St. Joseph News-Press from St. Joseph, Missouri • 1

i In Need of a Challenge Learning Should Be National Agenda, Author Says By Jay Eastuck St. Joseph News-Press ith the end of the Cold War, America for the first time this century lacks a national agenda a unifying chaUense mother can stay an extra day in the maternity ward before she's sent home. For most of the centurs the national agenda was clear. Before the Cold War, world war dominated politics and culture. Before that, priming the economy and generating jobs in the wake of the Great Depression was the priority What now should our national agenda be? Mr.

McCullough suggests learning. "When you a ba through the historical record, thai iheme is not just there, it's in first place," he said. "We must have a literate populatioa We need to bring our standards Up at all levels." At the primary school level, education is waning, he said. In particular, a majority of grade school students don't know even basic history That must change, said Mr. McCullough, whose speech, "History as a Source of was the subject of Missouri Western State College's third annual Convocation on Critical Issues.

About 2,200 people attended the event Tuesday morning at the Western Field-house, "Our job is to draw strength from the past," Mr. McCullough said. "We should remember who we are and what we've done." Rather than discard history on the ash heap of bygone deeds and lessons that no longer applx Mr. McCullough suggested that people should view life as a walk down a path others have walked before. History is the signs along the way, left by those who went before, that map out our Journey Without them, we walk blindly toward the future.

By neglecting history the nation loses its respect for the sacrifices previous generations have made on our behalf. Thic jgh the "hype of the immediate," we also lose a sense of proportion that problems we might face today pale when compared to the hardships our forefathers bora "If they could endure in those times," he said, "haven't we the backbone to stand and face what we have to face without whining?" What we face as a nation is diminishing prestige in the world while Americans seem preoccupied with the materialism of the here and now Mr. McCullough cited John Adams, the nation's third president, who told Ralph Waldo Emerson of his desire for America: "I would that there was more ambition," Mr. Adams said. "By that I mean the ambition to excel" Mr.

McCullough said Mr. Adams' words should be applied to a new national priority learning. If the nation has the ambition to excel in education, it can again be a model for the world, he said. to which we devote our energy and resources. David McCullough, noted historian, lecturer and Pulitzer Prize winner, told a St Joseph audience Tuesday that America needs a new national agenda.

"It can't be just to balance the budget, or national health care or to cure diseases," he said. "These must be ondary." Referring to this year's presidential campaign, Mr. McCullough said the national priority must go beyond policies, such as whether the federal government should ensure that a new (VAL LAWHON JftySt. Joseph News-Press David MIcCulkNigh, PulKzw Prize-win-nlng asEthor, sddrseMS the autftone at ttM convocation at Missouri Wostont State Colieg on Tuesday morning. ante bom Jus EMMk lit Newly selected city manager tested under fire, city councilman says By JESS DcKAVEN St Joseph News-Press The transition from Patt Lilly to Stet Schanze may be so smooth that most people won't even notice it -j and that's just the way the folks at City Hall want it.

lor the first time since the office was occupied I Pleas made to Northern Ireland to refrain from retaliatory attack SHAWN POOMCHKIK Associated Press BELFAST, Northern Ireland The Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility Tuesday for the double car-bomb attack on the British army's head-' quarters here, which wounded 31 and brought Northern Ireland back to the brink of conflict. It was the outlawed group's first bomb attack In Northern Ireland since mid-1994. In February It broke a 17-month cease-fire with a deadly bombing in London; attacks followed elsewhere in Britain and on a British army base in Germany 1982, there will be no interim city manager while City Council conducts a nationwide search for a new leader. Instead, on Nov. 2 Mr.

Schanze will take the baton directly from the hand of the man who groomed him for the city manager's position. "I've learned a lot under Patt, and I owe him a great deal for placing me in positions of responsibility," Mr. Schanze said. "We're two different people, and there is a difference in our styles, but I'm not going to walk in and uproot things Stet Schanze: Takes overtis city manager Nov. 2 i- I.

Naritti fl' because I had a hand in many of the changes that have been made in recent years." Along with his promotion, Mr. Schanze's salary IRELAND DENNY SIMMONSSt. Joseph News-Press manager, Stet Schanze, In the City Hal! Council Chambers at a news conference Tuesday. Ninetoen-mentihold Baxter Schanze and his mom, Joanne, applaud the new St. Joseph city A telephone caller using a verified code word told RTE, the Irish national broadcasters in Dublin, that the IRA committed Monday's strike inside Thiepval Barracks, heart of the military presence in the British-ruled province.

