The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 36

Sunday, April 5, 1987 Strive for goals, speaker tells blacks 8-B The Tampa Tribune-Times I I I miiiMii X' (i; some tips from a forum on teen pregnancy that should help her communicate better on touchy subjects with her 8-year-old son, All. "When they ask the question, you answer it," she said. "I think that's the biggest thing I learned today." Essie Harrison of Tampa said a workshop on press coverage gave her a better understanding of how people shape their perceptions and stereotypes of blacks. She said coverage of events such as the recent riots at the predominantly black College Hill Homes housing project often lead people to the wrong conclusions about black people in general. "All black teen-age boys aren't drug addicts and all black teen-age girls aren't pregnant," she said.

"We're all good people in our own right" State Rep. Doug "Tim" Jamer-son, 55th District state representative from St Petersburg and chairman of the legislature's Black Caucus, said drugs, indigent care and teen pregnancy are among the factors that have the black family "under siege in this country." Jamerson said blacks at all levels must look to themselves to solve those problems. "You have to be the concerned people that will come up with ideas" to help blacks, he said. "You have to do it. Nobody is going to do it for us." Nathan Hare, a San Francisco psychologist and author of several books about black awareness, said blacks must fight social trends such as a move toward a more unisex society that threaten their identity.

Blacks need to set their own course rather than focus "on someone else's agenda." By JOE ADAMS Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA About 250 blacks received a strong signal Saturday: think positively and get involved. "Teach your children to know that they can be all they want to be. The sky's the limit," the Rev. James Mitchell said during the first Tampa Bay Area Conference on the Black Family at the University of South Florida. Mitchell, the president of the Williams Elementary School Parents-Teachers Association, told a virtually all-black audience during a conference seminar, "You can have anything in this society you want.

All that you have to do is work for it." Spearheaded by the USF Office of Equal Opportunity Affairs, the event, which began Friday night, featured forums on stress, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, health care, job discrimination and other problems important to area blacks. The Florida Mental Health Institute, the Greater Tampa Urban League Inc. and the USF Institute On Black Life also helped sponsor the event, which included speakers from California and Maryland. "The idea came about because we recognized the need to come together and address some of the problems of the black family and also focus on the positive aspects," said Wilma L. Smith, conference coordinator and the civil rights specialist with the USF Office of Equal Opportunity Affairs.

Organizers used church buses to bring in about 60 people from Tampa's housing projects. But the conference included blacks from throughout the Bay area with different backgrounds. Joyce Morris, a registered nurse from Brandon, said she picked up Tribune photographs by BRUCE JOHNSON Up in the air Onlookers appear dwarfed by the tail section of the C5-A attendance, catching a bite to eat under the protective wing Galaxy aircraft, above, during Saturday's activities at the an- of the KC-10 Extender refueling jet. One of the crowd favor-nual open house at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. Joelle ites was the Thunderbirds performance, below left, which had Ricci and Bill Frey, below right, were among the thousands in many a pair of eyes turning skyward.

Downtown building destroyed by blaze I ft A'. Hi rli V-H saw the smoke and decided to check it out. He had scheduled an appointment later that day with someone interested in putting a taurant on the building's first floor. Cunningham said he had been in the process of renovating the building, which was built in 1910, at an estimated cost of $75,000. A Tampa lawyer, Cunningham said he purchased the building for "several hundred thousand dollars" in 1982.

"This really makes me sick," Cunningham said. "The insurance really isn't the thing, just losing all that beautiful brickwork. "You can't build anything like that again." He did say, however, that he and his wife may have a similar structure erected at the same site. Cunningham said he owned several buildings, but this one was his wife's favorite. "This was the only building they hadn't condemned along this section of the street," Cunningham said, referring to the Franklin Street renovation.

"They wanted to keep it as part of the downtown renovation. "There's nothing they could do about it," he said as he watched firemen trying to knock down the handsome facade. "That side wall is cracked. It's going to come down." The building originally housed a mercantile firm when it was built by a St. Louis judge named Heyden in 1910 at a cost of $12,400, Cunningham said.

By TIM COLLIE Tribune Staff Writer -r- A historic Franklin Street building part of the mul-timillion dollar downtown renovation was destroyed by fire Saturday afternoon. The vacant three-story structure at 1016 Franklin registered as a historic landmark last year, was fully engulfed in flames when Tampa firefighters arrived at 4:23 p.m. The building roof and rear wall collapsed from the blaze and firemen were attempting Saturday evening to knock down the front and side portions with a high-powered hose "to avoid getting the wrecking ball out" said Assistant Fire Chief Joe Trainon The department chose to fight it from a distance with high-powered hoses rather than risk injury to firefighters by having them enter the structure. No one was injured in the blaze. The single-alarm fire, which at its peak spread thick black smoke through downtown Tampa, was first noticed by a city policeman at about 4:15 p.m.

