COMMUNITY CALENDAR PUBLIC MEETINGS

TODAY • Barry/Branch/Calhoun Chief

Executive Officers Board, 3 p.m., G^lhoun ' Intermediate School Ostrict Educational Service Cen-ter, Marshall. ^ Battle Creek Planning Com-niittee, 4 p.m., City Hall, Room 301.

Battle Creek Housing Com-mission, 4:30 p.m., 250 Champion

. St

THURSDAY • • Calhoun County Board of Commissioners, 7 p.m.. Commis-sioners Meeting Room, County Building, Marshall.

• Nashville Village Council, 7 p.m.. Community Center Building. ^ • Burlington Township Planning

Council meeting, 7:30 p.m.. Township Hall.

SELF-HELP GROUPS • Parents of Preemies Sup-

port Group, 7 p.m. today. Battle Creek Health System/Community Site, sixth-floor conference room.

• Nicotine Anonymous, 9 a.m. Thursday, Burnham Brook Center.

• Battle Creek Gay/Lesbian Connections, 7 p.m. Thursday. For location, call 968-9563.

• Building Better Relation-ships, 7 p.m. Thursday, Church of Gbrist, 122 N. 20th St.

HEALTH —r :—

! • Lakeview Square mall walk, 6j30 to 9 a.m. weekdays. Blood pressure screening from 7 to 8:30 aim.

SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS • Landlord/tenant law semi-

nar presented by Legal Services Organization, 6 p.m. Thursday, United Way Building, 182 W. Van Buren St.

• North American Patriots Association, 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Speed's Koffee Shop, 1425 W. Michigan Ave.

SERVICE CLUBS • American Business Wo-

men's Association, Cereal City jcnapter, 6 p.m. today. Battle Creek

. Inn. • Cereal City Lions Club, 6:30

.p.m. today, McCamly Plaza Hotel. • •/

SENIOR CITIZENS • Health screening, 9 a.m. to

10:30 a.m. Thursday, Marshall House, Marshall: 11 a.m. to noon Thursday, Marshall Civic Center. ' ; • Senior meals, dining senior-style lunches served by Elder Services Department of the

' Community Action Agency are available 11:30 a.m. Monday through Friday in Springview Towers, Bedford Manor, Franklin Center, Washington Heights United Methodist Church and Mercy Pavilion Lakeview Center;

' 11:30 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Springfield Senior Fellowship Center at the Battle Creek Area Math - and Science Center, 765 Upton Ave. Make reservations the previous open day 963-1212.

TO SUBMIT INFORMATION ' • Please send items to Community Calendar, 155 W. Van Buren St., Battle Creek 49017-3093 or fax them to us at 964-0299. Please include your name and phone number. i

SETTING IT STRAIGHT • Thomas F. McGinn, 46, of

Battle Creek, who died Monday, was born Jan. 20, 1951. Because of a clerical error, the date of birth in-correct in his obituary Tuesday. He was preceded in death by a son, Russell E. Burbank. Because of in-correct information provided to the Enquirer, the son's name was iticorrect and a grandson was listed as a survivor.

• W.K- Kellogg Foundation -reimburses employees to supple-ment their fitness program. For ex-

Cample, an employee who joins a ;fitness center can get part of his or -Der membership fee reimbursed - by the foundation. While the foun-dation encourages its employees to participate in the Corporate Cup, it does not reimburse them for Corporate Cup participation. Be-cause of incorrect information pro-vided to the Enquirer, incorrect information on reimbursements was included on Page 2 of Saturday's Business Journal.

The Battle Creek Enquirer cor-rects errors of fact. To report an er-ror, call 966-0674.

; HOW TO REACH US 1 Have a story tip or idea? Here's how

: n to reach us 24 hours a day: - 3 • Reader hotline: 966-0681 - I • Fax: 964-0299 * * • Great Lakes Free-Net: Leave a

message in the Battle Qeek Enquirer conference area.

. • E-mail: enquirer@mail.tds.nef *

LOCAL WEDNESDAY, JULY 2 3 , 1 9 9 7 B\TTLE CREEK ENQUIRER 3A

Murder trial focuses on money Defense attorney: Emmett woman 'is a caring person'

TRACE CHRISTENSON The Enquirer

Sharon Zachary killed for money, the prosecution said Tuesday.

She was incapable of killing, the de-fense responded.

Both sides presented opening state-ments to the jury Tuesday before the prosecution called its first wit-nesses— the police officers who found the body.

Zachary, 31, is charged with the April 26, 1996, murder of Robert Rogers, 80, of Emmett Township. His body was found in his house on Raymond Road after he had been beaten to death.

"You may have heard that money is the root of all evil," Assistant Calhoun County Prosecutor David Wallace told the jury. "I expect you will hear that she killed him for money.

"She took a pipe and hit him over the head 25 times until he lay dead in a pool of his blood."

