The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 45

If mn f)n? Orlando Sentinel OrlandoSentinel.com Th ursday, September 20, 200 1 Section love the New boss is energizing WKMG Jacqueline ondon. A newsy sort of approach. By HAL BOEDEKER SENTINEL TELEVISION CRITIC Suddenly, it's as if there's a new TV station in town. WKMG-Channel 6 has become Local 6, with anchors Lauren Perkins and Bob Frier chatting in commercials about how much local news means to them. WKMG follows the Apopka celebration of its Little League champions for nearly three hours and shrewdly exploits positioning reporter Dina Falco close to the team.

The station pre-empts The CBS Evening News, upstages competitors and earns strong ratings. Channel 6 promotes Jacqueline London to anchor of the 5:30 weeknight newcast. She's doing the telecast solo, often standing, and proving a sharp contrast to the Ken-and-Barbie setup on most newscasts. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, WKMG is having someone in the community say the Pledge of Allegiance at 7:57 nightly. A firefighter was first Tuesday and the station hopes to line up veterans and schoolchildren.

These strokes come courtesy of Henry Maldonado, who joined the station as acting general manager Aug. 1 and who effusively professes his love for television. Maldonado, 52, who's a native of Venezuela, has Bob Frier. He's filling Wittman's shoes well. auren Perkins.

She shares boss's love of the job. Tammy L. CARTER A TOUCH OFTLC One man shows way back to life Strive for a sense of normalcy that's what we're supposed to do. It has been more than a week since terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and I'm still trying to figure out what's normal. I'm back to my morning jogs, but every time I hear an airplane fly overhead, my heart skips a beat.

I've made it to work every day since the tragedy, but work doesn't seem to have as much meaning to me as it did last Monday. No normalcy there. My daughter went to a high school football game Monday night. After the game, the stadium lights were dimmed and the crowd went onto the field to sing "God Bless America" and the national anthem while holding green glow sticks. That's not normal.

David Letterman returned to the air Monday night, but his usual loud and frenetic show was subdued. His few attempts at humor generated what sounded like forced laughter. The ever stalwart Dan Rather even broke down in tears while discussing the tragedy. That certainly didn't feel normal. Politically Incorrect was just as solemn Monday.

Instead of panelists shouting and talking over one another, trying to get in as many one-liners as possible, they were polite and re- spectful. That wasn't normal, either. I expect it to take a lot of time for life to become normal again. In the meantime, however, I can look to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for a shining example of someone doing his best to find normalcy in the midst of chaos. Just two weeks ago, the 57-year-old Brooklyn-born mayor made tabloid headlines because of his bitter divorce and public mistress.

He's also battled prostate cancer and rocky relationships with ethnic communities. On the day of the attacks, New York voters were headed to the polls to narrow the field for Giuliani's successor. Most were ready to see him go. A week later, they can't get enough of him. Chants of "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!" could be heard as he toured ground zero.

Some believe he has become more popular than the president. As I watched Giuliani during press conferences, I was impressed by his ability to convey the seriousness of the matter without conveying fear. He has been gentle but honest in warning families that their missing loved ones may never be found. In addition to rallying the rescue workers, Giuliani has insisted that the city go on with business and that the rest of Americans go on with their lives. He has not only preached those words, he's living them.

On Saturday, after losing friends, co-workers and almost his own life when the World Trade Center collapsed, he kept a 3-week-old promise. Despite being at the center of the nation's worst calamity and operating on little sleep, Giuliani donned a black tuxedo and escorted a bride down the aisle. The mayor agreed to give away Diane Gorumba when he attended the funeral of her firefighter brother Michael last month. The bride's father and grandfather died last year. The family said they would have understood if Giuliani had reneged on his promise.

Apparently, the thought never crossed his mind. "It felt wonderful to be part of this," the mayor told reporters covering the ceremony. "This is what life is all about. You have to go on and take advantage of the good things in life. I've thought quite a lot about that this week.

And this is one of the good things: a wedding." As I continue my search for normalcy, Giuliani's approach sounds like a good place to start. You can reach Tammy Carter at tcarterorlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5223. been commuting each week between Orlando and Detroit. His family remains in Michigan, where he's a corporate vice president at Post-Newsweek Stations, the Washington Post subsidiary that owns WKMG. The "acting" in front of his title should cause no confusion about who's in charge.

"I am running the station," Maldonado says in his immaculate office at WKMG. "All the decisions about this station are going to be made in this office." He has the full support of his boss and longtime friend, Alan Frank, president of Post-News-week Stations in Detroit. "I thought he was just what the station needed at this moment," Frank PLEASE SEE NEWS, E3 GEORGE SKENEORLANDO SENTINEL Calling the shots. Acting general manager Henry Maldonado has Channel 6 moving in a new direction up. AMERICA: CONFRONTING TERRORISM Favorite escapes from the world Designers forge on after Fashion Week that wasn't As we turn inward to reflect on last week's tragedy, many of us will seek special places in Central Florida that give us the space and quiet in which to probe our deepest thoughts.

Here are some suggestions from Sentinel staffers. p. 1 i -m be 1 ff 1 i i i A I i 1 I By CATHY HORYN NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE NEW YORK As the tents In Bryant Park were being takon down after the cancellation of Fashion Week, designers on enth Avenue quietly made pUns to show their spring 2002 colltvtKvns to a limited number of jounuliM and store buyers. "I'm going to show my ekhi in an informal working way C4-vin Klein told reporters last Ttuu day. True to his word.

Klein tied only a handful of and magazine editors to his rwwr room Monday, by apptuutnteut only, to view the coUection, ru. Klein showed on a few nvxfck On Tuesday, his shosMWa opened, as originally planned iwr store buyers. Klein's spnig runway show had been schfetuW for last Friday at 6 p.m., the ertu ue end of Mercedes-Bera Week. Other designers mavte sinular please sie FMHION, E3 Tower of solace Bok Tower spoke to me, the first time I saw it, because it looked familiar not like Florida, not like this strange, semitropical place to which I had so recently come. The elaborately carved tower reminded me of other places I had known and loved: the Gothic tower on my college campus in Massachusetts, the campanile under which I used to sit in the sun and listen to its chorus of bells.

But if you draw nearer to Bok Tower, the centerpiece of the 200-acre Bok Tower Gardens near Lake Wales, you see that the place is Florida all the way, from the cranes and herons carved in the tower's St Augustine coquina stone to the azaleas, the live oaks and the longleaf pines that fill the grounds with color and shade. The gardens are the place I would go for the peace and the quiet that elude us so much of the time. On a clear, sunny day you can see far into the distance from the overlook on the rise they call Iron Mountain, the highest point on the Florida peninsula, where Edward W. Bok had his gardens built in please see ESCAPES, E4 SENTINEL ARCHIVES A Florida retreat Elaborately carved Bok Tower is the centerpiece of a 200-acre garden near Lake Wales..