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Show LJP IBB r SPECIAL rmru - NlllIllCEn cou mm. .-9 5 9 Park City, Utah Serving Summit Count iections, 52 pages Thursday, March 28, 1991 0 'V- , THY. W '. ' -' . - : " " The Park City High School Academic Decathlon Team took first place in statewide competition last weekend in St. George. The team will travel to Los Angeles next month to participate in national competition. Coaches John Krenkel and Linda Preston, and principal Jack Dozier, are pictured with the team. Park City High brings home state gold by ROBIN PORTER Record staff writer Park City High School's Academic Decathlon team won first place in statewide competition competi-tion Saturday during annual college-bowl style matches in St. George, Utah. PCHS senior Brian Anderson was named Utah's Top Scholar, while fellow teammate Ryan McDaniel took second Soviet students experience schools by ROBIN PORTER Record staff writer Impressed with Park City schools' tidiness, equipment and simple but comfortable buildings, visiting Russian Rus-sian school administrators told local school board members they've been less than impressed with student dress at the local middle and high schools. At their Soviet schools, students wear uniforms and the two Soviet educators after touring Park City schools believe they'll be sticking with this tradition for a long time. Seventeen Soviet visitors arrived in Park City March 21 for a two-week two-week stay with Park City High School students as part of a direct-exchange direct-exchange program called "Project Harmony." The Soviets arrived from Krasnodar, Russia, a city of 700,000 located between the Black Sea and the country's highest mountain moun-tain range. Over the weekend 15 students and two administrators from the Krasnodar Specialized School in Krasnodar, Russia, skied Park City Ski Area several donning skis for their very first attempt at the sport. The Soviet guests, hosted by the 15 Fifteen Russian students were greeted Monday at a Park City High School assembly by Superintendent Dr. Nancy Moore. They will be attending classes with their local hosts and teaching history classes while touring the area for two weeks. 4 a ,u-- 4;:;?...-.-V' place in that category. Team Coach and high school teacher John Krenkel says the victory is made even more significant because the Alta High School team from Sandy, Utah which took second place, is the largest high school in the state. Anderson and McDaniel's scores are the highest individual scores in Utah's Academic Decathlon history, Krenkel said, Park City students who visited with them in Krasnodar during February, will stay until April 3. The exchange was organized by high school teacher John Krenkel, who chaperoned the initial voyage to the U.S.S.R. last month, and the Vermont-based Project Harmony organization. During their visit, the Soviet students and their school administrators ad-ministrators will tour Salt Lake City, Ci-ty, take the Park City Main Street historic walk, meet with city officials, of-ficials, take in a Utah Symphony concert and participate in Soviet Awareness week at Treasure Mountain Moun-tain Middle School. On Tuesday evening, they met with Superintendent Dr. Nancy Moore for a pizza party at her place. There, the Soviet administrators spoke with Park City Board of Education members comparing the two foreign school systems. Krasnodar students attend public schools six days a week, eight hours each day and are assigned between two and four hours of homework a night. Assistant principal Galina Mikhailnova told board members that Krasnodar teachers and ad U 1 V r , 1 1' ' v .1 i and the team score is the second highest in Park City team history. "It was a difficult challenge for us to beat them (Alta V Krenkel said. Alta High School has a student stu-dent population of about 2,400 in grades 10 through 12, while PCHS' population in those grades is about 350. Twenty-six high schools of all sizes competed in the state-level competition at St. ministrators were ready to go on strike before the New Year based on salary issues. U.S.S.R. inflation is at 200 percent, Mikhailnova said, and educators received a 40 percent wage hike as a result of the strike threat. She described teacher salaries there as "miserable," and said even with the 40 percent increase, in-crease, their wages still do not compare com-pare with average Soviet salaries. Local educators there plan to go on strike once more, to secure another wage increase some time during the next year, she says. Translating for Soviet principal Evtushenko Svyatoslav, Mikhailnova related their perception percep-tion that Park City educators spend more time on maintaining class control con-trol and on more frequent grading. First graders in Krasnodar receive no grades during that year. And in foreign language courses in upper grade levels, for example, students are not graded until mid-year. Mikhailnova says this creates a better bet-ter atmosphere for learning. . The Soviet school administrators also seemed concerned about environmental en-vironmental issues. Mikhailnova said the artificial lighting in Park City Ci-ty schools would be prohibited in the : i T..