But Defense Attorney John Hofman told the jury later that Zachary did not could not and would not have killed Rogers, a man she had been caring for.

"She is afraid of blood, she is a

Sharon Zachary

David Wallace

small person and she would not do this," Hofman said. "She is a caring person."

Hofman said he will show that Zachary was with friends and family during the time Rogers was killed and that the murder devastated her. "She was distraught" he said.

Zachary was using some of Rogers' money, Hofman said, "but he gave her free access to his money and he knew she was using it."

But Wallace said he will show that Zachary was spending thousands Rogers' of dollars and that he at-tempted to stop it.

Rogers put Zachary's name on a joint account containing $10,000 but took her name off two days later.

Wallace said. He also removed her as his power of at-torney.

"He did not trust her," he said.

THE ARGUMENTS Rogers was

known to have cash, Wallace

said. He often carried up to $5,000 in his pocket, and police found $133,000 hidden in his house after the murder.

Wallace said his case will show that: • Zachary's thumbprint was found

near the buckle on the belt that Rogers was wearing when he was killed. Police said the body had been turned over before he was found.

• A footprint from Zachary's tennis shoe was found on broken glass near a sliding door in the basement.

• She told investigators if there was blood from Rogers on her shoe, it was from a time earlier when he cut him-self. No blood was found.

• A pipe was found in a nearby pond with Rogers' blood on it.

• Zachary said she killed Rogers, a

cellmate from the Calhoun County jail will testify.

But Hofman said Zachary gave the belt to Rogers and that she could have put her footprint on the glass at any time before it was broken. He has dis-missed the cellmate as untruthful.

He also said there are others who might have killed Rogers because of the money he was known to have.

Emmett Township police had inves-tigated other burglaries and robberies of Rogers, and he moved in with the Zachary family weeks before he died because he was a target, Hofman said.

Hofman said Rogers' own son, Donald, might be a better suspect be-cause of disputes with his father. Hofman said two other suspects might be drug dealers who will be named by a defense witness.

Hofrnan said he also will call a mail carrier who will testify he believes he saw Rogers alive the afternoon of April 26, while Zachary was in Dowagiac and Marshall.

"She had no motive to kill Mr. Rogers," Hofrnan said. >4She had ac-cess and used some of his money. She is not the type of person who could have committed this type of crime.

FOCUS: OUR COMMUNITIES

His tuning makes pianos sing Branch County man has worked with music greats

KINDERHOOK - Memories from the time he tuned Roger Williams' piano are like perfectly polished stones that Gordon Sears carries in his pockets.

Sears, 75, chuckles at the thought of trying to count the pi- PATRICIA anos he has I MAHER tuned over the past 50 years, a skill he learned on the GI Bill af-ter World War II.

Some experi-ences, like those with famed pianist Roger Williams in the 1960s, stand out.

Sears, who lives in southeast Branch County, tuned for quite a few greats while servicing pianos for the University of Notre Dame - Ray Charles and Duke Ellington to name a few.

But he never met a musician who cared about the way his piano was tuned the way Williams did.

During a performance intermis-sion, Williams told Sears just what keys had been knocked out of tune with his aggressive playing.

"He could hear them and tell -now that's a great musician," Sears said. "He'd say, Tune the E-flat in the upper register.' He could tell it's out."

TUNE TIME Sears fondly recalls the sound

Williams made on the piano he tuned. Especially when he played Blueberry Hill, Sears remembered with a smile as he replaced the strings on a parlor grand in the red pole-barn workshop behind his home.

Sears owns Perfect Piano Tuning, a business employing himself and two of his three sons. He said the

DOUG ALLEN/THE ENQUIRER

Gordon Sears has been tuning pianos for many years. He also traveled with his children as they per-formed in gospel quartets.

stories a piano tuner collects in a life-time are interesting.

Just last year, while tuning a piano in Battle Creek, Sears started play-ing a few notes when a high- pitched voice from the kitchen called out to him.

That startled Sears since nobody was home and the homeowner had left a note on the door inviting him to go on in.

"Hello," said the squeaky voice. "Hello," replied Sears, who

learned the voice was coming from a yellow-and-green talking bird. ?

When he went back to the piano and continued playing, the bird be-gan singing the first line of Jesus Loves Me.

Sears, who for 13 years traveled with his children in a gospel brass quartet, knew some of the words to that one.

"The Bible tells me so," he sang

back to the bird, who then started egging him on for more.

While performing with the Sears family quartet, he traveled all over the United States.

MAKING IT NEW AGAIN His all-time favorite piano to tune

is at Battle Creek's Firsi Wesleyan Church on Helmer Road.

"When you tune the piano up, it's absolutely gorgeous," he said. "It's just like an orchestra."

Sears said he might have been a pianist instead of piano tuner had he been more interested in his music lessons and less interested in base-ball when he was a kid.

But it also seems to have some thing to do with the strength of his family and the pleasure they take in each others' company. Two of his sons live on his property in the rolling grassy hills around Kinderhook.

