News-Journal from Mansfield, Ohio • 25

4 a 4 4 'et 4 it 4 '41 4 .4 '41rV ar I 1 Perspecfive Sunday, July 11, 1982 News Journal, Mansfield, O. 1 -D Editorials6-D Grapevine7-D 4 41. lv 4 "r6 44 -1, i.t.e 'I; 1 4s a 4 4 4 4 4 4 ,4 14 or -4 .4 4 mt Ikr irp '41, ri Ti 1i -4 1.1 -4, -1, rt; ti 4 '4 4 '4 4 4 ,4 4 44 4 4 4 4 4 '4 '4 'I 4 'OF 4 1 kr A pah Pa Boomtown Last week Region In declining Midwest, Columbus stands a winner By Dale Leach The Associated Press 'White elephant' The Madison Theater's days may be dwindling away. Bids for demolition of that building are being sought by the Madison Township Permanent Board of Memorial Trustees who said Thursday the old building is "a white elephant." But the trustees were not setting any dates for the wrecker ball, hoping that a last-minute offer to rent the theater might pop up. 2 life terms Dale E.

Carver, who pleaded guilty to aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of his wife and mother-in-law last October, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in a state penitentiary Carver, 42, must serve at least 40 years before becoming eligible for parole. Judge Max Chilcote of Richland County Common Pleas Court also imposed4 concurrent five- to 15-year term for felonious assault in the shooting of Carver's brother-in-law. 1 a saving grace for Columbus. Cleveland, hemmed in by incorporated suburban communities, hasn't annexed territory since 1927. Columbus annexed 15 separate parcels in the 1970s alone.

And there is still room to grow. Robert Bowman, economic development commissioner for the city of Louisville, says Columbus' ability to annex sets it apart from most other Midwest cities. Louisville, for example, is surrounded by more than 90 small communities many of which have incorporated simply as a means of avoiding annexation. "Mere, all you have to do is sneeze annexation, and you cause border wars all over the place," Bowman said. "That's not to say that we haven't been losing population.

We have." But Columbus has never faced strong resistance to annexation for two reasons: First, the city's annexation drive didn't begin in earnest until after 1950. By that time, surrounding communities that wanted to incorporate had done so. Secondly, Smithers said, aggressive annexation policies during the 1950s and 19605 meant Columbus took in new subdivisions as they were being constructed, preventing eventual of those subdivisions from thwarting an annexation try. See Columbus 4-D In many ways, Columbus has more in common with cities in the Sun Belt than with its closest neighbors. "Columbus is, in many ways, a new community, relatively speaking," says Edric Weld, a professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University.

Weld says many of the businesses now responsible for the city's economic growth didn't exist before 1950. Visitors to Houston have been said to remark that the city seems to sprout suddenly from the middle of a plain. Vistors to Columbus might say the same. Farmland south of the city limits lies virtually in the shadow of Columbus' changing skyline. Its largely rural surroundings have occasionally made the city the butt of jokes that it is an overgrown "cow town" at worst, and unexciting at best.

The image hasn't been helped by cows that graze on Ohio State University research farms located within the city limits. But city officials say they are trying to change Columbus' image, and much of the change is occurring in the center of town. Despite a national recession that has pushed unemployment up throughout Ohio, there are currently four major building projects under way or nearly started downtown. Five other downtown buildings are scheduled for completion by 1986. The surrounding fields, meanwhile, have been COLUMBUS (AP) When the great Industrial Revolution of the 19th century began, port cities such as Cincinnati and Detroit were ideally situated to reap its benefits.

Not so Columbus. Tucked into the middle of Ohio, more than 100 miles from Lake Erie and another 80 miles from the Ohio River, the state's capital city never became much of a manufacturing center. "You don't see a lot of smokestacks out there," says Columbus Development Director Ralph W. Smithers, gesturing from his eighth-floor downtown office. But experts say the absence of smokestacks has proven to be a blessing rather than a curse for Columbus in these post-industrial times.

It is one reason, they say, that Columbus grew during the last decade the only large city east of the Mississippi River and north of the Mason-Dixon line to do so. While population figures for other Ohio and midwestern cities tumbled, those of Columbus increased. The latest census shows Cleveland still the state's most populous city with 573,822 residents to 565,032 for Columbus. But Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce officials dalculate that the capital city surpassed Cleveland in size sometime in mid-September 1980. Bill delayed A contingent of mostly Crystal Springs area residents persuaded Mansfield City Council Tuesday to send back to the zoning committee a bill that would allow mobile homes to be placed on individual lots.

