The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 9

Monday, July 19, 1982 SECTION Cleveland stations battle for listeners Akron Beacon Journal This service helps its clients break bread with a stranger XXXXX. VX'X -X- XXXXXX. Z- XX': By Connie Bloom Beacon Journal staff writer By Daniel Cook Beacon Journal staff writer The phone caller on the Rich Barnett radio show had a question about her potatoes. She wanted to know what the little potatoes looked like when they came up. "It's the first year I've tried potatoes," she explained.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about gardening," replied Bar-nett's guest, a Cleveland greengrocer. Undaunted, Barnett interjected: "I love potatoes they're about my favorite vegetable. I could eat 'em every meal!" The day before, another talk show host for the same AM station spent most of her air time talking to herself. Psychologist Stephanie Neuman wasn't generating many calls. Instead, she filled one 35-minute lull droning on about ethical choices that confront one in everyday life.

BARNETT, A FORMER WHLO newsman, and Ms. Neuman both work for WJW in Cleveland. But last year, they hosted talk shows for another Cleveland AM station WERE, which until July 6 was the only around-the-clock news-talk station in a city of 20 AM competitors. Today, the two stations are bitter rivals in a radio ratings war for dominance of the Cleveland audience for news-talk programming. The tenor of the battle seems to have grown beyond a normal rivalry.

WJW publicly derided WERE's programming and raided its staff prior to the debut of the new format July 6. In angry response, WERE vowed to "bury" the upstart. WJW promotions director Martha Brunstein scoffs at the remark. "They said they'll bury us, but I have yet to see them pick up a shovel," she said. FOR FIVE YEARS, WERE enjoyed a monopoly in the news-talk field.

If its ratings weren't spectacular, they were consistent. But this spring, WERE decided upon a shift in its format one designed to cut costs, media sources say. The station dropped its local talk shows in favor of an ABC network package of national call-in hosts. That left the door open for WJW. WJW had been slugging it out in the cramped music arena for years, sinking slowly into a morass of poor ratings and net losses.

The heat was reportedly on from owner Art Modell also Cleveland Browns owner who last year came close to selling the station, sources say. The news-talk format had been discussed previously, and even tried on a provisional basis last year. With the folding of the Cleveland Press and WERE's plans to abandon local talk See CLEVELAND, page B2 "SURE, WE'RE capitalists," said Bakker. "But it's also fun putting people together. And we don't want to be computerized, which would take out the personal touch.

After you get past age, height and weight We have problems matching someone who is 5-foot-4 and 250 pounds Only 6 percent of Bakker's clients are unmatchable, he says. "Heavyweights won't date heavyweights. Ninety percent of my refunds go to them." The Cleveland Better Business Bureau reports the firm has been operating since November 1981 and went on file this year. The BBB's report is "satisfactory." THE CLIENTS don't seem to be complaining. In fact, they say they appreciate having a Lunch-Mate along with their daily bread.

Clients at the lunch-dating service pay $30 for 60 days. During that time lunch dates are arranged for them with four or five people. Details of a client's life are kept confidential only first names are given out. No addresses are given or places of employment. And if you are unhappy with the plan, your money is refunded.

Bakker and Sullivan say they will refund the money to any unhappy clients. GREG, AGE 30, an Akron machine operator, said he had no idea what to expect after his lunch date was arranged. "They told me her height, hair color, weight, occupation and hobbies," Greg said. "They told me exactly how she appeared. "She seemed to like me.

She kept her eyes on me all the time. She didn't say anything. I did all the talking. "She was better than what I was expecting. She was a knockout.

She One day eight months ago, two Cleveland-area entrepreneurs decided to send Alyce, a 23-year-old medical secretary, on a blind date with a Lunch-Mate. Perhaps they would end her rum-pled-brown-bag habit forever. "I wanted something to look forward to, something to make my work days go faster," explained Alyce. "There's no obligation, and going to lunch with a stranger is easier than the traditional blind date. It only lasts an hour." Lunch-DatesLunch-Mates is one of the newest twists to dating services.

It is the brainchild of Jim Bakker and Terry Sullivan, two food brokers from Independence. "LUNCH-MATES is a refinement of a pre-existing idea: The dating game," Bakker said. "We took the risk out of the traditional blind date and made it acceptable to the masses." After they placed their first advertisement for the lunch-date service, the food brokers got a few calls on their one telephone line. Now, they have a row of buttons on several phones and files on 1,000 Lunch-Mates in Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Warren and Youngstown. Operating out of a small, freestanding building in the parking lot of a Perkins Cake Steak House, the duo and their secretaries rifle through one-page applications matching Lunch-Mates.

Beacon Journal photoillustration bv Paul Tople was gorgeous," Greg said. "I have at least 30 to 35 days to go. I'm going to sit and enjoy this. This is something new, it's a ball." BAKKER AND Sullivan contend that most of their subscribers are professional people "who are not wall- flowers. They are tired of the bar scene.

