Pensacola News Journal from Pensacola, Florida • 17

Charles Davis, left, of Cantonment, won a new $15,000 Regal automobile in the -www- News Journal nationwide Buick Open sweepstakes, 6B is r- No tax increase for Escambia County 2B i To report a Local story: 435-8561 Pensacola, Florida Friday, September 9, 1 988 Tv liMii lulu ir BRIEFLY Seely Ex-opponents line up behind By Mark O'Brien News Journal jobs before they run against an incumbent sheriff. NeSmith said Seely made the unsolicited offer hen he called the sheriff after the election and asked if he could join the department's auxiliary, which helps deputies and works as security guards. In the election, Seely finished second to Odie Eddins, superintendent of the county's Department of Corrections'. The two will have a run-off election Oct. 4.

The winner will face the Republican nominee, will feel the job offer is a political gambit; but he said Seely never even asked for his vote. tr "He was very gracious," said NeSmith', who said Seely told him he had a right to run for office. He said Seely expressed no animosity about the campaign, in which NeSmith had criticized the sheriffs ad-" ministration. NeSmith said he hadn't planned See FORMER OPPONENTS, 2B Charlie Johnson, on Nov. 8.

Seely picked up endorsements Thursday from Henry Lewis, who lost the Republican nomination to Johnson, and from E.J. Hudson, who finished last in the six-way race for the Democratic nomination. Seely earlier was endorsed by another defeated Democrat, Steve Roberts. NeSmith, who has two sons in college, said Seely 's offer "caught me off guard," but he will accept it. He predicted people I i.

1 1 3 Sheriff Vince Seely picked up endorsements from former opponents Thursday, and a former rival said he will be rehired by the sheriffs department. Don NeSmith, who finished third in Tuesday's primary election, said Seely had offered to rehire him. NeSmith, 52, had retired as a lieutenant from the sheriffs department in July because Florida law requires deputies to quit their Hollywood in search of UFOs 'Unsolved Mysteries' films in Gulf Breeze By Michael Burke and Dave Richardson News Journal The television show "Unsolved Mysteries, with Robert Stack as host, will feature the Gulf Breeze UFO sightings in its season-opening program Oct. 5. Stack is scheduled to tape part of the program Saturday beginning at 5:30 p.m.

rom Shoreline Park South in Gulf Breeze. He will talk with area residents who have reported seeing unexplained objects in the sky. The Gulf Breeze segment of the show is largely based on experiences of a Gulf Breeze businessman, known as Jim, who reported seeing and photographing UFOs beginning last November. Jim took 37 photographs with a variety of cameras during about a dozen different sightings. Some students of UFOs claimed the photos were faked.

However, scientists who studied them have failed to turn up evidence of fakery. A television camera crew filmed in Gulf Breeze from Aug. 10-14 to recreate the experiences, including the blue beam of light that Jim said froze him, lifted him off the ground and then dropped him on he road. Jim believes he was taken by aliens, examined, then returned. Although he has not had a sighting since May 1, another couple has.

Dr. C. Fenner McConnell, Escambia County medical examiner, and his wife saw an object in the sky around 4:30 a.m. July 5. McConnell said he was preparing to go jogging when he saw what looked like an airplane with bright landing lights.

It was over the water on the south side of the peninsula. "It looked like sort of a disc-shaped object with a lot of windows in it, and it was shining its light down on our pier. Then it disappeared over toward the Navy Base." He said the object had no wings and made no noise. In the TV show, Santa Rosa County Commissioner David Kessler will play the part of Jim. Kessler, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and now a professional photographer and artist, was one of 12 who auditioned for the part through a local modeling agency.

To recreate the scene where Jim was lifted by the beam, Kessler said he had to do slow chin-ups about 15 of them while they filmed his feet, then do deep squats while they photographed his head. See TELEVISION, 2B Lawyers clash with Navy judge By Craig Cairns News Journal Sparks flew Thursday in the court-mar-' tial of Navy Petty Officer Michael Combe, with defense lawyers unsuccessfully moving for a mistrial. Defense lawyers clashed with military judge Cmdr. Newell Krogmann over decision to allow a Navy forensic patholo- gist to testify that the March 2 death of Airman Recruit Lee Mirecki was homicide. Combe, 28, a former instructor at the Navy Rescue Swimmer School, is charge with involuntary manslaughter, batter and conspiracy to commit battery in the training death of Mirecki, 19, of Appleton, Wis.

Mirecki's fellow students testified that! t' instructors dragged Mirecki against his will into the pool at Pensacola Naval Air Station, where he suffered a fear-induced heart attack and drowned after Combe' -held his head under water. Thursday, prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Larry Wynne calied pathologist Dr. Delroy Hire to testify about the cause and manner of Mirecki's death.