The proposed bill created mobile home districts in three areas of the city commonly known as Crystal Springs, Manna Road and Roseland. Residents argued it was discriminatory to single out certain areas of the city for the districts, which they said would erode the character of their neighborhood. Lunar eclipse' mMembers of the Richland Astronomical Society, as well as thousands of other people across the country, were treated to a total lunar eclipse during the early morning hours on Tuesday. Clear skies made for ideal conditions for viewing the longest lunar eclipse since the middle of the last century. Sewer funds A long-standing lack of sanitary sewers in the Hanna Road area of Madison Township moved a step closer to becoming a problem of the past Wednesday.

Richland County commissioners approved spending just over $200,000 in Small Cities Block Grant funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assist with the sanitary sewer project. The final application for the funds is due at the state HUD office July 19. JFK buff' acclaim mixed blessing Nipped in bud North central Ohio orchardists, as well as fruit growers across the state, report cold winter temperatures nipped the buds on peach trees, resulting in this year's harvest being possibly the smallest peach crop on record in the state By Ron Simon The News Journal Nation Right on mark Spaceship Columbia made a pinpoint touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base in California Sunday after a successful seven-day, 112-orbit mission. Bank fails Hundreds of depositors seeking their money crowded the former Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma City Tuesday as the federal government began liquidating the 21st bank to fail in the United States this year.

Car sales plunge The U.S. auto industry reported Tuesday that end-of-June sales plummeted 17.8 percent to their lowest daily rate in 24 years. Probe dropped A grand jury investigation into allegations that Chicago's late Catholic archbishop, Cardinal John Cody, improperly used church funds has been dropped without any indictments being sought, U.S. Attorney Dan K. Webb annoucned Tuesday.

Haig out Alexander M. Haig Jr. officially ended his 18-month term as secretary of state Monday. a I "limelnewoommo. I 0 11 'talw stL offrilvirl i 7 1 i----; 1: It I re 11441 0 1 i 4 Z.

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1 tf) I i i IF I 1 4 r), se 4.,,. 1 4., .0 1 This trifeett MANSFIELD Nothing will ever change Steve Barber's mind. He believes that the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 was a conspiracy and that more than one gunman was involved. He doesn't think Lee Harvey Oswald was one of them.

So it is ironic that Barber should have helped discredit evidence of conspiracy contained on a controversial tape recording. That act hasn't made him popular with a handful of asassination researchers who considered that tape a piece of prime conspiracy evidence. Barber helped blow a cherished theory of theirs. Even a congressional committee in 1978 used the same tape to say there was evidence of a possible conspiracy in the assassination. Barber was instrumental in discounting the four-shots theory that existed because of sound patterns picked up on that tape recording.

The recording comes from a radio transmitter left open for 512 minutes by a Dallas police officer who was close to Kennedy's vehicle that day on Dealy Plaza. Many a researcher believed four shots could be heard on the tape. At first, Barber said, he heard them, too. But the Mansfield jazz drummer has done a lot of listening in his time. The more he listened to a copy of that controversial tape, the less he believed the four-shot theory.

When the National Academy of Sciences was funded in 1980 to study that tape, Barber contacted Dr. Norman Ramsey of Harvard University and presented Ramsey with his own conclusions that included detailed diagrams of the noises on the tape. This spring the academy released its own conclusions, stating the tape was recorded a full 80 seconds after the shooting and that the sounds of gunfire were actually static. Letters from Ramsey to Barber gave the Mansfielder full credit for bringing these things to the study group's attention. There were also a few unhappy See JFK Page 4-D Region i 1 i i i 1 I i II 11 Administration Building, Mansfield, 7:30 p.m.

Hillsdale Local Board of Education, Hillsdale High School, 7:30 p.m. Galion Board of Education, board room, 7:30 p.m. Colonel Crawford Board of Education, high school, 8 p.m. Monday Richland County Commissioners, county administration building, Mansfield, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Ashland County Commissioners, county courthouse, Ashland, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Willard Board of Education, junior high school, 7 p.m. Prospect Park Improvement Committee, Prospect Park Pavilion, 7 p.m. Crest line Exempted Village Board of Education, administration building, 7:30 p.m.

