Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991                   TAG: 9103050223
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

His TV ratings are one-fifth what they were at their peak, and seven stations from around the country and a contractor have sued over the past 15 months, claiming they are owed a total of $213,500, court records show.

The Jimmy Swaggart Ministries also is selling off or leasing land and buildings.

Still, it would be a mistake to count Swaggart out, said David Harrell, Auburn University history professor who has written biographies of televangelists Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson.

"I'm reasonably sure Jimmy Swaggart is going to be around and is going to be a major player in the television ministry business," he said. "I've always felt he would survive because, in my opinion, he's the most talented of all the independent revivalists."

Neither Swaggart nor anyone else from Jimmy Swaggart Ministries would answer questions about the ministries' finances.

\ Will Steger is planning another trip to the North Pole that will take a team of men on a 2,000-mile odyssey over the Arctic Ocean.

"This is going to be my best adventure, especially for dogsledding," said Steger, 46, of Ely, Minn. "It's going to be knock-down, drag-out, a day at a time. And it's going to be dangerous."

The 1994 trip will take them from an island in the Soviet Union to the far northern shores of Alaska.

\ Dana Plato, a star on "Diff'rent Strokes" refused a couple's offer to bail her out of jail after her arrest for investigation of armed robbery, Las Vegas authorities said Sunday.

The former child star from the TV sitcom turned down the offer Saturday by Tony and Beverly DeMarco, who put up $1,300 in cash.

Plato, 26, rejected the offer because she didn't know the couple, said her attorney, Paul Fitzgerald.

Plato was arrested Thursday after a clerk in a video store identified her as a woman who took $164 at gunpoint, police said. Police said they later found a pellet gun resembling a 9mm pistol in Plato's apartment behind the store.