Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

1 Motor voter bill signed f1 A3 Packwood hangs on C4 State meet takes off 1 i T- tl Warm, stray thunderstorms I HSS0 r-lrtrai Founded lit 1051 Casper, Wyoming Moving on ,...111.1.1 I II 1.1,, J.I "1 Four senators want to reshape Clinton's budget They propose killing energy tax i WASHINGTON (AP) A bipartisan group of four senators pledged Thursday to fight to replace President Clinton's proposed taxes on energy and some rich people with cuts in benefits like Social Security, but House and Senate leaders predicted his package would pass almost intact. The White House and top congressional Democrats moved swiftly against the latest challenge to Clinton's budget-cutting plan. They attacked the maverick senators' alternative in a scries of news conferences in hopes of preventing it from snowballing into a major political menace. The president and leading Democrats said the new proposal Please see TAXES, A7 Rick SorensonStar-Tribune Frosh Wyo legislators schedule gathering i Chamberlain fears challenge to seniority system By CHARLES PELKEY Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE Democratic and Republican lawmakers first elected to the Wyoming Legislature in 1992 have scheduled a meeting in Lander next month to discuss common interests "that may cross party lines," says one freshman legislator organizing the caucus. Rep.

Jane Mocklcr, 1ID44, D-Cheyenne, said Thursday the 34 first-term house members and 5 newly-elected Senators have been invited to a June 26 and 27 caucus in Lander. Democrat Mocklcr organized the caucus along with Republican legislator Cale Case, HD54, R-Lander. Mocklcr said the meeting is designed for freshman lawmakers to "review the successes and defeats of the last session and to make sure that during the next session we can avoid losing issues on procedural grounds and the errors that result from our being newcomers." But House Speaker Doug Chamberlain, HD4, R-LaGrangc, said Thursday he sees the planned meeting as the first step toward a challenge of the Legislature's seniority system. That, said Chamberlain, is potentially "divisive" and is likely to cause serious problems in the coming 1994 budget session. Chamberlain also said recent passage of the state's term limitation law means new lawmakers "feel they have to act fast" if they are ever going to move into leadership positions.

Wyoming voters in 1 992 passed a measure that limits lawmakers to three terms in each house of the Legislature. 'I think that part of it is an attitude on a few of their parts that they know they're only going to be here five more years," he said. "So they're saying 'let's overhaul this thing now so we can play more of a I think that's a direct fallout from term limits." Chamberlain said that will ultimately result in the "brokering" of House and Senate leadership posi-Plcase sec LEGISLATORS, A 10 Barry Reed of Casper, who is a quadraplegic, smiles as he prepares to receive his degree, with honors in social work, at the UWCC graduation Thursday night. UWCC graduates 165 students Clinton taps Beattie for USFWS director statistics would classify the majority of you as 'non-traditional' students," said Colgan, former deputy chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under Lynne Cheney. "That is to say that most of you are in your 30s or older, and about half of you have jobs or family responsibilities and have been working toward your degrees part-time," she said.

Statisticians historically have counted traditional students as those who go to college directly from high school, Colgan said. But the ranks of the non-traditional' students are growing much faster than the number of traditional students, she said. "More and more people across the country are earning their degrees just the way you have Please see COLLEGE, A10 By TOM MORTON Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Teresa Proctor typified manv of the 165 other University of WyomingCasper College Center graduates Thursday night. But she wasn't traditional like young students in ivy covered halls of the academy in sleepy college towns. As she walked across the stage at the Events Center to receive her bachelor of social work degree at UWCC's 16th commencement, her daughters Wendy, 20, and Tera, 13, jumped up and yelled out, "We love you, mom!" After the ceremony, Wendy said that the degree took more than five years and a lot of sacrifice on the part of three of them in the single parent household.

"She had to study and be there for us," Wendy said. "Everybody had to go to school in the morning; everyone had to take their share of the responsibility," she said. Teresa said she had earned an associate degree in criminal justice from Casper College, then decided to earn the bachelor's degree, adding that she hopes that degree will open doors for a job. Teresa isn't alone in her experiences and aspirations. She and the other graduates represented the cutting edge of the future of higher education, said commencement speaker Celeste Colgan, former head of Casper College's Division of Language and Literature.

"People who keep national DAVID BOREN Expects to gather support of the Interior Department is persisting in seeking reimbursement from Turner for those trips, despite decisions at lower levels in the department upholding Turner's argument that the trips were legitimate department business. The inspector general's office claims the trips were primarily personal and were improperly billed to taxpayers. The inspector general's office in late April formally asked the Interior Department's assistant secretary for policy, management and budget to determine whether Turner should be required to reimburse the department for the trips. Turner was on official travel to Alaska Thursday and could not be reached for comment. Turner has said in the past that all of the trips Please see TURNER, A 10 tried to break through a barrier.

