Louisiana: The State We're In; 228; Public Radio

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television. The following program is a production of Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Good evening. I'm Beth George. Welcome to this edition of Louisiana: The State We're In. This week we offer something old, something new and something very dependable. We watch a political rite of spring, visit a different sort of radio station and share in the memories of a man on his 100th birthday. Everybody sings about springtime in Paris. If not Paris, at least in the Rockies. But someone really should pen a song about springtime in Louisiana politics. As soon as the weather turns warm, the bears rouse themselves and voila another season of handshaking, debating and resolving is born. Spring is the season of visibility. After the winter doldrums, everybody suddenly is

making speeches, and obligingly most of the state's civic, social and occupational groups hold conventions at which speechmaking is a natural. The issues too come out into the open: energy, economic development, open meetings, transit. The issues are everywhere -- solidifying, clarifying, along with the views of the adversaries. Behind it all is the shadow of the session: the Legislature that convenes April 17th, facing decisions on all these issues and many more. Spring indeed may have sprung, but Governor Edwards has suggested that one freeze be continued and ordered still another. He said his freeze in state employment saved $8 million and should be placed on the law books. He also wants to extend it to departments headed by state officials. And then last week the politician in the governor's mansion sought to curtail some of the politics, prohibiting state department heads and unclassified employees from participating in election campaigns. Edwards says his order was not directed against any particular prospective candidates. It was simply a move toward more energy spent on the job and less on the campaign trail.

Tomorrow I'm going to issue an executive order which, in effect, will place all of the secretaries, undersecretaries, assistants, the commissioner of administration, the executive council, the staff and unclassified employees of the state in the same category as civil servants to avoid their involvement in any elections that will be occurring during the next two years. The reason for that is I do not wish to have anyone running for public office from a position of authority or responsibility so that he would be in a position to use the emoluments of that office to further his candidacy. Second I do not think it appropriate for a person who works for you, and in effect they do work for you, to be involved in campaigns. In some instances, on many instances, against people that you happen to be supporting. And

more important, I intend to devote the next two years making every effort to have a successful administration. And I want to make very certain that all who work for you and me in government devote their full energies and loyalties to the public's business. And therefore I have imposed upon them this obligation: that each in effect declare himself as not a candidate for any office, that each states that he will not participate in anyone's election, that each agrees he will not solicit or make contributions to anybody running for public office and will remain insulated from the campaign so that none of the emoluments of his office, none of the powers and privileges would be used in furthering anyone's candidacy. There may be a freeze on politics, but politics doesn't end with a freeze. The weather may be warmer even in the energy-dependent North, but not as heated as the

debate over energy. Last week Representative Billy Tauzin, chairman of the Southwest Regional Energy Conference, said not only that the congressional coal (???) compromises Yankee plots, that the fed's figures on oil and gas production had been manipulated to bolster Carter's energy plan. How do we know that? This slide you're looking at now, ladies and gentlemen, is a slide indicating the projections made by the computer model in December 1976 before the present administration officials tampered with it. This slide indicates, if you look on the, on the bottom line here, the continuing decline in an actual oil and gas production in this country under the present regulations. If you look at the blue area, the pi's model, the computer model 1976 December, the Ford administration projected that that

blue area would be new oil and gas production brought on board by deregulation. The yellow area on top indicating we could even achieve greater levels of projection of production if we had certain incentives built in, such as the oil depletion allowance and other incentives for discovering wells such as we've tried in Louisiana. And this, one of the most critical slides I want you to look at today, indicates what the computer did before it was tampered with. The computer proved, with proven acceptable data, that deregulation would produce for this country's needed supplies of oil and gas to take us into the next century. Governor Edwards, a vocal critic of the Carter energy plan since day one, has been going around saying that things should be better but could be worse. At any rate, he says he'll propose legislation during the session in answer to whatever gets out of Congress. If a bill is passed I may have some legislation proposed to the Legislature dealing with energy and

our use of energy; the production, transportation and revenue we deprive from it. If a bill is not passed, then clearly I will suggest to the Legislature that we restructure the severance tax on natural gas -- not to raise additional taxes, I emphasize -- but to run into a percentage of value rather than a volume level of taxation which is something that we could not do heretofore because had we done that, we would have penalized Louisiana's uses who were paying three to four times as much for natural gas as were our friends in other parts of the country. You don't hear about energy much without hearing about shortages. You don't hear much about shortages without at least a mention of mass transit. So far America's love affair with the car has prevented buses and trains from significantly cutting energy use. In Louisiana's urban areas, bus systems are always in trouble and always asking for aid. Each year the Legislature wrangles with the mass transit issue plus the central question: Should the

