Alabama Journal from Montgomery, Alabama • 1

ALABAMA JOURNAL FINAL EDITION FOR NEWS BULLETINS DIAL 265-8246 24 PAGES IS Partly ckwdy tonight and Wednesday, Law tonight. mid-Ms. High tomorrow, low Sot. (Mora weather Page 3) 90th Yor No. 66 Tuesday Afternoon.

April 4, 1976 A MULTIMEDIA NEWSPAPER Montgomery, Ala. b-Burh Orders Take ect in 13 Counties WEATHER A I in the wildfire situation because only light rains are predicted for the state Thursday night and Friday morning. Strong prefrontal winds can cause rapid forest fire spread and make firefighting efforts difficult Emergency firefighting units from Florida were assigned this morning to southwest Alabama, while units from Mississippi and North Carolina will be sent to the Birmingham area, Sego said. Alabama National Guard units were called to Lamar County Saturday where flames destroyed about 1,700 acres near Bankhead National Forest. Since mid-March, wildfires have destroyed an estimated $4.9 million in timber and more than $300,000 worth of residential property.

The Department of Public Safety was designated today to coordinate arson enforcement across the state. according to Sego, who added most areas of central Alabama are still relatively free of major fires. As of noon Monday, 820 fires had destroyed 58,743 acres of woodlands in the past five days. Arson has become a major wildfire problem and forestry officials made 11 arrests in northeast and east-central Alabama during the past two weeks. Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee have also reported arson problems.

However, open burning of trash and leaves, combined with dry weather and erratic winds, have posed the major wildfire problem. The no-burn orders would outlaw all outside burning. Alabama, the hardest hit of the southeastern states, has reported more than 900 fires during the last three weeks which destroyed more than 70,000 acres, according to Sego. Sixteen houses were destroyed by wildfires and four persons killed. Forestry officials see little relief By JEFF WOODARD Gov.

George Wallace today issued a no-burn order for 13 Alabama counties in hopes of reducing the state's wildfire damages, according to the Alabama Forestry Commission. Forestry Commission officials have also acquired a $50,000 emergency appropriation to fund support units coming into the state from Mississippi, Florida and North Carolina. Frank Sego, commission spokesman, said the no-burn order will affect the counties of Baldwin, Washington, Mobile, Tallapoosa, Clay, Talladega, Cherokee, Etowah, St. Clair, Blount, Shelby, Jefferson and Walker. The no-burn order went into effect at noon today.

Montgomery County recently reached a Level 4 wildfire danger rating which is one step from the most dangerous conditions. According to County Forester Harold Taft, 300 acres of woodlands were destroyed in Montgomery County this past weekend and 14 acres were burned Monday. Related picture Page 2 Arson, which became a major problem in the Ramer and Mt. Meigs areas last year, has not been frequently reported this year, Taft said. The emergency appropriation is part of $500,000 set aside in the general fund for statewide emergencies.

According to Sego, fire suppression units, additional firefighting personnel and repair crews will come to Alabama today as part of an agreement with the Southeast States Compact Commission, which is a group of states banded to assist each other in emergency situations. The U.S. Forest Service is also providing assistance to state forestry officials. The worst wildfire problems center around northeast counties and portions of the southwest. Mobile and Washington counties are "experiencing a severe problem," Tanker Truck Explosion Forces Sh alim ar Evacuation available unit had been sent to the scene.

"We sent in five units out of our ltt Jlr loader Dob West of Gunter AFS 'Monster' Crane Helicopter Used Ethics Panel Is Silent on Probe of Sen. McMillan in Placing Siren moving his eyes from the action. By MARK McINTYRE A gas explosion ripped through a residential section of Shalimar, this morning when a tanker truck overturned, forcing emergency units to evacuate a four-block area. Authorities reported no deaths and no major injuries, but several persons were treated for smoke inhalation. An Okaloosa Sheriff's Department spokeswoman said the tanker and several trailers erupted in flames which could be seen from Fort Walton Beach two miles away.

The spokeswoman, Shirley Bowles, said she believed the tanker truck was carrying propane gas. She said the explosion occurred southeast of Shalimar, just outside the city limits. Fort Walton police and the Okaloosa Sheriff's Department and fire units evacuated the residential area. Spokeswoman Bowles said Gulf Power Co. was attempting to shut off electricity to the area.

Shalimar is a suburb of Fort Walton Beach and home to active and retired military personnel, some of whom work at nearby Eg-lin Air Force Base. A.R. Dalton, dispatcher for the Ocean City-Wright Fire District which serves the area, said every two stations, two from Fort Walton Beach, two from units from Eglin Air Force Base and all of the until the investigation is completed and the commission finally takes action." "Mr. Cooper talked with Sen. McMillan Monday and we are working to resolve this and get the answers to it," McKenzie added.

The Birmingham senator disclosed on his 1975 financial statement to the Ethics Commission that he receives a dividend of less than $1,000 annually from Denison Mining, Ltd. He also told the commission that the firm in which he is a law partner represents two trucking companies. McMillan said that the mining company in which he owns stock is a uranium ore business with its United States headquarters in Denver. The one or two shares in his name were given to him in 1969 or 1970 by his father and annual dividends range from 60 cents to $1.50, McMillan said. The shares are valued at $58 each.

The senator said the financial disclosure form was prepared by Thought for Today There is nothing so stupid as an educated man if you get off the thing he was educated in humorist Will Rogers. manpower we could muster from the south end of the county," Dalton said. his accountant and he is not certain that he still owns the stock. McMillan said that state law does not prevent his voting on legislation which would affect the firms he represents as an attorney "as long as I do not own an interest in the firm." Under a section on requirements that legislators disclose their personal or private interest in bills, the Alabama law says: "A member of the Legislature who has a personal or private interest in any measure or bill proposed or pending before the Legislature, shall disclose the fact to the house of which he is a member, and shall not vote thereon." The law also prohibits a public official from using his office for financial gain for himself or for any business with which he is associated unless such use and gain are specifically authorized by law. The bills on which McMillan voted included a truck weight bill which allowed mining and trucking firms to greatly increase the amount that can be hauled on Alabama roads.

