Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 17

Wednemlay, July lo, 1985 Great Falls Tribune 3-B How to be cool Ice cubes sell like hot cakes By PETER JOHNSON Tribune Staff Writer Persons who think the ice-making business went out with electrical refrigerators should get a look at the nearly round-the-clock work being done at Great Falls Ice Co. during the current heat wave. Its ice cubes are selling like hot cakes. Employees are working 14 to 16 hours a day to meet the "peak demand," according to co-owner Roger Hatler, who says the south-side firm is probably selling twice as much ice now as it was in cooler days a month ago. The ice company's primary business is wholesale, supplying groceries and gasoline stations with the cube and block ice that customers demand especially in hot weather for such purposes as cooling drinks and refrigerating coolers.

Great Falls Ice also supplies many of the ice-storage units found outside stores. SI tf CL till J6 ft bag ice cubes Tuesday at Great public demand during hot periods of the summer sits idle nine months a year, he said. Although the machines work to greater capacity in cooler temperatures, their products simply aren't needed as much then. And temperatures and, hence, demand can be irregular even in noune Photo Or Sluart 5. White Falls Ice Co.

as the city's heat the summer, Hatler said. He noted that much of July 1984 was cool. But 1985 has the hottest July that Hatler can recall in the 13 years he has been in the business. If the heat wave continues, he estimated the company will do three times as much business this July as last. KEEPING the regular customers supplied has prevented the firm from trying to supply the needs of the Forest Service's firefighters, Hatler said, adding that the Forest Service may be obtaining ice from the company's customers.

But while the ice business is hot right now, it's not without its slippery elements. With the string of 10 days of 90-degree-plus temperatures, the city's water temperature has risen to a tepid 74 degrees, greatly reducing the capacity of the company's large ice-making machines, Hatler said. And in this heat, the company racks up refrigeration bills of $52 an hour. To meet the heavy demand with the reduced machine capacity High Tuesday falls short Great Falls experienced its 10th consecutive day of 90-degree or higher temperatures Tuesday and its 8th straight day of 96 or higher. Tuesday's maximum temperature was 96 degrees, just 1 degree off the record set in 1939.

As of Tuesday, three daily record highs have been tied during this heat wave, which began June 30, and one record has been set. The National Weather Service is predicting temperatures of 95 to 100 in Great Falls today and expects the thermometer to drop to the low 90s Thursday. Troubled insurance firm BOZEMAN (AP) The prospective buyer of the embattled Life of Montana Insurance Co. says he intends to put the Bozeman company back on its feet. Robert Radcliffe, vice chairman of Westamerica, said Monday his company will use creative management methods to "re-instill the confidence that local policyholders had in the past in the company." "We're going to have enough cash and liquid assets so policyowners will not be in fear of losing their protection," said Radcliffe, an attorney based in San Jose, Calif.

Tentative agreement was announced Monday for Westamerica, based in Minneapolis, to buy a controlling interest in Life of Montana from its current owner, American Plan Corp. of Piano, Texas. The agreement has been submitted to State Auditor and Insurance Com By GWINN DYRLAND Tribune Staff Writer i Even if you can't stay inside an air-conditioned office or move into the basement as the Great Falls area heatwave extends beyond its tenth day, you can take care to i avoid over-exertion and dehydration in the sun. Sweating is in and so is drinking fluids to keep the body from losing water if you plan to keep your cool in the sunshine. Wearing cotton or another fabric that "breathes" is useful, particularly to avoid sunburn, but also to help prevent over-heating.

Great Falls physicians Dr. Robert Wynia and Dr. Ronn Peterson gave a summary of health reminders for living in 90-degree-plus temperatures. Among them: Drink fluids and take breaks if you're working outside. Dehydration is one risk of activity in hot temperatures because the body sweats off considerable water in keeping its temperature normal.

Active people may need to supplement their usual intake of minerals such as sodium and potassium, both of which can be depleted by activity in hot weather. Sodium is important to good blood volume and circulation, and potassium helps cells function properly. Wynia said a person should check with his doctor before arbitrarily deciding to take salt or potassium tablets. Ordinary table salt contains sodium, and such foods as bananas and orange juice have some potassium, health officials note. Watch for early signs of heat exhaustion when working or playing in the sun.

