Front Street Weekly; 223

[Countdown beeps] [Peppy synthesizer intro] [Voiceover] South Salem is concerned about random murder. The tragic results of homicides affect the police, our courts, and the victim's families. A variety of people are worried about the senseless killing. How is Oregon coping with random murders? [Harp strum] Will Big Brother be watching Oregon in 1984? Some people think so if the state legislature expands Oregon's eavesdropping standards.

[Interviewee] Collectively and cumulatively, it gives the police an incredible ability to monitor my life and your life, in a way that, I think, bothers the American. [Harp strum] [Voiceover] There's a resurgence on Oregon college campus: ROTC. The Reserve Officers' Training Corps is back in vogue with students. But why is ROTC back in step again? [Interviewee] Perhaps this generation is feeling a little more patriotic. Their appraisal of the military is a little bit different than we were, say 10 or 15 years ago. [Army jingle] We need you in the Army! [Voiceover] Gilchrist, Oregon, one of the last true company towns. Despite the recession in the wood products industry the town has prospered. The Gilchrist Timber Company operates a successful mill here and works hard to keep their employees happy. [Interviewee] They control but not not through force. It's through respect.

[Voiceover] Newspapers use pictures to grab your attention hoping you will grab the paper. Photo journalism is one of the most effective ways to tell the story. But who are these people behind the camera? We'll profile two professionals involved in snap decisions every day. [Harp strum] [Host] Good evening. Welcome to Front Street Weekly. The murder rate is up 18 percent in Oregon. Most of the reported homicides involve family members or acquaintances. But 20 percent are stranger-to-stranger killings. Many happen while another crime like robbery is in progress. Then there are others, which are committed without any apparent motive, virtually at random. Such murders, often committed by younger men, are hard to explain. Some are connected with a sexual assault and may involve maiming and torture. The outburst of violence can be directed against a crowd or an individual. Our two-part report on random murder will examine the effect of this kind of crime on the public, the

courts, and the penal system. It will also look at the psychological makeup of those who commit murder at random. [Reporter] On May 7, 1981, Lawrence William Moore walked to the entrance of the Oregon Museum Tavern in Salem. He stuck his arm through the door and fired into a crowd of people with a semiautomatic pistol until the clip was empty. Then he closed the door, reloaded the clip, and went into the tavern, firing at anyone who had not taken cover. When the shooting started, Joel Heenan was standing at the bar with his back to the door. One bullet went through his lung. Another hit his hip, missing his spine by less than a quarter of an inch. [Heenan] A lot of people were taking cover. The main thing I remember hearing was people yelling to get him, you know, get that crazy guy out of here. But at that point, I ran back towards the bathrooms, where there was a wall there, and I hid behind the wall. And I'm not sure what I felt. I just wanted to know what's going on. You know, I've never experienced anything like this

before. You start thinking all kinds of things, like maybe somebody, the mafia, hit or, who knows, all kinds of stuff starts going through your head at that point. The main concern is to protect yourself and stay out of the way. I also started thinking that he might start running around inside the place, and I didn't know what I was going to do at that point because I knew I couldn't run anymore. [Reporter] Sergeant Larry Stevens with the Salem Police Department says people were stunned and confused. [Stevens] And many of them did not - weren't aware of what was occurring. Some thought it was firecrackers. Some just did not realize. And generally by the time the second series of shots were occurring, they were figuring out what was happening and several of the patrons just overpowered the subject, and as they were overpowering him, he was still continuing to fire the weapon. It was overwhelming, to say the least, because of the number of victims involved. We had [?20?] people

who were injured, plus the four who were killed. And it was just something that nobody could ever just imagine would ever happen in Salem, much less anywhere else we deal with. So it was an emotional situation. We had to try to put our feelings aside and carry on. When I got there, a lot of injured were still there and being treated, and I think the crowd was very orderly in treating for these people. They assisted the medical personnel. There was no mass hysteria or anything like that. There was a lot of people standing around, quite bewildered, not know, not understanding what had happened, and not able to understand. [Reporter] Moore was apprehended at the scene, arrested, prosecuted and is now in prison. Although he pled insanity, the jury determined that Moore could distinguish right from wrong and was capable of controlling his actions. The motive for the killings is still a mystery. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of stranger-to-stranger murder is that victims have very little warning and are usually incapable of defending themselves.

