m NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
VOL. LXI No. 14 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1959 Per Copy—15tf
Idea Causes ‘Worry,’ Says
Space Candidate’s Mother
MILL VALLEY, Calif., UR — An
Indiana mother learned with ap
parent equanimity last week that
■her test pilot son may some day
orbit overhead as a space pilot.
Mrs. Bethel Bogan, of Goodland,
Ind., heard from newspapermen
that her son, Air Force Capt. Tom
Bogan, 35, had been selected with
109 others as possible candidates
to be the first American sent into
space.
“Of course it came as a complete
surprise to me,” said Mrs. Bogan,
who is visiting another son, Rob
ert Bogan.
“He doesn’t discuss these things
with me or anyone else because
of security, and I didn’t learn un
til very recently that he was in
Alaska (at Eielson AFB near
Fairbanks) testing that new Con
vair Jet F10G.
“I’m naturally proud if he has
been selected with so few others,
but at the same time the idea does
worry a mother.”
Boy Rabbit Hunters
Find Hidden Treasure
BUFFALO, N. Y., UR — What
everybody dreams of — finding
hidden treasure — has come true
for three youngsters who found
$10,000 cash in a vacant lot.
Now all they have to do is
wait and see if anyone also claims
it. Under state law the police can
hold the money 30 days.
However, the police say they
might keep it 90 days just to be
on the safe side.
The boys were hunting rabbits
Saturday when Jimmy Weiglein,
11, stumbled on a large paper bag.
He called over the other two, Otis
Montgomery, 13, and Roy Ander
son, 14.
The cash was in bills from $1
to $100, plus $87.75 in coins. Police
counted $9,514.75, and estimated
other torn bills might be worth
another $500.
The bag also contained three
wrist watches, three rings and
two small keys.
BUMPITY - BUMPERS . . .
ASHLAND, Ky., Iff) — W. S.
Patton noticed how closely a pick
up truck had been following his
car.
Then he got out and learned
why. His car was towing the driv
erless truck. Patton said he ap
parently hooked bumpers with the
truck in pulling away from a
parking place.
Governor Egan Slowly
Recovering From Illness
SEATTLE, [ff\ — Alaska’s Gov
ernor William A. Egan, ending the
second week of slow recovery
from an emergency intestinal op
eration, was reported “generally
improved” today.
Egan, 44, continued to make
gains from his critical illness. His
doctors said he was still “quite
a sick man,” but the Democratic
governor was considered out of
danger.
Hospital officials said a news
conference Egan cancelled Satur
day probably will not be held
before the end of the week.
ICE POOL TICKETS GO
ON SALE AT POLAR CURIO
Tickets on the fabulous Nenana
Ice Classic went on sale today at
the Polar Curio Shop and at the
Polar Bar.
This year the deadline is mid
night Saturday, April 4 to place
your guesses on the exact min
ute that the ice will move at
Nenana. Every year more than
100,000 guesses are recorded in
this contest which is peculiarly
Alaskan and has no counterpart
in the world.
Fur Seal Made Member
Of Woodland Park Zoo
SEATTLE, UP — A hungry little
fur seal, the first ever recorded
caught in southern Puget Sound,
has become a member of the
Woodland Park Zoo family.
The seal, caught off Harbor Is
land last Tuesday, probably is of
Russian or Pribilof Island origin,
Dr. Victof B. Scheffer of the U. S.
Fish and Wildlife Service said.
Hair seals are fairly common in
the coastal waters, he explained,
but the only other known fur seal
was found some years ago dead
in the water near Bellingham.
The seal was caught by Sher
man Ruud, of Seattle, as he was
fishing. He kept it at his home for
a few days, but the male yearling
refused to eat, so Ruud turned
it over to the zoo.
QUEBEC, UP) — Art Allen of Ce
dar Rapids, Iowa, mushed his sled
dog team through heavy, wet snow
Friday to post the best time in
the opening lap of the Quebec In-,
ternational Dog Derby.
Allen completed the first of
the race’s three 33-mile laps in 2
hours, 44 minutes and 4 seconds.
Dr. Roland Lombard of Auburn
dale, Mass., the defending cham
pion, ran 11th in the 29-entry
| field with a time of 3:07.26.
Integration Begins Peacefully In
State of Virginia’s Public Schools
By DOUGLAS B. CORNELL
RICHMOND, Va., UP) — Virginia
reluctantly but calmly pulled down
the historic barricades to racial
integration today and 21 Negro
children entered white schools in
Norfolk and Arlington County.
