The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 37

ftr- SECTION Eljc fftiami Hcralii Sunday March 3 1974 1 i Kidnaped Businessman Released Unhurt concern was just that they might abandon me after they got the money and no one would find me I think kill me because they had blindfolded 26 hours after being taken at gunpoint from his Southern Shortening Inc plant and moments after his oldest son Clifford met ransom demands by leaving the $30000 at an undisclosed drop point A voluntary news blackout had been in effect since the abduction took place in this Central Florida town as the From Htrald Wlro Servlcos SANFORD Fla A 52-year-old businessman kidnaped by two men wearing stocking masks and gloves Thursday night at his family-run bakery shop was released unharmed early Saturday after $30000 ransom was paid George Jackson Jr was freed at 12:30 am Saturday kidnapers had threatened life if authorities or the news media became involved know why they picked Jackson said Saturday after a tearful reunion with his family was like a nightmare was only able to give very limited help to police in It Jackson Jr describing anything about the whole he said His eyes had been taped shut he added concern was just that they might abandon me after they got the money and no one would find me I think kill me because they had blindfolded me whole time my hands were taped behind my back and my feet were tied to the edge of a bed in a small SEMINOLE County Sheriff John Polk said the search for the men was complicated by the lack of any descriptions way they were dressed with masks we Jackson was no physical harassment and the victim was not physically abused" said Starnes been through quite an ordeal but in good shape We took him to the hospital for a checkup and in good health" JACKSON said he is not well known in Sanford calling himself family man not much interested in politics or making any kind of a public name for myself" wife Laura said she was equally mystified not she said had to borrow from family friends and a bank to pay Turn to Page 2B Col 8 me know what they look like and we even know for sure how many there were he said The FBI said they had the scene of the money drop under surveillance Friday night but declined to disclose whether they had actually seen the brown paper package containing the $30-000 picked up said a Tampa FBI spokesman of the agents Jackson who looked composed despite the ordeal said the kidnapers never talked about political motives and the kidnaping was apparently strictly for the ransom money was a long long night but now over and just so relieved" said Mrs Nick Starnes special agent in charge of the Tampa FBI office said there was indication that militants or other extremists were The FBI agents were dispatched to Sanford to join the search for the kidnapers all in their cars and alf on the Food Water Handling on 4 Ships Kidnapers Held George Jackson Jr left for 26 Hours released him for $30000 ransom wilh him is FBI Agent ISick Siames Herald MIKE O'BRYON that destroyed the Stonewall Discotheque a gay bar at 211 22nd St on Miami Beach The Place Pi-galle club nextdoor received minor smoke and water damage fire officials said and four firemen received minor injuries Cause of the blaze is under investigation Club Destroyed AH six engine companies of the Miami Beach Fire Department with the help of seven units from Miami fought a blaze tor over an hour Saturday The Weather Is Fine By ROBERTO FABRICIO Herald Staff Writer US government inspectors found serious deficiencies with water storage and food handling aboard four Miami-based cruise ships a report on shipboard health practices has revealed On at least five other Miami-based cruise ships the government found deficiencies although not as serious but bad enough to compel the government to issue new and tighter health standards for ships docking at US ports The report issued in February by the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control of the US Public Health Service was undertaken in the wake of the June 1973 outbreak of gastro-intesfinal illness about the Miami-based Skyward when 600 passangers were stricken with diarrhea and fever The four cruise ships with the lowest rating were the Emerald Seas the Starward (sister ship of the Skyward) the Flavia and the Bolero The Skyward which still sails from Miami was not rated THE CDC said it would require ships in the future to provide free medical service and medication to passengers who become sick with gastrointestinal disease during cruises and that it would revamp the whole inspection and certification procedure of the Public Health Department Allan Goldfin public relations director for the Commodore Cruise Lines owners of the Boheme also rated and of the Bolero said the October inspections of the two ships were made at the wrong time for his company Bolero had just come down from Canada and we were trying to get it ready to sail and the Boheme had been involved in the accident in Puerto Rico and we had it in dry-dock and so it was not said Goldfin He said the two ships passed Public Health Department inspections in January with 100 per cent approval He also said Commodore ships provide free medical service for gastro-intestinal Turn to Page 2B Col 7 But Marinas Run Dry With White Corporate Support Private Black College Thrives i SOUTH FLORIDA GAS GAUGE regular and we expect to get anymore until Monday The gas picture was the same at Merrill-Stevens Dry Dock in Coconut Grove HOPING things will get said Ron Baker superintendent due to get our March allocations any day now and servicing only our regular customers and sales-related work There seems to By WAYNE MARKHAM Central Florida Bureau Chief DAYTONA BEACH Cool hip and black the recruiting brochures say And perhaps modesty prevents Bethune publicists from adding successful At a time when small colleges are suffering enrollment declines and financial hardships largest private black college is thriving Founded by the daughter of a South Carolina sharecropper Bethune Cookman got its start with $150 five eager students an abandoned railroad tool shack and in Today with 1200 students a modern multi-million-dollar campus and plenty of the predominantly black school is embarking on yet another growth program PERHAPS most popularly-known to the white world as the small black church school that produced seven major league football stars in recent years Bethune Cookman has a more significant reputation among blacks spanning a half century of greatest