The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 1

11 He tackles tough odds Vincent Miller is a survivor, but his Newark High classmates and football teammates probably don't realize to what extent the 4-foot-10 inch, 97-pounder has beaten the toughest -odds of all. Sports 1 Weather: cloudy Today: Partly cloudy and windy, high near 50. Clear and colder tonight, low in the upper 20s. Saturday: Mostly sunny. High temperature in the low 50s, low near 30.

Details, B2 Business B10 Obituaries B8 Classified C7 People D7 Comics D11 Record B8 D10 Sports C1 Dear D10 D8 Editorial A10 Time Out D1 For the weekend Tour a big house, at Winterthur, or small houses, at a miniatures show. An Egyptian festival, a pops 4 concert and a Christmas show also beckon. t3 I i i 1 The Morninq News A Gannett newspaper Wilmington, Friday, Nov. 21,1 986 107th year, No. 155 35 cents 1986, The News-Journal Co.

Democrats Mast Reagan credibility and we're going to correct that mistake." While the president has insisted that he did not err in ordering the arms shipments to Iran, even his Republican supporters in Congress were quick to differ. Both Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole, R- See DEMOCRATS -A4 Reaction to Reagan Khomeini assails U.S. dealings. PageA2 Reagan broke law, critics say. Page AS Reagan claims.

Sen. Sam Nunn, the Democrats' chief spokesman on military matters and soon-to-be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the president's current efforts to justify the arms shipments combined with his earlier confusion over what was discussed at his summit with Soviet leader By SARA FRITZ Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON Democratic leaders, arguing that' President Reagan's credibility was undermined by his secret dealings with Tehran, insisted Thursday that U.S. arms shipped to Iran were offensive and militarily sipificant not defensive and "minuscule," as Mikhail S. Gorbachev last month have caused Americans as well as allied leaders to question the truth of what he tells them. "There has been damage to the president's credibility in the last 30 to 40 days," said Nunn.

"And when the president's credibility goes down, either at home or abroad, it's bad for the country, it's bad for the Democratic Party, it's bad for the Republican Party, it's bad for the American people and it's bad for the process." Like many other Democrats who spoke out Thursday during the Senate's post-election organizational meetings, Nunn called upon Reagan to admit the error of his ways by declaring: "We made a mistake United Way is 99.9 there it fell short and still came up $500,000 below the target. This year's campaign apparently was not affected by a controversy over United Way's elimination of a donor option program and the withdrawal of support by some Delaware union leaders, who also protested the organization's removal in June of a staff labor representative. "While there were some stories of misunderstandings," said Evans, the celebration dinner chairman, "there were many, many more of overwhelming generosity." The largest bulk of pledges came from the Du Pont Co. and its employees, who contributed $5,372,000 $108,000 shy of the company's goal this year. United Way also raised $2.94 million in pledges from the state's larger manufacturing companies and their employees, and $1.58 million from financial institutions.

"While we commend ourselves and the community on a tremendous show in 1986, we are already looking towards 1987," said Thomas F. McGrail, chairman-elect of the agency's board of By CHRISTOPHER PUMMER Staff reporter United Way of Delaware Inc. officials found cause to celebrate Thursday night, even though the agency came up $14,000 short of its $13.7 million target in this fall's fund-raising campaign. United Way met 99.9 percent of its goal in raising $13,686,000 in pledges for the coming year, reported general campaign chairman Hugh E. Miljer, who expects the benchmark will be reached before the year is out.

"When it came time to give, Delawareans showed they cared in abundance," said Delmarva Power Light Co. Communications Director Richard H. Evans, who helped arrange a dinner for 600 people at the Sheraton-Brandywine Inn to mark the close of United Way's two-month drive. This year's contributions represented a 6.5 percent increase over the $12.8 million collected in the fall 1985 campaign for 55 United Way-affiliated agencies. In coming within a hair of its goal, United Way was spared the difficulty it experienced in the '85 campaign, which was extended into January because "-1 piiiiiiiiiy sp.n Hp I slurs 'j 1 1 wm'm'm, wmimmsmmiM 1 iliiiii I fitiiij 7 Illpllllli Getting rid of asbestos is new trade By NANCY KESLER Dover Bureau chief DOVER The Jesse L.

Cooper Building, in the middle of the state office complex in Dover, once was a maze of offices for the state Division of Public Health. Now it is a two-story brick shell sealed in plastic sheeting and occupied by white-suited figures peering through respirator masks. The noise of typewriters and phones has been replaced by the whoosh of air blowing through filters and the steady hum of compressors. The state's public health workers were working in an unhealthy building, the ceilings and girders coated with asbestos that could crumble at the touch, sending fine asbestos particles into the air. The particles can lodge in lung tissue and lead to serious respiratory disease or cancer.

