The Springfield News-Leader from Springfield, Missouri • Page 14

2B News-Leader Sunday, July 16, 1995 Page edited by Ashli Greenwood; call 836-1199 after 5 p.m.. OZARKS MISSOURI fly here Flag amendment would likely i I -1 em, souri's law has not been challenged in court. The proposed new con-stitutional amendment is a way for politicians to get around that argument. Robert have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States," the amendment states. It passed 312 to 120, which is 32 votes beyond the needed two- Mark Waller News-Leader A.W.BillWilcoxfliestwoU.S.

flags on 25-foot poles in the front and back yards of his Springfield home. As etiquette requires, he keeps them lighted and only takes them down when they're worn. He founded Ozark Flag Distributors in 1949. He knows what size flags go on what size poles. And he never lets a flag touch the ground.

"It's wonderful to see a flag flying," he says. "It gives me chills." Although fire is a proper way to retire a weather-tattered flag, Wilcox doesn't approve of protesters who burn them to make a statement or get attention. Still, he doesn't think you can effectively legislate against such behavior, which is what the U.S. Congress is thinking about doing. And if Congress makes anti-flag desecration laws constitutional, Missouri will be ready to give its support.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed what could become the 28th amendment to the Constitution on June 28. "The Congress and the states shall State: Griff in billed casino owner for work Hosmer Ward, D-Bonne Terre, majority leader of the Missouri House of Representatives, predicts Missouri's representatives would overwhelmingly accept the amendment. "There are certain things that just don't pertain (to freedom of speech), and flag burning is one of them," he says. Jet Banks, D-St.

Louis, Senate majority leader, also believes Missouri would ratify it. He says the composition of the state legislature combined with the political rhetoric of a coming election year would make the amendment tough to beat. Rep. Chuck Wooten, R-Spring-field, agrees. In the swing of "Ijustfeelit's the patriotic thing to do," he says.

"Being a veteran, it would be hard not to support it." Many, however, fear the dangers of tin Wlble kering with the Bill of Rights over a single issue. Although Banks despises the act of flag burning, he agrees with the Supreme Court that it's a form of expression a free society must tolerate. Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and western Missouri, will fight the amendment if it comes to the state legislatures. The ACLU is working to stop it in the U.S. Senate.

"What this is doing is trying to amend the First Amendment," Kurtenbach says. "That's never been done in this country. In this country, we must make room for folks who want to express that extreme things fx rv- 1. 't The Associated Press KANSAS CITY A law firm concealed Missouri House Speaker Bob Griffin's work on behalf of a Las Vegas gambling concern that wants to open a casino here, according to court documents. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said in papers filed Friday in St.

Louis County that Griffin had "provided services for Boyd Gaming related to its quest to enter the Missouri gaming market." The papers were filed as part of NLxon's suit against Kansas City lawyer Michael T. White and the law firm Polsinelli, White, Vardeman Shalton. The suit contends White broke the law by failing to disclose on a casino license application that Griffin worked for the company. Griffin has not been charged. White has denied any wrongdoing.

Nixon accused White and others of "a campaign to conceal the fact that Robert Griffin performed legal work for Boyd Gaming and received direct TANEY COUNTY Red Cross issues call for volunteers The Taney County Chapter of the American Red Cross is looking for people interested in becoming Disaster Action Team Volunteers. Free training begins Thursday. No experience is necessary. Volunteers who complete the course will be certified to serve on Red Cross disaster relief operations in Taney County. Call 335-3100.

WILLARD Willard teens honored at cattlemen show Two Willard teens recently earned honors at the Missouri Beef Cattlemen Association show, meeting and convention in Sedalia. Sally Greene, 16, was elected Santa Gertrudis queen and her brother, Stephen, 19, was awarded the senior showmanship award. Sally Greene also attended the National Santa Gertrudis junior convention in Perry, where she won second place in the nation for public speaking in the beef industry. A junior at Willard High School Sally Greene is secretary of the Willard Chapter of Future Farmers of America. Stephen Greene is a student at Southwest Missouri State University.

ROGERSVILLE School board to discuss earlier return to class The Logan-Rogersville Board of Education will meet at 7 p.m. Monday in the high school library, 8225 E. Farm Road 174. The board will discuss proposed building projects and agriculture exemption legislation that allows school to start before Sept. 1.

