31 Cord L29 Speedster

1931 Cord L-29 Phaeton

1936 Custom Beverly Supercharged

1936 Cord 810 Phaeton

36 Cord 810 Westchester 4-door Sedan

1937 Cord 812S Custom Berline

1937 Cord 812 Beverly Sedan

37 Cord 812 Beverly

1937 Cord Sportsman Convertible Coupe

BY MARK PHELAN • DETROIT FREE PRESS AUTO CRITIC • July 29, 2008

When he was 17, Gary Kaberle fell in love with a one-of-a-kind Italian sports car.

Thirteen years later, he fell in love with a 5-foot-4 blonde who sang in an all-girls group called the Honeybees.

In time, the BAT 9 coupe would repay his devotion, with its sale financing cancer treatments that extended his wife Deb's life. A six-month death sentence turned into four years together.

The tale continues this morning at the Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, when Kaberle, a Traverse City dentist, will stand next to the BAT 11, a new car that Italian craftsmen rushed to build for him as their company slid into bankruptcy earlier this year. He hopes to one day use the car to raise money to fight cancer.

The story begins in 1963, when Kaberle, who grew up in Evart [pop. 1738 in 2000], a village about 65 miles east of Ludington where his parents ran a café and gift shop, was visiting Greenville -- about 60 miles from Evart and as far from home as he'd ever been.

"My whole world was a 50-mile radius of Evart," said Kaberle, 62.

He saw the BAT 9 under a mercury vapor lamp in front of a used-car dealership.

The dealer got the car in a bankruptcy auction, apparently didn't know what a jewel he had and thought he had a live one in young Gary Kaberle. He set what seemed like a high price. Kaberle won't say exactly how much, but it was as much as a new car cost in 1963, when a brand-new Chevrolet Impala four-door sedan sold for $2,662.

Kaberle scraped together his savings from the $1.15 an hour he got working in the popcorn stand outside his parents' shop. "It was Evart. There wasn't much to spend money on," he said. He was still about $1,000 short; his grandmother made up the difference.

The BAT 9 was one of three unique sports cars built in the '50s by Italian car designer Nuccio Bertone -- creator of the Lamborghini Countach and other milestone designs.

Kaberle had no idea he owned a handmade masterpiece. He just loved the car. He drove it to work at the popcorn stand.

Kaberle's father and grandmother died of cancer not long after he bought the BAT. His mother became ill and spent a lot of time hospitalized in Traverse City. "A lot of people left my life, but the car was always there," he said.

He learned about its history -- a landmark creation by two Italian icons, the only one of its kind. He went to college, married, divorced and built his dental practice. The BAT 9 sat in his garage for years.

In 1976, he met Deb singing with the Honeybees at a Shanty Creek resort. They married in 1977 and raised three children -- one each from previous marriages and a daughter they shared.

"She said, 'Wow,' the first time she saw the BAT," Kaberle said. "She really liked riding in it. It wasn't like a car; it was a moving sculpture."

Admiration and pain

Kaberle met car buffs and auto executives who saw him driving the BAT 9 around Traverse City. One suggested he bring it to the Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance in 1987 or '88. The car was a hit, though it didn't win any awards.

In 1989, the Concours d'Elegance in Pebble Beach, Calif., invited him to a show that would honor Bertone, the designer. Kaberle met the Italian legend, who hadn't seen the car in decades, when both went out to admire the car as the sun rose over it on a putting green at the golf course.

Later that day, the judges named the BAT 9 their favorite car at the show.

Shortly after that, Deb was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Doctors said she had six months to live.

A doctor and car buff told Kaberle the National Institutes of Health were testing an experimental treatment. It might help, but insurance wouldn't cover it, and the cost was far beyond Kaberle's means.

Never before had Kaberle considered offers to sell the BAT 9, but now he did, for a combination of collectible cars and cash that he said added up to millions of dollars.

Deb got the experimental treatment and rallied, but they knew time was precious now. One of the cars included in the BAT sale, a Ferrari F40, came with a trip to Italy.

The BAT 9 was on display when the Kaberles visited Turin. Deb stood by the car, head bowed, as she thought about the extra time it had bought with her husband and children.

The cancer recurred in 1993. Deb was too weak to walk after her final chemotherapy treatment. Kaberle carried her up the steps to their house and laid her in bed.

