FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1948
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE NINE
Pete Contino Gets The Jitters But Son, Dick, Wins Contest
By HARMAN W. NICHOLS
Washington——(UP)—Last summer I held a mama's hand and whispered sweet stuff into her hearing aid just as her daughter was about to flunk out of the Miss America contest.
mothers when their youngsters are platform and the blue clothes are down.
The other night, I held the hand of a man whose son was shooting for stardom. You can put it down that fathers are more fidgety than mothers when their youngsters are ___ on there on the platform, and the ___
In this case, the boy made it and his pon survived.
Dad was Pete Contino of Fresno, Calif., a nervous little man who is a butcher by trade. He wanted his boy to be a butcher too. But son, Dick, balked. Dick told his dad that he could play an accordion better than he could slice a ring of sausage, and that he'd prove it.
He did.
The other night Dick pushed all the buttons on his flashy accordion and won himself a lot of fame and fortune. He took first prize in the Horace Heidt search for youthful talent. A check for $5,000, plus a lot of other things including a contract with stars in it.
I was standing in a darkened aisle with Pete Contino when the finals of the year-long contest went on the air. Engineers were flapping their arms to get the thing going coast to coast. Upstage the applause meter was plugged in.
The first contestant came on. "Don't clap too loud," Pete said. Then he checked himself. He was acting like a father.
Along came the second and then the third finalist. Pete tried hard to restrain his applause. He did all right.
Then came his boy Dick. Pete didn't clap very loud. But you could hear him scream and holler from here to Baltimore or Philadelphia.
"There's my boy," he shouted, as if he were giving away a secret.
As I said, the boy won. But what does money mean to an 18-year-old accordionist? To Dick, nothing.
The minute he got the check he wheeled around in his dressing room, brushed back a frizz of black curly hair and counter-signed it. He gave it to his mom and pon for Christmas. That's been the way ever since he hit the big time and won his first contest in the Heidt show.
"I haven't seen a cent of it," he said. "Why should I? The folks took care of me. I'd better take care of them, including my sister, Josephine, 16, brother Victor, 14, and Pete, Jr., my 7-year-old brother He is already an accordion player!"
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Official Bulletin
Student-Faculty conference committee, 5 today. Union.
WE STAND BETWEEN YOU AND LOSS!
Dec.17,1948
Entomology club, 4 p.m. Monday,
301 Snow, Dr. C. H. Hoffman of
U.S. Department of Agriculture,
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Episcopal College club annual Christmas party, 7 p.m. Sunday parish house.
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B'nai J'hudah fraternity special meeting, 6:30 p.m. Monday, 102 Frank Strong.
San Francisco—(UP)—The human race may be unfavorably changed in future generations because of the present-day use of radio-activity in medical treatment, a geneticist warned today.
Care Needed In Radioactivity Use
Herman J. Muller, Nobel prizewinning geneticist at the University of Indiana, said fluoroscopes, radioactive isotopes, atom smashers and X-ray machines are combining to increase sharply the chances of genetic injury.
He said even a routine examination of a woman's abdomen by a fluoroscope has a 10 per cent chance of handicapping and killing one of her descendants—perhaps hundreds of years hence.
A routine fluoroscopic examination sends more high energy radiation into a person's body than he received in an entire lifetime a century ago from natural radiation from the earth, Dr. Muller said. Yet this examination may someday mean that a yet-to-be born person may be crippled, sterile or die in his mother's womb because of an injury to her genes.
University Life Should Be A Breeze After Dodging Communist Bullets
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From political rebel to South American crooner is a pretty big jump, but Mario Rivera, pre-med sophomore, did it.
Mario, who came to the United States 14 months ago from Cartago, Costa Rica, was active in demonstrations against Teodoro Picardo, the Republican president of Costa Rica.
"Costa Rica was one of the most democratic countries in South America from 1821 to 1940," Mario remarked. "However, the Republicans, who merged with the Communists, won the 1940 and 1944 elections. Then began eight years of misrule and dictatorship."
"We once protested against a colegio professor, who was selected, as are all professors, by the government. His teaching was so poor that the student body refused to attend classes until he was removed. Nothing was done, but the next time our organization had a meeting, several government men attended. Several students were shot.
While studying at the "colegio" which is a five-year intensive training school preparing students for university work, Mario was vice-president of the student federation. Supposedly organized to aid students, it actually was connected with the Democratic party and served to bring the government's inadequacies to students' attention.
"Another time, we protested by striking for a group of workers who were not being paid. No shooting this time, but we were imprisoned for instigating the strike. In February, the Democrats won the presidential election; we don't expect any more revolutions or bloodshed now."
While at the colegio Mario also sang and was "guitarista" in his brother's band. At K.U., he organizes South American students' entertainment programs, frequently singing and playing in them.
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