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58 pages, 4 sections
Tupelo, Mississippi, Weekend Edition, March 3-4, 1984
Vol. 110 No. 286 '
© 1984 Journa' ub hin. ...o.
Tupelo dad, player, coach share tourney his GREG SKITH Sports Writer JACKSON - Sometimes it's just plain odd how things work out. Almost 20 years ago, in 1965, Tupelo won the state Class AA title and went on to beat West Lauderdale, a Class A school, for the grand slam championship. · Tupelo also claimed the AA and overall laurels in 1966 and 1968, while West Lauderdale won the A-AA title in 1964 and the A crown in '65 and '67. But there was something else aboutthat 1965 meeting. One of the players on that Golden Wave squad was a 6-0, 170-pound junior forward named Howard Bailey. In that long-ago championship bout, Bailey and bis teammates played against a West Lauderdale team which included a 6-3, 180-pound sophomore guard named Randy Hodges. Since that period, neither school bas won a state boys basketball title. Tupelo has, however, made three trips to the state tournament in the last six years, losing to Gulfport in the finals in 1979. Now the Golden Wave is here again, set to take on North Natchez at 1: 30 p.m. today for all the ~arblcs.
y-..a· h"ips uuay•a Champaona
· ." I think it's wonderful," said Howard Bailey. '.'It' grea I lo ! it. "I HATE that be (Hodges) was on the team that w beat 'JUt tl:.at's
CLASS B
the breaks. "I'm pulling for them all the way." Hodges also remembers his playing days almost 20 years ago, but he knows what it's like now, too. "It was so exciting to win it as a player," he said, " but you realize just bow hard it is to win a state championship when you're coaching." · It will be especially hard against the fast-running North Natchez Rams, a team for which Hodges bas great respect. "To me they're the strongest running team that I've coached against," he said. "Controlling the tempo is a must. There's no question about it." And in Class AA, a second-generation Bailey basketball player hopes bis heritage will be good luck for the Golden Wave. " I like it," he said of being in the finals. "I think we've got a real good chance to win it."
Hickory Flat vs. Bentonia ......................... ..... 3 p.m. CLASS A
New Albany vs. Coa homa ....................... ....... 7 p.m. C
SS BB
McAdams vs. Sand F lat .... .............. ... ....... 8:30 p.m .
TUPELO is not alone in its quest to bring a state championship to Northeast Mississippi. All four classifications have area teams in the finals, and all four face a rough road to the promised land. One member of this particular Tupelo edition- is a 6-0, 145-pound sophomore guard named Howard Kevin Bailey, better known as Kevin- Howard's son. The coach is a man who bas taken Tupelo to the state tournament four times, including this season, in seven years. His name? Randy Hodges.
House OKs lottery vote
audit halted
THE audits are routine, and there was no indication of any suspected wrongdoing, said acting deputy state auditor, Jere Nash . Nash said the county had lumped a number of funds into a handful of checking accounts, and had not recorded the deposit of receipts and disbursements in the individual funds. County spokesmen denied that and said they did not understand what Nash was talking about.
Sometimes it's funny bow things work out.
. CLASS AA Tupelo vs. North Natchez ... . ...................... . 1:30 p.m.
Alcorn
From Staff and Wire Reports CORINTH - The state Audit Department says it has stopped the auditing of Alcorn County financial records until April 1, or until the county prepares needed financial information, because of what it called inadequate bookkeeping in the 1981-1983 fiscal years. Auditor Ray Mabus notified the Board of Supervisors by letter that the field auditor in Alcorn County had discontinued the routine auditing. Corinth accountant Cullin Potts, hired by the board to reconcile its records, said he should have the 1981 records within weeks, which should permit the audit to continue for that one year. Potts said he should • have the rest of the material ready by May. Chancery Clerk Leon Fields said he did not know of anything wrong with his books. His office mainta ins the county financial records .
or.
