a i r B e k a L t a The S DAHLGREN RESIGNS LAKERS MAKE IT 3-1 TUBE-TIED 2 other W. Jordan officials also quit B-1 Beat Pacers 120-118 in overtime C-1 Making TV a plus D-1 ~ une Jtah’s Independent Voice Since 1871 ‘Volume 280 Number 62 ©2000, Salt Lake Tribune COOPER CAPER Thought to Be A Fable, Skull Could Be Clue THE SEATTLE TIMES SEATTLE — Grandmothers have stories, secrets really, that children and grandchildren sometimes don’t believe. Elsie Rodgers’ story was that she founda skull on the Columbia River in Washington,the teeth worn but intact, as she searched for petrified wood. But Ty Vetter never believed his grandmother. “She told family members about it, but it was just one ofGrandma’s fables,” Vetter said.“We never believedher.” Butwhenrelatives cleared out Rodgers’ house in Cozad, Neb., after her death May 26, they found a skull wrapped in a plastic bag anda brown paper sack,sitting in a hat_box on thefloor ofher garage attic. Now federal officials are investigating whethertheskull is that of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a Boeing 727 in 1971 and jumped out over the Columbia River with $200,000, never to be seen again. The FBIplans to use DNA analysis to compare the skull to physical evidence left by the infamous sky- Telephone numbers listed on A-2 Study: Utah Consumers Vulnerable Group says Questar-authored law leavesutility ratepayers with someofleast protection in nation | BY LESLEY MITCHELL THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE BY BENJAMIN SHORS 143 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 THURSDAY,JUNE 15, 2000 2 A controversial law drafted primarily by one ofthe state’s largest utilities leaves Utah with oneof the nation’s weakest programs designed to ensure utilities do not gouge consumers, a new study shows. The study, compiled by the Office of Legislative Research andGeneral Counsel in cooperation with the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, suggests House Bill 320 passed by the 2000 Legislature severely weakens a strong utility Questar Corp., abolishes the Committee of ConsumerServices, a small independent state agency that represents the @ Property owners’rights AS @ Election-yeartax cuts A-7 B® Anend to cash child-care payments A-7 interests of small businesses andresidents in utility rate cases. Questar’sintent was to revamp whatit considers to be an adversarial system that pits consumers against utilities. consumer advocacy program. “We hope that Utah’s Legislature will realize this is a foolish bill that will hurt Utah consumers,” said Charlie Acquard, executive director ofthe National Association ofState Utility Consumer Advocates in Washington, D.C.“This isa real shame.” The measure, written by natural-gas But consumer advocates, outraged by the bill’s passage in the Legislature’s final hours, say the committee has helped pre- ventutilities from overcharging ratepay- eared, spokesman for the FBI in5e“She may have stumbled across an old Indian burial ground. She may have found a missing hiker. . The possibilities are infinite,” Lauer said. The skull is being sentto the FBI in Washington,D.C., where it will be carbon-dated. The dating can’t give an exact numberof years since death, butit can provide an approximation. “We've got to know howold the skull is,” Lauersaid. “It could be 2,000 years old.Butif it’s 15 years old, well, that certainly tweaks our curiosity.” The FBIcontinues to investigate aboutfive serious leads a year in the Coopercase, from people who turn themselves in claiming to be Cooper to others who make deathbed confessions. An importantbutmissing fact in the Cozad case is where along the 1,200-mile Columbia Riverthe skull was found. In 1980,$5,800 of the cash Cooper took from the plane was found on the shore of the river northwest of Vancouver, Wash., and traced to the skyjacking by serial numbers. Therest has never been found. “We don't knowif the skull was found anywhere near the area,” said Larry Holmquist, spokesman for the FBI in North Platte, Neb.“It could have been hundreds ofmiles away.” The FBI will interview relatives to try to pinpoint where the skull was . Vetter said his grandmother had good intentions in keeping the skull and a 4- to 6-inch bone also found in the hatbox. “She thought she was giving these bones a better resting place than along a river.” Ann Landers D-7 Asimov C14 Astrology _C-13 Business B4 Classifieds _C-® Comics Editorials Movies Obituaries Puzzles Sports A-22 os C8 C12 ci _—B-6 Programs Weather: Sunny, turning coolerAe will no longer meet minimum qualifica: tions to be a memberof the National aa ciation of State Utility Consum See NEW UTILITY LAW,Page A6 God Wants Male Pastors, Baptists Say Womenshould notlead congregations, sect declares COMBINED NEWS SERVICES ORLANDO,Fla. — Risking a widersplit in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention declared Wednesday that womenshould no longer serve as pastors. The so-called statementoffaith is not binding on congregations,so the effect on the Southern Baptists’ 1,600 or so clergywomen — about 100 of whom are PRACT News Celebrate 5 ‘First Deseret News building and press pastors leading congregations — is unclear. But some members warned that congregations will quit the 15.9 millionmember denomination over this, just as some did when the Southern Baptists declared two Sesquicentennial ae years ago that wives should “submit graciously” to their husbands. The revised