They Plan Their Vacation Trip to a Fare-Thee-Well

--A crooked line may not have been the shortest distance between two points, but it was the cheapest--at least for Rodger and Marcia McCombs. When the McCombses and their three children of Robbinsdale, Minn., began a recent trip to Arizona, they could have just driven over to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Instead, they got up at 3 a.m. and drove a rented car to Des Moines, about 245 miles to the south, where they boarded a Republic Airlines flight to Phoenix. That flight went to Arizona by way of Minneapolis, where they had a 45-minute stopover about a dozen miles from their home. They estimated that they would have had to pay $1,275 full fare for the direct flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix and back. But they figure their costs of travel via Des Moines at $902.46, including $71 for the rented car. That’s a savings of $372.54, or nearly 30%. Redmond Tyler, director of public relations for Republic Airlines, said the fares the McCombses bought in January are no longer in effect.

--Some male contestants may have thought the outcome was a bit fishy, but women outreeled men at the Nashville Network’s annual Celebrity Golf and Bass Tournament in Labell, Fla. Leading the female contingent in the fishing tournament was country singer Norma Jean, who hooked the biggest catch. Others on hand for the three-day event included Ray Stevens, Chet Atkins, Irlene Mandrell and Connie Van Dyke.

--Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is used to spring break celebrations, and in many ways this one was like all the others. Hundreds of party-goers quaffed kegs of brew, gulped down platters of barbecue and had fun in the sun. But this time, no one got out of control and none were college students. Instead, they were all police officers who had formed the backbone of a task force that kept an estimated crowd of 350,000 collegians safe, happy and, to a large degree, out of trouble on Fort Lauderdale’s strip for six weeks. “For these men it was six-day weeks of constant pressure, dealing with drunks, complaints, traffic--right there on the front line,” said Fort Lauderdale District Chief Mike Doran, who was in charge of the strip during the onslaught. Police Chief Ron Cochran offered each officer a commemorative T-shirt reading: “We Survived Spring Break.” “When you’re outnumbered 50,000 to 2, it’s very hard,” said Joe Hoffman, one of a group of Broward County sheriff’s deputies who served on the beaches for the first time this year. “The problem is, when you arrest one guy, 10 of his buddies want to fight you. Then everybody in the crowd does too.”