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Joe Ballard (1) receives Spalding Klwanis Club charter from the Rev. David Black of
Jackson and Georgia Klwanis governor Alton Reeves. Rev. Black is lieutenant governor of
the 12th division.
Spalding Kiwanis
gets its charter
The Kiwanis Club of Spalding
County received its charter last
night in ceremonies at the Elks
Club.
Two hundred and fifteen
Kiwanians from 16 area clubs
heard the new club’s president,
L. J. Ballard, Jr. accept the
charter from E. Alton Reeves,
Jr., Georgia district governor.
Mr. Ballard is the son of Mr.
and Mrs. Larry Ballard, the
senior Mr. Ballard is a past
president of the Kiwanis Club of
Griffin.
Other charter officers are
Robert Phillips and Bobby
Goolsby, vice-president; S. V.
Stacy, Jr., secretary; and
Richard Irvin, treasurer.
Doug Brown, Johnny
Castaneda, James Davis,
Kenneth Nolan and Chris
Pilcher are the charter
directors.
The club was sponsored by
Kiwanis Clubs in Griffin,
Blakeney
resigns
W. G. Blakeney has resigned
from the Griffin-Spalding Board
of Education. He cited personal
and family reasons but did not
elaborate in his letter to Board
Chairman Henry Walker.
Mr. Blakeney’s term runs
through 1976.
Chairman Walker said he
would present the matter to the
school board at its next
meeting.
The next scheduled meeting is
April 14.
Mr. Walker said the board has
the authority to fill the vacancy
through a majority vote of the
remaining members.
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Where giant plane with orphans crashed.
Hampton and Jackson.
The Rev. David R. Black,
lieutenant governor of the 12
division, gave the welcoming
address, introducing guests and
calling the roll of other clubs
attending. Rev. Black is pastor
of the Jackson Presbyterian
church.
Vice-president Bobby
Goolsby accepted gifts;
presented by Guy Woodroof of
the Griffin Club, Randy
Hudgins of Jackson and Jim
Henderson of the Hampton
Kiwanis Club.
The new club building awards
were presented by Ken Ford,
Georgia District chairman of
the new club committee. Dr. E.
F. Savage is chairman of the
Griffin Kiwanis Club new club
committee.
The invocation was given by
the Rev. Robert Phillips,
Methodist minister.
Area Kiwanis clubs
represented were Atlanta Top
of the Mart, Atlanta West End,
Atlanta Six Flags, Atlanta
Ansley Park, Macon, Eatonton,
Jackson, LaGrange, Newnan,
Barnesville, Thomaston, Henry
County, Covington, Fayette
County, Hampton and Griffin.
The Spalding County Club’s
charter night committee
members were L. J. Ballard,
Jr., chairman; Robert Turner,
publicity; Eddie Kinard, house;
Jerry Bollberg, program; and
James Matlock, attendance.
Serving on the charter night
committee from the Griffin,
Hampton and Jackson clubs
were Dr. Woodroof, Mr.
Hudgins, Mr. Henderson, Frank
Forehand, Glenn Mitchell, Dr.
Savage and Larry Ballard.
Other charter members of the
Spalding club are:
David Batchelor, Ivan Betz,
Neal A. Bonds, Delmas Brown,
A. Ronald Cook, Richard A.
Faulkner, William E. George,
Jr., Ronnie Grogan, Joseph
Grubbs, Danny Hamil, Tom
Hamill, Steve Higgins.
David Miller, Donald J.
Segars, Henry Swindell,
Kenneth Tarpley, Allen Taylor,
Douglas Bell, Dick Shapard,
and Gary Mcßanie.
Ford has
U.S. ships
on alert
PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. -
President Ford has ordered all
available Navy ships to stand
by near South Vietnam to assist
refugees if necessary.
He also set in motion an
airlift of 2,000 South Viet
namese orphans to the United
States.
Ford announced the actions
in a news conference in San
Diego Thursday and later
returned to Palm Springs to
meet with Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger.
“Most misfortunes are easier
to bear than the fear of those
that haven’t happened.”
GRIFFIN
Vol. 103 No. 80
Weary of nit-picking
Morgan ready for people
to decide rec squabble
Spalding County Commission
Chairman Sandy Morgan is
ready to let the people of the
city and county decide how
much tax money they want to
spend on recreation.
He said he’d favor putting it in
the form of referendum if some
way could be found to word the
proposition.
Chairman Morgan announced
his resignation this week. He
said the funding question might
be put on the same ballot which
will be used to name his
successor.
He will serve until he hears
from Gov. George Busbee on
the terms of his acceptance of
the resignation.
