Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 3

Sunday, Nov. 9, 1986 Ptar-Trihuno. Casper. Pat Meenan elected speaker of House GOP House leadership picks committee chairmen, members I 'I 'v i Wo i A rl vn I 10 I ji 'I CASPER -The Republican state House delegation met in Casper Saturday and decided its party leadership and membership on each of the House's committees. As expected, Natrona County Rep.

Patrick Meenan was elected Speaker of the House for the upcoming session. Rep. Bill Mcll-vain of Laramie County was elected Speaker Pro Tem, and Converse County Rep. Rory Cross was elected majority floor leader. The majority whip will be Rep.

Ron Micheli of Uinta County. The following are the House committees and their Republican memberships: Judiciary: Chairman Ellen Crowley, Laramie County; Mary Oddc, Fremont County; Philip Robertson, Park County; William Rohrbach, Park County; Hardy Tate, Sheridan County; Harry Tipton, Fremont County. Appropriation: Chairman Dick Wallis, Campbell County; Doug Chamberlain, Goshen County; Jim Geringer, Platte County; Craig Thomas, Natrona County; Melvin ZumBrunnen, Niobrara County. Revenue: Chairman Cynthia Lummis, Laramie County; Johnnie Burton, Natrona County; Bob Grant, Platte County; Micheli; Dennis Tippets, Fremont County; Dale Weaver, Washakie County. Education: Chairman Alan Stauffer, Lincoln County; Burton; James Hageinan, Goshen County; Allan Howard, Big Horn County; John Rankine, Hot Springs County; Gail Zimmerman, Natrona County.

Agriculture: Chairman Marlene Simons, Crook County; Mary Behrens, Natrona County; Grant; Hageman; John Hines, Campbell County; Clyde Wolfley, Lincoln County. Travel, Recreation and Wildlife: Chairman Peg Shreve, Park Countv Rehrens; Terry Star-TribuneBill Willcox Well guarded Neva Moore (left) and Treva Bailey work on guards for their snow fort Saturday afternoon on Burlington Avenue in Casper. The cold temperature forced them to "abandon fort" before they completed their defenses. Liberal arts making a comeback on campus Slander suit filed against KYCU-TV 'CHEYENNE (AP) Two multi-million dollar slander lawsuits against KYCU-TV here and a former manager of one of the capital's health clubs have been filed in Laramie County Court, to a County Court Jclerk. Thomas warns that county judges may leave the bench Adams resigns from Parks Department CASPER The manager of the Natrona County Parks Department has submitted his resignation, effective Nov.

7. Robert L. Adams, in a letter to Parks Board Chairman Harry Patterson, said he was resigning for personal reasons. Assistant Manager Toni Tuma has teen named acting Parks' Department manager. School board meeting slated for Monday CASPER The Natrona County School Board will gather at 7:30 p.m.

Monday in the Central Servies boardroom for its regular semi-monthly meeting. The board will 'consider ratifying bid awards for four school projects as well as conduct routine business, the agenda shows. City; county! offices closed Veteran's Day CASPER City and Natrona County offices will be closed Tuesday in observance of Veteran's Day. 1 Regularly scheduled garbage pickup will continue, however, according to City Manager Wes McAllister. Nat Cgmnty: schools will be open as well.

Municipal and county offices" will open at 8 a.m. Wednesday. Rec Center honors millionth visitor CASPER Kelly Walsh senior Mark Adell headed for the Casper Recreation Center Oct. 18 for some exercise. As he passed through the door, he became the millionth visitor to the center since it opened in Janurary 1983.

To mark the occasion, the center gave Adell a free membership, season tickets to the Wyoming Wildcatters, free admission to numerous city recreation areas, plus prizes 'from' .20 area PATRICK MEENAN Speaker, as expected Guice, Albany County; Rankine; Rick Tempest, Natrona County; Lauris Tysdal, Weston County; Loren (Teense) Willford, Carbon County. Corporations and Elections: Chairman Patti MacMillan, Albany County; Michael Enzi, Campbell County; Howard; Mcllvain; Dorothy Perkins, Natrona County; Tempest; Zimmerman. Transportation: Chairman Dan Budd, Sublette County; Barbara Cubin, Natrona County; Jerry Parker, Uinta County; Perkins; William Tibbs, Converse County; Willford. Mines and Minerals: Chairman John Marton, Johnson County; Cubin; Enzi; Guice; Parker; Tippets; Wolfley. Labor: Chairman Nyla Murphy, Natrona County; Hines; Carroll Miller, Big Horn County; Tibbs; Tysdal; Weaver.

