Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 3

Todav's Chuckle 'it hi I I To Tlace 'ant Ads For Home Delivery City News Desk Insurance Dept. All Other Calls 222-6800 222-6500 222-6600 222-6470 222-6400 v- n. Personnel m.irusT to shapely blond: "You're just th type we're looking fr. Wt'vt to let some of our torn-jters go." j' THE SECOND FRONT PAGE Page 3, Section A Monday, February 3, 1969 Educational Dilemma Grows 2 Casualties of a New War Free Press Telephone If I ft f. i 1 VX BY WALKER IXXDY Free Prejs Stiff Wrlttr Like casualties in a strange, undeclared war, the two ex-principals sit peacefully in their respective easy chairs this week, struggling to untangle the past four months.

It was a task they embarked upon as much for themselves as for other people. Until last week, 54-year-old Robert C. Branton and 44-year-old Sidney J. Berkowitz earned in the neighborhood of $15,000 a year each as two of Detroit's frontline educators. Each ran one of the city's largest and toughest high schools and was a battled-scarred veteran in the education business.

Today, they are admittedly sick men, victims of a severe mental and emotional strain that forced them to seek the refuge of their easy chairs at home away from the damnation that they say is the life of a white or at least what they think happened since the school year began in September. "No education course I ever took prepared me for these problems," said Branton, who has been an educator for 32 years and a principal at Martin Luther King High School (formerly Eastern) for six. "Some problems today have no answers," he continued. "What I mean is they are problems people don't want apswers to." In a separate interview, Berkowitz, who has taught in Detroit for 20 years and was in his first year as principal at Mackenzie High School, said simply: "I had too many problems with too little means to resolve them." THE PROBLEMS revolve basically around race. Branton's King High is almost all-Negro and Mackenzie is 85 percent black.

Branton and Berkowitz are white. They see themselves as victims in a three-way war Free Press Photos by JERRY HEIMAM principal in a black high school in Detroit. In soft, low voices they try to explain what happened, Sidney J. Berkowitz Kohert C. Hranton 4A, Column i-i II 1WV" Pontiac anize Org To Confront Gity Leaders Pick Schools As 1st Target BY JOHN OPPEDAHL Free Press Staff Writer Thirty-five Negro leaders met at a Pontiac church Sunday to organize for "a confrontation with the people who really run this city." The group, tentatively named the Pontiac Black Cau-cu, set up a task force for getting the proposed site of a new high school changed.

fvv K.iY 7 i -r- A- I yS to-" 7 i imi nntwf.itt I fl Turn to Tage Fret Press Pnoto by ED HAUN across the blackboard a 1 1 over the day's assignment. Undaunted, he wrote a column for the school paper describing the street scenes on victory night. "Trees, utility poles, and powerlines were literally 'mummified' with rolls and rolls of toilet paper. Confetti was evident everywhere; the intersection of Srhaeffer Road and Michigan Avenue was reportedly snowed under with bits of rice and paper." Unlike many of the blind students in his class, Rick remembers what snow and rice and paper look like. It's a mixed blessing.

"I know what it was to see, and I would like to have it back," he said. Tony Dauksza and his canoe Latter-Day Boone Paddles His Canoe Rick Gawenda writes column for school paper For a Blind Genius, He's Rather Normal Pontiac officials have made plans to build the high school near Pontiac State Hospital, away from the center oi the city. However some Negroes and whites object to the plan and favor a site nearer downtown, which would be closer for their children. A petition drive to get the downtown site was started last November. The meeting Sunday was called in response to a report a week ago by the Michigan Civil Rights Commission (CRC) that described Pontiac "as divided by racial and ethnic prejudices." The report said Negroes and Latin Americans in Pontiac were "excluded from full participation In employment, housinc education and social services" and that both groups were "denied equal protection under the laws." Detroit Democratic Rep.

Charles Diggs, who called the meeting, said it was "to unify the black community and move on from that to a confrontation with the people who really run this city." "There is a lack of an infrastructure in the black community," Diggs said. "There is no individual or organization around which the community can coalesce." "Tills is the first time a group like this has gotten together in Pontiac," he said. "You had a cross section of the leadership of the com- Those at the meeting included civil rights leaders, ministers, professional men and merchants. All were BV TOM JHXISLK Free Press Staff Writer Tony Dauksza dropped out of college to go trout fishing. That was 36 years ago and Dauksza, a modern day Daniel Boone, is still paddling his own canoe.

