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Daily Journal, Tupelo, Mississippi, Friday Morning, October 5, 1973
Telep~one 842-2611 Price 10 Cents
Vol. 100 No. 160
S. Green St., East of Hospital _
Wholesale Food Prices Biggest Drop .In Years Six Per Cent September Plunge Raises Hopes For Lower
Chattanooga ARK.
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Tupelo
Tuscaloosa
Starkvi'lle
•oreenville s .c . Griffin • Macon
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Columbus
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) SOUTHERN SAUCERS - UPI map spots areas where mysterious flashing , lights have fascinated hundreds of Southerners in recent weeks. The lights ·were ' reported over Mississippi and South Carolina Thursday, including a "saucershaped object" the size of a two-bedroom house. - UPI Telephoto
Cloud Cover Dampens Area UFO Sightings By PHYLLIS HARPER Journal Staff Writer A low-lying cloud cover moving about 8:30 p.m. Thursday brought to a halt a ) S~ of UFO sightings in the ·fupelo a rea. This was the fourth night of re ported sightings within a week and the second night of numerous UFO (unidentified flying object) activity. (See related story on Page \ 15.) · Sheriffs in two counties, a Parkway r a nger, numerous ; Highwa y Patrolmen and ' deputy sheriffs, constables, policemen a nd private citizens throughout the Journal area reported sightings from about dark until midnight Wednesday and until it became cloudy Thursday . Reports centered around th e "I:upe lo area again ,:J'hursday, with Lee County ~,Jhe riff's dispatcher Terry I' Grubbs, handling radio I t raffic concerning numerous ' s i g htin gs b y officers throughout the area. Reports ranged from t he size of a two-bedroom house to the size of a base ball when the object was fairly close and as small or smaller than a dime as it went across the
horizon. reported seeing the objects. Shapes and colors varied Highway Pat r olmen from the shape of a flashlight throughout the New Albany, to balloon shaped, a nd some Starkville, Batesville, and objects had one color light, Holly Springs dis tricts others changed color. · reported receiving calls . One thing noted both However, most activity Wednesday and Thursday seemed to be centered was that essentially all around Tupelo. · sightings · had the UFO's Switchboards at the local traveling in the same sheriff a nd police stations, direction ... generally east or (as well as at the Daily northeastward. Journal) w e r e bu sy Thursday night's sightings Thursday night until the confir m e d by Iaw clouds moved in. enforcement officials were · Perhaps th e be s t all on the horizon a t some description of a close-up look di s t a nce. H o wever , came from Natchez Trace Wednesday night's reports Ranger Tom Westmoreland, saw saucer s or UFOs as a veteran of several years close as close as 20 feet. experience working with Sightings were reported people . over Tupelo, Verona , Westm oreland sa w a Brewer, Saltillo, Guntown, saucer-shaped craft with Mooreville and Plantersville blinking lig hts hov ering in Lee County Thursday north of Tupelo for a bout 15 night. . minutes la t e Wednesday Deputy Lee Blake of the night. He said three other Le e Co unty Sheriff ' s rangers and a deputy sheriff Department, who had been were with him a nd sa w t he watching a departing UFO . same thing. through binocu l ars '' I know this sounds e xpressed th e general strange, a nd I can assure opinion of most officers who you I'm sober, " the ranger saw the phenomena, ·' It's a l a u g hed . " It w as real pretty sight to watch." a pproximate ly 1,000 feet Pontotoc Sheriff Jim altitude and roughly the size Hubbard a nd Itawamba of a two-bedroom house. Sheriff James Pate were a mon g off icia l s who Continued on Page 14
Many Gas Station Owners .
