The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 1

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40 Pages 15 Cerif? Valencia Community College Call 422-7534 or 843-2388 IIM Year No. 13S 1WI Sentinel Star Comeanv Orlando, Florida, Monday, May 15, 1978 other ransoms freedom for son Helping DISPLACED By CHARLIE JEAN and BLANTON McBRIDE nlinel Star Suit TITUSVILLE Mother's Day taunting Mother's Day held no joy for a young and frightened housewife in faraway Colorado who was in a hospital giving birth to a child when FBI agents tore her 6-year-old son away from his stepfather and drove the boy to an airport from which he was returned to Merritt Island who was charged with a modified form of kidnapping in a child custody fight that led to the unheard-of FBI involvement in such family disputes who was unaware of the awesome political muscle marshaled to enlist the FBI and separate her from her son whose treatment so disgusted the state of Colorado that its governor refused to order her ex tradited to Florida who will return voluntarily to Florida anyway to go on trial for kidnapping because that may be the only way to ever see her son again whose plight is triggering fund-raising benefits on her behalf across the nation, from Dallas to Kissimmee who will be defended at her trial by the lawyer who signed the warrant charging her with kidnap-: ping in the first place who said, "I just ask that someone, seeing this, will tell my son I love him." When Joan Strickland, 24, and her husband, David, were divorced in 1973, the judge ruled that their son, Danny, would live with his father three weeks and with his mother one week each month. They lived at Merritt Island. Then she learned that her former husband had complained to the court that Danny's stays with his mother were hindering the boy's preschool class- work. She panicked and fled to California with Danny.

Evidence abounds that between April 1976, when the mother fled with her son. and last February, when the agents caught up with them, that David Strickland and his parents, Dewey and Margaret, brought to bear all the political power they could muster to get the FBI into the case. They telephoned, wrote letters, hired private detectives. Former Brevard-Seminole State Attorney Abbott Herring said in a July 1976 letter to Donald Middle-brooks, then general counsel to Gov. Reubin Askew, that the Stricklands and their friends called his office so often that they hindered the performance of his employees.

Herring said David Strickland had never called his office. He told Middlebrooks it always was the grandparents who called and that they referred to Danny as "our child." Ultimately also to become involved were then-FBI Director Clarence Kelley; the U.S. attorney's offices in Orlando and Washington; and U.S. Sen. Richard Stone of Florida.

Unaware of such jeopardy, Danny and his mother were starting a new life in Willis, Calif. She met and married Dale Fremo. Then neighbors told them "strangers" had been asking questions about Joan and Danny. They quietly moved to Colorado Springs, Colo. In Brevard County, David Strickland's lawyer filed a motion to return Danny to the custody of his father and to hold Mrs.

Fremo in contempt of court. Circuit Judge Roger Dykes scheduled a hearing. Because neither Mrs. Fremo nor her attorney of record appeared. Dykes issued an order directing all law enforcement agencies to seek and return Son, Page 4-A The troubled T-Bowl Second in a series 11 'jmm.

Thomas E. Lewis had to act fast 'V Snrdti" WilliamsenSeMiill tir Rlish Sctck.8 waves rricfio. thai is Nevertheless, the idea and reason for raising sail are the same. Tht difference is the captains of these vessels sit on shore while they tack. Story, Page J-C.

There have always been people who yearn for a body of water, a boat and a star to steer it by. The tiny flotilla that appears on Lake Estelle in Orlando each month is steered by radio waves, not stars. expansion for a loss Carter confident jet sale can win attle In a statement to CBS News Friday, Saud appeared to renege on promises concerning the jets but the Saudi Embassy and the State Department later issued clarifying statements that' said the planes would not be based at airfields near Israel. The Israeli spokesman, reiterating earlier statements, said Israel contin- Pl.O int Cuhonf ready, In help 5-A By NICHOLAS DAMLOFF United Press International WASHINGTON President Carter said Sunday he was confident the Senate would rise above political and partisan considerations and approve his proposed $4.8 billion sales package of warplanes to the Middle East, thereby aiding Israeli defenses and enhancing American ties to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Carter called the issue crucial to peace in the Mideast.

The president made the statement just before returning to the White House from his retreat at Camp David, where he spent the weekend telephoning "a number" of senators in hopes of enlisting their help on the jet sale, an aide said. "The question before the U.S. Senate tomorrow is crucial to our effort to secure a just and lasting peace in the Middle East," Carter said in a statement issued by press secretary Jody Powell. Senate Democratic leader Robert Byrd also forecast victory for the White House in the Senate today, telling reporters, "I think we have the votes to allow the sales to go forward." Both men were aided by new assurances from Saudi Arabia's King Khalid that the planes would not be used against Israel. But the Israeli Embassy said Sunday a statement by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud showed that assurances given by Saudis are not to be believed.

An embassy spokesman said, "The fact that an important representative of the Saudi government emphasizes that Saudi Arabia does not accept any conditions on the use of these war-planes serves to underline Israel's expressed concerns." ues to oppose the entire Middle East warplane package. The embassy statement, said that sending the aircraft to the Arab nations "constitutes a serious danger to Israel's security." It added that the U.S. commitment to supply aircraft to Israel "should be honored and not treated as part of a package." At issue was a resolution of disapproval. Should the Senate defeat the resolution, it would clear the way for the first sale of sophisticated fighters to Arab nations, as well as to Israel, traditionally a U.S. ally.

