Schroeder Is Good Bet for Derby

--Mechanical heart recipient William J. Schroeder was invited to attend the 111th Kentucky Derby May 4 at Churchill Downs. At the urging of Louisville, Ky., Mayor Harvey I. Sloane, a physician, Churchill Downs agreed to offer two Derby tickets to Schroeder, who became the world’s second permanent artificial heart recipient last Nov. 25. Sloane agreed to deliver the invitation to Schroeder’s room at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville. Derby tickets are especially coveted and traditionally boxes are passed from generation to generation in family wills and have been contested in divorce cases. A City Hall spokesman, Phil Lynch, said the invitation reflected the interest of Sloane and the track in expressing their confidence in Schroeder’s prospects for a healthy future. Schroeder, 52, a retired munitions inspector from Jasper, Ind., suffered a stroke Dec. 13 that left him briefly paralyzed on the right side, but has made steady progress since the setback. An Audubon hospital spokesman said that Schroeder “can now take care of virtually all of his personal care needs on his own.”

--The first annual Will Rogers Chili Humanitarian Award will be given to James S. Brady, President Reagan’s press secretary who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan. Louis Priebe, who is one of the co-founders of Chili-USA, an Oklahoma City organization seeking to make chili the national food, said the award will be presented Feb. 27 at a “black tie and boots” dinner in Washington. Priebe said proceeds from the $125-a-ticket event will go to the Brady Presidential Foundation, a charitable group set up to aid others wounded in assassination attempts. Priebe said Brady was the logical choice for the award because he is a chili cook and is a humorist in his own right.

--Don’t talk to Harry Guyton about the problems of finding parking in the city. He feels like he spent his life looking for a spot in San Francisco. The year was 1966 when he signed a waiting list for a personal parking space at the Hall of Justice, where he was a rookie investigator. He figured he might have to wait a few months, but time passed. Guyton sold his Studebaker, bought a Plymouth. More time passed. He sold the Plymouth and bought a Ford, then a Volkswagen, Lincoln and a Mazda. But a few months ago, it finally happened. Guyton got his parking space. Yet when a city official called to tell him the good news, somebody else answered Harry’s phone. Guyton had retired and moved to San Jose. “I still don’t know why it took so long,” he said.