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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1990 » ATHENS, GEORGIA • VOLUME 98, ISSUE 37
pper is linked to mudslinging
By DAVID M. JOHNSTON
Staff Writer
Patty Curtis, vice chairman of the
Clarke County Board of Elections, con
firmed Monday that the only contribution
listed on a campaign disclosure filed by
the Citizens for the Election of a Qualified
CEO came directly from the E.H. Cul
pepper campaign. The contribution was
more than $3,000.
The independent committee of Cul
pepper supporters is responsible for a
brochure which negatively targets Gwen
O'Looney, Culpepper’s opponent in to
day's runoff election for chief elected of
ficer of the unified Athens-Clarke County
government.
About 30,000 of the brochures were
printed and distributed over the
weekend.
Culpepper, who couldn't be reached at
resstlme, denied responsibility for the
rochure earlier Monday although he
said he had prior knowledge of the inde
pendent committee’s plans to distribute
it.
Holiday Inn general manager Lewis
Shropshire, who filed the independent
committee’s disclosure with the county on
Monday, also couldn’t be reached for com
ment. The names of the other committee
members weren’t available.
Early Monday, Shropshire described
the committee as “just a group of inter
ested folks.”
The brochure appears to be in violation
of state law.
The state requires that an independent
group which produces a political brochure
include names and addresses of at least
three officers of the committee on the bro
chure. The Culpepper supporters’ bro
chure doesn’t include this information.
County Attorney Ray Nicholson said
Monday that there was no question that
the brochure violates state law.
Culpepper said that the brochure’s crit
icisms of O’Looney, which primarily con
cern her background as a social worker
and her husband’s affiliation with the
American Civil Liberties Union, are
valid.
The brochure criticized O'Looney as “a
career social worker who has spent her
entire career living off government pay
rolls.”
It also cited the fact that her husband
is the president of the local ACLU chapter
stating, “politics is a family affair” and re
printing an article attributed to an
Evansville, Ind. attorney named Jack
Shroeder who is highly critical of the
ACLU.
Monday night O’Looney said the crit
icism of her career was an attack on “tea
chers, soldiers and...law enforcement
officers. To demean those people who
serve at a lower salary to produce quality
needed services is incorrigible.”
As for the criticism of her husband’s
ACLU affiliation, O’Looney said, “I was
34 when I got married and I can make de
cisions for myself. For example, John
didn’t support unification. I did.”
Culpepper said Monday thnt the de
scription of ACLU in the brochure was
“appropriate,” and an accurate represen
tation of the group’s views.
O'Looney said that Culpepper bears re
sponsibility for the brochure because he
“bought the product” and that she wishes
he had been up front about his cam
paign’s financial support of the indepen
dent committee.
0’Looney:
Proven leader, experienced
By LYNN BARFIELD
Staff Writer
Her commitment to leadership
has been proven in her position
on the Atnens City Council, as
president of the Georgia Women
in Local Government and her vol-
unteerism in local community
groups.
Now Gwen O’Looney is ready
for the biggest commitment of
her career. She’s ready to be chief
elected officer of the unified
Athens-Clarke County govern
ment.
In the Nov. 6 race, O'Looney
led the pack with 7,593 votes, or
42 percent — about twice as
many as her closest competitor.
Many people believe that the
42-year-old Mississippi native
and University graduate has not
only the leadership experience,
but the charisma to get the
people of Clarke County to work
together in its struggle for unifi
cation.
Calvin Bridges, a Ward 5 City
Council member, said O’Looney
has a personality that appeals to
all types of people.
“She doesn’t back up for any
thing,” he said.
O’Looney definitely doesn’t
back off current issues in the
community, such as drinking
laws and historic preservation.
The issue of Sunday alcohol
sales throughout the county and
in downtown Athens is some
thing the entire community
should have to decide on, she
said.
O'Looney said the issue should
be decided in a referendum.
Her voice was prominent
during the 1989 passing of the
new open container ordinance
that prohibits a person to have an
open alcoholic beverage in public
streets.
The ordinance received much
opposition from University stu
dents and organizations.
“I don’t think the ordinance is
aimed toward students at all,"
she said. “It is meant to prevent
the kind of problem our citizens
have been concerned about —
public drinking.”
O’Looney said most people
fined for tne law were older citi
zens and people from sur
rounding counties.
O’Looney is in favor of a city
wide historic preservation ordi
nance to preserve historical sites
and structures in the city and
around the county.
“Historic preservation means
good business for Clarke County
and the government should pro
vide both laws and incentives,"
she said.
It was O'Looney who intro
duced the historic preservation
ordinance that protects 13 his
toric districts that now exist in
Athens.
O’Looney said the destruction
of historic stuctures in Athens
O’Looney: With Rick Agar and his 2-year-old son Forrest.
destroys the heritage and “classic
feeling” of the city.
“I believe historical preserva
tion is very economically fea
sible," she Baid.
O'Looney said people must rec
ognize private property as a com
munity responsiblity.