The body's cooling-off processes include sweating and dilation of the blood vessels near the skin's surface. Montana's typically low summertime humidity which was about 10 percent Tuesday helps the perspiring process. Signs of over-exertion in the heat the students had a relatively good command of English so the following interview was possible. They had been on the road for 12 days, with a planned, two-day stopover in Salt Lake City. From Great Falls, they were to travel north through the Waterton Lakes National Park on the Canadian border to Calgary, where they would head to Banff National Park.

From there, it was on to Edmonton and north and west on the Alaska Highway to their destination. The trip will take about a month, and club members earned money to pay for the joumey through various fund-raising events and with the help of their parents, Dorazco said. The highlight of the trip so far has been waiting to get to Alaska, he PUBLIC NOTICES WE wish to thank all our relatives and friends for making our 50th Anniversary such a happy and memorable occasion. Betty Carl Anderson BBQ OSTERMAN'S Missouri Inn Saturday, 4 p.m. Music bv: The Rough Riders WE would like to thank everyone for making our 25th Anniversary celebration so memorable.

A special thanks to our two lovely daughters, Stephanie and Susan, and to Bill for taking the pictures. Jim Joy Langlev LAMPLIGHTERS The Ranch, Saturday can start with a feeling of tiredness, then muscle cramps, Wynia and Peterson said. Without rest, a person may next feel nauseated, lightheaded, dizzy, faint or unusually irritable. These symptoms call for rest and fluids. In circumstances of unrelieved, intense heat, some persons who ignored signs of heat exhaustion could suffer heat stroke, which is a severe condition with an extremely high temperature and eventual possible coma.

Staff in the emergency rooms of Great Falls hospitals say they are not seeing a clear increase in heat-related injuries. An emergency-room nurse at the Columbus Hospital said her department is seeing more cases of sunburn than any other sun-related ailment. "There's not a lot we can do" for most routine sunburn cases, she said, adding that many people use spray-on or smear-on pain relievers or add baking soda to cool baths to take the itch out of such burns. A staff member at Park Place Health Care Center commented that hot-weather precautions for the elderly who are residents at the center include making sure people who go outside have hats or caps and are wearing sunscreen lotions to help prevent sunburn. Wynia and Peterson said young children and the elderly should take particular care in guarding against heat exhaustion.

The body's temperature-control systems may not work as efficiently for the very young and very old, compared to most adults, and young children also have smaller water reserves, they said. Persons with heart problems also should take precautions about overexertion in the heat, Peterson added, noting that the body's sweating mechanism stimulates heart and pulse rates, and may cause heart pain or other problems. -v1 Tribune Photo said. The group was forced to stop in Great Falls when a bus broke down unexpectedly. Neither Dorazco nor any of the other students talking with the reporter knew what was wrong with the bus.

Dorazco said their trip leaders were off looking for parts to make repairs, and that the students were taking the opportunity to cool off by swimming in the pool. The buses were parked near the pool for most of the day. Dorazco asked two questions of the reporter: What are the winters like here, and where is a McDonald's franchise restaurant? Answering the questions, the reporter bid the student "adios buen viaje." RETIREMENT DINNER, Evelyn Tawney Stangel, Monday, July 29, 1985, 6:30 pm. Salvation Army Youth Family Center, 1000 17th Ave. So.

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Bettie Struck 452-8430 Drug distribution trial Roger Hatler and his son Scott wave continues. and to take advantage of the cooler temperatures Hatler, co-owner Tom Storm and the high school and college students they hire during the summer have been working well into the night. OVERHEAD MACHINES freeze water into long cylinders, which are chopped mechanically into cubes and dropped into a huge refrigerated bin storing up to two tons of cubes. Employees "harvest" the ice cubes for deliveries about three times a day, waiting for other machines to freeze the block ice. It is ironic that company employees use the verb "harvest" to describe their work, Hatler agreed.

