The Montgomery Advertiser from Montgomery, Alabama • 15

Voices NationWorld Classified 2-3C 4C 5C Montgomery! March 24, 2010 montgomeryadvcrtiser.comalabama UAH SHOOTING Gun used was purchased '20 years ago capital murder case against her was sent to a grand jury, which is not expected to hear it for several months. Looking gaunt and wearing a red jail jump suit, the handcuffed Bishop made no comment. The 45-year-old Harvard-educated biologist was arrested shortly after the shooting. The gun was found in a bathroom trash can a floor below the faculty conference room, with Bishop's bloodied red-and-black plaid coat on top of it, according to testimony. During the hearing, Gray testified that the gun used in the shooting was purchased in 1989 for Bishop's husband, James ing in Massachusetts, asked him to buy the gun because Anderson was having problems with a neighbor and New Hamp-.

shire didn't have a waiting period for gun purchases. Anderson was not in the courtroom for the hearing. He previously told The Associated Press that he knew about the gun and joined Bishop in target practice. Anderson declined to comment when reached at the family's home Tuesday aftenoon. A message left on what was believed to be Proulx's Face-book account wasn't immediately returned.

Proulx's father, Donald Proulx said his son lives in Florida but he doesn't know where or how to reach him. He told the AP on Tuesday that he met Bishop's husband "a couple of times, that's it. I have no relationship with him." Gun Page SC City moves forward with office park HUNTSVILLE The Huntsville City Council held a special session Tuesday to introduce a development agreement for a proposed $1 billion office park serving Redstone Arsenal. The massive business park has been in the works since 2006. It would contain 4 million square feet of office, classroom, research and conference space for Army employees and defense contractors.

It will transform what is now an empty field near the arsenal's busy Gate 9 on Rideout Road. The park's developer, LW Redstone, would finance things like access roads, water lines, sidewalks and streetlights by purchasing a $76 million municipal bond from the city. Bond money would also be used to relocate the Gate 9 visitors center and an electric substation. The City Council could vote on the development deal at its meeting Thursday. AP Eric Schultz AP By Desiree Hunter The Associated Presi HUNTSVILLE The gun used to kill three people during a faculty meeting at an Alabama school was bought for the suspect's husband two decades ago when he said he was having problems with a neighbor, an investigator testified Tuesday.

The investigator told a judge that an acquaintance bought the gun in New Hampshire for Amy Bishop's husband to skirt a waiting period where the couple lived in Massachusetts. Huntsville police investigator Charlie Gray also testified that Bishop denied to officers that she had anything to do with the rampage at a biology department faculty meeting Feb. 12, which also wounded three others. Bishop, making her first court appearance, was denied bond during a brief hearing. The iiilTk! hJ 1 Amy Bishop looks to the back of the courtroom during a preliminary hearing Tuesday at the Madison County Courthouse.

Funds secured for restoration of Gvil War general's home By Deangelo McDaniel The Decatur Daily POND SPRING After years of lobbying and planning, the Alabama Historical Commis sion finally has enough money to restore Gen. Joseph Wheeler's home. And if everything goes as planned, it's possible the nearly home will re open to the public some time in late 2011. "We're in the final design phase now, and we're advertising for construction bids," said Mark Driscoll, the commission's director of historic sites. The money the state is using to restore the home totals a little more than $2.1 million and is coming from four sources: $469,899 in conservation bonds; $400,000 in education bonds; $200,000 from the Friends of General Joe Wheeler Foundation; and $710,000 in commission money.

Driscoll said there is an allowance in the bid package that includes returning the more than 30,000 pieces in the Wheeler Home collection to the site. Those items have been at an undisclosed location since restoration started. Driscoll said the state will be able to pin down a more definitive date for reopening the home after bids are opened in four to six weeks. The state was able to save a significant amount of money by using labor through Alabama Alvin Benn Special to the Advertiser Jim Mehornay of Montgomery was a Navy corpsman who helped save many lives on Iwo Jima. WWII veteran: Til always be a Marine' Anderson, by a man in New Hampshire identified as Donald Proulx.

He said Proulx told federal agents that he believed he purchased it in Troy, N.H. Gray said Proulx told federal agents Anderson, who was liv i 0 til Al Benn's Alabama cian or gunner's mate, was assigned to corpsman school instead. It wasn't long before he found himself in the thick of things in the South Pacific before landing with the Third Marine Division a few days after the invasion began. "Our division was held in reserve, and we waited to see what was happening on shore," he said, during an interview in the kitchen of his house in east Montgomery. "We soon learned just how bad it was becoming." Corpsmen were trained to concentrate on the wounded and to quickly recognize those they could not help.

"It was a horrible situation," he said. "Morphine helped ease the pain, but some of the wounds were too severe. I knew they were going to die, and I'd move on to those I felt I could keep alive until they got to a hospital ship." Mehornay's diminutive size earned him a nickname that lasted throughout the campaign. Marines called him "The Mole." "I wouldn't ha ve minded being a mole," he laughed. "The best place to survive on Iwo was below ground." Mehornay carried a carbine into combat but said most of the time he kept it slung over his shoulder as he treated the wounded.

