The Daily News Leader from Staunton, Virginia • 3

Staunton, Daily News Leader, Monday, August 31, 1967 A3. OCAL Staunton school workshop focuses; on self-esteem Elementary pupils will be singing to their computers 3 WINNER Bob Yetter of Fredericksburg drives his 1973 Chevrolt Luv, "'Vigilante," to a record finish in the Class during the Truck Mud Bog at Augusta Agricultural and Industrial Exposition Sunday at Augusta Expoland near Fishersville. other part of him?" There are less esoteric explanations. "What we basically think is that we're building skills not necessarily in reading and mathematics, but in attention and concentration," said Lou Sawyer, a Virginia Beach schools instructional specialist. "It teaches you to be a very attentive listener." Thomas said students learn "auditory discrimination," which he defines as "being able to understand what you hear and being able to focus attention on sounds." That's a necessary skill in reading, where students must be able to go for fairly long periods without a breakdown in concentration.

"If you miss three words, you've lost the whole idea," Thomas said. Sawyer draws other parallels. He said youngsters learn to read by seeing words on a page, deciphering them with their brains and then saying them out loud. The Pitch Master, with instruction sheets, uses the same eye-mind-voice sequence. Furthermore, both musical notes and words are read left to right.

And both are set up in phrases. As for mathematical benefits, Sawyer said he suspects they would come from musical rhythm rather than pitch. "Music is measured by beats and in time," he said. "It's very mathematical. Four beats to a measure and all that." Last year's experiment at Point O' View used fourth-graders and fifth-graders.

First, everybody took an achievement test. Then half the students worked with the computer while the others served as a control group. Everyone was retested after 10 weeks. This fall, the program will run for about 18 weeks and use third-graders. Principal Olivia L.

Dabney said bog winners named VIRGINIA BEACH (AP) At Point 0' View Elementary School, students will sing softly to their computers next fall. But rest assured, they won't be goofing off. They'll be learning to read better. Or so educators hope. Ronald B.

Thomas, a faculty member and music professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, said he thinks students can advance more quickly in reading and math if they learn musical pitch. Thomas oversaw a study at Point 0' View last year that yielded no conclusive results but still persuaded local administrators to say, "Play it again, Ron." "There's a hidden value in music that I think we need to dig out," Thomas said. Here's how the experiment works: A student dons headphones and sits at a small, screenless computer called a Pitch Master, a machine originally designed to help voice students. Before him or her are pages of instructions. A tape recorder connected to the computer repeats the instructions as the student follows along.

At certain points, the student hears tones and is then asked to sing Ihem into a microphone. A gauge on the computer indicates whether the student's pitch is too flat or too sharp. The student adjusts his or her voice until the gauge's needle settles in a narrow zone indicating correct pitch. A student earns points, indicated on a digital readout, for each second the needle stays in the proper range. Students start with single notes, proceed to a series of notes and end up singing melodies and harmonies.

Tests done by some of Thomas' students to determine gains in musical ability also showed youngsters improving in other areas. At the very least, children taken from class daily to work on the Pitch Master were not falling behind in academic subjects as teachers had feared. Thomas said no one is sure yet why a youngster improves his command over the ABC's by being able to tell the difference between flat and sharp. Thomas compares it to holistic medicine, which advocates treating the body as a whole instead of focusing on individual parts or symptoms. "When we teach, we've got to remember that what we're doing is changing a kid's behavior," he said.

"If he can do one more thing, how does it affect every Expo mud By LED YARD KING Staff Writer FISHERSVILLE Drivers from around the state rolled up their sleeves Sunday and did some mudslinging literally. Mud showers were the order of the day at the Truck Mud Bog, the featured outdoor event Sunday at the Augusta Agricultural and Industrial Exposition at Expo. The biggest excitement came when Bob Yetter of Fredericksburg rode "Vigilante," his 1973 Chevrolet Luv to a record-setting win in the Class, designed for four-wheel-drive vehicles whose tires have a minimum outside diameter of 44 inches. Announcer Ken Dickinson said Yetter's time of 6.7 seconds to get through the approximately 170-foot track beat previous local records by about 4 seconds. Second in that class was Rex Via of Mineral who rode 159 feet, 7 inches in his 1937 Dodge.

Other winners included: Anderson also won the class competition for 4x4 vehicles, whose tires are 33.25-36 inches, with a distance of 119 feet 4 inches. He was followed by Garland Falconer of Churchville in his 1977 International Scout (108 feet 1 inch) and Dennis Ozmar in his Chevrolet pickup (107 feet eight inches). In the class, where 4x4 vehicles have tires at 33 inches or under, Sonny Buchanan of Stuarts Draft rode his vehicle a distance of 89 feet to capture first place. Landes (79 feet 4 inches) and John Buchanan, also of Staurts Draft (68 feet) followed. Henry Cersley of Charlottesville rode his 1951 Ford 170 feet 7 inches to win the class for all two-wheel-drive vehicles.