Journal: Miller Rules: Chairman, Meenan; Chamberlain; Cross; Crowley; Mcllvain; Micheli; Stauffer. provision in the Wyoming Constitution that piohibits an increase in an elected official's salary in the middle of that official's term. Since judges either are elected or stand for retention, they fall within that definition. Amendment No. 5 provided that whenever the Legislature increases the salary for a particular classification of judge, then the salaries would be increased across-the-board for those in the classification.

Thomas said he expects the amendment will be proposed again in two years with better prospects of passage. He said it failed this time because it was too technical. "People didn't understand it," he added. RICHARD THOMAS 'People didn 't understand it' nKo -i; in itivlut oology rescue1 1 because ihcv yield greater in t'oi- it.ii about living conditions and culture than transient sites. Archaeological researchers in North America are concentrating on the question of man's arrival here and there soon may be other important structural discoveries, said Robson Bonnichson, of the Center for the Study of Early Man in Orono, Maine.

The organiza- tion acts as a clearinghouse for in- formation about North American archaeological discoveries. "A house or some other kind of I residential structure is highly significant because it indicates the people have settled in, which indicates that they have established roots in the area over a period of time," he said in a telephone CHEYENNE (AP) The apparent defeat of proposed state constitutional amendment No. 5 could result in several county judges leaving the bench to enter private practice, according to a Wyoming Supreme Court justice. "People on the bench for eight years or more will be making less money than people on the bench for just two years," Chief Justice Richard Thomas said Wednesday. He added that he wouldn't be surprised if the amendment's failure convinces some judges to leave the court system and enter the private sector where one could niake an average $60,000 a year or more a 50 percent increase over a judicial salary within two years of leaving the bench.

Amendment No. 5 was the only one of six proposed constitutional amendments that did not receive the necessary number of votes for passage, according to unofficial election results. The amendment would have made sure all judges make the same salary as other judges of the same position in the same court system. On Jan. 1, for example, nine county court judges in Wyoming will begin making $46,500 per year, Thomas said, but 10 county court judges still will be making $40,000 per year.

County judges serve four-year terms, district judges six-year terms, and Supreme Court justices eight-year terms. Thomas said the inequity is even greater because many of those making the lesser salary actually have been on the bench longer than those making the higher salary. The reason for the inequity is a "I couldn't tell you how many real estate or computer science majors there are here who couldn't write a coherent paragraph if their life depended on it," said John Dietrich, a junior at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who is majoring in Spanish and political science. "The reason I'm after a liberal arts d'ploma is to have an edge on these people." The shift in student interest from liberal arts to vocational preprofessional fields over the last 10 to 15 years is well documented. The Federal Department of Education has reported that the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in business more than doubled from 1971 to 1984, to 230,031 from 114,865, as degrees in English and literature plummeted to 24,4 19 from 57,026.

In a major study of undergraduate education made public last week, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching cited "new vocationalism" among "The push toward career-related education dominates the campus, and during the past 15 years it has dramatically increased," said Ernest L. Boyer, director of the three-year, $1 million project. "At almost all colleges in our study, new vocational majors have been added and old ones have been split up into smaller pieces." The foundation study cited a university where, in response to "marketplace demand," the general business administration program was balkanized into 16 fields from labor relations to fashion merchandising. Almost everyone familiar with the matter agrees that the trend away from liberal arts was rooted in the demographics and economics of the 1970s and early 1980s," when record numbers of new college graduates were chasing jobs in an uncertain economy. "When the economy tightened up, people looked for jobs that would earn a lot of money," said Joseph D.

Duffey, chancellor of the University of Massachusetts. believed to man had not even been in North America that long ago," said Walt Woolfenden, an archaeologist 'oi the National Park Service. The Sierra Nevada site has attracted nationwide attention since news reports of its discovery. At the time, Ann Peak estimated it was 10,000 years old. The process of carbon-dating, which measures the decay of radioactive carbon-14, reveals the age with a margin of error of 180 years either way, she said.

The new find is expected to fuel a debate about how long ago humans migrated to North America. Sites and structures tentatively dated up to 32,000 years ago have been found in South America, but many scientists speculate those early inhabitants may have come by boat across the ocean since few sites more than NEW YORK (NYT) Liberal arts are making a comeback on the American college campus after more than a decade of battering by business, engineering and other vocational fields of study. At institutions ranging from the University of Massachusetts to Arizona State University, the number, of students majoring1 in arts and sciences has begun to rise after falling precipitously in the late 1970s. "The numbers are going up slowly," said James H. Bunn, vice pt ost at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where the number of new liberal arts majors jumped 15 frQm 1981 to i985.