The recent crime spree of the I-5 Killer, Randall Woodfield, and a series of brutal murders committed by William Perry Jackson and Gary Smith have recently caused statewide public concern until arrests occurred. Despite the fact that the percentage of random murders is small, the public becomes fearful and insecure when a killer is not apprehended or there are many murders in a small geographic area. An example can be found in Marion County. Chris Van Dyke, Marion County district attorney, has two problems in regard to stranger-to-stranger killings. The first is that for some unknown reason there has been a dramatic increase in random murders in his county in the last couple of years. The second problem is that three unsolved murders have occurred in South Salem. One victim was Patricia Loganbill, who was shot execution style in a veterinary clinic in November of 1982. The next victims were Laurel Wilson and her daughter Erica, age 9, in

April of 1983. Their bodies were found lying face down on a bed in their home. They had died of multiple gunshot wounds. Because the murders happened in the same part of town and no one has been arrested, the neighborhood recently asked to meet with the police department. Kent Zerr, president of the Sunnyslope Neighborhood Association, says at the time the meeting was called, things were getting out of hand. [Zerr] Neighbors were quoted as stating that they wanted to purchase firearms of some nature. It seemed to be something that I, as a neighbor, was very concerned about and wanted more information to be open to the public. [Reporter] The Salem Police say that releasing too much information about murder cases to the public can hinder investigation. Yet, if homicides seem to follow a pattern, the public should be warned. The people of Sunnyslope fear that there is a connection between the murders. [Interviewee] When you have several homicides that are vaguely similar and occur closely in time, I think there's a natural tendency to connect those, even when there

isn't insufficient evidence to really say they're committed by the same person. We have several of those types of homicides we're investigating right now. Frankly, my own personal view is -- and I think many people in law enforcement would take a different view -- is that it's more cautious to assume that some of them are connected. You can take steps if you see a pattern to avoid getting into a situation that fits the pattern of a murder. Other law enforcement people believe, and I think quite soundly, that you don't want to cause undue alarm because that in and of itself probably can be as much a detriment to the community as overcompensating. So I think there's a mixture of feelings, and I think it really just depends on what level of evidence you need to connect these before you're willing to say, it's time to start taking some steps in the community. [Reporter] The Salem police can't reveal any information about the South Salem killings, but they say they are making progress. Apparent stranger-to-stranger murders are generally difficult to investigate.

The police first look for a person who might have some connection with the victim. [Interviewee] We'll talk to virtually hundreds of people, trying to see if they have any information. Many times they do, they just don't pass it on. They don't feel it's important. Besides that we're basically on a murder case and we don't have an initial suspect. We'll reconstruct that individual. [Reporter] Detective David Simpson of the Portland Police Department says if another crime has been committed, in addition to murder, a stranger-to-stranger homicides are easier to solve. [Simpson] Perhaps the person has been involved in other criminal activity, and so you have a direction to go there. If it occurs during the commission of a burglary or a robbery, perhaps that person's been involved in other burglaries or robberies, so you can look in that direction. If it occurs during the commission of a sex crime, then obviously you look in that direction. [Reporter] Often physical evidence gathered at the scene of the crime leads to the conviction of a random murderer. At the Oregon Crime Lab, run by the state police, blood and semen samples can be analyzed in type. The lab also identifies bullets and

the weapons. Footprints and fingerprints are studied. Often skin fragments, hair samples, or small pieces of material are important evidence in solving the case. The books are never closed on unsolved murders. If an arrest occurs in a random murderer is brought to trial, the burden shifts from law enforcement to the courts. Many trials take place in an understandably emotional climate. Wendell Birkland, a criminal defense attorney who has defended many random murderers, says public sentiment can prevent what he considers to be a fair trial. [Birkland] Well, I think it's extremely difficult because you go into a trial of that nature and the people are predisposed to convict the man that you defend. They're not terribly concerned with what evidence is going to be produced. They've read in the newspapers that he's been charged with multiple homicides. And that's [?efficient?] and therefore he should be convicted. And I don't think you get the type of a fair and reasoned decision that you would in another

homicide case where people didn't know anything about it before they came to the courtroom. [Reporter] Birkland says he finds some of his clients likable despite what they have done. [Birkland] In fact, for the most part, I like them as people. I like them as human beings. And I do everything I can for them.There are more reasons to want to help an individual even though he's committed a horrible act. And personally and morally, I want to help them. It's the Christian thing to do. It's the proper thing to do. It's obviously what I do as a lawyer. I can't be concerned with the act that he's committed in deciding to withhold help. [Reporter] Does Birkland feel that random murderers can be stereotyped? [Birkland] No, I haven't found any stereotypes. When you're talking about a psychotic individual, you can recognize those people very rapidly. There's no problem there. You know who they are and you can understand at least that a person of that type is at least dangerous. Many of the people that I've represented on cases like this have been very likable individuals, not much different than the rest of us from all you can tell.

