AIDS:
AIDS Panic Rocks Florida Town
Arcadia, Fla. was the scene of a fire of suspicious origin the night of Aug. 28 that destroyed the home of a couple whose three sons were hemophiliacs known to have been exposed to the virus that caused acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

The fire capped a week of bomb and death threats against Clifford and Louise Ray, and their daughter and three sons, and a boycott of local schools. The boycott had been prompted by the Aug. 24 return to school of the three boys after a year's absence.

Arcadia was a DeSoto County community about 50 miles (80 km) inland from the Gulf Coast cities of Sarasota and Fort Myers.

The boys, who presumably had been exposed to the AIDS virus through the transfusion of blood products administered to ease the effects of their hemophilia, had been barred from classes in the fall of 1986, after the local school board had been notified of their condition. The Rays had then sued, citing doctors who said the boys posed no threat to other children. Nearly a year later, a federal judge in Tampa had ordered the boys--who continued to show no symptoms of AIDS itself--readmitted to school.

The Rays were not home when the fire broke out. A brother of Clifford Ray was asleep in a bedroom at the time but escaped. He was released from a local hospital after treatment for smoke inhalation.

On Aug. 29, Louise Ray said that her family would leave DeSoto County. "I never thought it would go this far," she said in a telephone interview from her lawyer's office in Sarasota.

On Aug. 30, members of a committee that had been formed to keep the three boys out of DeSoto County classrooms offered the Rays donations of food and clothing. By then the family's plight had attracted national attention, and offers of aid were pouring in from across the country. A family spokesman that day indicated that the Rays wanted any donations from DeSoto County to go toward efforts to educate the community about AIDS.

Death:
Ricky Ray
Ricky Ray, 15, eldest of three hemophiliac brothers who gained national attention when they were barred from their school in Arcadia, Florida in 1986 because they were infected with the AIDS virus; his family sued the school board, winning the right to send their children back to class in 1987; citing his uncertainty about how long he would live, he sought court approval in 1991 for an underage marriage to his 16-year-old girlfriend, Wenonah Lindberg; his illness forced the wedding to be called off; his two brothers, Robert, 14, and Randy Ray, 13, survived him; born in Fort Myers, Florida; died December 13 at his home in Orlando, Florida [See 1988 People in the News]