Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

a' 1 1 WEATHER Mostly cloudy, rain A2 I fj 1 WYOMING 1 I 1 1 CASPER 1 II I I. i -ii I 1 I Improvements Shelters running Jt irkUSFWS low on food Fir i bi I A3 fl I 1 1 I 1- A sports 1 Rodco Ci j'tA continues A6 pet Saturday, August 22, 1992 Wyoming's Statewide Newspaper Founded in 1891 Casper, Wyoming MM sou ivaii r- 1 Says project not in state's interest Suliber guilty bf killing stepson Sweetwater I jury deliberates just three hours I By KATHARINE COLLINS Southwestern Wyoming bureau Peck: MRS decision shows 'failure of will' By JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE Gov. Mike Sullivan Friday halted the Monitored Retrievable Storage study in Fremont County, saying he doesn't trust the federal government. Continuation of the process "isn't in the interests of the citizens of Wyoming or the future of Wyoming," Sullivan said during a press conference in his office. The press conference was carried by speaker telephone to members of the Fremont County Commissioners in Riverton.

Sullivan's action means Fremont County will not proceed to Phase Ha, or the educational phase of the siting process. The Democratic chief executive said Wyoming is no match for the federal government if the rules on the MRS change. Please see MRS, A12 cus on finding a permanent solution to the nuclear waste prob-, lem. Federal officials expressed disappointment at Sullivan's deci-j sion, but praised the MRS pro- cess as conducted in Fremont County. A DOE spokesman said the agency was "finished with Fremont County in terms of how 1 they want to play in the MRS." Republican state senator and Riverton newspaper publisher Bob Peck said Sullivan "just didn't have the heart to take the flak that goes with seeing if there is a solution to the waste handling Please see PECK, A12 Rick SorensonStar-Tribune Fair festivities Crowds wander through attractions at the Wyoming State and Rodeo in Douglas Friday.

The annual event ends this weekend. Fremont economic official says; state must decide what it wants By HUGH JACKSON Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Gov. Mike Sullivan's decision to halt the MRS siting process represents a "failure of will" on the part of the governor and the people of Wyoming, the man who spearheaded the move to bring nuclear waste to the state said Friday. Reactions to Sullivan's decision among MRS opponents in Fremont County varied from "elated" to "hallelujah," with the hope that the federal government would take Wyoming's rejection of the facility as a message to fo the MRS study, Neary delivered a separate report to the county commission predicting the MRS would generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the county's economy. Neary said the MRS debate in Wyoming, culminating in the governor's decision Friday to halt the MRS process, represents a "really strong environmental message." "If what we want to be is wild lands and wildlife then we had better get very serious about planning how we will structure our economy to benefit from wild lands and wildlife," he said.

Rejection of nuclear waste does not represent a rejection of industry in general, Neary said. Nor did the MRS issue represent a water Clinton says Bush trying to scare American people 1 By HUGH JACKSON Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Now that Wyoming apparently has decided what it doesn't want, it had better decide what it wants, a Fremont County economic development official said Friday. The lesson from the nuclear waste debate, said Pat Neary, is, "We do not have a clear concept of what we want to be in 25 or 50 years." Neary is the economic development director for the Fremont County Association of Governments. At the same time the Citizens Advisory Group recommended the county proceed with DETROIT (AP) Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore headed out Friday on a bus tour through the recession-ravaged Rust Belt, scorning President Bush as a "great fearmonger" on economics just offering more Republican gimmickry at election time. Clinton unloaded on Bush's acceptance speech, saying the president had told flat-out lies about the Democrats' economic plan.

"It was appalling to me that a man who has the presidency of the United States so desperately wants to hold onto his job that he absolutely flew in the face of the plain truth," Clin-Please see POLITICS, A12 shed debate between those who favored a development-oriented economy versus a recreation- or environment-based economy, he said. "I think it's too isolated in terms of all of the nuclear waste issues. It's not an anti-industrial message" that the state has delivered to itself, "or an anti-commerce message. "But it's a really strong environmental message in Neary said. Now, Neary said, the state's leaders and its population must decide what it wants to do with that message.

"We have just seen an example of definitive leadership from the Please see FREMONT, AI2 who will end up losing about seven-and-a-half days of work will be paid for the time they were laid off still needs to be decided by the two tribes' business councils, Washakie said. Some of the tribes' approximately 70 joint tribal employees said last week that they were volunteering their time to keep their departments partially running. The shutdown did not affect essential services like police or health care. The Shoshone Business Council on Aug. 12 shut down several programs run by the two tribes and Please see TRIBES, A12 Washakie: TMbes work on financing differences GREEN RIVER A jury of seven men and five women deliberated less than three hours before finding Alan Suliber guilty of second-degree murder in the Valentine's Day beating death of his seven-year-old stepson Adam Franklin.

