features Zane Grey follower keeps interest alive United Press International KEENE — Dr. Joe L. Wheeler 1 I i hooked on Zane Grey. His purple calling card car es the legend, “A Specialist in | ; ane Grey,” and gets its color rom the “Riders of the Purple ' age,” the best known of Grey’s | : 09 Western novels. Wheeler’s home in Keene, a i , mall town 40 miles south of ort Worth, houses the largest ; ollection of Zane Grey books in | re world. Wheeler, 46, teaches English ' nd directs the cultural affairs ' epartment at Southwestern 1 tdventist College. • j He is recognized as the fore- rost authority on the times and /orks of Zane Grey. Since Wheeler picked Grey as he topic for his doctrate at Van- ierbilt, he has read about every vmrd Grey wrote — more than 2 million words in 109 books, ‘etters and articles from 1903 , intil his death in 1939. i For his forthcoming biogra phy on Grey, Wheeler has done 1 years of research. He is one of he growing legions of fans around the world who buy Zane Grey volumes at the rate of 2 million every year. Zane Grey books outsell every book except the Bible and McGuffey’s readers. They are in the book racks of almost every major airport and railway sta tion in the world. Even in im poverished Third World coun tries, adolescents avidly form Zane Grey exchange libraries and dream one day of traveling to Texas, Wyoming and Kansas. “No other popular writer mir rored the age in which he lived so powerfully and so eloquently as did Zane Grey,” Wheeler said. “Zane Grey is the logical succes sor to James Fenimore Cooper as the last chronicler of the fron tier which began vanishing at the time Grey began to write.” Fans in Australia say Grey loved and visited their country so often because he believed it was where the frontier ended, Wheeler said. “Zane Grey’s American West, I suppose, has elements of escapism we all look for and that may account for his popularity not only here, but throughout the world,” W’heeler said. “We lead lives where things are so predictable. His books take us to a world in which man is not so circumscribed by a complex society, and is able to accomplish heroic things.” Wheeler said Grey was a lon er, a difficult person to get along with and the possessor of an enormous ego. “But that ego helped him achieve what he did,” Wheeler said. “From his childhood he knew he was going to be the greatest author in the world. Once he quarreled with a man and told him, ‘Some day you are going to be glad to admit you knew Zane Grey.’ He made mil lions, but he blew most of it away on his other passion, fishing.” Wheeler said Grey’s wif e, Dol ly, stabilized the couple’s life. Grey is reported to have earned about $37 million, but he was so careless with money that, if it had not been for his wife, the couple would have starved dur ing the Depression. i I i ; . ! • l ' f 1 L * * .. General meeting to announce spring semester dance class schedules. THURSDAY, JAN. 27 7:30 p.m. 267 G. Rollie White New members are welcome! J Battalion/Page 4B January 27,1983 UT hopes winery will uncork revenue United Press International AUSTIN — University of Texas officials say a plan to establish a commercial winery operation for the school’s west Texas vineyards is still aging. But they are confident Texans will be partaking of by 1984 a: university vines by 1984 and still hold hopes a special bot tling from this year’s crop can be pulled off to commemorate the university’s centennial. Last spring the LIT Board of Regents authorized the start of negotiations with prospective winery develop ers for the establishment of a medium-sized commercial winery in west Texas on state- granted land. UT Lands research dire ctor Charles McKinney in Midland last week estimated it will be another two months before an agreement is final ized. “We feel comfortable that we will reach an agreement in time to handle the 1984 crop,” McKinney said. “An agree ment does need to be reached soon. We’re getting closer and closer.” The school has spent more than $1 million since an ex perimental grape growing project was established near Van Horn in Culberson County and Bakersfield in Pecos County. Kinney said the negotia tions are at a stage which pre cludes him from identifying any of the prospective bid ders. However, earlier pub lished reports have indicated the university is engaged in in tense negotiations with a sub sidiary of Joseph E. Seagrams and a group of Texas inves tors. Meanwhile, the university’s grape growing experiment continues to bear bountiful fruit. Begun in 1975 and fi nanced by $ 1 million in school money since then, the univer sity vineyards include ex perimental tracts near Van Horn and a 340-acre commer cial vineyard near Bakers field, about 90 miles south of Midland. McKinney estimates this year’s harvest from the com mercial vineyard at about 300 tons. He said plans for the 1983 harvest include committing some of the grapes to ex perimental use to determine quality. The plan for a special bottling to commemorate the UT centennial may be com pleted through arrangements with some of the dozen winer ies now in the state, McKinney said. But estimates place the 1984 crop at about 1,000 tons and the university is intent on having a winery operation set up to handle the crush of grapes, he said. However, McKinney said working out the details that go into an agreement between a winery and a vineyard is much like the very process of pro ducing fine wine — delicate. “It’s a complex issue of trying to pull the interests of the winery and the mm together," McKinney sait “It’s not like just going dm: and buying a car. Itjusttal time. “You don’t do it inadai McKinney said some of: complex issues in such arrangement include a d«e. mination of grape qualityani the fact that the new win«| will be unusual in thatitwil privately owned by the cry, but on university land But McKinney is comic ced the snags w ill be world] out and he says interest winery developers has btt:| high. “There is a certain arm® of novelty to it, you knod wine from Texas," he si: "But there is a genuinei terest once they taste th wine." UT has been making*®! at its experimental winefadl ity since 1978 and also is;:': gaged in a cooperative rt| search project with TeuJ Tech in Lubbock. Oklahoma town may die abriel Postmaster can’t retire onstn F th United Press International DAISY, Okla. — Fletcher Harris Jr. is concerned the U.S. Post Office will close when his mother retires and with it might go the town or what is left of it. Teresa Harris, who is 77, is Daisy’s postmaster, succeeding her husband, who had the same job from 1928 until 1968. Teresa Harris is not ready to hang it up because she too fears they might shut down the old ffu post office, the o building in Daisy, population has dwii only public The town’s ipulation has dwindled from 250 in the 1920s to only 24 now. “I had in my mind to retire next summer because I’m get ting old,” Mrs. Harris said. “But I haven’t so far because no one else has been willing to take over. When my husband retired, nobody wanted the job and the po KOI JP* 4 # st office inspector from Mus- ogee told me ‘Teresa, why don’t you take charge until we can find someone?’ I just hung on because they couldn’t fino anyone.” Her son does not want the post office to disappear from Daisy where he was born 56 years ago and where he con tinues to live because it is a fami ly legacy. Harris now teaches elemen tary school in nearby String- town. 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