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

DATE: FRIDAY, October 21, 1994                   TAG: 9410210015
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE PEOPLE COLUMN

The ample TV star got engaged Friday to her blond bodyguard, Ben Thomas, said her publicist, Kevin Campbell. Campbell said Wednesday that the couple have not set a date.

Roseanne is not yet divorced from Tom Arnold.

\ Taurean Blacque might need some detective skills to keep up with his adopted children - all 11 of them.

The bachelor, who played Detective Neal Washington on "Hill Street Blues," began adopting nine years ago when a black adoption festival asked him to be its celebrity spokesman. He now has eight boys and three girls ages 3 to 16.

"I felt very fortunate with the money I was making," said Blacque, who has been divorced since 1966. "I told them if I was going to tell people to adopt, then I wanted to know what it was like."

Fifteen months ago, Blacque moved his family from Los Angeles to a house on a two-acre wooded lot in Lithonia, Ga., an Atlanta suburb. He said crime and earthquakes made California too dangerous.

"I wanted them to grow up in an environment of trees and grass," he said. "Not concrete and buildings."