Star-Gazette from Elmira, New York • 10

Metro Editor Scott Burgess mm Covering Corning, Painted Post, Erwin and the region. Matt Damon answers questions about his role in "The Talented Mr. Saturday January 29 sburgessstargazette.com 607734-5151 ext. 316 2000 Y7T I AtM In Corning Inc. puts Oak deal to bed EC gives cWIdrem a lesson quisition of E-Tek Dynamics Inc.

by JDS Uniphase Corp. for $15 billion. Corning Inc. Chairman Roger G. Ackerman said that he thinks the consolidation is nearing its end.

"It's hard to imagine much more consolidation in some of this stuff," Ackerman said. "The JDS-E-Tek merger actually creates demand for our products." By LARRY WILSON Star-Gazette Corning Bureau lwilsonstargazette.com CORNING Corning Inc. on Friday completed its acquisition of Oak Industries, a Waltham, producer of optical communications components. Stockholders of Oak Industries voted Friday to approve in lousmess j.ii. i im.iuj.i I vvfl tries they own.

Qirning the Twin Tiers' largest employer, was one of several companies competing to acquire Oak Industries and its Lasertron Division last year. The acquisition is part of a consolidation that began last year and is continuing in 2000 in the optical communications components industry. One of the largest deals in the industry is the pending ac If you go ing roles from game show host to Budgie the Bear. The college students say even young children can benefit from lessons on free enterprise. "It's something you'll need every day the basics of insurance, balancing a checkbook," said senior Dan Johnson, 21, of East Hampton, Conn.

"Schools teach people to write, add and subtract, but they don't always tell how to use those skills." Pre- and post-testing of youngsters who took part in last year's Students In Free Enterprise projects indicated that their comprehension of business concepts increased significantly, in one case by as much as 72 percent. Last year, the Elmira group contacted governors in every state to officially establish a "Teach a Child About Business Day." Twenty-two states responded. This year, a "Teach A Child About Business Week" special competition will award $13,500 to college teams with exceptional projects. Elmira College plans to be a competitor. Its 4-year-old program has won several international awards.

Last year, the team won a special entrepreneur award and was named first runner-up overall, putting it among the top 20 chapters in the world at an annual conference in Kansas City, said college Vice President Tom Ru-tan. This year, the goal is to make the top 10. Students volunteer about 50 hours of their time between September and March to be eligible for competition. And they don't spend all that time SeeBUSINESS4C College program sparks international push to teach kids about commerce. By HEATHER DUNCAN Star-Gazette hduncanstergazeffe.com The Elmira College chapter of Students in Free Enterprise has led a global charge to teach children about the basic principles of business and consumer savvy.

Based on the chapter's initiative, the international Students in Free Enterprise organization has declared Feb. 6 through 12 as "Teach a Child About Business Week." Gov. George Pataki made a proclamation officially establishing the celebration, and a similar declaration was issued Friday by Chemung County Executive G. Thomas Tranter Jr. and Regents Chancellor Carl T.Hayden of Elmira.

During the week, members of the Elmira College team will visit Booth Elementary School in Elmira to teach children about how businesses operate and impact people's daily lives. The college students will use games and lesson plans they collected or invented to spread messages about careers and smart consumerism. The team's Web site features more than 80 lesson plans for all grade levels. In past school visits, Elmira College senior Kevin Proud-foot, 22, of Erie, has engaged young students by play the $1.8 billion deal. The acquisition gives Corning Inc.

the ability to manufacture pump lasers, a critical component of the optical amplifiers it manufactures at its Photonic Technologies Division plant in Erwin. Under terms of the transaction, shareholders in Oak Industries will receive .83 shares of Corning Inc. stock for each share of Oak Indus that we have and are trying to use them in order to help other people, to help get awareness into the community and raise money for it," said Horseheads senior Tim Kelly, 17, a co-chairman of the event. "We're using what we have to do our best to help." It is the second annual concert to benefit the Southern Tier AIDS Program. Last year, the event raised $1,700, and the goal this year is to exceed that, said Horseheads junior Katie Wick-ham, 16, also an event co-chairwoman.

