Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1960)
CD O O O 14 MAIL TRIBUNE, Mfdlortl, Or. p JWSi Si rf t f-jfvf AMI rV?f vVri If HOME TOWN HERO Whatever he may be to the rest of the world, Francis Powers, pilot of the lost U2, is a hero in his home town of Grundy, Va., in the extreme west ern part of the Virginia mountains. His father, Oliver Powers, who says proudly that his son was a "daddy's boy" supplied these pictures of the pilot. At lelt, Powers U2 Spy Pilot Subject Prayers at Editor' note: This If the first of three dlspatrhei on the life of rrsncls I'oweri, the UZ pilot now in the hinds or the Russians. By JACK V. FOX Grundy, Va. - IUPD - The school day of the seventh grade class of Mrs. Mary Meade in Grundy HiRh school these spring mornings begins with a prayer for Francis Gary Powers. O Whatever he may be to the rest of the world, the 30-year-old pilot of the lost U2 is a hero in his home town here in the extreme western point of the Virginia mountains, t ' Francis left Gundy High in 1046. He had gone to grade schtjil in nearby Harmcm, a hamlet so small it isn't on the maps. His family home was there (five daughters and the one boy) and his dad had a ramshackle shoe repair shop on the roa'j twisting through the steep valley. ' The boy loved to hike, like the mountain men before him. There is a beauty in these hills, but it is stained with coal mine outcropping, sour ed with poverty and plagued by sudden lorranls, You can Ead the grimly humorous hatred of th floods in the names - Dismal river, Con trary creek. An ambitious young man has to burst out of these sur roundings. One out of evern seven families has moved from the area in the past 10 years. Francis Powers broke the bonds and, in so doing, may have forfeited his life. . Dr. John T. Holland, pastor of the Baptist church, summed up the feeling in his sermon last week when he wondered that a "child snuggled down In these mountains" had been chosen by fate the instrument that led to collapse of the summit conference and made Powers Rie best known Amer ican spy since Nathan Hale. That word "spy," ionc to avoid here. It falls in about the same class as "revnooer." Remarkably, the lnil time most people heard of this area was the case of Cpl. Ed Dick enson of Crackers Neck, Va., the first of the Korean turn coats who came home to courtmartial and prison. Congratufations . . . ; "DICK" HOUSE FRED GATTER FRED BRENNAN On your0achievements in your recent examination foj Certified Insurance WE WELCOME YOU TO THE GROWING LIST OF f rf I T0UW W'iif- I I fsimiJJl AGEKT I lssssassssM Grace Holmes Cole Holmes THE R. A. HOLMES AGENCY (Since 1909) Wcdnudiy, June 1, 1960 is shown just before lie went into the Air Force. He was hiking with his father outside Pound, Va., when the photo was taken. At center, he is shown holding a fish that he caught in Tunjtey. At right, he shown while visiting home during (jme off from his job with Lockheed. (UPI Telephoto) Hometowft These are proud people and they are proud of Francis. The boy has long been gone but he is remembered and loved. Whatever he did, they say, he did for his country. Digging into the past of Francis Powers brings again nd again the impression that he would seem the most un likely for a cloak and dagger role, that of the adventurer. He was shy, almost to the point of painful bashfulness. He avoided girls. The high school dating pasttime was necking in a drive-in movie but Francis stayed with the boys. A college cla.ssnv.te says young Powers never had a date during his four years in colfyge. He was a fair athlete, not a star. He played football in high school, moving 'ron guard to halfback In his senior year because of his swiftness afoot. In college he went out only for track. His grades were fair - he finished, coincidentally, 22nd in a class of 71 in high school and 22nd in a class of 59 at Milligan colloge. His Grundy High school vearboSk is revealing. There are none of the wisecracks and remembrances of esca pades penned in beside the oictures of his classmates. Only formal best wishes anoj signatures with the exception of one ironic comment: "Best of luck to a fast runner. Billy Glass." He enlisted In the Air Force because he was bored, was about to be drafted and his attempt to get a Coast Guard Academy appointment had not come through. Up to that time his horizons had been bound to the area