CAROUSEL WILL KEEP ON TURNING

A corral-full of historic painted ponies are going to keep prancing in Minnesota. That's the news from Peter Boehm, who together with his wife Nancy has spent the last 16 months trying to save a St. Paul, Minn., carousel from being auctioned off in pieces (see Sept. 15, 1989, Monitor).

An agreement signed March 12 with the city and a private developer will keep the merry-go-round, valued at more than $1 million as folk art, operating on a nonprofit basis at an indoor shopping mall.

Boehm organized a group, Our Fair Carousel, to raise money to buy the carousel through citizen and corporate donations. His fund-raising drive fell short Dec. 28, but the city of St. Paul stepped forward with a loan that saved the carousel, built in 1914, from the auctioneer's gavel.