The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 1

Engelke inspires pupils Page 5 Nuts Page 13 Vol. 141, No. 208 Hoosiers down UCLA, earn spot in Final Pour Page 25 HJ, RIBUNE Kokomo, Ind Sunday, March 29, 1992 $1.25 Necessary job Howard County Board of Health Sanitarian Bob Paulus receives hundreds of complaints about bugs and rodents in area homes, and it's his job to investigate. What he finds is seldom pretty. Kokomo Tribune staff writer Terri Hughes-Lazzell and photographer Jon Hamill followed Paulus along his route on several occasions.

What Paulus found, and what he's trying to do to correct it, is featured on Page 2. Water checked LOS ANGELES (AP) Believers say water from a well in Tlacote, Mexico, can cure diseases. U.S. authorities fear the water may be carrying them. Since Wednesday, customs agents at Los Angeles International Airport have seized 19 bottles of the water from arriving passengers to test for cholera and other diseases.

Believers contend the Tlacote water can cure any disease. In recent months thousands of people from throughout Mexico and the United States have journeyed to Tlacote, in central Mexico, to fill water jugs. No evidence JERUSALEM (AP) Israel radio said in an unattributed report Saturday that U.S. investigators apparently didn't find any evidence that Israel sold U.S. missile technology to China.

Most of the 15 investigators left Israel early Saturday, sources at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport said. The Americans didn't show their findings to the Israeli Defense Ministry, said ministry spokesman Danny Naveh. He said he didn't know whether the conclusions would later be shown to Israel or published. Infant donor FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) The parents of a week-old infant born without a fully formed brain decided Saturday to ask the Florida Supreme Court for permission to donate the girl's vital organs to other children before she dies.

Walter Campbell an attorney for the parents of Theresa Ann Campo Pearson, said the appeal would be filed Monday. "We just talked with the hospital," Campbell said. "Unusually and miraculously, the baby is still functioning, almost as if saying, 'I will be around until you make a Emergency KISHINEV, Moldova (AP) Moldova's president on Saturday imposed a state of emergency in the former Soviet republic after weeks of fighting in a breakaway region between Romanian loyalists and Slavic separatists. President Mircea Snegur's decree ordered police and army troops to "liquidate and disarm the illegitimate armed formations" in the breakaway Trans- Dniester republic in eastern Moldova. Index Business 21-24 Classified ads 37-48 Entertainment 16, 17 Local news 2-5 News of record 12 Obituaries 12 Opinion Science 20 Sports 25-36 Style 13-15, 18 The nation The state The world 8 Flying start Eventual champion Brian Shepherd (281) and runner-up Kenny Bennett (315) lead the 143 participants just after the downhill start of the seventh annual IU-K Old Ben 5K Run in Highland Park Saturday morning.

Shepherd broke away from the pack about midway through the race, and claimed the 3.1-mile run title in 15 minutes and 30 seconds. Bennett led a string of five Club Kokomo runners across the finish line with a second-place finish in 16:04. An additional photo of the female champion, Karlene Herrell, can be found on Sports Page 25, while David Barnes' story about the race is on Page 26 and complete results appear on today's Sports Scoreboard on Page 34. (Tribune photo by Tim Bath) Residents tire of water 'hassle' By Dawn Martin Bray Tribune staff writer State environmental officials are still advising people who live near a closed Amoco service station to drink and cook with bottled water. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management in a letter March 9 wrote that residents should continue to use bottled water even though petroleum contaminants in wells near the station at the northwest corner of Ind.

26 and U.S. 31 are within safe drinking water standards. Amoco has voluntarily provided bottled water to about 45 homes and businesses in and near the Southdowns subdivision for two years. Residents, however, still want Amoco to pay to hook them up to Indiana-American Water Co. said Clifford L.

Gaither, 10 Southdowns Drive. Gaither and others contend it would be less expensive for Amoco to pay the $144,000 hook-up fee than to keep paying to test wells and for bottled water at a cost of about $3,000 a month. The company also is paying for backwash filtering units at Southdowns Plaza that cost $600 every six weeks. Gaither hosted a meeting at his home Thursday so that an Amoco representative could give an update on Amoco's efforts to clean up the area affected by a gasoline line leak. Dave Bozell, a field representative from Congressman Jim Jontz's office, and State Reps.

