Longview News-Journal from Longview, Texas • Page 45

fonguif ui morning Journal Sunday, May 25, 1986 Section Hands across America 4 Singers z2c 1 joining event I I A Jilt ll.WS i I 0 i v7 Jl I The Forester Sisters By ELISE LATTIER Staff Writer Country music times four plus love times six million. That will be the lucky combination Sunday when country's newest singing sensation, The Forester Sisters, teams up with more than six million Americans in the epic fund-raiser, Hands Across America. Kathy, June, Kim and Christy, the sibling quartet from Lookout Mountain, were originally scheduled to appear at the Reo Palm Isle in Longview Sunday. Instead, they will be joining nearly 50 celebrities and approximately 800,000 area residents in part of a giant human hook-up to raise money for the hungry and the homeless. At 2 p.m..

Hands Across America will link a human chair from Los Angeles to New York. The 4.152-mile-long line will cross 17 states and the District of Columbia. Ken Kragen organizer of USA for Africa and Hands Across America, will anchor the line from its starting point in New York City's Battery Park, while 8.000 non-celebrities will anchor the other end by forming a Hands Across America logo' with balloons alongside the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif. Organizers say it will be the largest number of people ever to participate in a single event and will boast the largest number of celebrities ever to take part in one event. Appearing on the TexasNew Mexico border will be Kenny Rogers, who is the national celebrity spokesman for Hands Across America.

Appearing with him AP Loserphoto One of the homeless in Los Angeles, a man named Lewis, strikes a prayful pose He lives in a area below a busy LA freeway. Grants fight homelessness Other attractions to entertain participants before the line connects will be bands, clowns mimes, jugglers, cowboys and actors even a hot air balloon if the weather permits. All are donating their time and talents to help make the largest event ever attempted a success in helping American hungry and homeless citizens. Though organizers said Friday there were still some vacant spots in the line, they were urging people to just come out to the line. Envelopes will be available for donations.

A spokesman at the Dallas office said approximately 800.000 people would be in the Texas line. "1 know we're short (at this time), but the way the phones are ringing, I think we're gding to pull it off." will be Lee Greenwood, country western singer, and the rock group Renegade will perform. Other celebrities slated for appearances or performances include Tony Dorsett and Steve Pellure of the Dallas Cowboys, vocal group New Edition, Dale Ellis and Bill Wellington of the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Boy's Choir, Heritage Dancers and the Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association. The Foresters will perform with other country and western singers at the FunFest in Amaril-lo, an annual city festival. Up With People, an internationally acclaimed cast of 100 singers and dancers, will perform at the Holiday Inn in Mount Pleasant.

The group will also appear for Memorial Day services in Longview at 9:30 a.m. Monday. grant for a surplus food project. In Wichita Falls, the city has designated Faith Mission as recipient of the $10,000 grant The U.S. Conference of Mayors is a supporting oiganization for Hands Across America, the coast-to-coast etfort to raise awareness and funds to combat domestic hunger and shelter problems on May 25.

Conference President Joseph Riley, mayor of Charleston, said. "No single agency or organization can get the job done We need help from all quarters in our society, public and private. And while emergency needs for food and shelter must be met. some of our resources must be invested in the search for long-term solutions to these problems. That's why we welcome these grants in our cities, and why we are grateful to USA for Africa for helping in so many cities." TEXARKANA Texarkana will be among 30 S.

cities to receive a $10,000 grant by USA for Africa to fight hunger and homelessness. Other Texas cities to receive the grant include Dallas and Wichita Falls. The cities will receive the S10.000 to be used as "seed money" to help reach long-term solutions to hunger and homelessness issues. Each of the cities is free to use the grant to design its own unique approach to its problems. The grants were announced during a recent Washington.

DC, briefing on the May 25 Hands Across America event held at the U.S. Conference of Mayors office Texarkana's grant will go toward funding Habitat for Humanity, a group that rehabilitates deteriorating housing for use by people who do not have any shelter. The city of Dallas will use its 5. K7 y. A YV U7 I -jf 7.

v-7 JL 1, APloMrphoto Ranger Ben Harbour supervises national grassland. Ranger drives his pickup over the wide-open spaces of North Texas. Manger' roams wide-open Texas grassland Parts of the grassland in Wise County are heavily wooded, but much Is open, some with the belly-high grass often associated with the prairie. Harbour is attracted to the wide-open spaces of North Texas, where there aren't mountains or forests to lean his eyes against, nothing to stop them from roaming for miles over the rolling landscape. recreate on federal land." The Wise County land has few improvements on it.

Black Creek Lake has picnic areas and access to the water, but the rest of the grassland is untamed, except for scattered windmills'and oil wells. Visitors are allowed to camp and fish and hike throughout the park. 'Basically, where there's gravel, we let people go (in vehicles)." Many people hunt dove and quail "and there's a lot of deer hunting with very little success." The Wise County property originally was called the Cross Timbers Grassland, but was named to honor President Johnson in about 1968. In addition to the LBJ and Caddo grasslands, the U.S. Forest Service operates four forests in Texas.

The federal government bought the grasslands during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s when many people were farming "sub-marginal farm land," he said. The government's purchase of 11 acres for $3 to $7 an acre rescued many from financial ruin and restored land blown away during the Dust Bowl. "It was established to give the folks a new lease on life and restore the said. DECATUR (AP) Ben T. Harbour originally wanted to spend his life watching birds.

"The first couple of years 1 did watch a lot of eagle nests, but other than that it's pretty hard work," he said. "That's pretty boring, too. You go out and watch a bald eagle hatch its eggs and after a while you get excited If it moves its head." Now, with tens of thousands of acres of national grassland in Texas under his administration, he spends most of his time behind a desk, making time for the outdoors he loves. Harbour is a district ranger for the VS. Forest Service and supervises the Lyndon B.

Johnson National Grassland spread out over the northern Wise County and the Caddo National Grassland in Fannin County along the Red River. He oversees budgeting, planning and "whatever walks in the door." Parts of the grassland in Wise County are heavily wooded, but much is open, some with the belly-high grass often associated with the prairie. Harbour is attracted to the wide-open spaces that's really beautiful and the vandalism," he said. But there's more to the vandalism that potshots. People who drive their cars and trucks off the main gravel roads contribute to the soil erosion that plagues the area and scars the land.

One area, the steep Motorcycle Hill, is laced with the trails of motorcycles and four-wheel-drive vehicles and with the gulleys of erosion they cause. "When people get on it and take the vegetation off, it speeds the erosion." Harbour's agency is charged with preserving the land and its resources and working with the public, he said. "Folks deserve an opportunity to of North Texas, where there aren't mountains or forests to lean his eyes against, nothing to stop them from roaming for miles over the rolling landscape. "I really like this kind of country." When he worked in Northern California, "the only time you could see anything was on top of a mountain. This is nice.

People can get out and look around." Although most visitors to the grassland respect the land, others destroy it. "People come out from the city the concrete Jungle and shoot up the trees. They'll end up dying. There're two sides to it the side.