[Reporter] Three things can happen to random murderers after trial in Oregon. They can go free, to be sent to a mental institution if found legally insane, or go to prison. The majority go to prison. Psychologist Dan Abrams says he would prefer the death penalty for random killings but says that prison is the second best alternative. Abrams works on many murder cases as a forensic psychologist. To determine the mental state of prisoners before a trial, he uses a battery of psychological tests, hypnosis, and the polygraph. He says although many random murderers are not legally insane, they are clinically psychopathic. This is evident in the way many murders take place. [Abrams] A person could be killed very quickly and very painlessly if it were necessary. But they don't take that route. Most of the time, it's as if they get a great deal of gratification out of torturing them, and they have no feeling, whether this is for a woman or man, but even a child, a helpless child, an 11-year-old or 10-year-old,

who doesn't even understand what's happening, and yet is burned and cut and brutalized in many different ways and kept alive for hours and hours, just for the gratification of that person's hostile destructive needs. And this isn't something that's changed but something that remains with them, so that they always remain at risk until probably old age when they, they tend to burn out. But they have no consideration and never, in the prison situation, they don't think of what happened to that child. They think only of what's happening to them and the possibility of their being apprehended and having to spend their time in prison. [Reporter] Most random murderers in Oregon are serving one or several consecutive life sentences. Many will never get out of prison. But although it is highly unlikely, sometime in the future, some could be paroled. If that should happen, the chance of these inmates coming out with any degree of rehabilitation is slim.

[?Palmers? Jones] with the State Parole Board comments. [Jones] You've got somebody in prison for life. Why worry about rehabilitation? [Reporter] Jones says that since 1977, Oregon has followed what is called a just desserts model, where rehabilitation is up to the prisoner. [Jones] I think that, over the years, it has now been determined that rehabilitation as a general approach to making a person whole or partially whole to the extent that they can return to the society, is just not a viable plan. Now again I say rehabilitation is possible, but it begins with the individual. We have simply accepted the premise that an individual that does not want to be rehabilitated will not be, regardless of the time money spent on that individual. It's rather trite to say it, but I think the philosophy that's invited here is simply that if you cannot do the time, then you should not do the crime.

[Host] Random murderers do hard time in prison. Because of the nature of their crimes, there is little hope of rehabilitation or release. Next week, we'll talk to a five-time murderer who says he would prefer the death penalty to life behind bars. We will also explore the psychological traits of random murderers, both in and out of prison. [Mellow guitar transition] The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill which would allow undercover police officers to record conversations with criminal suspects face to face. The law enforcement lobby and the Oregon District Attorney's Association feel that the current law restricts their ability to accurately document criminal transactions. The bill is now in the Senate Justice Committee. Beth ?Whelan? explores the debate behind the Body Bug Bill.

A burglar delivers credit cards, checks, guitars, and other property he stole to an undercover officer. The officer is a man with a beard. The pictures were taken last year during a Portland sting operation. Under current state law the conversation they are having could not be tape recorded. Before this meeting the burglar called the undercover officer from a telephone booth about a stereo he had just stolen. State law does allow officers to tape record their telephone conversations, ?Sun Tracks? For one like on the TVs that they advertise ?Sun Tracks? TVs. [inaudible] It's a popular brand. What are you going to want for it?. I got some ID too. Hey you know those checks? There's about four orfive books of. And there's a -- on the -- there's another one that you know don't have, you know, nobody's name or anything. And us, it's just Just you know a blank. Gotta type it in. OK. What to you is a reasonable price? What can you afford? You can turn the stereo over for 200 easy.y. With you I really don't write for you or they aren't there or you know.

What you think so. Yeah [laughs] Brand spanking new. Oh yeah. The burglar was convicted and is now serving time in the Oregon Penitentiary. The recorded telephone conversation and the silent movie were used as evidence in court. But in many of the 96 cases connected with this sting the only conversations the undercover officers had with the suspects were face to face not over the telephone. Those conversations could be filmed but not tape recorded. Now some Oregon lawmakers want to expand those police powers amid claims by opponents that it is carrying unnecessary electronic eavesdropping too far and would violate private rights. The change would let police tape record face to face conversations without the other person's knowledge. During all felony investigations. Now that can only be done in drug investigations. Assistant Multnomah County District Attorney Charles Ball says many of the persons he prosecuted in this sting probably could have been convicted of additional

theft charges if their face to face conversations with the officers were recorded. Five suspects he says might not have gotten off scot free. I would have been in a little different bargaining position. I would have been able to receive more guilty pleas in multiple count indictments as it was, I was fairly liberal because it was always a contest between the police officer and the defendant as to whether or not the police officer's statements are correct or the defendant's statements anticipated statements in the jury trial are correct. The proposal to broaden the state's eavesdropping standards is now before the lawmakers. It has been referred to as a Body Bug Bill. Representative Peter Courtney is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. He successfully had the broader House Body Bug proposal tabled in Committee and is hoping the same will happen to the Senate proposal which is very much alive. Now you can be put on a TV screen and taped that way. your - you call up the police office as it is now, whether you know not, your voice is being recorded.

