The Macon News from Macon, Georgia • 13

Mon Oct 18 1982 THE MACON NEWS KKl' WWM 'fit 'SwaT jf 'y -v Ts 17" i '''L 4-' v-' wi 4 -Wr -4 '5 -WWH 'H-ff f- 'f A Zv 4- -If -W -K ww -R -Vk'-4 11)1 iTnillll ll Iff 0 jl I Ijlf IW jpW j' j'ii? I ji 1 is t-JS A-- Y-Y- Mrww-f-t-ft-fTTTv-j--vmxvw-Y----x- I it CjiBm fmmm fr --am rs -1 'r 1 ''f: Vuv 'yV tn'b4 r-V'' t- WV ll'rtj fV '1 i 'y A 3' A Z'vk -v' tv Vk nx 4 -v-Htv 'rf' tv HT'o 4' sVw V't tt- L-- ztfc jAr-U i 4 -s f-v-n 1- -i 'M-wo-t vt 4- ifciAwk jwaiL w-W 4 sTm-- 4 Jtw iril New adoption center gains ground No cloudy skies anymore in Macon TV weather forecasts On the air Craig Bustin By Dwight Ott WalakLBUiM UauMaaiaN The minute the children walked into the room Joanne Harris and her husband Larry both went cold with excitement A chill ran up and down her spine The children were Just what they had been waiting so long for wanted to pick the children up and hug she remembers This was die first meeting Larry and Joanne Harris both funeral-home executives in South Philadelphia would have with the two boys who would soon be their adopted sons It was a meeting arranged at a 1976 Christmas party through a novel adoption matchmaking program known as the Adoption Center of Delaware Valley The Adoption Center which began 10 years ago as a hand-to-mouth shoestring organization with two part-time workers has helped place many children thought to be virtually unadoptable with local families like the Harrises What the center did for the Harrises it will begin doing across the country The center which now has IS employees will announce that it has received a federal $350000 grant and that It will expand its program nationwide The center will operate a new computerized family-child matchmaking network known as the National Adoption Rw-hange The exchange will make Philadelphia the adoption capital of the country according to Gloria Hochman a fnmailtant to the center which is at 1218 Chestnut St SHE SAID that over the years the center which has relied on children who need adoption through programs like Child a column that appears weekly hi The Philadelphia Inquirer has helped to revolutionize the normally secretive adoption process which was once confined primarily to aiding white middle-class adults looking for white infants The center has helped to get the word out to prospective parents that there are children waiting for homes who are from cultural minorities who are physically handicapped who are older than the usual adoption age who are mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed Children with syndrome and spina bifida are regularly adopted through the center One local family adopted three children with syndrome his Hochman said that in the process of placing 800 children in the last 10 years the agency had raised the level of awareness of adoption in the Delaware Valley especially in the black community where formal adoption has never been popular Now the agency has the mechanism to raise adoption awareness nationwide The word will go out about 100000 children awaiting adoption across the country Now for instance a family in New Jersey will be able to adopt a child from Illinois agencies around the country will register children and families on the exchange through a telecommunications system Also families will be able to register Ms Hochman explained The agency will also publish and distribute nationally a brochure on waiting children It will broadcast public-service announcements and will hold workshops with community groups Years ago Joanne and Larry Harris had decided that they did not have time to have natural-bom children Their hectic careers did not permit it BUT THEY had lots of love resources and energy that they wanted to share Adoption had occurred to them but it was a dream riddled with obstacles Mrs Harris then in her early 20s was considered too young by many adoption agencies to be an adoptive mother The waiting time could be years And there was a lack of information The dream would never have come true Harris believes had it not been for the Friday's Child column The two boys 13 and 11 whose pictures the Harrises saw next to the column one day in 1976 were considered were black older and Harris recalls The Harrises were nervous they had heard nightmare stories about bureaucratic red tape and scare stories about adopting older children The two boys in the picture had already been in five different They were described as having below-average IQs (a label later disproved) Despite his concerns Harris newspaper in hand snatched up the phone called the adoption center and commanded: the boys on our way down to pick them They found that the adoption process was not so simple but they clung to their dream and eventually after three months adopted the boys Later they adopted a girl named Sharilyn The Adoption Center once known as the Delaware Valley Adoption Resource Exchange (DARE) has cone a long way over the years According to Ms Hochman the agency was founded in 1972 with two part-time workers One of them Carolyn Johnson is now the center's executive director Ms Johnson was particularly interested in the idea since she herself had adopted three hard-to-place children two black and one white The center was founded following discussions and meetings between members of local adoption agencies who discovered a need to develop a more efficient way of matching waiting children with prospective adoptive parents THROUGH THE efforts of the various agencies a plan was developed to create DARE Grants totaling $25000 were obtained from two area foundations to support the project The days of the cheery TV weathergiri pointing to little clouds raindrops and big and on a weathermap are over in this city Macon television news and weather are both getting an enormous facelift today as WGXA-TV Channel 24 debuts its 5:30 newscast and WMAZ-TV Channel 13 debuts its new weatherman Bill Powell Both stations will be unveiling brand new weather radar systems Channel 13 will pit its forecast featuring computer graphics and delivery against Channel live color radar and meteorologist Bob Pape Both weathercasts will also be using a chromekey gimmick in which Pape and Powell will often be superimposed over a weather map or other graphics In all fairness to Channel 24 they get credit for doing it all first More than a month ago the staff announced its newscast plans and showed off its new weather gad-getry to some 500 guests at a gala grand opening of the station Channel 13 announced a few weeks ago that Powell would be moving from his morning radio slot on WMAZ-AM and bringing his dry wit and possibly a good portion of his Middle Georgia audience with him to the TV airwaves And now it just so happens that after Channel 24 delayed its news debut for a week that both Pape and Powell will be getting off the ground for the first time within a half-hour of each other (Channel 13 Eyewitness News is at 6 pm a half-hour after Charnel 24) Pape a newcomer to Middle Georgia was an accomplished meteorologist in Chicago He most recently was working for American Airlines at Airport where he claimed a forecasting accuracy rate of 96 percent I can vouch personally for fickle Chicago weather Anyone that can get it right even SO percent of the time is a god So what does all this mean for Middle Georgia viewers? It means that between the two stations going to be some top-shelf weather reporting after some rather dry years of mostly cloudy Perhaps the only thing worse than the NFL strike itself has probably been the NFL strike coverage The networks have been the most guilty of trying to make it seem like nothing rise in the world matters The catch phrase I keep seeing arid hearing over and over again in print and broadcast media is: fans are the ones that get hurt the This piece of propaganda had been repeated so often I had almost begun to accept it But the crowning blow for me came last week when Phyllis George drilled home that bit of wisdom once again during show which is still being aired in its regular slot despite no football Think about that for a second Phyllis George is telling you and I how supposed to feel about the strike Phyllis George who didn't get her job because she knew what a power-I formation is Phyllis George who get her job because she could recite the five most successful NFL coaches Phyllis George whose multi-millionaire husband John governor of Kentucky formerly owner of the Buffalo Braves (now defunct) and the Boston Celtics is the epitome of idiotic professional sports management (A Buffalo newspaper columnist once quipped after John was elected by an apparently ignorant Kentucky populace: he does for Kentucky what he did for the Braves you can expect 49 states As pretty much an average NFL fan I find it ludicrous that Phyllis George thinks I should be hurt by the strike But what about that catch phrase? Why is it the tens are the ones that get hurt the most? I don't know If supposed to imply that ticket prices are going to rise again and hurt the average fan that way I think so The average fan doesn't go to the games Please see BUSTIN 4B 1.