Prices At Retail Checkout Counters, Government Says WASHINGTON (UPI) the end . of the year, but Wholesale food prices took probably · would rise again their s harpest plunge in next year. more than a quarter century AFL -C IO President ! in September, falling 6 per G,e orge Meany said the cent and raising hopes for September wholesale price lower prices at retail drop would be encouragiog if · checkout counters , the a downward trend continued, government said Thursday. . " but there is no evidence of But the lower food prices that." and the 1.8 per cent decline Meany predicted that t he in overall wholesale prices Cost of Living Council would ' didn't come c lose to approve most of the offsetting the big increases hundreds of price incr ease of the previous month : a 27- applications before it, year high of 5.8 per cent overall, an all-time high 23.1 per cent for farm products . and a record high 13.4 per . cent for processed foods. · However, Chairman Herbert Stein of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers said there had been . f urthe r· wholesale price drops since the September statistics wer e gathered. And he hailed the September drop as ' ' a welcome sign that , By NORMA FIELDS the worst of tl)e big 1973 Journal Staff Writer surge· of inflation is behind At least three parcels of us.'' "While wholesale food · property t hrough which the prices may not continue to proposed new Highway 78 dec line ," Stein said, ·•a will be constructed in Lee resumption of · rapid County are owned either by increases s hould not be employes of t he Highway Department , their relatives expect ed." Ste in said the lower or in-laws, it was determined wholesale prices might not Thursday. According to a m a p of the be fully reflected at the retail level, but should "contribute proposed new route and land to a leveling out of retail food records here, the pla nned prices in the future.'' Food clo verleaf interchange of industry s pok es men Highway 78 with the expressed hope the whole- proposed new Highway 45 sale price drops would be will a bsorb parts of the reflected· at r eta il levels for acreage in sections 17 and 18 north of Tupelo owned by consumers in a s hort time. John Trotman, president J erry Bristow, the estate of of the American National his deceased brother, and his Cattle m e n ' s Association, aunt, Miss Kathleen Mitts . Bristow is an a ppraiser in said if packers, wholesalers a nd supermarkets pass on a the Rig ht-of-Way Division of recent drop of 30 per cent in t h e S t a t e H i g h w a y wholesa l e beef prices , Department, where he has consumers will see their been employed since 1969, according to Northern meat bills going down. Gordon Van Vleck , first District Personnel Director vice president of t h e Phil Abernethy. Abernethy Bri s tow is association, predicted retail · s aid beef prices might drop by as headquartered in Jackson, much as 10 cents a pound by but travels throughout the state a ppraising right of way p r o p e rt i es for th e Department. The cloverleaf interchange • I w ill be located a ppro xima tely 2.5 miles north of the present Highway 78 by-pass a round Tupelo. According to the Highway Department's m ap of the new route for Highway 78
, Closing Down 'For Va~ation' ~.
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United Press International Ignoring a promise by the feder a l government to a llow 1 {mothe r hike in gas prices in q.)'due course, " thousands of " fillin g stations across ttie country Jocked up their pumps Thursday to go on "vacation" at least for the weekend. Dealer organizations in Southern California where cars are an essential means of tra nsport , a nd other regions reported widespread suppor t a m ong independent · gas station operators for a shutdown aimed at putting pressure on the government for a nother gas price increase immediately. Or ga ni zers of the
s hutdown move said that as many as half of Los Angeles' 4,500 gas stations could be closed, with 400 more shut down in San Diego a nd 750 t hr oughout Nevada in the soc a 11 e d "vacation " that s t a rted a t the close of regular business Thursday night. Meetings of dealers in II linois and Ohio were scheduled for next week to decide whether to join the shutdown. Similar action by station ·operators on Ne w York's ca r.-clogged Long Island turned off as much as 80 per cent of the area's gas pumps Wednesday a nd Thursday. Closures occur red earlier in
the week in Houston, Tex., and California's San Joaquin Valley. . Station operators say that an increase in gas prices of 1 to 2 'h cents a gallon allowed last wee k by the Cost of Living Council did not meet higher costs. Som e said the increase was immediately eaten up by supplier s who boosted the wholesale pr ice of gas at the same time John T . Dunlop , the council director, said the governme nt is commited to allowing se r vice stations to jump the price of gas again. He said permission for a price hike would come in Continued on Page 14
meaning that September's wholesale price figures " will prove to be only a momentary pause and prices will bounce up again." The wholesale price decreases in September were unprecedented s ince the early post-World War II days of the late 1940s. The overall 1.8 per cent decline a nd the 6 per cent drop for farm products were the largest decreases since February of 1948. And the 6
per cent fall in processed foods a nd feeds, and a similar decline in the overall food index for farm products and processed foods and feeds, were all-time record decreases sin ce the Labor Department began keeping those records in 1947. The department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said the lower food prices were led by declines of 16 per cent for live poultry, 14.8 per
cent for livestock, nearly 13.5 per cent for processed poultI·y , 13.1 per cent for gr ains, 12.9 per cent for fresh and dried vegetables. 8.6 per cent for eggs and almost 5.5 per cent for meats. Bu t fres h fruit prices declined only 0.2 per cent a nd increases were registered of 10. 7 per cent for milk, 8.4 per .cent for cereal and bakery products and 4.5 per cent for dairy products.
