the Disney folks prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." She was found Friday, living happily ever after in Newport Beach, within 15 miles of Disneyland. Disneyland Christmas Parade.

Eight hours of elimination rounds paid off when she was named a Cinderella Dancer for that year's parade. Her foot was inside Disneyland's gate. Then she auditioned for a summer job at the amusement park and got the role of Snow White's dwarf pal Dopey. Later, she became Snow White in the parade that daily goes down Disneyland's Main Street. That led her to the coveted role of Snow White in the park itself.

She greeted guests, told stories, played games with the children and performed with the dwarfs. "The kids were in such awe, sometimes they'd do really odd things. (But) older people were the ones you had to In one parade, for instance, a man grabbed her, dipped her and gave her a huge kiss on the mouth. After that, the folks in charge decided she'd be safer on a float. Mrs.

Reyes wore her Snow White costume five days a week, eight hours a day. The Disney costume department custom-made everything for her. including the black wig with red bow. Like costumes of the other 50-odd Snow Whites, it has been retired and stored in the Disney collection. She found her Prince Charming El Pasoan Joe David Reyes at Disneyland when he played in the bicentennial summer park band while she was still inside her Dopey costume.

"He kept asking me out, and I kept saying 'no' until I fell in love we both did, and each of us in a month that we wanted to get married." They dated for five years, "but he had captured my heart at a good age. I was 18." He kids her about a quirk she has retained from her Snow White days: She always turns her collars up. "I feel very naked when I'm snowing my neck," she said. "I am getting better. I used to never wear things without a collar." And she occasionally holds the skirt of her dress between her thumb and first finger of each hand.

Spreading the skirt in the classic Snow White pose as if surrounded by seven dwarfs. Though she normally doesn't sound like Snow White, she still AP l.asrrpholo Leslie Reyes poses with her Snow White portrait knows all the moves. Her arms, bent at the elbow, go up in a gesture of surprise. She tilts her head a bit, and her voice rises. "Hello! Welcome to Disneyland!" But she says she loves her life as Mrs.

Reyes. Jennifer's mommy, and a makeup artist and skin analyst for Prescriptives cosmetics at Dillards, where she uses skills she learned from Disney makeup artists. As Snow White, she applied her own makeup, but she often watched as they Program encourages girls to plan early for EL PASO (AP) Once a month, for the past eight months, Mexican-American girls from fifth and sixth grade classes have assembled to talk about their dream some day of becoming lawyers, store managers and anthropologists. They are part of a pilot program that began in October, aimed at encouraging Hispanic girls to start thinking seriously about higher education even before they enter junior high school. "It is about this time that girls decide whether they're going to stay in school or not stay in school," said Josefina Tinajero, an assistant professor of teacher education at the University of Texas at El Paso.

She said the first program, which concluded Saturday with a mother-daughter breakfast at UTEP, was designed for Mexican-American girls because they are among the highest risks to drop out of school and are the lowest percentage of college graduates of any group. El via Rosales never went to college, but said she is set on her 11-year-old daughter, Michelle, attending "for her security, for her self-confidence, so she will be independent, so she will not have to depend on her One mother in the group of about 100 mothers and daughters is a college graduate, Ms. Tinajero said. In addition to encouraging girls to enter college, the program, sponsored by UTEP, the YWCA and the Ysleta Independent School District, has led a handful of the mothers to consider returning to school. Rosa Juarez said that throughout the monthly meetings she has attended with her 12- year-old daughter, Jessica, she has decided to become a special made up other characters.

Mrs. Reyes gave up playing Snow White when she became pregnant with Jennifer. After her daughter's birth, she decided she was too old to go back. After all. the character is supposed to be 14 and she was 24.

"I was given so many opportunities to work by Disney," she said. "I see Snow White as a very happy 14-year-old girl who adored children. "That's why I hadone." Hispanic college education teacher and already is attending classes at El Paso Community College. "We desperately needed a program like this," she said. "Our Hispanic little girls are in trouble.

We need a stimulus for our Hispanic little girls. "It's not 'if 1 go to but Rosa Juarez said of her daughter, an Ysleta Elementary School student. "It's a definite thing now." Beto Lopez, UTEP director of undergraduate recruiting and scholarships, said his role in the program is to dispel the myth that one must be wealthy in order to attend college. "The biggest concern that we have is that many of these youngsters will not prepare for college for fear that they will not have the finances," he said, adding that grants, aid and work- study opportunities abound..