ONDAYMARCH 18, 2002
VOLUME 108 • ISSUE 111
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TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
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14 University
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;s on Sarurdav.
Comstock released
Bonfire victim returns to campus
after stay in intensive care unit
Staff & Wire
After months of secrecy, a Texas
eNI search committee is expected to
ommend several finalists for the
iversity presidency this week.
He committee screening prospec-
Hiires will make recommenda-
ns Thursday to the Texas A&M
stem Board of Regents during the
Regents’ meeting on the A&M cam
pus, Dionel Aviles, vice chairman of
the board, said in Sunday’s The
Bryan-College Station Eagle.
John Junkins, a distinguished pro
fessor who chairs the 24-member pres
idential search committee, refused last
week to release the names of the final
ists but said they could be made public
as early as Tuesday.
Junkins said he will also release the
date each candidate is scheduled to
conduct interviews at A&M.
The nationwide search for
President Dr. Ray M. Bowen’s
replacement has been a closely guard
ed process. Bowen is stepping down
June 30 after eight years at the top post
See President on page 12
ro-life march
areing, Carter face off in Republican race for District 31
isib Powell ft
;k for a 75-& Brandon Posvar, a senior chemistry major and a vol-
ith 31 sec# Ifinteer for the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life, marches
ildez hit tw£ jHown East 29th Street in Bryan with a group of anti-
o make it 7/4
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Raiders vi'
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iey split with
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he road.
9-22) had
9-38 on Jesse ^ House District 31:
then Ell* " hterWareing 37 percent
?e throwsanjp n Carter 26 percent
un that P ut! 'me Hottse District 14:
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make it, 53-5-
finished!
STUART VILLANUEVA • THE BATTALION
abortion activists Friday morning. The group marched
from the St. Joseph's hospital annex to the Planned
Parenthood Clinic, where a prayer vigil was held.
By Sommer Bunce
THE BATTALION
John Andrew Comstock spent
spring break at home after a scare
left him in the hospital for more
than a week.
Comstock, a junior biomedical sci
ence major who was the most-injured
student in the 1999 Aggie Bonfire col
lapse, was home in Dallas with his
family after pancreatitis, a kidney
stone, gall bladder problems and three
seizures left him in intensive care.
He was admitted to St. Joseph
Hospital in Bryan March 4 and
upgraded to the intensive
care unit (ICU) the next ss
day after experiencing a
seizure in front of visiting
friends. After being tested,
poked and prodded, he was
released March 12.
Because of the seizures,
Comstock will not be driv
ing for six months, and
with a buildup of what
Comstock called “sludge”
in his gall bladder and a
kidney stone that has not
yet passed, the Aggie will
be taking eight pills a day.
Back in College Station
for classes Monday, Comstock will
head back to physical therapy, said his
mother, Dixie Edwards.
Comstock learned how to drive
with only one leg last summer, after a
year-and-a-half of hospitals, prayers
and physical therapy separated the
Texas A&M student who loved
Bonfire from normal college kids. His
recent hospitalization is another bump
in the road to recovery that began
after the fall of the Aggie tradition
more than two years ago.
Comstock, a Moses Hall freshman,
was trapped for seven hours under the
fallen Bonfire stack on Nov. 18, 1999.
After he was rescued, he held on to
consciousness until he reached the
emergency room at College Station
Medical Center but did not wake up
But what else is
different about par
enthood? I’m just
happy to have these
two boys back
99
until sometime between Christmas
and New Year’s. Comstock woke up
with his left leg amputated below the
knee, his right hand crushed and unus
able and nerve damage that left him
with no feeling from the waist down.
Twelve Aggies were killed when
Bonfire fell, and 27 others were
injured.
The “13th Man,” as the tattoo over
Comstock’s shoulder reads, returned
to campus for classes in Fall 2001,
hoping the struggles of returning to a
normal life were behind him. He had a
new wheelchair, a new scholarship
and a prosthetic leg signed by friends,
family and Moses
Hall residents.
But the road
before him was not
smooth and painless.
Comstock had a set
of incomplete grades
from previous
semesters, which he
is still completing.
The routine in the
new electric wheel
chair, which tops out
at speeds of 7 miles
an hour, became
tedious. The alu
minum ramp the University placed at
the entrance near Comstock’s Moses
Hall room lost some of its shine.
