The Paducah Sun 2A Sunday, January 12, 1992 Tobacco helped Jamestown thrive, had roots in 2 wars in the colonies for self-government. The war was the beginning of a long period of restricted exports. Planters began relying more on a growing domestic market as the country expanded westward, Some tobacco went to the northern colonies, but in New England the Puritan settlers believed it was a dangerous drug. Tobacco also helped tie the fortunes of Virginia, the state where it started, to the Confederate cause in the Civil War. "Tobacco stimulated the need for slaves," Davidson said, because it required intensive labor to cultivate.
"The planters preferred indentured servants because slaves cost more, but the demand for labor couldn't keep up" without slavery, he said. colonial export. "It was quick money, something that wasn't produced elsewhere in the British trading system," Williams said. "When you came to Virginia, you just learned to grow tobacco." By 1775, on the eve of the war for Independence, more than 100 million pounds of tobacco sailed for England from Virginia and Maryland. Tobacco was reshipped to countries throughout Europe, even into Russia.
But as prices fell because of a glut, many planters went into debt to the London merchants who had their consignments, Middleton wrote. That led to mutual distrust and was a factor in the growing move men stopped buying imported tobacco and began paying duties on the colonial trade. "All of a sudden, Virginia was able to produce this commodity that created a tobacco boom," said Tom Davidson, chief curator of the Jamestown Settlement historical attraction. "There seemed to be an unlimited market." "Becoming the rage almost overnight, tobacco captivated the colonists' imaginations like precious metal during a gold rush," wrote Arthur Pierce Middleton in "Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era." In 1022, planters exported 60,000 pounds; by 1628, 500,000 pounds; by 1639, 1.5 million pounds. Tobacco was virtually the only oil is to Saudi Arabia," said Alan Williams, a professor of colonial history at the University of Virginia.
It was Christopher Columbus who introduced Europe to the leaf that American Indians used ceremonially. The English had become recreational users of Spanish and Dutch tobacco by the early 1600s, and almost immediatedly the criticism that has shadowed tobacco began. King James I called it "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain." But in 1612, just five years after the English arrived in Virginia, colonist John Rolfe introduced a Spanish blend of tobacco here, and it was an immediate success. The king's distaste faded as his country BY JOE TAYLOR A88OCIATE0 PRESS WHITER JAMESTOWN, Va. It's hard to overstate tobacco's historical importance to the United States and to the South, even if the crop has been criticized from the very beginning.
Without tobacco, the Virginia colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America, might have faced financial ruin in its infancy. The economic vitality it provided helped stir sentiment for independence from Britain in the 1770s, and the labor-intensive crop even was a factor in Southern secession at the time of the Civil War. To the Virginia colony, tobacco was "like City policeman charged with theft of gun from home Ha Kiti If Yi I the home. Officers said there was no sign of forced entry and nothing else was missing or disturbed. "Several weeks ago, we got information concerning stolen guns," Haines said.
"During the course of that investigation, the possibility seemed to arise there was a Paducah police officer involved with this. Eleven days ago, it became evident that was true." The Special Investigation Unit and several uniformed police officers conducted the investigation without the involvement of other agencies, Gordon said. "It's our house and we endeavored to clean it up," Haines said. "One of the things that made this difficult was when he was first employed as a police officer, he did some undercover work. He knows our undercover cars, he knows our undercover guys, and so it made it difficult." Hill worked undercover prior to the formation of the Special Investigation Unit.
As the investigation progressed, officers said they learned Hill had discussed burglarizing Pizza Inn at 1001 Joe Clifton Drive. Hill allegedly included Parham and a confidential informant in plans for the burglary. Gordon said Hill gave the two men gloves, hats and a diagram of the inside of the business and told them "a good time" to commit the burglary. In BY ROBIN DIVINE SUN STAFF WHITER A Paducah police officer with nearly four years on the department was arrested Saturday night on charges he stole from a house he was sent to check. Donald Glenn Hill, 26, was booked into McCracken District Jail on charges of theft by unlawful taking of property worth more than $100 and conspiracy to commit third-degree burglary.
Police said additional charges are pending. He's been a Paducah police officer since March 1988. Officials said Hill will be suspended without pay pending administrative action. A second man, Douglas L. Parham, 20; of the 700 block of Park Avenue, was arrested in connection with the case against Hill.
He's charged with conspiracy to commit third-degree burglary and knowingly receiving stolen property worth more than $100. He also was lodged in McCracken District Jail. Sgt. Steve Haines, spokesman for the department, and Capt. Bill Gordon, head of the department's Special Investigation Unit, said Hill was sent at 7:30 a.m.