The $1.2 million asbestos removal project started at the Cooper building last month. Safety precautions are designed to protect the workers removing the asbestos, as well as the public outside the building. Workers entering the building go to a changing room, where they don special shoes, a white body suit, hood and respirator. To get to the work areas, they go through a series of small, plastic-sheeted cubicles designed to isolate those areas that may contain asbestos fibers. In cavernous, dreary gray areas of the building, workers stand on high scaffolding, spraying water on asbestos coating that was applied to the ceiling more than 20 years ago.

The wet asbestos is then scraped away, falling to the floor in small heaps like oatmeal. Other workers walk carefully across the wet, sometimes slick floor strung with respirator air lines. They put the wet asbestos in black plastic bags, carefully seal them and stack the bags in a room. The bags eventually will be hauled to a specially designated landfill. At the end of the day, the workers make their way out through another series of plastic cubicles, removing their clothing in one See ASBESTOS -A4 Patient due for release was found on jury duty Last July, Dr.

Richard Winkel-mayer, medical director of the state Division of Mental Health, informed Boenig's lawyer that, in his opinion, Boenig's release from the hospital would not endanger the public. The lawyer, James W. Garvin filed a petition for Boenig's release. A hearing was set for Dec. 5.

But Garvin was unable to contact Boenig at his job to discuss it with him. He had been reporting for the Superior Court jury pool but had not served on a jury. Boenig, reached at home Thursday night, declined to discuss details of his situation. "I think you're doing me a hell of a disservice by stirring up something I have tried to put out of my See JURY DUTY A4 By TOM GREER and TED CADDELL Staff reporters An attorney who searched two weeks for his client to let him know the hearing date on his petition for release from Delaware State Hospital was looking in all the wrong places. He had been in Superior Court the whole time on jury duty.

Rodney T. Boenig, 52, was committed to the hospital in September 1984, when he was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity. By November of that year, Boenig was granted permission to return to work and visit his family on weekends and holidays. In May 1985, an order allowed Boenig to continue medication and therapy as an outpatient from his home in Caravel Farms. i Staff photo by Susan L.

Gregg Worker, wearing protective garb, hoses down asbestos at Cooper Building in Dover. Lottery pot boosted, but odds double Channel 61 to switch to all-day shopping By GARY MULLINAX Staff reporter WTGI-TV, Channel 61, will switch to full-time home shopping programming at 8 a.m. Monday, when the ShoppingLine service of Columbus, Ohio, begins operating on the Wilmington station 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ShoppingLine will pay WTGI a fee for air time and a percentage of sales. The programming will originate in a studio in Northvale, N.J., and be fed to Channel 61 via satellite.

WTGI, an independent station, has had financial difficulty since going on the air July 9. Delays in getting on the air used up much of the working capital that would have seen the station through See CHANNEL 61 A4 changes to lead to an additional $2 million profit for the state General Fund. Even without the larger jackpots, unknown thousands of players hauled in more than $19 million in prizes about 46 percent of the record $41 million they spent on lottery tickets in the fiscal year that ended June 30. The previous record for bets on the lottery was $38.7 million the year before. The money was wagered on instant game tickets, the daily number game, the Play 4 and the Lotto.

The largest prize won in the state lottery was $1 million in May 1985. director Albert A. Pavlic said in a prepared statement "Our Lotto jackpot may not grow quickly at first, but we do expect it to grow to much higher amounts than it has in the past, Pavlic said. That should help the state be more competitive with Pennsylvania and Maryland, he added. Both states have minimum $1 million purses.

New Jersey also has a high-stakes game. The new lottery program calls for winners to get a larger share of the total revenues up to 56 percent instead of a 50 percent maximum. Still, Pavlic said he expects the tors now will have to pick six numbers out of 34, instead of six out of 30. The four-number increase means that a player's chance of winning the big-money Lotto jackpot have gone to 1 in 672,452, up from 1 in 296,888. The changes take effect on Saturday, the first drawing will be held next Friday, Nov.

28. Although state residents bet a record $41 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, lottery officials weren't satisfied. "By changing the chances of winning, the right combination of numbers should be hit less often and the jackpot can grow larger," lottery By MICHAEL JACKSON Staff reporter Delawareans will be winning twice as much in the state lottery starting next Friday but they'll have only half the chance of a lucky strike. In an attempt to keep at home some of the estimated $2 million that Delaware residents spend on lottery tickets in Pennsylvania and Maryland, state Lottery officials Thursday said they would double the minimum jackpot on the Lotto Game, from $50,000 to $100,000. To reach the larger guaranteed figure, lottery officials have lowered the odds of winning.

Bet.