To block the sale, Congress would have to vote to disapprove the sale of 15 F-15s and 75 F-16s to Israel, 50 F-5E fighters to Egypt and 60 F-15s to Saudi Arabia. Congress has 30 days to act after the April 28 submission by the White House. The impact of the flurry of weekend lobbying was not known. Going into the weekend, assistant Democratic leader Alan Cranston, said one count showed 40 senators favoring the triple sale, 35 against and 25 undecided. Cranston opposes the package sale.

By LARRY GUEST Spartt Editor A co-worker recalls Thomas E. Lewis pacing nervously late that Friday morning in June 1974. Frustrated, Lewis stalked the reception area of his firm's Suite 400 in the Florida Center office building. The young architect, project manager for the massive Tangerine Bowl expansion, was Ln a dilemma. Final structural plans for the project had to be sealed and recorded that day, but the plans were incomplete and the engineer doing the work was out of town.

Before the city of Orlando Building Department closed that afternoon, the plans would be sealed and recorded. But the manner in which it was accomplished promises to play a feature role in a pending lawsuit in which the Orange County Civic Facilities Authority charges the expansion project's various designers, architects and engineers with negligence. The CFA hopes to recover damages for actions, or non-actions, that led to such T-Bowl ills as serious structural defects, a swaying upper deck with poor, sight lines and stadium gaps that require vision-blocking safety fences. Although reluctant to discuss the matter on the record because he is a defendant in the CFA lawsuit, Lewis nevertheless recalled that the final structural plans were needed that "whirlwind" Friday afternoon to meet "some sort of deadline to satisfy the construction contractor and the bonding company." The structural subcontract had been awarded to Edward H. Richardson Associates, whose Orlando office was just up the hall in Suite 420.

Richardson engineer Vohnnie L. Pearson was handling the structural calculations the mathematical assurance that, in this case, the steel superstructure was of adequate design and strength to support the stadium and meet local building codes. But Pearson was attending his company's annual meeting at the Richardson firm's home office in Newark, Del. A hasty flight back to Orlando was out because Pearson had a fear of flying and traveled only by car or train. In his deposition, Edward H.

Richardson testified that Lewis phoned the Delaware office, asking for permission to break into Pearson's desk and get Pearson's seal. Although the calculations were only in the preliminary stage, permission was given and Pearson's seal was applied to the incomplete plans, from which the beleagured T-Bowl expansion would rise. The unfortunate sealing of the unchecked structural plans is a microcosm of the rush-to-construct attitude that infested the controversial expansion proiect. The CFA, city and county officials were under uncommon pressures: From supporters of what proved to be an unsuccessful effort to land a National Football League franchise in Orlando. From backers of a University of Florida 1974 regular season game that had been committed to the T-Bowl if expansion could be completed in time.

From officials of the Tangerine Sports Association, who have gamely nursed their college bowl classic into major status despite repeated expansion delays and stadium shortcomings. One of the few who refused to be compromised by the frantic race to expand was the CFA's virtual one-ninn construction committee, Frank Hubbard. Rush, Page l-A Associated Press Bagels sign of spring America has the groundhog, and the called bublike, are considered a sign Soviet Union has the bagel. Displaying that the Soviet winter is over and her wares in Moscow, a bagel vendor spring is on the way. Wonder if they decorates her shop with strings of the hide if they see their shadow? taste treat.

The Russian bagels, Business is booming at FAMU By GENE I. MAEROFF New York Times TALLAHASSEE The first contact that dozens of prospective students had with Florida University's School of Business and Industry here was a letter inviting them sight unseen to apply for a four-year, all-expense-paid financial aid package. Many of the students were not thinking of majoring in business, and some had never heard of Florida But Dr. Sybil C. Mobley, the dean, who has been working for a number of years to make the school one of the nation's most important suppliers of black business graduates, had launched an aggressive drive to recruit the best possible student body.

"I had applied to Cornell, Brown, Princeton and Penn, and I was going to major in prelaw," said Victor Duncan, a Philadelphian completing his freshman year in the School of Business and Industry. "But the letter came and then the phone calls from Dr. Mobley began." Mobley assembled last year a freshman class in which 240 of the 252 students had been cited by the National Achievement Scholarship Program for outstanding blacks. This represented the final step in a long-range plan to build up the school's reputation. The 1977-78 freshmen came from 33 states 40 percent of them were from Illinois, Pennsylvania.

New York and Ohio to attend a black university in the South although many of them were being pursued by the most prestigious colleges in the country. "We are preparing students to make a benign assault on corporate America," said Thomas H. Lewis the assistant dean of the School of Business and Industry and former chief of Florida's Bureau of Housing Assistance. Florida approach is a quantum leap from the days when, according to Mobley, business education at black colleges meant training students for jobs as secretaries and high school business teachers. Today, however, corporations are searching for FAMU, PageS-A.