The Commercial Appeal from Memphis, Tennessee • 1

TThe Commercial Appeal CRfPV HOWARD 147th Year No 209 9 Sections Memphis Tenn Sunday Morning May 25 1986 FINAL Time is at hand to help the poor By Erik Lesser Florida volunteers join Memphis line From Staff Reports and Our Proas Services sistant press secretary for Tennessee Hands Jan Newton a Tampa nurse organized a fund-raising drive last weekend at a shopping mall and collected $3200 and 1100 handprints in blue and green paint on a 41-inch-wide banner Ms Justice said her office is still getting calls from Floridians who want to make the 15-hour drive and take their place in line office is packed with people who have arrived from Florida there seem to be more Florida people coming in than from any of the closer states said Ms Justice Paula Casey press secretary for the Tennessee Hands effort said people also are in town from Alabama Louisiana South Carolina and Georgia to stand in the Hands line here One couple even came from California she said adding Memphis is the most southeastern point in the Hands line Several Memphis motels reported Please see HANDS Page A7 Caravans rolled across the country yesterday gathering volunteers to join Hands Across America the colossal attempt to span the continent with a human chain and raise S50 million for the nation's homeless and hungry The volunteers have all pledged to take a spot in the 4 152-mile line from New York to Long Beach Calif about 2 pm CDT today They will join hands sing We Are the World Hands Across America and America the Beautiful and then dis perse We remember Three buses carrying ISO a ltt-mile-lohg roll or paper handprints of 1100 Floridians arrlvi in Memphis yesterday to join the chain according to Candy Justice as Jeff Riley 16 of Germantown puts an American flag In the ground next to a headstone at the Memphis National Cemetery yesterday Riley a member of Boy Scout Troop 32 took part in the project to put 30000 flags by the markers for the observance of Memorial Day tomorrow at 2 pm City still sorting relation to jump in crime Titan sites face shovel By Larry Coyne- Redbone Jackson offers an answer from prison and Barbara A Burch Staff riaportari propriate wardrobe for a 23-year prison term and a cell at the Lake County Regional Correctional Facility in Tiptonville Tenn Jackson was 18 in March 1984 when he and six other teenagers all members of the Bone Family were arrested in connection with a series of convenience store holdups Since then the Bone Family which began five years ago in Hurt Village and Smokey City and later spread to other sections of the city has weakened the police said But other street gangs have cropped up or spread to take itsplace The PTOs (Pimps Taking Over) the Vice Lords The Mob the Disciples the Black Gangsters and El Ruckins are but a few say school police and Juvenile officials Juvenile Court has compiled a list of 16 known gangs Police officers assigned to study gangs last year found about 30 Street gangs common in large northern and eastern cities have taken Memphis by surprise Please see GANGS Page A18 road to prison began in high school That's when he founded the a gang whose ous with trou-nelghbor-emphis "It was me and some other fellows trying to have something" he recalls with a shrug of exasperation "My parents were always trying to tell me do this and 'Don't do that look at it the other way look on the corner and see men having money wearing pretty clothes what I was trying to Instead of a sharp-looking suit Jackson now wears a denim shirt and blue jeans with white stripes down the side It is an ap A crane lifts the Titan missile out of its silo near Velvet Ridge Ark Hole blasts to end era of giants in earth In a world editor showed she could stand and fight like a woman By Michele Meyer 8taff Reporter dm The Commercial Appeal Is proud to present a continuing series of stories about the people of Tennessee It is our way of celebrating "Homecoming The hot-pink chartreuse and purple geometric pillows are incongruous with the silk brocade sofa in a room full of crystal and marble Within this delicate world rules a woman as brash as her cushions Tina Hamilton Blakemore not only ran the Millington Star for 27 years but ran it with courage and determination during an era when men ruled not only the presses but almost everything GlS6 Her editorials played a role in US 51 widened and Million developed She saw her newspapers burned flooded and closed after the Great shut banks roughout it all her scalding Workers last wssk removed the Titan which already had been partially disassembled flowed as did her sense of tumor and her feminine charm She retired as editor publisher news reporter and the sole editorial writer at the Millington Star in 1980 wouldn't let anyone else do the heavy work she said "Straight news was my business" It was a business she entered without journalistic training as Please see EDITOR Page AS By William Thomas Staff Reporter LITTLE In the back-country of North-central Arkansas 24 years of nuclear war games are about to end with a bang Actually the end will come with a series of bangs starting late this summer and continuing into October 1987 Considering the possibilities the explosions will be small controlled and relatively unspectacular Even so they will signal the end of an era and wipe out nearly a quarter of a century of military musclemaking in the Mid-South The work dates back to the early 1960s when the federal government began digging 18 cavernous holes in Arkansas to create a system of launch sites for Titan 2 intercontinental ballistic missiles Ground was broken for the first site near Searcy in January 1961 Since then one of the sites was destroyed by a disastrous accident leaving the state with 17 nuclear-armed hidey holes The holes cost the government almost $80 million a bargain-basement deal at prices Despite the investment plans are to blow up the holes so that all traces of their grim purpose will be erased Although one silo may be spared as a museum piece the rest including control rooms right out of Dr Strangelove and underground living quar- ters will be buried under tons of earth making them not only useless but inaccessible When the smoke from the WEATHER INSIDE Two sections of the missile were taken from the silo and eased onto two cradle-like trailers National Weather Service FOR MEMPHIS And Vicinity 70 percent chance of thundershowers today high near BO Wind southwest 10 mph Tonight and tomorrow 60 percent chance of thundershowers Low tonight up-! per 60s high tomorrow 80 Sun-' rise 5:50 sunset 8:04 YESTERDAY'S REPORT High 86 Low 68 Action PtMMC7 FasMonSecL AppealSect LandertG3 BJrthsBff) Real EstSect BusinessSecL SportsSecL Bygone Dsyt110 Today03 ClasslfledBect Tri-StateII Crista CaHs110 ViewpotntSect DeathsBI Yesterday B10 FanfareSecL ZingoB4 Copyright 196 Tho CommorcW Appeal QUOTE "Saying this censorship is Orwellian double talk I think It would make Orwell double up with on cancellation of Animal Farm Page A2 The explosion occurred after a workman dropped a wrench 70 feet down the silo and the impact caused a fuel leak One man was killed 21 were ln- Please see TITAN Page A14 last explosion clears several Arkansas hamlets small sleepy burgs with names like Rose Bud Pangbum and Velvet Ridge will close the book on a sometimes-spooky some-times-nutty era of living with the bomb Perhaps the spookiest time came Sept 19 1980 when an accidental explosion in a silo near Damascus blew a nine-megaton warhead 200 feet across the Arkansas landscape Normal high 84 low 63 details a A10) VIEWPOINT EUTUREICURRENTS WBlUliSM Say AhhcomMjtef The future of our parks.