Arizona Daily Sun from Flagstaff, Arizona • 1

I I 1 Cj i Khl. h'l I. i lir FT' An inch of snow may fall tonight, but a warming trend is forecast later this week. Vol.41 No. 145 SERVING FLAGSTAFF AND NORTHERN ARIZONA Monday, January 19, 1987 price 25t Marchers seek King holiday PHOENIX (AP) Thousands of marchers braved bitter weather to ask the Arizona Legislature to stand up to Republican Gov.

Evan Mecham and grant a holiday honoring Martin Luther King today. Mecham, meanwhile, told a national television audience that he could not understand why supporters of the holiday wanted to force their wishes on everyone else. RELATED COMMENTARY, PAGE 4 House, prompting then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt to declare a holiday for state employees by executive proclamation later in the year. But Mecham promised during his campaign that he would rescind the holiday because Babbitt lacked authority to act without the Legislature, and he signed the rescission on Jan.

12, urging lawmakers to refer the matter to the voters rather than debate the issue again this year. The marchers set off behind American and Arizona flags as well as a black wreath bearing the words The dream is still ours. Orange and purple balloons floated above the inter-racial crowd with the words Happy Birthday, Martin. A candlelight march and King Day service is scheduled this evening at Northern Arizona University. The march begins at the duBois Conference Center at 5:30 p.m.

Marchers will go to the Prochnow Auditorium, where the service will begin at 6:30. observed Sunday said they would march again through an all-white county where a biracial brotherhood march Saturday was met by rock- and bottle-wielding protesters, including members of the Ku Klux Klan. Today is a holiday for federal workers around the country, and for employees of the District of Columbia and most of the 40 states that have a public holiday for King. Some states honor King on his birthday, Jan. 15.

Events scheduled for the day included the ringing of bells in state capitol buildings, churches and schools across the nation, a ceremony at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and marches in Kings native Atlanta. What blacks need is jobs, Mecham added after the broadcast in remarks to a Phoenix newspaper. They dont need another holiday. Marchers assembled in subfreezing temperatures at the Phoenix Civic Center for a 212-mile walk to the state Capitol where leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature had agreed to accept petitions bearing an estimated signatures and calling for creation of a King holiday. A holiday cleared the Senate last year but failed by one vote in the King Day By The Associated Press Federal and many state workers got the day off today as Americans observed Martin Luther King Day, their memories of the slain civil rights leader stirred by recent outbreaks of racial violence in the North and South.

Handshake Despite Disagreement Flagstaff Public Schools, observed the day today. (AP Laserphoto) sparred verbally over the Martin Luther King Day holiday. Mecham rescinded the holiday for state employees, but several entities, including the City of Flagstaff and the PHOENiX Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham (left) and the Rev. Jesse Jackson shake hands during a recent news conference in Phoenix.

Today, Mecham and Jackson Mecham, Jackson debate holiday issue on TV I RELATED STORY, PHOTO, PAGE 5 the legal authority to set such a holiday. Mecham has asked the Legislature to approve a referendum on whether Arizona should have a King holiday. Mecham said, I dont understand the insistence by those who want to honor Dr. King, who insist that everybody do so. I think that any observance, a tribute, an honor, has to be bestowed, not forced.

And I dont see the hassle on all this. Jackson said, Gov. Mecham, in a real sense has tried to turn back the hand of time. He is trying to be a dreambuster, but he will not succeed. PHOENIX (AP) Gov.

Evan Mecham said today he does not understand why people who want to honor Martin Luther King Jr. are insisting that everybody else do the same. The Republican governor, appearing on NBCs Today show with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was labeled a dreambuster by Jackson, who said Mecham will not succeed in opposing efforts to establish a King holiday in Arizona. Mecham repeated his insistence that he had to cancel the Arizona holiday for state workers established by executive order last year by then-Gov.

Bruce Babbitt because Babbitt did not have I hope that Gov. Mecham will see the error of his ways, Jackson said, adding that the nations governors need to exercise moral leadership on the issue. An apparently irritated Mecham replied, "I really resent you talking about moral leadership, Jesse. You who want to use pressure and political pressure to make everybody feel guilty if they dont go along with you. You are the one that lacks moral leadership, Jesse, not I.

Mecham earlier said the backers of the King holiday in Arizona were willing to cast aside the law for their political purpose of honoring King. We cannot just remember the dream and the dreamer, we must implement the dream, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday in New York, urging listeners to march to protest an attack by a white mob Dec. 20 that left a black man dead. Civil rights leaders in Georgia on Death penalty waived to extradite man 27 deaths blamed on storm; ice, snow heading northeast him back is through the use of the formal extradition process and that extradition process requires that we agree not to impose the death penalty if the suspect is convicted of capital crimes here in the U.S.