Corridor Land Owned By Highway Employes
Man Killed
ln·Wreck At
Mooreville
A Lee County man was killed and two other persons received minor injuries in a two car carsh eas t of Mooreville late Thursday, according to Highway Patrol officia ls . The fa tality was identified as Johnny 0. Spencer, 27, of Route 1, Mooreville; driver of one of the vehicles. A passenger in theSpencer car, Darrell L. Roberts, 18, of Mooreville, and Davis A. Dillard, driver number two, ;34, of 406 North Thomas Street, Tupelo were treated a nd r eleased from the North Mississippi Medical Center. The accident occurred on Highway 78 two miles east of Mooreville, near the county line. · Funeral a rrangements are incomplete and will be an n o un · ced i.Jy McN e ece -Morris F uneral Home in Fulton. h
from Belden to the Alabama line , another interchange will be constructed where the new road will intersect the Old Saltillo Road . Part of the la nd affected b y th a t r o u t e a n d intercha nge is owned by Jim and Muller Johnson, whose sister is now married to A.M. White, former chief engineer w i th t h e H i g h w a y Department and now head of the Traffic and Planning Divis ion for the Department. Abernethy said , however, that White was not married to the form er Frances Johnson when the route was pla nned. He said White's first wife died " about a year and a half ago," and tha t he h a s sin ce married the present Mrs. White . "That section (of the new : 78 route) was part of the · Appala chian Corridor and the plans were developed in early 1969. At tha t time, he was head of the Traffic and Planning Division, " accordin g to Abernethy. It was later learned, however , th a t White was c hie f engineer up to the time he assumed his prese nt position within the past year. It was a lso learned later that the Appalachia · R egional Commission did not determine t he e xact route the proposed Appalachian Corridor would take. According to sources in the
Iuka Man Killed In Pickup Accident IUKA - Alvis Stephens, 55, was fatally injured Thursday about four miles south of Iuka when t he Dat s un pickup he w as driving ran off the road. According to a uthoritie s Stephens a pparently lost control of the truck a nd ran off the west s ide of the road. He then cam e back on the road diagonally and turned over severa l times. Funeral services will be held 11 a.m . Saturday at the N e w Prospect Ba ptist ,Chu rch with the Rev. Stanley l.1: cGi ll officiating. Burial will be in the Tishomingo
Commission, Preston a nd Associ ates of Cincinnati, Ohio, were hired by the Commission as consulting e n gin eers to decide the general route the proposed Corridor woul d take through Mi ssissippi to tie with Interstate 55 at Ba tes ville. But these sources stated that the specific line for the road was determined by the State Hi g h way Department thr o u g h a pr elimin a r y e ngineering survey done by the D epartm e nt ' s own engineers.
According to Lee County land records, the Johnsons inherited the land from their father , J .L. Johnson,- who had purchased some 238 acres between 1899 a nd 1905 in Section 21, Township 9, Range 6 East; Section 21, Township 9, Range 6 West; and Section 28, Township 9, Range 6. · Northern District Highway Co mmi ssion er Herschel Jumper told the Journal Thursday that plans for the Continued on Page 14
Bullets In .Stennis Linked TO Handgun WASHINGTON (U PI) - An FBI ballistics expert testified Thursday that the bullets removed from Sen. John C. Stennis could have com e from the pistol traced to t he three youths C'harged with the shooting. But · Spe c ial Age n t Cortla nd Cunni ngha m told a U.S. District Court jury that the .22 caliber bullets could just as well have come from some other pistol of the same caliber and condition. Cunningham testified in th e tria l of Tyrone I. . Marshall, 19, one of three black youths charged with · robbing and shooting the Mi ssi s sippi Democrat in front of his northwes t Washington hom e J a n. 30. T h e m ost h e co uld ascertain from his tests, Cunningham testified, was that t he bullets had been fired from a .22 caliber
w eapon with a ba rre l co nt aining eight rifling grooves and with a righthand twist. He said the bullets did not bear enough identifying bore marks to indicate they had come from the barrel of the pistol traced to the three youths. The bullets, Cunningham said , were · copper-coated lead and were of a type es pecially diffic ult to link with a pa rticula r gun. " If I identify one in 10 that is a bout average, " he said. Four of Marshall's friends t e st ifie d Wednesday that Marshall told them he took par t in the robbery-shooting and tha t the gun changed ha nds four times within two weeks. Stennis was shot twice, once below the heart and a gain in the a bdomen, after he was robbed of 35 cents and his watch.