She died in his arms a few hours later.

The BAT 9 was sold to help Deb Kaberle fight cancer.
(Gary Kaberle)

A way to honor all he lost

Years passed. Kaberle thought about the BAT 9 and all the people cancer had taken from him. Was there a way the car could draw greater attention to the disease, to honor Deb and help others?

The BAT 9 was gone, just another collector's trophy now, but could he create a new car, a BAT 11, to do that? (No BAT 10 was ever built.)

Kaberle worked on ideas, then designs, finally a clay model with friends in the auto industry he'd met through the BAT 9. In 2006, he visited the Bertone design studio just outside Turin.

Nuccio Bertone had died, and the company was in financial difficulty. Kaberle made his presentation to Bertone's widow, Lilli Bertone, and daughters, including a video his 14-year-old son shot of the young Bertone girls playing near the BAT 9 at Pebble Beach. The company said yes, and Kaberle sold more of the cars he got for the BAT 9.

The new BAT was scheduled to be the star of Bertone's display at the Geneva auto show in Switzerland in March.

Rebels for a cause

Kaberle got bad news from Turin early this year. The BAT 11 was coming along well, but the company was headed for bankruptcy, and the family was riven by strife. Just days before the car was to debut in Geneva, Lilli Bertone canceled the company's display at the show and said all work on the BAT 11 must cease.

Quietly, the designers rebelled. They finished work on the non-running car, snuck it out of the studio and shipped it to Geneva.

With no space at the auto show, they parked the car in an alley by the entrance to a nightclub hosting a reception for auto designers from around the world. The next morning, the BAT 11 was on the front page of Automotive News, dubbed "Geneva Eye Candy."

The BAT 11 makes what may be its only U.S. appearance at the Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance this weekend.

The car has no engine or chassis. Building a running vehicle will cost $2 million or $3 million, far more money than Kaberle has left. He hopes corporations will help underwrite the car, which he wants to use to promote cancer prevention and research. He has talked with Microsoft and Bose, and Disney would like to see a script for a movie, he said.

A Disney love story. Kaberle went from small-town Evart "to seeing the world, and the car connected the dots in my life."

Logan McLaren, 42, of Royal Oak helps move the BAT 11 in West Bloomfield on Monday. The Italian-made concept will be on display at the Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance this weekend. It may be the car's only U.S. appearance.
(ANDRE J. JACKSON/Detroit Free Press)

BAT 11

BAT 9

Local car shows, cruises

• Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Meadow Brook Hall and Grounds, Rochester Hills.

• Gratiot Cruise: noon-6 p.m. Sunday, Gratiot between 14 Mile and Wellington Crescent in Clinton Township. www.ctgratiotcruise.com

• Cool Cars on Parade: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Aug. 9, Campus Martius, downtown Detroit. www.campusmartiuspark.org.

• Woodward Dream Cruise in Oakland County on Aug. 16.

Blitzkrieg Bop
Ramones
from Ramones
1976


Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go

They're formin' in a straight line
They're goin' through a tight wind


The kids are losin' their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They're pilin' in the back seat
They're generatin' steam heat


Pulsatin' to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey ho, let's go


Shoot 'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all revved up and ready to go

They're formin' in a straight line
They're goin' through a tight wind
The kids are losin' their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They're pilin' in the back seat
They're generatin' steam heat


Pulsatin' to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey ho, let's go


Shoot 'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all revved up and ready to go

They're formin' in a straight line
They're goin' through a tight wind


The kids are losin' their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They're pilin' in the back seat
They're generatin' steam heat
Pulsatin' to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go

Gun Street Girl
Tom Waits
from Rain Dogs
1985

Fallin' James in the Tahoe mud
stick around to tell us all the tale


Well, he fell in love with a Gun Street Girl
and now he's dancing in the Birmingham jail
dancing in the Birmingham jail

Took a hundred dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe
bought a bran' new Michigan 20 gauge
He got all liquored up on that road house corn


and blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette
a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette

He bought a second-hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese
and dyed his hair in the bathroom of a Texaco
With a pawnshop radio, a quarter past four
He left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door
left Waukegan at the slammin' of the door