"The history of higher education is a $eries of pendulum swings, and right now the arts and sciences are in the ascendancy Colleges also5; report that dents in business and other voca- tional fields have begun adding more liberal arts courses to their programs and that dual majors in which students combine fields like accounting and psychology are on the increase. Educators cite numerous reasons for the renewed interest in the liberal arts, among them better job prospects for arts and sciences graduates. Earlier this year the Northwestern Endicott Report, which" surveys the hiring policies of companies across the country, reported a 20 percent increase in 'interest in liberal arts majors from 1984 to 1985. "Corporate leaders have been complaining that they want a broader education from their employees," said Shirley Strum Ken-ney, the new president of Queens College of the City University of New York, in Flushing, who has organized a board of 12 corporate executives and faculty members to suggest ways of preparing liberal arts majors for the job market. "This kind of education helps prepare students for the communication and analytical aspects of business jobs." Students' new interest in liberal arts includes some of the pragmatism that caused the earlier -rush to vocational programs.

America," Peak said. "It pushes back our knowledge about man and particularly his use of the mountains," she added. Peak's mother, Ann, is chief archaeologist for the family company, which in August found the structural remains eight feet underground while excavating the site of a hydroelectric project along a tributary of the Stanislaus River in Alpine County. In addition to the remains of the structure near Bear Valley, the firm also discovered earlier this year spear points at a prehistoric campsite 30 miles away. The findings, according to scientists, may be cause for revising some of early man's history on the continent.

"This in the very least will cause archaeologists to dig deeper, because in the past many believed G.R. Gochenour and the JNautilus Fitness Group Inc. of Wyoming are taking the more than million action against Burke Broadcasting a Texas cor-Jporatior) owned the television and Cheryl Meyer, former manager of the JNautilus Fitness Center. The television station now is' owned by Stauffer Communications, based in Topeka, i Gochenour is a majority stockholder for the health center, according to his lawyer Fred Reed of jjCheyenne. KYCU news director Brian fc Olson said he cannot comment on the lawsuits since the alleged inci-l dents occurred while the station was managed by the previous owners.

In court documents, Reed contends that the Nautilus corporation and the center used to have a good reputation among customers, members, employees and with businesses" and financial institutions with which Gochenour and Jthe center did business. But without verification or investigation, KYCU-TV reporter Wanda Oldham and other station lemployees allegedly negligently "prepared, composed, broadcast, published and televised false and defamatory statements about Gochenour and the group, the stated. I Offering his own opinion and not on behalf of the station, Olson jsaid, "They're picking on the wrong person. There is no finer Jand more dedicated reporter that Pve worked with than Wanda "Oldham. To suj her is ludicrous." -control and the of a news cast is in the news "director's hands, Olson said.

"A 'news director is ultimately responsible for the content of the news V.cast," he said in an interview. "We're dealing with a bigger Jissue here. What's on trial here is Kthe First Amendment," Olson Scontinued. "It's between our right "and freedom to report the news and lawsuits the flaw in the Ijudicial system. Any person can file them and the reality is you are put immediately on the defensive and to me that goes against the I American judicial system where you are innocent until you're pro-jvenTgijilii Lawsuits operate just Kthe opposite way." Reed alleges that the station jiired one or more stories that said "the doors of the center were closed because staff members had not been paid.

Meyer allegedly was the source of the stories, the lawsuits fsaid. But Meyer's statements were false and therefore libelous, slanderous and defamatory, the 'documents said, adding Gochenour was exposed to public scorn-and ridicule as a result, Scientists find structure be oldest on continent ycnis old Ikivc been found in North America. Scientists are sharply divided over when migration to the Americas occurred. Some sav humans arrived 20,000 to 35,000 yeai ago, while others contend migration began no more than 13,000 years ago. The significance of the residential site in Gabbett Meadow at an elevation of 6,500 feet is that it indicates a longtime presence and established culture rather than a transient population, said Robert Bettinger, a prehistory specialist at the University of California in Davis.

He said if man was just arriving in North America 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, it is unlikely that permanent structures and campsites would be found. Bettinger said remains FRESNO, Calif. (AP) Remains of what scientists believe could be the oldest structure ever found in North America have been carbon-dated to at least 9,750 years ago, an archaeologist said Saturday. Remains discovered at Hell's Gap, which were dated at 8,000 years, were previously believed to mark the oldest man-made structure on the continent, said Melinda Peak, of Peak and Associates Inc. of Sacramento.

The dating was made possible by the discovery of charcoal from a hearth found in the clay floor of what was once a 12-foot-long, oval-shaped residential building in the Sierra Nevada about 150 miles east of San Francisco. "We are tremendously excited because this is the oldest structure apparently ever found in North.