Southern Illinoisan from Carbondale, Illinois • Page 12

Page 12 UStocksB14-15 Southern Illinoisan, Sunday, October 20, 1985 65 A Cardinal World Series victory predicts a rising stock market and investors should fully invest in Analyst James P. Benson 99 In) n. uuaaioso By Cathy A. Monroe Of The Southern Illinoisan Summer rains and a 10-day labor strike added up to a sluggish year for construction in Southern Illinois, according to spokesmen for area contractors. "We're about like the farmers are the wet weather just kills us," said Erik Luckett, vice-president of Superior Structures Co.

of Marion, one of the region's major road and bridge contractors. Frequent rains in June and July cleared up long enough to give contractors about 30 days of work before the Laborers International Union went on strike in mid-August, said Luckett, who also is secretary-treasurer of the Egyptian Contractors Association, an independent group representing contractors in Illinois Highway District 9. "We've had about 30 days of work since then, and now it's starting all this raining again," he said. "We haven't had a very good season at all." A bad year for contractors also meant a bad year for laborers, according to Carl Moore, business manager of the Southern Illinois Laborers District Council, which handles negotiations for several thousand union members in Southern Illinois. "The unemployment figures speak for themselves," agreed Luckett.

"Usually we employ quite a large number of people on a seasonal basis. This year the bad weather caused a lot of people to sit at home." Bill Butler, manager of the Southern Illinois Builders Assocation projects in the state's 13 southernmost counties. The union returned to work Sept. 4 with a new three-year contract providing a 50-cent-an-hour increase in each of the first two years and a 35-cent-an-hour increase in the final year. The contractors had originally proposed increases of 40, 35 and 25 cents an hour, according to a union spokesman.

Base pay for union members under the old contract was $13.80 an hour. Most area contractors found the volume of construction jobs was slightly better than last year, but still low compared to the boom years between 1978 and 1981. Harrelson blames a lack of state funding for the scarcity of road and bridge projects and contends there is a smaller portion of funds going to Southern Illinois than to other parts of the state. He is doubtful funds allocated through the Build Illinois program will do much to change the picture next year, saying, "there's only $18 million for transportation and a large portion of that is in the northern part of the state." Luckett agreed there has been a scarcity of large contracts this year, saying many of the jobs this year have been small ones. Superior Sturctures, like other contractors, has been "skipping around all over Southern Illinois," rebuilding various stretches of road.

Public sector contracts always have been the mainstay of conduction work in Southern Illinois, Butler pointed out, but the number of private sector jobs seemed to increase somewhat branch office in Marion, said the Laborers' strike probably had less effect on the year's construction picture than the weather. "It just slowed things down," he said. "Of those (10) days, three or four probably couldn't have been worked anyway because of rain." However, others in the construction industry said the strike did have a significant effect on the year's output. "Ten days always hurts that time of year," said a vice-president with an area construction firm. "It disrupted everything in the middle of the season when everybody's trying to get the most done." John Harrelson, head of the Assocation of General Contractors of Illinois said the strike probably lasted long enough to cause problems for contractors trying to get dirt work done while the good weather lasts.

"It could force a contractor into colder or more severe weather conditions, which might put him in a position of not being able to complete the project before freezing," he said. "Ten working days in the highway industry could mean considerably more than in a building project," he added. "Highway construction, of course, is always outside and therefore more susceptible to weather." The Laborers' strike Aug. 19 kept 3,000 construction workers off all projects contracted by the Southern Illinois Builders Association, the Association of General Contractors and the Egyptian Contractors Association. The hit list included 35 road ber of less costly jobs.

The strike also may have taken a toll, he added, saying, 'You're talking about (a strike) right in the peak of our construction season it was hot and dry, ideal conditions. But how much that affected it, I have no idea." September 1985. The total dollar amount of work completed by the end of September was $15.1 million this year, compared to $18.17 million last year, according to IDOT spokesman James Borgsmiller. However, the pay-out for 1985 might have included a larger num WCEE-TV WPSD newsman headiing to Phoenix if vd I- i Bieber gets UAW's backing HUNTS VILLE, Ala. (AP) Union leaders representing 70,000 striking Chrysler Corp.

workers gave a vote of confidence Saturday to United Auto Workers President Owen Bieber in his effort to end their 4-day-old walkout. Meanwhile, United Auto Workers of Canada leader Robert White met in New York for IV2 hours Saturday with Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca in an attempt to settle a strike by 10,000 workers in that country. "It wasn't a wasted trip," White said after his return to Toronto. He declined to give details of the meeting. Those attending a 75-minute meeting of the 170-member UAW Chrysler Council said they were given few details during about the talks with Chrysler.

They ended the session with a standing ovation for Bieber, said Lowell Blevins of UAW Local 371 in New Castle, Ind. "The council gave us full support for going back to negotiations," Bieber said. "The council unanimously voted to support us, to support the bargaining committee." Both Canadian and U.S. workers struck Wednesday when their contracts expired. t.

