DATE: Tuesday, May 27, 1997                 TAG: 9705270047

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   67 lines

HAMPTON ROADS [BRIEFS]

PORTSMOUTH

Seaford painter wins top prize of $1,500 at Portsmouth show

James Warwick Jones of Seaford, an acrylic painter, took best-in-show honors and a $1,500 prize at A Faire for the Arts on the Portsmouth waterfront over the weekend.

About 70 artists competed for $4,500 in prizes and $4,000 more in purchase guarantees offered at the show Saturday and Sunday, known for 26 years as the Seawall Art Show.

Second place and $1,000 went to Edgar Reims, an oil painter from Westover, Md.; third place and $750 to Howard Johnson, a potter from Portsmouth; fourth place and $500 to Susanna Butler, a basket maker from Grafton.

HAMPTON

Lock linked to Nixon's fall gets little auction interest

The purported lock to the door of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex that was burglarized 25 years ago fetched a high bid of $13,000 at an auction Monday - far short of the suggested $25,000 opening bid.

Jim Herrald, a retired superintendent from the Watergate complex who owns the lock - and now lives in Suffolk - wants to see if higher offers may come in before he accepts the bid.

``His request is that we see if we can get the offer in writing and hold it for 10 days and see if we can get any other offers,'' said Gail Wolpin, owner of Phoebus Auction Gallery. ``I will be marketing it for the next 10 days like a pit bull.''

The high bid came from an absentee bidder from Boston who did not want to be identified, said Bill Welch, a gallery employee.

The lock was taped open by five burglars working for then-President Richard Nixon's re-election committee as they bugged the DNC office early on June 17, 1972. Building officials had the lock removed the next day. The locksmith, James Rednowers, kept it for a few years until Herrald asked him for it as a souvenir.

Herrald said he has a notarized statement signed by Rednowers and dated Aug. 4, 1976, that states Rednowers removed the lock from the door to Stairway No. 2 to Suite 600, the DNC office.

VIRGINIA BEACH

Empty boat washes up, spurs hours-long search

Members of the Coast Guard and the city's Police Department searched Monday afternoon for a catamaran sailor in distress after an abandoned 16-foot sailboat washed ashore near 15th Street.

But hours later, the sailor turned up, and he hadn't been missing at all. He learned from the evening news that his unoccupied catamaran had drifted out with the tide. He called the Coast Guard to say he was fine.

The air-and-sea search had covered several square miles around the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier at 15th Street.

The boat, with a life preserver, was first spotted about 300 feet from the pier Monday afternoon.

Witnesses sought in crash that injured 6-year-old boy

Police on Monday were looking for witnesses who saw a car crash Saturday night that critically injured a 6-year-old boy.

The accident happened at the intersection of Independence and Virginia Beach boulevards.

James E. Eklund, of the 700 block of Remington Drive, was badly hurt when his mother's 1989 Eagle sedan was struck broadside by a 1991 Chevrolet Camaro, police said. Investigators said they believe several people saw the crash but were not interviewed by authorities. Police are asking anyone who saw what happened to call 427-0000.

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