The State from Columbia, South Carolina • 5

The 2. State I Columbia, South Carolina Sunday, Dec. 3, 1989 CAROLINA ($295 SHOELO CHAMPIONS EU Perry State Majors John 'Bullet' Bellinger and George 'Jet' Jernigan, Gunsmoke '89 winners, at McEntire Air National Guard Base S.C. Air Guard proves it's the best of the best We've obviously got a man up there in the cockpit who doesn't have a nerve in his body! He's a block of ice! He's made of 100 percent righteous victory-rolling True Brotherly stuff "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe When you strap a $16 million piece of machinery on your rear end, you become one with it Maj. George "Jet" Jernigan Ill, Gunsmoke '89 champion By CLAUDIA SMITH BRINSON Senior Writer In their $16 million machines, F-16s that weigh 25,000 pounds and blast into the sky with 25,000 pounds of thrust at full afterburner and slice through time and geography at 1,688 feet per second, pilots from McEntire Air National Guard Base have zoomed their way to "best i in the world." The 169th Tactical Fighter Group's team earned 9,313.5 of 10,000 points in the Air Force's biennial gunnery meet, Gunsmoke '89, held Oct.

1-14 in the Nevada desert. That score earned them "Overall Top Team" and provided the extra kick of knowing that not only had the S.C. Air Guard beaten the reserve and active duty Air Force pilots of 15 major commands, but their 1979. model jets had beaten the model, CAPITAL TODAY 0000 0000 "HANGING OF THE GREENS," a special program at the Main Street United Methodist Church, 1830 Main will be held at 5 p.m. today.

The services will feature Christmas music and narration giving the origin, types and legends of Christmas greenery. AN EVENING OF MUSIC AND TEA will be at 5 p.m. at Ladson Presbyterian Church, 1720 Sumter featuring the church's adult choir. Soprano Barbara Bright will be featured. THE 18th ANNUAL HOLIDAY CONCERT will be presented by the Irmo High School Choral Department with its more advanced computer systems.

The team of five pilots Maj. George "Jet" Jernigan III, Maj. Waymond "Hawk" Nutt, Maj. John "Bullet" Bellinger, Maj. Tim "Demo" Rush and Capt.

George "Conan" Ronan, the alternate pilot had the support of 40 maintenance personnel. Nutt, Rush and Ronan are commercial airline pilots who are part time with the Air National Guard; nine of the maintenance crew are also part time. "We were the underdogs going in," says Jernigan, who was team captain. But winning was expected, perhaps even assumed. "Good aviators expect to win.

They have won all their lives. They hate to lose. They're gracious winners and bad losers to a man," says Jernigan. "A lot of people think from movies like 'Top Gun' the guys are stuck-up and cocky. They are.

The kind of guy you want in a jet is not someone who has self-doubts or is satisfied to be seventhbest." Gunsmoke events, or "profiles," comprise a military Olympics that test pilots' strafing, bombing and navigational abilities and maintenance crews' upkeep and munitions-loading skills for two weeks in the desert around Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nev. Flying teams are composed of four pilots and one alternate, who fly each of the three at 3 p.m. at the high school. Admission is free. USC MUSICAL AND DANCE groups will be featured during the Christmas Concert to be held at 4 p.m.

at the Carolina Coliseum. Admission is free. Also, at 7:30 tonight, volunteers with Carolina Cares, a student philanthropic organization, will flip the switch to light a Christmas tree on the USC Horseshoe near Sumter Street. The public is invited to attend the festivities. THE ELGIN CATFISH STOMP festival will feature arts, crafts, entertainment and savory catfish stew.

Call 438-3209 for more information. ALSO AROUND TOWN in Wonderland" will be performed by the Columbia Dance Theatre at 3 p.m. at Keenan Theatre. "Babes in Toyland" continues at the Workshop Theatre at 3 p.m. DIANE LORE Photo courtesy of U.S.

Air Force The Swamp Foxes earned overall, F-16 Top Team profiles twice, with only the highest score from each event counted. Even the arrival on Sunday, Oct. 1 was competitive, with every team vying to be exactly on time. Such a beginning serves as a reminder that precision is the name of the game. (In 1987, the South Carolina team set a world record, arriving only of a second off its designated time.) The second day of Gunsmoke was taken up with briefings on rules and safety, the third day with an orientation flight.

On the fourth day, the South Carolina "Swamp Foxes" competed in "basic weapons delivery," dropping practice bombs on an M-48 tank and strafing a white cloth panel, 25 feet by 25 feet, strung between two poles. A second run was made the following day, a Thursday. On Friday, the Swamp Foxes took on the "pop-up attack," which is designed for "minimum exposure delivery." The pilot flies in at 300 feet, "pops up" to see the target, rolls in and drops a bomb on the M-48 tank. The team repeated that profile Saturday, and Sunday was a day of rest. On Monday, the Swamp Foxes planned their strategy for the mission, which requires flying a low-level route for 250-300 miles in teams of two, reaching checkpoints at See Gunsmoke, 7-B Official refusing to resign By FRANK HEFLIN Staff Writer BEAUFORT A Beaufort County councilman who has moved his permanent residence to Aiken says he will serve out his term even though he can't vote in the county he represents.

