A White House Welcome Gives a Heroine the Shakes

--President Reagan has provided a happy ending to a Belgian woman’s five-year quest. The White House said that Reagan telephoned Anne Brusselmans, who saved Allied fliers during World War II, to thank her for her heroism and to tell her that he had taken action to assure she will be granted permanent U.S. residency. “She’s still shaking,” her daughter, Yvonne Daley, said from her home in Clearwater, Fla. “She said later, ‘I never shook in front of the Gestapo, yet I was shaking when I was talking to the President.’ She said it was nice of him to take an interest in an 82-year-old lady.” Brusselmans was denied permanent residence status in 1981 because only an American citizen can petition for U.S. citizenship on behalf of a parent. Daley has permanent residency status, but is not a citizen. Brusselmans has since spent six months of each year in Canada, to retain her right to permanent residence there. Last month, she suffered a heart attack while visiting her daughter, and she no longer wants to travel. Brusselmans is credited with running an underground network that saved more than 100 Allied airmen who were shot down during World War II in German-occupied Belgium. Several countries have honored her, and the United States has awarded her the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian decoration for wartime service.

--Good grades can really pay off--especially in Hattiesburg, Miss., where honor roll members can cash in on scholastic achievement with a “Gold Card” that entitles them to discounts at local businesses on items ranging from hamburgers to movie rentals. “We felt we needed to do something to give the students a reason to study harder so they would make better grades,” said Walter Cartier, Forrest County superintendent of education. About 295 students in the county’s public schools who made straight A’s last fall have earned the yellow, laminated cards. The program is believed to be the only one of its kind in Mississippi, officials said.

--Watch what you say around Quincy the cockatoo. The performing bird is quick to pick up new words, a habit that explains his past banishment for swearing. The white cockatoo was part of the entertainment at the Flamingoland Zoo in North Yorkshire, England, until last summer, when he learned a four-letter word and kept repeating it. His trainer, Jackie Goulder, dropped him from the show and put him in solitary confinement until he reformed. Now, Quincy has a second chance, as the star of an amateur pantomime in north England. “I believe he has forgotten that naughty word and is ready to make a good, clean comeback,” Goulder said. He did not reveal what the offending word was, and Quincy, for once, wasn’t talking.