- v f George, and those schools represented many others that had vied earlier for the chance to compete in St. George. Park City's nine-member team, this year made-up of all seniors, will now compete in national na-tional competition April 18-22 in Los Angeles. Krenkel says that for the first time, national competitors com-petitors will be divided into two Continued on A2 Soviet Union because of student health concerns. And carpeting, because it creates static electricity, would not be favored. Svyatoslav related that he was impressed im-pressed by the collapsible lunchroom lun-chroom tables, science equipment (he taught physics), the individualized in-dividualized instruction available for handicapped students and individual in-dividual student lockers. Mikhailnova says she prefers that students wear school uniforms, as there is no visible differentiation, then between rich and poor. She described student dress at Park City middle and high schools as "unpleasant "unplea-sant to look at, sloppy." Their Krasnodar school is more formal and does not allow students to put their legs on tables, to chew gum or drink beverages during lessons. One drawback, of their system, she said is how protective they are of their children. Svyatoslav added jovially that this attitude creates "infantile" behavior up to age 30. Young Soviet adults cannot receive a driver's license until they reach 18 years of age, he added. Parents there, the two say, often interfere with teachers' methods of educating Russian students. "It is difficult to work in our school because of our parents," Mikhailnova said, "they interfere with our teaching." She says the parents supervise teachers more than the administrative board of the territory. Of the political situation in the U.S.S.R., Mikhailnova said "we worry about the absence of ideology an ideal to follow." She says the people do not believe in anything and teachers continue trying try-ing to foster a love of their homeland in students. "It is a bad moment for our country coun-try at present," she said, "We don't have democracy, we have anarchy now." Mikhailnova describes the Soviet struggle as a battle between Gorbechev and Yeltsin. She says her territory is a conservative one and believes Gorbechev has drawn up good plans, but it is not a short term road. Yeltsin is using this moment, she said, promising to change things quickly. "We don't believe they (Yeltsin's group) can do it," Mikhailnova says. Nichols waives court hearing by NICK BILLINGS Record staff writer In a matter before 3rd Circuit Judge Edward Watson in Coalville, Franc Everett Nichols, a former South Summit School District art teacher, waived the preliminary hearing March 28 on charges alleging alleg-ing sexual misconduct with his students, furthering what defense attorney Ron Yengich termed "a ongoing on-going negotiation process in this case." The 47 year-old Nichols, of Oakley, was originally brought up on four Summit County charges, including a Second Degree Felony charge of Attempted At-tempted Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child. According to the Statement State-ment of Probable Cause, filed Feb. 5 by Summit County Sherrif 's Detective Detec-tive Joe Offret, Nichols showed three students, ages 13 and 14, "a video casette movie that showed unclothed men and women engaged in various sexual acts." "The defendant," defen-dant," the statement continues, "while he was showing the sexually explicit material to a victim attempted at-tempted to touch the genitals," of the victim. In an apparent plea-bargain, Yengich told the Court that Nichols was entering a plea of guilty to the Third Degree Felony (Dealing in Harmful Material To a Minor) in ex Parkite charged with trespassing at resorts by SENA TAYLOR Record staff writer A Park City man Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges of trespassing at Deer Valley Resort after being told by resort officials that he was forbidden from skiing there after violating the ski area's rules by running run-ning a ski lesson business. Ed Pouquette, 39, will face an April 23 preliminary hearing on the charge in Park City 3rd Circuit Court, according to Assistant Summit Sum-mit County Attorney Terry Christiansen. Chris-tiansen. Christiansen also filed trespassing charges against Pouquette on behalf of the Park City Ski Area Wednesday. Wednes-day. Pouquette is expected to be arraigned ar-raigned on that charge within two weeks. Pouquette is disputing the charges, saying he is "being persecuted" by the ski areas. Conviction of trespassing carries a $500 fine. Officials from both ski areas are alleging that Pouquette is conducting conduc-ting ski lessons as a personal business, in competition with the resorts' ski schools. . "This is someone who is using our facility to run their own business," said Mark Menlove, director of communications com-munications at Park City Ski Area. Menlove said Pouquette is "teaching underground ski lessons," and is "very blatant" about his activities. "You begin to recognize someone on the mountain day in, day out, who is giving instructions to people. The problem we have is someone using us for their business and circumventing circumven-ting our ski school," said Menlove. "It's a very simple matter of what we believe is right and wrong. We are a private company