Heart Recipient Rides High Before Taking the Plunge

--Tom Thrasher’s jump from an airplane at 12,500 feet may have made him the first person to sky-dive after receiving a heart transplant. The 43-year-old Tampa, Fla., businessman--who received a heart last summer from a prison inmate 23 years his junior--said that he made his jump to fight misconceptions about heart recipients, to encourage people to donate organs and to seek financial relief for those who receive new hearts. “Our donor programs across the country are really in trouble,” Thrasher said, adding that some people have been driven into debt after receiving transplants. He said he is starting a group called National Organization for Transplant Enlightenment, or NOTE. Embroidered on his yellow jump suit beside two red hearts was the slogan “Please take NOTE.” Thrasher said he hoped President Reagan will take note of his plea, and he called for a conference of leaders from government, business, medicine and sports to tackle the problem of high medical costs. “Heart transplants should be for everybody,” he said.

--James A. Michener is pledging $1 million to the University of Texas for a program for aspiring writers. Michener, 79, is still recovering from open-heart surgery in an Austin hospital, but his wife, Mari, attended the news conference at which the gift was announced. A special limited edition of Michener’s “Texas” will be officially released Sunday, the day the state marks the 150th anniversary of its independence from Mexico. The University of Texas Press will print 10,000 copies of the illustrated, two-volume set, which will sell for $125, and will also sell 400 signed copies.

--The Texas Department of Corrections has yet to comment, but a killer on Death Row says he has received seven requests for seats to witness his execution and will auction three spots for not less than $1,000 each, with the money going to his family. Roger DeGarmo, 31, sentenced to die March 12 for killing a Houston woman in 1979, can name five witnesses. He is reserving two seats for relatives.

--Arkady Shevchenko, the high-ranking Soviet U.N. official who turned spy for the CIA, comes in from the cold for good today. He will be sworn in as an American citizen in Washington. “It’s been a long journey, of course, for me,” said Shevchenko, one of the highest-ranking Soviet officials to defect. “I feel very proud that I’m becoming an American with all the rights. It’s the finest hour of my life.”