Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 106

i a ST. PETERSBURG TIMES THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1981 His monument to space travelers is only a memory By BILL STEVENS St.f tburiTIm SlUWrftf John Reeves (1977 1 photo) shows a model -of the flying saucer that he claims landed and left behind messages. 8t. Pmarsburg Ttmw i I tit' But that is all that is left of the old flying saucer-shaped house or monument except memories. "I wish I had never sold," he says, always quick to remove his glasses for the photographer.

"But the freeloaders and the vandals got to be too much. I couldn't take it anymore. Still, I had my monument there. "THE FOR SALE sign was only up 10 days. That property is valuable with all the development going on.

I was offered $20,000 and people kept telling me to grab it. But that didn't last long. And I lost two $20 bills when they set the place on fire. I kept it in a hiding place because people kept breaking in and stealing my stuff. "Eighteen years.

I spent 18 years there. It was home. I really didn't want to leave. Sometimes I feel the urge to go back out where the spaceship landed. But I'm an old man now.

I'm 82. A bobcat might get me if I go out there And on and on he goes. When Reeves first reported his close encounter, the sand hills behind his home were deluged with the curious. One neighbor recalls "thousands" of cars driving to the property. Reeves got so many calls from around the world that he eventually referred them all to the local radio station.

But for the burning late last summer, only forestry personnel were around. "DUSTIN HOFFMAN is going to play me as a young man in a movie," says the man who once worked as a longshoreman in New York and wrote roller-skating music. "He's in New York for a movie now. And I've been working with the American Geological Institute to get the Reeves family history. Did you know there are 78,600 Reeveses in the United States? "Did you hear they found pyramids on Mars?" The pyramid story is in a magazine distributed in 1971.

Hungry for visitors and eager for conversation, Reeves pulls out a stack of envelopes, correspondence of days past on his story of space. But in the bunch is one from Barry M. Bleach of George Schlatter BROOKSVILLE It's true. The Her-nando County Mat uaed to be pivot Head northeastward to Nobleton and you would find a "herd" of prehistoric creatures, the largest headless, so you could see the wiring and lumber inside. To the west was wooden flying saucer and 23-foot-high concrete obelisk topped by a crescent moon and a silver nuts, bolts and tarpaper replica of Planet Earth.

The Nobleton monsters are still there. The saucer and obelisk, a monument for space travelers and the eternal memory of one John Frank Reeves, are gone, set ablaze several months ago by the State Division of Forestry as the final act of a property condemnation. Reeves, who in March 1965 attracted international publicity by reporting the landing of space beings, had figured on being buried beneath the obelisk. He built the monument after subsequent encounters with "visitors." Those visitors, he said, whisked him away to Venus and the dark side of the moon. INSTEAD, today he tinkers away on old TV sets and tape recorders and reviews UFO magazines dating back to the late 1960s that he keeps in a mildewed black suitcase in a half-trailer, half-wood house in Brooksville.

Reeves is 82 now, although he looks a good decade younger, and his fantastic stories remain consistent, if incredibly long and uninterruptable. He readily drags out his moon dust and cancer-curing concoction presented him by his friends in space, and wonders why he ever sold the property on State Road 50 W. He bemoans the way the Air Force labeled his stories "hoaxes." He promises that "one day you'll all see for yourselves that I was not kidding." In the back yard, where power lines are propped up with sticks about six feet above the ground, the ball that once was atop the obelisk has been tossed against a storage shed. A hole in its side reveals chicken wire and a long bolt "that I got at a hardware store for a buck," Reeves Bays. ft PCOPLL 41'" i Productions in Los Angeles.

He is indicating a possibility of Reeves being on the television show Real People. That letter is dated July 1980. "Ill be on Real People and then my story will get told. I have a lot to say. And the Russians want me to go to Washington and talk about the occupation of Cuba Meanwhile, Reeves will putter around his cramped little house where all the furniture is covered with plastic.

He'll tuck himself into bed in a room where the only wall decoration is a poster of the inside of a jet cockpit and dream. The Real People response to Reeves, which notes that among many letters the show receives, his "stands out." Steep land price blocks park By BEVERLY ANNE KENEAGY St. Pttf tburg Timt Cof ripondtit clusive rights to the property. However, the price after six months would still be $120,000, in addition to the $5,000 already paid. Vice Mayor William Vannatta said that the land isn't worth that much money.

