Manufacturer’s Name Is Music to the Ears of Millions

--Elvis Presley may be the king of rock ‘n’ roll, but David C. Rockola is a musical legend in his own right. His onomatopoeic moniker has adorned jukeboxes worldwide for more than 50 years. The 90-year-old chairman of the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Co. is still agile enough to boogie with the best, but Rockola prefers to leave such gyrations to the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Madonna and concentrate on business, which is, well, rolling. It was sound judgment that led Rockola to switch his manufacturing business from scales to jukeboxes in 1930. “I wanted to get into something that would be important and something that people would go for,” he said. His company has always ranked among the world’s top jukebox makers, along with Wurlitzer, Seeburg and AMI, according to jukebox collector Ed Jones. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, the heyday of jukeboxes, Rockola’s name adorned such models as the “Luxury Light-Up,” “Rocket” and “Spectravox.” Today, according to Jones, “in Brazil, machines that play records aren’t even called jukeboxes. They’re called Rock-Olas. It’s generic.”

--Libby Shivers knew Jesse Turner only slightly when they were schoolmates at Boise High School in Idaho in the ‘60s. But Shivers figures Turner needs a little cheering up right about now, so she’s sending the Beirut University College professor taken hostage on Jan. 24 a valentine--hopefully with 6,000 signatures on it. Shivers has been working on the project with Turner’s mother, Estelle Ronneburg, of Boise, who will send it to the State Department. “The State Department has guaranteed us that he will receive the valentine,” Shivers said. “We don’t know if he is going to get it now or at the end of captivity.” Former Beirut hostage Benjamin Zimmerman of Cascade, Ida., will take part in a card-signing ceremony at the Capitol, and Shivers said dozens of Boise High graduates have already come to sign the 1,100-foot roll of butcher’s paper that will serve as the valentine greeting.

--Indiana Atty. Gen. Linley Pearson is trying to hound some well-heeled dogs into paying inheritance taxes. Pearson said his office is after $209 it believes the state is owed by the estate of Marian L. Stevens, who left nearly $16,000 for the care of hundreds of stray dogs she kept in her Indianapolis home. Pearson said the bone of contention is that the state does not consider the dogs a charitable trust. “If we let this case pass . . . we are opening the kennel doors to hundreds more estates where owners leave their money to Fido,” Pearson said.