state get involved? The question will be asked again, as Senator Ned Randolph points out at a conference on legislative issues. The transit systems are vitally important to our urban areas. There's no question about that. I think the city of New Orleans, the downtown business district, would suffer no telling how much if it did not have buses to provide transportation for people to get there. And likewise it's true of all the cities in our state. So we see from, from the data and from, from what's going on in the transit systems that transit does provide a needed service, that transit is not a paying operation, that expansion of service means an expansion of the deficit. And even if the level of service remains constant, the level of service -- and not an expansion of the service -- but the level of service at today's level remains constant. It's grown by as much as 10 percent a year. Randolph said mass transit is good for Louisiana's economy. But who picks up the

tab for the bus systems is a subject everybody has an opinion on. There was certainly no shortage of opinions at last week's Governor's Conference on Economic Development, including a look at Louisiana from a federal viewpoint. I must tell you that in my travels through the South since I've joined the government, I've seen it -- the growth of your cities, the new construction, the new jobs and ,most important, a very good way of life. I don't think I need to recount for you the statistics on Southern growth or economic development in Louisiana. I also don't need to tell you that while the growth rate has been rapid, compared to other parts of the country, this economic prosperity has not been experienced in all places across the South and certainly not in all places in Louisiana. At the conference Lieutenant Governor Jimmy Fitzmorris saw the state's economic success as less a matter of Sunbelt philosophy than industrial incentives. Industry, he said, can hardly be expected to locate on any other basis.

Governor Fitzmorris, first what is the purpose of this conference? Well, the purpose of the conference is to try to bring together all segments of the state, the political, business and the labor segments, as well as government and private sectors, in order that we can develop a real sales program for promoting the industrial opportunities of Louisiana. Our state is blessed with many natural resources, but we've got to go out and tell the story. And this conference is a plan by which we can bring people together and let them share with us some of their thoughts, ideas, suggestions, programs, criticisms in order that we can put together our best package to promote the welfare of Louisiana. Is this sort of a coordinated effort between private industry and business and the government? Very much so. I take the position that that you've got to have three major segments. You've got to have the government. You've got to have labor, and you've got to have management -- the private sector -- working together as a team. We all may not agree all the time. But we have excellent relationships with labor in the state. We've got good productive labor. We've got capital that's willing to come here, as evidenced by the fact that last year

was our largest year with $2.3 billion of new money. Government that understands the problems of both labor and business. I think a team like that can really go forward with tremendous accomplishments. This is been a catalogue of the season's signs, but there is one more that must be mentioned. You know it's springtime when the state's laborers trip to Baton Rouge and gather under the sign of shaking hands. When Victor Bussie stands at attention during the Star-Spangled Banner surrounded by clergymen, Boy Scouts and Marines. When politicians sing their favorite tunes to the state AF of L-CIO. The state's politicians have been trying hard to make the public aware that they are being served. The public, that is, not the politicians. But for nearly six years, the public in New Orleans has been served, with few outside a small devoted audience being aware. Just about everyone knows something about public television. But progress has been slow in Louisiana towards public radio.

WWNO is beginning a new year of operations with an exciting future ahead. We celebrated our sixth birthday this month and as we start this new year, we're very close to realizing a grant of $155,000 from HEW for an increase in powe,r a new transmitter and new antenna system. But new transmitters cost a lot of money, and you can help by pledging your support now. Send us a birthday contribution and put us over the top in our fund drive this month. We must raise $70,000 locally in order to match the $85,000 allocated to us in our grant funds. None of this development will be possible without your support. Every dollar you contribute now to WWNO's transmitter fund will be matched by federal dollars and will go only towards our increase in power and new facilities. So call us today with your pledge at 283-0315. That's 283-0315. This is your National Public Radio affiliate WWNO New Orleans. Good morning. This is Saturday sampler brought to you by radio for the blind and