There are 1,000 divorces in Cuyahoga County a month. These peo- pie have a problem how to find new people." Unlike other dating services, Lunch-DatesLunch-Mates is not out to provide prospective "We don't care whether you ever find a spouse," Bakker and Sullivan said. "Have a nice lunch. It only lasts an hour." Bakker and Sullivan are both mar- ried and neither has ever been on a 1 lunch date. Once, however, they walked into a Brown Derby together for lunch.

By the cigarette machine, they saw two people introducing themselves. "They were shaking hands, like men introducing themselves. This brought us a lot of satisfaction. We knew they were Lunch-Mates," they chimed. MATCHING people isn't always easy.

For example: Lunch-Mates secretary Amy called Sam. She described Linda. He thought he had dated her already. Amy knew he hadn't. The company keeps records See SERVICE, page B5 laughter 6YWV don't care whether you ever find a spouse.

Have a nice lunch. It only lasts an Jim Bakker and Terry Sullivan Rose Kennedy's home is full of love, I IJ pwwWWIIBWII 'Zr Xxl 1 if'" She wore blue slacks and a blue sweater and, as is the custom, something to cover the head in church. She chose a black lace veil. "I feel wonderful," she said. She underwent surgery nearly two years ago to correct a blocked intestine.

Last November she was hospitalized when she suffered chest pains. And she was in the hospital again briefly last month for a series of tests after she had complained of not feeling well. FAITH, SHE SAID, had helped her get through the assassinations of two of her sons, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F.

Kennedy. She goes to Mass daily. "It's the religious feeling that God is all good and that He won't give us any cross that is impossible for us to bear, that I've had so many great favors given to me by everyone and everywhere, that I should be strong myself and help other people rather than depending on them to help me. "I think that's been a tremendous help. I've been very lucky in that everybody's been very, very generous to me in their attitude and cooperated in everything I've tried to do." Each year Mrs.

Kennedy has celebrated her birthday not only as a family affair but has used the occasion to help others. THIS YEAR, the Kennedy Foundation is donating three-quarters of a million dollars to establish a professor's endowed chair in child neurology and mental retardation at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University. The chair will be named for Mrs. Kennedy and her husband, Joseph P. Kennedy, who died in 1969 at the age of 81.

By George Esper Associated Press HYANNIS PORT, Mass. For her birthday two years ago, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy wanted her grandchildren to learn Paul Revere's Ride. Just for the fun of it, they changed some of the words to see if they could trick her. She corrected them. As a gift this year, she asked some of the children if they would learn to play Sweet Adeline on the piano.

Approaching her 92nd birthday Thursday, Mrs. Kennedy's sense of fun and optimism, her zest of life, and her faith are as abundant as ever despite the many tragedies that have befallen her family. One of her five daughters, Jean Kennedy Smith, recalls once asking her mother how she would like to be remembered. While she hesitated a minute to think, a cousin speculated, "probably for love tempered with discipline." "And my mother said," recalled Mrs. Smith, "that she wouldn't want to be remembered as a disciplinarian, that laughter was important and that she would like to be remembered as having a house full of love and laughter, especially where children are." THE SPARKLE in her eyes was evident as she left a Cape Cod church after Mass on a recent July morning.

She had lingered a few minutes in her front row pew until the 50 or so other people had left. Her handshake was firm. She walked with a cane and was helped by a nurse who had driven her to church from her oceanfront home. She ate a small peppermint patty as she got into the car to tide her over until she had breakfast. The money will help in research and in the treatment and care of the mentally retarded, who hold a special place in Mrs.

Kennedy's heart. Her oldest daughter, Rosemary, who will be 64 in September, is retarded. She has been at St. Coletta School in Jefferson, for 34 years. "I think one of the things which still gives her the greatest source of satisfaction and happiness is when she knows Rosemary is well and happy and fine," says Sen.

Edward M. Kennedy, the only survivor among four sons. When the senator telephoned Mrs. Kennedy to wish her a happy Mother's Day in May, he told her that Rosemary had been on leave and had visited him. "That's the nicest happy Mother's Day present you could give me," Mrs.

Kennedy told her son. MRS. KENNEDY is generally up at 8 a.m., then off to Mass a half hour later. Then she has breakfast and reads the morning newspaper with a daughter (her eyes tend to tire and then the daughter reads to her). She has a walk and a swim before lunch.

In the afternoon, she takes a walk with some of her grandchildren. There are 29 of them and four great-grandchildren. She wants to know what is going on, so she never misses the evening news on television. "She always asks about the grandchildren," says another daughter, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. "She's interested in what all her own children are doing.

She's interested in Teddy's politics." Over the July 4th weekend, she went to the home of a neighbor who was holding a reception for Sen. Kennedy, who is seeking re-election this year. She asked to speak, then thanked See LOVE, page B2 Associated Press Rose Kennedy outside church: "I feel wonderful.".