Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 7

Tuesday, September 25, 1984 Great Falls Tribune 7-A Sheep near Holier may be sick By WAYNE ARNST Tribune Outdoors Editor Bighorn sheep hunters who recently received a permit for Hunting District 455 (the Beartooth area near Holter Lake) have been notified they may encounter sheep with a pneumo-nia-lungworm disease similar to that which killed at least 30 sheep along the Rocky Mountain Front last winter. Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks information officer Harley Yeager, Great Falls, said Monday that symptoms shown by infected sheep include an emaciated body condition, reluctance to move, coughing, and a mucus discharge from the nose. The sheep permitees were ad vised that, if they harvest an animal showing any of these symptoms, the flesh is edible, providing it is thoroughly cooked. Hunters were also advised to plan an early hunt while the number of infected animals is low. Yeager said sheep heads and horns from all but legally taken animals are considered property of the state department and should not be picked up by hunters or others.

Hunters and other persons sighting any sick or dead sheep are asked to report their findings to the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Wildlife biologist Frank Feist said sheep planted on the Beartooth Wildlife Management Area have expanded their territory onto national forest lands and there are estimated to be about 300 of them. It isn't known how many are infected with the disease at this time, he said. Biologists will know more about the extent of the infection when the weather clears enough to fly over the area and get a more accurate assessment, Feist said. Samples of four bighorns, including a 3-year-old ram, were sent last week to the department laboratory in Bozeman for analysis.

Yeager said information Monday identified the strain of pneumonia in the sheep as pasteurella, the same strain noted as responsible for deaths last winter on the Rocky Mountain Front. The pasteurellosis on the Front was linked with lungworm, and the combination of diseases and winter cold and storms in December was said to have contributed to the sheep deaths there. Because of the large area and scattered herds, it is not certain how many bighorns may have died along the Rocky Mountain Front last year, or if the disease will be a factor again this year. Hunters are being asked to watch for signs of sickness among bighorns along the Rocky Mountain Front and to report their findings to department personnel, Yeager said. Yeager said that as of Monday it was still unconfirmed whether lung-worm is playing a part in the disease on the Beartooth.

Lungworm is common among bighorn sheep, however. Airlines accused of degrading' policies by National Federation of Blind chief 1 If ft i p. I He said he has tried reasoning with and writing letters to the airlines, but their response has been disappointing. The airlines have "only a little time" to sit down and talk about the problem before the National Federation of the Blind will begin picketing, Jerni- gan warned. Most blind persons want to be left alone unless they ask for help, but that is not what airlines are doing, said Jernigan, who is blind.

"It's fashionable for people to make accommodations for the blind, but sometimes it's custodial in the name of accommodation," said Jemigan. He said he objects to being forced to get on and off planes before or after everybody else, and also objects to being forced to change seats once he is on the plane and the flight attendants realize he is blind. "They think you are unreasonable if you object (to being moved)," said Jemigan. "Very soon it changes from pity to yelling to physical abuse." A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said the agency has no rules that state where handicapped passengers should be seated or otherwise dictate the treatment of the handicapped. Laura Oftedahl, a spokeswoman for the American Council of the Blind who also is blind, said she agrees that some airline policies are degrading, such as being forced by some airlines to sit in a wheelchair to go through the terminal.

"That is demeaning. We may not be able to see, but we can walk," she said. By KARI SUPER Medill News Service WASHINGTON Kenneth Jemigan, president of the National Federation of the Blind, says he and other sightless persons are ready to picket at airports and go to jail if arrested to get airlines to change policies they feel "humiliate and degrade" the blind. However, a spokeswoman for a rival organization, the American Council of the Blind, said blocking runways and disrupting airports will "make matters worse and do an enormous disservice to all blind travelers" because it will make the blind look bad. Jernigan said the controversy arose when he became tired of getting letters but no action from airlines about policies he believes treat the blind in a demeaning way.

