Pensacola News Journal from Pensacola, Florida • 1

OOVEH EGLiri A7 SAaOQDAY'S HOUSE, 1B PENSACOLA scute cap Citizens Peoples Bank chairman Lewis Doman says the 95-year-old will keep its name, 5B TATE CRUISES TO PLAYOFFS The Aggies' 11-1 victory over Woodham puts Tate in the state high school baseball playoffs, 1 film 35t Pensacola, Florida Friday, April 22, 1988 Escambia Santa Rosa 7 1 oiuu I oannen Newspaper WEATHER Poll Dukakis-Bush race a toss-up about even with Bush, 45 percent for Dukakis to 43 percent for Bush. The poll's margin of error is 3.3 percent, so no clear lead is established. But if Jackson were Dukakis' vice-presidential choice, Bush would fare better, leading that duo 49 percent to 42 percent. The poll conducted by Gordon S. Black Corp.

for Gannett News Service-USA TODAY-CNN was taken nationwide Wednesday and Thursday. Political experts caution that the actual election is too far off to draw any sweeping conclusions about Dukakis' chances against Bush. "Dukakis is more in the public eye right now than George Bush, and people may be reacting to that," said Brian Lunde, a Democratic political consultant. Though the poll was taken in the wake of Tuesday's pivotal New York primary, Dukakis got no apparent boost from his big win there. A similar poll taken two weeks ago showed Dukakis beating Bush, 48 percent to 43 percent.

Dukakis, who is now the clear Demo- Gore quits campaign, 4A By Gannett News Service WASHINGTON Democrat Michael Dukakis would run neck and neck with Republican George Bush if the presidential election were held today, but Jesse Jackson would hurt Dukakis' chances if he were the running mate, a new poll released Thursday shows. The telephone poll of 900 registered voters nationwide found Dukakis with no running mate specified running CLOSE ENCOUNTERS liiliiiSillBiiiRB Jerry KovachNews Journal Navy Capt. Steve McDermaid, commander of Training Wing Five at Whiting Field, said officials hope a new collision warning system being developed by an Indiana firm will reduce the chances of mid-air mishaps. Near-collisions haunt Navy planes flirt with mid-air disaster at alarming rate Partly sunny skies High 80s. Low 60s.

Weather on back this section SHORT TAKES House passes trade bill with veto-proof cushion WASHINGTON (AP) The House passed a sweeping trade bill Thursday as supporters of the hotly disputed measure piled up enough votes to override a veto threatened by President Reagan. "Our future isn't in the past," House Speaker Jim Wright declared as he fought back a move to stall the bill and drop a plant-closings provision that Reagan said he would not approve. "We can regain our competitiveness. We can be No.l again." Bill goes to Senate, 5B. Marine faces spy trial, his Shiite captors say BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) The pro-Iranian kidnappers of Lt.

Col. William R. Higgins said Thursday the Marine officer will be tried on charges of spying for the United States. Higgins, 43, of Danville, was serving with a U.N. observer group in south Lebanon when he was abducted by gunmen Feb.

17 near the ancient port of Tyre, 50 miles south of Beirut. The Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, a Shiite Moslem group, announced Higgins' trial three days after a Christian-run radio station claimed Higgins had been killed during clashes between pro-Syrian and Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Thursday's Arabic statement was attached to a photograph of Higgins, apparently to prove authenticity. Legislator yanks his bill once he understands it TALLAHASSEE (AP) State Rep. Dick Locke's jaw dropped when he was told that he had introduced a bill that would wipe out a law requiring smoke detectors and sprinklers in many hotels over three stories high.

"Are you kidding?" Locke exclaimed as a St. Petersburg Times reporter explained the bill to him. Locke said he introduced it at the request of Panama City lobbyist-hotel owner Charlie Hilton but he didn't understand what the measure would do. Now that he does, "It ain't going nowhere," Locke said. Florida's firefighters and the State Department of Insurance objected to the bill for safety reasons.