Your phone can be tapped. And now we're going to allow police officers to walk around with a body wire, unbeknownst to you or I, and record your voice that way. If the public becomes generally aware of these types of things I think many times the public is not generally aware. But if they're aware of all these types of things, they get the feeling, everywhere you go when you deal with police officials, you know they can bug you a thousand ways. It's a cumulative thing. And that's what creates the chilling effect if we were only talking about tapping the phone, and only that. That's one thing. When you consider the variety of things they can already do, and you add just one more thing, it isn't just one more thing. Collectively and cumulatively it give the police an incredible ability to monitor my life and your life in a way that I think bothers the American. [inaudible] [inaudible] Your calls to the sheriff's office and the police and fire departments are routinely taped. If you call to report a crime, or to find out if backyard burning is permitted the tape is always rolling. That is standard practice throughout Oregon

and in other states. And many business owners have installed their own surveillance equipment. If you go to the store to play Pac-Man or to buy groceries a camera eye is usually watching you. And a camera is routinely rolling at your bank even at the automatic bank teller. Sometimes it's difficult to find the camera but you can count on it being there. Some people are beginning to wonder at the surveillance extremes portrayed in George Orwell's book 1984 are really occurring. However others believe it's just good law enforcement. The American Civil Liberties Union believes in good law enforcement but not to the point of allowing officers to secretly record face to face conversations with citizens who are suspected of breaking the law. ACLU cooperating attorney, Steve ?House?, says it is a violation of a person's general right to privacy. [House] And this is not a knee-jerk liberal kind of a proposition that's being put forward by the American Civil Liberties Union and others concerned about individual rights.

This is very much a conservative kind of position we're taking. This is -- I don't want to say Reaganite but it's a true conservative position on individual rights. It is that the government should have no more power than is absolutely essential to perform the essential functions of government. And they don't need this power. Any time we decide to voluntarily tell someone about something, we disclose we waived our privacy right because that person has all the freedom in the world to go out and tell any other person they want and they can be compelled under subpoena to go into court and tell people. If that conversation is recorded and if we make sure the police officer is only doing that when they suspect criminal activity all we're doing is guaranteeing the accuracy of that conversation. Van ?Dyck? represents the Oregon District Attorney's Association, the group that requested the Body Bug legislation. He says broadening the state's eavesdropping standards would enhance officer safety on the job.

Portland police have numerous incidents where undercover women police officers particularly in areas where there have been numerous sexual assaults on women in parks and in remote areas where the safety of the officers come very very close to being seriously endangered. Had that woman officer been carrying a body bag and the conversations between people that we're about to or actually did attack or been monitored. I think common sense dictates that her safety could be dramatically increased. You gotta look to historical data to see if there have been instances in which law enforcement officers acting undercover have been seriously injured or killed. It happens almost never and over 10 years of practicing law in Multnomah County I am not aware of a single instance in the largest county in the state in which that's ever happened. Two, there is technology available that would obviate totally the need to intercept the communication to accomplish officer safety. Larry ?Barron? of Multnomah County's Metropolitan Public Defender section says the

proposal will violate the rights of citizens who are not targeted by the police, but his conversations may become part of their records. The statute is not aimed at criminals. It does not say that we will bug criminals. It talks about persons. Anybody can have their conversations listened to under all these laws. And it's just because of that, that we are citizens in a free land that we have to object to. It is believed there will be abuses no matter how strong the safeguards are. District Attorney Charles ?Vahl? admits there are abuses now, some intentional, some not. But he says to rule out broader surveillance on those grounds is to be blind to modern times. I anticipate there will be some problems. Ignorance, intentional misuse. But those will have to be addressed and we'll have to try to correct them. Either by legislation or by penalizing the prosecutor and the police in the form of prosecution.

The statute that we proposed imposes criminal sanctions for abuse of this, felony sanctions for police officers if they record conversations where there is -- there is not a reasonable suspicion or reasonable belief that criminal conduct's occurring. If they just randomly start recording conversations or if they start chopping these things up and altering assuming we put in the amendment that I think will be there requiring full conversation there will be criminal sanctions against that officer. I think most law enforcement people are well intended. There's no question about it I don't think that it's a malevolent sort of thing at all. But what is really frightening about this is that this is the big foot in the door if you will and once they've got that door open and can do this, it's going to be very difficult to get those rights back. Once you give up that much power to the government in the form of power in the hands of the police. You're not going to get it back. The Oregon Supreme Court has never considered the constitutionality of Oregon's current telephone wiretapping law. Public defender Larry ?Barron? believes it is

unconstitutional, basically because it invades free speech and private rights. Many states have the same law. But Montana, Florida, Michigan, and Alaska have ruled their telephone wiretap laws unconstitutional. ?Barron? says a proposed body bug bill is also unconstitutional. Unofficially, Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice ?Berkeley Lent? says he has his doubts about that. Insofar as questions about constitutionality, I'm hard put you know right off the top of my head to think of how it offends constitutional guarantees. I mentioned before earlier you and I were talking about: What about the right of privacy? Well that's a pretty nebulous thing. The right of privacy does arise in connection with the Fourth Amendment but actually it's the fourth -- one of the things about the Fourth Amendment is to protect privacy. But it does it by forbidding searches and seizures without a warrant, or, And ?one of they wanted? ?warrant? exceptions have been carved out.

