The Jackson Sun from Jackson, Tennessee • 15

I 1 "VS. oreo The Jackson Sun, Jackson, Wednesday, April 7, 1982 r.T TT.r,-T,T-1tt -r. lmlmTnrnirTm mm 1 1 Conger iscusses governor race with Democrats By DAVID HENRY San capital bureau NASHVILLE Jackson Mayor Bob Conger came to Nashville Tuesday to discuss his probable candidacy for governor with Democrats, including Knox-ville Mayor Randy Tyree who is running for the party's nomination. Conger said he told Tyree he is "leaning toward getting in" the race, and if he does, Tyree would be one of the first to know. Conger said he also told Tyree he hopes to run a campaign which would try to unite rather than divide the party.

The Jackson mayor spoke briefly with Sen. Anna Belle Clement O'Brien, D-Crossville, who is also considering running for the office. She has told reporters she will announce her intentions, which could have an influence on Conger's, by early May. Conger said he was "encouraged" by the meetings and plans to be back in the capital Saturday for the state Democratic convention where he plans to talk about his possible candidacy with others of the party and their thoughts on the race. The two men talked a few hours after Tyree and John Jay Hooker, who has been working for a consensus candidate for the party since January, took jabs at one another in separate statements and then shared a platform and turned to conciliation.

In a press conference at the Legislative Plaza, Tyree first warned that Hooker could soon hurt the party by continuing to look for a consensus candidate even though the state party's executive committee decided not to choose a consensus candidate. Tyree said he thought he was 22nd on Hooker's list of possible consensus candidates to take on popular incumbent Gov. Lamar Alexander. Hooker has asked House Speaker Ned McWherter, Lt. Gov.

John Wilder, attorney Jim Neal, U.S. Rep. Ed Jones and entertainer Tom T. Hall to run. He has also talked with Conger and O'Brien about their possible bids.

"I'm not against Randy Tyree. I do not think that at this moment that he has put together the constit-' uency and support he needs to be governor. Until he can get this constituency, I'm going to keep doing what I am doing." Hooker noted: "When I started out in there wasn't anybody but me and Randy Tyree who thought there was anybody who could beat Lamar Alexander." As Hooker spoke, Tyree peered in through a door. At the urging of reporters, Tyree joined Hooker at the podium and responded with fence mending. "We are in agreement.

We are in concurrence," Tyree said. He agreed with Hooker's assessment that he does not yet have the broad support needed to defeat the Republican governor. But Tyree, son of a Middle Tennessee tenant farmer, said he does have a strong rural background and is building the coalition he will need to win the race. "I think I'm the only one who has not been asked," Tyree said. "I don't think he is hurting my candidacy.

There comes a point when John has to consider what he is doing to the Democratic Party." About 30 minutes later, Hooker held a press conference and said he was surprised by reports of Tyree's comments. "From the very beginning I have named Randy Tyree as a good consensus candidate," he said. Hooker, who lost bids for governor in 1966 and 1970, said Tyree, in order to defeat Alexander, must have support in the rural areas of West and Middle. Tennessee to make up for the margin Alexander will win in his home region of East Tennessee. "Beyond that he's got to get the support of the labor movement.

He's got to get the support of the blacks of the Tennessee Education Association and the state employees. Sixth-graders tell 'impossible' story of Edison's life WMiMwwwMj'MWiwitwM iiiimiiiwiwMiiiiiiwiiwiuiiiLi arpwiMiiigiiiiiiiiiiii iimmimmmtmmBmmmmisiafmfmmmmmmmmimmmm IL 1 i newspapers on a train to Detroit. But, having to "prove" everything heard, one of his experiments resulted in a fire on board and loss of his job. "The Movin' On Blues," telling what happens to those who ruin property of their employers, showed the energy of the 500-student choir, which remained on stage during the entire show and was produced by city music coordinator Nancy Rahm with Mary Flynn, music teacher for grades 4-6, directing the children. Tandra Bridges of Parkview Elementary School ably sang the solo part.