Football camp starts Monday at high school Logan-Rogersville high school football coach Joe Scruggs will begin football camps this week for interested students. Sessions will be at Logan-Rogersville High School, 8225 E. Farm Road 174. Students in fourth-eighth grades may attend from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday for $15.

A two-week camp for students in ninth-12th grades will be from 8 to 11 a.m. Monday-July 28 for $25. To register, call 882-8591. Home security checks to enhance city's safety As part of community policing efforts, Rogersville Chief of Police Bob Paudert said his department is conducting home security visits. Residents who will be out-of-town are encouraged to come by the office or call.

Officers will check homes while they are away. For information on home security checks, call 753-2324. BRANSON Senators' representatives to conduct public forum Representatives of U.S. Senators Christopher Bond and John Ash-croft, both Missouri Republicans, will conduct a Listening Post forum 11:15 a.m. to noon Monday at the BransonLakes Area Chamber of Commerce on Missouri 248.

For more information, call Constituent Services at (314) 634-2488 or write to 308 E. High Suite 202, Jefferson City, Mo. 65101. OZARK Families are invited to evening of fishing The Ozark Parks Department is offering an evening of fishing Monday as part of its summer programs for school-age children and their families. Participants will fish at a pond stocked by the Missouri Conserva- tion Department.

Meet at 5 p.m. at the 4-H Community Building in the Finley River Park. ASH GROVE Baptist Church opens week of Bible School "Windows on the World" is the theme of this year's vacation Bible school at First Baptist Church, 201 Walker Ash Grove. The Bible school is set to begin Monday and end Friday. Hours are from 6:30 to 8:45 p.m.

For information, call 751-2441. speech." Opponents also argue that flag burning is too rare to require an amendment. Seven incidents have! been reported in the last year, "We haven't had any rash of it in Missouri," says representative Craig Hosmer, D-Springfield. don't like to see those types of things stuck into the Constitution. The Con-stitution should be a broad framework." Rep.

Connie Wible, shares the concerns. "I understand how people get very upset with flag burning," she "But I'm reluctant to amend the Constitution." Wilcox, who has sold flags to; school boards and government; buildings and collects literature about flags, says he loves the flag. But respect for the flag, he can only be learned at home. "Just because you pass it as a he says, "it doesn't stop It It starts', with the family, with Mom and Gannett News Service contributed information for this story. yd "1 1 se said.

"I think" it's an interesting historical note to have them protecting the re-' mains. They said they wanted to 'complete the The James-Younger Gang and Alan Pinkerton's National Detective Agency were arch-enemies in the 1870s and early 1880s. Despite years of tracking the outlaw gang for railroads, banks and government agencies, the Pinkertons never caught James. On Jan. 26, 1875, the Pinkertons staged their ill-fated raid on the James farm near Kearney, believing that Frank and Jesse James had been trapped inside.

The Pinkertons arrived by spe-' cial train and tossed a construction flare inside the farm house to illuminate the front room. Jesse's mother kicked it into the fireplace, where it exploded, killing' Jesse's 9-year-old brother. ICoehler Stay out of path of the 'Weed Maimer' Wooten thirds majority. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is looking at it this month.

The measure will need 67 votes to get two-thirds approval there. A total of 55 senators already support it. But if it does survive the Senate, three-fourths of the states 38 have to ratify it, something The Missouri General Assembly would almost certainly do. Missouri has a flag desecration law, which prohibits mutilation of the state flag and the U.S. flag.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court declared a Texas flag desecration law unconstitutional, saying the law muffles First Amendment, free speech rights. Mis- compensation for this work. The deception included the false declaration on the Boyd application." The application submitted by Boyd Gaming noted that Griffin was "of counsel" to the law firm, but added Griffin "does not have any interest in the relationship between the applicant and said la firm, nor is his compensation in any way determined by the relationship between the law firm and the applicant." Nixon alleged that soon after Griffin began working on the Boyd account, he won a raise in his base salary and an agreement from the firm that he could keep half of the hourly fees he generated. Griffin, who has been House speaker for 15 years, began working for Polsinelli in February 1990.

He resigned from the firm in July. St. Louis County Associate Circuit Judge Ellis Gregory Jr. is to decide Tuesday if Nixon's suits should proceed. The law firm and White say Nixon lacks jurisdiction.

everywhere, some ending up embedded in the house siding. By the time I was finished, I was covered from head to foot in what looked like green and brown dandruff and the sudden silence brought curious neighbors from their homes to see what had happened. Every bone in my body vibrated from the machine's jackhammer-like sensation. My socks and shoes were torn and tattered. At least I had all my toes.