Trainor said no one was thought to be in the building during the blaze, but its owner said vagrants sleeping inside were a constant problem. No cause had been determined early Saturday evening. Sam Cunningham, the building's owner, was driving nearby when he Florida Briefs 1 1 Ex-sheriffs deputy indicted A Tribune Staff Report Indian River Circuit Judge Jack Fennelly ordered Killings held without bond after prosecutors told a jury he might skip town and could intimidate witnesses. A written death threat "You talk, you die" was left under the pillow of Gifford resident Ralph Page, one of five others being held on drug charges in connection with a multicounty drug organization, said Assistant State Attorney Joe Wild. Wild said he did not know who left the message.

Sardella recently told investigators he was afraid of being killed if Killings believed he helped authorities arrest him, Wild said. The nature of the bribe Sardella allegedly accepted was not disclosed. VERO BEACH (AP) A former Indian River County sheriffs deputy has been indicted for allegedly accepting a bribe from a suspected drug dealer. Former deputy Jeff Sardella, 24, turned himself in after being indicted Friday. Sardella posted $15,000 bond and was released the same day from the Indian River County Jail in Gifford, a jail official said.

Sardella was fired March 11 by Sheriff Tim Dobeck after an investigation was conducted into allegations that he had been bribed by Jimmy Lee Killings, 26, of Gifford, records show. Killings was denied bond Friday and was being held in the county jail on trafficking and conspiracy to traffic cocaine, records show. Police stop suspect's escape NEW PORT RICHEY A man charged with attempted murder of his wife and aggravated assault on his 2-year-old stepson grabbed a gun from a detective and threatened to shoot him with it during an foiled escape attempt Friday, according to Pasco County Sheriffs Office reports. The escape attempt happened while the detectives were driving the prisoner around west Pasco in connection with information he was giving them concerning a 1986 killing, reports said. River forces residents to leave homes RIDGE MANOR The Withlacoochee River inched higher Saturday, flooding roads in eastern Hernando County and forcing residents to leave riverside homes, and increasing flooding in Lacoochee and Trilby, authorities reported.

Water management officials revised forecasts for flooding along the Withlacoochee River Saturday, predicting the most severe peak at the Pasco-Hernando County line near Lacoochee. Group proposes student TV station OCALA A group of South Florida women has proposed an educational television station at Central Florida Community College that students could run. The college's new president is interested in the project. The group is one of three applicants vying for a federal permit to operate Channel 29, which the Federal Communications Commission has allocated to Ocala as a non-profit educational television station. Largo man charged with sex offenses DUNEDIN A 44-year-old Largo man was arrested early Saturday morning on six felony counts involving sexual offenses against a teen-age boy, according to police records.

William G. Wilson, also known as William Davenport, of 674 Shore Dr. NE in Largo, was in Pinellas County Jail Saturday with bail set at $300,000. The sexual encounters began Aug. 29 when the boy was 13, according to the records.

Wilson took the child to a spot near the Dunedin causeway after notifying the boy's school he would not be in class. "This is one of many times that this act took place since the defendant became a friend of the family," wrote Det. John Brown, of the Dunedin Police Department. He said Wilson told investigators he had sexual relations with the victim. Among the six counts are two that occurred the weekend of Oct.

24 and 25 at a motel in Clearwater, according to Brown's report. Wilson took the child there to celebrate his 14th birthday, the report said. Salvadoran charged with murder SEBRING A 27-year-old Salvadoran man was charged with second-degree murder Saturday in connection with the slaying of a 19-year-old Mexican man, police said. Quintanilla Delores, 27, was charged with the shooting early Saturday of Miguel Mendoza at a tavern at 642 Harris Sebring, police said. Mendoza died at Highlands Regional Medical Center in Sebring at 3:27 a.m.

Saturday, police said. Delores was being held Saturday in the Highlands County Jail, charged with second-degree murder and reckless display of a firearm. Pinellas man charged with sexual battery PINELLAS PARK A 37-year-old Pinellas Park man was arrested Saturday morning on charges of sexual battery against a teen-age girl. Stephen Francis Kase, of 3131 Melton St Pinellas Park, is charged with forcing the girl to submit to oral sex in June 1985, according to a report filed by Det Leroy Kelly of the Pinellas Park Police Department Versions of some of these stories appear in regional sections of The Tampa Tribune. Miami firefighter arrested don't have any information in writing." Payne's arrest came on the heels of a Metro-Dade police investigation into drug smuggling by firefighters for the Metro-Dade fire department, which serves Miami's Dade County.

Stemming from that investigation, Metro Fire Lt William Fleming has pleaded guilty to marijuana trafficking in connection with a drug shipment that passed through Maryland last November. He is awaiting sentencing. MIAMI (AP) A city of Miami firefighter was arrested in Baltimore after federal agents discovered he was carrying about two pounds of coaine aboard an Amtrak train, officials said. Firefighter Harry Payne was arrested Thursday and charged with planning to sell the cocaine, Miami Fire Chief C.H. Duke said Saturday.

Duke had few details of the arrest "It's a long way from here to Maryland," Duke said. "We still.