Jerry Thacker of Bumpass (158 feet 1 inch) and David Hiter of Columbia (156 feet 3 inches) followed. The exposition through Labor Day. continues Avenue was winner but some Focusing on improving student self-esteem, Staunton schools have invited a nationally known speaker and author to conduct workshops for parents and teachers on ways to build SCHMIDT concepts in classroom. positive self-the home and the Dr. John Schmidt, coordinator of school counseling services for the North Carolina Department of Education, is an advocate of "Invitational Learning," a process whereby the child comes to see himself as an able and valuable person and one who will act accordingly.

Schmidt will conduct a parent workshop 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the John Lewis Auditorium. The seminar, titled "Becoming an Intentional Parent," will outline ways parents can deliberately plan experiences to help build their child's self-esteem. At 9 a.m. Thursday, Schmidt will meet with city educators at Robert E.

Lee High School to discuss the importance of a positive school climate to student success. The speaker will help teachers focus on their role in the classroom to improve student self-concept. Funding for the workshop is being provided through a grant under the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986. Neighbors celebrate gas explosion PORTSMOUTH (AP) -Several hundred people gathered in a vacant lot where a house once stood to celebrate a gas explosion that destroyed the house and damaged at least 50 others a year ago. They celebrated the fact that no one was killed.

"There's a Harborfest, an Okto-berfest and a Whateverfest," said Tony Strawderman, one of the survivors of the Aug. 28, 1986 explosion. "I figured Gasfest would suit the ticket." Many of those who gathered at the explosion site Saturday had tales of survival. Lucille Campbell had just left her porch on her way to a neighbor's to bring her some peaches when the house next door to hers exploded. The woman was uninjured but her porch was destroyed.

The house's occupants had fled minutes before the explosion, and, miraculously, no one was seriously injured not even the gas company employee in the front yard frantically trying to shut off the valve. "It was like the home was supposed to blow up, but no one was supposed to get hurt," marveled Shawn Perez, 25, who had lived with her husband, Robert, and their two children on the house's first floor. The Gasfest attracted several hundred people to the vacant lot where the house once stood. 'Jens said there was a lull in the conversation and he decided to go for it during this lull. When he came back, he just told me that there had been a terrible fight, hands had got cut, that he tried to slit her throat and it wasn't like in the movies." The weekend that the elder Haysoms were murdered, Miss Haysom was high on heroin in Washington, D.C., she told Gardner.

Soering changed after the slayings. Miss Haysom said. "As I say it was a drastic change in myself and Jens after the murders. He became increasingly interested in violence. He said it was the best thing he had ever done.

For a long time he said that it was the most notable thing he had "I know that after he murdered my parents he contemplated murder as a kind of trivial thing," she said. "He thought it was a very easy way to solve a problem. He liked violence." Miss Haysom and Soering were arrested on fraud charges in London and Miss Haysom waived extradition. But Soering, facing a capital murder charge and the death penalty, continues to fight his extradition to the United States. 1 Chopper useful tool Vv' rVr v-54 Sjrffe rj i 1 't zLj' Rubin Grady of Maidens in the XX Class, the largest class of the event for 4x4 vehicles with any size tires.

Grady drove the entire distance of the track in 28.47 seconds. In the AA class, for 4x4 vehicles with tires 40.25-44 inches, Edwin Duncan of Fredericksburg and Garland Coffey of Sherando tied for first place with an equal distance of 154 feet, 8 inches. Duncan rode his 1978 Chevrolet K-10 while Garland Coffey rode his 1973 Chevrolet. Jimmy Landes of Harrisonburg, riding his Ford Bronco a distance of 152 feet 6 inches, came in third. Bill Anderson of Dillwyn rode his 1974 Chevrolet pickup 153 feet 3 inches to first place in the A class for 4x4 vehicles whose tires are 39.25-40 inches.

Richard Smith with his 1977 Chevrolet (152 feet 1 inch) and Donnie Brown of Bowling Green with his 1973 Chevrolet pickup (150 feet 8 inches) rounded out the top three. Montgomery and when I needed adult guidance, a home of any kind, they would brush me off." She told police that as a 10-year-old student in Switzerland, she was raped. On finding out, her mother caUed her a whore and her father refused to believe it happened, Gardner said Miss Haysom told him. Miss Haysom spent her high school years at an English prep school for girls. There, she began to rebel against her parents and the demands they made.

She told police drugs became an integral part of her life. When she finished high school. Miss Haysom took off to Europe without telling anyone. I was away about five months. I took off and I went to France and Italy and Germany, just traveled around.

"I was doing quite a lot of acid (LSD), then by the time I got to Italy, I'd never touched heroin before and it just seemed the thing to do, which is totally ridiculous in retrospect but at the time it just seemed, well, what the hell." Miss Haysom met Soering at U.Va. in the fall of 1984. In letters to Soering, Miss Haysom wrote of lesbian affairs, group sex and sleeping with her 54-year-old mother up until the never made towed out of ARLINGTON (AP) Helicopter traffic has increased 22 percent at Washington National Airport as business executives look for ways to avoid gridlock, airport officials said. "These big-dollar executives whose time is valuable enough can justify jumping from rooftop to rooftop," Jan Allsman, a supervisor in the National control tower, told The Washington Post. "It's not a problem, it just keeps things interesting." The newspaper reported Sunday that 3,670 helicopters took off or landed at National, or flew through the airspace controlled by the National tower, during July.

