ANDREAS' SLAM DUNK

Executives of the Archer Daniels Midland Company, one of the most influential corporations in the country, easily quashed a shareholder rebellion at a rancorous annual meeting today despite a federal price-fixing inquiry. Dwayne Andreas, the powerful chairman and CEO, and the 17-member board of directors were re-elected with 80 percent support, despite dissident shareholders' charges that the board is too cozy with management to review allegations that ADM and several competitors fixed prices on major commodities. "It was clearly Andreas' show," reports TIME's William McWhirter. "He looked tan and fit and superconfident, so much so that at the very end, he plucked a red rose from a vase on the stage and popped it into his lapel." An accidental flourish: the meeting was held in an old gymnasium in an abandoned school next to ADM's main processing plant in Decatur, complete with the original basketball scoreboard. "For this game," says McWhirter, "the score was ADM 30, opposition zip."