Longview News-Journal from Longview, Texas • Page 32

-v SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1S06, Longview Morning Journal 6-c America's heartland Colorado the changes of modern world town resists iner is in the feedlot north of town, where up to lia. Among those cheering from the curbside were 35,000 head of healthy-looking cattle are bunched those townsfolk, who still remembered how the into the pens some of them perhaps fated to Carrillos worked many extra hours at no pay in wind up as the beef du jour in Lamar's-first their shoe shop during the depression years of McDonald's, which opened in May. half-century ago, to repair several hundred shoes Despite a smattering of nationally familiar fast of poor children, as their gift to the town. food restaurants and chain-store operations, the As part of the centennial celebration, a special people of Lamar remain as individualistic "and song was written about "Our Town," which was independent as were their hardy'great-grandpar- professionally recorded and became the official ents on the frontier prairie. theme off the celebration.

They saluted their" centennial recently with-a weeklong celebration that included Old West pag- I'd bad choice, 1 would not have chosen to eantry. an old timers' rodeo, a dusty trail ride that move to Lamar. I was told to come here," said "Rev. had hundreds of participants in wagons and on Donald Bleyle, a Nebras.kah directed by his, bishop horseback, and the longest march in Lamar's histc- five years ago to take over the pulpit of Lamar's ry a two-hour patriotic parade. United Methodist, Church.

"But you find great Ridina in the Darade as Pioneer King and Queen strengths in the people here, and I am glad I'm By SETH KANTOR Cox News Service LAMAR, Colo. This small, ever-struggling city in America's heartland, celebrating its 100th year on the rugged high plains of southeast Colorado, embodies the story of a nation's, determination to succeed. Situated on a windswept, dusty prairie about jnidway in the monotonous, 430-mile drive between Amarillo and Denver, Lamar has weathered plagues of biblical proportions, and come up a winner. There were the blizzards of 1918 that killed man and beast; the devastating floods of 1921, 1923 and 1965; choking dust storms of the 1930s and 1950s; the economic ruination of family farms in the 1980s, made worse by this year's drought and threatening clouds' of grasshoppers. Yuppies are not to be found here.

Non-smoking-areas arent the vogue yet in Lamar's eating places. At the Cow Palace Inn on North Main Street, which is the fanciest motel in town ($36.50 a night for a first-rate room), patrons who order a bottle of beer at the bar are asked if they need a glass to No one has to contend with parking meters in this1 farm and. ranch community of nearly 10,000 people on U.S. Highway 287, part of a major highway span that connects Florida and Texas with Alaska, and goes right through downtown Lamar. The Colorado Tourism Board is expecting a record 22 million visitors to the state this summer seven times Colorado's population.

of the visitors are causing congestion at park and mountain sites. But the only congestion around Lamar this sum- were y-year-oia nenry larruio auu uis wiie, tui e- v. Newspaper, farm life reflect progress, struggle in Lamar -m mix AP toserphoftf Sea of silver About 3,600 silver Airstream travel trail- about 8,000 people to Idaho's capitals ers are parked in Boise, Idaho, last week The club is named after the inventor ot for the annual Waliy Byam Caravan Club the Airstream. He died in 1961 International Rally. The event brought i Group tries to improve image of rough fish 40 percent in the last five years.

In the nearby community of Walsh, entirely dependent on agriculture, school enrollments have dropped by 50 percent in the last decade. "Nationally the average age of the farmer is getting older and older, and my hope is that we can get young people into farming now because most are college-educated and c8n ride things up," said Jerry Dyess and his wife operate a two-year-old computerized farm management consultancy, the only business of its kind in Lamar and for many miles around. Estimating that as many as 10 of his family farm clients are in the 25-35 age group, Dyess said that in every case but one the farmer's wife is working in town at a'job that pays between $16,000 and a year. "Typically, the family farm pays for itself but does not pay family expenses and won't make a living these days," said Dyess. Unlike several other towns in the vast reaches of southeast Colorado that have not gtorn much in size in the past 38 years, Lamar is a third larger since I last had seen it as a community of 6,400 people.

One of the noticeable changes in town is the sign on the front of the country western night club on the northside. Can you imagine a hairy-chested place like Lamar in this day and time celebrating Saturday night at a dance hall named the Gay Way Inn? The name has been changed. Another change is that Lamar, which used to be just a bus stop on the roads to nearby Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle, is now a "bus start." Five years ago a West German bus manufacturing company, Neoplan, chose Lamar as its location to build vehicles for U.S. clients. Today the company is constructing luxury coaches in addition to city iJuses for public transit systems in Atlanta, Washington, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Los Angeles, and other major metropolitan-areas.