But Representative Courtney does not want to argue about the constitutionality of the proposal. He says he's just worried that the police are going to gain more mechanical tools but lose their greatest weapons. The greatest weapon a police officer, a cop on the beat has, is the public willing to come up and help him with his or her job or cooperation. You're going to wreck that weapon if we keep going down this road. The Senate Justice Committee will take final action on the police eavesdropping bill in mid-May. At this point, about half of the committee members are inclined to table a bill for this session. [outro music] The Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) is regaining its popularity on college campuses around the country. Portland State University is offering its first

ROTC program this September. ?Eileen? ?Pinterest-Walker? takes a look at the new ROTC as it falls back in step again. Portland Oregon 1971. [inaudible] ?Spiro Agnew? was welcomed at Memorial Coliseum. Their problem is they just don't understand the system. ?Tom McCall? urges everyone to keep the dialogue open. This ?posture? offers a genuine alternative to violence. The government official who ?leaves? no such alternative is fostering a passion of destruction in this nation just as much as the ?needle? is to his throwing firebombs into the ROTC building. [inaudible] In the war years, the ROTC became a rallying point on college campuses around the country. A symbol for the anti-war movement. Of all that was wrong with America. But that was a decade ago. [music]

Today's ROTC isn't a four-letter word anymore. Enrollment is up 80 percent in the last year at U of O and 45 percent at Oregon State. According to the Army, cadet uniforms on campus are hardly the stuff of demonstration and confrontation anymore. My freshman year that was something that I was wondering: Well, how would people react to me being in uniform? But I was surprised people were very positive towards it and especially the last few years I found that people really respect you and your uniform. This year Portland State University, the only major university in the entire West without an ROTC program, will get one. A good time we decided to re-examine the role of ROTC on Oregon's campuses. Perhaps [inaudible]

This generation is feeling a little more patriotic. Their appraisal of the military is a little bit different than we were say 10 or 15 years ago. Meet Captain Mike ?Cuff?. He's one of those in charge of building an Army ROTC program at Portland State and the army would be hard pressed to find a more enthusiastic salesman for its cause. [Cuff] Cause I'm the first to tell any group I talk to, the United States Army, or being an officer in the United States Army isn't necessarily for everyone. However, let's talk about what you will do as an officer and what it entails and I think that I've run into more misconceptions and more mistruths. The program's changed in the last 15-20 years considerably and as far as everything connected with it, it's just different. Not different enough to quiet the program's critics though, who say the new ROTC may look different, (music) and sell itself differently, but it's the same old ROTC alright.

People are misled. I think that the recruiting procedures of the military for a long time has been misleading people. I think the kind of recruiting slogans we hear every day on the radio are misleading people. "The Navy is not a job, it's an adventure." Well it's just not the case. For some, it's going to be an adventure but for a lot of others it's going to be very difficult, arduous experience. And the philosophical arguments against ROTC on campus haven't changed much either. Just the people who were doing the arguing. PSU students not only did not march against the idea, their vote of support outnumbered the faculties. Professor of history Frank West was one of those voices against the program. [West] I would not want to say that I'm opposed to the military establishment. I am opposed [inaudible] that the problems can only be solved my military means. And the role of diplomacy, the role of communication, the role of general information seems to be

increasingly discarded by our American policy makers. (inaudible) Looks like something for nothing. But it's not something for nothing. So suddenly someone's waving some green backs, some dollars to a money-starved university and it looks good. So they took the bait. English professor Sam Oakland is still objecting to the recent ROTC elections at Portland State. Oakland says the result of that faculty vote was announced two weeks before the mail-in ballots were due. But even Oakland admits the ROTC at Portland State will be a reality this fall. And that reality, according at least to Lieutenant Colonel Steve Wolfgram is very straightforward. The normal four-year program is the first two years you look at us and we look at you, and at the end of your second year if we're in agreement that the program is for you then I'll ask you to sign a contract. And that contract says that I'm going to pay you a 100 dollars a month, and that I'm going to send you to advance camp between your junior and senior year of ROTC, and upon completion of your degree you're going to

accept a commission in the United States Army. There's a number of things that our ROTC cadets don't realize when they go in. And one of the biggest things - Bob Gould spent 12 years counseling veterans for the Portland drafted military council. He says there's a lot of things students are not likely to be aware of when they commit to the Army, Navy, or Air Force ROTC programs. For instance, Gould says, a student who aims for nothing more than officer training could wind up quickly and unpredictably on active duty. If for some reason the military decides that they're not making satisfactory progress even when they are ROTC courses or even just their general academic training, and this can oftentimes be a rather arbitrary decision, they can be acclimated out of this program and in to the regular enlisted ranks. We do have that option of disenrolling you, and then calling you back to duty. But that is very seldom used

