Stevens Point Journal from Stevens Point, Wisconsin • Page 1

Saturday, May 23, 1987 2 Sections 16 Pages 25C (5 experts may find some answers in Iraq i 1,11 i'P I i urn i 3 Iraqi gesture is an effort to limit damage to American-Iraqi relations as a result of the missile attack. Meanwhile, Sen. James Sasser, left for the region Friday night, part of a committee appointed by the Senate leadership to assess U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. Sasser said he has grave reservations about how carefully the administration has considered its plan to protect Kuwaiti' ships sailing under U.S.

flags. On Friday, Reagan attended a memorial service for the dead sailors at Mayport Naval Station, the homeport of the Stark. Speaking to a gathering of 2,000, Reagan praised the sailors as heroes who willingly sacrificed their lives "so that wider war and greater conflict could be avoided." "The men of the USS Stark have protected us. They have done their duty," Reagan said. The solemn ceremony ended with the playing of taps accompanied by sobs and cries of grief.

The outpouring of emotion continued as Reagan and his wife, Nancy, walked through rows of chairs, shaking hands and consoling 300 people young widows, children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends of the dead crewmen. It was the sixth time he had performed the sad duty of consoling the bereaved; more than 300 servicemen and seven Challenger astronauts have died in the line of duty since Reagan took office. ris community building in Saragosa, Texas, was destroyed by a tornado Friday graduation ceremony was taking place in the building when the tornado struck. cashes Tei COS, in WASHINGTON (AP) An official U.S. delegation was leaving for Iraq today to try to clear up the mystery of why an Iraqi aircraft fired on the USS Stark last Sunday, killing 37 American sailors.

After a stopover in Bahrain, where the Stark has been anchored since Wednesday, the delegation will head for Baghdad on Monday, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Friday. The U.S. delegation, which is expected to return to Washington next weekend, is composed mostly of Defense Department officials. "They'll be seeking access to every Iraqi military official who may have had some connection to the attack," Redman said. "This includes the pilot or pilots as well as others in the chain of command." The delegation wants to determine why the aircraft fired on the Stark without knowing its country of origin and to discuss the possibility of Iraqi compensation for the Navy and the families of the victims.

The Reagan administration regards the tragedy as an accident. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent a message to President Reagan calling the attack "grievous and unintentional." Iraqi officials have agreed to let the U.S. investigators interview the pilot and the Iraqi military officers who ordered the mission, The New York Times reported today. U.S. officials told the newspaper the An Iranian official tells US to pull out NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) A senior Iranian official today warned the United States to pull its forces out of the Persian Gulf "before it faces more problems." Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Hussein Sheik-holeslam, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs as saying, "The U.S.

presence will lead to the possibility of clashes that will have unpredictable results." "It is be better for the United States to pull out of the Gulf, before it faces more problems," he was quoted as saying. IRNA, monitored here, said Sheik-holeslam, who is visiting China, was addressing a press conference in Beijing. It quoted him as saying he believes Sunday's Iraqi missile attack on the U.S. frigate Stark, which killed 37 crewmen, was premeditated. Iraq says the attack was inadvertent.

i i I 1 1 i i i -rYr i I i i i 'IV 1 mm. SARAGOSA, Texas (AP) A tornado that swept down with little warning flattened this tiny town, killing at least 29 people, many of them children at a pre-school graduation, authorities said. More than 110 people were injured Friday night, said state Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike Cox' in Austin. "They're still bringing people out of the building, live and dead. They're using dogs," Reeves County jailer Ja-nie Rodriguez said early today in Pecos, about 35 miles northeast of here.

"The town is completely gone." Moments before the twister struck this west Texas farm town around 8 p.m., parents frantically pulled their children from the stage of the community hall where the graduation was taking place and shoved them under tables and benches, a witness said. Authorities said the death toll was Townspeople huddled near rescue trucks, awaiting word on the fate of relatives and friends in this town of about 180 people. Cars lay crumpled along the buckled guardrails of Texas 17.. "You could just see gray and then you could hear just kind of like a whistle sound like a vacuum" cleaner, said Salvador Carrera, 22. Then there were sounds like explosions "and roofs were coming down." About 100 people were inside the community hall when the tornado leveled the building, according to Jose Rodriguez, who said he was attending the ceremony for pre-kindergarten youngsters in a government Head Start program.

"A parent yelled a tornado was coming, and parents started grabbing their kids from the stage," said Elo-dia Garcia, 26. "They told us to take cover, then 10 XI I. (AF photo) night. A preschool Will? the windows started shattering, the walls started coming down. It fell on us, but the Lord was with us," Ms.

