Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page A006

A6 Star A6 ARIZONA DAILY STAR Saturday, July 26, 2008 Veterans' peaceful colony in a wrangle THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Gordon Landrum, outside his home in the United Spanish War Veterans Colony in Wilburton, says he is being harassed by colony leaders. NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE POLICE A home lies shattered in Deerfield, N.H., one of several homes destroyed or severely damaged in several towns. The National Weather Service said tornado winds on Thursday topped 110 mph at times. Tornado plows through 9 N.H. towns THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WILBURTON, Okla.

Nestled among the lush forests and mountain foothills of rural southeastern Oklahoma is a soldier's Utopia, a sleepy enclave where U.S. veterans can claim their share of the American dream for pennies on the dollar. For 75 years, the little-known United Spanish War Veterans Colony has offered vets an acre of tax-free land for only a couple hundred dollars, allowing them to build whatever they wish and live out their days in quiet retirement. No homeowners associations, no nursing homes, no red tape. Here, the pecan trees are the tallest things around, and wild turkeys and deer outnumber residents.

Most of the roads are barely wide enough for a single car. But a dispute brewing in the colony could threaten the peaceful, communal way of life of the 110 veterans who live here. The opening salvo: Nearly two dozen vets have accused colony leaders of financial mismanagement, and they say residents who question the improprieties are harassed and threatened with eviction. "They have gotten such control over the residents through fear and intimidation that if you're a whistleblower, they want you out of there," said Gordon Landrum, a Vietnam veteran and former member of the board that governs the colony. Things have gotten so bad, some vets are threatening to take up arms to defend themselves.

didn't match up, and records of questionable purchases. Mike Sherrill, a Vietnam veteran who has served several terms as board chairman, rejected the alleged discrepancies, calling them "minor errors that would happen to anybody balancing a checkbook." He said the books are now in order, and he welcomed an outside audit. An Associated Press review of documents, and recent audits of colony finances, could not account for more than $4,000 in colony money. The controversy is a far cry from the esprit de corps the 800-acre community was founded on. Established in 1933 by a Spanish American War veterans' organization, the colony provided home sites for returning soldiers.

To be admitted, honorably discharged wartime vets must be members of a service organization such as the VFW or the American Legion. If the board approves an application, the veteran is assigned a share in the nonprofit and can apply for tract of land, typically a one-acre lot. There were more than 330 shareholders in the colony as of 2006, but only about 110 live here. "I've got $74 in the bank, no place to go and three clips and a .45," said Paul Skaggs, who survived the Vietnam War but considers this the toughest fight of his life. "I'm just waiting for someone to take a shot at me." Colony leaders dismiss the allegations, saying the disgruntled veterans have not formally brought their complaints to the board and accusing the group of taking a "warlike stance." The colony has operated largely unnoticed for decades in the foothills of the Winding Stair Mountains, about 125 miles south of Tulsa.

Soldiers from across the country typically learn about it from online chat rooms or friends of friends. Landrum said he was ousted from the board two years ago after questioning the finances of the colony, which reported having more than $450,000 in the bank in 2006. He's so tired of the harassment, he's planning to pack whatever possessions will fit in an old horse trailer and head for Montana. He has presented documents detailing the alleged mismanagement: thousands of dollars unaccounted for on annual financial reports, monthly beginning and ending balances that soon led firefighters to him in the rubble. Officials said the infant was protected by being in a void.

The baby was admitted to Concord Hospital, but a spokesman said no information would be released at the family's request. The hospital said Harley Stevens was released after being examined in its emergency room. The deadly winds, swirling black clouds and torrential rains gave way to chain saws and portable power generators Friday. Under brilliant blue skies, chain-saw crews cleared roads, made paths to fallen power lines and helped residents remove huge trees from atop homes. Gov.

John Lynch led a group of state and federal officials, including members of the congressional delegation, to survey the damage the tornado caused. wind began to howl. "The wind at first it felt like a push, then I got sucked out, then pushed back," he said. "I could hear things snapping. I could see things flying," including his canoe, which landed about 100 feet away.

With trees toppling around him, Troy tried to get into his house but couldn't open the door more than 2 or 3 inches because of the air pressure. "It was all gray and white and stuff going by," Troy said. Stevens died when the tornado obliterated a home near Northfield Lake in Deerfield as she and her grandson were on the first floor. Her husband, Harley, had just headed down from the second floor when he "was blown out the side of the building and found in the side yard," state Fire Marshal William Degnan said. Degnan said the boy's crying THE ASSOCIATED PRESS EPSOM, N.H.

A baby's cries led rescuers to the 3-month-old in the wreckage of a home flattened by a tornado that killed his grandmother and blew his grandfather into the yard, officials said Friday. Brenda Stevens, 57, was the only person killed in Thursday's twister, which left a 20-mile-long swath of fallen trees and damaged homes in central New Hampshire. Officials estimate that at least a half-dozen homes were destroyed, and hundreds were damaged in the heavily wooded, sparsely populated terrain. The National Weather Service said nine towns suffered severe damage from the tornado, which at times reached wind speeds of 111-135 mph. Countless people had close calls, including Mike Troy of Barnstead, who tried in vain to close his garage door as the VYUA5 JWML5 Scalia takes the stage at Kennedy Ctr.

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"Lawyers generally are lousy writers," he says at one point, almost spitting out the words. Before him sit nearly 1,000 lawyers and law students, many of whom paid $600 for their seats. They don't mind his comment; they've heard it before. In fact, they've heard a lot of this before or perhaps read it in the book Scalia and Garner wrote, "Making Your Case, The Art of Persuading Judges. Here, Scalia is the attraction.

"I always wanted to be center stage at the concert hall," he says, then adds a joke at his own expense: Friday's program, he says, "is probably the dullest act" to make it here. Book's 115 tips The two men launch into the 115 tips that make up their book, which teams the justice that many consider the Supreme Court's best writer with an expert on legal prose. Some of the advice would interest only a lawyer: Be sure the tribunal has jurisdiction. But other suggestions would be useful in many fields: Know your audience; communicate clearly and concisely. The latter prompts an aside from Scalia.

"This is like 'do good and avoid evil' or 'buy low and sell he says. But then he adds how rare it is for lawyers to write or argue without getting long-winded. He makes his own case for the art of making written arguments that judges actually will read, which he says will make those judges more likely to rule the way the lawyers want. He was a legal curmudgeon Friday, though quick to make a joke, urging lawyers to get to the point. To those who use the phrase "with all due respect" when addressing a judge, Scalia advises them to drop it.

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