Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 1

1 SUNNY Train' a New Cardinal catcher Runaway metaphor or a thriller? high B1 Copyright 1966 Mid-Illinois Newspapers, IfsThvrtday, January 29, 1986 Glorious, lay rich' and then, snleoce frs a- Seated from left, Srpfth, Scobee, McNair; standing from left: Onizuka, McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnik News of shuttle brings, a quiet to area schools Today partlsunny and warmer. High in the lower or middle 30s. Tonight fair and colder. Low in the middle teens. Thursday mostly sunny.

High in the lower or middle 30s. Inc. Edgar, whose students watched the hews program. "The kids were pretty shocked. We haven't had any kind of space catastrophe in their lifetime." "I think they will always remember," she said.

Nancy Conlon, who had planned for her fifth grade class at Franklin School a unit about space to correspond with McAuliffe's lessons, heard about the tragedy at the same moment, her students did. A student returning from the principal's office said, 'the shuttle blew Conlon said. She said she wasn't certain she could believe the child at first "because it sounded so incredible," J)ut when the story was confirmed she allowed the students to watch the news. "They watched in disbelief like everyone else." "They see make believe things like that, on television everyday," she said. "I think it took them a while to realize that what the were seeing was real and that the people had really died.

"Our classroom was decorated with shuttles hanging from the ceiling," said (Continued on Page A3) Mat Toon says "We hooe the Challenaer tragedy will not unduly delay a Chance for another private citizen like Christa McAuliffe to take part In the adventure of spade travel." About People r. r. A2 Classified Comics C3 Lifestyle Obituaries Opinions Sports Harold Garbe of Mattoon sold his '72 El Camino In a Guaranteed Results Ad. TO PLACE YOUR AD CALL Mattoon 235-5656 or Charleston 345-7025 Y7 By EDWARD K. DeLONG CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

(UPI) The shuttle Challenger exploded In a boiling bail of flame 72 seconds after blastoff Tuesday, killing, teacher Christa McAuliffe and her six crewmates in the worst space tragedy since man began reaching for the stars 25 years ago. Ships, planes and helicopters rushed to a yast area SO miles off the Florida coast where flaming debris rained down for half an hour after the mighty explosion, but all they found were parts of Challenger's booster rockets. "I regret that I have to report that based on very preliminary searches of the ocean where Challenger impacted this morning, these searches have not revealed any evidence that the crew of the Challenger, survived," said Jesse Moore, chief of the shuttle program, five hours after the explosion The shuttle, loaded at launch with nearly a half million gallons of explosive hydrogen and oxygen, carried no emergency escape system. It was 10 miles high when it erupted into flames. The earth-shaking roar of blastoff had subsided and the majestic contrail following Challenger into space turned silently, into a serpent of smoke and fire writhing across the sky.

On board the Challenger were commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, 48, co- tUot Michael Smith, 40, Judith Resiiik, 36, lllison Onizuka, 39, Ronald McNair, 35, satellite engineer Gregory Jarvis, 41, and McAuliffe, the 37-year-old Concord, N.H., social studies teapher picked from 11,000 candidates to be the first private citizen in space. They were the first Americans to die on a mission into space. "It's been nearly a quarter of a century that we thought this might happen sometime," said Sen. John Glenn, who in 1962 became the first American to orbit the Earth. hoped that day would never come.

Unfortunately it has." Cries of horror went up at viewing sites along the coast when the shuttle exploded at 12:39 p.m. CST, spewing burning pieces like a massive fireworks display. A shocked nation watched the replays moments later on television. McAuliffe's husband Steven, and two children Caroline, 6, and Scott, 9, watched the disaster that claimed the 37-year-old teacher's life but were hustled away immediately by NASA officials. President Reagan postponed for a week Tuesday night's State of the Union address and in a brief statement on television at 5 p.m.

told the country that "today Is a day for mourning and remembering" the crew. "We share this pain with all the people of our country," Reagan said. Vice President George Bush, dispatched to the Kennedy Space Center by Reagan, arrived at dusk with Glenn and Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, who flew a shuttle mission last yean "The President and I and the entire nation join in mourning the seven splendid men and women who now rest in God's arms," Bush said. "I don't know any time that I have been so shocked and so moved since my first wife was killed in a car accident," Garn said, choking back tears.

"It is very difficult for me personally when you lose so many friends all at once." Late Tuesday night Garn emerged from sets goals MATT00N. ILLINOIS UPlwkaptMriea kcirtn of smoke after explosion Night fell over the coast in a cloudless pin sunset and the planes and helicopters scouring a huge area 58 miles wide by 115 miles long were recalled, to begin their search patterns again at first light. The ships in the search continued patrolling through the night. The Atlantic in that area ranges from 75 to 200 feet deep. An Air Force officer said the largest piece of debris seen so far was only two feet wide and five to 10 feet long.