Hamadi is charged with air piracy, which carries the death penalty, and murder. WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department plans this week to formally ask West Germany to turn over a man charged in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner, even though the suspect wont be sentenced to death if convicted. The department announced Sunday it wouldnt seek the death penalty against Mohammad Ali Hamadi, a decision which clears the way for Hamadi to be sent to the United States. West Germany has no death penalty and its laws bar extradition of people to countries which have capital punishment. Justice Department spokesman Patrick Korten said, We have concluded that the only way we can get Sunspots Drowning victim is sought ground, the heaviest snowfall since 1944.

Gage had 13 inches. Nearly 200 landings and takeoffs at Will Rogers had been canceled by late Sunday. Runway crews had been working since Friday to clear a sheet of ice when the snow hit. It was just so awesome that they couldnt stay up with it," said airport spokesman Tom Morton. An estimated 11,000 people were without electricity Sunday in the Tulsa area.

Utility crews on loan from three states worked today to repair lines. Kansas had received up to 14 inches of snow by Sunday. Illinois got up to 6 inches. The 15-mile stretch of Interstate 95 inside Philadelphia closed for nearly 3V2 hours Sunday because of ice, and 20 miles of the New York State Thruway closed for about two hours to allow police to clear away cars. By The Associated Press A stubborn winter storm blamed for 27 deaths socked the Plains with more snow and ice today after stranding hundreds of travelers, stopping the mail in Texas, glazing roads in the Northeast and swelling streams in the South.

Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City remained closed this morning because of snow and ice. Some schools were closed in New Mexico, where four counties were declared disaster areas because of snow. Snow fell from Kansas and Oklahoma into New England. Freezing rain fell in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maine. Flood warnings were up in Alabama and Louisiana and advisories were posted from Georgia and Tennessee into New Jersey and New York.

As one end of the slow-moving storm knocked out power Sunday to thousands in Oklahoma and brought travel to a near standstill in the Southwest, the other end dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain in Pennsylvania and New York. Two 17-car chain-reaction collisions on Interstate 87 north of Albany, N.Y., injured 23 people, three seriously, police said. By the time we got to this bridge, there was a wall of cars all the way across, and we had no place to go, said motorist Jim DeVoe. So we hit a couple of cars, and we were hit by two more, from behind and the side. Streets in Oklahoma City, shrouded by the states worst snowstorm in at least four decades, were dotted with cars abandoned by motorists who couldnt get through drifts of at least 3 feet.

By nightfall, Oklahoma City had 9 inches on the i morning looking for the victims body. Reports indicate Arcieri was complaining to companions, who were out fishing on the river, of feeling ill. While the group was pulling the boat onto the dock at Lees Ferry, Arcieri fell into the river, grabbing another man and pulling him with him, according to reports. Authorities did not have the name of the other man that fell into the river with Arcieri, but reports say that man swam to the dock safely. A Scottsdale man is believed to have drowned in the Colorado River at Lees Ferry Sunday evening after he complained of feeling ill and fell off a dock, according to Coconino County Sheriffs Department reports.

Sheriffs and Park Service searchers late this morning still were looking for the body of Robert Arcieri, 47. Sheriff's Capt. Sam Whitted said Park Service divers were combing the river bottom at Lees Ferry this Coconino County personnel director Priser dies 4r Board-Administrators Joint Study Committee on Professional Guidelines. She also was named to the State Board of Education. In 1972, she sought re-election to the local board and was defeated.

Survivors are her husband, a Flagstaff resident; two sons, Michael, Maryland; David, Flagstaff; and three daughters, Susan Prins, South Africa; Jane, Flagstaff; and Patty Pasco, Colorado; and a sister, Pat Stevenson, Tucson. Flagstaff Symphony Guild and the Art Gallery Association. In 1967, she was elected to the school board to replace Dr, Doyle Bladon, Sedona, handily defeating a field of six other male candidates to win the seat. During her board term, she was a member of the Social Health Committee and the advisory committee for selection of school sites. She also served on the joint board-administration professional administration team and was a member of the Arizona School assistance program which has been widely accepted by our workers.

It feels today as if there is a huge gap in our organization. Memorial services will be private. Mrs. Priser was born March 26, 1925, in San Diego, and grew up and was educated in Ohio. She moved to Arizona first in 1937 and lived for three years in Tucson.

She returned in 1960 with her husband, John B. Priser, now a retired astronomer with the U.S. Naval Observatory, and the family settled in Flagstaff. She was a member of the board. At that time, she was only the second woman to serve on the board.

The first was Mary Morton Pollock who served in the 1920s and 1930s. Jackie brought county government to a higher plane of decency by her mere presence, County Manager Catherine R. Eden said today. In many ways, she was the conscience of this county. Jackie brought many changes to our personnel system, but she was proudest of starting an employee Jacqueline J.

Priser, the second woman in history to serve on the Flagstaff School Board, died Jan. 18 at her home. She was 61 Mrs. Priser, who had been ill for a year, was at the time of death personnel director of Coconino County, a post she had held since June 1984. Prior to that, she had worked almost a decade for the Northern Arizona Council of Governments (NACOG) and had ended her career there as personnel director.

In 1967, Mrs. Priser was elected to a five-year term on the school JACQUELINE J. PRISER i i 4k.