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Power parachute pilot hurt at Lakeland fly-in

LAKELAND - The pilot of a motorized parachute was injured Sunday when he fell about 50 feet to the ground at the Sun 'N Fun Fly-In, the scene of several serious accidents in previous years.

Also Sunday, a small plane flipped over on the runway, but no one was seriously hurt.

Chad M. Teachout, 31, of Lyons, Mich., was about 50 feet in the air in a power parachute when it deflated on one side and he crashed, said Jack Gillen, spokesman for Lakeland police.

He was airlifted to Lakeland Regional Medical Center. His condition was not available.

About an hour before the parachute accident, a Glasair III plane was attempting to land when it flipped and slid on the runway, coming to rest on its roof, Gillen said. Police removed the two people inside.

Karen Barton, the passenger, was briefly hospitalized with minor injuries. The pilot, Terry Edwards Morris, was not injured. Both are from Tamarac.

In 2000 and 2001, pilots died in crashes at the fly-in. In 2002, two small planes collided in the air, injuring both pilots, one critically.

YOUNGSTOWN - Wildfires that ravaged more than 700 acres of dry timber and threatened several dozen homes and other structures in the Florida Panhandle were 40 percent contained Sunday, the Division of Forestry said.

The fires in Bay and Calhoun counties near Panama City started near a swamp about noon Saturday and led to the evacuation of at least one family.

Fire agencies built fire lanes around the most susceptible areas during the weekend and protected the homes threatened by smoke and flames.

There were no reports of injuries, though the family of Herman Bullock gathered at the edge of their property - which spans hundreds of acres - while firefighters protected his three-story, wood-framed house tucked into an area of forests and fields.

Tony Bullock, 35, said he saw flickering flames midday Saturday while quail hunting and watched as they quickly spread, despite a dispatcher's reassurance that it was a controlled burn.

MIAMI - The executive director of one of South Florida's largest homeless charities had his workers and homeless clients renovate his homes for free using thousands of dollars in materials bought on the organization's credit cards, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Dale A. Simpson, 57, was forced to resign last month from his $182,000-a-year job at Camillus House amid complaints from employees about his heavy-handed management style. He denied any wrongdoing and said he reimbursed the charity for the home repairs.

But interviews and records - including receipts and canceled checks provided by Simpson - indicate he reimbursed Camillus House for only about half of nearly $4,500 in materials that the Miami Herald could trace to work at his home.

Besides $150 that Simpson paid the Camillus House work program for yard work since 2002, the newspaper found no record that he reimbursed the charity for hundreds of hours that its workers said they spent at his home on charity time. One worker estimated the labor for one project was worth about $5,700.

"Very frankly, we trusted him," said Brother Savio Charron, chief executive officer at Camillus since 2002. "In hindsight, we realize now it was too much faith to be placed in one person."

Camillus House provided 51,000 free nights of shelter and 405,000 free meals last year. It is run by members of a Toronto-based Roman Catholic order of missionaries called Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd.

Records also show Little Brothers loaned Simpson $35,000 from the charity to help him buy a Miami house in 2000. It forgave the 8.5 percent loan after eight monthly payments. He never had to pay back the $32,570 balance.

DEFUNIAK SPRINGS - The closure of a chicken processing plant in this Panhandle city Wednesday will take an estimated $40-million out of the local economy and eventually will lead to the loss of about 900 jobs, a University of Florida study shows.

Perdue Farms Inc., based in Salisbury, Md., also has cut 48 local chicken growers who supplied the plant, the largest private employer in this impoverished city. The study said in addition to 300 plant workers who will lose their jobs, 580 other jobs will be lost in the area.

U.S. census data indicates the city's 5,000 residents have a median household income of $24,500, nearly half the national average. The poverty rate is about twice the national average.

Perdue is moving the DeFuniak Springs operation to a larger, more modern plant in Perry, Ga. More than 60 employees have sought transfers to the Georgia facility and another company plant in Dothan, Ala. Some already have found jobs outside the company.

Perdue offered chicken growers a settlement, but plant workers were told they would receive no severance pay.

NAPLES - President Bush will make another sweep through Florida this week, stopping at a coastal research center Friday before heading to the Miami area later in the day.

Bush is scheduled to make a speech on conservation and volunteer service at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research reserve in Naples, according to the White House. The noon event is open to the public.

After that event, the president will head across the state to the Miami suburb of Coral Gables for a Republican National Committee fundraiser in the evening, the White House said.

Bush has already made 20 visits to Florida as president.