That was a 22 percent increase THINGS got a little dirty as these contestants stumbled to the finish line at the foot bog, held during the Truck Mud Bog at Augusta Expo Sunday. Allen Rankin of it that far and had to be the mud. (Photos by Vincent Lerz) the experiment had participants walking around with a song in their hearts. "The children were motivated," she said. "The teachers said it increased enthusiasm for school.

I think it taught the children responsibility, because they had to know exactly when to go to the Pitch Master room." The raise comes even though the principal's relationship with the Pitch Master began on a sour note. "The first time I did it, I was told my voice wasn't even on the scale," she said. "That was a little embarrassing. But I improved." over July 1986. More than half of those helicopters were military aircraft.

That represented a 25 percent increase over the year before. But the increase in civilian helicopter flights was even greater. Last month, 827 civilian helicopters landed or took off at National, a 27 percent increase. Another 939 nonmilitary helicopters flew through National's territory, a 12 percent increase. Most of the traffic growth in recent years can be attributed to corporate executives and emergency rescue agencies, according to pilots and the Mid-Atlantic Helicopter Association.

ing circumstances. "There are a lot of things a lot of people don't know about her background, a lot of things people still don't know," Davis said. "I think the judge needs to be aware of those things." Davis said several incidents in Miss Haysom's life could be construed as abuse. "One would be it's obvious she had a very lonely childhood," Davis said. "I don't think that was understood or known.

Doesn't she say that? You see where she explains to me her abuse as a child. She makes it pretty obvious with that" Miss Haysom didn't testify at her trial, but Hugh Jones, her other lawyer, said the former University of Virginia student will take the stand on Oct 6. After her parents were stabbed to death, Elizabeth was questioned along with other family members. As the Bedford County Sheriff's Department investigation continued, she and Soering, a West German, emerged as suspects. Miss Haysom and Soering left U.Va.

and went to Europe in October 1985 to escape the reach of Bedford police. When they were arrested in Great Britain in May 1986, Miss Haysom told police a different story than she had a year before. Letters, transcripts reveal Elizabeth Haysom's life last weekend she was alive. In April 1985, she had painted a rosy picture to police of her family life. She was the youngest of six children, the others half-brothers and half-sisters.

"I had a fantastic relationship with my parents," Miss Haysom told Bedford Detective Ricky Gardner a few days after the slayings. "I have never had any reason to be anything but grateful because my parents really did spoil me. My father certainly did. I was like his baby daughter and what I said went." But in May 1987, Miss Haysom told police she no longer cared for her father, who was 72 at the time of his death. "I didn't like him.

And I wanted him dead. I mean 111 say it a hundred times if you want. I admit my guilt to that and all the rest of it." Her father was in the steel business, and the family often felt the threats of unions, she said. She attended European schools but the distance foreign schooling placed between her and her parents tainted their relationship. "Our parents were always completely paranoid about one of us getting kidnapped.

They started sending me away to school. In fact, when tbey sent me away to school when I was quite young. BEDFORD (AP) Elizabeth Haysom's lawyers say they plan to lay bare a tormented childhood that included drugs and sexual abuse when their client is sentenced Oct. 6 for the slayings of her parents. Miss Haysom, 23, pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder charges in the March 30, 1985, slayings of Derek and Nancy Haysom at their Bedford County home.

The public learned during the two-day trial that Nancy Haysom took naked pictures of Elizabeth when she was 20. Lesbian relationships and drug abuse were disclosed. Miss Haysom mentioned those facts in a letter she recently wrote to defense attorney Drew Davis, saying she wanted to plead guilty. "Do you think the circumstances, the drugs, the manner which my mother abused me, my upbringing, my obsessive, dependent relationship with" boyfriend Jens Soering "are relevant to who I was at the time?" Miss Haysom wrote. While these topics were mentioned in Bedford Circuit Court, hundreds of pages of transcripts from conversations Miss Haysom had with police, submitted as evidence at her trial, further document what she considers mitigat While Miss Haysom said she told Soering the nude photographs were for her mother's paintings, she told Gardner that she was forced to pose.

"She was really upset that I was going to U.Va., that I was going to be leaving home again. And what she said was that she wanted to impress upon me how absolutely filthy and disgusting I was. And what she said was that I would prove how filthy and disgusting I was by allowing her to take the photos. "It was in a vicious argument. I remember her making me kneel." Gardner replied, "Why was she making you do that? Was she Just trying to destroy your self-esteem or what? Or did she sexually "She slept with me," Miss Haysom replied.

"All the way up to 23rd of March." My mother always used to come and see me at night before she went to bed. She craved affection. "Sometimes I'd be wearing nothing, she was wearing nothing. She'd come up in nothing. It was just very affectionate." The Haysoms were stabbed to death when Soering went alone to confront them about his relationship with Elizabeth, Miss Haysom said.

i.