Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 3

I Page A 3 (Community I i mix i i. Decatur, Illinois. Friday, August 15, 1980 Air Cargo says support helped choosing site -rr Hi rrt? WWW iif'T-'lt 1 The airport also has a good location, few people would be dislocated because of development, and the-area is out of the snow belt, Parma said. Air Cargo on Wednesday signed a "pre-nuptial" agreement with Lawrenceville-Vincennes to create the hub there. The agreement calls for both parties to develop financing and other plans for the project in 90 days.

Some improvements are necessary for Air Cargo to operate at Lawrenceville-Vincennes, and airport officials said they will look at bonding, plus local, state and federal funds, to finance the work. According to Parma, Air Cargo's interest in the airoort stems from a lRi I I 7771 5 fil It iWrl i- 1.: ft. a By JEFF MERRELL Herald Review Staff Writer The lack of community opposition to the proposed development of Law-renceville-Vincennes Airport convinced Air Cargo Enterprises Inc. of Honolulu to choose the airport for its Midwest cargo hub. And if Lawrenceville-Vincennes develops as Air Cargo expects, Wilson Parma, vice president of the airline, also said it would make "economic sense" for the Flying Tiger Line Inc.

to locate there. Parma's comments suggest complications for Decatur Airport officials, who are trying to woo Flying Tigers to create an air cargo hub. Flying Tigers is the world's largest air cargo carrier. Air Cargo is the largest commuter freight carrier and the 22nd largest cargo hauler among all airlines, Parma said. Commuter carriers operate smaller planes than regular freight lines.

Air Cargo operates two DC-4S, Decatur officials only recently received word they will soon et a long-awaited feasibility study on the proposed Decatur cargo hub from consultants hired to attract industrial and air cargo clients to the city's airport. Though the study reportedly says Decatur has good potential for an air cargo hub, airport officials face strong opposition from farmers whose land would be needed to develop such a hub. It was a lack of such organized opposition which Parma cites as the prime factor in Air Cargo's choosing the Lawrenceville-Vincennes Airport for development. "We have been encouraged not only by the airport authority, but by the entire community," Parma said. "We haven't heard a discouraging word about it.

There has been no demonstrated opposition to this in the communities." Kathryn Roberts and daughter Marleen, with signs, were arfiong celebrants on V-J Day in downtown Decatur in 1945. 35 years ago made Decatur crazy Northgate Eisner's gets two variances Residents remember V-J Day By JUDY TATHAM Herald Er Review Staff Writer Thirty-five years ago, Decatur went deliriously and spontaneously crazy. Grown men climbed atop the Transfer House in Lincoln Square and waved flags. Motorists abandoned their cars in the streets and joined hands with strangers. "Immodest" women defied the orders of the city's police chief and appeared on the streets in shorts.

Their attempts to seek out police officers for hugs drew laughs from gathering crowds. It was the long-awaited V-J Day. Decatur got the news by radio at 6.06 p.m. Aug. 14, and crowds of people began to descend on the downtown.

"It was mass recalls Norman Hendrian, who was a relatively new Decatur police officer at the time. Hendrian, who was on vacation, was called to duty and assigned traf fic control at Franklin and Main streets. But the task proved nearly impossible. "People would just get out of their cars, leave them and mill around," he says. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper.

Two-way streets made traffic control difficult. "There was no disorder from the standpoint of rowdiness," Hendrian, who retired from the Police Depart-, cars and gathered in Central Park for ceremonies, she remembers. Like other young children of World War II servicemen, Marleen, who is now Mrs. Glenn Rinkel of Aurora, vividly recalls the return of her father. "I do remember being downtown in Decatur and all the crowds and noise," she says.

"But I remember very well going to Fort Leonard Wood (Missouri) to see him when he got home. "Mother was afraid I would not remember him and not be loving. But I think I didn't leave his side all day." A young Navy lieutenant was on leave when the news of Japan's surrender came to Decatur. That officer was Sid Rotz, who remembers a speech he gave from a picnic bench in Fairview Park as the festivities continued into a' second day. "I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know I talked about how important the war effort at home had been," Rotz says.