He also said that once the park is developed, not many people will use it. Vannatta added that he doesn't want the park to turn out to be like another neighborhood park, Shoe-craft Park, which has become a popular site for teenagers at night. Council members pointed out that the Fairlawn Park area has a high rate of vandalism. "I don't think it's a good investment," Vannatta said. "There's just too many negative aspects." Councilwoman Ethel Connolly, who favors the park, asked Vannatta, "What do you suggest to turn that neighborhood around?" Vannatta said that he would "almost rather develop a transportation program to the Boys Club and the Girls Club" instead of buying the parkland.

MRS. CONNOLLY SAID that a park would help keep the children in that area out of trouble. "If we keep one kid off the streets it's worth the price," she said. Councilman William Mischler said that the city has been promising the Fairlawn Park residents a neighborhood park for years. "We owe it to the Fairlawn area," Mischler said.

He said that the proposed land is the only acceptable site in Fairlawn for a park. Council members agreed that they would be willing to buy the land for $100,000. They directed Acting City Manager Ronald Forbes to contact the property owner and negotiate. Forbes later told the council that the property owner would not lower the price of the land. Street and extending to about 77th Avenue, recently was appraised at $37,500.

The City Council had two options available, and at last week's meeting it didn't like either of them. The matter was eventually tabled, with the idea of negotiating the price to a level more acceptable to the council. THE COUNCIL'S FIRST option was to buy the land for $120,000 within 30 days from owner Bernice L. Salter of St Petersburg. The second option was to give Ms.

Salter $5,000 to keep the property off the market for six months. The second option would give council members the time to further discuss the issue, while having ex PINELLAS PARK The City Council wants to buy 6.4 acres in the Fairlawn Park area to develop a neighborhood park but thinks that the $120,000 price for the land is too high. Fairlawn Park is a residential neighborhood in southwest Pinellas Park. It is located behind Metropolitan Hospital on 66th Street and 80th Avenue. The city would like to have a neighborhood park in the area, but City Council members tabled the issue last week because the price for the proposed land was more than they wanted to spend.

The land, located at the northeast corner of 71st City Manager choice delayed By BEVERLY ANNE KENEAGY St, Pt ribur Thnw Cof pondwit Ashburn, Ga. and a former city administrator for Burlington Township, N.J. Bultman has a master's degree in public administration from the University of Colorado. Carl Cheatham 45, of Alabama. He is the city manager of Anniston, and a former city manager of Lake Wales.

Cheatham does not have a college degree, but his work experience in city government qualifies him as an applicant. Dale S. Emerson, 35, of Kansas. He is the city manager of Atchison, and a former city manager of Dewitt, Miss. Emerson has a master's degree in public administration from Michigan State University.

Donald Lusk, 34, of Tennessee. He is the city administrator of East Ridge, and a former city manager of Spring City, Tenn. Lusk has a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Bradbury said that he is satisfied with the four applicants interviewed and sees no reason to interview any others. "We'll probably be able to make a selection from the four," he said. Councilman William Mischler agreed with Bradbury and said, "All of the applicants are capable of serving in that capacity." He said that the decision will be "difficult because it affects everybody in the city." BRADBURY SAID THAT THE council will probably decide at its next meeting, on March 26, when to have the special workshop meeting on city manager selections.

The four applicants for the position are: Ronald J. Bultman, 32, of Harper Woods, Mich. He is a former city manager of Harper Woods and interview the last of the candidates. He was finally interviewed two weeks ago. Mayor Cecil Bradbury said that after the council receives each of the applicant's references, it will probably have a special workshop to review them.

The city manager position has been vacant since last July, when City Manager Douglas Holland resigned, citing difficulties in his working relationship with the council. City Finance Director Ronald Forbes has been acting as city manager since Holland's resignation. The city received about 132 applications from all over the nation for the position. In January, council membeni choose four finalists for interviews. PINELLAS PARK The City Council is taking its time selecting a new city manager.

Last week, for the second time in two months, the council postponed making a decision because council members want more information. Now the council is waiting to receive personal references from the four candidates still in the running for the job. All four have been interviewed by the council, and their references should arrive within two weeks. THE SELECTION WAS postponed at a meeting in February because the council was still waiting to Museum from Page 1 12th grade. But she was sent to Fessenden Academy, a private high school near Ocala that was established by the American Missionary Association.

