The Clarksdale Press Register from Clarksdale, Mississippi • 5

The Clarksdale Press Register. TUESDAY. December 31. 1996. Page 5A Fordice on road to recovery; wants to work Interstate 55 near Tillatobia, flipped several times and caught fire.

Fordice was rescued by passersby. Don Taylor, executive director of the state Department of Human Services, said he saw Fordice this week in his office in the Sillers State Office Building. Taylor said Fordice was in good spirits and mentally sharp. imirnniMiimriniiiinii i ttv nm Capital murder suspect nabbed in Tennessee "He was moving very carefully, and there were still some problems with his breathing. He had to catch his breath during long sentences." State Auditor Phil Bryant.

FULTON, Miss. (AP) An Itawamba County capital murder suspect, who escaped in August, has been recaptured in a small Tennessee town. Michael Wayne Wilburn, 31, who escaped from the Itawamba County Jail on Aug. 15, was arrested Monday in Eva, Tenn. The FBI and Tennessee Bureau of Investigations made the arrest near Jackson, said Itawamba County Sheriff Leon Hayes.

Wilburn is charged in the February shooting death and robbery of Lila Jean Hood of the Ratliff community. Hood had been missing for two days when her body was found with multiple gunshot wounds on Feb. 14 in a wooded area in the southern part of Itawamba County on Barrett Road. Mississippi philanthropist shines on Letterman Show Members of the Clarksdale Exchange Club (from left) David Weeks, Grant McAlexander, Pat Peay, Charles Myers and Leon Ainsworth present some of the approximately 50 gifts donated bv members at their recent Christmas party for distribution to abused children in the area. The collection supported the club's national project, which is the prevention of child abuse.

-Photo submitted nuclear plant good "He's still wearing a back brace, and he's lost a lot of weight, but he's looking better. His voice is still husky, but I thought overall he looked very well," Taylor said. Fordice is still undergoing physical therapy for injuries that included broken ribs, a broken left shoulder blade and collarbone and a broken vertebrae. Wilburn had worked for Mrs. Hood and her husband Lewis Hood at Parkway Building System.

He had left that job at tne end of 1995. Wilburn won't go back to the Itawamba County Jail, Hayes said. He is being held at a maximum security facility in Mississippi while he awaits trial to avoid any future escape attempts. Hayes would not name the facility, citing security reasons. Wilburn had apparently been living in Jackson, Tenn.

and working for a small construction company building houses, Hayes said. Wilburn had been featured on the "Unsolved Mysteries" television program in November. Square just before midnight Tuesday, dropping the ball that signals the dawn of 1997. She kept her comments brief, but giggled at Letterman's good-natured joking. And she earned a few laughs herself.

UkTotisfkd Lady Visa, AfC Am.Ex. 9 AM TO 5 PM 9 AM TO 5 PM 9 AM TO 5 PM sun i 9 AM TO 5 PM 9 AM TO 6 PM 9 AM TO 6 PM CLOSED Refunds, VlSC. Exchanges "He was moving very care fully, and there were still some problems with his breathing. He had to catch his breath during long sentences," said Bryant Fordice, 62, has had no public appearances since his release from the University Medical Center in Jackson on Nov. 29, more than four weeks after his 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee left prove his critics.

"I felt the first bad game, especially against an average team, they're going to rip me," he said. "But I remember when I came back from the Menninger Clinic I said, 'Look, you guys can say what you want to say, but if you don't believe in me, lay your money on the line and bet against "And nobody did." Unit 2 reactor unless another company pays the bill. But since June, Unit 1 has reached a capacity of 85 percent That's far ahead of the industry average of 65 percent for first-year plants. Unit 1 operated for 117 straight days until a scheduled outage this fall and has operated for 74 days continuously since then. Watts Bar has had no unscheduled stops since the original startup.

"Our challenge now is to improve on this excellent level of performance while maintaining our commitment to lead the industry in safety, reliability and competitiveness," Site Vice President John Scalice told The Chattanooga Times. The NRC, which will detail its review Jan. 7 at the plant near Spring City, said Watts Bar workers carefully planned and handled the power start-up program this spring. The plant's only weaknesses were for configuration controls, attention to detail and some procedural problems. JACKSON, Miss.

(AP) Gov. Kirk Fordice, recovering from a near-fatal Nov. 5 auto crash, is stepping up his work schedule as he prepares for the 1997 legislative session, an aide said Tuesday. "He is doing very well," said spokesman Heath Hall. "He is working a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon.

He is meeting with key advisors." Judge to retire in January JACKSON, Miss. (AP) --The first chief judge of Mississippi's young Court of Appeals says he will be stepping down Jan. 31, nearly six years before his term is scheduled to expire. "In January I will complete 45 years of public service. On Aug.

