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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
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WE WELCOME YOU TO
THE GROWING LIST OF
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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
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"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."
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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."
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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.
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