Snow-cycling Two sixth graders, Shawn Birst at left and Curtis Olson, bundled up for a ride in the snow on their BMX bikes after two inches of snow coated Minot this weekend. (AP Photo) Handicapped parking added near courthouse It's just not a problem, locals say Oftedahl also said some flight attendants seem to think a blind person needs to be "taken care of" by another passenger, even if the other passenger is a stranger. Once, she said, a flight attendant asked the stranger next to her what she wanted for dinner, even though the menu had been announced over the loudspeaker. The stranger became annoyed with the flight attendant and said, "Ask her yourself. How would I know?" But picketing is not the answer to changing airline policies that are offensive, Oftedahl said: "It's just a matter of educating them." The American Council of the Blind will release a booklet by the end of the year that will help teach airline personnel how better to serve the blind, said director Oral Miller.

Among other things, the booklet will suggest how to lead the blind through terminals and how airline personnel should treat a guide dog. "Many embarrassing policies are made by well-meaning, but uneducated airline personnel," Miller said. But Jemigan maintained that airline policies can be more than embarrassing; they can be fatal for the blind passenger. Some airlines, including American Airlines, will not seat a blind passenger in emergency exit aisles because they don't think blind persons can open an exit door or get out fast enough, Jemigan said. But, he insisted, blind persons should be given the same "luck of the draw" as others in sitting near an emergency exit.

A spokesman for American Airlines said the seats in emergency exit rows, and the rows directly in front and behind the exit, must be evacuated as quickly as possible in an emergency for the safety of all passengers. And blind passengers may not be able to move fast enough, he added. John Enders, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, said blind people who were as familiar with opening the emergency door as the doors in their own homes could probably do all right, but without such everyday familiarity he would question their speed. Jemigan, however, said when the plane is filled with smoke or the lights go out, the blind person might have an easier time finding and opening the door than sighted persons. County commissioners voted Monday to add two new handicapped parking spaces on the side of the courthouse facing Third Avenue North.

At the same time, commissioners decided to eliminate a nearby handicapped space they said was awkward to use and hard to find. Commissioners took action following a complaint from a handicapped man that two spaces on the Third Street side of the courthouse don't conform to accepted standards and were nearly always full. Commissioner Dick Gasvoda said the spaces apparently were being used by county employees who are handicapped themselves. Courthouse parking is used by both the general public and county employees and officials, with a number of spaces reserved for officials. Commissioner Pat Ryan moved to place two regulation-sized handicapped spaces on the Third Avenue North side, just west of a sidewalk leading to the back door of the building.

In reply to one comment that the courthouse back door would be difficult for the handicapped to use, Ryan argued action needed to be taken without discussing whether to alter doorways to the courthouse. Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind, said the school has a number of blind students who travel and "we've never had a carrier who has given us any difficulty." Wright, who is not blind, said he's heard of "very few instances when students were either denied help or took offense at being offered help." If a blind person does not need help then he or she should operate independently, Wright said, but half of the nation's blind population is age 65 or older, an age at which some people need help whether or not they can see. Wright said he understands the issue first arose several years ago when airline officials asked a blind woman on a flight out of Denver to let them place her cane in storage during the flight. The woman refused and later sued the airline, he said. But at about the same time, Wright added, a federal transportation agency study showed that canes and other loose articles can became dangerous projectiles during turbulence or sudden stops.

And while blind persons generally prefer rigid canes that do a better job of conducting the ground's "feeling" back to them, Wright estimated that 90 percent of them use collapsible canes while traveling. Such canes can be folded up to a size small enough to fit in a purse or suit pocket. The whole issue of treatment of blind people on airlines is an isolated one, Wright said. It affects far fewer people, for instance, than the CBS network refusal for several years to provide the same close-caption television system that NBC, ABC and PBS were using. That affected the state's entire deaf population, he said.

Wright estimated there are only seven or eight totally blind students in the state now who must use a cane at all times. Medical improvements have lessened incidents of blindness, he said. By PETER JOHNSON Tribune Staff Writer While leaders of national groups working with the blind may criticize airlines for their treatment of blind passengers, two Great Falls-area people working with the blind generally praised airlines and downplayed the problem in separate interviews. "I fly a great deal, sometimes with my husband and sometimes alone," said Virginia Sutich of Sand Coulee, president of the Montana Association of the Blind. "I've never had those problems with transportation that (some blind persons) are screaming about." Sutich, a blind person who estimates she flies a dozen times a year both in and out of state, said airline officials usually will ask her if she needs help and withdraw if she declines.

