Lansing State Journal from Lansing, Michigan • Page 29

Section aw TT The State January 7, 1979, Lansing, Michigan (E Ki BUSS ctSJS tUtrtSlt HKMBM -VMM MM I M- Her essay a winner geth 'Doing activities to joins mother and children' ifcS1g "fit J' By TRUDY WESTFALL Staff Writer With four young children, a husband and a smallish, three bedroom south Lansing home to care for, Janet Robson definitely has her hands full. But not too full to tell the world of the special joys being a round-the-clock mother and wife can bring. MRS. ROBSON, 32, is the fourth place winner in the Familv Weekly magazine essay contest "Why I Like My Family," featured on pages 18-19 in today's edition. Chosen from more than 12,000 entries from across the country, Mrs.

Robson won $100 for saying, in part, "my job is to assure my children that no matter how often they leave crayons in their pockets or wipe their noses on the dishtowel, they are still loved by their parents." "Both my husband (Douglas, an attorney) and I agree it's just essential I'm home with the children while they're really young," Mrs. Robson explained. With the two-year-old twins Danny and Erika napping upstairs, their older brothers Adam, 4, and Matthew, 7, outside playing, the Robson house was unusually quiet. But come late afternoon and the place would be jumping again with its customary noisy confusion. "I guess you just have to have a sense'vof humor," Mrs.

Robson laughed. "By the time the third one has spilled the Koolaid, you have to laugh." BEING A mother is a hard job, she added. "And an underrated jo'). But the cycle I'm in right now is when motherhood must play the dominate role in my life. "It's important for all of us.

For a child to have a sense of security when he's older, he has to be secure as a Writing the winning essay wasn't hard for Mrs. Robson, an aspiring freelance writer and former high school English teacher. "The subject was something I knew about. I was very much pleased and my husband was pleased when I won." She's also hoping it will give her the incentive to carry on with her writing. INTERESTED IN sewing, reading, writing and collecting antiques, Mrs.

Robson is also interested in investing time in her children. "Since I've chosen to stay home with them I would be accomplishing nothing if I didn't play 'Candyland' with them or read a book for the hundredth time. Who would I be pleasing if I told them I was busy? "I don't think it matters what you're doing as long as you do it together," she added, recalling countless games of "Star Wars" and dancing to taped music with the children. v- IN HER essay, Mrs. Robson writes "the greatest gift I can leave to my grandchildren is to show my children how much I like them so that they will like Staff Photo by BRIAN BURD The Robsons: doing it together "If they don't like themselves," she explained, "they can't pass it on to their own children.

"I like to think of Eleanor Roosevelt and all of the things she did," Mrs. Robson said. Of all her great works, Mrs. Robson said "the things that remain are her dren. "MY CHILDREN are my investment in the future." Staff photo by BRIAN BURO Tim Bannister's 'Footnotes' reflect humor as well as history He traces roots to medical past er Staff photo by GINGER SHARP stance, every spring we tap the maple trees, collect the sap in buckets and boil it down to make our own maple syrup.

"TRADITION IS another reason I'm thrilled to be involved in the coming production of the opera "Krutnava" Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Michigan State University Auditorium. Those rich, ethnic costumes are beautiful materials, colors, embroideries." Mrs. Corr, vho claims a Polish background, adds that she is very fond of making ethnic dishes. "Polish cooking, especially, is one of my hobbies," she said. She puts up her own sauerkraut in crocks.

Mrs. Corr's only complaint is that there are just not enough hours in the day. "JERRY AND I do most of the veterinarian work for ouranimals," she said, "including midwifery and Caesarians when necessary. We keep about two boars to 20 and breed our pigs when they're six or seven months. They usually; become mothers when they're a year old.

"More than once, I've come home from a party and tucked my party dress into some blue jeans when I found the pigs needed some attention and gone out to the pens." in comic series Spectacles were first introduced by the i) Venetians in i Sitting By CAROL HASKIN Staff Writer Tim Bannister has been promoting health care services for five years now as public relations man at St. Lawrence Hospital. Recently he's taken to promoting medicine on his own time. Combining his interest in medical matters with a sense of history and a sense of humor Bannister has come up with a unique cartoon series he calls "Footnotes in Medicine." BANNISTER'S "FOOTNOTES" are based on Americans' affection for' trivia. But he wanted to carry the idea a step further than Guinness.

