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

DATE: FRIDAY, January 10, 1992                   TAG: 9201100381
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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PEOPLE

George McFarland can still call himself "Spanky" but does not hold the rights to the image of the chubby, beanie-clad smart aleck he played in the "Little Rascals" and "Our Gang" series, a judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Clarkson Fisher tossed out McFarland's lawsuit against Joseph Miller, an Ocean Township, N.J., businessman whose tavern, Spanky McFarland's, was lined with "Little Rascals" photographs.

Fisher ruled Monday that the 64-year-old McFarland relinquished rights to the Spanky name and image in a contract his parents signed with Hal Roach Studios in 1936.

McFarland "retained merely the right to use the nickname `Spanky,' not the right to license the name and image of `Spanky' to others," Fisher wrote. "Hal Roach Studios Inc. retained those rights."

Former Sen. Barry Goldwater, a widower for six years, will marry health-care executive Susan Schaffer Wechsler on Feb. 9, his office announced.

Goldwater is 83. Wechsler, 51, a divorced mother of four, is branch manager for Kimberly Quality Care in Phoenix.

During their two-year courtship, Wechsler said, the couple's favorite activity was "driving around Arizona and seeing his favorite places."

Country music star Hank Williams Jr., inspired by a history book, has forsaken his full beard for a goatee.

Williams, 42, had worn a heavy beard for more than 15 years.

"He was looking through some Civil War books and saw some generals and decided that's how he wanted to look," said his manager, Merle Kilgore.

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