He also voted to support a strip mining bill in 1975 over a stronger House version. A blasting bill which would permit detonation of explosives up to 10 feet of an occupied building also received McMillan's vote in the 1977 regular session. By LINDA PARHAM Advertiser Staff Writer A spokesman for the Alabama Ethics Commission declined comment today on apparent violations of the state ethics law by state Sen. George McMillan of Birmingham. McMillan, who holds stock in a Canadian mining company and whose law firm represents two trucking companies, voted in 1975 on legislation affecting trucking firms, strip mining and blasting.

The Birmingham senator does not deny that he cast ballots on the. bills in question, but said he has checked repeatedly with the Ethics Commission's executive director, Melvin Cooper, to insure that he does not violate the ethics law. A commission spokesman. Assistant Director Howard McKenzie, would not comment this morning on an Ethics Commission investigation on the matters. McKenzie said, "The law says that we shall not make any public statement against any individual By NICK LACKEOS The scream of its turbine en-gines blocked everything else out as the huge crane helicopter began its descent.

"It's frightening it looks like a monster," said Air Force information specialist Frank Taylor as he watched from a field at Gunter Air Force Station today. He was standing, with hundreds of spectators who came to watch the CH-54 lift a 600-pound tornado warning siren and set it atop the multi-story block house. "It's a wasp, that's what it looks like, a darn wasp," said Taylor as the big blades created ground-level sand storm in the powerful rotor wash. The craft came to a swaying halt about 50 feet above its cargo as a line dropped, and the air loader on the ground climbed onto the siren and booked the ground line with the main line. He jumped off the siren, ducking instinctively as he ran out of range of the blades to safety.

The slack tightened as the craft began to slowly climb, picking up the cargo, and moving almost sideways toward the block house some 200 yards away. "Oh, wow," sighed Taylor, not King Helped Put Local Woman in Lunch Business "Great stuff. I'm just like a kid. I love it." More spectators began stopping in cars, walking out of office buildings and sitting down in their backyards to watch as the helicopter hovered over the blockhouse. "That's a damn sight, isn't just love it," said Taylor as the craft began a gradual descent again, its cargo swaying in a slight pendulum motion as the pilot eased the big crane down inch by inch.

Its descent halted for a full minute, allowing the cargo to stop swaying, and the descent began again, finally ending when the cargo was on the roof. "It looks like a bug, like a grasshopper," said Senior Airman Charles Davis, a security police officer on duty to keep the spectators at a safe distance. The main line released the ground line, and the craft began to climb higher and move away, having completed its mission. It was furnished by the Alabama National Guard 307th Aviation Company in Birmingham. The largest helicopter in the United States, the craft has a lift capability of 12 and a half tons.

It is 88 feet long and holds 1,250 gallons of fuel. I I Him i mam the JOURNAL John Wayne has a 90 percent chance ot recovering from open-heart surgery and returning to the two-fisted adventure movies he has made lor 50 years, his doctors say. Page 3. Two stars from the movie "Julia," Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards, take Oscars lor best supporting actress and actor as the 50th annual Academy Awards handed out glittering golden statuettes. Page 5.

Tongsun Park denies, for the time he says, that the $850,000 he gave 30 congressmen was to buy influence for South Korea. But House investigators say they are not satisfied with that explanation. Page 5. The dreamer is dead a decade today. But the doubts endure: Did James Earl Ray fire the bullet that killed Dr.

Martin Luther King "No," Ray told The Associated Press in an interview. But who did? Page 17. (Editor's Note: Ten years ago today, the Rev. Martin Luther King was gunned down by an assassin's bullet at a Memphis hotel. Georgia Gilmore, who talked with the Journal last week, is one Montgomery resident who knew and revered the late civil rights leader.

By LENORE REESE The brick house at 453 Dericote St. is filled with the tempting aroma of sizzling roast beef, turnip greens and baking apple pie. Georgia Gilmore, a rotund woman with graying hair and an easy grin, is going about her dally chores of feeding lunch to some 150 Montgomerians, a chore she says has been her livelihood for 26 years. Cooking the day's meals starts early about 3 a.m. for the 58-year-old woman.

She rises, prepares the day's meat, placing it in her two ovens for a slow cook until about 8 a.m. The lunches are boxed for delivery to several businesses city-wide, while regular customers are served their meals on china plates at her dining room table. And if it hadn't been for a minister by the name of Martin Luther King, Mrs. Gilmore freely admits (Related Story, Page 13) she probably wouldn't be in the home-cooked lunch business today. Her close friendship with King eventually led her to prepare meals for some of the most famous personalities ever to visit the Capital City.

Among them, she says, were John, Robert and Edward Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Mrs. Gilmore began cooking meals for persons other than her six children in the mid-1950s by toting pies and sandwiches to the first "mass meetings" of civil rights movement supporters. It was at one of those meetings, at Holt Street Baptist Church, that she met King. "I never cared too much for preachers, but I listened to him preach that night.

And the things he said were things I believed in. He told all about the good things you should do for each other and how with a better education you could be a better person," she recalled. King's address moved her so much she went up to meet him after the meeting. The two became (See King Page 2) Abby Bridge Classified Comics Crossword Death Notices Editorial 7 7 17-23 15 7 17 4 Help A Horoscope Lifestyle Movies Sports Television Dr. Thosteson Weather Crisls 265-9576 Ert.

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