Lansing State Journal from Lansing, Michigan • Page 11

LOCALSTATE Jennifer Carroll City Editor 377-1195 Lansing State Journal Tuesday, Feb. 20, 1990 Page 1B Ovid-Elsie will bus students to high school, portables By SHERIDAN H0N0RE Lansing State Journal OVID When Ovid-Elsie students return to school Wednesday, eighth-graders will be rubbing elbows 'with upperclass students in the high school while seventh-graders will attend classes in modular classrooms. The Ovid and Elsie junior high school buildings -were closed Friday after a structural study showed the roofs on both buildings were in danger of collapse. School officials decided Monday to divide the 275 seventh- and eighth-graders who attended the schools between the high school and the portable classrooms, which the district will rent 'Overcrowding in the high school won't be a prob lem," said David Porrell, Superintendent of Ovid-Elsie Area Schools. "We have enough space to house the eigth-grade." The modular classroos for seventh-graders will be placed next to the high school.

Classes will resume for all students on Wednesday. Junior high students will be bused to the high school, then assigned to their classrooms, he said. A structural study released last week concluded that the entire Ovid building and the 1938 and older sections of Elsie junior high are not safe for use. The study said that the 1950 addition at Elsie Junior High is structurally sound and may be used, Porrell said. The study was conducted by WBDC Group of Grand Rapids.

The school district hired the company after a state fire marshal's report in December found several fire code violations in the buildings, such as outdated fire alarm systems. The fire marshal gave the district until May 1 to correct the violations, Porrell said. 'The issue came to a head last week, when the board received WBDC's report and decided not to put students back into the buildings. The problem of an unsafe roof on both buildings came to light two weeks ago when a WBDC consultant went up on the roof of Ovid's junior high and came close to falling through. Inspecting both buildings further, the company found that the roof decks made of gypsum a common mineral used to make plaster of Paris are coming apart on both buildings and can't support any weight.

Consultants warned of the possibility of the roof caving in. The report surprised administrators and parents, although there had already been talk of closing the Elsie school because of its leaky roof. The condition of the schools has been a topic of discussion since fall in these two communities 35 miles northeast of Lansing. Voters have rejected three recent attempts to pass a 1-mill tax increase for costs including builing maintenance. They did approve a property tax increase of 3.5 mills for a variety of school programs.

Staff writer Lisa Gutierrez contributed to this report. hard to tanid Dama 4 relatives to split money left by man who lived at YMCA si By JOHN B. ALBRIGHT Lansing State Journal. Califomians will share a $250,000 estate left by Howard Drummond, who died in Lansing a year ago. He had lived in a $49-a-week room in the Lansing YMCA.

Drummond, a familiar, unkempt sight on Lansing's downtown streets, died in Sparrow Hospital on Feb. 28, 1989, after suffering a stroke. He was 77. About 3,700 persons came forward to claim kinship after it was revealed that Drummond did not leave a will, said private investigator Arlo Earegood of Lansing. delved Drum- (7 jit gv i A I 3 I-Wt-- mond's family msiory on assignment by Probate "Court- One-third to John Thomas Drummond III, 55, of Palmdale, cousin of Ware and Orozco.

Orozco said he is a butcher. Rosenbaum said Orozco and Ware wilt split a one-third share that would have gone to their mother, the late Ida Drummond. She was a half-sister of Howard Drummond. Drummond III gets a full one-third share as the only son of the late John Drummond, Howard Drummond's half-brother. The winning heirs are descendants of John T.

Drummond, a Southern Pacific Railroad carpenter, and his first wife, Ida Thomson. The Lansing Drummond was the only child of John T. Drummond's second marriage. His mother was Westelle Howard. Orozco said she hadn't thought much about what to do with her-share of the Drummond inheritance because the amount had not yet been settled.

