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Laivman Lives in Shadow of Death and DangerBy ULLYE YOUNGERIT WAS in 1964 that Buford Pusser—former marine, mortician, and wrestler—became at 26 the youngest sheriff in Tennessee. He immediately launched a campaign to tflean up gambling, bootlegging, and con games near the state line.nThcse conditions had prevailed for.the last 40 years,” Pusser explained, “I vowed I’d clean it up.”And he did. But it cost him his wife’s life.your son,” the caller said.I’ve been offered $10,000 for putting your bodies on display in Selmer,” the McNairy County seat.Because of the danger to Sheriff Pusser’s life, his wife insisted on going with him on all night calls.At 4 a. m. on Aug. 12, 1967,the sheriff received a call reporting trouble at the state line. He and his wife answered the call and sped to the tavern mentioned by the caller.BY JULY, 1967, he began re-c e i v i n g anonymous phone calls, the first intercepted by the McNairy County jailer, Carl Pusser, his father.“Pm going to kill you andAS THEY TURNED onto a country! road, an automobile drove up beside them, and someone in it fired several shots into the sheriff’s car. A bullet struck Mrs. Pusser in the back of her head andALL ABOUT PETS0 —WBorzoi Once CalledRussian WolfhoundBy ELEANOR PRICETHE Borzoi, a word meaning the swift one,” may be a descendant of the'greyhound type— the oldest dogs known to man. He may have developed a long, • silky coat while adapting. to rigors of Russian winters, but more probably his coat came from a cross with a collielike dog.His specialized purpose was to hunt wolves courageously, hence his former name of Russian Wolfhound. Although exotic and graceful, every curving line speaks of speed—from his long nose and slim, deep chest to. his long legs. He stands 28 inches or more at the shoulder and weighs 75 to more .than. 100 pounds.The Russians for a ■ time seemed almost bent on destroying this noble creature by numerous crosses with foreign dogs. Also, many of the breed were killed during the revolution. Fortunately, the Borzoi was well-enough established outside 'his homeland, and he makes a fine, gentle pet with dark, soft, intelligent eyes.* .He loves home comforts. \'day, put a tiny blob under his tongue unless he will lick it off your .fingers.A kitten permitted to nurse longer than the usual six weeks is seldom the one that develops a chewing habit, or, worse, he may try to nurse every time you show affection toward him.THE PET FORUM ,Question: “Is it best to buy pairs of fish if one wants to breed them?”Answer: This is all right for live bearers, but for egg bearers get two male fish for each female.Question: “How can I get rid of fleas in the house?”■Answer: Keep spraying;keep vacuuming. Also spray the yard, and rid the pets of fleas.wounded Pusser. He floored the accelerator and left the ambush car behind,“I pulled, to the*side of the road,” Sheriff Pusser said, “to see how badly my; wife was wounded-—thinking I had outdistanced the car—when suddenly it pulled beside us again and fired 41 slugs into mycar.” jOne of the bullets hit Pusser in the face. j“I never lost consciousness but, when 1 looked in the rearview mirror, I knew I would die,” he said. )In an almost dying condition, he broadcast an incoherentmessage to Police Chief Hugh Kirkpatrick at Selmer, who was able to understand enough to locate the car. , He found Mrs. Pusser dead! and the sheriff bleeding to death. Pusser was rushed to a hospital.The killers were never caught, although Pusser believes the man responsible for the crime was killed in Corinth, Miss., early this year.PUSSER’S JAW was shot offSheriff Buford Pusser’s Car Has Special High-Speed Enginein the. ambush, and quired a series of by a plastic surgeon to mend his appearance.it has re-DperationsMan Turns RanchAnother scar, onj his leftarm, recalls a wound he suffered last Christmas when he was called to arrest a man.“As I opened his door,” Pusser said, “he shot me through the stomach, and the shot also hit my arm. I had to kill him in self-defense.”When he campaigned for sheriff, Pusser had said he would clean1 up the county without using a gun. '“After I got shot the first time, I decided that was era-Into Game Preservezy,” he now admits.Question: “How can I stop neighbors’ cats from killing birds in my yard?”He wears a holstered 357magnum revolver. In his car, he carries an M-16 rifle with a 20-round clip. It was with this gun, shooting left-handed * at the height of an automobile chase, that he paralyzed an 18-year-old jailbreaker who had been convicted in the shooting death of another man. • Pusser’s fame has spread through a recent network review of his life and a record-“Did you ever hear ducks eat?” asks David Howe. “They sound just like a bunch of little hogs at a trough.”• The care and feeding of ducks, pheasants, and chukarpartridges are big business forHowe and his wife, Annie, who run Gunner’s Mark Game Preserve in the South Platte River Valley, near Henderson, Colo.Their place was the second in the state to receive a permit after'a state’law allowed game preserves in Colorado.The air force and the Secondto operate a private preserve where shooters would pay tc come and try for wild fowl.“We had to learn the tech nique as we went along,” saic Howe. “It was three years be fore we went into the black.’Howe has since leased enougl land to expand his place to 45( acres and the well-stocked pre serve is a favorite for paying hunters—both the gun and bov. and arrow variety.World War brought the Howes to Denver. Ho We, who playedAnswe?: Try to keep cats away with a dog, a cat repellent, a very damp yard, mousetraps set under paper.ing, “The Ballad of BufordPusser.” Now a Hollywood writer has prepared the story of his life, with plans to film it.varsity hockey at Harvard and rowed on the 150-pound crew, is from Boston, )his wife from Milwaukee. After Howe finished flying B24’s in the Pacific, hp and his wife decided to make their home in Colorado.Offer Arouses CuriosityThev hniitrht 279. acres nf
Newspaper Details
Williamsport Sunday Grit National Edition
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, US
Sun, Oct 26, 1969
Page 20
Full Page
Clipped by
Darrel C.
USA 13 Sep 2019
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