She went on to study at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee (now known simply as Florida and graduated in 1938. In 1946 she received a master's of science degree in administration and supervision in physical education from the University of Michigan. Most of her 37 years in the Pinellas school system were spent as a physical education, biology and English teacher. Her career began in 1938 at the all-black Pinellas High School (now Clearwater Comprehensive Middle School). But for three years in the late 1940s she was supervisor of physical education for all black schools in the county.

"After that I was demoted," recalls Mrs. Thompson. "I was sent down to teach at Jordan Elementary in St. "We have been made to feel we had no real value when black people have far more intelligence and accomplishments than we know," she said. "I'm working so that they will give us our true place in history I've been criticized for saying this, but I'm for tearing up all the old history books and making new ones which will include the contributions of all people." Though an avid researcher of black historical information, she herself is part of the history of Clearwater.

She was 2 years old when her parents, Virginia and Gilbert Maxwell, moved their family to Clearwater from Leesburg. Both parents were teachers at Pinellas High, which then consisted of only eight grades. Her father became the second principal of the school. MRS. THOMPSON would have been in the first graduating class of the school in 1934 had there been a Pete from 1950 to about 1964." THE DEMOTION came about because she dared to file a lawsuit against the Pinellas School Board demanding that black teachers be given the same salaries as white teachers in the then -segregated school system.

"I suffered for it," she says, with a firm but not bitter voice. "By being demoted from supervisor of physical education instruction to a teacher, I received a cut of $1,000 in my salary. And back then, $1,000 was a lot of money." There was other suffering as well. "There were even some black teachers who were afraid to talk to me in those days because I was considered radical," she said. "I really don't have too much respect for people who are afraid to stand up for what Is right." head with distinct black features.

The sculpture is believed to have been carved in 100 A.D. or earlier. "There are historians who say this is proof that the black man had come to America before Columbus did," she says. ANOTHER COLUMN is about Charles Drew, the black physician who perfected blood preservation and pioneered in the organization of blood banks. Ironically, Drew bled to death in 1950 because he was refused treatment at a white hospital.

Mrs. Thompson is driven to absorb little-known facts about black people because "we have been neglected in textbooks." Thompson from Page 1 Busts of famous black Americans are on I display in the museum. St. Petersburg Tim! STEVE HASCL She also has a vast collection of record albums of various kinds of music, including jazz, classical ragtime, blues, comedy and popular music. "I'm converting my albums to tapes and people may listen to the tapes at this table," she said, pointing to an old discarded hospital table in the first room.

Mrs. Thompson said she does not believe black history "should be relegated to just one month (February)." "MY MUSEUM SHOWS that the contributions of black people touch our lives every day." Mrs. Thompson often lectures on inventions by black Americans, such as the electric traffic light and sugar-refining processes. But now, after realizing her goal of having her own museum, Mrs. Thompson says she is not going to rest "IH continue working," she says.

"I have a lot of writing and studying to do. My next project is a book." For more information or to make an appointment to see the museum, call Mrs. Thompson at 447-1037. THE PINELLAS HIGH area is adjacent to the library, where Mrs. Thompson has relied on help from Portia Jackson, a retired Pinellas High teacher and librarian, to organize the books.

"You know, I don't think I have enough shelves for these books," she says. There are books about Africa, books about black history and the push for social and legal equality, books by black scholar, such as DuBois and Woodson, and by black novelists such as Frank Yerby. Against one wall in the library is a tribute to black Clearwater pioneers, such as Mrs. Blanche (Granny) Littlejohn must call her said Mrs Thompson.) and Vasti Hubbard, Clearwater's first black nurse. In what was once a kitchen, Mrs.

Thompson has carried through her historical theme by displaying cookbooks by black authors and recipes for African and Caribbean foods. "I will have small numbers of people at a time," says Mrs. Thompson about her museum. "But I will not loan out any material. They will have to read here." Adjacent to the room is an art room, with cases containing wooden carvings from Africa and the Caribbean and busts of black contributors, including Martin Luther King Harriet Tubman, W.

E. B. DuBois and Fredrick Douglas. The busts were done by Solomon Davis, a Countryside High School art teacher. Mrs.

Thompson plans to add the busts of four white men to the collection as well, "to show that I'm not prejudiced." "These were whites who stood up for black people Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, who fought for the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments; John Brown, who died for us; and Dr. (Albert) Schweitzer, who set up a hospital in Gabon, Africa," Against one wall is a special area devoted to the old Pinellas High School, once the black school in Clearwater. The school is now Clearwater Comprehensive Middle. There are old yearbooks, a picture of the first graduating class and special plagues won by students..