around his birthplace in Jen kins. Ky. He went to college In Tennessee less than 100 miles from home and hitch hiked back to his family al most every week end. There was an ironclad in tegrity about the young man. It was summeu up in a strange way by one of his classmates in high school, Mrs. William Wilt, when sl'e talked about Powers' nlleged "confession" to Soviet authorities after his U2 was downed. educated and qualified INSURANCE AGENTS Serving the Medford area OOOCECXDOCOO r 1 ' of Daily School "It's just like Francis," she said. "He would tell the truth, he had to tell e truth, no mailer what he c i r c u m -stances." The people here are praying Powers will be released alive, but most of them are bl very confident of it. The touchiest subject you can hit upon is why Powers did not take his ow(life before he was caught. "Francis must have had a reason," they say. Next: The most significant Influence in Francis Powers' life was his father; Oliver Powers says proudly his son was "daddy's boy." New way to buy tires & batteries without cash! o You dontt need a credit card! No money down! You get up to 12 months to pay! it. jr-i foi do business with your neigifborhood Union Oil Jo dealer and Union Oil stands behind everythinhe sells. (No one has a fresher stock of the finest nanfe- brand tires and batteries.) Why shop around? Drive in at the familiar sign of the 76 and say "Charge it!" o The company you trust trusts you. O Boris Pasternak Never Lined Up With 20th Century Force By United Press International Boris Pasternak was a prod' uct of pre-revolutionary intel lectual turmoil who never lined up with the forces which shaped Russia's history in the 20th century. From his days as a wealthy student to his old age in the Russia of Khru shchev he was primarily a poet. In his "To A Friend" he wrote: "The great Soviet gives to the highest passions In these brave days each one its rlghtfufeplace, Yet vainly leaves one vacant for the poet. When that's not empty, look for danger's face." The even of Pasternak's youth seem like scenes from classic Russian novels. He was born in 1890 into a wealthy family which lived in great houses near Moscow. He claimed that between the ages of 6 and 8 he constantlcon templated suicide. Father Wat Painter His father, Leonid Paster nak, was a celebrated painter; his mother,. Roza Leonid Pas ternak, a one-time concert pianist. For a period the Pas tcrnaks lived near the com poser Scraibin, who influ enced young Boris so strongly that he studied music for six years. By 1912 Pasternak had abandoned music because he 'lid not possess absolute pitch, and was settled in Moscow writing poetrg) He had taken up with a high-living Bo hemian set, and was making a name for himself as a la dies' man. Then he began traveling through Europe and stufted in Germany. Of this period he wrote: "I was completely taken up with writingoetry. Day and night and whenever a chance offered, I wrote about the sea, about dawn, about the south ern rain, about the hard coal of the Hartz." As for his participation in social issues, he once wrote of his "tupenny - ha'penny revo lutionism which went no fur- At all UNION ML SERVICE STATIONS ther than Eravado in the face of a Cossack whip and its blow on the back of a padded coat." In Chemical Factory An old leg injury kept him out of World War I, but he worked during the war in a chemical factory in the U,Jls. By the 1920s his poetry had made him a literary darling. By the5'30s and the start of Stalin's pmfe Soviet pub lishers wereo longer allow ed to handle his original work. PasierAak then turned his )r"pulic efforBMo trans lations. Qrle is considered to Save createc. the finest Rus sian versions of Shakespeare and the English roma.ic poets. One of the confusing aspects of his career to Westerners is that despite censorship he never abandoned the Soviet Union. A ch to his view might bQseen in the fact that hanging in his childhood home were illustrations done by his father for Tolstoy's "Resur rection," a work that first ap peared in a version sliced up by Czajist censors. oThrough much of the Stalin period he, his buxom wife and three young sons lived in near poverty in Moscow, existing on donations of food from ad mirers. Once he refused to sign a resolution approving Burglary Reported At Haupert Company Burglars broke into the Haupert ""Tractor company, 3610 North