The Salina Journal du lieu suivant : Salina, Kansas • Page 1

the Salina Journal Serving Kansas since 1871 IN LIFESTYLES Knlghth Council 601 siffl flourishes after 96 years in Salina, Page 31 Salina, Kansas Sunday, October 27, 1991 $1.25 BACK TO THE FRONTIER Group is not trapped by modern ways Trappers, traders come together By CAROL LICHTI Journal Staff Writer OTTAWA COUNTY STATE LAKE Paul Ottensmeier is convinced he was born at the wrong time. But that hasn't stopped him from capturing the experience of what it was like to be alive on the frontier in the 1820s through 1840s. "I've made my own clothes and forged my own knife," the Abilene resident said 'I hunt deer and pheasant. But everything I hunt is shot with black powder. It's more fun that way." Ottensmeier used his caliber Great Plains rifle, a factory-made replica of a black powder rifle, to compete in the 13th annual Prairie Longrifles Inc.

Rifle Frolic Saturday. The contest continues until noon today with shooting competition and canoe races. About 50 shooters were expected to register by today. Dressed in buckskin and furs from head to toe, Ottensmeier introduced himself as "Two Paws." That's the name he uses when he's not at his white man's job, he said. It's the name he answers to when he is forging knives, cutting firewood, tanning deer hides or at a rendezvous with other lovers of the trapping and fur trading history.

It's on these weekends that he calls his wife "Song Bird" and his 8- year-old son Jonathan, "Shooting Star." "Teresa is the name given to me by my mother, not my husband," Teresa Ottensmeier said. French voyageur Jefferson Brown visits with Neal Kendall. Rendezvous like the one Saturday are takeoffs of the old rendezvous of the fur trading era when trappers and traders would gather together. The trappers would come down from the mountains with their goods to meet with representatives of the Hudson Bay or that company's competitors, said Dave Winter, Gypsum, a member of Prairie Longrifles Inc. of Salina.

The event isn't a re-enactment. "We're not re-enactors," Winter said. "We're just here to have fun." The old-time rendezvous were full of high spirits, said Neal Kendall, Wells. "The Indians started cashing in on it, too," he said. "There were a lot of immoral things." Besides goods, the Indians would bring their women for the pleasure of the trappers and traders.

But that's one area not mimicked in the modern day rendezvous. One thing that has remained is the competition. There is target shooting for black powder rifles, pistols, shotguns and cartridge guns. There are also knife and tomahawk throwing competitions. To be realistic, some of the shooting and throwing occur on a walk during which targets pop up among the trees and scenery.

While Ottensmeier came to shoot, Kendall was there to sell and trade his handmade knives, hides and other wears. He and his wife, Kay, have noticed an increased interest See INTEREST, Page 11 Civil rights bill a result of politics Bush backed down when votes vanished By WILLIAM M.WELCH Associated Writer WASHINGTON The Senate was about to begin a contentious debate on civil rights last week when President Bush summoned a group Of undecided Republican senators to the White House for some political hand-holding. Instead of Photos by Ben Journal Teresa Ottensmeier visits with her husband, Paul, as their son Jonathan wittles a bow. State plan to restore part of wetlands draws fire By LINDA MOWERY-DENNING Journal Groat Plaint Editor remember when their fathers used to spend a day hunting in the Big Basin a few miles west of here and bag enough ducks to feed their families for a week. Big Basin, which covered 2,000 acres with water never more than six feet deep, was a mecca for migrating birds and local and out-of- county hunters.

It was part of 9,000 acres of wetlands referred to in historical documents as the "chain of lakes." However, in the early 1900s, Big Basin was drained and turned into farmland. Over the years, much of the remaining McPherson Valley wetlands also was converted to agricultural use. Today, farms and irrigation units that draw water from the underground Equus Beds dot land that once was covered with water. Corn, soybeans, inilo and wheat are grown where Does Indiana really know what time it is? By The Associated Press KNOX, Ind. The last Sunday in October is here, which can only mean one thing: It's time for Indianians to do the "Time Zone Shuffle." Today, most of the nation went through its annual ritual of setting clocks back an hour as the United States reverts from daylight-saving time to standard time.

For Indiana the switch should be easy; it's one of three states that observe year-round standard time. But here's where it gets complicated: Eleven counties six in the northwest corner of the state and five in the southwest set their clocks to Central time, while the rest of the state is on Eastern time. What's more, those 11 counties refuse to follow the rest of the state in staying on standard time and switch See TIME, Page 11 "It was almost gone before we realized that we had something important." Bert Wilson, state wildlife and parks employee water used to stand. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks wants to change a portion of the present landscape and take it back to when it was a wetlands. That plan has upset some landowners, who fear the project eventually could consume their farms.

