Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 165

UISM: McGUFFEY BOARD OK'S CONTRACT ON EVE OF ELECTION SUNDAY MAGAZINE "i tKm flpi mSHINGTON RINGGOLD SCHOOLS Committee of teachers, board members, administrators, residents proposed to heal rifts from 3 strikes. GOOD Jl I 1 1 If trike set ueci, Dili oao i eenngs linger on By Lynda Guydon Taylor Post-Gazette Staff Writer Ringgold School District began September as it did the previous two school years: trying to settle a teacher contract and facing a community chafing over the two sides' inability to resolve the matter. Now, with the recent ratification of a six-year agreement, the school board must begin to heal a rift caused by three strikes, and board meetings marked by rancor. Acknowledging that bad feelings will not go away overnight, board president Jack Henson said a way to mend the breach has already been proposed. Board member Denise Kuhn has suggested forming a committee of teachers, board members, administrators and perhaps residents to discuss problems the district faces, he said.

The purpose will be to discuss "where we're going and how we're going to get there to bind up some of the wounds. I think everybody's looking for peace and quiet and let's get on with our lives. I think it's a great idea," Henson said. The committee would have to be approved by the board, which will see some changes in January. In Tuesday's elections, three new members were elected and Kuhn was reelected.

Marian Bulko, Chuck Smith and Bill Ellis will replace Tom Graney, Jimmy Coulter and George Buell, all of whom chose not to run ior re-election. The new contract, ratified by the board Nov. 2, is retroactive to July 1993, when the former one expired, and calls for a freeze in the first year and 4 percent annual increases in the remaining five years. In addition, the minimum starting salary will drop from $28,100 to $20,000 a year. The maximum salary for teachers at the top of the pay scale will increase from $42,500 to $52,000 by the end of the contract.

The board hopes to save money by offering teachers who decide to retire early a $20,000 sweetener to do so. That offer remains open for three years. Teachers can get the money either in a lump sum or in installments. Henson estimated the early retirement offer alone could save the district an estimated $300,000 per teacher over 15 years. Of the 247 teachers in the district, more than 75 percent earn the maximum salary.

But talk of savings and committees to discuss a game plan For the future come too late for some Ringgold parents. Some moved out of the district while others enrolled their children in private schools. One woman who SEE RINGGOLD, PAGE W-4 "'Wi A' i lit ELECTION '95 COMMISSIONERS RACE si 4- mOiifiifio Oneway to dump a pumpkin What do you do with pumpkins after Halloween? Why, drop them off a high lift, of course. Peters High School students will be doing just that at 1 p.m. tomorrow as part of their study of space-landing capsules in a competitive technology class.

The students are dropping the pumpkins to simulate free fall. They will create landing capsules that prevent the pumpkins from being ejected from the space capsule in the event of an emergency. The high-lift truck is being provided by Lighthouse Electric with help from Mark Mikec, the father of one of the students. The pumpkins are coming from Duane Anthony of Anthony Farms in McMurray. In Washington, city Councilwom-an Susanne Gomez and Mayor Francis King presented awards Nov.

1 to students at Washington Park School who came up with the top designs for an official logo for the Washington Shade Tree Commission. First place went to Ryan Umensetter for his drawing of hands planting a tree and the inscription, "A better future for our trees." Receiving honorable mention were RikM Pierson, An- nie Culleton and Gabriel Wilson. More than 60 students in the fourth-grade classes of Paulette Marasco submitted entries. In South Park, an 18th-century Thanksgiving will be re-created from 1 to 4 p.m. next Sunday at the Oliver Miller Homestead, a national historic and Whiskey Rebellion site.

Volunteers, dressed in period attire, will prepare a harvest feast and display foods com-' mon to the time. Leader i 1 -MM promises way v-- i U'y My- ''if mooth travelm I Kct mnin mil i 1 JT'-l 1 Demi Moore, left, with Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson and Melanie Griffith in "Now and Then," which is now in movie theaters. Few in Washington County remember the famous actress who lived here with her troubled family in the mid-lOs. IlititlS NOW it 1 By David Templeton Post-Gazette Staff Writer I'llll Jill the movie "Now and Then," actress Demi Moore plays a character who recalls being 12 years old and living in a new housing development where THEN His career brought him to Washington County sometime in the early to mid-1970s, when he took the position of assistant publisher at the Monongahela Daily Herald. Few people in the area remember Demi back then, probably because the family never stayed long at one address.

There are indications she kept a low profile, although Moore has said in interviews that she was always the "new kid in school" a situation that turned he? into a show-off to get attention. Neither Moore nor her publicist Could i' be reached for comment. But local records and recollections of the few people who remember the Guyn-! eses portray them as a troubled One woman, who said she was a friend of Demi's when she lived in Glencannon, was not interested in discussing the long-ago friendship. She said the only other close friend of Demi's died in the Johns-! town Flood of 1977. But the Giivnes family did leave some footprints in the Washington County Courthouse.

Court records indicate that Danny and Beverly Virginia Guynes were married in Roswell, N.M., on Feb. 1, 1962, and Demi was born nine months later, on Nov. 11. Danny and Virginia were divorced on June 18, 1973, but there is no record of that divorce occurring in Washington County, so it probably predates their arrival in the area. Danny and Virginia remarried on Aug.

11, 1973, less than two months after their divorce. The marriage license in Washington County Courts indicates that the couple was married by former Canonsburg Mayor Louis R. Bell Jr. The marriage license lists Danny, 30, and Virginia, 29, as living at 603 Hickory Circle a townhouse in Glencannon where Judy Lea now lives. Last week, Ms.

