Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 43

IPhlS State Jiiw 1 Minneapolis Star and Tribune Thursday May 131982- 3C- of Hoyt Lakes woman washes ashore in Duluth 'By JjaHolten around the head gasket, but it Larry Race said. Debbie Race was "deathly afraid of the water and could not swim," said Lt. Comm. Carl Swedberg, of the U.S. Coast Guard's Group Duluth.

and her husband A 13-year-old boy found Race's body on the shore behind his home on the east end of Duluth at about 4 p.m. yesterday. The yellow and blue rubber raft in which she had abandoned the boat was not found. A cause of death has not been determined; the St Louis County coroner is scheduled to examine the body today. insisted that she abandon it.

The Race's boat was recovered yesterday morning with just a few Inches of water in Its hull. Debbie Race and her husband, Larry Race, 33, celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary Tuesday night at a restaurant on the North Shore of Lake Superior. They left the Knife River Marina about 7:30 p.m. to get a view of the restaurant from the lake. Less than a mile from the marina, the 22-foot wood and fireglass craft developed engine problems.

"The noise it was making, it was gurgling," upset his wife, said Larry Race. A small leak developed. And then the engine quit Larry Race assured his wife that the boat's pump could handle the leak, but she became frightened and Insisted that they leave the boat authorities said. The boat was without communications, St Louis County Sheriff Greg Sertlch said. The boat had sunk last year with Larry Race, 33, and two of the Race's three children aboard.

"He had to float the kids to shore on some debris. She remembered that real well," marina manager Ed Drill said Larry Race told him. Race is an experienced diver who often investigates sunken wrecks in the area, Drill said. Larry Race salvaged, the boat after the sinking. "It was in perfect shape.

It had been completely rebuilt and it had a new engine, and I don't know why it started taking on water Northern Minnesota Correspondent Duluth, Minn. The body of a Hoyt Lakes, Minn' woman was recovered Wednesday afternoon, 19 hours after she was reported adrift in a life raft on Lake Superior, Pebble Race, 33, apparently panicked Tuesday night when her husband's boat became disabled. Apparently fearing that the boat would sink as it had a year before she 1. Mark Griggs, assistant controller aCS the Coast Guard's rescue coordina 1 State armland iff value takes first dip in 22 years mm By Staff Writer and News Services The value of Minnesota farmland dropped 2.8 percent last year, the first time in 22 years it has failed to Increase, the U.S. Agriculture Department said Wednesday.

Nationally, farmland value dropped 1 percent The department said Minnesota farmland dropped from an average value of $1,231 per acre on Feb. 1, 1981, to $1,197 last February. Those figures confirmed recent talk among farmers that many sellers are longer getting their asking prices for cropland. Some said the government's figures don't reflect the magnitude of the Minnesota drop. "They're (the figures) optimistic," said Jon Vohs, Minneapolis broker for Doane-Western, a farm management and appraisal business.

Vohs estimated that prices for good southern Minnesota land have fallen as much as 25 percent Vohs said a typical example is a parcel in Steele County that was offered for sale at $2,500 an acre and fetched $2,000. Philip Raup, a University of Minnesota agricultural economist who studies land values, predicted that land prices will not resume their upward trend until crop prices improve. With most experts predicting a low return for each acre harvested this year, farmers are reluctant to bid until they see a profit that allows them to meet prospective mortgage payments, Vohs said. Although high interest rates on mortgages also have dampened land transfers, Raup said' moderation of interest rates alone won't push up land values. The decrease in land value follows a 16-percent Increase between 1980 and 1981 for Minnesota.

The value estimates are based on information supplied by people working with the land market, such as federal land bank officers and assessors. ing center in Cleveland, termed tne incident "a panic situation. Woman continued on page 4C 3 charged in sales of LSD in Brainerd From Staff and Wire Services Brainerd, Minn. Three people were charged with selling drugs Wednesday as the suit of a 10-month undercover opera'" tion into distribution of LSD in the ST Cloud and Brainerd areas. The Minnesota Public Safety Depart ment said the arrests followed the -sale of 1,050 units of LSD to an undercover agent in the Brainerd'" City Hall parking lot.

The drugs had a street value of more than $11,000, the department said. Those charged were identified Jeffrey James Spoden, Sauk ids; Robert Stephen Schmidt, Sauk Centre, and Elizabeth Gabrielle Arvig, 18, Melrose. Spoden also was charged with drugs to the same undercover on four previous occasions. was charged with making two previ- ous drug sales to the agent Two other 19-year-old men were arV" rested Tuesday but were released without being charged. 'J The use of the city hall parking lot" for the sale was requested by alleged drug traffickers, officialsiJ" said.