However, the Los Angeles woman said she might buy a new car with part of her inheritance. Earegood said he traced the Lansing Drummond's family through numerous genealogical records, getting much information from a computer link with a library in Fort Worth, Texas. Earegood said he had found three close kin from Texas, all related to Howard Drummond's mother. One of those relatives died last fall. The court ruled out the.

other two Texans because they were not blood relatives or the Lansing Drummond, Rosenbaum said. The Texas kin were: William H. Eldredge, 75, Houston, who died Oct. 9, his cousin, Margarie Yeager, 69, of Mineral Wells, Texas, and Freida Boysen Wandel, 96, of Galveston. aDDointed at- Drummond torney Paul Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum said the money more than $200,000 after estate taxes and fees for legal and inves- tigation work will go to the four heirs after a final accounting to court on March 15. The court determined the heirs more than two months ago, Rosenbaum said. The shares and heirs are: One-third to Edward H. Drummondv 86, -retired who lives with a sister in a Los Angeles apartment He. was a half brother of Howard Drummond.

One-sixth to Rose Elizabeth'1 Ware Orozco, 64, Los Angeles. She is Edward H. Drummond's niece. She retired two years ago from office work in a department store. One-sixth to Jay Russell Ware, 68, of Lomita, Orozco's brother.

He is a plumber. Lansing State JournalCHRIS HOLMES N. Ramada Drive on Monday afternoon. Fire investigators do. not yet have a cause or a'darnage estimate.

A Lansing firefighter surveys the damage from a fire that destroyed 26 units at the Stop 'N Lock: self-storage at 1 140 Fire chars dreams of storage clients Fire at Stop 'n' Lock Storage Miller Road U-M board says professors should get compensation By CHRIS GRAVES and SHERIDAN HOIMORE Lansing State Journal Carl and Barb Rice hoped to fill an almost-built home with custom-made furniture. Their hopes went up in smoke Monday morning. Their possessions were stored in one of 26 self-storage units at Stop Lock, 1140 Ramada Drive, swept by an early afternoon fire Monday. Fire officials do not know what caused the blaze. A preliminary report of damage to the building was about $100,000.

No estimate was available for the contents. No one was hurt. The Rices' belongings, which they- said were worth $90,000, were in storage while their house is being built in Laingsburg, Carl Rice said. The figure doesn't include a wedding videotape. Family pictures.

Their clothing. "It will take us months to recover," Barb Rice said. "There were too many basic things lost" "Everything is black, just about," Carl Rice said. "Everything that isn't burnt is soaked." The Rices insured their property for about 10 percent of its worth. TheTire started in the far south end of the C-Building and ravaged half of the cinder-block and wood structure, said Mike Dixon, a fire inspector.

A fire wall stopped it from destroying the entire 52-unit building. About 20 firefighters battled the blaze, which was reported at 12:34 p.m. It was under control by 1 :30 p.m. They continued to battle the blaze until around 4 p.m.. Most of the fire shot up from the roof, which eventually collapsed.

Firefighters tore and twisted the corrugated steel doors to extinguish fires that sprouted inside. "They had to be very cautious approaching this," Dixon said. "You don't know what's in there. There could be shells, combustibles, explosives or construction equipment" There were no reports of toxic chemicals or explosions, he said. In their leases, tenants agree not to store flammable or dangerous materials in the units, said Marilyn Wilbarger, vice president of property management for the Continental Capital Realty Company.

The Ann Arbor-based company owns Stop 'N Lock. Cars, boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles are not to be stored with gasoline, she said. "But of course it is a self-storage unit," she said. "We can't watch everything that comes in and out It is impossible to know exactly what everyone has." A motorist traveling on 1-96 drove into Stop 'N Lock's management office and reported the fire, said Manager Tom Donnelly. "He told us there was smoke and so I came back to see if I could put it out with one of the fire extinguishers we have here," Donnelly said.

"When I saw it was too extensive I called the fire department" After the heavy gray smoke dissipated, detectives and fire inspectors started inspecting the area. A 38-foot boat and an older model General Motors car were charred. Dozens of cases of Voortman cookies Biscuits Moulin Avent and Gingerboy Cookies, still with two-for $1.98 price stickers attached were either burnt to a crisp or wet The building is insured, but tenants are responsible for their own insurance. Two local insurance companies said the property would be covered if a tenant had a homeowners insurance policy. Lansing State Journal "That would be someone who is an expert in a field, but who is also very active in the field, like the environment, or anything of a contentious nature," he said.

Nickerson and Davis were fired in 1954 by former University of Michigan President Harlan Hatcher after refusing to answer questions about their Communist Party ties during appearances before a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They were forced to look for work in Canada after American universities refused to hire them. Davis, professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto, served time In a federal prison for failing to answer questions. Markert, now a professor in animal science at North Carolina State University, was censured by U-M but not fired. Chances are poor that the board of regents will follow the faculty's suggestion when it receives it in April, Kaplan said.