Mr. Morgan left for Washing
ton, D.C., this morning for a
five-day personal business trip.
But before he left, he said he
wanted the people of the city
and county to know he has tried
and will continue to try to get
the recreation budget dispute
settled before he leaves office.
He said he thought the latest
exchange of letters between the
city and county commissioners
conformed to what the city was
asking. But he said the latest
letter from the city indicated
the city commissioners thought
the county had shifted its posi
tion.
“I think it’s nit-picking,” Mr.
Morgan said.
He said the disagreement now
seemed to center on the one
word “consider.”
Morgan said he thought he
had brought the two boards to
an understanding over cutting
the budget by $9,500 with the
city and county government
dividing it $4,750 each.
The county’s letter said the
county board would agree to
this and to restore the funds if
the recreation board voted for
the restoration of the cuts.
Mr. Morgan said the word
Weather
ESTIMATED HIGH TODAY
65, low today 35, high yesterday
66, low yesterday 39, high
tomorrow in low 60s, low tonight
in mid 30s. Sunrise tomorrow
7:56, sunset tomorrow 7:26.
Crash toll reaches 178
SAIGON (UPI) — A U.S. Air
Force CSA Galaxy transport
plane carrying 305 persons,
most of them Vietnamese war
orphans bound for the United
States on the first flight of
President Ford’s emergency
Operation Babylift, crashed and
burned here today while at
tempting an emergency land
ing.
At least 178 of those aboard
the mercy flight were killed,
the U.S. Embassy said.
Embassy spokesmen said at
least 100 children and 15 to 20
adults survived the first crash
of the world’s largest plane.
The embassy said the plane
carried 243 orphans ranging in
age from 8 months to 12 years,
most of them fathered by U.S.
servicemen formerly stationed
in South Vietnam. The embassy
said there also were 44 U.S.
Mission escorts, 16 Air Force
crewmen and two flight nurses.
(The Pentagon said 10 medics
and nurses from the Phillipines
were aboard).
The plane was 40 to 60 miles
out of Saigon when a rear
cargo door blew out from
unknown causes, the embassy
said. This damaged the Galax
y’s elevators as the plane flew
at 31,000 feet.
The pilot, Maj. Dennis
Traynor, turned back toward
Tan Son Nhut airbase but was
unable to control the rate of
descent and plunged to earth in
a swampy area just outside the
base. Ruptured fuel tanks burst
Griffin, Ga., 30223, Friday Afternoon, April 4,1975
“consider” was inserted in the
county agreement. He said the
county might not have the
money, if the recreation board
asked for it later. And Morgan
said the county board wanted to
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Butch Dixon (1) of Griffin and I. K. (Ike) Dean, of
Barnesville who is a signal maintenance man for Southern
Railway check out new signal at the grade crossing in
Orchard Hill. Dixon who was involved in a train-van
Thieu forming new government
SAIGON (UPI) — South
Vietnamese President Nguyen
Van Thieu told the nation
tonight the Cabinet had re
signed and he was forming a
new government.
Thieu said: “The American
people as well as the American
Congress must see now that
they have got to do something
for the people of South Vietnam
to keep from earning the label
of traitors.”
He said that with reduced
into flames, sending up towers
of smoke that could be seen in
Saigon, six or seven miles
away.
The CSA was bound for its
first stop at Clark Air Force
Base in the Philippines and
President Ford had planned to
greet personally the orphans
when they arrived in California.
The crash sent a wave of
shock through the United States
where hundreds of families
were awaiting to adopt the 2,000
orphans to be brought there on
the military airlift. A White
House aide, awakened at the
presidential quarters at Palm
Springs, Calif., described the
crash as “unbelievable and
shocking.”
South Vietnamese troops
quickly sealed off the crash
site, an area near the Saigon
River which is under partial
Communist control. The plane
was a mile and a half from the
airport when it fell.
Many of the dead were
children who had been strapped f
to the floor of the transport, '
which arrived here earlier
today from the Philippines
carrying artillery pieces and
ammunition for hard-pressed
South Vietnamese troops strug
gling against Communist forces
near the city.
Earlier this week, U.S. AID
officials refused to allow the
same group of orphans to board
a World Airways charter plane
because they felt it was unsafe
to fly with the youngsters
be in position to make a decision
on the matter. He said the
county board was not willing to
leave the decision entirely in the
hands of the recreation board,
and in effect give that board the
Checking out crossing
U.S. military aid it was clearly
impossible for South Vietnam to
maintain control of the entire
country.
