The Bangor Daily News from Bangor, Maine • 7

A NGOCTtl insideE reaffirms bond rating Page5 Franklin water shortage escalates pages TV Watch USA Weekend Comics Maine Style maine largest daily Groups to mark 1 863 march on Washington Jobs justice peace on agenda By Sonya Ross WASHINGTON (AP) Marchers young and old began trickling in Friday to celebrate the 30th-an-niversary march on Washington billed as a transfer of civil rights power to a younger set of leaders But as college students groomed by civil rights groups held forums on the future of the movement disgruntled urban activists pulled out of the event calling it a party for middle-class blacks march and rally are to commemorate the watershed 1963 march demanding voting rights and an end to official segregation It is sponsored by the same civil rights and labor groups that staged the original march where Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous Have A speech This time the agenda is Justice and with issues ranging from preserving union jobs to changing federal drug sentencing laws and locating soldiers missing from the Vietnam War This agenda is advanced by a broad coalition that includes His-panics Asians American Indians women gays the disabled and the elderly While the original march drew about 200000 people organizers Schools fighting uphill battle Valuation formula a major obstacle By Doug Kesseli Of the NEWS Staff Six years ago Kevin and Becky MacAlister left a mill town in Massachusetts in search of an idyllic small-town life They ended up in Atkinson population 300 in Piscataquis County Part of the allure was the three-room Atkinson Elementary School where the three children have benefited from lots of individual attention in the small classes Now Becky MacAlister cochairwoman of the Atkinson Parent-Teacher Organization is fighting an uphill battle to keep the school open The heart of this small community the Atkinson Elementary School was a casualty of budget cuts when SAD 41 voters (the Milo area) met June 30 Townspeople are planning to vote this fall on whether they want to reopen the school at an extra cost to them of $81241 MacAlister holding out much hope for the school which served 24 pupils last year no way going to fly with the she said the general consensus in the town is that once those doors are shut they be opened again of little comfort to the MacAlisters but similar scenes were narrowly avoided this year across Maine when state officials engineered a budget that included $515 million for schools or flat funding in each of the next two years Falling far short of the more than $630 million that the state Board of Education had certified in December as necessary to keep up with the true costs of education but above the $487 million that Gov John McKernan had proposed flat funding was a lifeboat for a See AID CUTS on Page 6 Yankee unit a casualty of peace By Jon Marcus BOSTON (AP) The first and oldest Army National Guard division fought in two world wars and traces its history to the American Revolution battle with the British at Lexington Now just another victim of peace The so-called Yankee Division will be deactivated Saturday during a ceremony at Boston Common did our said veteran Albert Baillancourt 74 proved it in World War I We proved it in World War II They're still doing away with The division was created from units that patrolled the Massachusetts Bay Colony beginning in 1636 stood up to the British at Lexington and Concord and fought at Gettysburg and on other battlefields of the Civil War It was the first US division in combat during World War I and fought alongside Gen George troops during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II The division spent much of that war on tedious guard duty in the US South where the soldiers were See OLDEST GUARD on Page 2 Fed-up angler finds bigger fish to fry eats presidential salmon say this time they expect of of marchers likely well short of their initial goal of 250000 The National Park Service says it expects the march to be peaceful Neither park police nor District of Columbia police have issued permits for counterdemonstrations Most of those coming into town for the march plan to make it a day trip organizers said Bus caravans were expected to come into town early Saturday and most were leaving immediately after the march ends Some have questioned why another commemoration is being held for asked Lou-venia Wheeler as she waited for a bus at Union Station with her two sons always marching and nothing ever Wheeler said she plan to march on Saturday just heard about it this week Nobody is saying exactly why we are doing this Also sitting out the march is an organization of reformed gang members who said Friday that the commemoration is overlooking the See THOUSANDS on Page 2 lantic salmon taken each spring from the Penobscot River near Bangor has been given to the president at the White House Although the tradition was suspended during the 1950s because of industrial pollution in the