doing business on private ground, and as such we have the right to deny access ac-cess to whoever we choose as long as it isn't based on religion, race or sex." When contacted by the Record, Pouquette confirmed that he received receiv-ed letters from both Deer Valley Resort and Park City Ski Area saying say-ing he was no longer welcome to ski there, and would be trespassing if he did. The Deer Valley letter, dated March 5, said Pouquette had "blatant "bla-tant and continual violations of the rules of Deer Valley," and was "forbidden "for-bidden to enter" the resort. The letter let-ter from Park City Ski Area was sent to Pouquette last December, informing inform-ing him that "until further notice Park City Ski Area chooses not to deal with you or accept you as a visitor to our resort." Pouquette was escorted off of each resort this ski season and told not to return, but he skied most recently at Park City Ski Area March 21 despite the instructions to stay away. "I don't feel it's fair," Pouquette said. "I haven't violated anything. I think I'm being discriminated against because at one time I was a ski instructor at Park City Ski Area. They ski resort officials think I'm running a business teaching lessons, and I'm definitely not doing that. I change for a dropping of the other three charges. In addition, the Summit County investigation in-vestigation uncovered a potentially similar incident in Salt Lake County, and those charges, according to Yengich, will not be filed. He indicated in-dicated that Walter "Bud" Ellet, Chief Deputy Attorney for Salt Lake County, approved this term of the settlement. April 15 is the date set for Nichols arraignment on the Summit County charges. g Nichols also faces charges in Washington County, alleging Forcible Forci-ble Sodomy and Dealing In Harmful Material, involving a 14 year-old St. George child. Yengich said that, as a result of discussion with W. Brett Langston, Deputy Washington County Coun-ty Attorney, Nichols would plead guilty to a Second Degree Felony charge, and the First and Third Degree Washington County charges would be subsequently dropped. Adkins said he was "satisfied with the resolution" and indicated that a proper settlement was neccessarily "contigent upon Ron taking care of the Washington County charges." Adkins also indicated that the settlement settle-ment forbids Nichols from teaching children again, and spares the victims vic-tims the pain of a trial. "It was obvious that he never Continued on A4 really feel I'm being persecuted against." Pouquette, who has lived in Park City for 22 years, said he taught skiing ski-ing for a total of 10 years during the time he has lived here. He says he makes a living doing freelance film and video work and construction work, in addition to selling parts for alpine slides. Asked about compensation compen-sation for helping the visiting skiers he replied, "I don't have to file a financial statement to ski anywhere." "I'm up there skiing with friends and relatives who come here to visit," said Pouquette. 'JOne time last year I rented a bus to pick up 45 people." "Pouquette denied that his involvement involve-ment with large groups of skiers constituted conducting a business, even though he often arranges dinner din-ner reservations and transportation for the visitors. Many of them are associated with a close friend of Pouquette's who is a doctor from Texas. In exchange for helping the doctor plan ski vacations, the doctor takes Pouquette on overseas trips and this year purchased a limited gold pass from Ski Utah which allows Pouquette Pou-quette to ski at all the resorts in the state. He has also received free knee surgery and dental work from some of these visitors in exchange for helping them during their ski vacations. vaca-tions. Said Pouquette, "They take good care of me and I take excellent care of them. "I'm just doing friendly things for friendly people," he continued. "We put a lot of people in ski schools at both Deer Valley and Park City Ski Area. They spend a lot of money in the city." Pouquette said ski area officials think he is "making a lot of money here," but he says, "I'm definitely not." Deer Valley's vice president of operations and general manager disagrees. "Ed comes on our premises and provides services that we provide as part of the business we are in," said Bob Wheaton. "We want to provide all our guests with the safest, most pleasant experience, ex-perience, and we feel we need to regulate who provides service on our mountain." Further, Wheaton said Pouquette has been "extremely rude and obnoxious ob-noxious toward our gfests and employees, and we have received written and verbal complaints... com-plaints... about his behavior." Pouquette denies the allegations about his behavior. "I'm the guy who says thank you every time they load they chair for me, and now they're saying I'm very abusive to Deer Valley employees and customers." Pouquette continued, "This whole thing is totally blown out of proportion. propor-tion. I'm helping these people to ski because I ski better than they do," said Pouquette. "I'm getting a bad deal here for being against the resorts, but in fact I'm bringing more people to Utah to ski than they ski resort officials can ever imagine." |