Pacific highway, Sunday night or Monday morning and took an "unde termined" amount of money from various vending ma chines, according to Medford police. Police said entry to the building was gained through a door in the rear of the build ing. Besides breaking into vending machines, the bur glars also broke a window into the parts room, police said. the Stalin purges. Of this in cident he wrote: "It was, I was told later, my colleagues who saved me indirectly. No one dared to report to the hier archy that I hadn't signed." Learned of Nobel Prize He never did join his col leagues who followed the turns of the Marxist line. But for many years before his death he lived with his wife in a quiet village called F reaiKino, is miles irom Mos cow, without luxury but far from poverty. He made money on his translations, and spent his time writing and philosophizing, jvith his many fricwls. & It is here he received the news Nov. 23, 1958 that he had suddenly become an inter national political figure be cause he was awarded the Nobel prize for his novel "Doctor Zhivago," apparent ly a semi - autobiographic work. The politically-minded were building him up is I rallying point against Marx ism when, just six days later, he announced he was refusing the prize because $ pressure from his government. 0 Pasternak continually knocked down notions that he was leading a political move ment. He complained that the Western press quoted the few portions of his work which criticized the Soviet system and ignored the rest. He in sisted that he be numbered not among pticians but among artists. This is how he described his work: "We take . people as our symbols so as to overQist them with weather, set them in their natural surround ings. And we take weather, or what is one and same, na ture -(y that we may over cast it with our passion. We drag everyday things into prose for the sake of poetry. Wo. entice prose into poetry forthe saljj of music. This, when, in the widest sense of the world, I call art, set by the clock of the living race which strikes with the generations." Set of i: GOODYEAR or FIRESTONE or V. S. RUBBER NYLON WHITKWALL TIRES f On or mart of theat brand auiilaois at atl Union Oil dralert.) On approved credit u low u $38 a month ( intludwg ftuMj wit A Union's It Month Plan Psrir of ; GOODYR3R or FIRESTONE or U. S. RUBBER NYLON BLACKWALL TIRES On approred credil a low u $59 month (including bum, ptui rtranpabl tirttl urith Union' $ Month Plan State Asked to Landscape Islands Medford Parks and Recrea-1 tion Director Robert Haworth sai today that his depart ment has sent a letter to the state highway commission asking that it pay for l?sjj( scaping of two IrafficQlands located on Eighth St., a state highway. One of the islands is lo cated at the east end of the new Eight st. bridge and the other is located at the inter section of Eighth and Ring sts. It is proposed, Haworth said, that if the state witr pay fortise cost of landscaning or do Mt itself, then iSk city would provide maintenance. He said the department has not yet received a reply from th&highway commission. Landscaping would consist of plantingrigrass and other Volants which would not inter riere with a driver's vision, he said. Suspension of Equal Time Rule Approved Washington (UPI) A Senate commerce subcommittee has voted to suspend the radio TV "equal time" require ment for the 1960 presiden tial and vice presidential campaigns. The action yfpuld leave the networks free to set up on a voluntary basis a TV "great debate on campaign issues. I The subcommittee approv ed the suspension instead of a controversial bill which would have required TV sta tions to give presidential can didates of major parties eight hour-long intervals of free time. As approved, the bill would require the federal communi cations commission to report next March 1 on the effect of the suspension. The law re quires broadcasters to afford equal time to all candidates for public office. r4 Andy's Graduation Special B J.l J J StS. I 20'Off- Discontinued Ladies & Gents 17 J. Elgins Shock gnd water proof. Dress models. ALL FULLY GUARANTEED BUY ON ANDY'S EASY TERMS Compare with Any $75 Diamond Your Friendly Credit Jeweler 15 North Central ..-4 2 Store n GR"N r 1 Medford, Oro., I . STAMPS BUY ON m Andy.'s Ml Credit Terms ELGINS Ladies 19 J. Elgins White & yel. gold 14 K. Gold Case. sp 2 2970 Q 1 o t
