Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 29

SHE'S (OOF) LARGEST GAL WRESTLER In This Corner Heather Feather! V1, s- BY PETER C. GAVRILOV1CH Pro Prm stiff Wrtlw Heather Feather (oofff!) weighs 389 pounds (crunch) and has a nieun step-over toe hold She's a wrestler, the Cobo Arena kind, who bounces off the ropes Saturday nights and confronts her adversary with a sneer and a growl or the whimpering look of a wounded gardenia. She pummels her opponent; then her opponent pummels her. Back and forth, pummel, pummel, pummel. The crowd roars when she takes a big bite of her Snoopy-adorned lollipop or tosses her big yellow hair ribbon to the audience.

Heather Feather (real name Peggy Jones) Is 23, a graduate of Lincoln Park High, bowler, pizza-eater and the largest woman wrestler on the exhibition wrestling cricult. "I'm really a lover," she says. "I wouldn't hurt you. That, however, is her job: Two or three nights a week she has to at least look like she's hurting someone. Heather has been wrestling for eight months and, her manager Lou Klein claims, has won "90 percent" of her bouts.

In a year, Klein claims, he'll be "unbeatable." "I'VE ALWAYS BEEN like this," Heartier says of her size. She's 5 feet. 10 inches tall. "I used to come to Cobo to watch the matches all the time." Klein, 56 and a big name In local wrestling circles, first met Heather when she was working at an Allen Park bowling alley. He asked her to come by his gym, which she did.

And after four months of training, "to learn the holds," Klein says, Heather as ready for the ring. "I was terrified," she says of the first bout. was an eight-woman battle Explanation: An eight-woman battle royal is when eight women get together in the ring and have a free-for-all. You mean right over the ropes and BAM onto the concrete floor "Hee, hee, hee. No.

I landed on a guy in the first row. Was he surprised!" HEATHER SAYS HER size has never bothered her. In school, "you know how kids are In school Her voice drops off and she neyer actually says they are, but you know she means she was razzed a lot. Still, she insists, it never got to her. The problems wert of a different nature.

"I fractured my sister's leg one time," she says, just fooling around, playing at wrestling. Her sisters, by the way, outwelght her by 20 and 40 pounds. Heather Feather describes herself as a "sports nut." She wants you to know that she'll out-bowl you on the lanes. As for bowling them over in the ring, she's deadly serious about that, too even through all those guffaws she gets. She really wants to be "good." When's a wrestler "good?" "When he's making money," manager Klein says.

Whether a wrestler wins a lot or loses, the money comes from how much a wrestler can draw a crowd. Heather's, draw is, of course, her size. She stays in shape eating. Her secret? "Pizza." A sigh and a sad look cover her pudgy face. Pizza is a sort of love-hate affair with Heather.

"Cheese and sausage I don't like anchovies. I'm always eating pizza." Heather says she once wanted to be an art teacher, and has dabbled in oils and chalk, hut wrestlinR is her world now. Marriage wasn't. She's now waiting for a divorce to become final. Reflecting on the two years of matrimony she says: "I wish I knew some wrestling then." Heather ami her Snoopy lollipop.

She remembers leaving her dressing room that night and walking through that thundering Cobo crowd the first time. She was scared, but determined to see it through. 'T thought they were going to kill me," Heather recalled. "I was the first guy out. They picked me up and threw me over the ropes." Prtt Pmt Photot bv BOB SCOTT Heather leather in the ring: With her.

pu.a is xoii of a hue-hate affair. Volunteers Savor 'Joy of Doing1 --r it Detroit tfxccVxcss for and aboutWoniCll WEDNESDAY. FEB. 14. '73 1C BY HELEN MAY FrM Prtl StH Wrtlw Vera Romick leaned over the chair arm and spoke in a whisper: "People all the time make negative comments about my volunteering friends, fanlily even an1 this time, here, is one time someone is being positive." This time was the sixth annual Heart of Gold awards luncheon.

Mrs. Romick, one of 10 tri-county women selected to receive the awards, sized up volunteer spirit of the group. A trained teacher In special education (for children), she said: "I chose to volunteer because I wanted to help." While women are flockin" back to school and to paid jobs, there are women who still flock to the aid of their neighbors. Another honoree, Mrs. Alcx-a Walt of Huntington Woods, is a South Africa native and still speaks sparkling 100 original works of art from Michigan artists to the hospital corridors and has raised money to replace old beds.

UT VOLUNTEERISM is having its problems. It's being questioned, even ciriticized, lately The Naoncl Organization lor Women (NOW), for example, has a resolution against the traditional concept of vol-unteerism. "Volunteer labor for social services Is an extension of un paid household help I he volunteer system rises front the economic dependence of women Women are stuck in the roles of r. helper, buffer," says the NOW position. Yet local NOW has not pressed the issue.

Chapter president, Joan Israel, said: "The iisue is too complex to talk of just from a feminist view I'm a professional social worker, I see the other side." Please turn to Page JC, Col I. Queen's English. She explained her work with Detroit General Hospital. "We formed Friends of Detroit General to beautify the hospital. I feel that living In the suburbs I owe something to the city so I help beautify the hospi' il," she said.

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