print handicapped. Your readers today... For those accustomed to the heavy hype and hard sell of commercial radio, the sound of a calm voice reading from a magazine may seem a bit out of place. But for six years radio listeners in New Orleans have had an alternative on the airways, WWNO-FM. The city's public radio station, designed along the lines of public television but with a far lower profile, WWNO offers Orleanians programming they won't find elsewhere: classical music, jazz, public affairs. The National Public Radio network, similar in role and scope to PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides some funding and programming to WWNO. But from its tiny studios at the University of New Orleans with its limited budget and largely volunteer staff, the station seeks to serve the community on a local level. More than half of its seven-day-a-week programming is local including reports on weather, traffic and business. The hours are often long, the rewards more often emotional than monetary. But as operations manager David Ortiz points out, WWNO is fueled by the belief that public radio is not only a

reality but something of value. Certainly anyone scanning the radio dial would have to ask why another radio station? Seemed to be a number of them in New Orleans, as in most cities of this size. First off, what is public radio? And then why? What sort of purpose does it help hope to serve? Well Public Radio first is noncommercial radio. The purpose is basically to provide a service that is not available anywhere else in this listening area. We feel that we provide programs that you just can't find anywhere else. Classical music, jazz, public affairs. These are things that people are interested in but you can't get from any other commercial outlet, certainly in town. Is a national public radio system a reality now or is it just in the developmental stages? Well it's reality. We are interconnected live by telephone lines to a network in Washington DC National Public Radio. They've been operational since March of 1971 and hopefully within the next year

we'll be interconnected by satellite. Anyone who has to put up with the jingles on commercial radio knows where commercial stations get their money. Where does public radio WWNO get its funding? We get funding from several sources. Number one, we get monies from the University. We're licensed to the LSU Board of Supervisors. We also get money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We get monies from membership and donations. Private grants. Just what sort of an audience does WWNO have, not only in terms of size, but what sort of people would listen to public radio in New Orleans? Well certainly we want our audience to be as large as it can be. We don't try to eliminate anybody from our, from our from our listenership. Our listeners tend to be people who enjoy naturally classical music, jazz and public affairs. We don't really know the exact size of our audience. We don't figure any ARB ratings although once a year Corporation of Public Broadcasting

will pay for us to be scanned. We want. We don't try to eliminate anybody. We don't want to be elitist in our programming. But and we feel that there is a larger listenership for, you know, the types of programs we do -- especially in classical music. Classical music and opera. What are the some of the future plans and goals the station has? I know there's a grant pending with HEW. Tell us a little bit about that and something about the direction the station is going to take in the years ahead. Well, we've applied to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for a grant to increase our power and to get new equipment as far as studio equipment and remote recording facilities. Right now we're trying to raise $12,000 so that we can reach our goal of about $25,500 so that we can qualify for $80,000 from HEW. When we get that money, we're going to get a new transmitter. We'll be increasing our power from our current 11,500 watts to 50,000 watts. We'll be getting a new

antenna. We'll be getting remote recording facilities and a lot of new equipment in the studio. One of the more interesting parts of the studio to me is it's rather automated nature. Tell us a little bit about how how it works. Certainly people don't, although people are important to it, they're not exactly central to every operation. It's a lot of machinery in there. There is, and the thinking when we first went on the air, we didn't have as large a full-time staff as we have now. We had a lot of students working for us and we thought that we might have better quality control of our programming if we had an automation system. We could pre-tape everything and check it. Now we're doing a little bit more of live programming, but that certainly hasn't eliminated the automation. We can still have quality control in that a producer will come in, pre-record his commentary, leave his record and scripts, and we can assemble it in a priority that we have so that we can still keep quality in the program. And by the same token, we are increasing our live programming and I think that,

you know, the mix is good. I don't really see in the future that, you know, we're going to go totally automated. We never have and I don't think we ever will. And then even the people who work here, not all are staff members. A lot of them are volunteers. Are there, are there problems with this or is it do you think it's a good way for a public radio station to work? As I understand it, we're one of the few if not the only public radio station in the country that has all volunteer producing staff. Our volunteers come from just about every aspect of life in the community. We have teachers. We have professionals, none of whom are really radio announcers. We've been very fortunate in that these people are extremely reliable, have helped us out a lot. Many of our producers have been with us for the six years we've been on the air. And although you don't have as much control over a volunteer staff as you would of paid staff, we haven't had any problems. Other cities however have had problems initiating public radio. Baton Rouge would be a