More legislative news, 4B New lawyers face test of basic legal skills TALLAHASSEE AP) New lawyers admitted to the Florida Bar on or after Oct. 1 will have to take a basic skills course, the Supreme Court ordered Thursday in a 5-2 decision. The Bar's Young Lawyers Division has offered the voluntary Bridge-The-Gap course, taught by experienced attorneys and judges, the past 13 years. It becomes mandatory unless new lawyers obtain exemptions from the Supreme Court. The majority opinion said the course will assure the public that attorneys have a working grasp of basic legal skills.

The course covers ethics and gives new lawyers practical guidance for interviewing clients, setting fees, conducting civil trials, collecting judgments, and real estate closings. American student wins world-class Bible Quiz JERUSALEM (AP) After a two-hour, tension-filled battle punctuated with rhythmic chants from the sidelines the annual International Bible Quiz had its first American victor in 15 years. Jeremy Weider, 17, of Yeshiva University in New York, won the quiz, akin to the Super Bowl of Old Testament scholarship for the hundreds of Jewish teen-agers who come from around the world for the contest on Israel's Independence Day. "I studied so hard for this. Two hours of Bible reading every day for seven months," he said.

IfiDEX Ann Landers 2D Bridge 6D 14E Markets 6-7B Money 5B Movies 10-12E cratic front-runner, is under growing pressure to accept or reject Jackson as his running mate. Jackson's backers say the civil rights leader would be the "natural" choice if he finishes in second place to Dukakis in the primaries. But Dukakis and party leaders say it isn't necessarily so. Democratic National Committee Chair-; man Paul Kirk said a Dukakis-Jackson ticket is unlikely, predicting the vice! presidential nominee would be "a senator from the South or Southwest." Expert still calls UFO hoax Original assessment based on faulty data By Dave Richardson News Journal A Maryland investigator now says bad information led him to brand photos of UFO sighting in Gulf Breeze a hoax. -1 But he still thinks the sightings were fake.

Ray Stanford, director of Project Starlight International, a private organization in College Park, that gathers scientific data on unidentified flying objects, said Wednesday he doubted the photos were taken on the day claimed. "If I am wrong, I will completely resign from this field," Stanford said at the time. But on Thursday, Stanford said a National Weather Service technician had given him wrong times for wind direction figures. The figures led him to say that the UFO photos reportedly taken Nov. 11 in Gulf Breeze probably were fabricated because of the direction clouds moved in the series of the pictures.

But after Donald Ware, state director for MUFON, passed on the Mutual UFO Network's calculations, Stanford changed his mind. "I am now convinced that the pictures were in fact taken on that Wednesday," Stanford said. Ware, of Fort Walton Beach, has been a leader in investigating the Gulf Breeze case. Even though he had some wrong information, Stanford still questions the photos. "If I were a betting man, I would bet 1,000 to 1 the pictures are not real," Stanford said.

UFO reports in Gulf Breeze have been the subject of controversy and research since photos taken by an anonymous businessman, known as "Jim," first were published last year in the Gulf Breeze Sentinel. Jim told the News Journal Thursday that Stanford had called him to apologize for stating the photos were incorrect. See INVESTIGATOR, 14A Tension over the issue of the Confederate flag surfaced Feb. 2, when 14 Alabama legislators, all black, were arrested in a symbolic attempt at removing the flag from the Alabama Capitol. They were led by state Rep.

Thomas Reed, state NAACP president. In North Carolina, Gov. James Martin this week ordered that license plates bearing the flag not be sold. "We are not trying to revise history, nor are we trying to forget history," said Earl Shinhoster, the NAACP's Southeast regional director. Gannett newspapers or TV stations in Knoxville, Shreveport, Hat-tiesburg and Jackson, Little Rock, Jackson, Gainesville, Greensboro, N.C.; and Pensacola, Melbourne, and Fort Myers helped with the survey.

without the consent of the city. He said he felt confident that the city would not want to use that flag. Proctor said the battle flag does not fly in front of City Hall. In its place, the Confederate States of America flag flies as part of the city's Five Hags display. He said the city also flies an All-America City flag and a Bicentenial flag at City Hall.

