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

DATE: MONDAY, September 27, 1993                   TAG: 9309270024
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

John David Munday went over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls in a homemade padded barrel before a crowd of supporters and shocked tourists.

The 176-foot drop left him unconscious in his barrel at the bottom of the falls. He was rescued by the crew of a "Maid of the Mist" tour boat.

"Oh God, it hit hard," Munday said shortly after he emerged from the barrel, shaken and pale.

Munday, 57, of Caistor Center, Ontario, suffered several bruises and cuts but declined hospitalization, said George Bailey, spokesman for the Niagara Parks Commission in Ontario.

Bailey said Munday was the first to survive two rides over the falls. He also is believed to be the oldest person to take the dive.

Munday first took the Niagara Falls plunge on Oct. 5, 1985, the 13th person known to have done so since the turn of the century. Four of those people were killed.

After Sunday's plunge, Munday was questioned at the Niagara parks police station. He was charged, Bailey said, although he didn't know what charge was filed.

Roy Carson says he has visited every county in the United States over the course of many, many years, but the Guinness Book of World Records people wouldn't believe him.

So the retired letter carrier from Boulder City, Nev., is doing it all over again, with proof this time.

Carson, 64, contacted the Guinness Book of World Records in 1985 to see if its editors would add a new category, recognizing his visits to each of the nation's more than 3,000 counties. By that time, Carson said he had invested 39 years, off and on, in his quest.

"They asked me if I had any evidence. Evidence? It never occurred to me anybody would care," Carson said.

So Carson set out to do it all over again. As of last week, he said he had hit 2,142 counties, he said.

And this time, he's carrying a camera and taking pictures of county line road signs as proof of his visits.