I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home

Sitting in a sycamore in St. John's Wood
soakin' day old bread in kerosene
Well, he was blue as a robin's egg and brown as a hog


He stayed out of circulation till the dogs get tired


out of circulation till the dogs get tired

Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone
He never get up in the morning on a Saturday
Sittin' by the Erie with a bull-whipped dog
tellin' everyone he saw
"They went thatta way, boys,"
tellin' everyone he saw
"They went thatta way,"

Now the rain like gravel on an old tin roof


and the Burlinton Northern pullin' out of the world
A head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw
and a Gun Street Girl was the cause of it all
a Gun Street Girl was the cause of it all

Riding in the shadow by the St. Joe Ridge
And the click clack tappin' of a blind man's cane
He was pullin' into Baker on a New Year's Eve
With one eye on the pistol and the other on the door
one eye on the pistol and the other on the door

Miss Charlotte took the satchel down to King Fish Rows


smuggled in a bran' new pair of alligator shoes


With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair
well, they tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire
tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire

I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home

Bangin' on a table with an old tin cup
Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street Girl again
never kiss a Gun Street Girl again
I'll never kiss a Gun Street Girl again

I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana
Ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home

June 20, 2008
By Ginny Smith
philly.com

Broomall gardener Carol Lim used to be known for her cyclamen, but these days it's Clematis viorna. She pronounces it CLEM-a-tis, but lots of folks, especially in this country, say cle-MAT-is.

(Theoretically, both are acceptable, but if you want to impress your friends, the former rules.)

Viornas are easy. Unlike big hybrid clematis, they don't have tricky pruning schedules. They die back in winter.

"You just have to remember where you planted them," says Edith Malek, president of the 320-member American Clematis Society, who grows about 200 clematis of all kinds in her garden in Irvine, Calif.

"First, you fall in love with the big saucer shapes. That's how the love affair with clematis starts," she explains. "Then, when you start finding out about the viornas, you realize they bloom more and you get more out of them. That's pretty nifty."

Malek recommends crispa for its beauty - "looks like a little marshmallow, so darling," she says - and pitcherii for vines that shoot 20 feet a season. These and other native viornas are naturally tough, suffering none of the wilt that plagues hybrids.

"They're so cool," Malek says.

Finding them is difficult, though. Lim's Web site (http://www.clematisviorna.info/) lists a handful of plant sources, including Brushwood Nursery in Unionville. For seeds, she uses seed exchanges through organizations like the North American Rock Garden Society (http://www.nargs.org/).

Plants should go in the ground in sun or part shade, with three inches of stem covered. Lim says this will result in more buds.

She puts compost in the hole and keeps it mulched, not so much to cool the roots as to retain moisture. She also applies a slow-release fertilizer and aged horse manure maybe once a year.

If you want your clematis to mingle, run thin wires up into a tree to guide the vine. You can also attach screw eyes into stone or place a grid against a building.

"You don't want to see mesh wire. You want it to be invisible," Lim says.

After all that, be mindful of chipmunks and deer - both like clematis. But viorna that's eaten or weed-whacked to the ground has been known to bounce back.

Where can you go to see these "American bells"? They're in only four public gardens in the United States, three of which are in our area:

Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve in New Hope, http://www.bhwp.org/ or 215-862-2924.

Chanticleer in Wayne, http://www.chanticleergarden.org/ or 610-687-4163.

Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College: http://www.scottarboretum.org/ or 610-328-8025.

You can also see them at Mount Cuba Center outside Wilmington; information at http://www.mtcubacenter.org/ or 302-239-4244. Admission by reservation only.

- Virginia A. Smith 

Clematis, So Worth the Wait

It's a Brave New World for The Fabulous Flowering Vine

Maurice Horn is holding up a potted clematis, three feet high and just coming into flower. "I'm tired of people being afraid," he says as he snips off more than half the growth, losing all the blossoms and leaving a few stems poking out of the container.

Is he crazy? No. It would be cruel, he insists, to plant something that had so much top growth and so little root development. "I'm giving you permission," he says in mock address to the infant vine, "to develop roots at your own rate."

Clematis season is upon us, which means that we are seeing the lofty flower not only in gardens but also in garden centers. Nothing quite lures the aimless shopper into an impulse purchase like a pretty vine in resplendent bloom. For almost 200 years the clematis has been one of the most beguiling plants in the garden, aging to a lush bower of potentially hundreds of star-like blooms, and not a thorn or black-spotted leaf in sight.