"I'm never over-solicited," she said, adding that she is perfectly willing to be escorted in large airports where she might get lost otherwise. She also said she appreciates help at smaller airports, where passengers debark onto the runway apron and walk to the terminal. She said her daughter in Huntsville, once teased her, asking how she "rated" since both the pilot and co-pilot escorted her off the plane during a storm, holding an umbrella overhead. "When you reject help," Sutich advises other blind people, "do so graciously. Because you might need help crossing the street next time if it's icy." A self-styled "moderate, not a radical," Sutich said she disagrees with the National Federation of the Blind philosophy on some things, even though the Montana Association of the Blind is an affiliate.

"They believe a blind person can do anything, but I know I can't drive a car or read print," said Sutich. "I believe in accepting what you can't do and going on to do what you can." Some blind people "scream independence with one hand while accepting help with the other," Sutich said. Chuck Wright, principal of the blind students at the Former KFBB-TV newsman named as new MTN anchor Dean Dean Phillips, former producer and anchorman for KFBB-TV in Great Falls, has been named anchorman and managing editor for the Montana Television Network. Phillips, who was producer and anchorman for KFBB-TV six years ago, will be the permanent on-the-air replacement for Ed Coghlan, who is now news director for a television station in Los Angeles. Unlike Coghlan, who worked at KRTV in Great Falls, Phillips will be based at KTVQ in Billings.

Four stations, in Billings, Butte, Great Falls and Missoula, are served by MTN. Besides Phillips, the network will station its permanent weather reporter and sports anchor in Billings, according to News Director Jim Davis. The weather position will be vacant after Friday, when Mike McKay leaves for Los Angeles, where he will work with Coghlan at KCOP-TV. Sports anchor Steve Jahnke has already moved to Los Angeles, where he works for the same station. Phillips, 32, comes to MTN from Aspen, where he was news director and anchorman.

He has also Explorers left abundant reminders BUYING HIDES Deer-Elk-Moose Pay Cash or Deal Trad dovas or Marchandis WEISSMAN SONS 300 3rd Oiwat faito according to a member of a Lewis and Clark Trail heritage advisory council. A National Park Service study found that of 163 possible Lewis and HELENA Of the 11 states traversed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Montana has the greatest number of sites that could be developed along the expedition's route, worked for the Public Broadcasting System in Washington, D.C. and for television stations in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Phillips is a native of Arlington, and a graduate of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. His first day on the job was Monday.

Coincident with his arrival, the network has also increased its emphasis on local news in its four stations at Butte, Missoula, Great Falls and Billings, Davis said. News broadcasts will now lead off with local news, followed by MTN Wishing You a Happy Day for a Daughter so sweet and the best that could ever be. Always know. ART DIETRICH DENTAL PLATE CLINIC DENTURIST OPEN SATURDAYS CALL COLLECT Phono 403-328-4095 222 5m SI. South Lorhbridgo, Alborta COCXINGHtATING ENERGY COMMAND GAS FURNACE HoH your hem with a new standard of fhcincy alto your hot water.

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Council vice chairman Bob Sain-don of Helena said Montana also has the most miles of trail of any of the states traversed by the expedition. The governor has asked the council, formed in July, to seek ways to coordinate the council's work with other Montana commissions, bureaus, agencies and boards to foster state recognition of the expedition. The council also was asked to work with national organizations and federal agencies to coordinate and plan activities. Members of the advisory council include chairwoman Margaret Warden, Great Falls; vice chairman Saindon, Helena; Harold Stearns, Helena; Harry Fritz, Missoula; Gladys Silk, Glasgow; John Willard, Billings; Doug Allard, St. Ignatius; John Austin, Hamilton; Wilbur Werner, Cut Bank; Marshall Johnson of Great Falls, and William Sherman of Portland Ore.

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9AM-5PM For OPPt. 727-4741 and staff at Columbus Hospital for their excellent care. Also my friends and relatives for their thoughtful considerations. Mary Ann Larson XI XI CHAPTER OF BETA SIGMA PHI SORORITY will meet Wednesday, Sept. 26th at 7:30 p.m.

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