But I wish I had my clippers and edger instead. Steve Koehler is the News-Leader Ozarks columnist. His column appears on Sunday. Call him with your story ideas at 836-1257 or 1-800-695-1864. concerned about privacy violations.

Anthropologists and other scientists hope to settle questions that have vexed and perplexed historians, family members and would-be descendants for decades. The main one: Are the bones really those of Jesse James? "I can't understand myself why people want to be related to such a scoundrel," Starrs said. But, he said, many people do. They claim James did not die when he was shot in the head as he was straightening a picture in 1882 at his house in St. Joseph.

Instead, they say, he lived to father more children. Starrs said that using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed through the maternal line, he can determine whether the pile of bones belongs to Jesse James. The casket and remains will be taken to a crime lab in Kansas City for initial preparation. Midweek, the bones will be taken to Kansas State University, where they will remain until they are returned to the grave. They will be X-rayed and cleaned, metal-detected and cataloged.

DNA samples will be sent to Pennsylvania State University, and other Continued from 1B I had the power now! When I started that puppy up, I actually saw weeds cower in fear. Neighbors headed indoors. Unfortunately, with this trimmer, I didn't have a choice in what to weed. The machine did that for me. I just hung on for the ride.

The trimmer roared to life. The blades spun into a blur like an outboard motor propeller. I lowered it to the ground and watched this mini-tornado go to work. Bits and pieces of weeds and grass darkened the sky. A couple of flower boxes were chewed apart.

Two small saplings shot through the air like arrows. Hunks of our asphalt driveway were lofted upward. Rocks zoomed hSifnr amUkJlini iiiiin innrl I in rin Steve J. P. Liang News-Leader "It's hotter than doughnut grease," says James Collins, 27, summing up what he thinks about the.

recent weather. He and friends K.C. Abbott, Jay Russell and Delana Ellison cooled off at the James River public fishing access southeast of Springfield Saturday. Group eager to get at bones of famous outlaw Team that once pursued James now hired to guard his gravel1 The Associated Press KEARNEY The last time Jesse James' bones saw the light of day, they also saw a drenching summer rain. His wooden coffin had decayed, and as someone pulled it from the grave, moving it from the family farm to the family plot, the base collapsed.

As water streamed from above, the base and remains were removed. It is said James' skull rolled back into the empty grave. The skull was recovered and, with the bones, put into a metal box that rainy Sunday, June 29, 1902, and re-buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. On Monday a 15-member team exhuming James' body will have science on its side.

"Hopefully, it will not collapse on us like it did in 1902," said James E. Starrs, a law and forensic science professor leading the exhumation team. On hand will be inflatable pads to put under the coffin, just in case. If the casket collapses, reporters and onlookers will be made to leave while the remains are painstakingly gathered. The excavation differs from an archaeological dig because James has direct, living descendants samples will be sent to Florida for drug analysis.

The DNA question should be answered by mid-September, Starrs said. Some people say James staged his death in 1882 as a hoax and lived under aliases until he died at the age of 107. One of them is Jesse Franklin James, of Leander, Texas. "It is important that history be rewritten to truthfully show that my great-grandfather does not lie in that Missouri grave," the Texan said. Identity isn't the only question.

If the remains are shown to be those of the bank and train robber, a cadre of pathologists, anthropologists, computer technicians, toxicologists and firearms experts will try to discover details of James' life and death. Was James really shot once in the back of the head by Robert Ford, a renegade member of the James gang seeking the reward money? Did Charley Ford take a shot at him, too? Did James use morphine to ease the pain of previous injuries, like Civil War bullet wounds? Are photographs purported to be of James authentic? Starrs and his ere were to spend today preparing the site, and the exhumation was to start Monday. The Associated Press ST. JOSEPH The detective agency that pursued Jesse James in life is being brought in to guard his grave, as a team digs up his remains for a new autopsy and DNA tests. The notorious outlaw successfully eluded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency for more than a dozen years before his death at the hands of one of his own gang members in St Joseph in 1882.

When the body of Jesse James is unearthed in Kearney on Monday, uniformed Pinkerton guards will be on hand to provide security and crowd control. The irony isn't lost on James Starrs, the scientist in charge of the exhumation and examination of James' remains. "Pinkerton Security and Investigation volunteered to provide security around the clock while we are exhuming the body of Jes.