Suliber, 45, showed no emotion as the verdict was read, gazing impassively ahead, as he has during most of the nine-day trial. Elizabeth "Katie" Franklin, present in the courtroom, commented briefly after the verdict was handed down. "Alan may go to prison for the rest of his life," she said tearfully. "But 1 have to live the rest of my life without Adam." Second-degree murder carries a prison sentence of 20 years to life. No date for sentencing has been set.

Don Slaughter, one of the attorneys for Suliber, told Third District Judge Jere Ryckman that the verdict "more than likely" will be appealed. In closing arguments earlier Friday Sweetwater County Deputy Attorney Harold Money-hun told the jury the case against Suliber was "replete with evidence" that the defendant had acted "purposely" and with "malice" in beating to death "that defenseless little boy." But Wyatt Skaggs, chief trial counsel in the Public Defender's office and attorney for Suliber, attempted to show that Franklin, the child's mother, could have administered the fatal beating. Moneyhun, recapping the testimony of some 30 trial witnesses, argued that Suliber was jealous of the child, and had even confided to a librarian friend that he "wished Adam was dead." Suliber "admitted inflicting bruises" on the child's buttocks, Moneyhun noted, and "teased and Please see SULIBER, A12 INDEX Calendar A2 Casper Area A3-4 Classified B8-12 Church B3 Comics B4-5 Crossword B4 Landers B5 Letters All Markets B6 Movies B7 Obituaries, Diary B2 Omarr B4 Opinion A10 Sports A6-9 Wyoming Bl Old Grouch We should close the borders and have tourists just mail us their charge cards. RESULTS It's True You can choose the price of your own ad! If the value of the Item you want to sell the ad is fees $51 the ad is 55 the ad isJlfl-Call 266-0555 or 1-800-442-6916 (Toll free in Wyoming) for more information. By DEBRA THUNDER Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Leaders of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes are working to resolve differences over funding of joint programs on the Wind River Indian Reservation, the Shoshone chairman says.

John Washakie, chairman of the Shoshone Business Council, said that as a result of talks, joint tribal programs shut down on Aug. 12 will be "back by Monday." All employees still laid off will be back to work Monday, he said. Whether those employees ft. (i i i AP Residents: Tongue River rail line will reduce jobs A Moscow woman mourns Friday at a memorial to the tliree Russians killed in last August's failed Communist coup Yeltsin tells Russian people no need to fear a second Communist coup By MICHAEL RILEY Star-Tribune correspondent SHERIDAN Sheridan-area residents who showed up in large numbers at a hearing Friday overwhelmingly opposed a controversial extension of the Tongue River Railroad, saying they feared the proposed rail line in southern Montana could mean lost jobs in Sheridan. Dozens of speakers told representatives of the Interstate Commerce Commission that the new line would restructure a regional rail industry heavily dependent on coal shipments and could mean the loss of hundreds of jobs in Sheridan.

Opponents also attacked the route of the proposed extension which would connect coal mines in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana to pow er plants in the Midwest because they said it would adversely affect ranching and tourist indus-! tries along the Tongue River. Project developers tout the new 41-mile rail link from Ashland Mont, to Decker, as a way to shorten hauling distance from PRB mines to major utilities around the Great Lakes, cutting transportation costs and spurring coal sales in both states. But employees of Burlington Northern, now hauling coal from several mines in southern Montana through Sheridan, said the project could mean the city will no longer be a viable BN crew change point, decimating the area's 250 rail-supported jobs. "In regards to our employer's continual search for (crew-change) terminals to eliminate, it is out1 foremost fear that Sheridan would Please see SHERIDAN, A12 MOSCOW (AP) President Boris Yeltsin, speaking on the first anniversary of the failed Communist coup, told his compatriots Friday they face a hard winter but should not fear another attempt to topple the government. "There will not be a putsch-2," he told a nationally televised news conference.

Opponents of reform, he said, do not have broad support among the people, who "want to revitalize Russia. They do not want to be downtrodden and humiliated, as they have been for decades." The harvest this year is better than last, easing the pain of reform, Yeltsin said, and privatizing many factories and businesses will prove that progress has been made. The Russian people "tell me that in spite of all the difficulties, I must go ahead with the reforms, that they will endure," he said. "I am convinced that we will pull through August and September, and that October will be very difficult. Then the political games will begin ancv, unfortunately." In a wide-ranging, 90-minute news conference, Yeltsin said he: Will back a new constitution that would abolish the conservative Russian Congress of Peoples' Deputies, strengthen presidential power and guarantee farmers the right to own their land.

Is building his own, private dacha near Moscow, Please see RUSSIA, Al2.