2-B THE PLAIN DEALER, MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1993 Group to pay tribute to activist with rally By GRANT SEGALL PLAIN DEALER REPORTER CLEVELAND The family has not arranged the funeral yet. But, with his dying words, Edward Durden arranged a more characteristic memorial. Durden clutched his chest and collapsed Saturday while calling for a protest tomorrow against George L. Forbes, president of the Cleveland NAACP. Durden's friends and fellow civil rights activists cannot think of a better way to remember him than to hold the protest as scheduled.
"We who live want to see to it that he die in vain," said Grace Waite Jones, local coordinator of TransAfrica, at a news conference yesterday. Durden had spoken at Mount Sinai Baptist Church to assail two recent actions by Forbes: telling collegians to pursue more useful subjects than black history and saying the NAACP would support whatever the city, prosecutor did about Michael Pipkins' death Dec. 28 in police custody. The prosecutor declined to seek charges. Durden, 60, of East Cleveland, a survivor of triple bypass heart surWest Side woman CLEVELAND A West Side woman was stabbed to death early yesterday morning and left in a parking lot at 9602 Madison near a bar where she had been drinking, police said.
The body of Sandra O'Malley, 42, of West was found by a passerby at 5:21 a.m. O'Malley died of a knife wound to the chest, police said. man was arrested yesterday as a suspect in the slaying and was in Cleveland City Jail pending charges. gery, was one of the area's steadiest participants in civil rights causes. "You would never see him without a red, black and green flag (representing Africa)," said Omar AliBey, leader of the Coalition for a Better Life.
"He would put big loudspeakers on his car and ride through community speaking about the issues." Jack Blair, Pipkins' stepfather, helped to catch the collapsing Durden Saturday. Yesterday, hosting the news conference at his Edgewood Ave. home, Blair said he was grateful for Durden's support. "The Pipkins family didn't know Ed Durden until he helped us in the fight for our son's justice," Blair said. "He was there at every demonstration we had." Activists will rally at 3 p.m.
1 tomorrow outside the Rockefeller Building, 614 W. Superior where Forbes maintains a law office. They plan to demand Forbes' resignation from the NAACP. They will also honor Durden today with a candlelight prayer vigil at 5:55 p.m., midway through a rally from 5 to 7 p.m. at City Hall.
stabbed to death A Cleveland police spokesman said the department's sex crimes unit had been asked to assist in the investigation because. O'Malley apparently was raped before she was killed. Police yesterday interviewed patrons of the Midnight Star, a bar near the corner of Madison Ave. and W. 96th St.
where O'Malley. was last seen drinking and playing pool. Police said they were still trying to determine why O'Malley was killed. FBI'S MOST WANTED Man sought on rape, kidnap counts CLEVELAND The Cleveland-Cuyahoga Fugitive Task Force is seeking information on the whereabouts of Adrian Freeman. Freeman, 33, is wanted on 1 charges of kidnapping, rape, gross sexual imposition and aggravated burglary.
The offenses occurred in 1986 and a warrant for his arrest was issued in October 1988. Freeman's last known address was 9312 Sherwood Cleveland. He is 6 feet tall and weighs 165 pounds. Anyone with information about Freeman should call the task force at 621-5696 or the FBI at 522-1400. The task force is made up of members of the FBI, Cuyahoga County SherFreeman iff's Department and the Cleveland Police Department.
TODAY'S PROFILE Food co-op job Jack Vierkorn gives man 'new Age: 61. lease on life' Lives in Food co-op manager Jack Vier- Avon with korn has discovered as much about his wife, himself as he has learned about the Patricia, price of potatoes. clerk of Since December 1991, Vierkorn Avon City has served as the food distribution Council. program coordinator of Lorain They have Coop- three erative Ministry a 10-year-old ec- daughters umenical group dedicated to meeting and three grandchildren. the needs of the poor in Lorain.
"I find I have a new lease on life," staff He is member. the co-op's On paper only his paid job said Vierkorn. the "I'm thoughtful, learning some philosophical things is 80 hours a month, although abili- he time. said he puts in a bit more myself. I'm learning some ties I didn't know I had." A native of Buffalo, Vierkorn came to Ohio in 1978 to work in the steel industry.
After retrenchment at the day and runs a "free store," which Western Steel Group in Elyria cost provides clothing and small him his job two years ago, Vierkorn household items to the needy. found an altogether different career, Almost all food distributed buying commodities like cheese, on- Department of Agriculture commodiions and potatoes instead of steel. ties and supplemental items is purchased from County Cupboard FoodVierkorn oversees a program that bank Inc. in Amherst. makes bags of food available to the A food bag costs his group about poor at five church sites and five $1 to purchase, but the same items other locations the second Thursday cost an average $20 at a local groof each month.