JACKSON (AP) - The Mississippi House gave its endorsement Friday to a once-beaten constitutional amendment authorizing a state lottery after lawmakers agreed to earmark the profits for education. Representatives, who had rejected the measure on Thursday, recalled it to the floor, inserted the education amendment and approved it 75-37, the required two-thirds margin with one vote to spare. Rep. Charles Capps of Cleveland, who handled the measure, said it would make $63 million a year available for elementary and · secondary schools and argued: "All you are doing is permitting the people to vote ' yes, I want a lottery' or 'no, I don't want a lottery.' All you are doing is asking the people what they want to do." Foes held the proposal in the House over the weekend on a motion to reconsider the action but it can be released to the Senate on a majority vote. Sponsors said they expected to clear it to the Senate on Monday. Sen. Howard Dyer of Greenville, chairman of the Senate Constitution Committee, promised "a thorough and full hearing."
-i
READY, AIMING Shiite Moslem militiaman waits to ire his 106mm recoiless rifle in Beirut fi hting Friday . One
official said the end of the Lebanese war was negotiated in Syria this week. Page M
lnside--,-nd-ex------,a~,~ ) Symphony tonight Tupeloan Dennis Bailey will appear with Pamela Casella during the Tupelo Symphony performance tonight at 8 in the Civic Auditorium . See story on Page 4.
Hel'p from 'upstairs'
A Gap centenarian gets some special aid. Page 5.
Church Notices ... ...... 40-0 Classified ......... . .... ~34 Comics...... :•............. ,3 Editorial . .... ... .......... 38 For Your Information ..... 17 Mississippi Living .. . ... 12-H Money............. ... .... 8,1 Movies ........... . ........ ,5 Obituaries .... .... ........ 18 South .. ... .. ..... . ........ 15 Sports .. .... .. ....... ... 19-23
Partly cloudy with a high in the low 60s; low in the mid 40s. For additional weather information, see Page 17.
Group fights hunger A Christian group fighting hunger in Africa is in Tupelo this weekend. Page 34
Tenn- Tom progress ahead of schedule IRENE PAGE Staff Writer MOBILE, Ala. - The opening date for the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway has been pushed up to June 1, 1985, thanks to good weather and rapid progress on the last structure to be built across the waterway. Sam R. Green, with the public affairs office of the Mobile District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the 234-mile long waterway is now scheduled to open on June 1, 1985 because good weather has allowed waterway contractors to advance their completion dates. The weather has also allowed the contractor building a new Illinois Central Gulf railroad bridge to work faster . Now 84 percent complete, the $2 billion Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway is opening a year ahead of schedule. The latest date advances the completion of the waterway by three months. Construction of the southern end of the Tenn-Tom began in 1972
and work on the divide-cut portion in Tishomingo County began in 1975. This portion of the waterway is virtually complete. THE FIRST commercial barge traffic traveled the divide-cut on Monday and Tuesday of this week to deliver emergency flood control stop logs to the Bay Springs Lock and Dam at the southern end of the 39-mile long divide section. With the navigation of the divide portion by the tug Bud Mack and its single barge only a small portion of the Tenn-Tom Waterway remains unused. More than 219 miles are open to navigation. The latest factsheet released Wednesday reports that 139.8 miles of the Tombigbee River, 41 miles in the canal section, and the 39 miles of the divide section are open to navigation. The entire Tenn-Tom Waterway required the purchase of 110,780 acres of land and almost 44,000 acres of water are in the waterway. When opened next year, the Tenn-Tom is expected to carry more than 27 million tons in its first year alone.