Cordons of vigilant police,
stretched around all seven schools,
had little to do. There were no
disturbances whatever on or near
the schools’ grounds in either
community. Nor were any inci
dents reported from within the
buildings themselves.
Thus a state which once was
the symbol of southern leadership
in massive resistance to integra
tion took the first hesitant steps
to accept it for the time being.
Governor J. Lindsay Almond Jr.
said he was highly gratified at
the peaceful changeover.
Seventeen of the 21 Negro pupils
were admitted to three junior
and three senior high schools at
Norfolk; four began school at
Stratford Junior High in Arling
ton, a well-to-do suburb of Wash
ington.
While police were stationed
around all the Norfolk schools,
Arlington put on a bigger, more
spectacular but, as it turned out,
unnecessary show of the strength
of the law.
Three Negro boys and a Negro
girl trudged into Stratford School
by a rear entrance 23 minutes be
fore the opening hour of 8:45 a.m.
Police equipped for riot duty
patrolled the grounds. Plain
clothes officers, five to 10 of them,
school officials said, took stations
inside the building.
Work to Start Soon
On Clear Missile
Detector Site
ANCHORAGE, UP> — Major con
struction of the big missile detec
tor base at Clear on the Alaska
Railroad will get an early start
this spring the Army Engineers
say.
An estimated $35,000,000 in con
struction at the Air Force instal
lation is scheduled to be put up
for bid in February and March.
About two million dollars in
camp construction is currently
under way there.
The five phases of the new $35,
000,000 project are broken down
in this manner:
1. Construction of antenna foun
dations. Bids for this phase will
be called on or about February 5.
2. Construction of two larger
transmitter buildings. These bids
are scheduled to be called on
February 14.
3. Construction of a 24,000
square-foot warehouse. These bids
are set for call on February 18.
4. Construction of a composite
building for housing, feeding and
administration. The building is to
house 600 men. This bid date is
set for February 26.
5. Construction of two buildings
to be used for technical purposes.
The buildings will be connected
with metal passageways. These
bids are set to be called on March
20.
The Clear missile detector site
reportedly is a project that will
cost an estimated $250,000,000
when it is completed.
The Clear site, according to
some informed sources, will be
designed to tie in with a network
of early warning ballistic missile
stations that would stretch across
Canada and Alaska in the same
general pattern as the DEW Line.
Willie Hoppe,
4Mr. Billiards,’
Dead At 71
MIAMI, Fla., VPi — Willie Hoppe
— “Mr. Billiards” for a half-cen
tury of near-flawless play — died
yesterday at 71.
“I don’t think I’m going to need
my cues any longer,” the balk
line and three-cushion master told
hospital visitors just before his
death.
His brother Albert said Hoppe
asked that his leather-cased cues
be given to a longtime chum, Sid
Mayer of Skokie, 111., one of his
last callers.
Hoppe was hospitalized four
months under treatment for can
cer. The one-time boy wizard of
billiards had suffered illnesses be
fore and bounced back to win
titles. His last, and 51st, was the
three-cushion crown he won in
1952 at the age of 65. He retired
that year as the last of great
champions of the “Golden
Twenties.”
William Frederick Hoppe was
in knee-pants when he made his
first shots on a table he had to
stand on a box to reach. He started
at age 7 to play exhibitions with
his late brother, Frank Jr., then
9, after teaching by their father
who kept a hotel, barber shop and
poolroom at Cornwall-on-Hudson,
New York.
Willie developed in smoky pool
halls the calm, deliberate style of
play that carried him to world
titles. In 1911 he won the distinc
tion of being the only known play
er to give a White House exhi
bition.
Bill Stipulating Pay for Legislators
Provides $3,000 Annually, $40 Per Diem
JUNEAU, UP — Alaska’s law-.
makers, still unpaid, had their
first look at a pay bill Saturday. |
They were not surprised at the j
contents of the measure.
Dogs and barmaids also came
into the legislative spotlight.
The provisions of the pay bill
were almost exactly those rec
ommended by the Democratic
controlled House-Senate Policy
Committee earlier in the week.
These include a $3,000-a-year
salary for each of the state’s 60
Jegislators and a $40-a-day ex
pense allowance. The presiding
officer of eaoh house would receive
$600 extra.
Both houses of the Legislature
met briefly Saturday and then ad
journed shortly before noon. Law
makers had Sunday off, of course.