Hire performed the autopsy on Mirecki's body. Out of the jury's presence, Hire said he believed Mirecki's death was a homicide. 4 He said he based his opinion on his autopsy, statements from Mirecki's class-' mates and a medical history that Mirecki; had a phobia about being pulled under water. Defense lawyer Bill Wiltshire objected to the use of the word "homicide." He said the manner of death was a legal question, Hire was not qualified to answer. When Krogmann overruled that objecv tion, Wiltshire moved for a mistrial.

"The grounds would be that you're allowing this doctor to testify crime was committed in that pool, Jnd Petty Officer Combe is the only one on trial," Wiltshire said. "The motion for mistrial is not granted. It is denied," Krogmann replied. With the jury present, Hire said-. Mirecki's medical history and behavior in the school showed he had a phobia.

Hire said he believed the phobia led to Mirecki's panic during a drill called "sharks and daisies." He said the abnor- mal fear caused cardiac arrest and that, Mirecki drowned when he became unconscious in the water. Hire told the jury he believed Mirecki's death was a homicide because it was not "unexpected" given the But he didn't say it was an unlawful homicide. Defense lawyers will have a to cross-examine him today. Charlie SteedNews Journal Florence Hays, a student at Pensacola Junior College, dances with the PJC Pirate Mascot during the junior college's 40th birthday celebration Thursday at the Pensacola campus. Party crowd celebrates PJC's past and future Two-vehicle accident kills Westville motorist DEFUNIAK SPRINGS A Westville resident was killed Thursday morning in a wreck on State Road 83 north of DeFuniak Springs.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a truck driven by Nathan Royce Frymire, 48, of Rt. 3, Box 172, DeFuniak Springs, collided head-on with a car driven by Robert Gordon Ray, 27, of Rt. 2, Box 264, Westville at 6:45 a.m., Frymire, southbound on State Road 83, was attempting to pass a school bus when he drove into the path of Ray's vehicle. The FHP report said both drivers swerved in the same direction and collided on the road's east shoulder. Frymire was taken to Twin Cities Hospital in Niceville.

Charges are pending completion of the traffic homicide investigation. Champion employees spruce up senior center Twenty Champion International employees will volunteer their next two Saturdays to help renovate the Cantonment Senior Center, the western branch of the Escambia County Council on Aging. The volunteers will sand and paint the building, which has received $1,000 in window replacements from Champion. The building, on Mintz Lane, offers programs that attract 330 residents each month, according to John Clark, executive director of the Council on Aging. Leading the clean-up effort was Janet Webb, a Champion employee who also serves on a panel that advises the Council on Aging.

Okaloosa District 3 candidates face run-off With absentee votes counted in the Okaloosa County Commission District 3 on Wednesday, incumbent Commissioner Sam Branson is facing a run-off Oct. 4 with challenger Hugh Adams. Adams, who lost that seat to Branson four years ago, got 5,270 votes to Branson's 7,935, Also-ran Otis Stafford received 3,137 votes.To avoid the run-off, Branson needed 8,172 votes, 237 more than he got Tuesday. Medical center plans auction for Saturday West Florida Regional Medical Center will hold an auction Saturday at the old Rehabilitation Institute, 1750 N. Palafox Pensacola.

Registration will begin at 7 a.m., the auction at 9 a.m. Items to be sold include office furniture, sick room supplies, medical and kitchen equipment. Meeting will discuss Pensacola Bay blueprint The Northwest Florida Water Management District will hold a public hearing at 3 p.m. Tuesday to discuss he Pensacola Bay Area Surface Water Improvement and Management Plan. The plan is mandated by the state and is designed to develop ways to protect surface water from pollution.

The hearing is get public comment on how the plan should be updated. The meeting will be in Room 502 of the Chappie James Building, on Government Street. Seminar steers drivers toward safer motoring GULF BREEZE If you're age 55 or older, you may attend a safe driving seminar sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons. The 55 AliveSafe Driving Seminar, which costs $7, will be held Sept. 27 and Sept.

28, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at St. Ann's Catholic Church, 100 Daniels Drive, Gulf Breeze. For reservations, call Linda Johnston, 932-9855. Okaloosa County budget on table at public hearing SI IALIMAR The first of two public hearings on the Okaloosa County Commission's $86.7 million budget will be Monday at the Crestview courthouse.

A second hearing will be Sept. 19 at the Shalimar Courthouse Annex. Wednesday, commissioners learned the county is about $26,000 short, said Stan Schill, county administrative assistant. He said commission meml)ers replaced general fund revenue in the road department budget with gits tax revenue. That money is not local-option gas tax money, but gas tax revenue, he said.