"WE'LL HAVE a·heari1, o dwtemint .. he effec r. of the lottery," hes ,id. "People must unde1stand the Legislature ·~ not legalize a lottery in Mississinpi. All we can do is submit a constitutioIJal amendment to t he . eople, so thef , ~n have a referendum on the question. Let the people decidr ." However, Dyer said he supports the proposal: " I will vote in the committee, on the floor and as a citizen for a lottery.' ' · If it wins a two-thirds vote in the Senate, it would go before the people for ratification in the November general election. The measure by Rep. John Junkin of Natchez had won a 67-54 vote in its first House floor test Thursday, but needed 81 for approval with that many votes cast. It was kept alive on a motion to reconsider. Capps, the House Constitution Committee chairman who handled the measure, urged reconsideration on grounds he had not made a complete explanation and•"some of you probably thought you were voting on a lottery." He said if the people ratified the proposal, lawmakers then would have to approve bills actually setting it up. REP. BILL Jones of Petal offered the amendment to dedicate the proceeds to elementary and secondary educatfon and drew support from Capps. JOURNAL AREA LOTTERY VOTE Representative For Bowles Brooks X Bryan X Doxey X Ell~ X Ford X Grist X Holland X Horton McCoy McNatt X Moss Nunnaly Mills X Penneybaker X Perry X Robinson X Ross X Simmons Wadkins Wilburn X
Against X
X X
X X
X
Paired
Congress eyes evenly-distributed tax increase WASHINGTON (AP) - For the second time in two years, Congress is on 'its way to doing what conventional wisdom says cannot be done : raising taxes in an election year. This year's scattergun approach to higher taxes, like the $100.4 billion version enacted in 1982, won't go down as smoothly as bourbon - · which would be taxed by as much more as $3. 75 a gallon under the new plan. But by spreading the burden among investors, businesses, telephone users, and smokers, it probably won't harm too many people, either. And just as important for the Reagan administration, neither the bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee nor the one still being written by the Senate Finance Committee would tamper with the personal tax cuts that were approved in 1981 as the heart of President Reagan's economic program. "This is a package I think the president will support," Sen . Robert J . Dole, R-Kan., chairman of the Finance Committee. sa id of his bill.
Robert Leonard, t ax counsel for the Ways and Means Committee said Friday, "There's nothing the ... committee has done here ... that Treasury has a major objection to." SINCE efforts are under way in both houses lo also produce a package of spending reductions, chances appear excellent that Congress and the president can agree this year on a $100 billion plan that would hold the deficits over the next three years to the $550 billion range. Still to be determined is whether a majority of Congress considers it riskier to raise laxes or to let the deficits grow unabated until after the Nov. 6 elections. The Ways and Means Committee finished work Thursday night on a bill that would bring in about $49.3 billion in new revenues over the next 3~ years - almost of all it in the three years that start next Oct. 1 and on which the deficit-cutting effort is focused . ThP Fin11nrP <'nmmittPP Pxoects t.o finish wnrk
next week on a version that is likely to include about $50 billion in taxes and, when other Senate committees' efforts are counted, roughly the same amount of spending reductions. The House bill would retain the 3-percent tax on telephone service for two years after the scheduled Dec. 31, 1985, expiration; drop the cigarette tax of 16 cents a pack to 12 cents on Oct. 1, 1985, rather than letting it fall to 8 cents as would occur without further action; raise the maximum liquor tax of $10.50 a gallon (it varies according to proof) by as much as $3.75 starting Oct. 1, 1985; repeal a special tax break for savers that, starting next Jan. 1, would exempt from tax up to $450 of interest per person per year, and delay scheduled cuts in the tax on estates and gifts. AMONG several changes in taxes affecting trucks is one raising the 9-cent-a-gallon diesel tax· to 14.5 cents, effective July 1. Drivers of diP.sel-oowered cars wonlct havP t.o nav the
increase but could apply to the government for a rebate of the extra 5.5 cents. Aides confess they don't know how that would work. Of more long-term significance than any of those temporary tax increases is a string of widely supported Treasury Department recommendations for slowing tax-shelter schemes that are costing the government billions of dollars in lost revenues. The administration and congressional leaders agree that allowing such abuses to continue threatens to undermine voluntary compliance with the tax system . The anti-abuse provisions and other portions of both bills that are designed to close off some unintended tax benefits would increase tax collections by an estimated $10 billion over three years. This package would tax big interest-free loans among family members, deter gross overvaluation of property donated to charity, and limit tax benefits for certain partner ships, through which most "abusive" tax shelters operate.