O'Looney said she thought
about running for CEO a long
time before making the actual de
cision, but has made the point
throughout her campaign that
she will make the position a full
time job.
“I think the public wants a
CEO who puts public interest
above special interest,” she said.
Besides definite governing du
ties that are an essential part of
being the CEO of a newly unified
government, O’Looney has an
even more important task at
hand.
If elected she will also have to
get the support and involvement
of the Athens community.
She’s hoping the task will be
easy.
She said the community will
have a chance to be involved
when issues are introduced in the
government, which can be ex
plained at meetings with local
neighborhood groups.
"We need not onlv to unite the
governments and land, but we
need to unite people,” she said.
PE issue shuffled among committees
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMES
Staff Writer
The physical education requirement — the
issue that r s been kicked from committee to com
mittee for more than a year now —• was given to
the University Council’s educational affairs
committee Monday.
The University Council’s Executive Com
mittee also looked Monday at the results of the
Student Government Association’s poll of about
800 students on whether the PE requirement
should be abolished.
The poll — an informal, “semi-random" ques
tionnaire administered by SGA senators over
several weeks in October — indicated that stu
dents didn’t favor abolishing the requirement,
but did favor reducing the requirement from
five to three hours.
The PE issue originated in the educational
affairs committee, was sent to the curriculum
committee, tabled by the University Council,
taken off the table at the Council’s last meeting,
and is back in the hands of the educational af
fairs committee after the curriculum committee
refused to take it back.
Committee Chair Peter Dress said the
Council might be able to do more with the issue
if it’s more clearly defined.
The Committee also decided to study some
ideas brought up in University President
Charles Knapp’s State of the University ad
dress — particularly tenure and promotion of
faculty.
The educational affairs committee is going to
study how to better determine whether to pro
mote or grant tenure to faculty.
“The machinery for tenure and promotion is
already in place," said William Prokasy, vice
president for Academic Affairs. "But the ques
tion is, ‘How do we implement it?’ ”
The Committee also discussed whether the
University should eliminate its mandatory re
tirement age. The faculty affairs committee is
going to study the issue.
University grant may give world a better beer
By DAN POOL
Staff Writer
Better beer brewing, peanut
growing, pulp wood paper produc
tion and pharmaceutical research
are some advantages the world
may gain from a grant awarded the
University.
A $400,000 grant from the Na
tional Institute of Health will pro
vide assistantships for up to 15
graduate students over the next
five years who are involved in the
study of fungi, Charles Mims, a
professor of plant pathology, said
Monday.
Mycology, the study of fungi, is
important in several different de
partments here including genetics,
biochemistry, plant pathology and
botany, he said.
The University, already a pri-
miere mycology research institute,
was awarded the grant largely be
cause of the interdisciplinary coop
eration and communication that
exists between colleges, Mims said.
The grant will be divided among
the five departments, which fall
under both the College of Arts and
Sciences and the College of Agri
culture. The research will be cen
tered at the University’s Center for
Plant Cellular and Molecular Bi
ology and will be overseen by 12
faculty members from the different
departments, Mims said.
Genetics Professor Charles Tim-
berlake said Monday much of the
research being conducted in myco
logy is through other sciences.
“Potentially, there ore a lot valu
able fungi out there, but more sci
entists need training in how to
find, identify and handle them,” he
said.
Please See GRANT, Page 3
Culpepper:
Hardworking, civic-minded
By MICHAEL W. McLEOD
Staff Writer
E.H. Culpepper has had a busy
schedule these past few weeks, and
rightfully so.
After making it to the runoff in
the chief elected officer race for the
Athens-Clarke unified government
with 21 percent of the vote, he’s
been hard at work to gain support
before today’s election.
He thinks that 21 percent of the
vote isn’t bod, considering he was
unsure about running and was the
last to announce his candidacy.
“I really hadn’t made up my
mind, and some people put to
gether some of the grass roots, and
I said what the heck — I'll go for
it," Culpepper said.
“What ao you think,” he re
sponded when asked if he thought
he had a tough task facing Gwen
O’Looney. “She got over 40 percent
of the vote. I’ve got a lot of ground
to make up.”
But neither candidate is taking
the race for granted, and Cul
pepper said he has a special sensi
tivity to the needs or University
students.
“I was a student once myself; I
graduated from the law school here
in 1964,” he said. “I left Athens
after graduation to be an assistant
to the state attorney general, but I
liked Athens so much I had to come
back."
Culpepper has lived in Athens
for the past 10 years with his wife
and two children. His daughter re
cently graduated from the Univer
sity with a degree in art history
while his son John is a University
freshman pre-business mf\jor.
“I think Athens often loses sight
of what happens (concerning stu
dents). I live in Five Points; I hear
much of the noise that comes from
Milledge Avenue. That’s just part
of the territory. It just comes with
having a well-rounded, university
environment,” he said.
“After all, (students) are citi
zens. It’s not a situation of us and
them; we’re all in this together. We
both have the same ultimate goal.”
