The Battalion
Serving the University community
Vol. 75 No. 172 USPS 045360 10 Pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, July 13, 1982
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nun ttieitl WASHINGT()N _ xhe final test
erest rate ffightof the space shuttle Columbia
cl similar d#ent so well the space agency has
ed on thelljadvanced the date for the ship’s first
tetroit butiiptdhte-launching mission by two
eard of on weeks — to Oct. 29.
■ National Aeronautics and Space
Brlministiation officials made the
Kcision Monday after making sure
le two commercial communica-
■ins satellites to be launched would
K ready for the earlier date.
I The Columbia will be manned by
. ^ anew of four for the first time, and
■e first spacewalk from the shuttle
is tentatively planned for the five-
;dav mission.
it means tli* In a change from early planning,
“ total numl-pie Columbia will land at Edwards
^ illiamsaEir Force Base in California again,
comes a[i#he plan originally was to have the
nual incrcaii|Columbia land at the Kennedy
rests of i Space Center launch site at Cape
ation ofliBanaveral, Fla., on this mission.
Officials opted for a California
landing because the ship has not yet
demonstrated it can land in a cross
wind — a common condition at the
Cape — and the Columbia will be
returned to its Palmdale, Calif.,
assembly plant for modifications af
ter the landing.
The Columbia is still at Edwards
from its July 4 landing. It is sche
duled to be flown to the Cape Friday
on the back of NASA’s special 747
jumbojet. Already at the Kennedy
Space Center is the second shuttle,
the Challenger, scheduled to fly in
January.
Vance Brand, a veteran of the
Apollo-Soyuz spaceflight in 1975,
will command the Columbia’s up
coming mission. Robert F. Over-
myer will be the copilot. Two mis
sion specialists being carried for the
first time are Joseph Allen and Wil
liam Lenoir.
rain wreck
eaves 23 dead
'he BEST
! HALL
NSELING
IVATIONSwTEPIC, Mexico — A train head-
§g south from the Arizona border
ped the tracks and crashed 800
tdown a mountain gorge in west-
Mexico, killing at least 23 peo-
, including one American, and
uring 100 others.
Railroad officials, giving conflict-
reports on the number of dead
aging from 23 to 35, said 13 cars
the 26-car train carrying 1,560
ssengers toppled to the bottom of
je gorge.
W W MB Jesus Valenzuela Corrales, the
’ * '■rrocarril del Pacifico official
■okesman at headquarters in
Biadalajara said Monday rescue
mms had found 23 people dead at
Be crash site.
B He told a news conference 10 of
He dead had been identified, and
IT
said the dead American was Peter
Joseph Houbel, 31, hometown un
known.
A Red Cross spokesman in Tepic,
capital of the state of Nayarit, said
115 to 120 injured people, including
two Americans, were hospitalized in
Tepic and Guadalajara.
Manuel Barraza Chavez, in
charge of Ferrocarril del Pacifico’s
rescue operation in Tepic, said ear
lier at least 35 bodies had been reco
vered from the wreckage, although
he denied reports 50 people died in
Sunday’s accident.
The 26-car train was traveling
from Nogales on the Arizona bor
der to Guadalajara when half of it
derailed and toppled 800 feet to the
bottom of the gorge, 11 miles out
side of Tepic and 400 miles north
west of Mexico City.
:er s
Registration numbers
top last year’s figures
ment in
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UX:
i)
IS
Through the first class day,
12,295 students had registered for
iccond summer session classes at
[Texas A&M University. Friday’s fi
gure reflects an increase of 12.6 per
cent over last year’s figures, Associ
ate Registrar Donald Carter said.
“We felt like probably a good
portion of the increase was due to
'the new entrance requirements
going into effect in September, but
there’s no way to tell the exact fi
gures,” he said.
Today is the last day to enroll or
add new classes for the second sum
mer term.
Wednesday is the last day to drop
courses with no record and pay fees.
Students not paying fees by
Wednesday at 5 p.m. will be drop
ped from University rolls.
Other important dates and dead
lines include the following:
Friday—Last day for seniors gra
duating in August to apply for de
grees.
July 21 — Last day to drop
courses with no penalty (Q-Drop)
for the second term.
August 11 — Last day of 11-week
semester classes. Beginning of 11-
week semester final examinations at
7 p.m.
August 12 — Last day of second
term classes. Final exams for second
term classes begin.
August 13 — Final exams for
second term classes.
August 14 — Commencement.
Yes, it’s loaded
staff photo by David Fisher
Prisoners from the Texas Department of Corrections are
tearing down the Quonset Huts by the Veterinarian
school complex on Agronomy Road. The prisoners are
a group of third class trustees from the Central Air &
Maintenance department of the Ellis Riverside Unit. One
inmate pries nails out of a sheet of plywood before
taking it to the prison. Officer Hernandez of the Goree
Unit stands guard by the side of University Drive.
College Station Fire Chief:
Firefighters hired, equipment needed
by Rebeca Zimmermann
Battalion Staff
The hiring of six new firefighters
and the College Station City Council’s
approval of $122,000 for salaries to
hire an additional six for the College
Station Fire Department are only part
of what is needed, Fire Chief Douglas
Landua said.
A third fire station, which was
approved in a bond election and an
aerial ladder truck are needed in this
growing community, he said.
“We are short-handed,” Landau
said, “and we have been short for a
year and a half.”
Landua requested money last July
to hire 12 new firemen and the city
council set aside the money in the
general contingency fund to be used
as the fire department found people
to hire.