He drove down to Detroit Rep. Diggs rminity here today and that's an accomplishment." Pontiac has about 85,000 residents, including some 17,000 blacks and 3,500 Latin Americans. THE CRC report a week ago said de facto school segregation has existed in Pontiac since before World War and that the school board "has taken virtually no action toward desegregation." Diggs said after the meeting that the group might use "dw rect action" to change the school system, possibly including picketing and boycotting. "The thing said most today was: 'We're just tired of talk Diggs said. He said pressure would also be brought on the Pontiad Board of Education to get more money for more counselors and to include more Negro history in the Knives Kill Wives Are Held Two men were stabbed to death late Saturday and early Sunday in arguments with their wives.

Both women were held for investigation of murder. Jacob Mailey, 30, of 1203 Virginia Park was pronounced dead on arrival Saturday night at Henry Ford Hospital with a stab wound In the chest and another over the left eye. Chalmer Posey, 28, was pronounced dead at the scene in his home at 1930 Lawrence. POLICE SAID that Mailey and his wife, Beverly, 2H, were scuffling in their home when Mailey was stabbed. Mrs.

Mailey later called police. Posey and his wife, Carolyn, 27, also were arguing In their home, police said, and she said he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. Then he began shaking her 15-year-old sister, Donna Bow-ditch, flhe told police. When he returned to his wife, she stabbed him In the throat with a 13-inch butcher knife, police said. Romncy Says Housing Gets Top Priority WASHINGTON (JP) -George Romney lists low-Income housing as the principal problem facing him sa secretary of housing and urban development under President Nixon.

And he said Sunday that to al leviate the problem more hous ing must be built at lower costs and more money must be ap plied to housing construction But he would like to see the bulk of the funds come from private sources rather than government. 'u AP Phots BY SUSAN HOLMES Frtt Prist Stiff Writer Rick Gawenda is pretty much like any other 17-year-old genius. He excels in his studies, writes a regular column for the school paper, tutors his younger sister in algebra, builds model airplanes, twangs out rock and roll on his guitar and totes around a leather briefcase with a "Sock It To Em Tigers" sttcker plastered on the side. There's nothing exceptional about Rick's accomplishments not for a boy with an IQ of 10. But Rick is totally blind.

"He's done the best with what he has and what he doesn't have," said his mother, Mrs. Alphonse Gawenda. "He has always been determined to lead an active, busy life, and he does Just that." RICK LOST his sight 10 years ago as a result of cancer of the eye. Within a year, he was able-to read and write In Braille. Now, after years of practice, he can read with his fingero as fast as most students can read with their eyes.

Quiet and unassuming, Rick seldom mention hii blindness nor any of the problems it brings. He has to catch two buses to get from his home at 8333 Portland In Delray to Cody High School, which has a special class for blind students. He often has to wait to take Free Press Photo by TOM VENALECK He started his trips in 1930 with a foray into northern Ontario. Since that rime, he says, each trip has taken him farther north and brought him closer to the dangerous elements of nature. He has traveled the frozen wastelands of the northernmost stretches of Alaska and the Arctic region.

Armed with a compass, a rifle and a camera, he has gone as long as a month without seeing another human. "But oh man, do I love it," says Dauksza. "I'm always happy to leave the big city. I feel like a caged bird turned loose." Turn to Page 12A, Column 6 Dem his organization in Muskegon an unlikely coalition of old-line Democrats, New Coalition Democrats, the UAW and the sheriff's department. He attended a meeting in Muskegon.

McNeely says, and when it was over, 'a supporter told him: "Even -if you don't win, you've done something for us. This is the first time we ever sat down in one room and talked to each other." LAST YEAR, McNeely was deputy chairman of a Michigan Democratic Party that almost tore itself apart over Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey. Rebel Democrats, defeated at Chicago, went to a fill convention In Grand Rapids ready to revolt. But a patient parly leadership iiu hiding state chair-man Sander Levin and Mc-rly h-'anl the rebels out in a long and stormy session, then made concessions to anti-Turn to Page 8A, Column 1 $420,000 Damages Awarded Teacher I McNeely Party Line a course because the text has not been reprinted in Braille. When he can't wait, he must either rely on someone's reading it to him or a teacher typing it in Braille.