Faith and Mes- LDS Church-owned paper sage statement was approved in a show of hands by the thou- reflects history of West; meeting. “Southern Baptists, by practice as well as convic- first issue predates Utah tion, believe leadership is male,” said the Rev; Adrian Rogers, chairman of the drafting committee. As they reviewed their efforts, leaders of the denomination declared victory in a 20-year battle to makestrict, literal interpretation of Scripture the BY WILL BAGLEY SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE The newspaperbusinessin the Great Basin began 150 years ago today when the first 220 copies of a “small weekly sheet, as large as ourcircumstances will permit,” rolled off the press of Brigham H-Young in GreatSalt LakeCity, as the 38-year-old town was known atthe time. Thefirst headlinein the Deseret News of June 15, 1850, proudly displayed its motto: “Truth and Liberty.” The prospectus of the eight-page, 10by-7%-inch tabloid announced that copies cost 15 cents, or $2.50 for a six-month subscription, “invariably paid in advance” (and usually paid in produce). The editor urged subscribers to save and bind their copies so “their children’s children may read the doings of their fathers, which otherwise may be forgotten.” The Deseret News has been a part of the history of the Westever since. The paper’s birth even preceded the existence of a place called Utah,forits first issue appeared three months before President Fillmore signed bill creating the Utah Territory. Newspapers had been part of life in the American West since 1813, when test of Southern Baptist faith. They pointed out proudly that their campaign runs counter to the direction of virtually every other Christian denomination in the United States. “I don’t think the debate is over, but among Southern Baptists, [it has] been won,” said Richard Land, a senior denominational official who helped draft the new Baptist Faith and Message statement: Critics — who were few at the meeting — called it | Old Deseret Newsoffice with tithing office at Hotel Utahsite Mlustration by Rhonda Hailes Maylett/The Salt Lake Tribune 1 The irrepressible rival A-10 Jose Alvarez founded El Mejicano in the Spanish province of Nee And Mormon adventurer Sam Brannan printed the prospectus of San Francisco’s first gazette, The California Star, late in 1846, several years before the birth of the Deseret News. But no newspaper west of the Missouri River has endured longer than the Deseret News. And few journals in the United States can lay claim'to a more colorful history. a victory for fundamentalism. Nowhere is the growing gulf between Southern Baptists and the nation’s other leading Protestant churches more obvious than on the issue of female pastors. Throughout the 20th century, Pentecostals, Meth- odists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians and others opened up congregational leadership to wom- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been in the newspaper business since June 1832 when W.W.Phelps published The Eveningand Morning Star in Independence, Mo., “about120 miles westofany press in the state.” In the spring of 1847, Young ordered Phelps to buy a press for the settlement the Mormons planned to establish in the West. That summer Phelps borrowed $61 from Alexander Badlam, But only the Southern Baptist Convention has moved to bar women from positions they had previ ously been allowed to hold — a moveofficials said See DESERET NEWS,Paige A-10 Sce BAPTISTS,Page A-8 Korean Leaders Pledge to Seek Reunification Considering that North and South Korea remain technically at war, the scene was taking. As photographers apictures, the two SEOUL, South Korea — The leaders of the two (Ststhe held hands like long-lost brothers. first time, division. MORE ON THE WEB @ Web Links @ PastStories sands of delegates at the denomination’s annual BY FRANK LANGFITT ‘THE BALTIMORE SUN INDEX states that have strong programs repre: the past 10 years. BIRTHDAY NEWS Officials declined to say whatthe physical evidence was,butthey said the skull could be used to determine the gender,race and approximate timeofdeath. Vetter, a barber from Imperial, Neb., turned the ausoreto eal police We er, who was 85 when she die died, apparently had nevertold anyone where she put the skull, ehh only that she had found it along the Committee shows Utah has been oneof 40 senting consumerinterests in utility-rate cases. Butifthe bill is allowed to take effect July 1, 2001, Utah will become one of a handful ofstates with weak programs. In fact, once HB320 takes effect, Uta ers by hundreds ofmillions of dollars over jacker. lumbia Riverin the early ae The chances Thestudypresented to the Legislature's Public Utilities and Technology Interim dawn ar boas bor veocsiellistion, cooperation and unification is breaking. “This is something that we could not even dream about until a short while ago,”he said. “Itis time for us to heal the wounds we have inflicted on each other.” ‘The two Koreas split 65 years ago when tho United States and the Soviet Union the peninsula at the end of World War II. the See KOREAN,Page A-B en, About 10 percent of mainstream churches are led by women,according to a 1998 study. Some other Christian branches, including Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and conservative Protestants such as Missouri Synod Lutherans, have for centuries limited ordination to men, and with it pastoral authority.