10 of this year I celebrated my 71st birthday. The time has come for me to retire," Chief Judge John J. Fraiser Jr. of Greenwood said Monday in a letter announcing his retirement. Gov.

Kirk Fordice will appoint a replacement for Fraiser from the 2nd Congressional District to serve until the next general election in November 1998. The winner of that election will serve until Fraiser's term expires on Jan. 1,2003. Supreme Court Chief Justice Dan M. Lee, who along with Fordice and others were sent copies of the resignation letter, will select a new chief judge for the appeals panel.

The new chief judge could be one of the nine current judges or the person Fordice chooses to fill Fraiser's vacancy. There are two Court of Appeals judges from each of the five congressional districts. The chief judge's salary is $86,800. Other Court of Appeals judges are paid $84,000 a year. The two-year-old Court of Appeals was created by the Legislature to help relieve a backlog of cases awaiting action in the state Supreme Court.

Fraiser, a former state legislator, served 312 years as a magistrate with the state Supreme Court, helping justices handle a heavy load of cases before the Court of Appeals was created. Judge Leslie King of Greenville, the other Court of Appeals judge from the 2nd District, said Fraiser's age and experience made him "probably the perfect person to serve as the first chief judge." "Those things tend to temper you and settle you down," King said. State Court Administrator Steve Kirchmayr said Fraiser was able to get the Court of Appeals "up and going and has done an excellent job in making the court as productive as it is." In his resignation letter, Fraiser said he is leaving the court "with the knowledge and satisfaction that it is well entrenched as a viable part of our judicial system. I appreciate the confidence reposed in me, as well as the assistance and cooperation of all three governmental branches in producing this desired result." Other officials who seen the governor in recent days say he is upbeat and anxious to assume more of his duties. However, they say Fordice docs appear physically tired.

State Auditor Phil Bryant, who saw the governor during an invitation-only Dec. 18 Christmas party, said Fordicc's appearance was limited to brief remarks. 'I; 4 mtr Christmas vin lomiao Cheer Review of CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, the country's most expeasive, has received favorable marks in its first major review by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. That was good news to the Tennessee Valley Authority, which started Watts Bar's Unit 1 reactor in May after spending $7 billion and 23 years in construction.

"In the first year of operation, Watts Bar has become a top performer in the nuclear industry," TVA Chairman Craven Crowell said Monday. The NRC evaluation gave Watts Bar top marks for engineering and maintenance and "good" ratings for plant operations and plant support following a one-year review that began in November 1995. Watts Bar's ratings from the NRC exceeded the average for all 110 nuclear reactors in the country and were among the most favorable of those for new plants. "An effective transition was made from construction phase to full unit operation," said Stewart Ebncter, regional administrator for the NRC in Atlanta. "Management support and oversight of day-to-day operations have been excellent." Construction problems made Watts Bar one of the nation's most watched nuclear plants and the most expensive.

Concerns over equipment and design flaws forced TVA to spend 10 years verifying the plant's equipment and modifying systems to meet new NRC standards. TVA has since canceled plans to operate Watts Bar's said, if there was ever a convinc- SILVER OLYMPIC COI GIVE-AWAY NEW YORK (AP) Dave did most of the talking, but Oseola shone anyway. Hattiesburg, Miss, philanthropist Oseola McCarty, in the Big Apple to drop the Big Ball on New Year's Eve, dropped by the set of "Late Night With David Letterman" Monday night for a brief chat. Calling her a "truly remarkable woman," the normally caustic comedian was uncharacteristically gentle with the 88-year-old former laundress, who donated much of her hard-earned savings $150,000 to set up scholarships at the University of Southern Mississippi. Miss McCarty is scheduled to flip the switch in Times "ln the first year of operation, Watts Bar has become a top performer in the nuclear industry." TVA Chairman Craven Crowell ing point in the season, this should be it," Favre said.

Yet, Favre still had his doubts, if not his doubters. "With Elway not playing, even though it wouldn't have mattered if he would have played OK, give them three more touchdowns, we still beat them by twice the amount I said, people are going to say, 'Well, just because he didn't play. That just shows how valuable to the team he is when he doesn't "I knew the reality of that was it didn't matter if he played or not," Favre said. Winning the award again, Favre said, "was like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders." He said he overextended himself last offseason on the banquet circuit, and when "I went to Topeka it kind of threw all these linchpins in." "It was people tugging here and there, telling what I'd lost, and God, how I went from the penthouse to the outhouse that quickly," Favre said. "So, it was like: I got to win the MVP or get our team to the Super Bowl just to get over that.

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