"The first thing we wanted to do was pick up survivors," Air Forte spokesman Col. John Shults said about seven hours after the explosion. "That's now probably out. of the question. Now we want to pick up the debris.

Some of it may be covered with toxic chemicals, so we're warning civilians not to pick anything up." Challenger was was hurtling toward space at nearly 2,000 mph, propelled-Hby two solid-fuel booster rockets and its three main hydrogen-burning engines when disaster struck. service the rural areas) and then pay $19.95 a month;" Swinford said. He said HBO sells Its signal to cable companies for anywhere between $1.50 and $6 depending on the population. "We want to pay the same as' the cable companies. We already have our satellite dishes.

We just want to pay to view it, not to maintain it," Swinford said. Jim Hanley, part-owner of Electronic Purchasing Agent of Taylorville with an office in Mattoon said, he expects the $395 decoder to ''drop drastically in price." "I've seen a certain percent of people cautiously waiting. There's a tremendous amount' of misinformation. Not every channel is going to scramble. There are about 15 to 18 channels talking about it, but) there's 130 channels to choose from," Hanleysairf.

Morris Rennels, owner of RenneIa2V and Appliance, said his customers "don't seem to be too interested" in buying decoders. 112th Year, No. 9, 25 Cents -ft Debris trails from a cloud 1 1 1 a meeting with the families of Challenger's crew and said Scobee's wife, speaking for all of them, asked that the tragedy not be allowed to harm the future of the space program. Bill Nelson, who returned from a flight aboard the shuttle Columbia' only 10 days ago, said "Pioneers have had tragedy before and tragedy will occur again. This is part of venturing into the unknown." Computer engineer Richard Prickett said "There was a lot of crying" in launch control.

"Everybody sort of takes this personally, You can't be part of the program and not feel some responsibil the January issue of Satellite TV Week, there are 350 movies listed for the month and 250 sporting events listed for the week." Swlnford, owner of Swinford TV Satellite in Paris, said he tells customers to "hold off buying anything" until March when Congress is expected to vote on two pieces of legislation regarding the scrambling of signals. The first piece is a two-year moratorium on scrambling. "Personally, I hope the moratorium passes. All of this is so new that the stations aren't even ready to for it (scrambling). I can't even get a decoder.

It will take one or two years for the stations to figure out what they're doing," Swinford said. He added that possibly 11 more stations will be scrambling before the end of 1986. The second piece of legislation provides for reasonable rates for dish owners to receive the signal. "It's just not fair to have to buy a $2,000 dish (because the cable, companies won't. I By MAUREEN FOERTSCH Staff Writer CHARLESTON.

Coles County school children who had planned to view Christa McAuliffe's lessons in space learned instead a lesson about tragedy as they watched broadcasts of Challenger's fiery explosion. "It made me a little sad because it might have been one of our teachers," said Charleston sixth grader Michael Hart, who watched the catastrophe at Jefferson school, made me feel kind of queasy and all of mat," said Donald Symonds, another sixth grader at Jefferson. Symonds had returned from his physical education class to find his teacher, Karen Edgar, and Principal Jim Louthan watching a televised broadcast of the disaster. Edgar, who had heard the news while her students were taking P.E., had the television in the classroom because she was planning to show today the taped broadcast of McAuliffe's lesson from space. "We were all kind of stunned," said mi A change of Kings SEATTLE (UPI) King County would be named after Martin Luther King Jr.

instead of a 19th-century slave owner. The county was originally named In. 1852 after William Rufus DeVane King, who was elected that year as vice president of the United States under President Franklin Pierce. King, a wealthy Alabama plantation farmer and slave owner, died in early 1853 before he could take off lces CouncilmanJIon Sims, who submitted the proposed change Monday to honor the slain civil rights leader, said the slave owner's background was In contradiction to what the county stands for. Clauifiod Ads Got Fast Rosults Dish owners hold out on decoders By PATTY O'NEILL Staff Writer MATTOON Two satellite stations began scrambling their signals last week but area satellite dish owners aren't scrambling to buy decoders.

Charlie Turner, owner of Turner Satellite of Mattoon, said he has had a few inquiries about the 'decoder needed to receive Home Box Office and Cinemax, but "they were just curious." The decoder, which has the capibilities of picking up about a dozen scrambled signals, costs $395. However, it is not available yet to many satellite dealers. In addition to buying the decoder, it costs $19.95 per month to receive HBO and Cinemax, both owned by Time, Inc. Turner said the scrambling networks have not had any effect on sales. "Missing HBO and Cinemax is no big deal.

There's over a dozen movie networks to watch. In.