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
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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. He had to go to String-
town after county officials
closed the only school in Daisy
because of falling enrollment.
Daisy is 20
Stringtown in
(
0to<itn
Serving
Luncheon Buffet
Sunday through Friday
our u fun 1 11:00 a.m. to 1:30
Delicious Food
Beautiful View
4^0pen to the Public 4.
% “Quality First”
miles eas: i
southtasiRV
Oklahoma near the Indian
tion Turnpike.
“My mother is now77awlf'|
might be the oldest postman. X
in the world, but I'm not*™
to bet on it,” Harris said. “Ij
know she is the oldest post:; Unitec
ter in Oklahoma. ■&' ^
“The post office isjustar oni l ni
12 feet by 16 feet. It wasbiiP 1111 1
1968. Before that it wasiil cost
store which my father rani'ri cat
mother sells postage stanfta 1 1
makes out money orders. S :' ln ' "
just a one-person show. T| Wc ‘ll
town is pretty much gone,: can 11
thing left, only the post off:;:'P e M
slyl S(
11 1 1 ■ " "■ ■—i M < >u
GET HAPPY FEET
Jrnatn
>t Ger
nens
Pull An
lar an
Now
All-Nightf 3 ^
For MU
**★*■** ******** **★*★* ★j*'*’ 1
'•Superdance:
Feb. 19-20 12 noon to 12 noo|
BRAZOS CENTER
REGISTER (JAN. 24-FEB. 18)
^ I Alsi
The Commons 11:00-2:00 Cal
MSC 10:00-3:00
Sbisa 11:00-2:00
Registration Fee $2.50 per person
All proceeds to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association
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