Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 8

Tallahassee Aug. 23, 1992 lu)AiTAIE Obituaries, 3 School schedules, 3 Florida News, 6 Rescue to get a starring role on TV Mary Ann Lindley 6 This is an important lesson that snorkelers can be severely injured. He was the sickest diver we had ever treated. Curt Varner, respiratory therapy director ley said during a break in Saturday's filming at TCH. MWe also want to educate." Meynard's mistake was simply that he did not exhale.

As he swam toward the surface, the air inside his lungs expanded and finally burst some airways and sent air bubbles through his bloodstream and to his brain. "We did not expect a full recovery," said Dr. William Kepper. Kepper supervised treatment in the hospital's hyperbaric chamber after Meynard ar-, rived by helicopter five hours following his 5 p.m. accident.

Meynard was unconscious for three days and did not regain his memory and personality for three more days after his admission to the hospital. Most victims of such a severe air embolism suffer permanent brain damage. "We were just hoping he'd be able to sit up, recognize somebody, and feed himself," said hyperbaric oxygen technician Steve Anton. Meynard did better than that. Before his release from the hospital last June, he played Please see 911, 2C "Then I just panicked," said the 30-year-old man who then held his breath, shot to the surface and suffered an air embolism that almost killed him.

Meynard's June 16 experience was so dramatic, a crew from the CBS show "Rescue 911" decided to re-enact the accident and subsequent treatment at DeFuniak Springs Hospital and Tallahassee Community Hospital in hopes of educating snorkelers not to make the same mistake. "Basically, we want to celebrate the efforts of people in service during times of trauma," CBS Production Supervisor Alan Bards- 'j i Y. fV 'V i. I i' ''-i, i ysy. "yv'' 'Y7YY vy -077.

fc' Yff S7y7 37- fcv Urf)- 7yy -yv Hi--ii. HELP DU DEQOCUa? 1 nfijn On page 6C, you'll find some questions about the local-news coverage in the Democrat. Please take a few minutes to answer them. The questionnaire is part of the Democrat's ongoing project to rethink and redesign the newspaper. And your views and suggestions are a vital part of the process.

Bankers recruit program for youth The chapter will be the first ever for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in Tallahassee. By Gerald Ensley Democrat staff writer Seeking a cudgel against troubled times, two local bankers have brought a longtime urban-blight fighter to Tallahassee: The Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The 130-year-old club will establish its first chapter in Tallahassee the only capital city in the nation without one this fall. Organizers hope to open the doors Oct. 1, in a building somewhere near Raa Middle School, Evans He is the executive director of the new chapter.

Frenchtown or North Monroe Street They expect to serve 500 children in the first year. Alton Evans, director of a Boys and Girls Club in Florence, S.C., has been hired as the new chapter's executive director. Nearly $100,000 has been pledged by charitable foundations to cover the first year's budget. The local chapter is the result of two years' planning by Jerry McDaniel, president of Sun Bank, and Tom Rosa, a vice-president with NCNB. Each of their banks put up $5,000 and helped raise additional money.

In future years, the club will be financed by charitable foundations, state and federal grants and donations from local businesses and residents. "If we're going to be the type of community we want to be, we need to do things like this to reach our youth, and prevent the kind of problems they have in the big cities," McDaniel said. According to organizers, the Boys and Girls club is unique in its comprehensive approach to helping disadvantaged youths, aged 6 to 18. In addition to providing a meeting place and recreation programs for young people, the club offers an Please see CLUB, 2C is cast in doubt Black suggested to Holmes in a letter dated Aug. 14 that Holmes apply for permission to use the main church sanctuary as a temporary school, but Holmes said the church building could not meet the needed health and fire codes.

"I hope the bureaucracy pressures and politics will not hamper or destroy this program," Holmes said. "We can walk around problem." The academy has an enrollment of 36 students from pre-kindergarten through third grade and employs three teachers. Classes in Bible study and African heritage will be taught in addition to a regular primary-education curriculum. I1.DA "Rescue 911" will show an episode in which a snorkeler's life is saved by timely treatment at hospitals in DeFuniak Springs and Tallahassee. By Donya Currle Democrat stall writer The cool, crystal-clear water was so Inviting, Barry Meynard couldn't help swimming deeper and deeper to explore Vortex Spring.

The New Orleans man had never seen such a beautiful spot as the spring about 100 miles west of Tallahassee. And he was especially intrigued by a "talk box" set up by scuba divers about 30 feet underwater. The overturned cattle trough acted as an air bubble where divers could meet, take off their masks and talk to each other without swimming all the way to the surface. Meynard, snorkeling for the first time since childhood, swam into the talk box, took a nice, big breath of air and then noticed a sign that said, "Danger. Pressurized air." Florida's commercial space program gets a boost with a successful launch.

By Julie Hauserman Democrat stall writer CAPE SAN BLAS Cape San Bias turned into "Cape San Blast" Saturday morning as a rocket soared from the shore, giving a boost to Florida's fledgling commercial space program. A bank of ominous early-morning clouds parted miraculously at 10 a.m. to make way for the first rocket launch from the isolated Air Force site in 20 years. The 10-foot-long rocket blasted off with a deafening roar. Within seconds, it was out of sight, leaving a snow-white trail in the tall blue sky.