Cross-Over Voting Bill Offered
A bill to prevent cross-over vot
ing on the primary ballot was in
troduced in the House by Speaker
Warren Taylor of Fairbanks. It
would require a declaration of
party affiliation but would list
candidates in two party columns.
Any primary ballot with voes in
both columns would be invalid.
The House also received a bill
which would permit women to
serve drinks in Alaska restaur
ants. However, there were a
couple of provisions contained in
the measure submitted by Helen
Fischer of Anchorage and Warren
Taylor.
Under the bill, the state liquor
board would have to approve an
establishment using female drink
servers. And food service would
have to be “a major and substan
tial part” of the establishmen’t
business.
Women cannot serve drinks in
Alaska now, unless they are also
the operators.
Bills to repeal the state dog li
cense tax and drastically revise
the Alaska business license tax
were introduced in the Senate |.
Saturday.
Repeal of the dog license law
was requested by the state tax
department which said its income
from licenses last year — $136.50
— was less than the cost of ad
ministering the act.
Business Licenses to be Revised
The other measure would re
vise the provisions of the present
business license law. It proposes
that the state collect one fourth
of one per cent on business re
ceipts in excess of $100,000.
A bill introduced by Democrat
ic Senator Hubert Gilbert of Fair
banks called for a property tax
exemption of up to $2,500 for all
homesteaders in the state.
There is no state-wide property
tax now, but assessments are lev
ied by cities, school districts and
public utility districts.
Under Gilbert’s bill, rural home
steads of 160 acres or less and
urban homesteads of up to one
acre would be assessed as any
other property. However, each
qualified homestead would be ex
empt from tax collection up to
$2,500 of the assessed valuation.
Radio Signals
Intensify Search
For Danish Ship
HALIFAX, N. S., UP) — Faint
radio signals spurred the search
today for the Danish ship Hans
Hedtoft, missing with 95 persons
since it hit an iceberg Friday in
heavy seas off Greenland.
The weak signals were believed
to be from a lifeboat of the 2,785
ton Hedtoft. There had been no
trace of the ship or survivors since
she hit the ice.
The signals were heard by two
Danish radio stations on the
Greenland coast and the Danish
motorship Umanak, which had
swung off its Greenland-Denmark
run Sunday to join the search.
The Umanak’s radioman said
the signals were sent by an un
trained operator and were very
weak and irregularly spaced. He
said it appeared the sender was
trying to transmit distress signals
or a homing beacon.
Continuing bad weather reduced
the air search to one Canadian
Air Force plane.
A search plane Sunday reported
it had spotted what ‘could have
been an overturned lifeboat near
the Hedtoft’s last reported posi
tion. It was described as a double
ended craft with a lengthwise
black stripe. But the Royal Green
land Trading Department said the
missing ship’s lifeboats were all
made of aluminum and were un
painted.
The U. S. Coast Guard Cutter
Campbell said today’s search
would be concentrated on the area
where the object was sighted.
—
WEATHER FORECAST
Mostly cloudy with occasional
light snow tonight and Tuesday.
Little temperature change. Low
tonight, 20; high tomorrow, 25.
3 Dead In Texas
Crash of National
Guard Transport
KERRVLLLE, Tex.. (B — A
commercial DC3 carrying 25 Na
tional Guardsmen from Idaho and
a crew of three, crashed and
burned in the central Texas hill
country late last night. The pilot,
co-pilot, and one of the passen
gers were killed in the crash.
The 25 survivors, some serious
ly hurt, managed to escape the
flaming wreckage after the ice
laden transport smashed into a
hill just before midnight.
Wilbur Whittliff of Eugene,
Ore., a third pilot, was among
the survivors.
Whittliff said icing conditions
had plagued the plane for several
hours before the crash. After two
unsuccessful passes at the Kerr
ville Airport, the plane was at
tempting a third approach when
one engine failed.
“It was a miracle anyone got
out alive. The plane was demol
ished and was burning fiercely,”
said Carroll Abbott, assistant pub
lisher of the Kerrville Times, one
of the first to reach the scene.
The plane, chartered from Gen
eral Airways of Portland, Ore.,
had left Boise, Idaho, earlier for
Lackland Air Force Base, San
Antonio.
RABID BRIDE ?
STAMPING GROUND, Ky., OB
— A wild raccoon failed to halt
a marriage here, but dampened
the honeymoon.
The creature bit Janie Tackett
on the neck just before she was
married to Donald Conquest.
The bride was advised by a
physician to begin anti-rabies
shots immediately.