Concord Monitor from Concord, New Hampshire • 19

-tC1 'n 1 ram --s id -w 'r: vv- By JOHN FERLAND llooltori fall to reflect the variety of interests that are the result of Channel 21 said In its application to the Federal Cbmmu- its applies nfcaUonsC Manchester Owner of laundry companies in Manchester and Ontario Canada and DeideD Bean a director of the DD Bean Sons Co Inc a match factory in Jaffrey Hartnett will become the chief executive officer when it goes on theair certainly exped to do a creditable job for the people in New Gregg said in the news area we will be competitive with the Boston The competition however will not be for the same news Of the 33 employees 10 will work in the news department Their job Gregg said will be to report and analyse problems relating to growth housing energy the highway system the tax base state revenues and other subjects that initiate debate in the Legislature and the town halls interests are Gregg said are unique to New Hampshire These are thinp you hear on Boston Channel 21 plans to broadcast 18 hours a day beginning at noon Programs will Include two half hour newscasts daily and a daily half-hour public affairs show called New News content will include reports on agriculture the economy the arts sports and consumer issues The news staff will include a reporter to concentrate on issues affecting the elderly and a reporter to concentrate on issues affecting young people often newsrooms while meeting ethnic and other demographic goals) Channel 21 is organising itself as an independent station Gregg said that affiliation with a network depended on wheth-er a network was interested He said the station was planning to cover local high school and college sports and to produce documentaries He said it was premature" to discuss other prospective programs because the station was just setting underway ust got the permit" he said And about all they have There is much work to be done As the Channel 21 people found out on their trip to Fort Mountain the road to the top cannot accommodate vehicles very well It needs to be rebuilt The transmitter has to be installed A studio must be found Gregg said his company was searching for a site in downtown Concord Channel 21 has specific needs: 6000 square feet of space 154oot high ceilings and a rooftop high enough to put an antenna in direct line with the transmitter in Epsom An engineering consultant the Towns- end Company of Westford Mass Is helping Channel 21 get equipment And a staff needs to be hired Gregg said he had been trying to start a New Hampshire oriented television station for several years The market was never satisfactory to potential investors he said Growth in the southern Hugh Gregg and the others from NH Channel 21 Inc hiked to the top of Fort Mountain in Epsom to see the alte of their television transmitter It was so foggy they barely saw each other As leaders of a new television station without a studio or a staff or a transmit-' ter it would have been reassuring to at least get a dear view of where the transmitter would be No matter As the year goes on there will be much to see In eight to 12 tohirve oITtbe -air waves a Concord based television station devoted soley to New Hampshire issues and interests The Federal Communications Cjpmmis-sion recently gave Channel 21 permission to proceed with its $15 million project The commercial UHF station will reach 85 percent of the population Gregg said It will also broadcast Into parts of Maine and Massachusetts The signed will reach as far north as the lakes region and as far west aa Keene Areas closest to the transmitter will get the best reception Gregg was governor of New Hampshire from 1953 to 1955 He is now a law-and businessman In Nashua He has partners in the television project: Richard Hartnett 61 of Hamilton Mass -an advertising executive with CBS in Boston James Chandler 56 of Amherst president of Indian Head Bank in Nashua John Glkas 62 of (SeeCHANNELZl Page) The work led to the creation iff the Center For New Hampshire's Future a group that win expand upon the job Gregg said be has seen many new residents become Involved in politics The problem is he said many of them know how New Hampshire operates nice to get adw blood" he said they have aey background Noperspective There was another reason riven in the survey for ignorance about the state People generally felt that the media did an inadequate job of reportingstatewide news Channel 11 is creditable they said but have the flandal resources to do the job Channel 9 suffen from a weak signal and considered professional In its approach the Manchester Union Leader to too one-sided theOoncord Monitor ovtrtoks too many local stories and Channel 31 in West Lebanon reaches just a small portion of the state John Feriand Hugh Who? During a recent primary election a joke made the rounds of campaign offices and newsrooms When southern New Hampshire residents went to the polls the take went they expected to vote for either Edward long or Michael Dukakis It seems that one reason for the ignorance of state politics was the thousands of Massachusetts residents making new homes in New Hampshire When NH Channel 21 Inc compiled itsapplica-tion for the Federal Communications Commission it emphasised that the Massachusetts bent of many state residents was a major reason why New Hampshire needed another television station order to preserve the lifestyle and homogeneity previously Indigenous to the state it Is desirable to assimilate newcomers into the New Hampshire philosophical mainstream In a broad cohesive and well-planned manner" the applica tion said directed and utilized television is the logical medium to accomplish this Part of Channel application included dozens of interviews with leaders of several communities in the Channel 21 viewing area Many ot them shared Channel 21 opinion that New Hampshire was being settled by people with little or no knowledge of what the state was about iff our new people moving into the state have never been north of Laconia so they really have