Dec. 29 to check on a home on Whitney Drive after a neighbor reported the residents were gone and a door was open. Hill allegedly stole a Glock 19 Jmm handgun valued at $450 from ROBIN DIVINEThe Sun Capt. Bill Gordon of the Paducah Police Department's Special Investigation Unit (reaching into car) prepares to transport Donald Glenn Hill from City Hall to the McCracken District Jail. Pennington and decided to arrest Parham and Hill before the burglary was committed.
The officers were upset by the investigation, Gordon said. "Basically, we did what we had todo," he said. "We don't like' investigating our own, but we won't tolerate our own committing crimi-' nal acts. We don't feel like we're special, except we should try to be." exchange for his help, Hill allegedly was to get one-third of the proceeds of the burglary. Gordon said the restaurant is in the "zone" of the city Hill patrols on his shift from 5 a.m.
to 1 p.m. The burglary was to have occurred early today, police said. Gordon said investigators talked with Commonwealth Attorney Tom Osborne and City Manager Jim farmers, and the other would raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 16 to 18. Northup doesn't expect the bills to pass. "The purpose is to raise the issue," she said.
"What are we doing to prepare for the day when there will not be the demand for Kentucky tobacco that we have today?" In South Carolina's Legislature, several attempts in recent sessions to increase the state tax on cigarettes have been turned back. Gov. Carroll Campbell, speaking generally of anti-tobacco efforts, has said, "Those people who would try to pull a leg off the stool will soon find the stool is going to fall." But Michael Jarrett, who heads the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, said 4,000 South Carolinians die each year of smoking-related diseases and estimated the cost of treating the diseases equals the economic impact of growing tobacco. "Tobacco is big business But it's a business we can't afford," he said. Both South and North Carolina are participating in new education efforts to stop smoking, the latter receiving $8.5 million and the former $5.5 million in federal funds.
South Carolina, however, also is one of five states in tobacco country (there are 20 nationwide) that have some form of "smokers' rights" law, joining Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia. And smokers' rights bills that failed in the Georgia Legislature last year are expected to be re-introduced early this year. The Institute's Merry- man acknowledges that cigarette purchases in the United States have declined "slowly and steadily" in recent years. From a peak of 133 packs in 1978, U.S. per capita consumption fell to 104 packs in the latest survey, for 1986, he said.
Though consumption rates for Southern states also declined, the rates for all states in the region except Mississippi (101.8) remained above the national average; about one-third of Southern adults still -smoke, compared to a national average of 28 percent. But the industry has vastly increased cigarette and raw tobacco sales overseas, from almost $1.8 billion in 1980 to almost $5.7 billion in 1990. Fanners quickly quote the export boom figures when asked about anti-smoking critics and declines in domestic smoking. "One thing we really have to do is continue to reassure individuals in the industry, from seedlot to sales counter," Merryman said. "We have to point out that the companies will probably buy just about every stalk of tobacco grown." Though Fisher and others said the goal of a "smoke-free society" by the year 2000 also applies to the South, Merryman scoffed, "Not in our lifetimes." A common sentiment in South is that tobacco growing will outlast its critics.
Bob Hornback raises the crop near Shelbyville, Ky. So did his grandfather and his granddaughters grow tobacco for 4-H projects. "Tobacco will be around for a long time," he said. Christopher Sullivan is the AP's Southeast regionaLfgporter, based in Atlanta. Cefitributing to this story were ARbureaus in Kentucky, TennesseeiQrginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
Next: Smokers band together TROUBLE Continued from page 1 dairy business in White County, said she may increase her tobacco acreage next year. "Now, "with the milk market, tobacco is not supplemental it's mandatory," she said. Indeed, those in tobacco country who forget the crop's entrenched position in the economy do so at their peril. "I did not feel like what we were doing would hurt tobacco farmers," said Emily Manning, a school board member in Duplin County, North Carolina's seventh-ranking tobacco-producing county, with 19.6 million pounds last year. She was speaking of her proposal that teachers and students be prohibited from smoking in school buildings.
Approved by the board in July, the proposal lasted a month as resentful tobacco farmers quickly threatened to retaliate by killing a $30 million school bond issue. The board retreated, allowing school employees to smoke. Manning was surprised by the backlash, but for fanner Steve Grady, the board was "turning its back on tobacco" despite the taxes growers pay and the crop's place in the local economy. "I agree kids shouldn't smoke and should be educated to the hazards of it," Grady said. "But for the county government to tell adults what to do is another thing It made me ill that they don't know what feeds them." Timothy Mann, president of the cigarmaker Jno.