The rocket carried tiny sensors to help Florida State University researchers find out what's happening with the ozone layer. It took lightning-quick measurements in the upper atmosphere, sent the data back to a huge Air Force satellite dish, then parachuted back into the Gulf. "It was a spectacular launch," said Ed O'Connor, executive director of Spaceport Florida Authority, the state's commercial space program. "I'm not the type to jump up and down, but inside I am." The launch was the first in Florida for the Spaceport authority, a state-financed organization that works like a public airport authority, providing public facilities for commercial interests. Instead of building airports and runways for commercial airlines, Spaceport Florida hopes to offer its portable launch-pad system for small commercial rockets.

The program began in 1989, but it's had money troubles and only one launch since then. The first launch was in Mexico. But on Saturday, hopes soared along with the San Bias rocket. Officials said they had scheduled three more launches from Cape San Bias, all for FSU's meteorology department Those launches probably will happen in the fall, winter and spring. The entire launch system is portable and fits into a van.

Officials hope to launch from other areas, too. Please see ROCKET, 2C After Caught between Operators of Bethel Christian Academy are hopeful a temporary solution can be reached until the zoning law is changed in October. By Sharon Rauch Democrat correspondent There is only one stumbling block to turning a former restaurant into the new Bethel Christian Academy: an old zoning code. The Rev. R.B.

Holmes and Tallahassee city officials plan to meet Monday to explore ways to get around a code that most likely will be overturned at an October City TO Away fiYrf'" our is The GOP show: mean, dreamlike and bizarre The Republican National Convention was like a TV miniseries written by Franz Kafka. To judge from their conventioneers, a lot of Republicans still spend perfectly good waking hours brooding about the '60s. Thirty years later their more extreme factions are still so mad at the hippies that it's a wonder nobody went totally retro and had to be escorted out of the Astrodome shrieking, "Get a haircut! Take a bath!" Marilyn Quayle, the Lily Tomlin look-alike of the right, was apparently sent in to prove that collectively the Quayle family has brains and that she's got custody of them. Her party says Hillary Clinton's hard to warm up to, but she's a chocolate-drop cookie compared with the shrill Ms. Q.

and her self-satisfied rhetoric. Mot everyone demonstrated, dropped out, took drugs, joined in the sexual revolution or dodged the draft," she said, probably not really meaning to speak such a broad truth. Of course, she's right. Not everybody dropped out by any means. Probably more aging baby boomers now sentimentally boast of their rebellion than actually did rebel.

But certainly Dan Quayle came as close as Ms. Q. anyone when he ducked the draft by slipping into the safe spot called ROTC. Meanwhile, his stern future bride was probably channeling her ferocious energy into blackballing the not-rights from her sorority. Ms.

Q. is a lawyer, but she never made it clear what's wrong with demonstrating. That's what the Boston Tea Party was all about. And Quayle's own right-to-life colleagues are out there on the streets regularly, same as the pro-choice ranks. The convention was both daffy and mean-spirited apart from a few appearances, including those of ever-impressive orator Ronald Reagan and jolly, invincible Barbara Bush.

Her speech and the camera's caress of George Bush surrounded by that big, warm family of his were utterly persuasive. Bush really ought to be a family man full time. The most direct and necessary words uttered at the convention, though, had to be from the daughter of a wealthy Republican supporter. As if she could see through all the superficiality, Mary Fisher pleaded for her party to be more tolerant about the AIDS virus, which she picked up in all the un-, expected ways as a straight, non-drug-using woman who was infected within the bounds of marriage. "We have killed each other with our ignorance, our prejudice and our silence," Fisher said.

"We may take refuge in stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long. Because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks: Are you human? And this is the right question. Are you human?" The refuge so many of the GOP leaders took in their stereotypes last week is the thing that made the convention so discouraging to watch. Maybe it's natural, when the polls are so threatening, for a party to put its worst face forward. But Americans including undecided Democrats, without whom the Republicans cannot possibly get re-elected deserve better than an elitist pep rally with a nasty edge.

We're not all Rhodes scholars, but we deserve more intelligence, more ideas and less pandering. The president claimed credit for world events that, in truth, caught him by surprise. He tried to tempt or buy voters with a vague promise to lower taxes, though most of us understand that it's absurd to cut taxes when a nation is dizzy with debt. The Republicans overstated their virtues and insulted millions of Americans whose families aren't quite the Waltons but aren't the dregs of humanity either. Considering so many in this country are out of work, out of their homes and out of any hope that the economy will turn around on its own, the Republican Party blew its chance to offer answers.

Its leaders squandered a lot of sharp words but didn't cut it with a lot of us who honestly wanted to hear what they had to say. Mary Ann Lindley's commentary appears on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. the early-morning clouds parted, the 10 foot zoning codes, a Commission meeting. "We don't foresee any problems," Holmes, pastor of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, said about Monday's meeting. "It's prayer that the issue will be resolved." The church will operate the school.

City attorney Jim English also expressed optimism about finding a solution. "We'll explore the possibility of allowing them to open on a temporary basis," he said. "I don't know if we can do it, but we'll try." The land on which the academy stands now zoned for commercial use. Scheduled to open Sept 8, the academy will occupy the building formerly used by Western Sizzlin at 428 W. Tennessee St But in October, the City Commission old of an Phil SearsDemocrat long rocket took off for the ozone layer.

school's opening will vote on a new zoning code that will mirror the objectives of the Downtown Urban Action Plan, the city's 20-year-plan for revitalizing downtown that was passed in April. According to the new code, using -the restaurant as a school will be legal. "What they're caught in is this 30- to 40-day window where it's not legal under the (current) zoning," said Martin Black, chief land-use administration. Holmes already has asked the city for exemption to the zoning and been denied. Black said state law prevents him from granting the exemption.

"Basically, the city's hands are tied," he said. this about.