The gathering at the park was more subdued than the hectic celebration of the night before, Rotz says. The parade to Fairview Park on Aug. 15 was witnessed by as many as 40,000 people as it wound its way from downtown to the west side park, newspaper articles reported. "I just remember it was a time of Herald Review Photo with joy great celebration," says the former fighter pilot who served in Okinawa. Rotz is now sports director at radio station WSOY and is in the insurance business.

Edwin L. Huntley, who was an official with the Chamber of Commerce- for 31 years, recalls being among those planning the V-J celebration. "I remember I located servicemen for the reviewing stand in Central Park," he says. "It was certainly a big party for Decatur and there was a lot of dancing in the streets." Huntley says he believes Decatur taverns were ordered closed. "But they really didn't need the spirits that taverns offered.

There were plenty of other kinds of happy spirits to go around." An extra edition of the Decatur Daily Review was published, he recalls. War plants were shut down during the celebration, and those plants with contracts for weapons and ammunition immediately stopped production, Huntley says. "Our thoughts turned to post-war planning," Huntley says. "We knew war plants would close and we had a lot of men returning to the community." Looking back on those post-war years and Decatur's development, he adds, "I think we did a pretty fair job." Decatur Herald Review; Rod Carter of the Prairie News; and Horace Livingston of The Voice. The cost is $3.50 a person.

Reservations should be made by Tuesday afternoon. Schools receive grants Area school districts have been awarded $647,365 in grants under the federal Title IV program. The program provides grants for local school improvement projects. Two grants were given to the Macon County Educational Service Region. A $110,000 grant was awarded to the region under the "Helping Education Through Resources for Teachers" program to promote the fine arts in kindergarten through sixth grade.

The region, got an additional $337,365 to fund an Illinois Center for Educational Improvement. The money is to be used in any area needing improvement. The Charleston School District received two grants. Under the "Arts are Basic to Education" program, the district was given $95,000 to promote fine arts education within the regular curriculum. The district also got $105,000 under the Microcomputer Assistance for Special Students program.

long talked-about plan among cargo carriers to create a system divorced from airports which handle passenger airlines. "At those airports, cargo tends to be an afterthought to the passenger business," he said. Air Cargo's decision to move to Lawrenceville-Vincennes could be the first step in creating that system, Parma said. He said initially the company will operate feeder lines to major airports for hookups with larger companies, such as Flying Tigers. Whether Flying Tigers eventually moves to Lawrenceville-Vincennes to complete the separate cargo system "would be a Flying Tigers decision," Parma said.

"Of course, Flying Tigers does not have equipment that can land there now. But if Lawrenceville-Vincennes becomes what we think it will become, then it would make economic sense for Flying Tigers to go there." Parma also said Decatur was never in the running for the Air Cargo Enterprise project. The company several years ago considered an Indiana site north of Vincennes, and then became interested in the Lawrenceville-Vincennes facility. It also granted a variance from setback requirements to allow the building to be extended 60 feet to the east, to within five feet of the property line. City staff members said the variances should not cause problems with parking or driver visibility.

The Eisner store at Northgate Mall opened in 1971. The mall has 173,000 square feet of retail space and the Eisner store could be expanded only to the east, Hull said. Without the variances, Hull told the board, Eisner might pursue other alternatives not preferred by the city. Eisner officials have said the store must be enlarged to keep it competitive with other supermarkets. After the meeting, Hull said Eisner had been contacted to lure the Northgate store to an out-of-town location.

He declined to name a developer or site. Both the Eisner and Osco. stores will have more space when construction is completed, Maskey said afterward. The Osco store may begin selling clothes and its camera shop will be enlarged, he said. A bakery will be added at the Eisner store, along with fresh fish and delicatessen departments, Maskey said.