Louos AP photo Informal pact: Picketing workers at Chrysler headquarters in Highland Park, Mich, have agreed to stop walking in front of cars entering the company parking lot when the traffic light is green at the intersection outside the gate. In return, they get to walk on the red light. this year. "It wasn't so much a matter of a couple big jobs, but a lot more smaller ones," he said. Illinois Department of Transportation records indicate more state dollars were spent for road work through September 1984 than recha By Dave DeWitte Of The Southern Illinoisan Three years after putting Southern Illinois' first and only VHF television station on the air, Bill Varecha has sold the station to a Florida-based broadcasting company for $4.45 million.

The sale of the WCEE-TV to Sud-brink Broadcasting of Delray, Fla. will provide capital for the financing of a new Melbourne, Fla. television station Varecha and his wife Debbie will put on the air later this year. Varecha has a construction permit to build a new television station in Paducah, a process he expects to commence next spring. A former Carbondale resident now living in Florida, Varecha has never made a secret of the fact that the station has suffered from problems in gaining access to local cable television markets.

Because the station isn't part of a recognized national television market, only the cable companies within a 35-mile radius could be required to carry its programming. Varecha continues to contact city leaders in a fight to gain access to Southern Illinois cable viewers. He recently gained support from Harris-burg city officials to require the city's cable system to carry WCEE. Cable television's impact is stronger on a VHF television station because cable television connects to television sets using VHF antenna plugs on the back of the television set, preventing cable viewers from using a VHF antenna. WCEE has been handicapped by a lack of national media advertising that results from its location outside an established marketplace.

In a manner reflecting his philosophy, Varecha is pursuing litigation to change the established practice of defining media markets. "My lawyers have always made more than I do, but if you don't fit the status quo, you have to carve out a place in the status quo," Varecha said. Despite its admitted difficulties vith the marketplace, Varecha said the station is financially successful. "We were in the black from the beginning, but compared to a network station like Cape Girardeau, we nake much less because we don't lave a nationwide marketplace," he said. The new corporate owners of the station will be making first inroads into television Droadcasting after years of growth the radio industry.

Intensive research to determine narket preferences is the philosophy )f Sudbrink Broadcasting. The corn-Da ny, headed by Illinois native kVoody Sudbrink, recently sold the AM-FM station in the S'ashville, Tenn. market for $20 mil-ion, according to Vic Rumore, the company's executive vice-president. U.S. negotiations were scheduled to resume Monday at Chrysler headquarters in Highland Park, Mich.

When the talks broke off Friday afternoon, Bieber said, "We are still far apart on a number of key issues." He said unsettled issues included profit sharing, job security and "full economic parity" with workers at General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. Bieber also put new emphasis on a demand he called "something special." He gave no details, but union officials said the reference was to a large lump-sum payment. Torn Neal, who represented UAW Local 1435 of Toledo, Ohio, at the council meeting, said establishment of limits on Chrysler's subcontracting to outside companies is "the major issue as far as we're concerned." market analyst pmsoDCts of Cards fly, so will MARKET REPORT Thorn Thomas, an anchor-reporter with WPSD-TV's Illinois news bureau in Marion, knows when to move south. Thomas will be trading the gray skies and upcoming snowstorms of Southern Illinois for Arizona sunshine when he joins the news staff of KPHOTV in Phoenix, Nov.

1. The 30-year-old Crainville resident has lived in the area since he began attending Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as a sophomore in 1978. Graduating in 1981, Thomas worked for WCIL radio from 1979 to 1984 garnering such titles as assistant news director and morning news anchor. In April 1934, Thomas made the move to television as assistant bureau chief and anchor-reporter for the Illinois news bureau of Channel 6, the NBC affiliate in Paducah, Ky. The move to Phoenix represents an important career move for Thomas.

According to market shares, the area covered by WPSD-TV is ranked 72nd out of 210 markets, while Phoenix is ranked 22nd. "It's unusual to jump into such a big market from here," Thomas said. Tm still amazed "We have our style of doing things, and we do it with research," Rumore said. "We will spend a great deal of money on research." Rumore said Sudbrink owned WLAC for seven years, but "it didn't do anything for the first five years. Then we did the research and let the people tell us what they want, and in a matter of months, we were number one." Rumore declined to predict whether Sudbrink will maintain Varecha's emphasis on local news, saying he would let the market research speak for itself.

Varecha recently switched from a one-newscast-daily schedule to two daily newscasts, at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. The station has one news bureau, located in Effingham, having closed its Carbondale news bureau after failing to gain access to local cable television markets. Rumore said Sudbrink plans to modify the station's transmitting equipment to obtain maximum power at a substantial investment and has purchased a tract of land "in the most visible area of Mount Vernon, right on the interstate, to build new studios." Rumore declined to state whether the studios actually will be built. In a way, the market will decide that, said the money will be combined with $7,500 from the city of Mount Vernon to fund a feasibility study of the employees' purchase attempt.