Like farmers, the ice company is entirely dependent on the weather particularly the heat for its business. Much of the company's ice-making equipment needed to meet missioner Andrea Bennett for approval. Life of Montana was forced to stop selling new policies in the fall of 1984 when former Auditor E.V. "Sonny" Omholt alleged that the company's liabilities exceeded its assets by $9.7 million. But Radcliffe said the state's objection was that Life of Montana did not have enough easily convertible "liquid" assets on hand to pay policyholders if needed, not that the company was in debt.

"Westamerica doesn't think (Life of Montana) is $9 million in the red," he said. In announcing the tentative acquisition agreement Monday, Life of Montana President A.W. Ambs said the agreement provides for the injection of "substantial amounts of new assets into Life of Montana." Westamerica is primarily a real discription of surveillance in which cars carrying various people were followed around Butte in the late afternoon of July 6, 1984. The investigation led to the sale of 5.18 grams of methaphetamine to an FBI undercover agent by Dale A. Cheline of Butte.

Cheline named Haran as his supplier. Haran faces a possible maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $15,000 fine and three-year manda ditch water with her older sisters when she disappeared. One of the sisters ran about l'2 miles to the Wegner home for help. A group of neighbors, relatives, sheriff's department officers and Highway Patrolmen assisted in the rescue effort, which took nearly three hours. A sheriff's department spokesman said a pump on the ditch shut off, and the girl was sucked out of the water into a pipe attached to the pump.

Wheatland County Ambulance Service employees administered oxy by the sheriff's department and the Rosebud-Treasure County Search and Rescue team. Two men also disappeared Sunday in separate accidents on the Flathead River near Poison. Lake County Undersheriff Pat Kirwin said Joe Goggins, 24, of Kalis-pell, was among a party of eight people who were rafting and swimming just below Kerr Dam when he disappeared in the water shortly after noon Sunday. Goggins wasn't wearing a lifejacket, Kirwin said. About one-half mile downstream, Burglary of Amtec 823 9th St.

reported 8:34 a.m. Tuesday. Entry gained by prying sliding glass doors. Missing: two satellite receiver dishes valued at $785. Burglary of Land Sea Food 813 28th St.

reported 11:03 a.m. Tuesday. Entry gained by prying lock on northeast garage door. Missing: several cases of meat and seafood. Preliminary estimate Crime About 90 students from Guadalajara, Mexico, wait for their supervisors to repair a tour frolic in the Mitchell Pool Tuesday while they bus.

Students from south of the border beat the heat after bus breaks down Daniel Haran of Butte went on trial in federal court here Tuesday for a second time on a charge of distributing illegal drugs in Butte last July. A 12-member jury could not reach a unanimous verdict after a two-day trial here in late April and the U.S. attorney's office chose to have the case tried again. A new jury was selected Tuesday morning and testimony began with a Girl hospitalized after being trapped in pipe gets boost estate company but also is involved in hotel development and management and acquisition of financial companies, Radcliffe said. It employs some insurance executives who will move to Bozeman and "augment" the existing management of Life of Montana, he said.

Radcliffe noted that many claims have been filed against Life of Montana by its policyholders. "We feel that our management will turn that trend around and re-instill the confidence that local policyholders had in the past in the company," he said. Radcliffe said insurance companies sometimes forget that "they're not really investors, they're depositors of somebody else's money and the depositor just might want it back." "I look at every policyholder as a member of the family," he said. under way tory parole if convicted. Jurors hearing the case are Lorna Fox, Linda J.

Nelson, Bruce J. Neill, Udell Kibbey, Paul H. Eastman, Debora R. Kimball, John A. Ball and Dean Anton Eystad, Great Falls; Allan R.

Fossen, Joplin; Craig Dennis Anderson, Wolf Point; Zelda Croft, Belt; Mary Lou Tackes, Power, and James D. Silvan, Big Sandy. gen to the child while other rescuers worked to free her from the pipe, the sheriff's spokesman said. Finally, neighbors used a front end loader to unearth the 12-foot-long pipe section that the girl was trapped in, and other equipment was used to remove the pipe from the pump. Rescuers then cut the pipe with hacksaws.

