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Show AIR-POLLUTION CREDITS — BUY, SELL OR SWAP? / D-1 —_" Memorial Day Che SaltLakeTribune San Diego’s Women Firefighters Have Climbed the Ladder Killed as Copter By Tony Perry SAN DIEGO — When change came to this city’s fire department two decades ago, few would have predicted that San Diego would somedaybehailed as leader in the tough task of adding women to the all-male worldof firefighting. Thefirefighters’ labor union grumbled that women lacked the upper-body strength to do the job and could destroy the department's esprit de corps. Among other obstacles, a group of men wentto court to keep women from getting any special consideration in hiring. Despite the rocky start, female firefighters in San Diego have persisted, and now,17 yearsafter thecity hiredits first womenfirefighters, the department has set a national milestone: thefirst all-female engine company,consisting of a captain, an engineer and twofirefighters. The change at Engine Company No, 3 has its origins in a decision by city officials in the early 1970s to bow to legal and political pressure and drop thecity’s historic ban on hiring women. Thefirst batch of five female recruits flunked outof the fire academy in 1974, judged bythefire chief as physically unit. Fourofthe five failed recruits filed a lawsuit charging that their civil rights had been violated. Only after four years of controversy and legal maneuvering did womenfinally begin graduating from the fire academy. It Wasn't Easy: “Some [men]resisted the change more than others,” remembers Monica Higgins, who wasoneof the first two women hired in 1978 and has risen to become a deputy fire chief. “Some — a very few — seemedto resent us great deal. It madeit very difficult.” A fire captain, who was naked at the time, delivered a lecture to a femalefirefighter on the proper wayto clean thefire station bathroom. A malefirefighter, also naked, bargedinto the showerto join two womenfirefighters, muchto their shock. Afraid for their jobs, the women kept quiet. The incidents cameto the attention of superiors only when a malefirefighter broke the station-house code ofsilence and filed a report. At a disciplinary hearing, the firefighters’ union defended the two men by arguingthat the nudity incidents weretrifling and represented the kind of thing that should have been anticipated when the city tried to integrate an all-male environment. How things have changedin the intervening years. Although womenstill represent a small percentage of firefighters, San Diego ranks far above other cities with more politically progressive reputations. By the Numbers: Women compose 8.4 percent of San Diego’sfirefighting force (71 of 836). By comparison, women make up 2 percentof the Los AngelesCity Fire Department, less than 1 percent of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and 5 percent of the San Francisco Fire Department. Other departments have hadall-female engine companies on a temporary basis for a few days or weeks, as womenfill in for men, but the San Diego companyis the first permanently assignedall-female fire companyin the nation, according to ‘terese Floren, executive director of a Wisconsin-\.ased organization called Women in the lire Service. The four San Diego women — Capt. Linda Morse, 33; engineer Lisa Blake, 38; andfirefighters Carol Ringe, 31, and Leilani Cerruto, 30 — are assigned to Engine CompanyNo.8 at a station that has responsibility for San Diego's airport, portions of downtown and Interstate 5, the marinas, and two denseresidential areas. The assignment of four women to the same engine company, announced last week, was not done for political reasons or for symbolic impact. In fact, it occurred unintentionally through the department'’s seniority system forfilling vacancies when two spots formerly held by men became open. Still, being a pioneer brings added pressure to do well, and the four women from Engine No. 3 cheerfully accept that as inevitable. Like all engine companies at the city’s 42 stations, they work 10 or 11 24-hour shifts each month. “We're being watched and scrutinized,” said Morse. “If you wantto call that pressure, we're under pressure.” Darko Bandic/The Associated Press ” Details: C-8 go into our next step, becauseit will probably be the most important step the international community makes in this century.” Slunj, just west of the border. Ljubijankic was the most senior Bosnian governmentofficial killed in morethan three years of war. Also killed were an assistant justice minister, an