The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 27

Summit ii Csrl i Chancellor i The Beacon Journal Friday, August 6, 1993 Bill on sex A shocked legislator says he will introduce a bill prohibiting teacher-student sex. Page C5. In England Members of Akron's St. Paul's Episcopal Church choir perform in English cathedral. Page C9.

Thursday's Buckeye 5 number: 1, 3, 12, 24, 26; sales: Pick 3 number: 648; sales: payout: $352,721.50. Pick 4 number: 4066; sales: payout: $90,700. One Wednesday Super Lotto winner Wednesday's Super Lotto: 7, 14, 22, 28, 34, 36 89 tickets with 5 numbers, $1,030 each; 4,162 with 4 numbers, $69 each; tickets with 3 numbers: Millionaire of Month drawing. Saturday's jackpot: $4 million No Kicker winner. Kicker numbers, in order: 582638 5 tickets with first 5 numbers, $5,000 each; 43 with first 4 numbers, $1,000 each; 457 with first 3 numbers, $100 each; 4,538 with first 2 numbers, $10 each The Region, Page 3 Deaths, Page 1 0 TV, Page 1 7 Comics, Pages 1 8 and 1 9 No mess is too big if you care Neighbors dig in literally to save a South Akron house sic citools to es, I admit it was curiosity that brought me out to 940 Yale St.

in South Akron. Superintendent expects another year's grace from the state on debt, easing district's financial predicament sek said he is confident Akron will get another year before it has to pay up. "Let me make it clear that Akron's debt has not been a case of mismanagement," Ocasek said. Here's the issue: Akron's debt grew out of the state's decision in 1986 to change the school budget year to July through June. It had run from See SCHOOLS, Page C4 ics and music are among the programs at stake.

Oliver Ocasek, president of the Ohio Board of Education, said he intervened with Sanders concerning Akron's debt after receiving a letter from school officials asking for help. The final decision won't be made until next month, but Oca When and if Akron must go to the state's emergency loan fund to borrow that $7 million, the state will require the district repay the amount over two years. That means cutting the budget by $3.5 million each year for two years from a budget that already has been trimmed $10 million in the last two years. Athlet BY Paula schleis Beacon Journal staff writer Akron Schools may have delayed for another year the threat of crippling financial cuts. Superintendent Terry Grier said he is confident that Ohio Superintendent Ted Sanders who earlier this year ordered Akron to make up part of a debt the district has carried for years will overlook the debt for one more year.

If so, that would reduce the amount of money Akron must seek from the state's emergency loan fund by about $7 million and will give school officials another year to pass a levy before the state orders that amount be cut from the district's budget. O'CONNOR DER0AD mn'-iu. WQMX purchases 2 radio rivals Deal for means 1 owner will have three stations in Akron feci JS4i 1 3t awwtm 1 S- i 1 i By Bob Dyer Beacon Journal staff writer If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. Akron radio station WQMX (94.9-FM) has purchased Akron rivals WAKR (1590-AM) and WONE (97.5-FM). Shocked employees of all three stations were given the news Thursday morning.

The deal, expected to be completed by the end of December, means three of Akron's five most-popular stations will be in the hands of one owner. That would be the Mandel family, known for Premiere Industrial Inc. of Cleveland. Morton Mandel, part-owner of WQMX, is one of the nation's 400 wealthiest people, says Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $400 million. His son, Thorn, is the WQMX operations manager.

Although the Mandels declined to reveal the purchase price, sources put the figure at $10 million. If true, the current owner will take a $3 million loss. U.S. Radio, which forked over $13 million in January 1990, is headed by Philadelphia lawyer Ragan Henry, who during the late 1980s raised eyebrows throughout the industry because of the speed with which he was buying and selling stations. Stories about financial problems in his radio empire have appeared repeatedly in trade publications.

The new Akron trio will be known as the Rubber City Radio Group. Buying up the competition was illegal until last year, when the Federal Communications Commission decided that, because liste- See RADIO, Page C20 ROBIN WITERBeacon Journal Cruising the Cuyahoga River in a 26-foot pontoon boat, these passengers float peacefully south under a railroad bridge near Bailey Road. The boat makes daily trips down the river. Down the calming Cuyahoga The pontoon-boat trip starts in tension but cares melt as the vessel traces its way back through time Like most of you, I cringed after reading the accounts of the rat-infested, debris-strewn, downright nasty house owned and occupied by 48-year-old Richard Gilbert. The same house that the Akron Health Department cited last week with having some 30 housing code violations.

My skin crawled just trying to imagine anyone living in such filth. I mean, the man was holed up in a ramshackle house with 10 dogs, all kept in feces-filled cages; 55 birds, about half of them with beaks agape and their feet pointing to the sky; dozens of free-roaming rats; and mountains of trash. But, don't get me wrong, my visit to 940 Yale St. had nothing do with some sort of morbid desire to gawk at Gilbert and his mess. Believe me, my stomach isn't very strong, so there was no way I was getting within smelling distance of that house.

However, that all changed when I got wind of a cleanup effort being undertaken by Gilbert's neighbors to save his house. I became very curious. Sticking together I wanted to know why anyone would voluntarily wade through such filth. Just not wade through it, but dig into it, pick it up and haul it out with little regard to personal safety, let alone hygiene. "He's a neighbor, and neighbors help neighbors," said Bob Lamb, who shot me a rather strange look for having asked what was to him such an obvious question.