Bill Greenwood, who sold his Hilton Head home in June, contends that he is trying to save the county the cost of a special election and fulfill a commitment. But several of his constituents, including the mayors of Hilton Head and Bluffton and several members of the county election commission, say Greenwood has brought new meaning to "elected at large." The controversy started when Greenwood, who is in the middle of his third two-year term, sold his Hilton Head home and moved to one he had bought in Aiken in 1988. The state election commission struck his name from the Beaufort County voters list on Nov. 9 after reviewing complaints from county residents who want him to resign. "Everyone is mystified by the whole thing," said Martha Baumberger, mayor of Hilton Head.

"I cannot fathom why anybody who has changed residence would keep serving on the council. There is no sense of what is right and good for the county here." "I just don't have a problem with it," said Greenwood, a Republican. "I spend 40 hours a week in the county and I don't miss a council meeting." Greenwood, who holds one of three at-large seats on the council, says he is a victim of the media and those who thought he was part of a conspiracy to get the governor to appoint a hand-picked representative after See Greenwood, 6-B Temperatures to dip to teens by nightfall By DIANE LORE Staff Writer Wrap your water pipes and stack wood near your fireplace; today is going to be cold, according to the National Weather Service. With winds gusting up to 15 mph and temperatures dipping down to the low 30s by this afternoon, the weather service predicts a wind-chill factor or the cooling effect of the wind on the area's temperature to be less than 10 degrees. Tonight temperatures will drop to the teens, and winds will pick up to 25 mph, making for an even colder evening.

"It's going to be cold enough to bust some pipes," meteorologist Dick Mathews said. "You need to bring in the plants and your pets." If the temperature drops as predicted, it may rival the 1960 record low of 16 degrees, he said. In the meantime, people need to be wrapping exposed See Cold, 7-B A child is still missing, and her mother waits Perry State Resting by an open fire Steve Ehney of Newberry and Charlotte Koon of Little Mountain sit near a huge bonfire as they and 5,500 others gathered Saturday night to watch the fifth annual Parade of Boats at Lake Murray. Man lives by the honesty he preaches By PAT BUTLER Staff Writer Losing almost $1,000 was pretty bad luck, but whoever lost it got a shot of good luck when the money was found by a preacher. "It's difficult for me to encourage people to be honest if I don't do the same," said the Rev.

Ronnie Robertson, explaining why he and his wife, Sandra, turned in to the Richland County Sheriff's Department the money they found on the ground while shopping for a Christmas tree Saturday morning. "We were just walking around Today is Jessica Gutierrez's eighth birthday, and an appropriate time to stir some renewed sentiment for the spunky little girl who once refused to wear a white dress on Easter in favor of a bright red one and who disappeared from her home in Lexington County years ago. I could go into a lot of details about the eerie disappearance, all of which you may remember from newspaper er and TV reports. It happened at night June 5, 1986. Jessie's older sister Becky was sleeping in the same room and remembers a man wearing a "magic hat" leave with Jessie.

Becky pulled the covers up over her head because she was scared. A psychologist disputed whether the sister really saw anything at all. A landfill on U.S. 321 was searched for Jessie's body. Over and over it's been said that investigators have a suspect, but not enough information to make an arrest.

A prisoner said he knew something but asked for immunity to talk. He didn't get it, and Jessie remains missing. But, as Bob Ford with the Lexington County Sheriff's Department said the other day: "Crimes do not occur in a vacuum. Somebody knows Makes for a strange case, doesn't it? Stranger still because there has never seemed to be a community fervor to resolve this crime. To bring Jessie home or to determine, at least, how she died and who did it.

Maybe you, like me, were put off by the Gutierrez story. You felt like something funny went on. Like Jessie's mom, who lived in a trailer and SALLEY McINERNEY Columnist looking at trees, and I saw the money all spread out on the ground," said Robertson, pastor at Advent Christian Church. "I couldn't believe no one else had seen it. It was right there in the open, and there were a lot of people there looking for trees." After finding the money, the Robertsons, who live in Blythewood, picked out a tree and then went to the Sheriff's Department to turn the money in.

They didn't want to turn it in at the same place they found it because "everybody would claim it," Robertson said. The Robertsons don't want to reveal where they were shopping for trees or the denominations of the bills. "We don't want to encourage someone to do something dishonest that they wouldn't ordinarily do," Robertson said. Robertson expects people to tell him he's crazy for not pocketing the money. But this isn't the first time his honesty has gotten the best of him.

He was once in an accident in which he bumped the car in front of him and the car behind him bumped him. The investigating officer reported that the third car hit Robertson's, forcing him to hit the car in front of him. But Robertson said he thought he might have bumped the car in front of him first, and he insisted that the report be changed. Another time, he found a woman's pocketbook, including cash, and he promptly returned it, much to the surprise of the woman's family. Considering that it's the Christmas season, Robertson doesn't see how he could, keep the more than $900 he found.

whose first marriage went bad, mixed with the wrong kind of people, had questionable associations and could somehow be to blame for her child's disappearance. For those reasons, I believe we have never not then and and not now felt threatened by the person who abducted Jessie. It was some seamy character who knew the family, maybe was the family, and wanted revenge for whatever reason. Certainly the story did not have the drama of a child from a so-called "nice" family being abducted. and maybe you, decided a long time ago that Jessie's disappearance was family business, and not "nice" family business.

Then the other day I met Jessie's mom, Debra Gutierrez Garnsey. She is remarried now, living near 1 80 See Birthday, 4-B.