"We're trying to help, if we can, to keep General Radiator in Mount Vernon," he said. Jefferson County is one of four represented on the Big Muddy board, along with Williamson, Franklin and Jackson. Chromalloy American headquartered in Claton, General pinching myself to see if it's real." Thomas had toured the office and left a demonstration tape at KPHO, an independent station, when he was in the area on vacation several weeks ago. He was one of four finalists for a general assignment reporting job that opened up after former SIU-C student and WCIL newsman Ken Lynch left the station for a position with the city. "It was the first time in five years that any station in the Phoenix market had hired anyone out of the Phoenix market," Thomas explained.

"I don't know what I did, but they must have liked it." Thomas credited his work in Southern Illinois for preparing him for a large-market television station. "My mom's kept one of my very first tapes, from 1976. If I were a counselor at SIU listening to this tape from someone wanting to be in broadcast, I would have said, The insurance field pays better than this and really encourage the poor fellow to pursue some other field." Thomas paused to laugh and then added, "I guess this means that if I can do it, anybody can." also. "First of all, I want to see what the people want and I want to go with it. If they demand a lot of programming that requires a big investment, I will pre-empt building the studio to give them what they want." WCEE is currently headquartered in Kell, III.

near the Marion-Jefferson county line. Rumore takes an optimistic view of WCEE's VHF (very high frequency) status, despite the problems posed by cable carriage. He noted that no additional VHF stations are likely to be built and the ability of VHF to broadcast a high-quality signal without high electricity bills associated with UHF stations. Varecha said negotiations leading to the sale of the station began more or less by accident. He was initially talking to Sudbrink about the purchase of the Melbourne, Fla, station, WAYK, but the talks turned to the WCEE purchase.

"I'm attached to Southern Illinois and we love it here," he said. Varecha remained in Carbondale after completing school and owned WTAO-FM in Murphysboro. With the planned Paducah station, "we may still be in the market place scenery in the near future," he said. boost Radiator's parent corporation, announced its intention in September to sell its Mount Vernon operation to Long Manufacturing Ltd. of Oakvil-le, Ontario.

However, Chromalloy officials agreed early this month at a meeting with the union and Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs to give workers 30 days in which to incorporate, raise money and present their own buyout plan. Activity over the past 30 trading days Dov Jonas Aver ago High: 1,303.40 Low: 1,350.07 Close: 1,300.04 Change. 1380 1370 1360 1350 1340 1330 1320 J310 1300 1290 ST. LOUIS (AP) The stock market has risen each time the St. Louis Cardinals have won the World Series and dropped each time they lost, a stock analyst in St.

Louis says. "It's a very interesting coincidence," said James P. Benson, a stock analyst for A.G. Edwards Sons Inc. of St.

Louis. "I'm not sure what the correlation is, if any." In an article written for the Oct. 21 issue of the St. Louis Business Journal, Benson said that when the Cardinals have not participated in the baseball championships, there has not been a significant in market performance. "Our stock market research has led us to develop the Cardinal Stock Market Indicator to help us predict the direction of the next major, long-term move in the stock world," Benson wrote, tongue in cheek.

"A Cardinal World Series victory predicts a rising stock market and investors should fully invest in stocks, while a World Series defeat indicates a declining market and investors should sell their stocks and invest in U.S. Treasury Bills to collect interest until the Cardinals win another World Series," he wrote. The Cardinals are making their 14th appearance in the World Series. The club's 9-4 record in World Series play is the best in the National League. Benson cites research he did for the article on the growth of a fictitious investment made in 1926, the year the Cardinals first won the championship of baseball.

According to Benson, the $10,000 investment placed in stocks of the Dow Jones industrial average in October 1926 and held until Oct. 16, 1985, would be 55 vvvvvvv vvvvv vv (9 r5 September October General Radiator workers get AP graphic Watch the Dow: Here's how the market has performed the month leading up to the World Series. General Radiator employees who hope to buy the company's operation in Mount Vernon in an effort to save their jobs got a boost this past week with the contribution of $7,500 from the Big Muddy Community Action Agency. Carl Planinc, chairman of the agency's board presented a check to Dave Garner, business representative of the International Association of Machinists Thursday. Planinc worth $91,655.

A $10,000 investment in 1926 that was then played according to the predictions of the Cardinal Indicator would be worth $588,846, Benson said in the article. During the 59 years since the Cardinals first played in the World Series, the investment would have been in stocks for 41 years and Treasury Bills for 18 years, he said. "Our only explanation is that when the Cardinals win a World Series, the entire world is elated," Benson said in the article, "and when they lose, the world becomes despondent and these feelings of joy and sorrow are reflected in stock prices." 1.