Of the three Eisner stores in Decatur, only the one at 1135 W. Wood St. has a bakery. A bakery is included in the remod eled store at 1595 E. Cantrell where an Osco store and Citizens National Bank of Decatur branch are being added.

That project should -be completed by January, Maskey said Thursday. been operating by this January. A fund-raising blitz exactly one year ago to raise $500,000 for the TV station faltered following Associated Press stories about the station's close ties with Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, headed by fundamentalist minister the Rev. Bruce Dunn. The fund-raising drive has netted little more than half its goal.

will be included. But some things will not. "If you're a bug on jazz or rock or the loudest music ever, forget it. This class won't interest you," he says. The goal, says Kirby, is a low-key, easygoing class to whet the appetite for music while improving its standards and understanding.

He warns that it may be habit-forming. "The enjoyment and study of good music," he says, "will involve you for the rest of your days." By STEVE AH ALAN Herald ft Review Staff Writer The Eisner Food Store in North-gate Mall won't move out' of Decatur, company representatives said after receiving two zoning variances Thursday to permit a addition. The Decatur Zoning Board of Appeals granted the variances after A. Lewis Hull, Decatur attorney representing the Champaign-based Eisner firm, warned earlier that the store may be abandoned. Building and equipping the addition will cost "a couple million" dollars, Thomas Maskey real estate manager for Eisner, said after the meeting.

He said construction would last 10 months and could begin this fall. Work wilL start no later than next spring, said. The variances were sought by Jewel Companies parent company of Eisner and Osco drug stores, which lease space at Northgate Mall. The Eisner and Osco stores at the mall had $10.3 million in sales last year and the city share of sales tax was $100,000, Hull said in arguing for the variances. The proposed addition should allow the stores to increase their combined annual sales by $1 million, representing an additional $10,000 in sales tax to the city, Hull said.

Northgate Mall now has 1,048 parking spaces, according to the petition for variances. The Eisner expansion would use 25 of those spaces. Under the proposed expansion, the present zoning ordinance would require 1,142 parking spaces. The Zoning Board of Appeals accepted the Jewel proposal of 1,023 spaces. Two districts teacher agreements ment as a lieutenant in 1977, says.

"People were just exuberant. I don't think there were any arrests made. We just tried to keep people from being hurt or pedestrians from being run over by cars." The celebration in 1945 to end the war was one of his busiest nights of duty. The festivities continued until 2 a.m. on Aug.

15. The young wife of a serviceman symbolized the joy of families everywhere by hastily making a sign that proclaimed, "Now I'll get my man back." Kathryn Roberts, who was working in the city as a playground director for the summer, was accompanied by her 3-year-old daughter, Marleen, who carried a sign saying, "Daddy's coming home." Thirty-five years later, that memory brings back excitement to Mrs. Roberts, who now lives with her husband, Marvin, in Alhambfa, where he has a car dealership. "I remember we attracted a lot of attention. And Marleen enjoyed it.

She was a regular little actor," she recalls. "It is a very vivid memory and I just can't tell you how happy and relieved I was." Her husband was in the engineers' division of the Army and would have been in the first wave of troops if a land invasion had been tried in Japan, she says. Celebrating citizens climbed atop Bicyclist gets ticket A 17-year-old bicyclist was ticketed by police for failure to have lights on his bicycle after he was struck by a car at 9:47 p.m. Thursday at Decatur and Church streets. The bicyclist, Kevin R.

Hansbro of 778 E. Whitmer was treated at St. Mary's Hospital. A car driver by Roy N. Durbin, 82, of 520 S.