Earle Howard, D-Kokomo, and Brad Bayliff, R-Russiaville, attended. William H. Hall, project manager of remediation services for Amoco, said the company still opposes installing a water line. "Isn't that a little bit of financial stupidity?" asked Allen Haus, who owns The Pleasure Pool Store just north of the station. "Based on everything that's been presented, Amoco nas not damaged that water to the point that 'it's unusuable," Hall said.

"Amoco is going beyond what they would require Amoco to do. We wanted to supply bottled water as a service." Robert Thiemrodt, who owns Southdowns Plaza on Ind. 26 just west of the station, said he isn't sure what is safe to drink, drinking water standards can change, and bottled water is an a hassle. "There's a lot of people Cliffs' age they have to lift these bottles. That's a hell of an inconvenience, don'tyou think?" he said.

Hall said the water company can put the bottles on the rack for those who have trouble lifting them. Gaither, however, said it's too hard to tell when people will need a new bottle. "It's a pain in the neck," said Kay Gaither, his wife. Thiemrodt said the level of methyl tert-butyl ether, a petroleum by-product, in his well has doubled since Amoco began testing. It's still within safe standards but the level goes up each quarter.

"I don't want any constituents in my water," he said. He compared the situation to when the branches on a neighbor's trees grow over his yard and he cuts them. He said he has no way to control contaminated groundwater flowing onto his property. Besides, he said, it's likely to lower property values. Hdus said he thinks Amoco's septic system, which is 27 feet from his well, has contaminated it.

Workers with Groundwater Technologies a Massachusetts company testing the site for Amoco, said they have tested his water and found no trace of sewage contamination. Haus brought a jar of oily looking, dark gray water from his hot water heater to the station Thursday and dared GTI workers to drink it. They declined and urged him not to dump it on the ground. The water smelled like sewage. Water pooled in a pump on the northeast corner of the station's lot has an oily scum on it and smells like gasoline.

When Gaither offered an Amoco employee a glass of water from his tap last year, the employee took a mouthful of it and promptly spit it out, he said. Amoco dug a trench at the station from 12 to 18 feet deep to pump out contaminated groundwater. Hall said the company treats the water with carbon before discharging it into the creek. Gaither and others smelled gasoline at 31 to 33 feet when workers were drilling a new well on his property last July. Tests found no petroleum, but Amoco officials said it could have evaporated before the tests.

Amoco's next step, approved by IDEM, is to install two or three test wells on Southdowns Drive and two or three wells near U.S. 31 to monitor the water. Hall said the company should do that within the next two months. Howard and Bayliff said the company should consider paying for the water line. "If you lived here you would expect more (than bottled water)," Howard said.

New leader chosen Jamaicans pick PJ. Patterson KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) Governing party leaders Saturday selected former Finance Minister P.J. Patterson as prime minister to lead Jamaica through one of its most painful economic periods. The vote also officially ended the Manley family's control of the People's National Party since its founding in 1938. Patterson, a British-educated lawyer who also served as deputy prime minister, promised to continue the free-market reforms supported by Prime Minister Michael Manley, who is resigning because of poor health.

"There's going to be no radical change in direction," said Patterson in an interview Saturday. About 3,100 party delegates supported Patterson by a 3-to-l margin over Labor Minister Portia Simpson, who waged an electrifying grass-roots campaign for the post. Party officials said Patterson defeated Ms. Simpson by 2,322 to 756. Patterson said he would not just copy Manley's leadership.

"He's got his own style, his own stamp. I've got to bring my own style, my own stamp," said the soft-spoken Patterson, 56, was scheduled to be sworn in Monday. Patterson who has said he will restore business confidence in Jamaica was forced to resign from the Cabinet in January after granting a million tax waiver to Shell Oil. But he claimed he did not benefit from the grant. The party vote comes after Jamaica's currency fell to an all- time low against the dollar and price hikes were announced for milk and cement.

