He’ll Throw In the Line for Free

It’s no fish story. William (Salmon Billy) Ellison has a gift and a message for President Bush. Ellison, who caught the first salmon of the season in the Penobscot River in Maine, plans to continue a tradition of presenting it to the President--along with his own pitch for the environment. Ellison caught the 6-pound fish shortly after 5:30, just as the sun was rising over the Penobscot on the first day of the season. The tradition of delivering the first salmon to the White House was begun in 1912 by Maine fisherman Karl Anderson, who caught the first Penobscot salmon of that year and presented it to President William Howard Taft. The annual ceremony was discontinued during the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency, when the Penobscot had become so polluted that the salmon had stopped migrating. The presentations were resumed in 1981 and, this year, Ellison “said he plans to say to Bush that he hopes (Bush) will recognize the value of the river and continue protecting it,” Paul Fournier of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said. Ellison “lives all summer in a tent on the riverbank,” Fournier said. “He fishes all summer. . . . “

--Donald Rice, head of the Santa Monica-based RAND research corporation, has been nominated to be secretary of the Air Force, the White House announced. Rice, 49, has been president and chief executive officer of RAND since 1972. The firm does extensive research and development work for the Air Force. Rice, who served in the Army from 1965 to 1967, was deputy assistant secretary of defense for resource analysis in 1969 and 1970. He also spent two years as an assistant director of the Office of Management and Budget.

--Middle school students in Green Bay, Wis., won their battle for free expression and rock ‘n’ roll. Last week, officials at Washington Middle School prohibited the wearing of T-shirts bearing the insignia of the heavy-metal bands Guns ‘N Roses and Black Sabbath. The ban was enacted because of concerns raised by parents, Principal J.T. Landes said. About 150 students protested that their constitutional right of free speech was being violated, and about 60 pupils served one-day suspensions Friday for defying the ban. “Just because we’re little doesn’t mean we don’t know about the Constitution,” said one eighth-grader, Kanong Yank, 14. School administrators decided over the weekend to lift the ban, provided there is no display of profanities or other violations of a dress code established by the Green Bay School Board, Landes said.