As a result, the alleged sale about nr. 7:15 p.m. Tuesday was videotaped by officers in the Brainerd City Council chambers, which overlook the park-. ing lot. The LSD was in the form of "blotter: acid," in which drops of LSD dissolved on blotter paper which caau be placed in the mouth.

Each is known as a "hit." Arrests were made by officers from the Brainerd Police Department, the-Crow Wing County sheriff's the State Patrol and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The Public Safety Department saidvm in St. Paul that additional arrests were expected. The department saidn-i the undercover operation involved. an LSD ring allegedly operating out of St.

Cloud into the Crow Wing County area. State and local officials combined efforts and arrested four people on1-" drug charges in Duluth last weekend Voyageurs bill 5 gains in HouseE By Al McConagha Staff Correspondent Washington, D.C The House Interior Committee, Wednesday approved an additional $12.3 million for Voyageurs Nationals Park for land acquisition and post; poned action to delete Black Bay-- from the northern Minnesota park. The committee took up funding focI land acquisition yesterday to meet 1 the May 15 deadline for reporting new authorizations. Changes in boundaries will be considered later. The park service estimates that itjf will need at least $12.3 million to complete land acquisition; by law it, is permitted to spend 10 percent above the acquisition ceiling.

A similar bill, sponsored by Sen. Da-vid Durenberger, is pending, before a Senate subcommittee. nr. i Rep. James Oberstar, Eighth District Democrat, is author of the Housed bill, which also would implement aMii state-federal compromise over Voyageurs designed to reduce resentment of residents near the park.

In 1980 state and federal agreed to remove from the acres in the Black Bay area, favorite duck hunting spot in the International Falls area. Oberstar said yesterday that Rep. John Seiberling, D-Ohio, head of the parks subcommittee, promised the boundary alterations will be taken up this year. Approval of the return of Black Bav to Minnesota is ed. I Minnesota farmland has dropped in value only twice since the Depression, according to Raup.

Those drops were between 1952 and 1953, when it went from $107 to $105, and between 1959 and 1960, when it fell from $157 to $155. Nationally," farmland has shot up in value since 1973, when bumper crops and high prices gave farmers money to bid up land prices and an incentive to acquire more land. The average value of Minnesota farmland rose from $298 in 1973 to $1,310 in 1981, according to Raup's studies. According to the department, the average value of farmland nationally was $788 per acre on Feb. 1, down from $795 a year earlier.

Two years earlier, on Feb. 1, 1980, the average was $725 per acre. The national loss was the first since 1954. But the decline was not uniform across the country, the report showed. Of the 48 contiguous states surveyed, 26 showed increases in farmland values while 22 had declines.

The farmland-value report did not provide reasons for the decline. It was prepared by the department's Economic Research Service and was delayed for several days for further review before senior officials decided to make it public. Even after the report was released, its news was so sensitive that agency experts some of whom expressed fear for their jobs declined to comment or refused to give reporters their names. The Reagan administration has been under fire because of declining farm income, which is expected to be down again in 1982 for the third straight year. In other Upper Midwest states the average dollar value per acre on Feb.

1, 1982, and Feb. 1, 1981, included: Wisconsin, $1,073 and Iowa, $1,802 and North Dako, ta, $436 and $423; and South Dakota, $291 and $290. should be almost over by the end of the month, as trees leaf out and grass and forest floors become green, unless there's a sustained drought Meadows said this year's fires have destroyed several barns and a couple of vehicles, including a camping trailer. Most of the fires have been in the central area of the state; from the Carlos Avery Game Refuge in Anoka County northward through the Brainerd area, he said. State fire-fighting crews are called out to fight all reported fires.

Although most of them are grass fires, they are still taken seriously. Meadows said. "We stress initial attack getting there and putting them out because grass fires lead to timber someplace," Meadows said. About 98 percent of the fires are started by people, many of them deliberately, he said. At times when fires are likely, the state hires as many as 20 light airplanes to fly over wooded and grassy areas looking for outbreaks of fire.