“We might say that the direct
battlefield situation which re
cently occurred came, of
course, through weakness,”
Thieu said. “But you also have
to admit that the spirit of the
people of South Vietnam has
been undermined for more than
a year since they saw the
United States not only did
strapped to the floor.
It was the first crash of a
passenger plane at Tan Son
Nhut, which at the height of the
Vietnam War was one of the
world’s busiest airports.
The area of the crash was
partially controlled by the Viet
Cong but there was no
indication the CSA had been
shot down. Initial reports said
the plane had reached an
altitude of 37,000 feet when the
cargo door on the plane blew
off—a similar type of incident
which caused the crash of a
Turkish DCIO near Paris on
March 3, 1974, killing 345
persons in history’s worst air
disaster.
The CSA immediately lost
pressurization, and the pilot
tried to return to Saigon. About
a mile-and-a-half short of the
airfield the plane smacked into
some muddy rice paddies and
skipped across like a flat rock
on a pond. Pentagon officials
said fire apparently broke out
in a wing when a fuel tank
ruptured on impact.
The huge clouds of billowing
black smoke could be seen in
Saigon, seven miles away.
The first airlift of 52 orphans
to the United States arrived
Thursday in San Francisco
aboard a privately owned
World Airways DCS to a
country touched by the plight of
the millions of refugees fleeing
a Communist offensive. Adop
tion agencies throughout the
nation were swamped with
right to decide whether to spend
the county money.
It’s nitpicking over a word,
Mr. Morgan said.
He said some of the letters the
county board sent to the city did
accident at a nearby crossing had been pushing for the
signal. Dean said such signals are being installed at many
crossings over the state. Cost of the signal was about
$26,000.
nothing to help but contributed
to it by allowing the Commu
nists to infiltrate here.
“The loss of support has
caused a loss of morale. The
United States has not been
replacing military supplies and
equipment on a one-for-one
basis as agreed in the Paris
agreement.
“We saw 500,000 American
soldiers go to war with S3O
billion a year. We have a
million soldiers but much less
requests for Vietnamese chil
dren.
Thursday, President Ford
announced he was earmarking
a special $2 million fund to fly
out 2,000 orphans by military
aircraft. Today’s crash—the
first involving a CsA—was the
first flight of the plan called
“Operation Babylift.”
U.S. officials in Washington
said they were dismayed by
news of the crash but there
were no plans to discontinue
the flights.
It was the second incident of
the day involving orphan
flights. A Pan American World
Airways plane with 34 orphans
aboard was grounded today in
Guam by mechanical difficul
ties.
Military sources said the area
of the crash site of the CSA was
50 per cent controlled by the
Communist Viet Cong and there
had been fighting in the area
only Thursday night. Troops
were rushed to the scene to
secure the area as helicopters
ferried out the dead and living.
The children were from
American-run orphanages in
Saigon and were leaving
Vietnam legally for their foster
families in the United States.
The survivors were flown to the
7th Day Adventist Hospital just
outside the gates of Tan Son
Nhut.
The controversial swept-wing
CSA, the world’s largest jet
plane, had been delayed on its
departure earlier today from
Daily Since 1872
not have unanimous backing
and resulted from 2-1 votes.
“I hope a miracle will happen
while I’m gone and the dispute
will be settled when I get back,”
Morgan quipped.
money. We now need to see
whether America will meet its
commitments to South Viet
nam.”
He appealed to the people to
maintain their self-confidence,
retain their calmness, remain
alert, avoid panic and listen to
and obey the government and
administration.
“That will help the country,”
Thieu said.
Clark Air Force Base in the
Philippines where it was rushed
into service under Ford’s
announced evacuation plan. It
was to have flown back to
Clark for 48 hours of medical
treatment of the orphans before
flying on to Travis AFB, Calif.
The two-decker plane may
have been carrying more
passengers than any CSA ever
had attempted. The aircraft
was designed specifically to
haul tanks, helicopters and
other large military equipment.
Passenger seats were not
routinely placed in the cargo
'compartment although about 80
regular airline seats are
included in a second deck of the
plane.
“I saw 20 to 30 babies who
survived carried out,” said Dr.
William Oldham an American
who is chief medical adviser to
the government of South
Vietnam. “All those who
survived must have been on the
upper passenger deck. All those
below in the cargo section must
have been killed.”
“Many of those babies
survived the crash beautifully,”
he said. “I carried in one
handicapped boy who still had
his crutch and brace and all he
said was he wanted to go
potty.”
The Adventist hospital said 20
adult females, 10 babies and 3
adult males had been declared
dead on arrival. Five children
were being treated for injuries.