Casualties were high among corpsmen, and he counts his blessings that he survived when so many did not After the war, he and his wife, Lucy, raised two daughters 3 Correctional Industries. A 1976 act created ACI, and part of its mission is to "provide meaningful work and vocational training programs for inmates." Driscoll said ACI is certified to deal with lead paint removal. Inmates have been at the site for about a month scraping paint off the home's exterior and replacing deteriorated boards. "We're so excited to have enough money to finally get the home restored," Pond Spring site director Melissa Beasley said. "Right now, we're concentrating on the main house." On April 10, Beasley is inviting volunteers to Pond Spring to help clean the grounds.

The event is part of the Civil War Preservation Trust drive to help clean and restore the nation's battlefields, cemeteries and shrines. Union and Confederate troops fought on the grounds during the Civil War. In June 1864 Confederate Col. Josiah Patterson, of Morgan County, used Pond Spring as his headquarters. Pond Spring is on Alabama 20 between Courtland and Hills-boro.

The state has owned the site since 1993. Because of safety concerns, the state closed the home about four years ago, but it allows scheduled tours of the grounds. Horn Page SC i "We're so excited to have enough money to finally get the home restored. Melissa Beasley site director Ex-city councilman appeals conviction BIRMINGHAM A former Jefferson County commissioner and Birmingham City Coun- cil president sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison for mail and wire fraud this month is appealing. Sixty-two-year-old John Katopodis was sentenced for misusing money earmarked for a children's charity.

Katopodis was also ordered to pay $166,910 in restitution to Jefferson County and to forfeit $162,910. Katopodis' attorney, Rita Briles, filed a notice of appeal late Monday in Birmingham federal court. Katopodis was convicted in July of 97 counts of mail and wire fraud for using money earmarked for Computer Help for Kids to take trips to casinos and to pay off personal credit card debt. Briles, who joined the case after Katopodis' conviction, said she will review the transcript to find issues that can be raised on appeal. AP Fire destroys motorsports store MOBILE Fire officials in Mobile said fire ripped through Hall's Motorsports, melting hundreds of personal watercraft, motorcycles and all- terrain vehicles, and the damage was estimated at more than $1 million.

Mobile Fire-Rescue spokesman Steve Huffman said the fire started about 11:15 a.m. in the ceiling of the store. He said flames quickly engulfed the aluminum and brick building. Huffman said eight fire engines responded to the store, and fighters had to pull back at least once because it looked as if the roof might collapse." Huffman said no one was injured. The cause of the fire was not immediately determined.

AP StateBusiness editor Rick Harmon 261-1583 rharmonQ gannett.com ASU Korcetsnews on your cell phone Text MAH0RNETS to 44636 (4INF0). presented by iLI I I 7S and spoiled four granddaughters. They had been married for 53 years when she died. Mehornay and his second wife, Jean, were married five years ago. Her late husband also served during World Warn.

His love of the Marine Corps remains strong and that feeling is reciprocated by Montgomery area Leathernecks who have always viewed him as a brother in arms. "No man I know of has given more to the Corps than Jim Mehornay said Richard McClain, who directs the local detachment of the Marine Corps League. "A lot of Marines should be as dedicated as he has been." Mehornay is believed to have been the first corpsmen in the country ever elected commandant of a Marine Corps League detachment. He still has the Marine uniform issued to him during World War JJ, and he wore it when he wasn't in fatigues treating those who needed help on Guadalcanal, Guam and I wo Jima. What really makes his day once a month is donning the bright red blazer worn by members of the local Marine Corps League as they gather for a meeting.

This Friday marks the 65th anniversary of securing Iwo Jima, but Jim Mehornay doesn't need a calendar or reminder. It's been part of him every day since the invasion, and painful memories linger of the dead, the dying and the wounded he helped keep alive. Most of all it's his love of the Corps that keeps him going. "I may have been discharged from the Navy, but I'll always be a Marine," he said. Alvin Benn writes about people and places in central and south Alabama.

If you have suggestions for a story, contact him at 875-3249 or e-mail him at benn8071 bellsouth, net yi 5 Jim Mehornay may have enlisted in the Navy, but he became as much a Marine as those whose lives he saved on Iwo Jima. He was a corpsman whose job was to treat the troops. On Iwo, he saved many lives. For others, he knew all he could do was offer comfort. "If you could keep them from going into shock, they had a chance, but I saw so many who were beyond help," said nay, who has never forgotten the horror that surrounded him 65 years ago.

The Iwo Jima invasion began Feb. 19, 1945, and the famous flag raising on Mount Suribachi followed five days later. That was the beginning, not the end. Mehornay, who will be 87 in August, is quick to correct those who think the flag-raising signaled victory. It took another month of fierce fighting often hand-to-hand to secure the little island not far from the Japanese mainland.

By March 26, 1945, most of the 21,000 enemy troops were dead. The Marines had 25,000 wounded with nearly 7,000 killed. Mehornay was one of the wounded, but he didn't bother to report it or head for a hospital. He said it wasn't much more than "a nick." "Somebody yelled, 'Hey, doc, you got hit in the neck, there's blood on your he recalled. "I think I picked up a little piece of shrapnel in my hand and wiped it on my neck." He said he treated himself and moved on to those who were seriously wounded and in need of his help.

"I would have been embarrassed and ashamed to ask for a Purple Heart or anything like that," he said, as he looked at the spot where the shrapnel was lodged. "Too many Marines were in much worse shape. Mine was nothing." Mehornay, a Detroit native who wanted to be a Navy electri- A ft Deangelo McDaniel APThe Decatur Daily Workers from the Alabama Correctional Industries make renovations to Gen. Joseph Wheeler's home at Pond Spring, near Courtland. .1.