The state has five fire-fighting helicopters and some airborne tankers that can dump as much as 1,200 gallons of fire retardant on a fire. ft- Rains quench rash of brush and grass fires around state At 82, he's as sharp as ever on job Rudolph (Rudy) Hansen, 82, has been working around saws and saw blades most of his life. Working out of a tiny shop near his house in downtown Park Rapids, Hansen sharpens -everything from local crosscut saws to industrial-grade sawmill equipment. The blades are shipped to him for sharpening from South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana and northern Minnesota. Hansen worked at his craft around the state for 25 years before retiring to work on his own in 1 965.

He says he's one of the few people who still know the technique for hammering big sawmill blades, but he's working on changing that; he has an apprentice in the shop. Hansen, whose wife died in 197 1, doesn't spend all of his time sharpening blades. His daughter lives nearby, and he has a patch of raspberries so thick you almost have to wade through them to get to the door of his shop. Staff Photos by Mitch Kezar Hjemkomst rides northeast wind past Superior's Apostle Islands The Viking ship replica Hjemkomst passed the Apostle Islands off the Wisconsin shore early Wednesday afternoon on the second day of its voyage from Minnesota to Norway. Jeff Solum, the ship's radio operator, reported that the crew expected to reach the vicinity of Ontonagon, about 50 miles southeast of the Apostles, at about midnight last night.

Then the crew was to decide whether to sail around the Keweenaw Peninsula or hitch up to a towboat and cross the peninsula through a canal that passes Houghton and Hancock, Mich. A strong northeasterly wind was carrying the Hjemkomst along at a speed of about 5 knots (5 nautical miles per hour) under cloudy but rainless skies, Solum said. He said the ship has been under sail since leaving Knife River, Tuesday, and that the oars have been used only to help turn-the ship through the wind. Solum said crew members had a good night Tuesday, although they were cold because they couldn't light a diesel-fuel stove. Crew members seemed to be in good spirits yesterday: they could be heard cheering over the radio.

Around Minnesota Minneapolis: Eight truckloads of surplus cheese to arrive in June I I I i The cheese will not be distributed at local sites for take-home use by poor people. That type of distribution will be held again next fall, Bonine said, after it can be determined if other surplus commodities will be available at the same time. The latest batch of cheese will be stored at Moose Lake, Brainerd, Fergus Falls and St. Paul, for distribution by the Lake County Food Bank to local community action agencies. Another 275,000 pounds of federal surplus cheese has been ordered for Minnesota, according to the chairman of the governor's cheese task force.

Robert Bonine said Wednesday that eight truckloads of cheese should arrive in the state about June 15. It is intended for use in food programs in the state, including meals for senior citizens, children in day care centers and distribution through emergency food shelves. By Nick Coleman Staff Writer Several days of rain have brought an end to the small brush and grass fires that have plagued Minnesota for the past couple of weeks, state officials said Wednesday. As many as 100 fires a day were reported In the state last week. But officials said that in the wake of cooler temperatures and rain showers, hardly any fires have been reported this week.

So far this season the state has received reports of 746 fires that have burned more than 16,560 acres, or about 25.88 square miles of land. Officials said more than three quarters of them have been grass fires and have done little damage. George Meadows, wildfire management specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said yesterday that this year's fire problems have been mild. In an average year, he said, about 1,500 fires are reported and they burn about 70,000 acres, or about 1 09 square miles of land. Meadows said ijsear's late thaw helped hold down the.

number of fires. He said the spring fire season t2ta Haws CfSJ3 -iA Si. Minneapolis Rochester Benson: Searchers find no trace of plane missing since Monday Searchers failed again Wednesday to find a light plane missing since Monday after a flight from northern Wisconsin to Benson in west-central Minnesota. The pilot of the missing red-and-white, single-engine Cessna 172 was identified yesterday as Don Maki, 32, Benson. Swift County sheriff's officers said Maki, a biologist for the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, was alone in the aircraft. Maki works ou! of ihe Fish and Wildlife Service office in Morris, Minn. Authorities said Maki's plane left Lakeland Airport in the Minocqua, area at 5:50 p.m. Monday and was to arrive at Benson about 9:20 p.m. It disappeared during high winds and stormy conditions about 9:30 p.m.

The search by Civil Air Patrol aircraft and ground teams began in the Benson area and centers on an area that includes parts of Swift, Pope and Kandiyohi counties. Yesterday's search effort was hampered by heavy rams that limited visibility. Around continued on 4C (6 1 2) 372-4542 708 Marquette Bank Building (507)283-1417 Duiuth 817 Medical Arts Building (218) 727-7344.