Buy away, says Horn, co-founder of Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose, Ore., whose mail-order catalogue is known for its unusually broad clematis selection. But if May and June are festooned with the old-fashioned, big-flowered hybrids such as Jackmanii and Belle of Woking, remember that these stalwarts merely decorate the portal to a world of clematis that has been barely explored by most gardeners and that holds many rare but readily available treasures.

This is possibly as exciting a time in clematis gardening as was the mid-19th century, with a number of top breeders delivering better plants and promising even more in the works.

The British hybridizer Raymond Evison has tapped in to the mass market in the United States this decade with, first, his Garden Clematis series and, later, the Patio Clematis collection, bred to be short for growing in pots. Evison's are handsome and free-flowering varieties in rich shades of plum, white, violet and mauve, and they have the multiple stems that are characteristic of a good clematis.

I have tried both, and think the patio specimens make great plants for two or three years, but the grounded ones seem the choice for gardeners who want to develop the gargantuan old vines that are the hallmark of a seasoned landscape. Evison's plants are grown and distributed by Hines Horticulture and are widely available in independent garden centers. Horn sells a few of Evison's older creations, including a winter-flowering evergreen named Freckles for its purple spots on a cream-colored flower. But his catalogue, which lists 312 varieties of clematis, also features vines developed by clematis gurus in Poland and Japan.

He says be careful with Polish Spirit, so stout after three years (with 30 stems) that his efforts to drape a rhododendron with it backfired. It smothered the shrub with hundreds of blooms. With deep purple flowers and red stamens, Polish Spirit is among more than 60 varieties introduced by a Jesuit from Warsaw, Brother Stefan Franczak. Another Franczak introduction in Horn's catalogue is Emilia Plater, a late-summer bloomer with violet blooms and a vigorous growth habit, to 10 feet.

Horn seems most excited about the work of a deceased Japanese breeder named Kazushige Ozawa, who worked with American species to develop some of the smaller-flowered but long-blooming varieties that offer vigor, disease resistance and plants of different character to the big flowering vines. One of them is Rooguchi, with plum-colored, three-inch, bell-like flowers on a lax climber that will work where no rose dares to tread: in the shade garden. Horn likes to let it scramble near golden hostas. "It's our number one selling plant," he said. "It's the longest-blooming plant I know." Ozawa's nephew and his wife, Mikiyoshi and Tomoko Chikuma, have continued the master's work and joined Horn recently at Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria for a symposium on clematis.

Cutting the top off a fresh plant may seem drastic, but Horn said good growers do this at least two years in a row. This triggers a vigorous root growth and the multiple branching of stems, ultimately increasing the show of flowers but also providing insurance against clematis wilt, a disease prevalent in some large-flowered hybrids. The disease causes stems that are about to flower to collapse overnight, but with many stems a plant can shrug it off. Horn thinks that the wilt disease may enter stalks that have been cracked a bit by wind, especially if the vine has not been properly supported. Be careful how you handle the vines, and give them support before they grow.

With so many clematis now available, the problem becomes where to grow them. Certain trees and shrubs make good support for some of the less dense vines. Horn says the floppy Purpurea ( Clematis recta ) is useful for draping over a low fence.

Simple bamboo cane arches make effective supports, but take a tip from Horn: Plant on the shadier side. The vine will grow toward the sun and fill the allotted frame.

Sources for clematis: Joy Creek Nursery, call 503-543-7474 or visit http://www.joycreek.com; Raymond Evison Clematis, visit http://www.evisonclematis.com. For more information: American Clematis Society, http://www.clematis.org.

Caring for Clematis

Thursday, June 1, 2006

Location

Clematis roots need a site that is neither too dry nor too wet. This is achieved by digging a deep hole amended with compost-rich soil, preferably in a location that is shaded by a nearby shrub or low wall. Avoid a site that is poorly drained, too hot and dry, or with severe root competition. Most clematis varieties bloom best in full sunlight but still will flower well in partial shade.