right now because we've been able to evaluate you through the system before you reach that advanced portion. I think we're able to identify that as a concern. We've never experienced it here at Oregon State but I'm sure they have nationally. So if I if I were a student and I thought, here was my ticket to make it through four years of college and then I'll drop out of ROTC when I feel like it or not attend classes, I could wind up in the regular army. You could by law. The obligations of military service are contained in the Army's own brochures for students. But Gould, who is writing his own guide for high school teachers on the subject, says cadet candidates need better access to information about the ROTC and military service in general. From somebody besides military recruiters. He says students are not getting that information before they sign their names on the dotted line and commit six years of their lives to

active and reserve duty after college. Cadets don't understand, Gould says, they might be the first on the front lines in the event of a war. Or, that ROTC training might well not translate into a civilian job or that they might not wind up with that first lieutenant's commission after all. A student could receive all the training and quite satisfactorily perform everything that was required of the student in the ROTC program and still not be guaranteed an officer position in the military. It's just strictly up to the military and even if they don't need officers they don't have to draw upon the officer training. We don't commission it because we need a hundred officers, so no matter what we'll commission a hundred. If we only have one quality man or woman out of that hundred then we'll commission one, out of that hundred. But our purpose is quality. The Army says they're upfront with their cadet candidates, and they're not pressuring

anyone to do anything, at least not since the end of the draft. One of these things were, I need you to sign the contract now, I'm not selling used cars on the lot. I'm very much am concerned about a student exercising selective hearing and hearing what they want to hear. As it is a volunteer army if you want to know part of it, we're not going to then punish you by saying no you are going to be a part of it, because that's simply boils down to the fact that you to a certain degree are literally wasting taxpayer dollars. If you ask the cadets working on their drills, and their maps, and their knowledge of the latest in Soviet weaponry, you'll hear that the ROTC is everything it's cracked up to be. Providing leadership training, confidence building, pride and what they hope will be a competitive advantage in the later search for civilian jobs. No regrets, they say,

so far. I got a scholarship from the ROTC, so that really helps with the financial part, it's made college a lot easier. And anyway, it gives you a chance to do a lot of things that you wouldn't otherwise, like going out into the field and having weapons and stuff. It's really interesting. Financially because it's expensive going to university now, but also because I'm a fine arts student and there aren't a lot of job opportunities for a fine arts student and this gives me something to do after I graduate, while I'm still working on my art. And it gets me (inaudible) too. Recruiters admit one big reason for the increased interest in ROTC is the economy. Nobody after all offers as many jobs. About 25 percent of the cadets are on scholarship at Oregon State. The national average is 11 percent. PSU student body president Pat O'Connor says the scholarships and the financial aid are the main reasons he's for the program at Portland State.

I don't look at it philosophically as much as I do a pragmatic way of financially aiding some students to attend school and finish their college education. What about the argument that it gives students a way, especially in these hard economic times, to finance their schooling. Well, that's true. But so did the no-strings attached, federal scholarships in need. Why, for one particular career choice, should you offer financial aid. The Army says it's a lot more aggressive these days about selling itself to college and high school students. And if there's one thing that approach has accomplished, it's been to soften some images of the military stereotype on campus. I always thought they were out there just to kill people, and they're not. They have a definite purpose and they're for peace just as much as any of us are but they

have to prepare for war. That's your basis for peace really. In 1979 a report prepared for a member of Congress found the military's recruitment program was lacking in ethical standards. That report recommended that candidates not sign any papers immediately, get all promises in writing, and seek contract advice from an attorney or counselor. A company town usually conjures images of employees trapped under harsh working conditions by an indifferent boss. But in Gilchrist, Oregon, one of the last true company towns, life is pleasant. The family-owned timber company which manages the town has kept its mill working during the recession and gained the respect of employees and residents. [GWYNETH GAMBLE]: In the Oregon Cascades, about 50 miles south of Bend along Highway 97

lies a small community that is a thriving reminder of a vanishing part of American culture -- the company town. Gilchrist, Oregon, population 500, is unique in both appearance and character. All the land and buildings are owned by the Gilchrist Timber Company. And not only is every business and residence painted the same color brown, but every worker in town is employed directly or indirectly by the company. In 1938, the mill was built, and the town of Gilchrist was founded after the Gilchrist family cut out their Mississippi forest lands and decided to move their operation to 85,000 acres they owned in this remote part of Oregon. Because jobs were scarce, employees and their families also chose to leave their homes in the South and help establish a new town on the east slope of the Oregon Cascades. I was born in Laurel, Mississippi. And I moved out to Oregon with my family in 1938 when my dad came out with Gilchrist Timber Company to build a mill here.