Penobscot it resumed during President Ronald administration after sewage treatment plants cleaned up the river Although President Clinton campaigned on a promise to end Washington his own indecision a comedy of errors and bad communications killed the 81-year-old tradition this year After landing the 7-pound silver salmon in Guerin Pool on the Vea-zie side of the Penobscot May 2 Westfall deposited the fish in his freezer and waited months for W'hite House aides to set up an appointment with Clinton The trip to Washington would have made history father Claude landed the first Penobscot salmon in 1992 and presented it to George Bush at the former vacation retreat at Point in Kennebunkport No father-and-son team had ever caught the presi-See TIRED on Page 3 Second clast postage paid at Maine 04401 Publication nurpber USPS 041000 Hancock Edition 9 13781 '00006 BECKY MacALISTER co-chairwoman of the Atkinson Parent-Teacher Organization is hoping to save the elementary school so her three children Daniel Joseph and Melissa can continue to attend The voters will decide this fall if they want to pay the extra costs of running the school which was closed by SAD 41 voters this summer (NEWS Photo by Scott Haskell) father a Nazi officer past to Clinton nominee Aspin says By Melissa Ilealy Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON The father of John Shalikashvili the Army general nominated by President Clinton to become chief military commander served as an officer in an elite Nazi military unit during World War II according to information released Friday by a Jewish research institute The late Dimitri Shalikashvili referred to by Clinton simply as a Army when the president announced the nomination earlier this month became a major in the Waffen SS in 1944 according to Rabbi Marvin Hier di By John Day Of the NEWS Staff Washington gridlock which has been blamed for just about everything wrong in America apparently sidetracked one of oldest political traditions Scott Westfall a West Brooks-ville carpenter who landed the presidential salmon last May 2 said Thursday he got tired of waiting for the Clinton White House to make up its mind whether to accept or reject the first Atlantic salmon caught in the Penobscot River He ate the fish himself a few weeks ago That action brought Westfall a rebuke from the head of the Atlantic Salmon Commission who claimed that the angler had property donated to the state of Maine With only a few bones left from the historic salmon aides to President Clinton finally confirmed earlier this week that Vice President Gore would accept the Maine fish on Sept 9 Unfortunately that fish is just a warm gastric memory with President Howard Taft 81 years ago the first At Bangor Saturday warm humid highs near 90 Saturday night clear lows near 60 Sunny Sunday highs to mid-80s Details on Page distribution? 82602 rector of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles Information compiled by the center which compiles historical information to help track down Nazi war criminals indicates the elder association with the Nazis began after the family fled Poland in 1939 ahead of the Soviet westward advance On the basis of the own unpublished memoirs on file at Stanford Hoover Institution Hier said it appeared the senior Shalikashvili began collaborating with the Nazis in 1941 and perhaps as early as 1939 after the Georgian-born officer was released from a German POW camp change at Fort Myer Va on Thursday an Army official said A store detective apprehended Shannon who was alone as he tried to take the clothing said an Army spokesman Col Steve Rausch Shannon was appointed acting secretary the highest civilian job in the military service on Jan 20 and has been serving pending the nomination and confirmation of a in Poland Following his release he began organizing the Georgian Legion a force of expatriates intent upon liberating Georgia with German aid from Soviet control The allegations appear to hold little risk of derailing the nomination of John Shalikashvili to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a rise through ranks that Clinton hailed as great American But it could raise questions about how the family was able to enter the United States in 1952 and how much Clinton knew about the senior wartime activities when he named his son to See on Page 6 new secretary by the Clinton administration The' Navy and Air Force have already confirmed secretaries but a disagreement between the W'hite House and Defense Secretary Les Aspin over a choice for the Army job has stalled even the nomination of the position Pentagon officials said Shannon who is 59 was an early candidate See ARMY on Page 3 US Army official charged with shoplifting A- By Eric Schmitt The New York Times WASHINGTON The acting secretary of the Army John Shannon was placed on administrative leave Friday after being accused of shoplifting the Army said Shannon was accused of shoplifting a skirt and blouse valued at about $30 from the Army post ex.