The Caribbean nations economy has been struggling ev0r since Manley began cutting state subsidies and selling state ib- dustries as part of a plan to make Jamaica more competitive worldwide. i Ms. Simpson said she would net challenge the vote and appealed for party unity. A former secretary and social worker, she is popular among Jamaica's poor and rural residents. "Whatever happens, I will still be regarded as the prime minister of the Jamaican people," she said after casting her vote.

A delegate from a southern Kingston ghetto, Courtley Francis, said he voted for Patterson because "he's got the financial experience, and we need that to get through these hard times." But Francis said Ms. Simpson, who administered the nation's critical food stamp program, had the strong public support. "Portia comes to my district and 5,000 people show up. Patterson comes and gets 100 people," he said. Astronauts try for extra day in space Light measured from stars, halo CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

(AP) Atlantis' astronauts measured light from shooting stars and Earth's gleaming halo Saturday, midway through the first shuttle mission devoted to environmental research. The crew of six men and one woman was rooting to stay up an extra day, and it appeared NASA would grant their wish. Flight directors said they would decide today whether to extend the eight-day flight. The astronauts have been frugal with energy since reaching orbit Tuesday. Returning Thursday instead of Wednesday depended on whether they could save enough power, which they did.

"After going through all this work and all this effort, an extra day is a big thing," astronaut Michael Foale said in a preflight interview. "It will represent more than 10 percent of the science." Atlantis' astronauts have been conducting tests of Earth's atmosphere, most notably the ozone layer, which protects against dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun and is said to be damaged by pollution. Mission scientist Marsha Torr told the astronauts that atmospheric research stations in India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand and elsewhere made simultaneous observations as Atlantis flew overhead Saturday. Torr said it's far too soon for researchers to "write the science papers" on ozone depletion. "All we can say at this point is that the quality of the data that have been gathered thus far is very superior to what we have seen on previous flights," Ton- said.

The crew should have spent Saturday firing an electron beam gun to generate artificial auroras as well as radio waves aimed at students equipped with special receivers. The gun stood motionless in the cargo bay, though, disabled by an irreparable blown fuse. Mutts honored SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Bummer and Lazarus, mangy mutts who became heroes after stopping a runaway horse and carriage in the mid-1800s, were honored with a plaque on Saturday, more than 840 dog years after their deaths. More than 100 members of the fraternal group Clampus Vitus turned out for the ceremony at the Transamerica Pyramid. The dogs first became famous in 1861, when Bummer rescued Lazarus from the jaws of a larger dog.

Bummer reportedly tended Lazarus' wounds. And when they slept in doorways, Bummer was "always giving the lame cur the inside berth, and trying to keep him warm," the Daily Alta California reported on Jan. 18,1861. "Bummer rushed in front of the horse and held him at bay until a man came up and caught the team, Lazarus being on hand to check any further advance," the Daily Alta California reported on June 24, 1862. People in thfc news Rooney has words CHARLESTON, W.Va.

(AP) Attention older feminists: Don't call syndicated columnist Andy Rooney an "old coot" or he's likely to call you Bettijane Burger, president of the state chapter of the National Organization for Women, blasted a Rooney column about Indians in a March 18 letter published in the Charleston Daily Mail. She called him "an old coot" who should be retired for say- Rooney McEntire ing that Indians had more pressing concerns than worrying about the names of sports teams. Many Indians nave protested such monikers as the Atlanta Braves as demeaning to their culture. "She suggests I should 'be the 73-year-old columnist and "60 Minutes" commentator replied in a letter published in the newspaper Friday. "Does she have any 'old bags' in her NOW chapter or does she make them retire?" McEntire Day OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) It was Reba McEntire Day in Oklahoma, but the country western singer wasn't be there for the celebration.

"I'm elated, thrilled and flattered my fellow think that much of me," she said Thursday from her Nashville, home after Oklahoma Gov. David Walters signed a proclamation. She's been named female vocalist of the year four times by the Country Music Association and has seven gold albums and a platinum album. She won a Grammy for her 1967 album "Whoever's in New England.".