Rut Rick doesn't complain. He's Independent and self-sufficient, and he has little patience for those who aren't. He says that he has narrowed his choices of colleges to University of Detroit, Michigan State University and Yale because the students there don't engage in "Impertinent" demonstrations. "I want a school where you can spend time on your studies and not be Interrupted by demonstrations," he said. "There are more peaceful ways of expressing your discontent than by seizing a building.

It's Impertinent, and the students who lead those demonstrations are dissatisfied with themselves and the entire world." Then, he laughed and added, "I guess you'll have to call me a conservative." RICK IS trying to figure out a way of "combing whole bunches of diverse Interests I luve into some kind of a career." Maybe he'll become an attorney with the Civil Aeronautics Board that would get both law and model airplanes or a psychologist who uses guitar music an therapy. His latest Interest is baseball and his loyalty goes to the Tigers. The day after the Tigers won the pennant, Rick arrived at school early and scrawled "Sock It To 'Em Tigers" Apartment Fire Fatal to Youth The body of James Kelly, 20, was found in his room at 213B E. Alexandrine by firemen called to a blaze that destroyed the Interior of Kelly's second-floor apartment and a bedroom on the first floor. The cause and origin of the fire not Sunday from his native Grand Rapids for the closing day of the Greater Michigan Boat Show at the Detroit Artillery Armory.

DAUKSZA IS planning this summer's annual canoe trip in the wilds of the Northwest. He thinks he'll need a larger and more durable canoe for the contemplated trip that would take him from Alaska to the Hudson Bay. This will be the 30th straight year that Dauksza has ven: tured into the wilds of the north to hunt, photograph and Just enjoy the splendors of nature untouched. As he puts it: "I've lived with a canoe all my life." BY CLARK HOYT Fret Press Politics Writer Jim McNeely, the new chairman of Michigan Democrats, talks on the telephone much his left ear sometimes gets sore. Last week, the white-haired, 83-year-old McNeely often worked two phones at once, coaxing votes from New Coalition Democrats in Muskegon, blacks in Detroit or United Auto Workers.

Speeding down a highway, ho would clutch the receiver in his Pontiac station wagon and make more rails, fitting together in a 40-cigaret-a-day voire the support that won him the state chairmanship Now the campaign is over. But the telephoning i3 not. McNKLI.V, who once tonk complaints at a Wisconsin television station for Jn a week, will be paid $22,500 a year to organize a party that can win elections. He thinks he can do it and relates proudly the story of Soeeiil to the Fret Press ESCANABA A jury here has ordered General Motors Corp. to pay a Grosse Pointe Woods mathematics teacher $120,000 for injuries received when a 1965 Cor-vair broke away from a tow truck and hit his car head on.

Judge Bernard Davidson of Manistique, sitting in' Delta County Circuit Court, said it was the largest judg i if 11 fj Vv 77'''' 1 Jvm a lift V. vA V.lJifciv ment he had ever heard of In Michigan. Recipient of the award Is James Selmo, 28, who was paralyzed from the waist down nearly three years ago on an Upper Peninsula road when the Corvair broke away from the tow truck and swerved into Selmo's oncoming auto. His suit contended that the front tow bracket of the Corvair was defective in design. The jury, which deliberated 16 hours Saturday, absolved the towing company of blame.

The jury also awarded Selmo wife, Carol, 26, $40,000 for her injuries and loss of the services of her husband. John Peacock, a GM attorney, said the company will decide whether to appeal the decision after reviewing the case. FP Action Results: One-Day Sale Of Living Room Set Mrs. James Doddle, Detroit, made an easy, one-day sale of a living room suite she no longer wanted. The furniture was offered for sale in an exclusive Free Press fast-ACTION Want Ad.

To reach the ACTION readers in the Detroit market, contact an Ad Informant with your ad message today. Call 222-6800 McIVcely gets hug from wife 3Iarialyce.