The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 1

Series starts San Diego tries to topple another giant in NY SPORTS the Monster truck Baxter Springs company rolls out big dump trucks C1 GREAT PLAINS Tiny raises: social security checks won't go up much A9 John Paul celebrates 20 years as pontiff B6 INSIDE Low: 42 Mostly cloudy today with a slight chance of rain; winds shifting to WEATHER Salina Journal Q7H Classified C3 Comics B8 Deaths A9 Great Plains C1 Money A6 Religion B6 Sports B1 Viewpoints C2 Serving Kansas since 1871 OCTOBER 17, 1998 SALINA, KANSAS 50 cents GAY ATTACK Photos by The Associated Press Natrona County High School friends of Matthew Shepard sing "How Sweet It Is" as they wait Friday to attend his funeral at St. Marks Episcopal Church in Casper, Wyo. Heavy snow fell during the morning. Goodbye 'Gentle Spirit' Friends, family mourn gay student who was beaten to death By ROBERT W. BLACK The Associaleil Press CASPER, Wyo.

Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student beaten and left to die on a split-rail fence, was remembered at his funeral Friday as someone who "struggled to fit into a world not always kind to gentle spirits." "Matt was a young man who met the world with eager expectation, who offered trust and friendship easily and lived honestly," said the Rev. Anne Kitch, Shepard's cousin from Peekskill, N.Y. "Matt trusted in the good of God's world." A wet autumn snow shrouded the 700 mourners as they filed into the brick St. Mark's Episcopal Church, where Shepard was baptized. Shepard, 21, died Monday, five days after his skull was smashed with a pistol butt and he was lashed to a fence in near-freezing temperatures outside Laramie.

Two 21-year- old men have been charged with murder. Mourners sang "Amazing Grace," cried and wrapped their arms around each other. Shepard's family filled the front Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, clings to his father, David, as he reads a statement Friday before the funeral. The statement thanked the American people for their outpouring of support. of the church.

Shepard had been cremated, and his remains were in an urn on the altar. "He was not always a winner according to the world's standards," Kitch said. "He struggled to fit into a world not always kind to gentle spirits. What was important to Matt was to care, to help to nurture, to bring joy to others in his quite, gentle way." The Casper service also drew those who identified with Shepard, though they never met him. "I feel that this could happen to me or this could happen to anyone," said Tim Townsend, 30, of Denver.

"I'm gay myself and I've gone to bars, and it could have been me." Across the street from the church, more than a dozen anti- gay protesters waved signs with messages such as "God Hates Fags." Standing behind barricades, they shouted anti-gay slogans and engaged passers-by in loud and nasty debates. "I came to spread some truth in this orgy of lies," said James Hockenbarger, who came from a Baptist church in Topeka, whose members regularly engage in anti-homosexual picketing at funerals. Earlier in the day, Shepard's parents stood in a steady rain in front of City Hall in Casper to thank the public for its thousands of cards, letters and emails of support. "Matthew was the type of person that if this would have happened to another person, he would have been first on the scene to offer his help, his hope and his heart to the family," said his father, Dennis Shepard. He also asked the public to respect the family's privacy.

NOBEL PRIZE: PEACE Two Irish peacemakers given Nobel Protestant, Catholic party leaders share prize for settlement By The Associated Press BELFAST, Northern Ireland John Hume and David Trimble, joint winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, have traveled dramatically different roads as brokers of the historic Northern Ireland accord. For Hume, 61, the single-minded peacemaker who leads the province's major Catholic party, Friday's honor from the Norwegian Nobel Committee caps a remarkable career that culminated in an agreement he envisioned decades ago. For Trimble, 54, embattled chief of the Protestant party pivotal to the peacemaking efforts, the Nobel was more controversial particularly considering the omission of his nemesis, Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party. The Oslo Nobel judges previously have used their award to encourage progress in peacemaking most notably in the Middle East, where Israel's Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat shared honors in 1978, and when Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat joined Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in 1994. It also has gone to Northern Ireland before.

In 1976, early in the British province's three decades TORNADO HUME TRIMBLE of strife, it was won by two women who founded a peace group. Although Hume and Trimble are not friends and their relations are cool, their work culminated in an agreement ratified by voters this spring that sets up a governing structure in which Protestants and Catholics share power. Friday's citation accompanied by $963,000, which will be divided equally between the two men credited them for work toward ending "the national, religious and social conflict in Northern Ireland that has cost over 3,500 people their lives." Of Trimble, head of the Ulster Unionist Party, the citation said he showed "great political courage when, at a critical stage in the process, he advocated solutions which led to the peace agreement." Of Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, the citation said he had "throughout been the clearest and most consistent of Northern Ireland's political leaders in his work for a peaceful solution." Tornado heavily damages town One mobile home blown half mile from foundation by storm By DAN ENGLAND The Salina Journal YOCEMENTO A tornado strong enough to carry a mobile home a half-mile ripped through a tiny Ellis County town Friday evening, damaging several homes and causing numerous gas leaks. The funnel spared Yocemento's grain elevator, but tanks of anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer, were leaking, and some propane tanks were ruptured, forcing Ellis County Sheriffs Office authorities to evacuate the town. The storm produced several tornadoes that bounced along farmland before one touched down about 10 miles south of Ellis and headed up Interstate 70, causing drivers to cower in their cars, be- "There was stuff strung everywhere.

There was trash everywhere." Dustin Bemis Hays resident who drove through Yocemento after the storm fore it rushed through Yocemento. The storm weakened after it hit the town described as "a few homes and an elevator" by an Ellis County sheriffs dispatcher. It was difficult to confirm damage reports, but officials knew that one double-wide trailer was completely destroyed, and two other homes were badly damaged. A family of four in the double- wide was in a shelter when the See TORNADO, Page A9 LAW ENFORCEMENT Law officers talking high-tech Communication would speed up if computers are installed in vehicles By SHARON MONTAGUE The Saliiui Journal Imagine having to call your Internet provider on the telephone, tell a clerk what information you'd like, then wait who knows how long for the clerk to telephone you back with the information. Imagine the number of busy signals you'd get before you got through to the clerk.

Dave Dunstan, Salina Police Department deputy chief, said that's what it's like for law officers mi nesting driving records and other information from emergency dispatchers. Dunstan is chairman of the department's emergency communications advisory committee. The committee hopes that within two years officers will be able to make their own inquiries of nationwide databases, as well as write their reports on mobile data systems. The mobile data systems would be part of a $1.4 million technology package the committee hopes to purchase using a special Emergency 911 fund as well as state or federal grants. The emergency fund, now at about $600,000, is funded by a 75- cent-a-month surcharge on every telephone line in the county.

It's used for emergency communications maintenance and upgrades. Dunstan explained the technol- ogy to Salina city commissioners Monday and will present the plan to Saline County commissioners at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Commissioners aren't being asked to take action. Dunstan said committee members are researching the availability of grants to help pay for the system.

The technology package includes several key components: Modems and message switch computers that would allow for electronic communication between officers in the field and the communications center. A global positioning system that uses satellites to pinpoint at all times on a computer terminal the location of every emergency vehicle. See HIGH-TECH, Page A3 GPPPP Rocky, a young chow mix, pulls on Lydia Bustamante's shirttail Friday afternoon. Bustamante was playing with some friends and the dog near their homes in south Salina. Bustamente has had Rocky about a month.

JEFF COOPER The Salina Journal.