Sears said he still enjoys tuning and servicing pianos after all these years, in part because it is some-thing he can share with his family.

And it's precious to save a beauti-ful old piano from the trash, he said.

"I enjoy it," he said as he pound ed a new nickel pin in to the 50- some-thing Chickering piano he was work-ing on.

"I like taking something old and making it new again."

Staff writer Patricia Maher covers issues and people in southcentral Michigan. Her column runs on Wednesdays.

PATRICIA MAHER Battle Creek Enquirer 155W. Van Buren Battle Creek, Ml 49017 Phone: 966-0657

She gets sick at the sight of blood."

THE TESTIMONY

Earlier in the proceedings Tuesday, Hofman asked for a recess and Zachary left the courtroom in the midst of Wallace's statement after the prosecutor showed a picture of the in-juries to Rogers' head.

Hofman objected to the photograph and told Judge Stephen Miller that his client was vomiting because of the pic-ture.

But Miller ruled the photograph could be used as evidence and, with the jury out of the courtroom, told Hofman that his client did not have to look at the evidence.

He called the interruption "intolera-ble. This is the first, last and only time this is going to happen," Miller said.

Near the end of the day, Wallace called Emmett Township Public Safety Director Murray Switzer and Officer Gene Adkins to testify about the crime scene.

The officers said they found Rogers on his back in a living area on the main floor of the house after being called by Zachary about 4 p.m.

Youth may face life for shooting

TRACE CHRISTENSON The Enquirer

A 16-year-old youth has been charged as an adult in connection with a weekend shooting.

Frank Williams III of Battle Creek was arraigned Tuesday on charges of assault with intent to murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

Williams is accused of shooting an-other man outside a Battle Creek bar early Sunday.

Gregory Williams, 22, of Battle Creek, who is not related to the sus-pect, was shot once in the torso in the parking lot of Colors on the Cor ner, 84 S. Kendall St., about 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

Battle Creek police said Gregory Williams apparently fought with Frank Williams a shortly before the shooting. Witnesses said three shots were fired.

When police arrived, both Frank Williams and Gregory Williams were gone. Gregory Williams later went to Battle Creek Health System for care.

He was originally listed in critical condition, but his family has asked the hospital that his condition not be re-leased. Police said Tuesday that he ap-parently is improving.

Frank Williams III surrendered to police Monday.

During Tuesday's arraignment. Defense Attorney Peter Hirsch sug-gested the shooting may have been a response to a June assault on Frank Williams by Gregory Williams' brother.

Battle Creek police said Frank Williams reported that on June 19 he had an argument with three men in a car and that one of them pointed a handgun at him. Minutes later, the car returned. One man pointed a hand-gun and a second aimed an assault ri-fle at Williams, Frank Williams told police, but no shots were fired.

A preliminary examination for Frank Williams was scheduled for Aug. 5. Judge Samuel Durham set bond at $5,000.

NEIGHBORS PLUS

vr I Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service

[

DEFENSE REUTILIZATION AND MARKETING SERVICE

Employees of the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service are preparing to celebrate the agency's 25th anniversary Aug. 18-22.

The Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) at the Battle Creek Federal Center will cele-brate its 25th an-niversary the week of Aug. 18-22.

DRMS was es-tablished Sept. 12. 1972, as the Defense Pro-perty Disposal Service, a pri-mary level field activity of the Defense Logis-tics Agency. The mission of the world-wide organization is to dispose of excess personal property for the mili-tary services. The agency's name was changed in 1985 to the current name.

Today, under the command of Air Force Col. Robert E. Mansfield Jr.,

mark DRMS accomplishes its mission by redistributing or reusing excess per-sonal property within the Department of Defense through transfer to other federal agencies, donation to state and local agencies and qualified nonprofit organizations, and sale to the public.

The agency is also responsible for the disposal of all hazardous property generated by the military services.

DRMS employs more than 3,600 personnel worldwide, with 500 lo-cated at the headquarters in the Battle Creek Federal Center.

The 25th anniversary event will be-gin Monday, Aug. 18, with a kickoff in the Federal Center Courtyard from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A formal program will be held from 2-3 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21, in the Federal Center cafeteria.

A dinner will be held the evening of Thursday, Aug. 21, in the Federal

Center cafeteria. The social time will begin at 6:30 p.m., with dinner at 7 p.m.

On Friday, Aug. 22, the annual DRMS Picnic will be held at Binder Park beginning at 11 a.m.

All retirees, and past and present employees of DRMS are invited to at-tend.

For more information, call .the Office of Public Affairs at 961-7015.

GIVE US A CALL Neighbors Plus is a supplement to the

weekly Neighbors section, whkh is pubtshed each Monday. If you hove news lor Neighbors or Neighbors Plus, coll Steve Smith at 966-0663 between 6:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., Mondoy-FHdoy, or fax the mformatnn to us at 964-0299.