Landua said he had hired six of the
requested 12 firemen by May of this
year. Thursday the council approved
funds for the salaries of the additional
six.
He said he has a number of promis
ing applications from prospective re
cruits for the six positions.
The fire department has enough
manpower now, he said, but 15 mem
bers of the current firefighting force
have not completed their one-year
training period in which they learn
firefighting and emergency medical
procedures.
Hiring recruits will allow the fire
department to start a training prog
ram, Landua said. The department
wants to hire new people now so in a
year the recruits will be ready to staff
the third fire station, which is in
cluded in the 1983-84 budget. The
site for the third station will depend
on residential and business expansion
in the eastern part of the city and
where the station would be most
needed, he said.
State guidelines require recruits to
spend 335 hours in a firefighting
training school and 120 hours in
emergency medical training school.
But Landua said the College Sta
tion Fire Department tries to give re
cruits more training than the state re
quires. Before their training begins,
recruits learn about firefighting
equipment and become familiar with
all the city’s streets, he said.
Landua said his next request to the
council will be for a fire truck with an
aerial ladder. He said the longest lad
ders in the department only reach 35
feet, or about as tall as a three-story
building.
As a result, any fires in buildings
over three stories tall would have to be
fought from the inside, he said. The
firemen would have to enter the
burning building, dragging equip
ment with them.
He said an aerial ladder, which
would reach 100 feet, is needed for
rescue work in apartments and tall
office buildings. He said the ladder
also could be used to spray large
volumes of water on a fire from above
and protect surrounding areas.
A 100-foot aerial Ladder truck will
cost about $400,000 to $500,000, he
said. But in light of the increase in
high-rise buildings in College Station,
the city’s growth and Texas A&M's
growth, Landua said the fire depart
ment is hurting without such equip
ment.
San Antonio mayor wants
agricultural extension center
by Terry Duran
J§ Battalion Staff
P San Antonio officials are making
, their second bid in a decade for estab-
®shment of a Texas A&M University
| System agricultural research and ex
tension center in that city.
P A delegation including San Anto-
ftiio Mayor Henry Cisneros visited
( College Station Friday to discuss a
1 proposal for the center with System
] officials. However, even if the idea is
approved at the next Board of Re-
I gents’ meeting July 25, officials say it
. will probably have to wait a while.
T San Antonio had been considered
tin 1971 as a possible location for such
. a center. However, that center was
'‘ established in Uvalde, 75 miles west of
p San Antonio.
| The Texas Agricultural Experi
ment Station and the Agricultural Ex
tension Service now jointly operate 14
of the centers statewide.
Dr. Neville P. Clark, director of the
Texas Agricultural Experiment Sta
tion, said Monday that nothing has
been finalized.
“It’s all wild blue yonder thinking
right now,” he said.
“We want to wait and get the
Board’s reaction. From our stand
point, it’s another opportunity to pro
vide service to the state and its people.
We hope to get the Houston center
underway before we get started on
anything else.”
Clark said Monday that plans for
an agricultural research and exten
sion center in Houston are “in the
early planning stages,” primarily
locating a site for the center.
Bexar County Commissioner Tom
Vickers has reportedly made land
available in San Antonio adjacent to
Texas A&M’s South Central Training
Center, which is operated by the
Texas Engineering Extension Ser
vice.
Cisneros, a 1968 Texas A&M gra
duate, along with Aggie construction
magnate H.B. Zachry and former San
Antonio mayor Lila Cockrell, also
talked with Dr. Perry Adkisson, depu
ty chancellor for agriculture for the
Texas A&M University System.
“They just came over to determine
our interest” for locating the center in
San Antonio, Adkisson said.
“We are interested, but we don’t
want to jeopardize the Houston oper
ation.”
TAES Director Clark said the re
gents would have to make two deci
sions about the San Antonio propos
al: “whether to do it or not, and if so,
when.
“There’s a great deal of pressure
on the Board on how to distribute the
resources we have, and this will have
to go in the hopper with everything
else,” Clark said.
CS school board
elects president
by Hope E. Paasch
Battalion Staff
The College Station school board
elected a new president at Monday
night’s special session, following the
resignation of former president
William Wasson.
Dr. Bruce Robeck, Wasson’s suc
cessor, is a political science professor
at Texas A&M University and a past
school board president.
Wasson will remain a board trus
tee for the rest of his elected term.
Also during the session, the
board discussed the search proce
dures for a new superintendent.
Current Superintendent Bruce
Anderson has resigned effective in
January.
Several board members sug
gested speeding up the process as
much as possible, while still conduct
ing a thorough search for candi
dates. The search committee will
make a formal recommendation for
a calender at the next regualar ses
sion.
At least one trustee said the board
should attempt to find a new super
intendent from within the district.
Dr. Charles Giammona urged the
board to listen to members of the
community who want to promote
someone from within the system.
Action on an employee fringe be
nefit package was postponed until
some formal written bids are re
ceived. The insurance package,
which was originally supposed to be
acted on Monday night, is intended
to enable all employees to have some
level of coverage. The board has set
aside $50 per month in employee
benefits for all teachers and is in the
process of finding an acceptable
package.
inside
Classified 6 i
Local 3
National 5
Opinions 2
Sports 8
State 3
What’s Up 3
forecast
Partly cloudy and warm today and
Wednesday. High today in the
mid-90s; low in the mid-vOs.