Dean Kleckner, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, was in McPherson Wednesday to talk about wetlands and federal and state acquisition of private property. His appearance was sponsored by the McPherson County Farm Bureau at its 75th annual meet- ing. The farm organization is a fierce defender of "private lands in private hands." It also is working at the national level to limit the definition of a wetland. "It seems to me that wetlands ought to be wet at least part of the time," Kleckner said. "This has gone beyond retaining and enhancing wetlands to regulating corn and soybean and wheat fields.

"This is extra agitating to me as an outsider to see this going on." Before his comments, Doug Sawyer of McPherson presented a slide show on the proposed wetlands area. He said a major concern with the proposal is the state's eminent domain powers. Some think Kansas will use its authority if it can't find enough landowners who want to sell their property. "We are turning into a nation of spectators who watch our private land go back to public land and watch it deteriorate," said Sawyer, who has land and a feedlot in the potential wetlands area. However, earlier in the day, Roy Grimes, a regional supervisor for the Department of Wildlife and Parks, said his agency will not use eminent domain to acquire land.

His department is looking for willing sellers only and, as a result, shifts its efforts from area to area within the original wetlands boundaries. "We have no idea what our boundaries will See WETLANDS, Page 6 THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE CONFERENCE Israel agrees to stay for direct Arab talks The Associated Press Spanish Civil Guards patrol outside the palace in Madrid where this week's historic Middle East peace talks will be. By The Associated Press MADRID, Spain Diplomats and security officials scurried Saturday to sort out a host of delicate details to smooth the way for this week's historic Arab-Israeli peace conference. Jordan and Lebanon announced their delegations. Israeli officials, meanwhile, conceded that they had resigned themselves to Arab demands to stay in the Spanish capital following Wednesday's opening of the conference for direct talks with their Arab neighbors.

Israel had wanted a Middle East venue for the follow-up talks. The three sets of direct talks between Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon and Israel and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation will probably begin Nov. 3, an official said. They will likely focus on procedural matters to set the framework for later rounds of negotiations, he said. Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders continued to make conciliatory statements accompanied by references to Israel's tough stance before the talks.

"I know that there will be many obstacle and provocations," PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat told CNN television in an interview Saturday evening. "But we have assured See PALESTINIANS, Page 10 Analysis support for his position, Bush received a disturbing message of those Republican senators whose support he needed said he couldn't count on their votes to sustain a veto. "It's essential that the nation have a civil rights bill now, thereby avoiding it becoming a divisive, emotional issue in the 1992 presidential anfl congressional elections," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va. Warner was one of the senators who delivered the bad news to Bush Wednesday at the White House.

His vote was critical, because Warner had voted with the president a year ago, when by a single vote the Senate sustained the president's veto of a similar job discrimination bill. At least one and perhaps two other senators who backed Bush a year ago delivered a similar message, Warner said Friday after Bush had come to a breakthrough compromise. Another Republican senator who voted to sustain Bush a year ago, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, gave Bush a similar message, according to one source. Finally, both sides reached a compromise.

The agreement averted what promised to be a replay of last year's veto, a bitter battle to override it, and a likely poisonous political fight over racial politics that would be played out in next year's elections. There had already been a preview in the racial and sexual politics that surrounded the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. And the embarrassment to Republicans of having a former Ku Klux Klansman, David Duke, win place as the GOP candidate for governor in Louisiana this month, pro-: vided the White House with a new incentive to get rid of the racial, issues. "The bill has not changed with respect to the issue of quotas. What's happened is the White House See GOP.

Page 10 Only thing tree program grows is bills By The Associated Press WASHINGTON The only thing green about President Bush's ambitious plans to use volunteers to reforest the nation with a billion trees a year is the money in the bank promote and coordinate the tree; plantings. In a first-year budget outline sub; mitted to a House committee Thursday, the National Tree posed spending $1.23 million on salal ries, fringe benefits, travel and offic6 expenses, compared with just $350,000 in grants to tree planting groups. It also turns out that the U.S. Forest Service and not supposed to plant all but 30 million of the 1 billion trees, lawmakers said. It was with great fanfare that Bush announced in January 1990 his "America the Beautiful program" in which volunteers would plant 1 billion trees a year for the next 10 years to combat global wanning.

Several well-known individuals were enlisted for the program's board of directors: Lady Bird Johnson, ex-baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, Dallas developer Trammell Crow, former Sens. Howard Baker and Edmund Muskie, and Russell Train, chairman of the World Wildlife Fund. But nearly two years after Bush's announcement, no money has been spent to plant a single tree under the See BUSH'S, Page 10 Mostly cloudy today with rain possible, highs near 70. Thunderstorms likely tonight, lows 55 to 60..