About 1,000 cery store, he said, adding he is households now participate. proud the co-op is getting good The program also offers a hot meal value. at the churches on food distribution Joel Rutchick NEWS BRIEFS Career center sponsors speech on networking CLEVELAND The Career Initiatives Center is sponsoring a speech at 9 a.m. today on the topic, "Hang in There with Networking." The speech, by David G. Roberts, president of the David G.
Roberts Group, will be at 1557 E. 27th above the Cleveland Food Bank, just north of Payne Ave. Speaker programs are followed by a coffee and doughnut reception and a new member orientation session at 10:30 a.m. The programs are free, the public is welcome. For information, call 574-8998.
Achievement for mentally retarded is honored CLEVELAND The Association for Retarded Citizens is seeking nominations for its 1993 Baker Award, which recognizes outstanding personal achievement by a person with mental retardation. Also eligible for the $500 prize are people or groups helping a retarded person achieve. Nominations should be postmarked by today and sent to the association at 2800 Euclid Suite 200, Cleveland, 0. 44115. Members sought for housing, community panel MAPLE HEIGHTS Maple Heights is seeking residents to serve on the City's Housing and Community Relations Committee.
Council President Jeffrey A. Lansky said two residents would be chosen. The 10-member committee promotes the city as an attractive place to live and investigates complaints of housing discrimination. Interested people may submit a letter by Thursday to Lansky at City Hall, 5353 Lee Maple Heights 44137. Tax choices to be discussed in Shaker Hts.
SHAKER HEIGHTS "Taxes Understanding Your Choices" will be discussed at a Town Hall meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Shaker Heights City Hall. The meeting is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Shaker Heights. Panelists will be Timothy McCormack, Cuyahoga County auditor; William T. Bogart, assistant professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University; and Kevin E.
O'Brien, assistant director of the public management program at Cleveland State University. The meeting is open to the public. 3 A to PD SHAW Worshipers pray and study the Bible in the basem*nt of a W. 22nd St. home in Lorain before church services begin.
After blaze, church praises in basem*nt By SCOTT STEPHENS PLAIN DEALER REPORTER Asuncion and Irma Flecha were young children when they opened their hearts to Jesus. Now they've opened their basem*nt to him. The Lorain couple got the idea after a Feb. 13 fire destroyed the white frame church in which their small Pentecostal congregation, Cristo Rey (Christ King), had worshiped for 15 years. Every Sunday since the fire, the Flechas have flung open the doors of their cozy red-brick house on W.
22nd St. for a day of worship, Bible study and song. To accommodate the worship service, the couple removed a wall that had separated the basem*nt into two rooms. They hold Sunday school class in the kitchen, and the teen-agers have Bible, study in the living room. "It's just a little bit of work, but it's worth it," Irma Flecha said yester- "It doesn't matter where you are at.
You can praise the Lord anywhere." A scrawled welcome sign on the rear screen door welcomed visitors to yesterday morning's service. In the cool, cement-block basem*nt, about 20 people, hymnbooks in hand, stood on linoleum floor in front of their folding chairs. A space heater warmed the first row of seats. "Viva Jesus!" a woman shouted as Michael Arce's electric guitar led the group through a rollicking song about God's love. "When you come to the Lord, it's like a big family," Irma Flecha said afterward.
"We are a family. All we need is a roof over our The 60-member Rey, affiliated with the Chicago Hispanic Pentecostal Church of the Midwest, wasn't the only congregation left homeless when the church on W. 17th built in 1909, burned down. For the past four years, the congregation has shared quarters with the Gloria Gonzalez sings out proudly during church services. Compassion Missionary.
Baptist Church, which bought the church from Cristo Rey nearly three years ago. Like Cristo Rey, the Baptist congregation has improvised. After the fire, they began holding church services and Sunday school at a nearby funeral home. Luis Flecha, Asuncion's nephew and the pastor of Cristo Rey, said that even before the fire, his congregation had planned to build a new church on property it owns in South Lorain. But faith alone does not build churches.
Flecha estimates a new building would cost about $160,000, and officials at Lorain National Bank have established an account for donations. For now, members of the tiny congregation are adapting. "It's hard for some people to come here to the Flecha said. "They are used to going to a church. But this is not going to last forever.
We pray that God will help us." Brubeck conductor plays up belief in self By ABE ZAIDAN could. I'd say, 'Go for 1: KENNEDY Russell Gloyd, conductor for jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, tells a Hudson High School audience that Brubeck is still searching for that music idea he has not found in 72 years. Brubeck's photo is on a poster on the front of the podium. Local 39 is the exception. Graham ruled last month that local members should get a raise, retroactive to April 1, 1992, and called for raises of this year and another next year.