The girl first was taken to Wheatland Memorial Hospital in Harlowton and later flown by helicopter to St. Vincent's Hospital in Billings. Kirwin said, Michael Gingerich, 22, of the Poison area apparently drowned in the river about 3:30 p.m. Sunday. He and three other men had been swimming in the Flathead, Kirwin said.

Members of the Lake County Sheriff's office, the Lake County Search and Rescue and the Salish-Kootenai Tribal Search and Rescue teams were involved in efforts to find the bodies, Kirwin said. The bodies had not been recovered as of late Monday night, he said. of loss: between $2,000 and $3,000. Theft of lumber and lawn mower worth $250 from 1414 3rd Ave. according to report filed 9 a.m.

Monday by Ernesto Rodriguez, 300 15th St. S. Theft reported by Joseph McNulty, 517 5th Ave. of $700 in cassette tapes and car stereo stolen from vehicle between 4:15 and 11 p.m. Sunday.

SHAWMUT (AP) A 6-year-old girl was listed in serious condition Monday in a Billings hospital following an irrigation ditch accident. Wheatland County authorities said Elizabeth Wegner, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Wegner, first disappeared in the water and then was trapped in a pipe. The ordeal began about 2:30 p.m.

Monday in the irrigation ditch south of the Musselshell River and about one mile south of Shawmut. Authorities said the girl was swimming in about three feet of Search continues in four drowning cases By LANCE LOVELL Tribune Staff Writer About 90 students from Guadalajara, Mexico, made the best of a hot and frustrating situation Tuesday by swimming in the Mitchell Pool while supervisors repaired one of two buses that broke down here on their tour across North America. The group, Club Alpino del Instit-uto de Ciencias, annually tours during the summer from their homes in Guadalajara to Alaska, according to Jose Dorazco, a club member. Club Alpino is a school club, and the students attend the institute, said another club member, Sergio Gari-bau. The Tribune reporter assigned to the story was hopelessly unfit to understand the students' Spanish, but CITY COURT Antonio Carlos Hernandez, 27, 1404 17th Ave.

pleaded guilty to second ol-fense driving under the influence. Sentence: $400 fine and 90 days jail with all but seven suspended if defendant completes alcohol course, surrenders driver's license, stays out of taverns, refrains from use of alcohol and has no traffic or alcohol violations for 90 days. Larry Edward Lemire, 41, Great Falls, pleaded guilty to second offense driving under the influence. Sentence: $400 fine, 90 days jail with all but seven suspended if he refrains from use of alcohol, stays out of taverns, surrenders driver's license, completes court school and has no alcohol or traffic violations for 90 days. Chad V.

Sullivan, 19, 420 44th St. pleaded guilty to speeding 50 in 30 mph zone, driving without a driver's license, and no vehicle insurance. Fine: $200. Terry Lee Martinez, 33, 1905 5th St. NW, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct by threatening to kill Dennis Hanson.

Fine: $100. Craig William Frailer, 18, 612 3rd Ave. pleaded guilty to no vehicle insurance. Fine: $150. Courts By The Associated Press The search continued Tuesday for the bodies of four Montana men missing and presumed drowned after separate incidents Sunday.

A Helena man thrown from the bow of a boat on Canyon Ferry Lake was identified Tuesday as Kenneth W. Oleson, 20. A spokeswoman for the Broadwater County sheriff's office said divers were searching for Oleson's body about 15 miles north of Townsend. Oleson was riding on the front of a boat that was pulling a waterskier when the craft hit the wake of another boat, catapulting him into the water, she said. Authorities resumed searching Tuesday in the Yellowstone River for the body of 17-year-old Eddy Davis, Forsyth, who apparently drowned while swimming with two companions.

Rosebud County Sheriff Bob Ash said Davis disappeared about 2 p.m. Sunday when he was dragged down by the current about eight miles west of Forsyth. The search was being conducted Paid Advertising.