Viewing page 48 of 110

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[newspaper clipping]]

[[photo - man working in an office]]
[[caption]] Newton Wallace of The Winters Express [[/caption]]

Birthday

LIBERTY CORNERS, N.J. (AP) -- The Kienast quintuplets reach their first birthday Wednesday but their harried parents won't pause for a big celebration.

"It's just another day at the Kienast home," said the quints' mother, Peggy Jo. Just another day means changing 55 diapers and making 15 meals and almost countless bottles. 

Amy, Sara, Abigail, Ted and Gordon were born last year at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and the doctors, nurses and attendants who helped bring them into the world wanted to help celebrate their birthday.

But the Kienasts will, instead, spend what for them is a quiet day at home.

GOP holds fate of Medi-Cal bill

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Republicans held the decisive votes today as the Assembly faced its first major floor battle of the 1971 session on a proposal to restore cuts in the state Medi-Cal program.

A bill by Assemblyman John Burton, D-San Francisco, to allow the state to spend an extra $70 million this year on health care for the aged and poor has sped through Democratic-controlled health and money committees.

But an urgency clause in the measure requires two-thirds approval of the 80-seat Assembly, 11 votes more than the Democratic leadership can count on with its 43-37 majority.

Easing publicity ban is favored

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The prosecutor in the Angela Davis case suggest the pre-trial publicity ban should be eased so the state can answer the political frameup charges.

Asst. Atty. Gen. Albert W. Harris Jr. said this weekend additional evidence will be disclosed when defense motions are argued at a March 16 hearing in the Marin county courthouse.

Miss Davis, 27, is charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the August 7 shootout at the courthouse. Four persons, including a superior court judge were killed and three others injured. 

Parole violators given new rights

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- U.S. Dist. Court Judge Warren J. Ferguson has ruled that a [[clipping cuts off here]]

The Mark Twain of Winters...
By Richard Rico
Vacaville Reporter
[[sub heading]] All photos by Richard Rico of Vacaville Reporter [[/sub heading]]

Saturday afternoon: The rain has just let up. Two leather-faced farmers straddling stools down at the Kozy Korner Cafe are talking water tables. Lots of rain this year. Ought to be a good year for 'cots. They heap more sugar into their coffee and nod agreement. They take another look out on Main Street, distorted by the beaded curtain of rain on the window.

The day's downpour has washed all the cars and the hardy natives off Railroad Avenue, the main drag that crosses the swift waters of Putah Creek. It passes by the Kozy Korner and the Buckhorn and the Winters Express office and then connects with the main intersection in town. Turn left and wind your way to Lake Berryessa; turn right and find yourself back on the freeway to Redding; go straight and get swallowed up by the orchardlands of rural Winters, which is to say rural America.

The farmers at the Kozy Korner sit with muddied boots crossed beneath their stools. When a tall, lean figure in a raincoat comes in they turn to silently nod to him. He glances up and does the same. He lays a small piece of paper on the counter and walks out. He goes down a few doors and turns into the barber shop. "Hi, Newt," the lone barber says, looking up from his magazine. "Hi," says Newt. He hand the barber a piece of white paper and walks out.

Up one side of the street and down the other goes Newt Wallace, looking a little like a blithe spirit, all alone on the Winters main drag on a Saturday afternoon. He could pass for a displaced member of the James gang, what with his long white duster raincoat and rainhat scrunched down on top of a pipe. Newt Wallace could have easily lived during that rough and ready period of history, but a James gang character for him would be all wrong. He's definitely the Mark Twain type. In fact, if Mark Twain were alive today he would be editing and publishing the weekly Winters Express and his real name would be Newton Wallace.

Newt has been passing out funeral notices this afternoon because for him and his one, sometimes two-man newspaper, it's business as usual. Someone has died since his weekly Express came out last Thursday, so when a funeral is held during the seven-day lull he prints notices of deaths and funerals and passes them out in Winters stores so everyone will know. All hometown newspapers at one time did this; Newt Wallace and the Winters Express still do.

And that just about sums it up for Newt. Whatever methods were used 30 years ago, whatever policies were carried out in pre-growth days, whatever prominence and classic character was exuded by the lone country editor in his weekly newspaper, it's all there today in Newt and the Winters Express. Since 1947 when Newt bout the Express for $8500 because he wanted to own his own country paper, things have virtually been the same. Winters, save for Berryessa and the intersection with the winking stoplight, is the same. Rain is still an important commodity because apricots are still the most important things the are produces. And Lord knows 'cots, save for marketing orders and dry tonnage prices, are the same.

But one thing that has changed since 1947 is the respect and prestige Newt has gained for himself; there's this high regard for him on the part of his journalistic peers. There's this admiration of a man with keen awareness and intellect to choose the editing and publishing of a weekly paper in a small rural town rather than "make it big" with the dailies. But that all seems worlds away on a Winters Saturday afternoon, because when first meeting Newt it

See THE MARK, Page 13, Column 1