As proposed, the budget calls for an increase in the county's current 3.495 mill ad valorem tax rate, to 3.5 mills. One mill represents a dollar per $1,000 of assessed property value. during the partyat the Pensacola campus. More than 100 were on hand, quick to remember good memories of the school and talk about a future bright with hope. "Our goal is to be a model community college," said Thames.

Clyde Gracey, the mayor of Milton, talked about his granddaughter, who attended PJC. Gracey said she is about to graduate with distinction from a four-year college in Virginia. Without a good start at PJC, she might never have obtained a college education, he said. Gracey was seconded by Pensacola Mayor Vince Whibbs, who said he, his wife and all seven of their children attended PJC. Some of his 21 grandchildren now attend PJC, said Whibbs.

The school also received praise from Gulf Breeze Mayor Ed Gray. "This college is taken for granted, and I take that as a compliment," he said, telling the audience that the community feels "secure" that PJC will always offer low-cost education accessible to everyone. By Mark O'Brien News Journal It was a 40th birthday party, but no one spoke of a mid-life crisis or getting old. Instead, the talk at Thursday's party for Pensacola Junior College was of the school's growth and its impact on the community, which has sent nearly 200,000 people to classes there. The party, with speeches and a 50-pound cake, marked the four decades since PJC opened its doors to 128 students in an old house near downtown Pensacola.

Now it has campuses in Pensacola, Milton and Warrington with nearly 28,000 students and offers courses in everything from forestry and accounting to auto repairs and adult education. "We have much to celebrate," said Gale Thames, chairman of PJC's Board of Trustee's. Horace "Ed" Hartsell, PJC's president since 1980, pointed to the school's many courses and other programs, such as WSRE-TV and a planetarium. "You name it, we have it," he said School Board Construction Funds The Escambia County School Board Thursday night approved $2.9 million in capital improvement funds Reroofing of schools, track for Washington High OK'd Brentwood Elementary renovation plan to be submitted lor renovation and construction projeas across tne district Here's a list of the projects. Board, teachers agree3B fjedDe.sCTiption jCgsJ Brentwood Middle Reroofing $450,000 George Stone Kal-Wall Replacement 180,000 Lincoln Park Elem.

Reroofing 1 00,000 Holm Elera Reroofing 160,000 Goulding Elem. Reroofing 25,000 Jim Allen Elem. Reroofing 190,000 Fuel Tanks 200,000 Portable Classrooms (2) 50,000 Judy Andrews Center Lift Station 1 01 ,000 Brown Barge Middle Media Center 140,000 Wedqewood Middle Reroofing 350,000 Pine Meadow Elem. Property Purchase 300,000 Pine Meadow Elem. Property Purchase 65,000 New Elem.

District 5 Property Purchase 75,000 Escambia High Property Purchase 175,000 Pensacola High Drainage and Paving 75,000 Tate High Gym Renovation A 125,000 Washington High Track and Field 100,000. Warrington Middle Property Purchase 100,000 Total 2.9 million develop a plan for renovation of Brentwood Elementary School. Holloway was asked to submit the plan, including recommendations for funding the renovation, to the board within 90 days. Eggen's motion stated that amendments to the capital outlay budget for 1988-89 will require prior approval of the board. The motion also said the amendments should be submitted to the board on two days' notice and will include description of the project to be funded and of the project from where funds are to be transferred.

It also will include amount of the transfer, reason for requesting the funds transfer, and recommendation for funding the project from which the funds are to be transferred. Eggen said there have been many times that the board did not find out about projects until they were completed and they were asked to give approval. Priority also will be given to the following projects funded in the 1987-88 budget year and deferred to the 1988-89 budget year: Reroolings at Brentwood Middle School and Lincoln Park, Holm and Goulding elementary schools. The board gave unanimous approval to Eggen's proposals. By Cindy West News Journal Six schools will be reroofed and a track will be built at Washington High School through construction projects approved Thursday night by the Escambia County School Board.

The rerooiing and track projects are part of $2.9 million in renovation and construction projects approved by the board for the 1988-89 school year. A total of $10.2 million in districtwide projects are included in this year's budget. At its July meeting, the board had set the $2.9 million aside to receive public input on where parents would like the money spent. The decision to obtain public input was made after parents in the north end of the district objected to how $26 million in lease purchase money for construction projects was appropriated in the spring. Also Thursday, the board gave final approval on the district's $210 million budget for the 1988-89 school year.

Included in the disbursement of the $2.9 million proposed by board member Eric Eggen was a request that Superintendent Mike Holloway C. Dusevitch News Journal.