Associated Press ANN ARBOR University of Michigan professors who were fired or censured for their Communist sympathies during the 1950s should receive compensation, a faculty panel said Monday. The Senate Assembly voted 33-1 to ask the board of regents to offer compensation to former professors Mark Nickerson, H. Chandler Davis and Clement Markert. Honorary reinstatement, honorary degrees or severance pay were among compensation suggested by U-M's chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said Wilfred Kaplan, executive secretary. "I've got honorary degrees coming out of my ears.

One year's severance that I would be glad to accept," Nickerson said. The most fitting gesture, he said, would be naming what he called an activist professor in residence at U-M. David Glenn of Lansing doesn't have an insurance policy. "I lost between $4,000 and. $5,000," he said.

"I had mechani-' cal devices, a copier, mechanical tools and audio equipment" Recently divorced, Glenn said he was planning to buy a home with a garage. "I had plans to get back on track using the stuff," he said. "I'm certainly going to check into liability, but without any insur- ance I'm not sure how much recourse I have." Activist with a soul tries to save store-trashed shoes for poor OKEMOS Slash and trash Susan Johnson, a hair stylist at Meridian Mall, was dumping trash Friday when she came upon a shocking sight. The manager of Endicott Johnson-Nobil, a shoe store at the mall, was tossing 'A into the dumpster what Johnson i on in 1 guesscu iu uc uciwccu ou auu tu 1 JOHN SCHNEIDER pairs or snoes. "There were children's shoes, men's dress shoes, leather deck shoes, cowboy boots.

There was a pair of men's tennis shoes that cost between $30 and $40." The shoes were new, but not exactly in top condition. Having been on the shelf too long to suit the shoe shoes that don't sell are, indeed, trashed once a month. He was told, he said, that the store had tried in the past to give the shoes to charity but had to discontinue the policy because people tried to bring them back to the store and exchange them for cash. But doesn't the store require a sales receipt? And couldn't the shoes be marked inside or on the sole to prevent an exchange? Longendyke shrugged. He admitted that destroying the shoes bothers him.

He said he wished they could go to somebody who needed them. "I'm just following company policy, he said. Longendyke's district manager, John Slupka, declined comment "I don't have to say anything about it nor am I at liberty to do that" he said. Slupka promised to relay my inquiry to corporate headquarters in Endicott, N.Y. He said somebody there would get in touch with me and explain the rationale behind the practice of destroying shoes.

I never heard from corporate headquarters. Johnson also spoke to Slupka on Monday. He told her, according to her version of the conversation, that the shoes were mismatched or damaged. She told him that she had three pairs of the shoes in her possession and could detect no flaws in them other than the slashes. She said Slupka offered no response to that.

It's impossible to say whether the practice of dumping slow-moving shoes is widespread or not but the manager of the G.R. Kinney store at Meridian Mall said he rarely trashes a pair of shoes. "If we can't sell something here, we ship it to another store," said Ben Carlson. "Eventually we'll mark it down. We also have a clearance store in Ann Arbor.

That usually cleans everything up. If not it goes to charity." Carlson said only something unusable would go in the dumpster. Susan Johnson hopes to convince Endicott Johson-Nobil to adopt a similar policy. "Even if there are minor flaws in the shoes." she said, "there are a lot of people who would be glad to have them." John Schneider is a Lansing State Journal staff writer. His telephone number is 377-1175.

to give the shoes to the needy instead of burying them in a landfill? Johnson put that question to the store manager, then to the Endicott Johnson-Nobil district manager in Flint She didn't hear any answers she liked, but plans to keep asking them. "It's a ridiculous waste," she said. "There are so many places the shoes would be appreciated. This society is better than that" On Monday I retraced Johnson's steps up the corporate ladder. Store manager Leo Longendyke confirmed that inhnenn company management they had uonnson been slasned intentionally with some kind of a razor before thejr were dumped.

Johnson might have shaken her head, minded her own business and gone back to work. Instead she gathered a few pairs of the shoes as evidence and started asking some tough questions. Question number one: Wouldn't it make more sense.