About 1,000 people are employed by Neoplan and by small adjunct companies in a flourishing industrial park that is set off by Neoplan's four-story office building, tallest such structure in Lamar. Company officials say they have cornered 40 percent of the current U.S. bus manufacturing market. In my day here, Lamar's single biggest commercial employer was an alfalfa processing plant, no longer in business. By contrast, the Neoplan era has had a new impact on the city, attracting young workers who otherwise would have left the area in search of non-agricultural jobs.

As a result, the unemployment rate for 1985 in the Lamar area was 5.9 percent. By SETH KANTOR Cox News Service LAMAR, Colo. The shiny fire station was one of the first things that caught my eye, on ing recently for the first time in 38 years to this town where I worked my first job as a daily newspaper reporter: These days the fire department has some full-, time members, but in 1948 it was strictly staffed with volunteers. The big bell rang and they would come a-runnin' to man the equipment. Frequently I'd run, too.

The Lamar Daily Mews was less than a block from the old fire house and, grabbing a pencil and paper, I'd jump aboard the back of a water pump truck striking a determined, pose like Washington crossing the Delaware, in order to impress young ladies on the sidewalks as I set off to report the latest grass fire. One afternoon, though, the fire truck went right up Main Street and beyond citylimits, not stopping until it reached the town of Wild Horse, 52 miles away. Fire departments from other communities also, converged on Wild Horse as a bad brush fire there raged toward some propane tanks. My newspaper's deadline came and went that afternoon. A timely story I had been writing still sat in the typewriter I had abandoned to jump aboard the fire truck.

And I failed to phone in the story of the big fire in Wild Horse, because the phone I tried to use there was one of those old crank jobs on a wall. I wound up in the midst of a partyline conversation between two women who refused to let me interrupt them. I was certain that Fred M. Betz, longtime editor and publisher of the.Daily News, would invite this tenderfoot Eastern reporter to disappear aboard the next Santa Fe passenger train that clanged through the heart of downtown Lamar. Instead he rather severely pointed out all the lessons in reporting I should have learned from the experience, but even I could see the twinkle in his eye.

The old fire is gone now; so is the old Daily News' building; both of them replaced by newer, larger structures in the name of progress. Betz, who died in his 80s some time back, lives on through his son Fred Daily News editor, and grandson-Tom, news director, who carry on the ideals he fostered as a progressive Democrat in a conservative Republican area. Life has not always been easy in that situation for the Betzes. Life has not been too easy either for the whole town as it struggles along on a farm-based economy. Farm land values in the area have plunged 30 to Ojibwe Fisheries, a facility to handle, process and I market ah estimated annual 6 million-pound sus- tained yield of the six reservation rough fish species: suckers, whitefish, tullM 'bee, eelpout and dogfish.

if Reservation officials hope to keep 120 independ-ent, Indian fishermen busy with the rough-fish marketing and 'to employ about five new workers at the complex. The -hatchery itself also will be expanded to make room for more whitefish and walleye" culture facilities. BEMIDJI, Minn. (AP) Rough fish have long been the rejects of society in an area where walleye and other game fish are considered most pleasing to the taste buds. But Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee plans 16 improve the misfits' image.

Ground was broken recently for an expanded Leech Lake Reservation Fish Management Com-plex that officials hope, will substantially bolster the reservation's marketing of rough fish while enhancing game fishing in the The new portion of the existing 'tribal ish hatchery just south of Cass Lake will feature FREE EPSON PRINTER with An EPSON EQUITY I COMPUTER SYSTEM A Available in Long view ONLY 25 CFF Si Sterling Silver Jewelry entire stock COA1PUTRAIIM July 4 30 OFF COMPUTER TRAINING SPECIALISTS 411 GILMER 753-4100 Lots off 1z of Va off! RIDGWAYS Alpine Nik North Loop Yy Ian HOME IS l7HEREr YOU BELONG. sometimes special health needs make it difficult to enjoy the comfortable home life you are accustomed to. HEALTH CONNECTION, a professional home care pgency is a major link in the health care system of this area. Whether it's helping a new mother in a difficult situation, or providing home nursing services for the elderly or ill, our team of health care 'professionals is ready to CAREFULLY PLANNED SERVICES TO MEET YOUR NEEDS: Skilled Nursing Care Live-In Companions, Sitters, Homemakers Physical, Occupational, Speech ancl Respiratory Ihcrapy Home Instruction including Nutrjtion UDunseung Private Duty in Hospital or Home WE COME TO YOU: lUitfr fr(i) VilsK vHJ fl" faifniftu'r WSXWI iuYlls ft VWhrtil ojr HEALTH CONNECTION is licensed to serve Gregg, SmithTWood, Upshur, Camp, and Harrison counties. Sometimes you need a special helping hand.

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