Cemetery. Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Marjorie Stephens of Tishomingo ; two daughters, Mrs. Madrid Amerson of , Burnsville, a nd Mr s. Margaret W ade of Tishomingo; one son. Terry Stephens of Henderson, Tenn. ; three · sisters, Mrs . Cara F redrick of Iuka, Mrs . Artie Fry of Ocola , Florida, a nd Mrs . Gertr ude Ralph of Metuchen, New Jersey ; one brother, Cha ndler Stephens of Brooksville, Florida. He l eav e s four a l so grandchildren. Cutsha ll F uneral Home is in charge.
ERVIN SAYS PRANKS DESTROYED CANDIDATE
) Saboteur Tells Of Muskie Tricks WASHINGTON (UPI) - A paid politi cal saboteur Thursday told the Sena te Wa t ergat e committee he hired a girl for $20 to run naked in front of Sen. Edm und S . Muskie ' s campaign offices shouting " I love Muskie" in an effort to damage the Democratic candidate feared most by Republicans. · An irate Sen. Sam J . Ervin, D-N. C., told the witness , Martin Douglas Kelly, 24, of Miami, he saw nothing funny in such pranks be caus e they " virtually d e s t r o y ed " Muskie a s a ~andi d at e for the ·Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. I
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Ke lly said he and Donald because of the Watergate H. Segretti, the Republican break -in '' and the heat of the agent who offered him $700 a investi g ation s th a t month to s ow disarray followed, " he said. amo n g Democrats, m ade In the March primary in plan s to antagonize F lorida, Kelly said, he hired delega tes to the Democratic "a girl that was hungry for Na tional Convention in a money " to go to the manner intended to help the conservative college town of fortunes of George S. McGo- · Gainesville, Fla., disrobe vern, perceived as the and run in the street in front weakest possible rival to of Muskie ' s · h ote l Preside nt Nixon . · proclaiming her love for " M cGovern w as the Muskie. desirable nominee of the " Unfortunately she did it," convention as far as we were the pe nitent Kelly said. concerned,'.' Kelly said. He said Segretti had told The plans to use " dirty him Muskie " has a short t ricks " t o inf lu enc e fu s e" a nd s hould b e convention delegates against a nta gonized into a displa y of McGovern's rivals were fury . In testimony that got ab·andoned , however,
Ervin even a ngrier, Robert Benz, a 29-year-old truck loader from Lutz, Fla. told t he committee just before it a djourned until Tuesday morning t ha t he ordered an underling to plant stink bombs in Muskie's campaign headquarters and distributed a letter on Muskie s tation ery accusing two Democratic rivals of sexual misbehavior. Benz agreed, in response to questioning, that the "dirty tricks" he performed were immoral and proba bly illegal. He s a id he did them to teach t he Democra ts a lesson a nd he hoped this wou Id prev e nt s uch activities in the future .
"ls it fair to infer from your testimony," Ervin asked, " that you believe t he wa y to clean up politics is to make it more filthy ?" " It' s a way to start , sena tor," Benz replied. B e nz contended that politics is and has always been dirt y a nd everyone knows it "with the e xception of politicians." He asked Ervin , " Whe re were you in 1960 when it was a ccused that an election was stolen ?" Benz argued that Nixon would have beaten John F . Kennedy in 1960 if it had not be e n for a lle ged illegal activities by the Democrats in Chicago. E r vin, his voice rising to a
s hout, a c c us ed Kelly of trying to antagonize even cons ervatives " by hiring a na ked woman ." He asked if Kelly stood by his contention ·,tha t the tricks were not aimed at influencing vote rs . " I'm not denying some voters might have been influenced," Kelly replied, ' but the purpose really was to THE BALD LOOK - Tired of struggling to pull '' upset the candidates. '' Erv in cited printed comb through your hair, sleeping on curlers all night, advertisements and radio commercia ls in charging spending hours under the . dryer? . . . the answer tha t Kelly was trying to turn maybe to adopt the " Kung Fu" look worn by Suzanne whites and blacks, Cuba ns (Top right ) and .Jacques Cote (Top left) of Ottawa, a nd Jews, against Muskie. Among other things, Kelly Canada. They shaved each other bare because they s aid, he released a bird and "got tired of long hair~" Bottom photo shows them in
a
Continued on Page 14
the " before " look.
- UPI Telephoto