85-year old Ruby Smallwood was also among the first Mississippians to make the trip across country to work for the Gilchrist. When I came out here there were no families, there was just forest. Mr. Gilchrist told us that he'd give us a place to live just as soon as the snow got off the ground, and he did just, as soon as the snow was off they began building, the cabins, what we called the cabins over across the highway. (inaudible) The Gilchrist company built more than 130 homes for its employees. Many small ones to house the mill workers and several large ones to accommodate the foremen and supervisors. Frank Gilchrist Sr. hired a Swiss architect to design the village and the European influence is still visible in the ornate trim on the movie theater and other buildings that were constructed to serve the needs of the new arrivals. The town now includes a post office, gas station and restaurant as well as several places where residents can find indoor amusement during the long winter months. [bowling sounds] Very low turnover in the mill has created a stable population of Gilchrist, and the state

police office in town may help account for the nonexistent crime rate. Parents say Gilchrist is a great place to raise children and school activities, especially sports, are an important part of the town's social life. Although they are far from major shopping centers and medical facilities families tend to stay in Gilchrist because they like the sense of community here and the opportunities for outdoor recreation. I like to fish, I like to hunt. And I've had my (inaudible) winter sports. And of course we have a long winter here. We have really mild summers. It's quiet, it's nice town. Nice place to work. It's like a big family. It's just I don't know it's hard to explain. The togetherness, here in this community. The concern for one another's family. If there is an illness everybody seems to chip in, everybody cares.

You failed to show up at the post office to pick up your mail one day and they're calling you and are you sick and is there something we can do for you and it's just that close of a community. As in other small towns, everyone knows his or her neighbors and residents support each other in time of need. But because Gilchrist is privately owned, the people here enjoy other benefits. The timber company picks up the garbage, pays for the water and sewer and provides free fire protection for the town. Rents are low, between 35 and 90 dollars a month, depending on the size of the home and if any repair is needed there's a village maintenance crew that will deal with the problem. People that live in say, Bend, or Klamath, or Eugene, if they want a plumber, they have to call a plumber and they have to pay the plumber, say 25-30 dollars an hour to get out there. Here they don't have to, all they have to do just call us, we go do it and the company does it for them no

charge. Bud Smallwood and Art Sherman are employed by the timber company to serve as a kind of public works department for the community. Although residents here receive many free services. The tradeoff is that the people have no representative government or other form of local control. In Gilchrist the company decides what's best for the town. You can't have everybody in town trying to run it. So we have to have a head to it. (inaudible) As long as it is a company town, I think the management must be the head. So I'd say let them run the town, and we abide by the rules as best we can. The man who runs the town and is president of the timber company is Frank R. Gilchrist. Historically the Gilchrist family has been very generous to its workers and like his father before him, Frank has earned respect by dealing honestly and fairly with everyone in the community. Not much has changed since we've been here since '38, we've raised the rent a couple of times. I think but it's still pretty cheap compared to other places, and we

hope the people we have working for us like it here. And evidently they do, or they wouldn't be doing as good job as they do. I'd say he's one the best landlords, I don't think he even realizes that he is a landlord. I think he's just one of one the people in the community and that's just how he lives. I think he controls people more by respect than by bossing them. Most everybody here seems to be pretty well happy with what's going on and we have a pretty good rumor mill around here to find out what's going on. We keep track of that and basically if there's a problem we try and take care of it right away. The Gilchrist Timber Company employs more than 200 union workers, and while other small mills in Oregon have been forced to close during a slowdown in the lumber industry this mill has continued to run without any major layoffs. Frank Gilchrist, who suffered a serious car accident a couple of years ago, has entrusted the daily operation to his boyhood friend from Mississippi, Charlie ?Shotz?, whose decisions to modernize have helped the

company through the recession. Our timing in building a new mill was very good and it's worked out well for us. Overall we've run a pretty efficient operation. That all helps when times get tough. [sawmill sounds] The new computerized lumber mill, which cost more than 12 million dollars, processes about 40 million board feet of ponderosa pine annually. This advanced technology has allowed Gilchrist to stay competitive in recent years by cutting down on waste and increasing the yield. Computer's doing most of the decision. All I'm doing is just watching the log in process- seeing it's cut right. I don't think a guy could find a better place to work. We're working when a lot of people aren't. While computerized equipment and laser-assisted saws have contributed greatly to the efficiency of the milling operation,

management has been able to keep costs down by cutting trees from their own lands when the price of government timber goes too high. Another reason the company's continued to be profitable is that Frank Gilchrist has insisted on a superior product. He wants our lumber to be just a little bit better than everyone else's. I think that has a lot to do with us being able to sell our lumber when other people couldn't. [truck sounds] The pine lumber produced at the Gilchrist mill is used primarily for furniture, paneling, and decking and is shipped to markets all over the United States. Most of the company's customers have remained loyal over the years because they are pleased with the quality of the wood and they like the way Gilchrist does business. We never have tried to take advantage of anybody. We've always tried to tell people what they were going to get from us when they bought our lumber and we're very proud of our product. [truck horn sounds]