no understanding ot our quality of said one man Said another: Hampshire people know more about Massachusetts news and politics than about New Hampshire because they grt their information from Boston Hugh Gregg a force behind Channel 21 is sensitive to changes that take place in New Hammfalre He was a founder of the Forum on New Hampshire's Future a group that tried to identify the changes and determine their causes and i tKNwim i He Rode 10000 Miles 1 The Last Free Men Although the transistor radio has replaced the lonely strains of a harmonica a life regains pretty much the same as It was 100 years ago 1 They survive on food stamps scraps scavenged from trash bins rescue missions and an occasional odd job They spend their time drinking and sil arounbd campfires in sprawling hobo jt of cardboard and discarded tires AMHERST Mass (AP) While Ted Conover was researching his senior thesis he fell out of a wteyAwiav-fought-aft dnmltfnJiobRjpho threatened to kill him foraged through garbauefor" food and picked lice out of his hair But Conover a senior at Amherst College has fond memories of his 34 months as a railroad tramp something about jumping on a freight train that just feels he said the feeling of the wind in your face and the train pulling you along I think some truth to the saying that every red-blooded American bey should hop a Conover a 23-yearold anthropology major feom Denver rode the rails for 10000 miles last faU crisscrossing the American West to study what an-thor John Steinbeck called last free men" Conover put aside academic life for life on the 1 of the other side of the track because he didn't want to Community Players Play For Bigger-Stekes In Regional Festival In this case a second place Is as good as a first for the COn- cord Community Players Because Theatre North of Berlin had problefos with the rights to its show Give 'Em Hell Merry Concord will represent the state at the New England Regional community theater com Uon The competition will be held this weekend at Nashua School The Community Players finished behind Theatre North In the New Hampshire Community Theater Association festival held in Concord in March The Players win present A Good Time in the regional compe-titiou It is one of the shows in the Answers trilogy by Ernest Thompson and the play the group presented in the state festivaL The rtmwmuwity Players will perform Sunday at 2:30 pm Graqw representing Connecticut and Eastern Massachusetts win also perform Sunday The festival begins tomorrow at 7:30 pm with shows by groups from Rhode Island and Western Maasadw- A Good Time produced by Richard Fooler of Franklin and YOneprd The showjbas a cast of two: Louise ftame of ftristol and John Einson iieuyws rsrmiujr5 tO0 Richard Gilman professor of drama at Yale University and-ftama critic for TheNaUen will be the judge at the festivaL Tbs winner of the festival will represent the rerion at a na- tional festival June 13 and 13 In Kalamazoo Mich The national winner win represent the United States at an Internatioaal festival in Mor sen Two theater workshops will be offered tomorrow at the school as part of the festivaL Elisabeth Ives of Derry win lead a workshop on state managing BUI Beard of New England College and Van MacLeod of Higata Productions of Concord wUI lead a workshop on how to audition for community theater The workshops will be held in two sessions: lriotdlpm and Me- Conover found obstacles: his youth and his inexperience in the hobo'sun written code of conduct never ask a tramp he's from said you can ask where he's going Each man's past is his own He also learned about the perils of life on the road tramp's greatest enemy is a Conover said are common and most tramps cany knives In Nevada a tramp got drunk and threatened to kill me He lunged at me so I punched I would drink with them but I was always careful not to get so drunk that I outrun He found even his companions be trusted traveled with a couple of tramps for 12 days they kept warning me not to trust he rfMqliakp them seriously until they stole -J- gear in the library" researching his thesis He spent a semester observing or Interviewing 460 tramps he estimated there are about 10000 hobos in the United States today Invisible to moot of us But there's a romance about tramps something TQf us have he said But Conover found tne mm 1 --can quickly dispel the myth went 24 weeks with- my out a shower once My friends thought it sounded romantic to get really dirty But when 1 got lice it took a way a lot of the he said Conover thinks that tramps are an important though downtrodden part of society define oqr he said person can't be great -unKss someone who Isn't great Ttamps are our Fs They know that in blown He said most tramps are mlddloaged or elderly men who either or work loners without friends or family bound together by a strange mix of failure esmraderie and mutual distrust They wander acron the West and South avoid- him and than was mph Ind train Timing moving freights requiresnot only courage be discovered but a bit of finesse never hop a train that's moving taster you can run Conover said riding on a train going through these huge marijuana fields in Nebraska We were going about 20 of pot tried to jump on board Only two made It'' While trying to jump out of a boxcar traveling 30 in Wlshram wash Conover lost his balance fell hurting his ankle and skinning himself The experience will go into a thesis chapter on risk When his research finished Conover hopped a from the Texas Panhandle to Denver making it home in time for Christmas mother sterilised all of my hobo clothes" he said saved some of them in case ever moved to do it again I'm finding that as the weather -gets wanner it's harder to stay Ti get to Nashua Osh School tats exit i (west otf Star ett Ttergtthe fa the ttnf traffic light TUe a sharp right and tsDew the road te the acbooL ak log the other areas of the country where cold tea- lurk Re enjoined by a influx of Vietnam veterans and migrant farm Conover found that his short Kfo as a hobo always romantic.