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I IT'S F~IDAY!
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Concerts and Lows Elvis highlight 20s year in local Mostly sunny entertainment Weather, Page 2A 40s
Mayhew's hat trick lifts T-Rex
New Year brings changes to state's budget system
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Jo\lrf'laLI" century
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WISHING YOU AND YOURS AVERY MERRY AND SAFE HOLIDAY SEASON • DOW JONES, NASDAQ RECORDS
THE SPIRIT OF THE HOLIDAY
Y2K tears don't laze markets .
Te11or threat warnings get more specific 1
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NOTICE TO OUR READERS
By Dunstan Prial The Associated Press
No paper Saturday; will publish Sunday • The Daily Journal will not publish an edition for Saturday, Christmas Day. This is the only day the Journal does not print. All offices will be closed today, Christmas Eve. Publication will resume Sunday and regular business hours will resume Monday.
DID YOUHEAR? Christmas spirit not same for all folks
Daste Lee
SANTA'S HELPERS IN BWE: Tupelo Police Bike Patrol Officer Gary Boyle, at right, loads up a bike as Officer Chris Patterson, from left to right, Sgt. Marty Mask and Wal-Mart employee Vandetta Gates check off the gift list for 18 sick children at North Mississippi Medic~! Center.,West Main Street l/l{al-Mart ~ upercenter, Toys-R-Us and Littles Jewelers donat~d items f?r th~ bike p~trol s second annual Gifts for Kids for those who will spend the holidays in the hospital. The gifts will be delivered today.
• The consensus around Tom Suica's Monaca, Pa., neighborhood is that his rooftop Christmas decorations are in foul taste. Suica has nailed 10 toilets on top of his garage to protest a bank's plan to build a parking lot next to his home. Although District Justice Joseph Zupsic decided the rooftop display was a safety hazard, the magistrate said he would allow the toilets to remain in place for 30 days so that · Suica can appeal. Barbara Suica did not initially appreciate her husband's protest. But Suica won her over by embellishing the toilets with lights a nd a Santa Claus cutout, conveying the impression of the jolly old man being led by a team 1of toilets instead of reindeer. "They're decorated now," Mrs. Suica said after Tuesday's court decision. "I'm not taking down my Christmas decorations." Bob Watson, Suica's lawyer, a rgued that his client s hould be a llov.;ed to keep the toilet display beccfuse it's an expression of i freerpeech.
Turn to MARKETS on back page
FAR FROM HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Julian Carroll at a firing range in the countryside of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the background are British annored personnel carriers.
Daily Journal
NEW ALBANY - A former Union County chancery clerk hasn't seen the last of the State Auditor's Office. Earlier this month State Auditor Phil Bryant issued a letter demanding that Larry Koon repay $172,873.19 to county coffers, according to Pete Smith, a spokesman for the Auditor's Office. In June, Koon repaid the more than $42,400 that he admitted embezzling over a six-year period from county funds and resigned his office in a plea bargain on two c ounts of embezzlement. The charges stemmed from a routine annual audit that found irregularities in his office's handling of public funds.
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cal, state and national offie ll plans for greeting New Read about it in Sunday's g section.
INSIDE Vol. 126 • No. 268
FYI/TV/Page 38 Landers/Page 2C
Local/Page 18 Movies/Page 6C NASCAR/Page 40 Obituaries/Page 28 Opinion/Page 6A
Civil matter This second amount does not involve criminal charges, Smith said, declining to disclose the circumstances of the second demand notice. 'The $42,400 was a criminal file, and the $172,000 is a civil matter," he said. 'The criminal is actually what was embezzled. TI1e civil side is more misappropriated or misspent." Smith would not elaborate on the legal nuances involved in differentiating between criminal activity and civil liability in such :financial matters. "We feel that it might go to (civil) trial," he said, "and we don't want to do anything to
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A serviceman's vision of his mother at Christmas SARAJEVO - Being born and reared in Mississippi, the product of:five generations of:fine, southern blood, I am no stranger to hot weather. Yet some of my earliest and fondest childhood, even adult, memories come from the fall and winter seasons. My mother, great lover of all things wintry, will herald the first crisp, fall morning with a roaring blaze in the den :fireplace, unfazed by the knowledge that the mercury will likely top 80 degrees by afternoon. Winter sees my mother spending hours searching, hoping, yes, even praying, for that most magical of all mysteries - snow. In the Carroll household, she is the keeper of the unending and in central Mississippi, some say, futile dream of a white Christmas. Known as Nana to her grandchildren,
my mother never loses hope because she well remembers "the year it snowed on Christmas." I don't. I don't think I had been born. A true believer, she remains ever faithful and with six grandchildren invading her house on Christmas Day, Mom has yet another generation of Southerners stealing glances out the window ... just in case. Surely if God decided to let it snow on Christmas Day in Jackson, Miss., he would drop the biggest, fluffiest flakes on Nana's house. Then he would smile with her children and grandchildren as they watched the greatest of all snow dances. I hope it happens.
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My mother is one of the main reasons the Christmas season has always been a
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• The Nasdaq briefly crossed 4,000 Thursday, and the Dow set it's first record since August in pre-holidaytrading. The Nasdaq finished up 32.14 at 3,969.44. Even with the late pu II back, the Nasdaq is up a stunning 81 percent this year. The Dow industrials, meantime, rose 202.16 to close at a record 11,405.76, and the Standard & Poor's 500stock index also is at a new high. For the com· plete stock report, see Page 7A.
• 'Secret Santa' repays 1971 gift with $10,000 present
By Errol Castens
\UPCQ~IlNG
How they performed
Christmas comes early for Tupelo couple
• Convicted former Union County chancery clerk orderec;f to repay an additional $172,873.19 in "misspent'' funds.
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NEW YORK - Just in time for the millennium and unfazed by Y2K jitters, stock markets are reaching record heights at home and abroad. The Nasdaq composite index briefly crossed 4,000 Thursday for the first time - less than two months after passing the 3,000 mark - and closed at a record high for the 58th time this year. The Dow Jones industrial average leaped Thursday for its first record close since August. Records also were toppled by major market indicators in London, Paris and Frankfurt, Germany. A driving force fn the stock market surge is a growing belief that the oncevague potential of the Internet is beginning to take shape and fundamentally change society. Electronic commerce is now widely seen as an efficient way to do business. "We're in the early stages of a second industrial revolution, and the market is
Auditor demands more money from Koon
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By Bobby Pepper Daily Journal
Tonight's the nig ht when Santa Claus make s his annual Christmas journey around the world, delivering gifts to children of all ages. But Santa sometimes makes early visits to those who've been good, and he did so Monday in Northeast Mississippi. A "Secret Santa" showe d up in Tupelo bringing a gift to Ted Horn, who did a good deed 28 years ago in Houston when "Santa" was down on his luck. The present Santa pulled out of his bag for Horn and his wife was Horn $10,000 in cash. Later in the day, Santa rewarded other people he met in Houston with gifts of$100 bills. "It was a complete surprise," said Hom, an 81-year-old retired restaurant owner. "He remembered what I did for him. I don't even know his name. He's just Secret Santa to me." "Secret Santa" - a successful Kansas City businessman - puts on his Santa disguise and shares his wealth with those in need across the nation during the Christmas season. "He wants to remain anonymous," Horn said. "He goes all over the country around Christmas doing this thing." 1bis year, Secret Santa sought out the man who changed his life. Turn to SANTA on back page
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