"We look out for each other here. As soon as I heard of his troubles, I was here ready to help," said Lamb, standing hip deep in a pile of trash near Gilbert's front door. Another who was ready to help but not to give her last name was Betty. "There aren't that many homes on the street, so we all try to stick together." Betty said Gilbert always has been a good neighbor. "He always kept an eye on my home when I was away.

He is a good person, but sometimes people get into a rut, and they need help to get out." Ron Boyd, wiping rivers of sweat from his forehead, agreed. "Rich is always willing to help. Last year he gave me free medicine for my dog and cat." Before he could continue his observations, a huge green plastic garbage bag tossed from a doorway landed in Boyd's arms. He pitched the bag onto the 4-foot-high and growing pile of rubbish that covered Gilbert's front yard. Help is on the way Not one of the more than a dozen folks shoveling, bagging, pitching, sweeping and scrubbing on this hot afternoon gave a second thought to helping Gilbert.

They proudly noted how the neighbors had banded together last year to throw out two drug dealers operating on Yale. However, I wondered if all their unselfish effort would be in vain. Gilbert, who is unemployed because of a disability, was given only 10 days to correct all the violations, which would cost a contractor an estimated $20,000 to fix. "We have gotten a lot of donations. Several carpenters promise to donate their time and 84 Lumber is going to donate most of the materials," Betty said.

The deadline doesn't concern Odelia Fields. "We have willpower. We are going to make it," she said. But what about Gilbert? "I promised them I would never let this happen again. Things just got away from me," Gilbert said.

"He made us a promise, and that's good enough for me," Betty said. Funny, how beauty and goodness can be found in the most unlikely places, even a place as unlikely as 940 Yale St. Carl Chancellor's column appears on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. He can be reached at 996-3725. That offended Moinette, a woman who would have done whatever she could to make the trip easier for everyone.

But as the trip got under way, the noise of traffic faded and so, too, did the adult tension. Even the kids heard the profound silence in the lazy flow of a river on an August day in the fullness of summer. And Huston's chatter tied to- See RIVER, Page C20 the pilot and narrator, asked people to shift around to accommodate the kids. One woman refused. "I've never seen anything like that," Ethel Moinette of Stow whispered to her daughter, Bar-bra Hopkins, of Ravenna.

The woman who refused to move sat, stern-faced, wrapped in the lightness of her claim to her seat. She had paid, darn it, and had a right to park it right there, kids or no kids. behind the condos, at Riverfront Centre. The boat leaves about every hour from 3 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and from noon to 8 p.m.

the other three days of the week. It'll cost you $1.50 to $2 to get on the boat, depending on how old you are. Unless you're under 6. Then you ride free. There were a few free riders Thursday, along with 24 adults.

That's the maximum number of adults allowed. Greg Huston, 35, BY Bnx O'Connor Beacon Journal staff writer CUYAHOGA FALLS: Although people boarding the boat could hear the expressway traffic, the river was quiet. That made for a neat contrast. The summer-muddy Cuyahoga River slips through the city like a secret, some passageway back into time. At a dock beside the tree-lined river, people every day line up to ride a 26-foot pontoon boat.

They board at the North Pier, Steve Love at large v. Dodie's bumped but debate lives It tt 1 Louis Farris (from left), Dave Petracca, Mike Cummins, Joe Buzzelli and Joe Petracca (standing) at Dodie's. Reward has old friend of Dillon uneasy Richard Fry may not cash unsolicited check for helping find killer By jolene Limbacher Beacon Journal staff writer A check for $4,000 is sitting on top of a dresser in the Stark County home of Richard Fry. He doesn't know whether he'll ever cash it. "I'll just think about it for a while," he said Thursday.

The money a reward for helping bring serial killer Thomas Lee Dillon to justice is an unsolicited and unwanted symbol of Fry's onetime friendship with Dillon, who was convicted July 12 of killing five men. "I hate to financially benefit from something like this," Fry confided. "It was never my intention. There are 11 kids out there without fathers." It was one year ago this month that Fry gave Dillon's name to the Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Department triggering an in- See DILLON, PageC20 Breakfast bunch talks politics even though CBS delays taping till today BY STEVE LOVE Beacon Journal staff writer Lou Farris expected bright lights, cameras and action on Thursday morning. Instead, he got coffee at the first table in Dodie's Restaurant at Highland Square.

"Good!" Farris said. Two years ago, CBS television's This Morning showed up at Dodie's with its cameras to check the pulse of Middle America. "It was fun," said Dodie's owner John Gonis. Fun but surreal. "They did a lot of importing," said Farris, who is a real-estate broker.

"I couldn't even get in." When late Wednesday CBS canceled a hastily arranged re- LEW STAMPBeacon Journal pie." When This Morning visited previously, it cleared out Dodie's first table for its own idea of Middle America, a well-to-do entrepreneur, a secretary and a supermarket deli clerk who was a single mother and once home-See LOVE, Page C9 With or without cameras, the discussion of President Clinton, the economy and leadership goes on, sometimes at a high pitch. "There are," contractor Joe Petracca suggested, "hundreds of thousands of people in Dodie's all over America. You may not have to listen to Congress, but you should to listen to these peo- turn to Dodie's, it lowered the lighting level but did not still the pulse. "This is still Middle America," Akron Deputy Mayor Dorothy Jackson said Thursday. CBS recognized this.

It called Gonis at midday Thursday and rescheduled the segment for 7:10 this morning..