Like Kelly, Wickham is in her second year of participating in the program. They were both in a play last year called "Endangered Species," a show about teenagers living with AIDS. She also has sung at several area AIDS concerts. "You hear what's going around, but when you do something like that, you try to really get involved," said Wickham, who hopes to help educate other people about AIDS through her efforts. "It affects everybody, and there's no way you can really hide from it." Horseheads senior Emily Dull, 17, also first became in- RAY FINGERStar-Gazette Charles Griffeth, at the piano, directs students from four high schools Friday during a rehearsal for "A Night of Music," which will be held today to benefit the Southern Tier AIDS Program.

The students were practicing "Here Comes Tomorrow." Many voices in AIDS fight Local News Sports Entertainment Special Sections LOCALNEWS PAINTED POST Student suspended after alleged threat A Corning West High School student was suspended Friday after allegedly making a threat during an Internet chat room conversation. The student was using school computer equipment at the time. "It's not e-mail, it's Internet, which is more difficult to monitor," said Dr. Robert Cole, president of the Coming-Painted Post school board. "Somehow, this came to somebody's attention.

Whether one of the students said something about it, or whether the network identified it, I don't know." The threat was passed electronically from one student to another, said Michael Bracy, assistant superintendent for instruction. Painted Post Village Police and state police at Painted Post investigated the incident and, were at the school Friday, Bracy said. The student was suspended Friday pending a superintendent's hearing next week, he said, noting the district is handling the incident as a disciplinary matter. Officials did not identify the student's age, grade or gender. CORNING American Legion plans spaghetti dinner The John P.

Eaton American Legion Auxiliary 746 will sponsor a spaghetti dinner starting at 5 p.m. today at the American Legion Post 746, 145 Walnut Corning. The cost is $5 per person and takeouts will be available. Proceeds will benefit a special projects fund. CCC exhibit features professors' artwork A new exhibit featuring artwork by professors who teach at Corning Community College transfer destinations will be featured in CCC's Atrium Gallery, which opened Friday.

The exhibit, "Transferred Sensibilities," includes a wide range of media. Artists from the following colleges are featured in the exhibit: Alfred University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Nazareth College, Mansfield University and Elmira College. The exhibit will be on display through March 3. The gallery is on the second floor of the Administration Building on the CCC campus. The gallery is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m.

to 5 p.m. ELMIRA Tavern robbed before it even opens Burglars didn't wait for an Elmira tavern to open before robbing it of alcohol this week, and they brought their own beer to drink during the crime. Martha Sullivan, owner of Our Place, which will soon open at 1200 Davis told police the break-in occurred between 4 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Wednesday.

About four cases of beer and 35 to 40 bottles of liquor were stolen in addition to a 25-inch TV set and other items. Police have no suspects. However, an empty Busch beer bottle was found at the scene. The new tavern doesn't carry Busch beer, Sullivan told police. What: "A Night of Music" to benefit the Southern Tier AIDS Program, featuring students from Horseheads, Southside, Odessa-Montour and Corning East high schools.

When: 7 p.m. Where: Horseheads High School auditorium. Cost $4 for students, $5 for adults. Tickets may be purchased at the door. Village weathers the chill The Associated Press SARANAC LAKE, N.Y.

-Mercury doesn't just dip here in January, it disappears from the thermometer. Days as cold as an icebox in this Adirondack village are a warm relief. How cold is it here? It's so cold that gasoline can turn to jelly in cars. It's so cold that home heating pipes and toilet bowls are cracking opon. It's so cold that people mummify themselves in wool and fur before stepping outside.

"It's hard to breathe," said Heather Turtle, a supervisor at the Wawbeek Hotel. That's really cold. Saranac Lake is a quaint village of about 5,000 people tucked in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. Not as celebrated or upscale as nearby Lake Placid, the northern New York village still features a rustic High schoolers prepare for concert to benefit S. Tier AIDS program.