Prime Minister John Major said the claim showed the IRA had not Please see SchanzePaga A3 IRAdairm responsibility for explosions at British army headquarters Construction booming at bases set for closure NORTHERN IRELAND 25 miles C-A Ji a IRELAND tJTlnsh 25 km AP list, the work was being done on land being transferred to other agencies or the Pentagon simply did not want to leave buildings half-finished. The Defense Department could not provide an exact figure on construction spending for largely defunct bases, but a Pentagon study last year of some of the projects expected to cost $471 million showed nearly $263 million of them were continued. Comparing three years of Pentagon construction budget records with base closure lists, The Associated Press reviewed a sample of more than $70 million in construction on closing or officially closed bases. Critics contend many of the expenditures are just wasteful. "They defeat the whole purpose of closing bases, which is to save money" said Sean Paige, spokesman for the group Citizens Against Government Waste.

The Pentagon notes that even while it officially terms some bases closed, portions are still used by the service that originally occupied it, by another branch of the military or by another government agency. And the Pentagon's director of installations, Doug Hansen, defending the projects, said many were contracted before bases went on the closure addition to classroom buildings used by the Navy is scheduled to begin soon. And in Orlando, the Navy just spent more than $13 million to build a dining hall and personnel center on a base scheduled to close in two years. Sailors have never set foot in the mess hall; it was turned over to the U.S. Customs Service.

And the city is scheduled to get the other building. All across the country, even after the government made the tough decisions to close military bases, the Pentagon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for construction on those very bases. Millions being wasted, Pentagon critics charge By KAREN GULLO Associated Press WASHINGTON San Diego's Training Center opened a new $5.1 million chapel just in time to hold graduation' for the facility's last recruit class. The base closes next yeat The Army's Fort Sheridan near Chicago officially closed three years ago. Yet, construction on a $3.3 million changed.

"It shows they still rely on terrorist violence and are indifferent to human life," he said. Earlier Tuesday, telephone callers told news organizations in Belfast and Dublin that the dissident group "Continuity IRA" was responsible, but the callers provided no codeword to validate the claim. The British government had already indicated it believed the IRA was responsible. Whether Northern Ireland returns to tit-for-tat bloodshed now remains to be seen. From Major on down, politicians appealed to the province's pro-British paramilitary groups to refrain from striking back.

The groups, known as "loyalists" have observed a cease-fire for two years. Atchison police seek assault suspect minus 30 days, and counting Weather Today: Partly cloudy and mild Tomorrow: Mostly sunny Today's high: 67 Low: 38 Compteia forecast-Page Two LINE 366464 Mm iKi.Na.ua Hopeful time traveler appears on talk radio to tout near-success the time wizard. But alas, in June, after Mr. Marcum burned out the air-conditioning unit in his Mid-town apartment and zapped the electricity out of the building, Mr. Brown "did not renew his lease." Mr.

Marcum, who is said to have built his own transformers and received materials from a major auto manufacturing company, has since disappeared. Friends say they haven't seen him in two weeks. Perhaps he was a ahead of his 30-day schedule and didn't take the time to tell anyone. ft- late-night talk show. Two weeks ago, the 23-year-old Marcum told Mr.

Bell he was "30 days away" from making the time machine work. Calling from Pahrump, on Tuesday, Mr. Bell said he has promised "Mad Man" Marcum that he would fly to St. Joseph to document the historic event. "If he's going to do it, we're going to videotape it," the overnight host said, without a hint of laughter.

Apparently, Mr. Marcum has gotten better at his electrical wizardry in the year since his arrest in Gentry County "He sent a cat a block away," said Al Brown, a landlord of By CHRIS WESSEL St. Joseph News-Press ATCHISON, Kan. Police are conducting a nationwide manhunt for a 30-year-old white man who forced his way by knife point into an Atchison woman's home Saturday night and held her captive for eight hours. The victim, a woman in her mid-40s, answered her door about 8:30 p.m.

Saturday and was confronted by a man armed with a knife, said Police Chief Mike Wilson. The man forced his way into Please see AtchisonPage A3 By OVETTA SAMPSON St. Joseph News-Press Northwest Missouri's premiere expert on time travel has garnered national attention from radio's king of the supernatural, talk-show host Art Bell. Mike Marcum, arrested last year for stealing electrical transformers to build a time machine, resurfaced recently, this time as a caller on the Index A8 Classified C4 Comics D4 Dear Abby Lifestyles Bl Movies D3 Puzzle C7 Sports Television 9In Eating Well today. Iowa COOk creates healthy exchanges of dessert ideas..