Plymouth Local Board of Education, administration building, 7:30 p.m. Madison Township Trustees, 843 Expressview Drive, Mansfield, 7:30 p.m. Crestview Local Board of Education, Crestview High School library, 8 p.m. Wednesday Richland County Commissioners, county administration building, Mansfield, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Ontario Board of Education, board office, 2022 Park Avenue West, 7 p.m. Steve Barber's desk top is filled with books and pamphlets concerning the John Kennedy assassination, and Barber, from this corner of the world, has contributed his own knowledge to the continuing search for evidence to support a conspiracy theory. (Photo by Jeff Sprang) Thursday Richland County Commissioners, county administration building, Mansfield, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Ashland County Commissioners, county courthouse, Ashland, 9 a.m.

Richland County Soldiers Relief Commission, 68 S. Main Mansfield, 7 p.m. Ontario Village Council, village hall, 7:30 p.m. Madison Local Board of Education, board offices, 7:30 p.m. Airport radar a result of pilot's letter campaign By John Futty The News Journal Tuesday Richland County Commissioners, county administration building, Mansfield, 8 a.m.

to 4 p.m. Crawford County Commissioners, county courthouse, Bucyrus, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mansfield Civil Service Commission, third floor, municipal building, 7 p.m. Plymouth Village Council, Village Hall, 7 p.m.

The Shelter, Richland County Friday Richland County Commissioners, county administration building, Mansfield, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Crawford County Commissioners, county courthouse, Bucyrus, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ter which Armstrong composed with the help of controllers at the airport.

The document took between 20 and 30 hours to complete and was mailed Nov. 14, 1978, to everyone Armstrong thought could help. That included state and local officials, senators, congressmen, the governor, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration offices in Washington and Chicago. The letter listed 14 arguments for installing radar at Mansfield-Lahm. Armstrong cited Mansfield's large assigned airspace, the complex mix of air traffic in the area, the large number of near-miss reports and the potential fuel savings of improved traffic flow.

The response to the letter was predictable. In a two-page reply from the FAA's regional office in Chicago, Armstrong was informed that Mansfield-Lahm did not meet See Radar Page 5-D office holders for the kind of equipment which would reduce the dangers inherent in Mansfield-Lahm's outdated non-radar system. Although federal regulations had discouraged local officials from pursuing the radar issue in the past, Armstrong wanted to challenge the FAA. "A lot of people told me it would never work, but that just made me work harder," he said. Beginning in late 1978, Armstrong spearheaded an intensive, year-long letter-writing campaign which got action.

Less than 14 months after Armstrong mailed his first letter, President Carter signed into law a bill which included funds for an Airport Surveillance Radar at Mansf ield-Lahm. "We beat the system," Armstrong said. "We did it through persuasiveness and perserverance. It was a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease." The first a six-page "We wouldn't have the radar if it weren't for him," Gorman said. "He was the key man in getting it off the ground." Today, Roscoe C.

Armstrong is a regional marketing manager for Sikorsky Aircraft in Toledo. But four years ago, he was a corporate pilot for Roger Au Construction who was gravely concerned about air safety at Mansfield-Lahm Airport. After experiencing a near collision with an Air National Guard aircraft during an approach to the airport, Armstrong decided it was time to take action. "As I approached the airport, there was an Air Guard C-I30 that wasn't where it was supposed to be, and when I broke out of the clouds I was looking right at it," he remembers. "The incident ticked me off.

It was a close call that could have been avoided with radar." With that, Armstrong set out to lobby governmental agencies and MANSFIELD Sometime next month, a sophisticated radar system will become fully commissioned at Mansfield-Lahm Airport, transforming an antiquated facility into4 major-league operation. The installation of the $3.5 million system marks the final step in a victory over federal officials and politicians who said Mansfield didn't meet the established criteria necessary for radar. Yet the man most responsible for starting the battle to overcome the FAA policies which stood between, Mansfield and the radar has been virtually forgotten. He is Roscoe C. Armstrong, a 33-year-old Shelby native now living in Toledo.

According to James C. Gorman, secretary of the Mansfield Metropolitan Airport and Aviation Commission, Armstrong was "the spark that started it." Nation Taxes and energy The Energy Development and Applications Subcommittee of House Science and Technology will hold a hearing Tuesday in Washington, D.C., on tax credits for solar energy. Equal rights The Equal Rights Amendment will be reintroduced to Congress Wednesday. Reps. Patricia Schroeder, Geraldine A.

Ferraro, and Margaret M. Heckler, are among the co-sponsors. 1 'I 1 4., Lit4.