Students sang nine songs, with another special solo by Brown in "The End of a Dream." Students told the story of Edison's hours of experimentation, including using rags, wood, snake skin, animal fur, leather, macaroni, pomegranate peel, onion, skin, minerals, grass and bamboo to make the filaments for his lightbulb. Bamboo finally worked, in a vacuum, in a light bulb and after 6,000 experiments, the children related. They told of failures and finally a success in selling the Edison Universal Printer for $40,000 and the quadruplex, an improved telegraph that could send four messages simultaneously. Then came the talking machine, the motion picture, vulcanized rubber (something he worked on for his friend, Henry Ford) and a total of about 1,000 patented inventions. Marc Mercer, of Parkview Elementary School, played the patient patent cleric who mused that Edison visited him as much as did the mailman.

By SUE ANN TANZER ROBERTS Sun Reporter "Sunshine in a bottle. Music in a box. Sounds crazy, but I did it. In fact, I thought I could do anything," fair-haired, 12-year-old Bob Brown told a crowd of more than 1,500 at the Jackson Civic Center Tuesday night. "From the time I was just a kid, I had a notion that nothing was impossible.

It was just that nobody had figured out how to do it yet. So I spent my life doing things that no one had done before," said the Lincoln Elementary School student, playing inventor Thomas Alva Edison in the upbeat sixth-grade musical "The Electric Sunshine Man." Brown greeted his cheering audience on a swing, lowered from the rafters to the stage below, a symbolic return from the hereafter to tell the audience about his 84-year life and to see what has become of his inventions. Edison began his experiments at age 7. He had moved from Michigan to Chicago and coaxed a girlfriend to eat worms telling her since birds ate worms and could fly, so could people, said Lora Young, portraying the girlfriend. "Yeah, well, I was wrong," Brown confessed sheepishly, speaking clearly while in the spotlight.

"You got sick, I got a whipping and nobody flew." Edison was depicted as the boy who drove his teachers crazy with impossible questions, who built a telegraph in the basement of his parents' home and sent Morse code via stovepipe wire he had "borrowed" from neighbors. By age 12, he was selling candy and A bright orange and yellow sun, complete with twinkling white lights that shimmered when the lights were turned low, was Lincoln School's art students' contribution to the show with the lit-up skyline of New York City borrowed from a recent Union University beauty pageant. Running throughout the play was the American Dream, that you can be anything you want to be if you don't give up. "In 1877, they said, 'That's No one had ever heard a phonograph before," the children sang, looking out to the vast audience for a glimpse of a proud loved one. "But he did it.

And now it's not impossible anymore. What do they tell you is impossible now? Maybe it's just that no one knows how! But someone will make the impossible true. And it's possible that someone may be you." A 500-voice choir of Jackson City School sixth-graders welcome Bob Brown, portraying Thomas Alva Edison from the 'hereafter' as he was lowered onto the stage to the tune of the title song, 'The Electric Sunshine Man' Tuesday night at the Jackson Civic Center. At left, Brown dazzles the audience with his portrayal of the prolific inventor. Sun photos by Lorry Atharton Race for sheriff Vickers Jr.

to file $5 million defamation SUit aqainSt SOn 1 Former officer first to qualify for election the baU game is over," the ex-sheriff said. Although Former Madison County Sheriff James "Shug" he had kept a low profile the last few years, he said last September that he was "on the way back" in the sheriffs race. "I pledge to reinstate the same effective law enforcement policies I had when previously in office," Lewis said. "I will institute a drug education program in schools to teach children and young people about controlled substances. I will emphasize catching pushers and suppliers who are getting rich off young people while ruining their physical and mental health, instead of disg AfiJ'f it National Bank of Lexington.

In it, Vickers III accuses his father of "blowing away" the financial stability and security of their family "through sheer fanatic egotism." The disclosure statement also says Vickers Jr. intends to file counter-claims against General Motors Acceptance Corp. and ITT Diversified Credit Inc. for "contract breaches," with damages expected to be as high as $500,000. GMAC and ITT financed Vickers' car and motorcycle inventories, respectively, before they closed his dealership last July.

Kennedy decided after a two-hour hearing to remove Vickers from his status of administering his assets himself during the bankruptcy and appoint, instead, an independent trustee. Ben Dempsey, attorney for Vickers, had argued that the hiring of a trustee might prove only to be costly, but said after the meeting that having a trustee "probably is for the best." Though Kennedy did not specify whom the trustee should be, most attorneys for Vickers' creditors said Tuesday they want Irwin Deutscher, a professional trustee for large estates from Nashville, to be hired. Davis Carr, an attorney for Nashville City Bank, told Kennedy that most creditors did not trust Vickers to be in charge of liquidating his real estate to pay off his creditors. "It makes no sense to let Mr. Vickers look into his own past conduct," Carr asserted.