Instead of relating what he calls useless information say the longest recorded fingernail Bannister gives people in the health care industry interesting tidbits of knowledge related to their career. "Footnotes in Medicine" is tailored for in-house hospital newsletters and other health publications. "Everybody likes a little humor to break up their house publication," Bannister explained. "I saw the kind of material that was coming through. It was either sexist a nurse being chased by a patient or it was just So why not combine something entertaining with something that relates to the reader's career?" THE CARTOONS are targeted at employees and consumers in the health care industry which means they can be appreciated by' just about anybody.

"I did all the research," Bannister said. "There's tons of neat information. In the 1700s people swallowed frogs as a way to absorb cancer out of their bodies. The worst outbreak of botulism poisoninq in history occurred in April 1977, when 45 persons were hospitalized after eating tainted green pepper sauce served in a Detroit-area Mexican restaurant. The worst outbreak of botulism poisoninq Life's a dream come true Opera buff raises pigs, hunted tigers "The Pharaohs were the first physicians.

"THE MAYANS had a practice called 'trephining', in which they removed pieces of skull to relieve pressure on the brain. There are endless pieces of information that people can say 'I didn't know that' about." Some of the facts are illustrated by etchings taken from old textbooks. Others have modern cartoons done by Phil Frank a college buddy of Bannister's from their Michigan State University days. Frank, who works out of his houseboat moored near San Francisco, is author of the nationally-syndicated cartoon "Travels with Farley." Locally he is remembered for his "Frankly Speaking" which appeared in the State News. i- "PHIL'S FORTE is the single, panel strip," Bannister said.

"I can give him a subject and he'll come up with a beautiful one-liner." At $20 for a series of 15 cartoons (figured at one per month plus a few extras to take into consideration differences in taste), Bannister doesn't figure to get rich off his scheme. "At the moment it's just an idea I want to share with other people," he said. "I would like to make an income from it someday, but now it's just something that needed doing." BANNISTER'S "FOOTNOTES" reflect his interest in the past. His Mercy Hall office is peppered with curios from bygone Concluded on page C-2 at a piano, Judy Corr shows off a piglet learned a lot about pigs. They're clean, easily housebroken, picky eaters and very intelligent," she explained as she held one squealing piglet to have her picture taken and stroked her silky ears.

"There's nothing softer than a sow's ear," she said, "and I can't understand why the old adage says you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." She was married to her husband "right out of high school," she said, although she was attending Lansing Community College and studying voice under the late Mrs. Nina Scheidt at the Wilde Conservatory of Music. BESIDES PRODUCING pork as a business, the Corrs nearly live off their farm, raising a huge garden in the summer and canning fruits and vegetables as well as meat (pork, lamb, beef and poultry). Another of Mrs. Corr's hobbies is collecting antiques.

She has a lovely Venetian glass chandelier in the living room, glowing orientals on the white carpeting, antiques and a collection of interesting paintings. "You can see I lean toward primitives," she said, indicating her choice of art and a quaint wood-burning stove. like traditions of all kinds in this house. For in By VIRGINIA REDFERN Staff Writer v. Judy Corr made up her mind a long time ago she didn't want to live through her "I want to live where I want, the way I want.

And must say I've always liked to do rather weird things," she said. THESE INCLUDE tiger hunting in Nepal, running the rapids on the Mississippi on a big raft, studying voice, serving on the board of the Opera Company of Greater Lansing and producing pork for the meat market. Mrs. Corr lives with her husband, Jerry, and their three young sons in a red brick farmhouse of Centennial vintage out by the Looking Glass River in Wacousta. And the Corrs (he managed Frandor which was built by and named after his parents.

Mrs. Dorothy Corr of Jupiter Beach, and the late Francis J. Corr) raise about 300 pigs on their 300-acre farm, neatly housed in scientific pens, heated in winter by lamps. "I LOVE to learn new things," Mrs. Corr said, "and in the last few years I've.