Enterprise-Journal from McComb, Mississippi • 4

McCOMB ENTERPRISE-JOURNAL Widnudiy, Sipt. 29, 1993 Mississippi news North Oaks Medical Center and S.T.A.R. are proud to present City commits first payments to State Theater Amite County Star Search winners Winners at the Liberty Exchange Club's Star Search, presented at the Amite County Fair, were, first place, Brook Bateman; second place Coty Bass and third place, the Southern Belle Cloggers. Star Search winners are invited to perform during the Heritage Days festival the following May. Fordice: Beware of extra spending Frat prank kills ASU freshman LORMAN, Miss.

(AP) An Alcorn State University freshman was killed after stealing a chair so he could join a fraternity, officials said. Claiborne County Sheriff Frank Davis said Leslie Ware 18, of Greenwood was shot once in the chest about 1 a.m. Tuesday on U.S. 61. Ware and other students pledging Alpha Phi Omega were fleeing Port Gibson, where they had taken a chair from an unidentified woman's porch, Davis said.

"These young men said they were pledging for some fraternity and were told to get a bench or a chair or something," Davis said. The woman's boyfriend, Tony Miller, 35, of Port Gibson, was charged Tuesday with murder. He could receive a life sentence. He was held without bond in the county Detention Center. Davis said eight students had gone to Port Gibson from the Lor-man campus late Monday five in Ware's car, three in a small pickup.

Miller, visiting his girlfriend, saw them outside with the chair and gave chase in a Chevrolet van, Davis said. "The pickup got away and Miller blocked the road with his van," he said. As the car scooted past on the U.S. 61 shoulder, a shot was fired into the driver's side door, he said. Ware died en route to Vick-sburg Medical Center.

The chair, later found in the pickup, "wasn't any good," Davis said. "I don't even know why they would want it." Alpha Phi Omega is a service-oriented fraternity that's known nationally for projects to better campuses and communities. "It seems like the nice guys always get a bad deal," said Willie Holmes, 18, Ware's roommate. "He was just too nice of a guy for that to happen to him." By Brian Moore Staff Writer The McComb city board Tuesday night made an ironclad pledge of $20,000 to the State Theater restoration project and declared its intent to donate another $80,000 before it bid farewell to the longtime Police Chief Lee Barkdull. The board passed a resolution declaring its intent to donate $100,000 to the project in annual $10,000 payments over the next 10 years.

This guarantees $10,000 for this year, as well as another $10,000 for 1994. However, since this board serves only through 1994, future board members change their minds about donations after that. Even 1994's disbursement is not set in stone since the city's revenues have not been determined, but officials doubted the board would go back on its word unless faced with enormous budget problems. The meeting ended with words of praise for Barkdull, who made a brief farewell speech to about 35 people who attended the meeting at City Hall. Mayor Ronnie Wilkinson said Barkdull is a "good friend, an excellent supervisor and I hate to see (him) go." In other board business, the selectman: Agreed to reserve the right to regulate the price of basic cable television service in McComb.

Under federal law, cities with cable monopolies such as McComb have until Oct. 1 to retain the right to control cable prices or lose the right entirely. The board voted to retain that power. City Attorney John White said the city has no plans to exercise control currently, but would do it if complaints over basic cable prices increased. Authorized final payment of $15,044.21 to Dickerson and Bowen Co.

to complete work on repaving city streets. Wilkinson said the company hopes to complete the overlay work before the weather turns bad. "Just about every street in our city will have some work done on it," said Wilkinson. "We'll probab ly end up with some of the best streets in the state of Mississippi." Authorized final payment of $94,350.25 to Carter and Mull-ings Inc. to complete the renovation of the west wastewater treatment facility to meet state environmental laws.

Director of Public Works Ronnie Lindsey said the renovation is complete with one minor exception. Agreed to hire Inmate Communications a Los Angeles company, to install and operate pay phones at the McComb Law Enforcement Complex. The city would receive 39 percent of all income from the phones. Awarded a contract to reinstall about 1,000 feet of sewer line and a manhole to Charles Brown Inc. of McComb for $7,000.

