University of Wisconsin Stout - Tower Yearbook (Menomonie, WI)

Page 28 text:

Fighting For Yellowstone As thousands struggle to save a na- tional treasure, critics attack the Park Service for its ' free burn ' policy and for waiting so long to suspend it. For the first time in the history of the United States, the country ' s oldest national park was completely closed to visitors. Nine separate fires have completely de- stroyed over 900,000 acres of the forest, forty percent of the parks total land area. Over ten thousand men and wom- en, including two thousand Army troops, battled to save these precious lands and valued buildings. As bad as the fires may seem, Yellowstone wasn ' t the only land to burn. In Washington State, a minor 160- acre fire spread overnight to cover more than 25,000 acres-driving the state ' s total burned past 70,000 acres. In Idaho, six fires scorched almost 120,000 acres. Mon- tana, Alaska, New York, Connecticut and many other states in the West have also experienced forest fires. The gov- ernment has spent close to 300 million dollars trying to contain these fire and they were successful. Washington Oregon The Yellowstone blazes were amoung a series of damaging fires that have strickert the West. Wind- swept flames have burned 3.8 mil- lion acres since early June. Firefighters like those near Old Faithful can do little to slow the advan- tage of the advancing walls of flames. 26 — World

Page 27 text:

The Magic Is Back For the 1 million Americans who crowded the beaches and causeways around the Kennedy Space Center, and for millions of other Americans clustered around the TV sets the tension was palpa- ble. As the count-down clock flashed out the number of seconds to lift-off, the eyes of an entire na- tion focused on Launch Pad 39-B and the gleaming white shuttle Discovery, flanked by its two solid rocket boosters and clinging to the side of the giant colored external fuel tank. In the minds of many, however, another vision intruded: the helish yellow-orange burst in the middle of a Y-shaped cloud that 32 months earlier had marked the destruction of the shuttle Cha- langer. But on this day, a day of thundering pillars of fire. Discov- ery carried the nations hopes aloft again. World —

Page 29 text:

The day aUtt, the ruins of a general store. Just One Mammal Helping Another On the frozen ocean, men try to save three whales that lingered too long in their sum- mer place. Winter came early to the Arctic this year. During the first three weeks of Octo- ber, temperatures recorded at Barrow, Alaska averaged about eleven degrees below zero. When the early cold set in, thousands of California gray whales headed out towards warm water. Infortunately, three jouveniles polked their heads out and discovered that between them and the open sea was a blanket of ice, miles long and growing. The event took national concern and the com- bination of government, busi- ness and private volunteers and elaborate technology pulled together to save the whales. :«kifnos watched the trapped whales as though they were their own kids as they prayed something could be done in order to thaw the path-way and rescue the whales. World — 27