Graham said parity with other unions had not applied in the past to Local 39 and its members should be treated differently because Public Power is funded separately from other city departments. White said labor chaos would result if the city agreed to Graham's PLAIN DEALER REPORTER HUDSON TOWNSHIP Russell Gloyd doesn't earn- his keep as one of the modern genre of you-needn't-be-a-washout motivational speakers. Indeed, his professional career depends- far more on the unspoken wave of a conductor's baton than on silver-lined pep talks. Yet there he was last week, standing before about 300 students in the Hudson High School auditorium and saying such things as, "If you have the commitment, go for it." He can say as much because his boss is Dave Brubeck, the superstar jazz pianist and composer who at 72 is relentlessly going for new musical ideas while, as Gloyd pointed out, others in their 70s are merely "going to bed at 8:30." For the past 17 years, Gloyd has been Brubeck's music conductor, producer and manager. He spoke to students from a half area high schools after a morning session of rehearsing the Hudson High School women's chorus.
The chorus will be singing with the Summit Choral Society on Friday at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron. The groups will be joined by the Dave Brubeck quartet in performances of two of Brubeck's newest choral works. Brubeck's appearance with the Summit Choral Society will be his second in two years. Having lived with Brubeck's international acclaim for nearly two decades, Gloyd could contrast that success with the long odds against achievement by most people who set out to become musicians.
In fact, his advice to novices is at best gloomy. "I would do my best to talk every. body out of it," Gloyd said of a career in a field that's top-heavy with talent and spare of opportunities. "I would give them the worst scenario I possibly could. I would say that you might become a great musician, but you're still not going to work.
But after hearing me, if they still want to do it, I'd support them' every way that I ceived different percentage increases from other city unions four times in the last 10 years. "The union has stated continuously it is willing to negotiate." Muskovitz said. "The problem with the mayor's position is that he refuses to negotiate. He has stated he will talk, but left himself no room for movement, which means there's nothing to talk about." She said White had never directly told the union he was willing to negotiate, a message she would relay to Local 39's executive board. The union has not set a date for submitting a 10-day strike notice, she said.
"The most important thing is that the union wants to negotiate in an atLi That, he said, would mean the ability to accept the obstacles of a profession in which hundreds of musicians may be competing for a single job in a symphony orchestra. He likened success in his field to scaling Mount Everest. "If you can climb it," he said, "the view is fantastic." Gloyd, who plays the trumpet, recalled that he once was on the White House music staff, which meant appearing outdoors for ceremonial occasions. But he said he left that job to join the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a conducting role because "I decided that God really didn't want me to play outdoors in 20-degree temperatures." He has been on concert stages ever since with a baton instead of a trumpet. The students may have found some encouragement from Gloyd's remarks about Natalie Cole's success with her album "Unforgettable." He noted she had to finance the project herself because "no record company believed in her.
Even her own company had no faith in her." She succeeded anyway because of her belief in herself, Gloyd said, adding: "There are very few ways you can make a statement like that in He also offered Brubeck as a symbol for all who want to rise above ordinary in life through a personal commitment to one's work. "He's still trying to create, still trying to make a difference, still searchfor that music idea that he hasn't. found in 72 years," he said. Gloyd obviously has enormous professional respect for Brubeck, whose pioneering in jazz improvisations and novel time signatures has earned him princely status around the world. When Gloyd was asked whether he could define Brubeck's music today, he quickly replied: "Sure.
That's a definition? "There's no other way to define it," he said. CPP recommendation. He said it could cost the city $30 million to $40 million because other unions would want to renegotiate their contracts under "me, too" clauses. "Yes, we are willing to negotiate," White said. "No, we will not break the Susannah Muskovitz, a lawyer representing Local 39, said White is wrong.
"It's absolutely factually incorrect that he has to go back and renegotiate with anyone," she said. "There are no 'me, too' clauses in any contract in the city. No union has the right to reopen (negotiations). He's completely wrong and he knows it." She said Local 39 members had reV PAr tempt to reach a compromise," Mus- kovitz added. "The mayor has shown no willingness at all to It's a fallacy that he wants to go back to the (bargaining) table." Besides Local 39, five other unions with 67 members are without contracts.
Robert Duvin, the city's chief labor negotiator, said contracts approved Saturday by the Teamsters and custodial workers included co-payment by employees of some health care costs. The pacts also had provisions that give the city stronger manage-. ment rights, including the right to privatize some operations. Plain Dealer reporter Harry Stainer contributed to this report..