The sewer will be reinstalled on Cheyenne Avenue north of Shawnee Drive. Agreed to contract with Anthem Life Insurance Co. of Indiana to provide medical and dental insurance for city employees. City Administrator Sam Mims said the new program's 3 percent premium increase was the best the city could find. Amended zoning ordinances to reduce the minimum amount of land that must be developed in a commercial zone.

The amendment reduces the minimum space requirements from 2 acres to IY2 acre and reduces the amount of serviceable road required from 250 feet to 200 feet. The board was following the recommendation of the planning commission, said Mims, who added that the "planning commission is becoming a little more realistic" about its zoning requirements for commercial projects. Declared that Halloween trick-or-treating be done on Saturday, Oct. 30, instead of on Halloween, which comes on Sunday, Oct. 31.

Wrote off as uncollectable all police fines owed by dead people. The board did discover that one of the people listed as dead is in fact still alive, and struck the un-dead man's name from the list. "He was in my office last week," said White. Charlie Williams, D-Senatobia. "We do have a lot of money, but we have far more needs than we do money," Lt.

Gov. Eddie Briggs said. Briggs and Williams said much of the surplus should go to onetime expenditures, such as construction, rather than being built into the budget for recurring expenses, such as salary increases. "There are lots of good things we could do with this money on a one-time basis," Briggs said. The state has a financial cushion that exceeds $200 million, but more than half of that is held in a rainy day account with restricted uses.

That $160 million reserve fund can only be used when the budget encounters unexpected revenue shortfalls in the midst of a fiscal year. However, the state treasury is enjoying about $100 million in higher-than-expected revenues. Louisiana news i I JL Tn raff" JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Gov. Kirk Fordice says he is concerned that a state budget surplus will spawn more government spending.

"I don't want this budget surplus to become an excuse for bureaucrats to grow even larger and larger, and the only way to stop it is to reduce the revenue stream cut off the increased funds that are flowing into government," the Republican governor said. Fordice will meet soon with the Legislative Budget Committee to determine how much money the state will have to spend next year. Legislative leaders agree they must be cautious about spending any surplus. "We just have to be realistic and understand that it's not going to continue forever," said House ways and means chairman When he was 23, Vinet went to work on the railroad first for Norfolk Southern and then for Amtrak. Vinet is survived by his parents, his wife, Betty, and their children, Michele, 11, and Matthew, 9.

Vinet collected model trains, and always ran them underneath the Christmas tree, said Ernst, pastor of Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Kenner, where Vinet and his family attended church. Vinet loved people, Ernst said. One of his runs, years ago, went past a little shack in Canton, where an old lady would come out to wave to the crew. One year, Vinet and the rest of the crew stopped the train at the house to give the old woman a big Christmas basket with a turkey and other food. Vinet had recently been assigned as engineer to a line running from New Orleans to just past Jackson, but was asked to fill in for the brakeman on the Sunset Limited run that left New Orleans at 11 p.m.

Sept. 21. The train crashed from a wood-and-steel bridge into Big Bayou Canot. A eOrti atari Dpaoa rstist- Mourners at the funeral of Amtrak engineer Michael D. Vlnet stand In front of a locomotive that pulled up to a New Orleans mausoleum to honor the Sunset Limited victim.

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And, unlike other lenders, we consider adjustable rate loans NEW ORLEANS (AP) -Amtrak engineer Michael Vinet had loved trains since he was a boy. He died on the railroads he loved, and was buried in a mausoleum next to a railroad line. Funeral services were held Tuesday for Vinet, one of 47 people killed when the Sunset Limited plunged into an Alabama bayou last week. A Norfolk Southern locomotive pulled to the edge of a railroad bridge outside the All Saints Mausoleum before his funeral began. It moved slowly away after the family left.

"His father told me that when he was a little boy, Michael asked him to take him down where the train went by every day," the Rev. Albert Ernst told about 200 mourners in a funeral home chapel. The service for David W. McMahon Sr. of New Orleans, who took the Sunset Limited to buy Florida lottery tickets, was held later Tuesday in the same chapel.

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