Two minor injuries were reported. Allegations of corruption have dogged Perez during both of his 5-year terms, but he finished out his first without charges. On Thursday, on a 9-6 vote, the court accused the president of misusing $17.2 million in government funds. He denies wrongdoing, saying the money was used to protect Venezuela's security. He is alleged to have used it instead for a lavish inauration party and the like.

Minutes before the decision was handed down, the entire Cab-Please see VENEZUELA, AI0 By DAVID HACKETT Star-Tribune Washington bureau WASHINGTON The Clinton administration has nominated Mollie Beattie, a natural resources official from Vermont, to replace Wyoming native John Turner as the new director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Beattie would be the first female director of the agency which oversees the nation's federal wildlife refuges and is responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile Turner, who will stay on with the agency through the end of this month, remains under fire for several trips he made to Jackson Hole when he headed the agency.

The office of inspector general first democratically elected Venezuelan leader to face charges while in office. In an emotional speech televised Thursday evening, Perez again declared his innocence. He pledged to step aside, as required by the constitution, if a trial is ordered as expected. As darkness fell, National Guard troops fired tear gas to disperse an unruly crowd of about 1,000 outside the National Congress Building. The mob was made up mainly of students and young workers shouting anti-Perez slogans.

Police moved in after the crowd Supreme Court indicts Venezuelan leader on embezzlement charges AP A man holding a Venezuelan flag cheers outside the Supreme Court builiding in Caracas Thursday after President Carlos Andres Perez was indicted CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) The Supreme Court on Thursday authorized an embezzlement trial against President Carlos Andres Perez, who promised to abide by the law and predicted his name would be cleared. It is now up to the 49-member Senate, which is controlled by the opposition, to decide whether to order a trial. The Senate scheduled a meeting for 10 a.m. Friday. Throughout the country, where political and social unrest helped to fuel two coup attempts last year, people prepared for upheaval.

But Caracas remained mostly calm. The unpopular president is the solved those conflicts without litigation," Sullivan said. Hopefully, the meetings being held in the West recently by Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt on federal grazing policy will lead to a solution to that conflict that will reflect concerns of all parties involved, Sullivan said. In the past, the grazing fee issue has been characterized by "polarized sides" and "a lack of communication and understanding" and "to some degree on both sides a rigidity and inflexibility that would lead ultimately and almost did lead I think, 1 fear, to an im-Please sec MEDI ATIATION, A10 not litigation pushed solve resource questions Border To Border B3 Calendar A2 Casper Area CI -2 Classified C6-10 Comics C4 Crossword C8 Landcrs.Omarr C3 Letters A9 Markets A4 Movies C5 Obituaries, Diary B2 Opinion AH Sports 1)1-4 Wyoming Bl i Old Grouch It's pretty dangerous Democrats, Republicans meeting together. It's True You can choose the prlca of your own adl If tha value of the item you want to sell the ad is fcaj $51-5125 the ad is $5 $126-5250 the ad is Ha.

Call 266-0555 or 1-800-442-6916 (Toll free In Wyoming) for more information. 8) Negotiation as best way to By HUGH JACKSON Star- Tribune staff writer CASPER Rcintroduction of the black-footed ferret, cooperative range management on the Sun Ranch, and the Claiks Fork wild and scenic river designation are examples of parties reaching workable solutions to natural resource conflicts in Wyoming by communicating with each other. Gov. Mike Sullivan said Thursday. Conversely, the failed Greater Yellowstone Vision document process, wolf rcintroduction, and the state's lawsuits with the tribes Sullivan: No reason to make gambling legal in Wyoming By DEIRDRE STOELZLE Star- Tribune staff writer CASPER Recent convictions demonstrate that illegal gambling is occurring in Wyoming, but that is no reason to make it legal.

Gov. Mike Sullivan said Thursday. Legalized gambling in Wyoming is geographically and economically unrealistic, nonproductive and eventually generates more problems than it solves. Sullivan maintained. Sullivan earlier this spring called for the crackdow on illegal gambling that so far appears to hav resulted in a spate of raids seizing illegal gambling machines at various locations in the state.

Last month the Let Us Vote Coalition presented the signatures of 32,000 supporters of local option gambling to the secre-Plcase see GAMBLING, A 10 over water on the Wind River Indian Reservation are examples where attempts at solutions have failed because people on cither side of the issue arc not talking with and understanding each other's point of view, Sullivan said. "You can't look at" both the tribal water dispute and the wa ter suits with Nebraska "and the money that's spent and say we'd have been better off long-term if we could have re- X. stu.