H. Swisher Sons made a similar argument in a letter to Jacksonville, Mayor Ed Austin, complaining about a new smoking ban in city buildings. "Jacksonville is the home of our company, the world's largest cigar company," he wrote. "We believe the city should be supportive of its hometown industries." But in an indication of the growing political clout of the tobacco industry's opponents, even in its home region, the mayor's office said no change is contemplated. "The South is moving in the right direction," said Cliff Douglas of the American Lung Association, which lobbies for anti-smoking measures.
He noted that a "watershed" 1989 ordinance restricting smoking in public areas survived a repeal referendum in Greensboro, N.C., "right in the heart of tobacco country." "I think things have picked up quite a bit down there," agreed Peter Fisher, of the Tobacco-Free America Legislative Clearinghouse in Washington, D.C. Laws like Greensboro's, and a public-smoking statute passed last year in Virginia can be cited to help lobbying efforts in other regions, Fisher said: "We'd say, 'Look, if they can do it down there In the last decade, public smoking restrictions also have been approved in Charlotte, Wilmington and Chapel Hill, N.C. Raleigh, the state capital, recently put new restrictions on vending machines in an attempt to curb smoking Restrictions also passed in at least seven Alabama localities, seven in Georgia, four in Louisiana, six in South Carolina, two in Tennessee and 23 in Virginia. That's only a fraction of the 500 or so enacted around the nation, but "it's a start," Fisher said. "When people are confronted with the facts, people are receptive to the message in the South." For years, North Carolina's cigarette tax was the nation's lowest, at 2 cents a pack.
Last year, state lawmakers increased it to 5 cents a pack. After the Virginia General Assembly passed its 1990 Clean Indoor Air Act that banished smoking from most public places, lawsuits quickly pressed for tough enforcement. In Kentucky, legislator Anne Nor-thup has drafted two bills for the 1992 General Assembly session: One would tax tobacco to pay for research into alternative crops for TEACHER Continued from page 1 'she touched over the years. Alzheimer's disease, her family says, has destroyed, most of the memories. And if watching a once-vital teacher drift on a sea of disjointed thoughts and memories weren't bad enough, a recent fire destroyed Norman's home.
I "It's a real tragedy what's to her at her age, and what's pappened to her home," said Frank Brown, a longtime community school while still working full-time, Ms. Norman volunteered to keep Gray's children all day and night Monday through Thursday. "She told me not to worry about them. She'd take care of them and she did that for two years," said Gray, who received an associate degree and is working on a bachelor's degree. Like many youngsters who passed through the kindergarten more than 30 years ago, Ronald Whiteside remembers, few details about the actual program.
Rather, his memory is dotted with images of Ms. Norman. "She was a nice lady, plus she was teaching a lot of the things I wanted to know, like the numbers and the alphabet," said Whiteside, 42, a Martin-Marietta employee. "She always treated me like a special person. She was pretty sharp." Family members have said they hope to turn the lot on which the Normans' burned home sits into a park honoring both Dorothy and Otis Norman.
Former students and parents, however, say they already have a special places in their hearts for Ms. Norman. "Any time (her former students) come back, they always make it a point to go see about Ms. Norman," said Frank Brown. "She made that kind of an impression." Donations for the Maxwell and Hunt families can be mailed to the Fire Crisis Fund, Old Ship of Zion Church, 1601 Little Avenue, Paducah, Ky.
42003. Donations for Ms. Norman can be mailed in care of Violet Johnson, 2140 Happy Hollow Drive, Paducah, Ky. 42003. Lack of winner raises jackpot ASSOCIATED PRESS LOUISVILLE, Ky.
There was no winner in Saturday's Lotto Kentucky game, increasing the $2 million jackpot to $3 million for Wednesday. The numbers picked Saturday were 7, 11, 20, 40, 42 and 44. Thirty-four tickets matched five numbers for $875, while 2,103 matched four for $39, the lottery said. garten in response to five mothers who were looking for someone to educate black children when segregation kept them out of other preschool programs. "At one time, my mother had at least 60 children in her home and she did it mostly by herself, except for what we did to help," Johnson said.
Children would be dropped off at the kindergarten as early as 6 a.m., and sometimes parents didn't pick them up until well after 8 p.m., Johnson said. "She didn't look at it as a burden. I might have, but she didn't," Johnson joked. "She loved children, I think, more than she did herself." Marian Gray, a member of Ms. Norman's first class of graduates in 1952, sent her own children to the kindergarten years later.