By RAY FINGER Star-Gazette Corning Bureau rfingerstargazette.com HORSEHEADS When teen-agers from four area high schools joined voices Friday to rehearse for an AIDS benefit, the stirring result sounded as though they had always sung together. Blended in such songs as "We Are the Young," "Here Comes Tomorrow" and "Gone Too Soon," the voices of the 70 to 80 students swelled, swooped and soared like a force of nature across the stage at Horseheads High School. The combined choral groups and soloists from Horseheads, Southside, Odessa-Montour and Corning East high schools will do it again, this time for the public, at 7 p.m. today as they present "A Night of Music" in the Horseheads auditorium. "We're taking our talents Fire can in walls By CHARLIE COON Star-Gazette ccoonstargazeffe.com Elmira Fire Department investigators do not know yet how two recent fires began at Near Westside apartment houses.

But they did confirm something they already knew: older houses burn faster than newer ones. The Jan. 21 fire at 383 W. Water St. and Thursday's fire at 517 W.

Church St. both accelerated because of the way the houses were built. A total of 12 units were destroyed, leaving 19 people homeless. "They were houses with wood-frame balloon construction and were consumed very rapidly," Chief Donald Harrison said. "That's typical of the ble pieces and variety acts.

Corning East is providing a juggling group and a group that performs a Monty Python skit. Horseheads graduate Katie Yearick will sing and Tom Bentley of the Southern Tier AIDS Program will speak. "Gone Too Soon" will be performed in memory of Ryan White, one of the first accounts of AIDS to become highly publicized in the mainstream media, Kelly said. It was performed last year. "We decided that it should be the song that we do each year, so we're doing again," he said.

The event was conceived by Dan Cavanaugh, a 1999 Horseheads graduate, and is run entirely by students with help from school music instructors. 4 -r i I charm accented by clapboard homes, an old-fashioned main street and a mountain lake. And being so high up, temperatures far below zero are common. Temperatures dipped to the 20- to 30-below zero range recently or 60 below with the wind chill. Even with cloud cover over the past few days, temperatures have been as low as minus-15.

"It's getting to be so if it's zero, you feel warm, and if it's 8 above, you take off your jacket and leave it in the truck," said Bill Decker, owner of Big Fuel. And when the temperatures nosedive, the locals just deal with it. Andreas Mowka said he routinely will "plug in" his family's three cars overnight. And when it gets really cold as it has a few times recently he will get up at 3 a.m. to run the cars for a half-hour so they don't freeze up.

MARIA STRINNIStar-Gazette Thursday on West Church icy blanket on the property terested in the effort last year when she took part in the AIDS play. What the students are doing is important to raise money for the fight against the disease, she said. "I think it's great to get everyone from the community together and become one. They come out for one thing," Southside senior Miracole Jackson, 17, said of the combined efforts of students from different schools. Jackson said she would like to see more joint events like this one, adding that she was attracted to take part for the first time this year because of "the whole thing of raising (money) for AIDS.

I'm all for it," she said. Music at tonight's performance will range from popular to classical, three ensem "Usually they're built with no fire-stop in them. When fire gets in those walls, it starts up it just like a chase. "If the fire can find a way up through the structure to the roof, the structure is usually lost. It turns the whole house into a chimney." That happened at both recent fires, and both houses were destroyed.

The Church Street house was 127 years old. The owner of the Water Street house, Diana Todd of Horseheads, said she believed it was more than 100 years old. Harrison said Thursday's Church Street fire started in the basement and was likely going for "a great deal of time" before it was discovered and the fire department was alerted. SeeFIR4C it lurk unnoticed of older buildings JJ Ti vT" 1 vast majority of structures in the city of Elmira." With balloon construction, the wooden studs run from the ground to the top of the house. Between the interior and exterior wall is a hollow space, with no barrier or "fire-stop" between floors.

Therefore, a fire that starts on a lower floor or basement can quickly climb between the walls to the roof. Homes built to newer codes are required to have fire-stops usually two 2-by-4s or 2-by-6s stacked horizontally between each floor. The fire-stops help keep the flames from spreading upward. "In the Northeast United States, most of the structures built around the turn of the century are wood-frame construction," Harrison said. DAILYLOTTERY PA Daily Number 7-2-6.

PA Big 4: 3-3-3-8. PA Cash NY Daily Number 6-5-6. NY WinFoun 4-5-3-2. NY Take 5: 1-3-5-6-7. NY Pick 10: Ice coats tree branches near a home destroyed by fire Street in Elmira.

Water from firefighters' hoses created an because of below-freezing temperatures..