"You cannot expect Mr. Vickers to dispassionately look into the conduct of his own business dealings." Sam McAllester, attorney for Carroll County Bank and United Southern Bank of Nashville, hinted that many creditors think Vickers may have hidden some assets. "There's a lot of smoke, and when there's smoke, there may be fire," he said. "And that fire may be assets." When he announced his decision to appoint a trustee, Kennedy said he wasn't questioning Vickers' "expertise as a businessman." He praised Vickers' attorneys for their extensive work on preparing documents for the case. By JOEL WOOD Sun reporter Attorneys for bankrupt car dealer Ernest "Pug" Vickers Jr.

of Huntingdon plan to file a $5 million defamation-of-character lawsuit against his eldest son, Ernest Vickers III of Lexington, documents filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court showed. In addition to developments in the ongoing Vickers family feud, Vickers' bankruptcy proceedings took a turn for his creditors Tuesday with Judge David Kennedy's ruling that he'll name a trustee to administer Vickers' estate during the bankruptcy. The threat to file a suit against Vickers III was raised in an amended disclosure statement of the status of Vickers' financial problems. It said damages ranging from $1 million to $5 million are expected to be pumped into the bankruptcy as a result of the litigation against the son.

Vickers HI, though, welcomed the possibility of a civil suit. "Were a suit of that nature brought by my father's legal staff," he said, "we will be getting into some new areas relative to my father's improper conduct that we haven't even touched as of yet." In such a civil case, Vickers III said, his father will not be allowed, to invoke the Fifth Amendment as he has in earlier occasions in bankruptcy court. "And I will have carte blanche subpoena power relative to surfacing any documents that I'm presently not privy to, as they relate to my father's improper dealings," he added. The disclosure statement blames Vickers III in part for "precipitating" his father's financial collapse. "Through his knowledge of the family businesses, (he) was instrumental in restricting his father's ability to borrow money and refinance debts at crucial times before the bankruptcy," the document said.

Attached to the disclosure statement was a copy of a letter from Vickers III to his father dated June 24, 1981. The same letter has been filed as part of chancery court proceedings in which the father and son are feuding over control of the First Lewis, who left office after being convicted of con-, spiracy charges in 1977, this morning became the first person to qualify as a candidate for sheriff in the August general election. "I promise no one will dictate to me how to run the (sheriffs) office," Lewis said in announcing his candidacy. "People who were more powerful than I insisted I jail a certain class of people for having a drink while on the other hand they wished another class doing the same thing be left alone. This I would not do, and that is why I had to vacate the office previously." At least two other persons are expected to seek the office incumbent Sheriff Warren Roberts and Danny Joe Phillips, who first served under Lewis and more recently under Roberts until the present sheriff fired him several months ago.

Lewis is a former Highway Patrol trooper who resigned to seek the sheriffs position in 1972. He was elected in 1972, ran unopposed in 1974 and 1976. He was the Democratic nominee each time but did not seek, the Democratic nomination this year. The Madison County Democratic Executive Committee is scheduled to select nominees for the various county offices on April 27. Lewis was convicted in federal court on the charge of conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce.

Two deputies and two Madison County merchants were found guilty in connection with accepting payoffs from bootleggers and Lewis in the same trial was found guilty of knowing about the scheme but not stopping it. A third deputy pleaded guilty The former sheriff served about 4Vi months at the federal corrections center at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, and later had his rights restored to clear the way for seeking election. Lewis said a federal law which prohibits a convicted felon from carrying a firearm would not apply to the sheriff position. "I had my lawyer research that, and there is case law on that issue," he added. because I struck out one inning doesn't mean James 'Shug' Lewis 'no one will dictate to me how to run the office' concentrating on the child who shares one marijuana cigarette with a friend or the small merchant who sells legitimate cigarette papers." Lewis said he would operate the office at a greater savings by keeping all deputies on the road unless they are required to operate the jail or serve the courts, would not have additional deputies to serve civil papers and would not exempt any deputy from work regardless of his rank.

Lewis said he would operate the office on a business-like basis and not retain any deputy who does not work. Irby I. "Humko" Graves, who succeeded Lewis, today said he will not seek the sheriffs position. He had been considered a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination. He did not, however, rule out the possibility of seeking another county position in thf August general election..