Culpepper said students often
have been pushed aside or ignored
in the past, and open communica
tions could’ve eased student-city
tensions over matters such as the
open container ordinance.
He also wants to help the Uni
versity in other ways.
‘The (Athens-Clarke) govern
ment has a real commitment to
help the Universtiy obtain a bigger
piece of the state funding pie,” he
said.
As for the community, Cul
pepper served as chairman of the
study group that first looked into
building a civic center in Athens.
He said he encourages growth, but
not at the expense of erasing
Athens’ history.
He has also served as a member
of various other civic and business
‘We have to have
quality-managed
growth, otherwise we’ll
be absorbed by the
inevitable growth
that’s going to occur
(from the Atlanta
area).’
E.H. Culpepper
CEO candidate
groups. Currently he is the vice
chairman of the Northeast Georgia
Surface and Air Transportation
Commission, chairman of the
Northeast Georgia Chamber
Roundtable and a member of the
Civic Center Authority.
Culpepper said if he wins the
election he will have to give up his
membership in the Civic Center
Authority and will no longer be on
the Northeast Georgia Roundtable,
but will retain the vice
chairmanship of the Northeast
Georgia Surface and Air Transpor
tation Commission.
“It fits right in with the regional
planning we need to do,” he said.
“We must ask how we con make
our community take control over
our own destiny. We have to have
quality-managed growth, other
wise well be absorbed by the inevi
table growth that’s going to occur
(from the Atlanta area)," he said.
"Although we’d like to remain
the sleepy little town we nil enjoy,
we must put those strategies to
work (toward growth). But we
must also preserve our environ
ment."
Culpepper said he was part of
the effort to preserve the historic
Morton Theatre which is being ren
ovated.
“I just enjoy people. I’m a people
person, that’s the biggest part of
why I’m doing this.”
‘Midnight Iguana’ will bring art of tattooing to Athens area
By JOAN STROER
Contributing Writer
People all over Athene are rolling up
their shirtsleeves, pulling down their
pants and otherwise baring their flesh
to go under the needle — the tattoo
needle.
Ron Hindon is the newest and only
tattoo artist in Athens to satisfy what
he feels is a growing market.
“It’s becoming really yuppie, really
posh, to get tattoos," he said, ‘They like
small trinket tattoos. It’s the hard core
that get dragons."
Hindon has been operating out of his
apartment since he discovered Clarke
County, which has no ordinance
against tattooing unlike Fulton and
other counties. He bought the equip
ment six months ago and sees mostly
college-age people.
Hindon, himself in his twenties, said
he has been fascinated by the ancient
art since he was a child. He and his
mother once saw a man in the grocery
store with an anchor on his arm. When
he asked her about the strange em
blem, his mother told him it was weird
and that he could never have one.
“I knew then there must be some
thing cool about it,” he said.
When the opportunity came to buy
the equipment — a good set costs at
least $2,000 — he decided to go for it.
He has already carved a sign for the
tattoo parlor he hopes to open, the
"Midnight Iguana."
Why do people get tattoos?
“It’s permanent, something that’s
yours, and you can moke it as unique or
ns typical ns you want,” said Kay Row
land, an Athens businesswoman who
recently visited Ron to get her shark
touched up.
Hindon thinks the influence of tat
tooed entertainers sends people to him,
and to parlors in Augusta and Atlanta.
Stars like Axel Rose, Cher, Perry Far
rell of Jane’s Addiction and Roseanne
Barr all sport tattoos in various places.
Sgt. Van Helden of the U.S. Army
Reserves said he remembers when tat
toos were more of a macho statement.
He said soldiers bound for the Vietnam
War would line up at parlors set up out
side Fort Bragg in Fayetteville. Other
parlors flourished near Fort Gordon in
Augusta, Fort Benning in Columbus
and other military posts.
Now he notices, from medical records
kept of identifying marks, that more
women in the military are wearing tat
toos.
‘They seem to get small, inconspic
uous ones, like near the shoulder
blade,” he said.
University fraternity members have
their own reasons for tattooing Greek
letters on themselves.
Cale Conley, Interfraternity Council
president ana member of Phi Gamma
Delta, said about 85 percent of his fra
ternity brothers voluntarily wear the
tattooed letters. They, and at least five
or six other fraternities, make trips
during the year to parlors in Atlanta
and Augusta.
“It shows that the fraternity means a
lot,” Conley said. “It’s a life-long com
mitment.”
Tattoos can be a life-long commit
ment, or they con be removed at a cost
of $1,200 per square inch, said nurse
Linda Sanders.
Sanders works in the office of Dr.
William Barry, the only dermatologist
in Athens who performs the expensive
removal by laser. She said they see 10
to 15 people a month for the procee-
dure, which leaves a white area where
the tattoo was.
More and more of those people are in
their twenties, and regretting their
youthfiil decisions, Sanders said.
She said not only do you risk chan
ging your mind about a tattoo, but you
also risk skin cancer and irritation
from sun exposure.
Please See TATTOO, Page 3