natural for it's news of state government, but the capital's plans have moved slowly since their beginnings three years ago. Recently Baton Rouge public radio was awarded an $88,000 HEW grant to get a station out of financial doldrums and onto the air. But the necessary $29,000 in matching funds have proven elusive. Decisions are still pending, not only on monetary requests, but on applications for tower and studio space. If all goes well, the state's capital may have public radio in a year. If all goes less well, it may take 18 months. And if all goes really poorly, the HEW grant will dry up less than two years from now. Radio and television, public and commercial. Computers, airplanes, automobiles, space travel, the new technology getting newer every day. Somehow all these pieces of the 20th century fit together to form the mosaics of our lives, fit together so tightly that we seldom see through them to the slower, simpler past. But if a person lives long enough, there are moments when the past becomes clear, clearer perhaps than the present. Richard Jolla is such a person. His

100th birthday party was such a moment. Tell my mother that we're part ??????????? And when the day was gone, (can't understand the words of what I think is a song) It almost have seemed a bit strange to the centenarian. After a lifetime of obscurity as caretaker of Richland Plantation, here he was not only the guest of honor at a birthday party but the target of questions from TV and newspaper reporters. In a single afternoon, more people sought his opinions, his observations, his philosophies than had probably sought them in all of his hundred years. And Jolla, surprisingly spry and lucid for his age, obviously enjoyed giving them all the performance they expected. Now you can blow it out. (two people talk over each other while he blows out birthday candles) Wonder if it didn't work or would y'all do to me? Would you whip me?

The first thing I did. I wait for my father and when I left him strumming I went to the road and wait for Mr. Wall And when I left there, I went to Captain Jim. Going to phone. I left there and I went up to Panola, just out of Ferriday. Worked on the farm for Mr. Sam Jones. Well up the road there, before you get to the ????? Road That's where we lived at four years. And I was a great ballplayer. They wanted me up on the river where Captain Jim was to play ball. I had a record for playing ball. I was a bat catcher. Memory at times played tricks on him, making seeming trivia loom large and important events fade away. But the outline was there as he spoke.

The slowdowns of shadow and light, character and action that is the plot of life itself. But you know my stand with people in this world? I don't care who know it. And I love and where we should close out to human beings. can't understand old boy. If you treat me good, you're my friend. And if I got something what help you, just yell. inaudible inaudible ??????? at St. Francisville, young Jolla felt the wanderlust of his age. The boom towns of Texas called in the '20s. So he threw in with the oilfields,

the raucous and robust world of the gushers. But by the 1940s, the quiet life of the plantation ??? so he returned to the place of his birth. You have a you have a good a good mind. If you had grown up in a different time, you could have been anything you wanted to be. Any any any feelings of of resentment that that you couldn't couldn't become all that you wanted to be? Or did you become all that you wanted to be? Would you have liked to have been something else? A doctor, a lawyer, a schoolteacher? ????????????? I've asked you by telling you this. You remember

when God sent Moses down there to get them children of Israel and lead them to the promised land? After he had told Moses what ??????????????? I am who I am. now. I've depended on what I am. And if I need a little more, I get down on my knees and the Lord brings me ?????????? How to use it and what to say. My mother and father and all their children ????????????? I'm the only one. they're gone. But I've got a greater protection than they they.

He take care of me. I ain't afraid. ???????? ??????????????????? doing this. I let Him have it. Let Him have it. Let Him have it. He served as Richland caretaker until his retirement at 97. And now lives the simplest of lives. Placing his faith not so much in his pension as in the goodness of the Lord. Belief in God, one senses, is Jolla's daily bread. As it must have been for his mother and grandmother, both of whom were slaves. Entering his hundred and first year on Earth, Richard Jolla appears satisfied with his lot. Both with the story to date and with whatever chapters remain to be written.

Jolla sings more singing singing singing Next week we'd normally hold our monthly discussion of news and trends with capital reporters, but our studios are undergoing renovations for a few weeks. So we'll continue our travels around Louisiana, looking behind important headlines, profiling interesting people. And if we have to get kicked out of our studios, who can think of a better time of year? I'm Beth George. Good evening. The proceeding was an LPB production.

Production funding for this program was provided in part through contributions to Louisianians for Educational Television.