Church St. was turning from Decatur Street onto Church Street and struck the bicycle, according to police reports. Accident injures man Larry L. Walcher, 20, of Route 3' was treated at St. Mary's Hospital after his vehicle went out of control and struck a utility pole about 2 a.m.

today at Cantrell Street and Miller Court. He was ticketed by police for driv- Bob Sampson Off Beat OK County laiplS3 Scene i ijuS Tentative agreements on teacher contracts have been reached in the Niantfe-Harristown and Mount Zion school districts, the final two districts in Macon County to reach an apparent settlement. Niantic-Harristown Superintendent Farrell Flatt said negotiators for the school board and the Niantic-Harristown Education Association have agreed both sides will vote on the contract by Aug. 26, the first day of school for the 1980-81 year. An NHEA spokesman could not be reached this morning on when the teachers would vote.

Flatt said the board will not vote on it until after the teachers have ratified the document. Mount Zion Superintendent Philip Cartwright said spokesmen for the school board and Mount Zion Education Association are in the process of going over the proposed contract to be sure its language is as intended by both sides. The MZEA, which is affiliated with the Illinois Federation nf Teachers, will meet at 7 p.m.tSunj II U1C 1LU1UI liiLU For iho ratification vote, according to Den nis Zinn, an association negotiator. If the teachers ratify the contract, the school board will vote on it at its regular meeting Monday night. TV station plans delayed ing too fast for conditions and for driving with a suspended license.

Mall has 'Food Machine FORSYTH The 1980 Fantastic Food Machine show, sponsored by the Farm Bureau Young Farmers of DeWitt and Macon counties, will be at the Hickory Point Malli todav I Sunday. I The show's theme, "You and the Farmer Partners in the 80s," is. designed to illustrate the inter-dependency of rural and urban people. The show will include an alcohol still, a "talking" combine, a hands-on tractor, an "Ask the Farmer" booth, plus meat cutting and microwave cooking demonstrations. News seminar set A public relations seminar will be held at 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday in the YWCA, 436 N. Main St. A question-and-answer period will follow the program about news stories, public service announcements, deadlines and general know-how for publicity releases from organizations. The speakers will be Dick West-brook of WAND; Chris Rollins of General Electric Cablevision Gary Major of WDZ; Larry King of WSOY; Paul Osborne of the Decatur Tribune; Carol Alexander of the will keep "I am fundamentally a musician," he adds, "but my first love was foreign language." It was a love that took him abroad to study and provided a job, leaving little room for music. Still, Kirby managed to keep up his interest over the years.

From 1949 until 1959, he wrote a column for the Decatur Herald Review spotlighting the week's better radio and television programs. "And in the early 1950s," he says, "I had my own program on WSOY radio for a time." Teacher Gnds music him in tune with students BLOOMINGTON (AP) The failure of a $500,000 fund-raising effort has forced nearly a year's delay in construction of a Bloomington-based family-oriented television station in Central Illinois, said executive vice president Sam B. Wagner. The station, being developed by a fundamentalist church in Peoria, is expected to be on the air in fall 1981. Originally the station was to have started," he says.

"Show them what to do to learn about music." Guest speakers and concerts, live and on the radio, will be part of the course. "Each lesson will be on a single composer or perhaps on a voice," says Kirby. "I'll try to bring things out that will make listening more understandable." Kirby promises "there will not be a preponderance of the heavy stuff." Musical comedy and operettas In a sense, Kirby was trying to popularize his favorite art, an attempt he plans to renew with the class. For his class, Kirby wants the person who is interested in learning more about music. "I'd really rather not have the music majors," he says.

"You don't have to play an instrument or sing to be in this class." Music majors and musicians would probably find the class boring, he says. "I'd just like to get people Walter Kirby is at it again. For many years, the retired head of MacArthur High School's foreign languages department has offered free classes in his specialty at Central Christian Church. Now, he's adding a new field, one that he always wanted to re-enter. Beginning the first Thursday in September, Kirby will teach music appreciation classes.

from 9 to 10:30 a.m., tlie classes are free and open to the public. will be no grades, tests or 4 prerequisites," explains Kirby, who asks those interested in joining to call him at 422-0990. t..