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Show Vernal Expre Wednesday, August 26, 1992 13 BMPii0fi One in a million chance given to local woman by Melanie Morrison Lifestyle Writer Having an article appear in a major ma-jor daily newspaper about someone is a treat, but finding an article and picture on the front page, in a box, next to a picture of Barbara and George Bush accepting the Republican nomination for president, presi-dent, is even more exciting. That is where an article and picture appeared ap-peared about Vernal resident Mary Stringham in the Thursday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune. Ms. Stringham was in Salt Lake City over the July 24th weekend and had attended a performance of Les Miserables at the Capitol Theatre. She stayed at Little America Hotel, the same place she stays on every trip to Salt Lake City. She had gotten dressed up, went to dinner and then to the showing. She put on her jewelry, including a ring she had designed that included stones from her deceased mother. "It has a potpourri of stones set on it," Ms. Stringham said. "It is not worth much monetary value, but is very sentimental to me." "I don't wear the ring all the time, in fact very seldom. I only wear it for special occasions." During breakfast the next morning, morn-ing, after a great show the night before, be-fore, Ms. Stringham looked down on her hand to discover the ring missing. She tried to remember if she had taken it off anywhere and thought back to all the places she had been the night before. "I struggled to be logical; trying to remember everywhere I had been. I felt like the last time I had seen the ring was at dinner the night before," Ms. Stringham explained. She rushed to her room, and with the assistance of the executive lit - VENUSSA BROOKS, 17 month old student of peg to show coordination, among other skills. She Eunice Zee-Chen places one ring at a time on the is a student at the Uintah County Preschool . Youngsters needed for screening to establish normal standards in BINS The Psychological Corporation of San Antonio, Texas is developing two tests for children birth through 24 months. They are looking for children to participate in standardization standard-ization testing of the Bayley Infant Ncurodcvelopmental Screen (BINS) or the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-Second Edition. Eunice 2fce-Chcn, M.S., O.T.R., program director of outreach clinics of Western Rehabilitation Institute, and the only normatic data collector in Utah, will conduct the screenings in the Uintah County Preschool Services office at 671 West 100 North in Vernal. Chen is an occupational occupa-tional therapist contracted through the Uintah School District. "It is important that Utah is represented repre-sented in these screenings. Children from every region of the country will be tested," Chen said. Over 6,000 children will be screened for the Psychological Corporation. "These are not tests that will give parents scores of individual chil housekeeper, the two tore the room apart looking for the lost heirloom. Ms. Stringham remembered that she had taken a bag of trash out of her car the night before and placed it in a trash can outside her room. The two women proceeded to go through the trash can and discovered discov-ered that the can had already been emptied that morning. Ed Box, general manager of Little America Hotel, was told of the lost ring. He in turn notified John Stoner, head of security in the hotel. Stoner, a 35 year veteran of the Salt Lake Police Department, gave Ms. Stringham a one in a million chance of ever finding the ring again. That didn't stop the hotel from asking two maintenance men, William Chase and Larry Dewsnup, "It is not worth much monetary value, but Is very sentimental to me. ft to dive into 7,000 pounds of hotel trash to look for the ring. They were caught at the city landfill land-fill just as they were getting ready to dump the large truck carrying the hotel's garbage. Box didn't think the two men would even have a chance to locate the ring in the 3-12 tons of compacted garbage. Ms. Stringham explained to the men what other trash was in the sack she threw away. They all knew the task was not going to be easy because the way they understood it, the ring WMmmMsmmmmsmm dren," Chen explained. 'The results will be used to establish a new 'norm' to be used in the future for diagnosis." The purpose of the studies is to "test the test" and to find out which test items are most appropriate for the child's age group. Based on the results of these studies, the Psychological Corporation will develop de-velop scores that show how typical children perform on these tests. Children tested will reflect different ethnic groups, economic groups and regions throughout the country. (It is important to note that the tests are not psychological but physical.) In many cases, the examiner watches as the child plays with toys and looks at pictures. Young children chil-dren will follow simple directions while playing with toys and naming pictures. Older children will talk about pictures, repeat simple sentences sen-tences and repeat a story. Basic communication skills are tested with infants. The examiner was loose in the outside trash bin. Dewsnup, the maintenance man who had emptied the can, said he could remember that he didn't tie the bag up because it wasn't completely com-pletely full. "I told the boys to go out and make an effort to find the ring," Box explained. "But I knew there wouldn't even be a chance of them finding it." In the heat and stench of the landfill, land-fill, Chase and Dewsnup opened the truck bed and took out the debris, piece by piece, spending hours before be-fore spotting the shiny gold ring amongst all the compacted debris. Ms. Stringham had left the hotel headed for Vernal before the two men found the ring. "I cried the whole way home," she said. "I just knew I would never see it again. I even made my mind up that it was gone forever." Around 11 p.m., after arriving back in Vernal, the telephone rang. Ms. Stringham picked up the phone, and the person on the other end said, "Is this Mary Stringham?" She replied yes to their question. The voice on the other end continued, contin-ued, "Ms. Stringham, we have found your ring." She said, "You've got to be kidding. kid-ding. I don't believe it This is truly a miracle." They made arrangements for the ring to be placed in the vault in the hotel until she could make another trip to Salt Lake City. Stoner told her that he would mail it, but she felt retrieving it in person would