Whiting T-34 pilots By Elizabeth Donovan News Journal WHITING FIELD An average of one T-34C training aircraft a week from Whiting Field narrowly avoids colliding with another aircraft in Northwest Florida, Whiting officials said. Since January, 11 near mid-air collisions involved T-34C planes, said Lt. Cmdr. Jack Winston, aviation safety officer for Training Air Wing Five, Whiting squadrons' parent command. Near midair collisions are recorded whenever an aircraft unexpectedly comes within 500 feet of another plane, causing one pilot to take evasive action, Winston said Thursday at Whiting.

At least four of the near collisions involved the single-engine T-34C turbo-props and small civilian aircraft, according to records kept by the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va. The Pensacola News Journal obtained data from the Navy's safety center under the Freedom of Information Act. That data showed the closest near collision on record this year occurred Feb. 16, when a small forestry aircraft came within 75 feet of a T-34C. But Navy officials say near mid-air collisions have declined since 1985, when 76 were recorded.

In 1986, there battle flag hold for you? The response: Of the 4,912 Southerners who called the hot line, 4,353 or 88 percent said the flag of the Confederacy should be left alone. Onlv 559 or 12 percent THE SOUTH SPEAKS OUT Southerners rally 'round the Rebel flag were 45 near mid-air collisions, while last year there were 61, Winston said. Capt. Steven McDermaid, commanding officer of Training Air Wing Five, said that the Navy has hired Foster Air Data of Indianapolis to design a new collision warning system for the T-34C. The system may be ready to test next year, and if successful, may be installed inallT-34Cs.

The system consists of an on-board radar receiver that gives pilots visual and oral warnings whenever they're near another aircraft, Winston said. But even if the new system is See WHITING, 14A Many also say it evokes memories of the Civil War and a divided country. "Having the Confederate flag flying in the United States is an embarrassment," said David Dixon of Knoxville, Tenn. "The war is over and let's get on with the future," said Laura Gonzalez of Rockledge, Fla. Barbara Daugherty didn't feel that way.

"It's our heritage, it's our history," said Daugherty, of Gainesville, Ga. The NAACP has mounted a drive to get the Confederate flag banned from capitols in Alabama and South Carolina and from the design of state flags in Georgia and Mississippi. 13 1 By Kevin Ellis Gannett News Service WASHINGTON The verdict is in: Long live the Confederate battle flag. That's the overwhelming message from people in seven Southern states who called a Gannett News Service hot line Sunday through Wednesday to say that the Confederate flag should be allowed to fly over state capitols and state buildings. The hot line was prompted by the increasing controversy over a drive by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to ban the Confederate flag from state buildings.

The questions, asked by Gannett newspapers and television stations: Do you think the flag should or should not fly over publicly owned buildings? What significance does the Confederate said the flag should be banned. The hot line was not conducted as a scientific sampling and does not necessarily reflect the views of the people of the region. "I see the Confederate flag, and I don't see slavery," said Jerry Spates of Booneville, Ark. "I see a way of living, something that people can be proud of." But others feel the flag is a symbol of racism and injustice toward blacks and is used by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council. the Secretary of State's office.

In fact, Florida flies five flags in the plaza between the Capitol and the Supreme Court building the state flag, the Confederate flag, and flags from Great Britain, France and Spain. Each banner represents a government that has ruled over Florida at some time in the state's history, Adams said. The Confederate flag is there as a Confederate flag flies as part of fivefold history historical thing rather than a political statement," Adams said. In Pensacola, in the median of Gregory Street, just north of the Pensacola Bay Bridge, flies the controversial Confederate battle flag. The flag is part of a display welcoming visitors to Pensacola the City of Five Flags.

Carlton Proctor, city public information officer, said the flag is being flown By Betty Price Parker Gannett News Service TALLAHASSEE The Confederate flag at Florida's Capitol flies alongside several other flags, all representing a part of state history, state officials said. "If there's been any protests or controversy about the flag, I haven't heard about it," said David Adams of Obituaries 2B Opinion 1 2-1 3A Scoreboard 2C Sports 1C Television 7D Weekender 1 Comics. Crossword 6C-7D Horoscope 2D Life ID Local 1 1988 Gannett Inc..