Lea's 11-year-old daughter, Kelly, cute and dark-haired, an- 1 By David templeton Post-Gazette Staff Writer When Republican Joe Ford took office four years ago as Washington County's minority commissioner, a Democratic colleague took him to lunch before he was sworn in. He made it clear to Ford that he was the enemy and would be treated as such. iv That meant being ignored, criticized and ostracized, as if Republicanism' were some disease in the Land of Democrats. That promise was carried out, beginning on his first day in office. "Before I took over my office after former Republican Commissioner Edward Paluso vacated it, they didn't even clean it," Ford said.

Though workers had been told not to clean the office, Ford said he later learned that some embarrassed employees took it upon themselves to sneak into the office on a weekend and clean it just before he was sworn in. Ford realized his ride as minority commissioner was not going to be a smooth one, that he. was just a powerless passenger. "I always felt like I was going down a mountain road at 90 mph with no chance to touch the steering wheel or brakes, and was going to crash," Ford said. How a fresh, November election can change a ride down a political mountain.

Despite a strong showing by Democrats in races for county row offices and Common Pleas Judge, Republicans seized control of the board of commissioners, with help from a cellular phone scandal that tarnished incumbent Democrat Metro Petrosky Jr. Democrat J. Bracken Burns of South Strabane led the five-person field with 27,624 votes, followed by Ford with 19,437 votes, and Republican Diana Irey of Carroll with 18,942. Irey, 33, defeated Petrosky, the three-term incumbent from Canton by 1,047 votes and Independent D. Keith Melenyzer of Carroll by 4,914 votes to become the first woman elected as Washington County commissioner.

With Ford's political nemesis, Petrosky, out of office, and Republicans controlling county government for the first time in a half-century, Ford said he can now jump from back seat to driver's seat. "Now I feel I have my hands on the steering wheel and foot on the brakes," Ford said. Burns will take office as minority commissioner despite drawing 42 percent more votes than Ford and 46 percent more votes than Irey. But Ford vows Bums won't be ostracized as he was as minority commissioner. Those days are over in Washington County, he said.

"That's good to hear," Burns said. "I have nothing but positive feelings about those two individuals. We never fought or exchanged an angry word. I look forward to a good relationship, and I have no reason to believe that we will have anything but a harmonious working relationship." Ford, Irey and Burns each have indicated interest in working together to establish a SEE FORD, PAGE W-2 In California, native son Joseph "Jock" Yablonski, above, is now honored with a state historic marker for the changes and strength his life and death gave to the United Mine Workers and the labor movement. "Since the time of his death, the UMW has radically changed its philosophy and voting procedures.

We've become democratized and are much better off," said Jim Smith, District 5 president of the UMW. PageW-3. she and three girlfriends make a lifelong friendship pact. That movie has particular significance to the area, considering that at age 12, real-life Demi was living in Washington County. In the mid-1970s, the now famous ac- tress lived in Glencannon and attended Borland Manor Elementary School in North Strabane and Canon-McMillan Junior High School in Canonsburg.

Her family then moved to Rogers Manor in Charleroi, where they lived for less than a year before heading west. Now, Moore is one of the world's most successful actresses. She is married to actor Bruce Willis, has three children and commands up to $12.5 million per movie. But if "Then and Now" were biographical, it would be set in Washington County. And by all accounts, it would nave detailed a trying, if not traumatic, time for the eventual star.

Moore's family name was Guynes (pronounced GWINES). Demi Guynes' life included family problems that she attributed in interviews to the family's frequent moves as her father Danny Gene Guynes jumped from newspaper to hews-: paper as an advertising t- 4 KM INFYI Canon-Mac make-over Canons-burg Middle School looks and feels like a new school, thanks to a $5.2 million renovation that altered the gymnasium, added computer labs and a technology area and brightened the building from top to bottom. An open house is scheduled today. Page W-7. Demi Moore was known as Demi Guynes in 1974 when she lived in Glen-; cannon, North Strabane.

1 SEE DEMI, PAGE W-5 School TV show provides fame, learning IN SPORTS Grappling with future Jefferson-Morgan grad Cary Kolat is set to resume his collegiate wrestling career at Lock Haven University. PageW-9. By Lynda Guydon Taylor Post-Gazette Staff Writer Students in Washington, Fayette and Greene counties are collecting a few minutes worth of fame, thanks to a new cable TV program featuring them and their schools. HYPE, short for Helping Youth Produce Education, premiered Monday on Helicon Channel 9. In a partnership between Helicon and nine school districts, students produced, wrote the scripts for and appeared in the telecasts.

The segments will appear weekly and continue throughout the school year. The program offers students an opportunity to express themselves, learn the ins and outs of TV production and provides the community with a weekly, two-minute glimpse of their schools, said Scott Bennett, executive director of HYPE. Segments will air on at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Mondays.

The nine participating school districts are Bethlehem-Center, Brownsville, Southeastern Greene, Frazier, Laurel Highlands, Uniontown, Albert Gallatin, Carmichaels and Jefferson-Morgan. Segments that aired on Monday ranged from a montage of Be Jrilehem-Center Middle School to an outing by Brownsville High School science students. William M. Dreucci, public relations director and coordinator of the HYPE program at Beth-Center, explained why students chose the montage format. "We don't want the program to ever be a talk program for two minutes.

You're not going to get much across in two minutes," Dreucci said. In future segments, the district plans to promote upcoming events, winter sports, SEE SHOW, PAGE INDEX Bulletin Board W-8 Prl Washington W-7 Municipal roundup W-6 W-7 Sports Washington W-9 Talk of the Town W-11 A look at Washington mayor, council races, Page W-2. The last hurrah for Republicanism in the city of Washington? A guest column Page W-2..