definitely be safer. It wasn't until last Wednesday that schedules could be arranged to make the trip to Salt Lake City to get the ring. "I really wanted to do something will observe how babies respond to different sounds and produce sounds. The examiner will also observe ob-serve how the baby watches and interacts in-teracts with others. The parent is encouraged to remain re-main in the room during the screening. screen-ing. Very young children, especially, are more relaxed when a familiar person is nearby. The examiner may ask the parent to participate in testing test-ing if he or she thinks the parent is more likely to obtain a response from the child. Children in six age groups are needed. The male or female fe-male child must be 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months or 24 months old at the time the test is administered. The child must have been delivered between 37-42 weeks in gestation with no difficulty. For more information about BINS, or to schedule an appointment during dur-ing the month of September, contact Uintah County Preschool Services at 789-5409. nice for the hotel," she said. With that in mind, she decided to compose com-pose a 'Letter to the Editor' of the Salt Lake Tribune. Ms. Stringham walked into the news room of the Tribune and asked for the Editor. She handed the letter to him and he put it down saying, 'This is a news story." A reporter and photographer were called to talk to her and take the pictures. "It happened so fast," Ms. Stringham said snapping her fingers, fin-gers, "just like that. Before I knew it the pictures were taken and I was retelling the details of the story." The next day, her picture and story appeared on the front page. "I really didn't expect to see it where it was," she said. "In fact, I looked completely through the paper pa-per then decided that it wasn't there; that maybe it would be in on another anoth-er day. I completely overlooked the front page and went straight to page two, turning each one until the end." When she got to the hotel to pick up the ring, Chase and Dewsnup were called into Stoner's office. She thanked each one personally for taking tak-ing the time and effort and for caring car-ing about her and the loss. She also gave each one a "token of my appreciation." ap-preciation." She explained that there was no way she could place a value on such a find. No amount of reward re-ward would ever cover the hassle the two went through to find the heirloom. "What has impressed me the most about this is that I know there are still people out there who care; that will take their time and go beyond the call of duty. They could have not looked for the ring and just told everyone they had. But instead, they looked through all the trash and found it." In addition to the front page of the Salt Lake Tribune, the story was re- 'Teacher's by Jan Petroni Brown At some time every student has probably wished he could somehow make the school principal disappear. For students at Naples Elementary t School that wish was realized not long ago, as they watched Dr. Larry Klein float away in a hot air balloon. bal-loon. During the Dinafloat annual balloon bal-loon rally in Vernal, balloons were tethered at each of the area schools so that students could get a close-up glimpse. As the Naples students and staff encircled the brightly- colored envelope, Klein made a casual commentone com-mentone that would change his life. "I mentioned that quite a few people peo-ple would probably like to see the principal float away," said Dr. Klein. That notion sparked the curiosity of the balloon pilot, who decided to let the students determine the fate of their beloved principal. "Every hand went up," said Dr. Klein. "They were ready to see me go." Dr. Klein, who remembers being "really apprehensive," had two questions for the pilot before he boarded the small wicker basket. "I wanted to know what was holding hold-ing that thing together and where the trapdoor was," he said. After a 30-minute ride above Naples that Klein describes as "an experience like no other," he was returned safely to the ground. The principal was readily welcomed wel-comed back to school by staff member mem-ber Floyd Farnsworth as he announced, an-nounced, "Say hello to Toto everyone." every-one." The mood, however, was not so lighthearted among some of the younger members at Naples. "A few of the kindergartners were crying," said Dr. Klein. "When they lost sight of the balloon, they thought I was gone forever." Two years later Dr. Klein prefers not to be a passenger in a hot air balloon. These days he'd rather pilot pi-lot his own balloon. Last month he safely executed his first solo flight in his multi-cckred balloon, named "Teacher's Pet." A calm, clear June Saturday XL IP " o n - I: V ... I Photo by Melanie Morrison. MARY STRINGHAM is thankful that two Little America employees had a good eye and a lot of perseverance. She found herself on the front page of the Salt Lake Tribune last week, next to a picture of the First Lady and President, with a tale of heroics. told on several of the Salt Lake ra- dio stations during the day. According to Stringham, Stoner said that in all his years in police Pet' to soar proved an excellent day for the flight. And landing at the Vernal Cemetery, although an unlikely place, eliminated the need for pre-approval pre-approval from property owners. "I didn't think anybody would mind if we landed there," said Jeannie, Dr. Klein's wife. As her husband's "chaser," Ms. Klein is supportive of her husband's passion pas-sion something that surprised Klein. When a balloon dealer in Grand Junction, Colo, called Klein last year with a "great deal on a balloon," bal-loon," he realized his dream might be short-lived. "I thought Jeannie would put the kibosh on the whole thing and I'd DR. LARRY Klein's new interest, hot air ballooning. Teacher's Pet will be seen in the upcoming Dinafloat balloon rally. work and security, he has never seen anything more amazing than this find. Stoner told her, "This is one for the record books." in festival have to go back with my tail between be-tween my legs," he said. To the delight of her husband, Jeannie has no intention of spoiling Klein's enthusiasm. "It's good, clean fun," said Mrs. Klein, a first grade teacher at Ashley Elementary School. She likes the idea of finding a sport that she and her husband can share. "We all have a fantasy about doing do-ing something, but we know we'll never do it," said Klein. The step in making his fantasy come true has been made easier, Continued on page 17 4 1 i mi ii i li i mill in |