• August 13, 1979
• Vol. 12
• No. 7

Lookout

Hall Groat II is the answer to the philistine's complaint about modern art that "my kid could paint that good." Hall is 12, and he can. His collages and acrylics have been exhibited in five galleries from Montreal to Cape Cod and have commanded prices up to $150. His father, Hall Sr., is a recognized painter, and young "Hally" first picked up a brush at 2. Six years later he made his first sale, for $10. Hall, who enters the seventh grade at Eagle Hill Middle School in Manlius, N.Y. next fall, is not finding automatic acceptance as a professional artist, however. Some exhibitors have refused to display his work when they heard his age. So he got considerable satisfaction when the Fine Arts Exhibit of the 1978 New York State Fair picked one of his paintings while rejecting his father's impressionistic rendition of Abraham Lincoln. "My intention is to sell," says the determined youngster, who can turn out a painting in 30 minutes and has socked away about $2,000 so far. His father is far from resentful. "Hally could make a fortune if he worked full-time," says Hall Sr. "But state law says he has to go to school."

Donna Warner, 26, is not exactly your typical Teamster. But that hasn't stopped the 5', 99-pound member of Local 543 from driving a 13-speed, 14-ton concrete mixer around her hometown of Lafayette, Ind. for the past six years. "I practically grew up in a truck," shrugs blond, blue-eyed Donna, whose contractor father, Les Baumgartner, used to pick her up in one after kindergarten. He hired her to operate a bulldozer after she dropped out of Purdue in 1973 and two months later offered to buy all his concrete from Lafayette's Ready Mix Corp. if Ready Mix took on Donna as one of its drivers. At first, says Donna, she was mistaken for a "skinny-shouldered, long-haired guy." But when the other truckers figured it out, laughs Donna, "they were more afraid of me than I was of them." She took more than her share of ribbing, though, when she married chemical engineer Robert Warner four years ago: "The guys asked me if my husband was a waitress or a secretary." Her only real trouble came when she scabbed during a strike out of loyalty to her employer and got shot at twice; she was subsequently accepted back into the union after paying a fine. Donna returned to Purdue during the winter off-season and last June earned a B.A. in child development and family sciences. But teaching jobs are scarce, and for now she is content to pocket her trucker's pay of $9.85 an hour. Besides, smiles Donna, "The whole job is pretty damn easy."