Establishing a vine

Clematis spends its first few seasons developing root growth before putting energy into developing a large vine. In contrast to typical planting practices, set a new plant three inches below where it was growing in the pot. Take a deep breath and cut the stems back to 18 to 24 inches. These measures delay flowering for a year or two but will promote the development of multiple stems, which will increase the long-term vigor and ornament of the mature plant.

Support

Arbors, fences, trellises and railings provide good support, but lower woody stems and new growth will need tying with string each spring to prevent wind damage. Some gardeners grow clematis on shrubs and trees. Be careful not to do this with especially vigorous clematis, which will smother the host plant.

Feeding

Clematis should be fertilized and watered regularly during the growing season. Reduce feeding during the flowering period to prolong blooms but continue to water freely.

Wilt

Clematis is prone to a wilt disease that affects some or all of the stems. Wilted stems should be removed. A plant in complete wilt can be cut to the ground to regrow. To minimize wilt, avoid mulching clematis and tie stems to prevent wind damage. Smaller flowering hybrids are generally more wilt-free.

Pruning

Pruning varies by type. Early flowering hybrids should be trimmed lightly in early spring to prevent loss of flowering buds. Mid- to late-season clematis can be cut back to a low pair of buds in March.

There are wonderful Clematis who bloom from Spring until Autumn.  Be sure to check out the lovely, small bell-shaped ones and the species; let the conformists have the common, hyper-hybrid flat ones.

A Visionary’s Minivan Arrived Decades Too Soon

Michael Furman

1936 Stout Scarab

By Phil Patton

Published: January 6, 2008

THE 2008 Chrysler Town and Country minivan offers a removable table and second row seats that turn 180 degrees to face the rear, a feature that Chrysler calls Swivel ’n Go. But in 1936, William Bushnell Stout had already demonstrated such amenities in his eccentric Stout Scarab, an ancestor of the minivan.

“The interior of the car is extremely comfortable and roomy, with a table and movable chairs,” reported The Phillips Shield, a publication of the Phillips 66 petroleum company. “It gives the passenger the feeling of traveling in a hotel room.”

On a rainy day in 1936, Mr. Stout and his Scarab visited one of the new cottage-style Phillips gas stations, at Third Street and Keeler Avenue in Bartlesville, Okla., in the heart of the oil patch. A Phillips executive greeted him; in the background of a photo from that day, bystanders look skeptically at the vehicle shaped like a loaf of home-baked bread. The tall, mustachioed Mr. Stout is wearing an overcoat in the photo, and looks like a scientist from one of the “Thin Man” films of the era.

“Unsurpassed for easy riding qualities, the Scarab seems destined to mark a new milepost in motor design,” The Phillips Shield predicted.

Mr. Stout, a pioneering aircraft designer, was a tireless promoter of the Scarab — no more than a dozen were built — stopping in places like Bartlesville to show off the car. He liked to place a glass of water on the table to show how smoothly it rode on its four-wheel independent suspension, unusually advanced for the time.

The eccentric Scarab may have been a milepost, but it was on a road not taken. “A challenge and a prophecy” was the phrase used in Mr. Stout’s advertisements. His car was a contemporary of creations like Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car.

The design remains a crowd-pleaser. Last November, a Scarab restored by Tim Lingerfelt of Davidson, N.C., won the People’s Choice award at the Hilton Head Concours d’Élégance and Motoring Festival in Hilton Head, S.C..

The Scarab’s layout is worth a second look for designers working to pack maximum utility into modern vehicles. It can be seen as the forerunner of the Volkswagen Microbus, the Renault Espace and other one-box designs.

Mr. Stout was born in 1880, the son of an itinerant Iowa preacher. He showed an early aptitude for mechanical things, and later helped to pay his tuition at the University of Minnesota by writing for engineering publications. He also learned to promote his own ideas for new types of airplanes and automobiles. By 1920 The Detroit Free Press was explaining Mr. Stout’s notion of a better airplane under the headline, “Batwing 11, Giant Monoplane of the Future.”

He pushed his ideas for metal aircraft. Mr. Lingerfelt, the Scarab owner, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Stout was clever in generating his enthusiasm for his projects. In the 1920s, he wrote to 100 well-off businessmen, soliciting $1,000 from each to start an aircraft company. In his appeal, Mr. Stout noted the readers’ wealth — and that each could afford to lose money on a scheme that was such fun.