"It was more than just somewhere to go and play," said Gray, 45, a hearing assistant for the Office of Hearing Appeals. "She taught you the basics, the alphabet and numbers. She was definitely into teaching, but she also taught moral values and discipline. "For years, that was what we had and I would put the education she gave us against anybody." A nomination letter written by Gray lead to Ms. Norman receiving a Jefferson Award in 1984.
(Ms. Norman also has been named a duch*ess of Paducah and a Kentucky Colonel.) Gray said the kindergarten classroom, Ms. Norman at the piano, and youngsters in caps and gowns graduating are images that stick in her mind when she thinks about Happy Days Kindergarten. "I also remember Daddy Otis. He was also a disciplinarian, and everybody remembered the bad medicine.
That's what he called his belt. He never had to really use it on anybody, iut everyone knew about Daddy Otis's bad medicine." When Gray decided to go back to Hospitality association plans Tuesday meeting The Paducah Hospitality Association's monthly meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Commerce Centre, 417 S. 4th St The association is composed of hotel and restaurant owners and managers, and others associated with tourism and commerce. leader and director of the Paducah Human Rights Commission.
Brown and his wife, Mae, entrusted three of their six children into Ms. Norman's daytime care many years "She's such a fine person, a real hard-working woman. She's been a good neighbor and a good friend," Brown said. "It's a real tragedy. She deserves better." Though the northside kindergarten closed in 1982, Ms.
Norman was living in the Clay Street home at the time of the fire along with her daughter, Loretta Maxwell; her grandsons, Edwin and Manulito Maxwell; a granddaughter, Leon-tyne Hunt, Hunt's three children, and a boarder. No one was injured, but the families lost nearly everything. Ms. Norman's church, the Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church, sponsored a benefit program for her a few weeks after me fire. The Old Ship of Zion Baptist Church and the Spiritual Generations will host a benefit concert for the Maxwell and Hunt families at 3 p.m.
today, said the Rev. Charles Dunbar, pastor of Old Ship of Zion. He said area choirs, soloists, the Golden Hummingbirds and the Victory Assembly Worship Team will present music, and the Joys of Nashville will be special guests. The church is at 1601 Little Ave. Ms.
Norman has been living with Violet Johnson, another of her five children, since the fire. "Some-. times she knows me and sometimes she doesn't," Johnson said. "Her mind is not good at all." Johnson said her mother remember that there was a fire, but talks of going home, though she doesn't speak of her home of more than 40 years on Clay Street. "She's always talking about the house on 8th Street that we moved from when I was a little girl," Johnson said.
"She's gone back that far. "I never would have thought my momma's mind would have been like that, as smart as she was that she would forget everything." Ms. Norman received her teaching degree from Wilberforce University, in Wilberforce, Ohio. and her husband, the late 'Otis Norman, often called "Daddy Otis," raised five foster children as well as their own, Johnson said. Ms.
Norman opened the kinder Additional deaths onpagelOA Robert S. Hatcher CAIRO, 111. Services for Robert S. Hatcher, 86, of Cairo, will be at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Barkett Funeral Home with the Rev.
Kenneth Provines officiating. Burial will be in Beechwood Cemetery in Mounds. Mr. Hatcher died Friday at Blount Hospital in Maryville, Term. He was a retired clerk for the Illinois Central Railroad, and a member of the Brotherhood of Railroad Clerks, and First United Methodist Church.
He is survived by a daughter, Jean Carolyn Moss of Dexter, a son, James E. Hatcher of Maryville, three sisters, Mrs. Archie Aydt and Mary Jane O'Shea, both of Cairo, and Ruth Carrington of Richmond, and several grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, nieces and nephews. His parents were James W.D. and Alice Stoddard Hatcher.
He was also preceded in death by a sister, and a brother. Friends may call at the. funeral home from 10 a.m. to, 1:30 p.m. Monday.
Maude M. Hamm Maude M. Hamm, 87, of Madison Street, died at 9 a.m. Friday at her home. She is survived by a son, John Hamm of Paducah.
I Her body was cremated. Roth Funeral Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Kevil woman places second in pageant LOUISVILLE, Ky. A Kevil woman was second runner-up among 74 contestants at the 37th Miss Kentucky County Fair Pageant Saturday. Karen Gibson of Kevil was the Miss McCracken County Fair Pageant winner.
She is a sophom*ore at Paducah Community CoUege. The winner was Mitzi Jones, 20, of White Plains, a sophom*ore at Murray State University..