In order to facilitate distribution to national markets. Gilchrist Timber owns and operates the Klamath Northern Railroad. Ten miles of private track connect the lumber mill to the Southern Pacific rail system. And just recently the company retired its old steam engine and paid cash for a brand new diesel locomotive. Over the years the timber operations continued to be profitable and the Gilchrist management credits much of this success to employees who are content with their jobs. I think maybe if anything has been successful around here we have a bunch of hardworking men. We're all dedicated to what we're doing and they all do a good job at it. I don't think that the company's ever tried to take advantage of anybody or intentionally mistreat them- we always try to be fair. They do have a good deal here as far as a place to live. The company has made quite an effort to keep the townsite attractive. Employees of the lumber mill are well

paid and the company has gone to great lengths to take care of people's needs and to create a pleasant atmosphere in Gilchrist. But some residents feel that there are dangers in becoming too dependent and that living in a company town removes many of the incentives for people to take care of themselves. The new minister of the Methodist church ?Kristen Birchard? thinks that life in Gilchrist is too insulated from changes that are happening in the rest of the world. The pattern where the men work in the mill and the women stay home and raise the children is far more pervasive than you even notice when you first hear. But to be a single woman just leaves me out of most everything and unless I make a real attempt to include myself. And that for me makes Gilchrist a hard place to get to- to feel at home in. When we first moved here the town was, well it was like a picture postcard. The lawns were immaculate, people had pretty flowers. You did not find any trash around. Now it seems like people

don't care. But you know, well somebody else will do it if I don't do it. It's real obvious to see how people wouldn't have to become competent handy men and women because they don't have to fix things in their houses very much. But that- that isn't really the issue in Gilchrist. It's more a question of how do you keep the 20th century at bay? How do you keep the outside world from- from really being something you have to deal with? 'Cause you don't have to deal with it here. And as- I think as long as the mill's working then we can just pretend that it's not out there. Although the company town in America may be an old fashioned idea the concept is alive and well in Gilchrist, Oregon. Here the timber company has gained the respect of both workers and residents. And although the Gilchrist family controls their town the people don't seem to want it any other way. I don't think they look at it as a company town because things are not wrong here on those basis. It's not 16-tons and what-a you get, here you know.

People have their own way. I think it's great. I wouldn't want to move somewhere after living here. Really content. It's an unusual experience being he- you have to be here and work here and live here to understand it. In these times of high unemployment Gilchrist may look like a wonderful place to live but there is rarely a job opening and people are not encouraged to come looking for work. Tourists are always welcome though and if the mill continues to do as well as it has done in recent years this company town will be around for a long time. What grabs your attention when you walk past a newsstand? The headlines or the pictures? There are of course many ways to communicate but one of the hardest and least appreciated is the news photo. So tonight we'll take a look at two professionals who are involved in snap decisions every day. Danna Garrett narrates. [Camera Shutter Sounds] A good photojournalist is a good journalist first. You're doing

approximately what the reporter is doing is- you're taking visual notes. You're involved in news and your tool is photography. And it's a different language than writing no doubt. I'm a witness for a quarter of a million readers daily and a half a million Sunday give or take a few thousand readers of The Oregonian. I'm out there translating events and things that they should know into things they're going to see in the paper. You look at it from that perspective, you certainly can't take a very light hearted casual approach to it. I work with a newspaper because I think that that is probably one of the most important mediums within any community. And it's a service that I'm performing for the community. What I'm looking for is something that interprets the event or the subject that I am shooting. [Inaudible] These kids are obviously involved in that, but at the same time they're involved in a very adult kind of pastime, they're still kids. They're just allowing the public to share a part of

being young again and so totally absorbed what in they're doing. So you establish what it is and then you start exploring that a little bit. When you're shooting a picture story you have to be very aware of the different pictures that are going to be important to telling the story. In the case of, say, the railroad story that we did, we want to show the old employees. We want to show the area that we are really talking about. We want to capture some of the nostalgia and flavor of the Portland Terminal Railroad Company. In order for the photographer to have the pictures necessary for a picture page, he or she is constantly changing their vantage point; shooting the same shot horizontally and vertically because it isn't until the actual layout process that they will know which photo, in what format, will work. Because of that,

it's not unusual for the shooter to use up 10 rolls of film to get just the right combination of photos. [Photographer taking photos] And we would like to thank the people at Tapestry for providing us with this brief look at photo journalism. That was just a portion of their report. For a complete picture of the art scene in Oregon and Washington, watch Tapestry Wednesday nights at 10 P.M. on this station. And that's all the time we have for Front Street Weekly tonight. Until next week good night.