official at Bosnia's Zagreb embassy, an aide to Ljubijankic and the helicopter crew, said Miranda Sidran of the Bosnian Embassy in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. On Sunday, the Serbs also shot at NATO planes and lobbed 10 shells into the U.N. “safe area” of Tuzla, decapitating one man at a bus stop and wounding another. Tuzla, a northern governmentstronghold, was the site where 71 people were killed and 151 woundedbya Serb cluster ursday. In Quake Off Russia THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW — As many as2,500 people remained trapped under the debris of wrecked buildings Sunday and many were feared dead after an earthquake flattened a town on anisland in Russia's Far East. Rescue workers reported hearing moans from underthe rubble in the town of Neftegorsk, which bore the brunt of the 7.5-magnitude quake that belted Sakhalin Island early Sunday while most residents slept. The ITAR-Tass news agency reported today that 300 people were confirmed killed in the quake, with around the same number hospitalized. The report could not be independently verified. Early today, rescuers had recovered a8 Deirdre Eitel/TheSalt Lake Tribune SEA OF COLOR le as wildflowers light up Utah’s desert. Heavy ‘A storm brews over the San Rafael Swell north of Hanksvil rainfall is feeding the sea of color, but it also is prompting flood warnings. The National Weather Service Mayon Utah record books. Story on D-4. fourth-wettest the reports that May 1995 is shaping up to be at least Utah Educators Say Spelling Wrong Can Help Kids Write By Jennifer Skordas ‘THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE T rele lic riting b cas et es god and fan et is jast a gra sport and J am riting nao. — Kylie, age 5 Kylie really likes writing. She tells the world just that in big black letters penciled into a notebook filled with stories about dinosaurs, the solar system and flowers. Herkindergarten teacher says Kylie's love of the written language is no accident. It’s due to a teaching technique called “invented spelling.” The theory is that red-pen marks, weekly tests and constant correction shouldn't be used to teach children to spell. “Telling a kid, ‘you spelled that wrong’ or ‘this doesn’t make sense’ or ‘youleft out this word’ — it inhibits fluency of cca writing,” says Cheryl Wright, an early education specialist in the departmentof family and consumersciencesat the University of Utah Instead, invented spelling encourages students to take risks, make mistakes, explore language. Teachers believe students who write without fear of correction become confident readers. That in turn leads to more reading, and conventionalspellings begin to sink in But while students are developing those skills, it is not uncommonfor parents to go bananas reading papers on “grate wite sharks” that are marked with “A” grades. Invented spelling, they worry, encourages rotten habits — and some researchers agree. W@ See SPELLING, Page A-4 The Origin of Today’s Tradition OGDEN — flagpole and a 5-foot tall monument stand on a grassy knoll in Altorest Cemetery on Ogden's south side. ‘The U.S.flag flying there today has 50 stars, thanks to the men whose names are on the monument — and the millions of other men and women who fought the Civil War, World War I, World WarII, the Korean Warand the Vietnam War Around the pole are the graves of 77 Union Army veterans who died in OF den, mag after the Civil War ended, mostly old age. The tablet reads: x, GAR, 1861-1865. Erected May a " ( fo.eo. The Bee FF] SucKle up | Sum nest fram THe flawh By The Tree | | | Notall teachers agreethat “invented spelling”is the best wayto teach children to write, explore language. 160 bodies, including those of 11 children, and found 200 peoplealive in the ruins, said Russia's Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu. Officials earlier said 70 people were confirmed killed and more than 200 were injured in one of Russia's strongest quakesever. Eleonora Budrina, a Moscow-based spokeswomanfor the ministry, said 2,500 people were unaccountedfor in the town and manywere feared deador injured. The quake, which struck the large Pacific island at 1:03 a.m. Sundaylocal time, was centeredjust offshore, nearits thinly populated northern tip. Neftegorsk, population 3,500 and located 40 miles from the epicenter, was destroyed. Othervillages were damaged Raisa Mikhailova, spokeswoman for the regional center of Okha, said 13 fivestory houses made of prefabricated blocks collapsed in Neftegorsk, burying about 3,000 people. Hundreds of