social revolutions Founder Mary McLeod Bethune preached black pride decades before the civil rights movement began and taught that equal opportunity was a precept that applied to both blacks and whites Bethune Cookman admitted white students long before the historic US Supreme Court decision in 1954 that ended the practice of but education And having survived the white separatism of an earlier age Bethune Cookman is weathering black separatism today A HAPPY blending of oftentimes conflicting interests social strata race and customs makes the college faculty and students say Black activists from the streets of New York join Bible scholarship students from Miami on campus and weekly chapels are still observed here in defiance of the general scorn offered religion on most college campsuses in a modren age More than 85 per cent of the students come from poverty families and receive either scholarships or government loans But they graduate into middle-class American careers and hold their alumni testimonial at the Fontainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach Though painted as a conservative Methodist school and even by the more militant the college has been in the forefront of the civil rights movement ALWAYS taught black history here We have to establish any new departments or notes Turn to Page 2B Col 1 Press be enough for Baker said the gas shortage has had a little effect on sales of boats but that repair work has been going shows you people are still using their boats just going a bit Baker said THE GAS situation statewide has improved in some areas gas retailers say while in others particulary in the Central Florida area many stations remained closed Saturday Stations that were open had shorter lines In Tampa lines were reportedly no longer than five minutes with more stations open than on previous weekends There was n6 severe shortage in the state's capital but motorists were hit with higher prices At least two stations in Tallahassee raised gas prices as much as 13 cents per gallon the University of Miami science was taking the pulse of climate Minute by minute hour by hour the massive input and analysis of data went on data from satellites ships at sea from weather planes from lonely outposts of the earth But Neil Frank new chief of the National Hurricane Center a man given to open-neck shirts and old brown sweaters and easy geniality had come to a bottleneck have a decent way of communicating to the THE FRUSTRATION of By BEA HINES Herald Staff Writer The weather forecast for the weekend looks great sunshine blue skies the works But plan on that fishing trip boat owners not unless you know where you can get enough gas to get to your favorite spot and back Gas pumps at marinas are running dry Although marina operators say they expect their March allocations to arrive by Monday marina dock managers said Saturday they are playing it safe by servicing mainly their regular customers "Other marinas have been calling over here all morning to see if they can send their customers to said Bert Tumpson owner of Bette and Bert Bayfront Marina on Mac-Arthur Causeway have a limited amount but I turned anyone away yet We try to help everybody but we have to take care of our own customers TUMPSON said his March allocation is due tonight At the Grove Key Marina at Dinner Key a delivery was made early Saturday afternoon However dock-master Robert Douthit said that very nominal nothing we can really count on So limiting our sales to our regular customers Douthit said if a boater out in the bay ran out of gas completely he would send gas Over at Kings Bay Yacht Club a private club Capt George Andrews said he is in pretty good shape except for regular fuel what most of them he said have quite a bit of high test and diesel left Because we are a private club we only carry about 3000 gallons of each But we have 100 boats out there Right now about to run out of Problem: Getting Forecast to the Public CHARLES WHITED the public? he chuckled housewife could call up here and say just hungout a wash How about keeping an eye out for showers If any head my way on radar call Considering the astonishing array of sophisticated equipment now serving the weather center Dr Neil telephone stumbling block seemed prosaic indeed As he talked the great ATS3 satellite whirled in space snapping off a new weather photo every 26 minutes covering half the globe At the touch of a keyboard the scientist could weather chief said with a shake of the head something like $3500 a month We have He hopes to find some public-spirited private business firm to underwrite a weather report rotor system in much the same way that a local bank sponsors time-of-day A 40-s taped message would give the sponsor time for a brief com-m i a 1 and still leave enough for the vital statistics of weather So far Dr Frank found the sponsor Under ideal circumstances of course he would wish for even more than that What good is massive information after all if you get it to summon latest weather conditions by computer from Kalamazoo to Cairo A new 1000-watt shortwave transmitter on Key Biscayne beamed regular weather broadcasts around the clock to anyone within range owning the right kind of radio BUT STILL it enough thinking about the housewife planning a shopping he said the guy going to the beach or the tourist caught during a cold snap in a $40-a-day hotel room dialing our number public deserves more from us than a busy In the darkened radar room a spear of light swept methodically around its diallike screen At intervals a camera clicked Lanky crew-cut Dr Neil Frank 42 watched thoughtfully can follow a storm right across the city Why we can pinpoint a shower tell you where headed when it will hit your part of town when it will end a fantastic wealth of information right here If we could just get it out to climate AROUND US in the National Weather Center a think -tank of maps computers teletypes radar scanners and brainpower at two million people to Dr Frank mused ought to be able to come up with something better than The would be a multi-rotor system from Southern Bell Telephone Co capable of handling up to 500 calls at a time with a taped message on weather THE COST" the the weather chief is shared daily by countless people who dial the only available number for local forecasts 666-2044 and find itbusy Aside from periodic radio and TV broadcasts newspapers and taped weather reports on shortwave radio (16255 megahertz) the only Immediate contact is the single telephone line Busy.