Garcia said. Ms. Garcia and her 6-year-old daughter, mother and father sustained only minor injuries. She said they were pulled from the rubble by volunteers. Hospitals in Pecos, Fort Stockton, Monahans and Odessa said 108 injured people arrived for treatment.

"The hospital at Pecos is all beyond capacity," said Russ Kyler, assistant administrator at Medical Center Hospital in Odessa about 70 miles from here. "The helicopters are trying to get in here, but the weather is so bad that they can't cpme in." The tornado came from one of a series of intense thunderstorms that drenched the western portion of the south Plains. ''ml. i .11: u. 'mum -im 4m but the coach didn't call i xJi County Nome panel will buy back carpet Saturday Memorial Day will provide a long weekend for many.

It will also give people an opportunity to pay homage to those who died in service to their country. Services are set in area communities. Following wreath laying ceremonies, services will be at 10:30 a.m. at Pfiffner-Pioneer Park in Stevens Point. An 11 a.m.

ceremony at Memorial Park in Plover will follow ceremonies at St. Bronislava Cemetery and Plover Cemetery. Low flows in the Wisconsin River are a concern to some area paper mills. See a story in Local News, page 2. What do the executive directors of the state's public and private school athletic associations think about merging the two bodies? Sports reporter Jim Krueger asked that question Friday.

See Sports, page 9, for a story. (Journal photo by Doug Wojdk) to upper 60s 29, but Reeves County Sheriff Raoul Florez said, without elaborating, that it was likely to rise to 37. Pecos Police Chief Ed Krevit said one of his officers at the scene said many of the dead were trapped inside the hall. DPS spokesman David Wells said there could be more dead in the fields but that rescuers initially were hampered by bad weather and darkness. Saragosa was without power and the roads were impassable, Cox said.

A school bus was converted into a morgue. "There is no structure left in town," said Wells. "The stone building was filled with 5-year-olds and their parents attending the ceremony." Rescue workers, their way lit only by mining helmets, worked in the dark early today, packing through the rubble of homes for victims. The bid then was more than $1,000, Samardich said, so he recommended delaying the purchase until a better price could be found. "I'm sick and tired of this," Murphy said.

"We didn't send George to look at this carpet and the carpet people didn't come up here and take us out lunch." Rather, he said, the county was saved $750. There was "no financial gain for George Samardich none whatsoever," Samardich said. Forty yards of carpet is of no use in his home, Samardich said, because he needs a full 100 yards for his lower level. It seems that some people don't care how much a purchase is, as long as it's "done by the books," Murphy said. "The county cant have it both ways," he said.

Instead, Samardich said, it would be possible to purchase a geriatric chair with the money that was saved on carpeting. The committee said it would buy the additional 40 yards of carpet from Samardich for use in the social work and dietary offices, pending approval from the appropriate county officials. If the county didn't want the carpeting, a nurse at the County Home has offered to buy it, Samardich said. Samardich paid for the 100 yards with a personal check, and the county later reimbursed him for its 60 yards. If it buys the carpet, Samardich will be paid for the additional 40 yards, the committee said.

U1C vuuiuuuee saiu. (see carpet page 3) Lows in the wm mm mm i mm I i V-. S-r I 'i I i The Portage County Home Committee said Friday that it wants to end the carpet controversy by buying nearly 40 yards of carpet from istrator George Samardich. Samardich and the committee came under fire recently when committee members allowed him to purchase 100 yards of carpet from a firm in Dalton, Ga. Sixty yards were intended for use at the County' Home and 40 yards were intended for Samardich's personal use.

The carpet cost $3.99 a yard about $1 a yard less that the usual price because a full 100 yards was purchased. Samardich has said that he added his own 40 yards to the order so that the county would get the best possible price. The county's cost was about $235. Without the discount, the county would have paid an additional $60 and Samardich would have paid an additional $40. The county has a personnel policy which forbids a county employee from using his or her office for personal financial gain.

Jeff Murphy, committee member, said he and the committee chairman John Wierzba Jr. must take responsibility for the controversy because both authorized the purchase. "I don't figure I was elected to waste money," Murphy said. Samardich played tape-recorded minutes and a typed transcript that showed that Claude Skibba, committee chairman at the time, directed Samar dich to develop cost estimates for the i cost estimates for the Partly cloudy carpet M. I i man i -t -fc A WOODCHUCK that may have entertained dreams of a Schools Athletic Association baseball tournament at Bukolf kept their distance as the little critter scampered across the baseball career livened up the Wisconsin Independent Park Friday.

Members of the Lakeside Lutheran team field. It later settled in the La Crosse Aquinas dugout. The animal could nio uinmui wuiu mum, uui ins tuutn uiun i ran on ii iu pin.ii. I upper sunny and warmer in the mid chuck, on it to pitch..