those buried werelater saved, she said bytelephone Sakhalin Island, some 4,000 miles and eight time zones east of Moscow, is rich in natural resources — oil, gas, coal, timber and fish. Home to 750,000 people, it was closed to foreigners for decades because ofits sensitive military bases. Soviet authorities wary of possible spying ordered a fighter jet to shoot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it strayed over the region on Sept. 1, 1983 All 269 people aboard, including 61 Americans, werekilled. The jet fell into the Sea of Okhotsk off theisland's southwestern coast. MEMORIAL DAY Post-Civil War Observance Was By Tom Quinn WEATHER: Possibility of » thundershow- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Bosnia's foreign minister and three colleagues were killed Sunday when rebel Serbs shot downtheir helicopter near the Bosnian-Croatian border. Serbs, defying escalating global condemnation, also seized more U.N. peacekeepers. Croatian Serb forces claimed responsibility for downing the chopper, the Croatian Serb news agency ISKRA reported. The helicopter had traveled 10 miles from the besieged Bosnian government-held enclave of Bihac whenit crashed just across the Croatian border. Bosnian Serbs, confident that U.N. hostages would shield them from a re- jured in a car accident, Bosnian Serb TVsaid. By nightfall, the Serbs held 317 U.N. personnel, the U.N. said, including more than 200 peacekeepers, most of them French, who were surrounded near Sarajevo and 30 U.N. monitors, some of whom were chainedto potential NATO targets. As the Serbs uppedthestakes, frustrated U.N. officials demanded their masters in the world’s capitals tell them what to do: stand tough or back awayin the most humiliating retreat of the U.N.’s 50-year history. “We hope that we will get some guidance and backing,” said United Nations spokesman Alexander Ivanko. ‘‘A lot of thought will have to died when his helicopter was shot down over Croatian Serb positions near Bihacin the northwest, Bosnian officials and U.N. spokesman Maj William Taylor said. Taylor said the copter crashed near the town of Hundreds Feared Dead SPRCIAL TO THE TRIBUNE C4 D4 do D4 Hw D7 C7 Co 4 Ljubijankic, a 42-year-old Muslim, captured peacekeepers werelater in- Is Shot Down Tuzla residents duck shells Sunday near a memorial for victims of Thursday's explosion. Bosnian Foreign Minister Irfan peatof last week’s NATOair raids on ammunition dumps, seized 33 more peacekeepers,all British, near Gorazde in eastern Bosnia. Five of the Bosnian Official LOS ANGELES TIMES “er two around the state, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111 Serbs Take More Hostages ALL-FEMALE UNIT For The Record. D2 Lotter to Ed... At? ©1995, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE DAY May 29, 1995 VOLUME 250 NUMBER 45 TODAY'S READERSHIP: 335,600 S=Memorial Day by the Dix-Logan Post number 3 GARin memory of comrades buried here.” Listed are four officers, including the second-highest ranking Civil War veteran buried in Utah, Maj. Gen. Nathen Kimball, and the names of 65 enlisted menalso buried there. The flag, the monument and the wes around it tell in miniature the larger story of Memorial Day and of the nation’s first veterans’ organization, the Grand Army of the Republic. Mostcities have similar, somecdmes far more elaborate GAR sections in ceme- See CIVIL WAR, tee AS <i Veterans of ‘The Forgotten War’ At Last Get Belated Recognition By Martin Merzer KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE The politicians called it a “police action,” but try telling that to the 1.5 million Americans who foughtin Korea, the 103.000 wounded there,relatives of the 36,914 who died there. Now, after four decades of neglect, veterans of the Korean Warfinally are etting their own national memorial in ashington. Veterans say that makes this Memorial Day worth remembering “We are finally, finally being recognized,” said Emmett Benjamin, 69, of Miami, a national director of the Korean War Veterans — “Not just us, butall the guys and gals whodidn’t come home.” A combat veteran of what many call “The Forgotten War," Benjamin will be in Washington on July 27 whenthe elaborate memorial is dedicated. At least 250,000 Korean Warvets and their relatives plan to attend the ceremony “You bet I'll be there,” said Joseph Firriolo, 64, a medic during the war and now presidentof the Dania, Fla., chapter of the veterans association. “Forthe first time, people of this country are realizing there was a place called Korea and so @ See KOREAN WAR,Page A-S } |