He got 60 responses, and $118,000, to start the Stout Metal Airplane Company. He built 15 of his eight-passenger airplanes before selling out to Henry Ford, one of the men who had received the original letter.

Mr. Stout’s design, which used a corrugated metal skin, was the basis for the Ford Tri-Motor, a pioneer American airliner. He set up his own airline, Stout Air Lines, which served Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich., and is credited by some with being the first to serve in-flight meals and to employ attendants, whom Mr. Stout called “air stewards.”

By 1935 he was publicizing the Scarab, which took its name from the beetle held sacred by ancient Egyptians. Its layout was like that of the VW Beetle, however greatly stretched: engine in rear (a Ford V-8), housed under a vast curve of complex grillwork. Mr. Stout praised the car’s aluminum construction and hoped to build 100 a year. He courted Philip Wrigley, of the chewing gum empire; the tire magnate Harvey Firestone; and Willard Dow, of Dow Chemical.

Despite or because of its odd look, the car caught public and press attention. The Scarab was to sell for about $5,000, a huge sum in a day when many Cadillacs and Packards went for $3,500, and even more than the price Mr. Stout proposed for a small airplane he hoped to mass-produce. In September 1939, Time magazine reported that Mr. Stout said he was ready to produce the small plane, “already mocked up in his faded yellow Stout Engineering Laboratories” in Dearborn.

Mr. Stout’s dreams, like so many other dreams, could be said to have been casualties of World War II.

By 1942, he had given up on the Scarab, later selling out to Consolidated Vultee Aviation Aircraft. After the war he tried to build one more Scarablike car, this time with a fiberglass body.

In 1943 he was working with Consolidated Vultee on the Aerocar, a combination of an airplane and a car, a “roadable” airplane as he called it. The postwar era, he imagined, would see the arrival of mass market airplanes, much as the post-World War I era had seen the growth of the private automobile.

Only five of the original Scarabs are thought to survive. Legends surrounding one example hold that it was first bought by a French publisher, then served Gen. Dwight Eisenhower in North Africa during World War II before being given to Gen. Charles DeGaulle. A circus used it to house monkeys before the French auto designer Philippe Charbonneaux bought it for his auto museum. Larry Smith, chairman of the Meadow Brook Concours d’Élégance in Michigan, now owns the car.

Mr. Stout, dead for half a century, is still remembered in Dearborn, his memory preserved in part by reminders like the William Bushnell Stout Middle School (“Home of the Falcons”). Astute students of history will recall the motto on his workshop wall. Whether he invented or adopted it, engineers have been quoting it ever since: “Simplicate and add lightness.”

Enlarge this image

Brochure Collection of Steve Hayes

Scarab foretold modern minivans with folding table, movable seats.

Enlarge This Image

Conocophillips Corporate Archive

William Stout, left, with a Scarab.

Enlarge This Image

Brochure Collection of Steve Hayes

“The interior of the car is extremely comfortable and roomy, with a table and movable chairs,” reported The Phillips Shield, a publication of the Phillips 66 petroleum company.

Boy Guides Medics After Mom Passes Out
April 25, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ind. -- The family of a Columbus kindergarten student is thankful he paid attention to lessons about whom to call in an emergency.

Jared Lebrun, 6, recently was alone with his pregnant mother at home when she passed out because of pregnancy complications, reported WRTV in Indianapolis.

"She fell down. She fell asleep for a little while," Jared recalled on Thursday.

Jared called 911 on a cell phone and told a dispatcher that something was wrong with his mother. The dispatcher couldn't trace the call, so he asked Jared for the address. Jared wasn't sure he knew it, but he knew how to get it.

"He actually stepped out to the front of his house to make sure he knew the address and he read the address to the dispatcher," said Ed Reuter, of the Bartholomew County emergency operations center.

Two 911 dispatchers kept Jared on the line.  

"He knew where he lived, the street and his address. We had problems with understanding the street name from him, but he knew what [subdivision] he lived in," dispatcher Scott Crase said.

Medics arrived and helped Jared's mother, April, who is now doing fine. Emergency workers hailed Jared as a hero.

Jared recalled that while he still was on the phone with the dispatchers, his father -- who was out of town -- called on another phone. Jared had a phone on each ear.

"I told my dad to hold on because I was talking to the ambulance," Jared recalled.