University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 23,1962
Estes May Plead 'Fifth' To Creditors
EL PASO, Tex—(UPI)—Indicted farm tycoon Billie Sol Estes came face to face today with some of 564 creditors who claim he owes them amounts ranging from $100 to as much as $7 million.
Estes appeared shortly before a creditors' hearing began in the courtroom of U.S. Dist. Judge R. Ewing Thomason.
He appeared slightly haggard, and Assistant U.S. Marshal Ralph Gilliland said he appeared to have "lost several pounds" since his arrest in March.
Estes spoke to attorneys and shook hands with a few friends.
"There are not as many here as I thought there were going to be," he told a lawyer after surveying the jammed courtroom.
The hearing is being held to allow the creditors to ask Estes any questions they may wish about his assets. Lawyers said Estes will probably plead the Fifth Amendment on grounds his answers might tend to incriminate him in pending criminal charges on which he has been indicted.
One of the questions he is certain to be asked is whether he has concealed millions of dollars in a number account in Swiss banks.
There has been a report that he transferred $4.7 million to a bank in Switzerland. When originally arraigned, he laughed off such reports.
The government lent substance to the reports last week, however, when it ordered through the immigration service that Estes was not to leave the continental limits of the United States.
Estes has admitted he owes $20 million. His business has been turned over to a court-appointed receiver, Harry Moore of El Paso.
Out of the meeting today, the creditors are expected to appoint a committee to work with Moore in recovering their money.
The creditors had hoped to recover a large part of their losses from government grain being stored in Estes' warehouses. However, these hopes were dashed yesterday when the government announced it was taking all of its grain out of the warehouses.
Storage fees from the government amounted to about $4 million per year. With this gone, many creditors doubted they would get much of their money back.
Replacement Set For Myers Hall
Preliminary plans and sketches for a half-million dollar building to replace Myers Hall on Mt. Oread across from the University of Kansas Union have been approved by the board of the Kansas Bible Chair.
The new building, designed by Charles L. Marshall, architect, an David E. Prickett, associate architect, of Topeka, will serve as a part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) contribution to the expansion of the interdenominational and interfaith Kansas School of Religion.
THE BIBLE Chair is the Christian Church agency cooperating with seven other religious groups in teaching religion at KU through the School of Religion.
The new building will more than double the present number of classrooms provided the School of Religion by the Christian Churches in Myers Hall. Provision for the enlarged staff and increased services to be provided by the cooperating religious groups has been made in office and work space. Library facilities will be constructed to house over 15,000 volumes and to provide study areas for three times as many students as in the present library
A section of the ground floor has been set aside for campus ministry centers and a chapel. A residence for the director of the Kansas Bible Chair will be built in connection with the building.
Sooter to Give Recital Today
Edward Sooter, Wichita graduate student and assistant instructor of voice, will present a recital at 8 o'clock tonight in Swarthout Recital Hall on the Faculty Recital Series.
Sooter, a tenor, received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Friends University in 1960. He was also named district winner of the Metropolitan Opera auditions in 1960. He was named regional winner in 1961.
He has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony as soloist in Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" and with the Wichita Choral Society as soloist in Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and "Handel's Messiah."
At KU this year Sooter appeared as soloist in Bruckner's "Te Deum" with the University Chorus, as Poreus in Honegger's "Joan of Arc" and as Nika Magadoff in Menotti's "The Consul."
TOPEKA — (UPI) — Gov. John Anderson today approved the State Highway Commission's $69.6 million highway construction program for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Sooter's program will include "Dichterliebe" song cycle by Schumann, a group of Brahms songs including "Die Mainacht" and a group of Beethoven songs including "Adelaide."
AndersonOK s Highway Plan
Highway Director Addison H. Meschke told Anderson that the program will include 101 miles of interstate construction and 481 miles on primary state highways.
MESCHKE ESTIMATED THE money to be invested in highways would total about $27,800,000 for interstate construction and right of way; $29,300,000 in state primary highways and urban routes; $10,- 000,000 in county secondary road improvements; and $2,500,000 in maintenance resurfacing.
"The Federal government pays 90 per cent of the cost of this work with the remaining ten per cent from state-collected highway user taxes." Meschke said.
Meschke told the governor, "The interstate work amounts to about 40 per cent of the total program but this money can be used only on the 801 miles of interstate mileage allotted in Kansas.
Most of the primary and urban construction is financed 50-50 from state and Federal revenues with about $10.5 million in construction
and maintenance resurfacing paid entirely from state funds.
THE COUNTY SECONDARY program is 50 per cent Federal and 50 per cent from the county share of one penny of the five-cent per gallon gasoline motor fuel tax in Kansas.
Gov. Anderson was told that the Highway Commission expected to open about 27 miles of Interstate 70 in Gove and Wabaunsee counties by July 1, raising the total interstate mileage opened to 397 miles.
That will be only four miles short of the half-way mark in the 801 miles scheduled for completion by 1972.
"The interstate system will handle a large per cent of the total highway traffic but the real meat of the Kansas highway program is in the 481 miles of primary projects scheduled for construction that will touch every section of the state and will provide roads that Kansans will use in their day-to-day commerce." Meschk said.
POINTING OUT A FEW of the major projects, Meschke said the program includes a seven-mile extension of four-lane pavement on U.S. 54 west of Wichita and three
miles in Wichita and Kingman on the same route at a total cost of $2.1 million; 22 miles on U.S. 69 in Johnson, Miami, Linn and Crawford counties to cost over $3 million.
Also 32 miles on U.S. 75 in Brown, Jackson, Shawnee, Coffey and Woodson counties at $2.155 million; 42 miles on U.S. 50 in Harvey, Reno, Edwards, Finney and Gray counties at $4.08 million; completion of the 16 miles on U.S. 36 between Phillipsburg and Kensington at $955,000; and surfacing on the 15-mile K45 diagonal between Great Bend and Claflin at $600,000.
Among others scheduled for construction:
- Wyandotte county — over a mile of grading, bridges and hightype surfacing on I35 from Southwest Boulevard to Seventh Street in Kansas City at a cost of $1.9 million; deck revision of existing intercity viaduct on I70 at Kansas City at cost of $1.3 million; and acquisition of right of way along some of the 11.4 miles from Johnson County line west and north of Kansas City to Fairfax bridge on I635 at cost of $1 million.
- Shawnee county — one mile of grading, bridges and surfacing on 170 in Topeka at cost of $2.5 million.