The Index-Journal from Greenwood, South Carolina • Page 8

The Index-Journal, Greenwood, S.C., May 11. 1990 9 Writers trying to be bad succeed in fiction contest 1 rt 1 -mm 1 I I mr a a Si SAN FRANCISCO (AP) There's a novel here somewhere, buried deep in a mountain of 10,000 opening lines, an Everest of literary lunacy by writers trying to be as bad as they can be and succeeding. Whether scrawled by hand or written on word processors, they all vied in the ninth annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a celebration of mangled language in the name of a 19th century novelist. Linda Vernon, a housewife i in Newark, copped the grand prize this year with her mixed metaphors and overdone images, San Jose State University English professor Scott Rice announced Thursday. Rice, the contest's originator, called Vernon's purple prose "an example of a writer getting carried away with figures of speech." If you're reading aloud, take a breath and give it a try: "Dolores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank and, due to an overdose of fluoride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a five- hundred-pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center." Vernon, a 38-year-old mother of three who's taking writing courses, won a word processor.

"It takes a lot of talent to be a bad writer," she said. "This is a good start, but I hope this is not the peak of my career." Runner-up Richard G. Carter of Hampton, took a more gruesome tone: "Since both parties demanded sole custody in the Frankenstein divorce case, the judge called for his Sword-of-Solomon bolt-cutters and ruled an equitable split: Victor was to raise the creature's grotesque body in Palo Alto while his ex-wife reared its ugly head in San Jose." Rice, who has published several books from the entries over the years, sees the contest as a way to encourage people to have fun with language and make a statement, in a way, about the importance of literacy. Edward Bulwer-Lytton earned the distinction of a contest in his name by beginning his 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" with that potboiling opener popular with Snoopy of the "Peanuts" comic strip: "It was a dark and stormy night." In a more inspired moment, Bulwer-Lytton also originated the line, "The pen is mightier than the sword." Study of plants After completing a unit of study on plants, students in Mrs. Rebecca Montgomery's biology classes at Ninety Six High School turn in a terrarium for their project.

Aaron Johanses, Regina Thigpen and Jeremy Green look over some of the projects. (District 52 photo) Now you know The marriage of England's Aragon was declared null and King Henry VIII to Catherine of void in 1533. Mow) TM liljlU'JdildiniHIIiW Mill lfil lalihl IrMiiKi 1,1 irr. ifrainiSEOTSJrel lMotor Oil flltotororatt CfMorrth Battery S)( pw40 Motor OLM I Rain Dance IIOmmme! I NATION Oral Roberts U. to buy PTL network 1 COLUMBIA (AP) The court-appointed trustee overseeing the dismantling of the PTL empire once headed by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker believes he still can sell the ministry's assets as a package despite a tentative $6 million deal by Oral Roberts University to buy the PTL satellite network.

"I plan to sell it one way or the other and this is the only firm offer I have for any substantial part of the estate," the trustee, Columbia attorney Dennis Shedd, said in a telephone interview Thursday night. Shedd said he signed the pact with the Tulsa, university founded by evangelist Oral Roberts because he wants to force action by buyers interested in acquiring the entire PTL complex. Nurses charged with stealing narcotics COLUMBIA (AP) Two nurses have been charged with falsifying patient records in order to steal narcotics, a state health official said. The nurses, who worked at Providence Hospital and Baptist Medical Center when the thefts occurred, are accused of altering patient records to request more drugs, said John P. Wood, director of the Department of Health and Environmental Control's division of narcotics and drug control.

Robert L. Barnard, 39, of Providence Hospital, and Amanda Rae Bridges, 26, a former Baptist Medical Center nurse, were charged Thursday with two counts of obtaining narcotics by fraud. Barnard was accused of stealing 'Morphine and Ms. Bridges was accused of stealing Percodan and Tylox in 1989. Millions more in HUD losses reported WASHINGTON (AP) The government likely will lose $177 million on a housing program used for developments alongside golf courses and marinas, say internal reports that blame the risky loans on mismanagement and, in some cases, political favoritism.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Title land development program already has cost the government $55 million because of defaults, agency auditors said. They said it will cost an additional $122 million if failures continue at current rates. The investigation, detailed in two reports completed last week, found several examples of projects being approved despite overwhelming evidence they did not meet requirements or were too risky. Aerospace layoffs hurt California LOS ANGELES (AP) Cuts in the defense budget are beginning to send tremors through Southern California. Layoffs announced by two contractors this week were the latest blows to one of the economic engines of the region.

McDonnell Douglas announced Thursday it would lay off 1,000 workers this summer. It had announced last month that 3,000 mostly white-collar jobs would be lost in the Douglas Aircraft Co. division, which lost $84 million last quarter. On Tuesday, Lockheed announced it would move its Burbank aeronautics unit to Georgia, eliminating 4,500 jobs in Southern California by the mid-1990s. Any new jobs would be moved to other parts of the country, the company said.

Prosecutors seek pattern in Barry's drug use WASHINGTON (AP) Prosecutors seeking six new drug charges against Mayor Marion Barry hope to show a pattern of drug use by the mayor, sources familiar with the case say. The new charges returned Thursday include five counts of misdemeanor cocaine possession and a misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine. They were added to an eight-count indictment, including three felony perjury counts, filed against the mayor in February. The updated indictment alleges that Barry "possessed cocaine and crack with other co-conspirators at more than 20 locations, including private residences, hotels, government offices and business establishments and on boats." Hatch Act rollback heads for veto showdown WASHINGTON (AP) Nearly 3 million federal employees and postal workers would be allowed for the first time in half a century to campaign actively for their favorite politicians under a bill passed by both the Senate and House. The two chambers still have to iron out differences in their versions of the bill before trying to muster votes for overriding a threatened veto by President Bush.

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