Comstock is ' still attending
physical therapy three times a
week. Earlier, he said he hoped it
would be down to two or less times
a week by now.
This year, he added his name to a
lawsuit claiming the University and
some key administrators could have
prevented the 1999 collapse.
On March 4, Comstock reported to
the hospital with a pain in his right
kidney. The next day, he called his
mother and told her he was feeling
fine and would be released soon.
Then, talking with friends who came
See Comstock on page 2
— Dixie Edwards
Comstock’s mother
n»2«ReDut)lican
—pnimary
• 74 percent
26 percent
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
The hotly contested race for the District 31
Republican nomination will be decided in an April 9
runoff between the top vote getters in the March 12
primary, Peter Wareing and John Carter.
Wareing, a Houston businessman, received
12,785 votes (36 percent) and Carter, a retired state
district judge from Williamson County, received
9,122 (26 percent). One of two newly created con
gressional districts awarded to Texas following the
2000 census. District 31 stretches from West
Houston to Round Rock, an Austin suburb.
Brad Barton, a Dallas real estate developer who
moved to College Station to run for Congress, fin
ished third with 5,735 votes (16 percent). Barton, a
1993 Texas A&M graduate, touted his Aggie creden
tials in an effort to galvanize typically apathetic stu
dent voters.
Patrick Meece, a Brazos County justice of the
peace, got 3,648 votes (10 percent) and Flynn
Adcock, Eric Whitfield and Roy Streckfuss each
received about three percent of the vote.
The winner of the April runoff will face
Democrat David Bagley in the November general
election.
State Rep. Fred Brown, R-College Station, easily
defeated Brazos County Judge A1 Jones in the state
House District 14 primary, receiving 74 percent of
See Runoff on page 2
K |n S
ch^itudy shows Hispanics
:ast one-third of ballots
miza
spend time ^
Peter Late,
ty members st
DALLAS (AP) — Hispanics cast
out one-third of the Democratic ballots
last Tuesday’s primary election, bolster-
l Texas’ sagging voter turnout among
her ethnic groups, two preliminary
College of teV- The Hispanic turnout comes just short
V acclaimed W 1 meeting the expectations of the William
; jhjifiS |Velasquez Institute in San Antonio,
rich predicted Hispanics would make up
University percent of the vote in the primary.
, rpflllgdgyi The Institute, which studies Latino
^,t er i SSU es, found in a preliminary
stelection survey that Hispanics repre-
ted 33.6 percent of the ballots cast, or
5,340 votes.
It also found that 17.2 percent of the
ino registered voters cast ballots in the
cratic primary.
Statewide, about 13 percent of Texans
^istered to vote cast ballots, based on
als from the races that drew the most
ters in both parties’ primaries, according
the Secretary of State’s office.
‘‘Without historic Latino turnout num-
rs invigorating the 2002 primary elec-
ti, turnout figures may have reached
w lows,” Robert Aguinaga, research
jector for the Institute, told Sunday’s
itions of The Dallas Morning News.
Another study by Dallas mathemati-
p; and political analyst Dan Weiser
PARKING 1 ^ ie L at ’ no share of the primary vote
at 35 percent in the race for the U.S.
Senate nomination.
According to the study, black voters
constituted 26 percent of the
Democratic primary vote, while the
white share was 39 percent.
The analysis showed that ethnicity
mattered in the Senate race.
Schoolteacher Victor Morales of
Crandall got 54 percent of the Hispanic
vote, while former Dallas Mayor Ron
Kirk, who is black, captured 84 percent of
the black vote. Morales and Kirk will face
off in a runoff April 9.
Weiser’s study showed Houston Rep.
Ken Bentsen, who lost the Senate race,
received 47 percent of the white vote.
Weiser based his analysis on predomi
nantly Hispanic counties and precincts,
Spanish surname registration and returns
from predominantly black precincts.
He has conducted similar studies in
several elections, including the 1994 pri
mary for U.S. Senate, in which he found
that Hispanics accounted for 19 percent
of the primary vote, while blacks pro
vided 14 percent and whites were in the
majority in the party.
White voters were the minority during
Tuesday’s primary, which featured two
Hispanics vying for the Democratic
gubernatorial nomination and a Hispanic
and black candidate in the Senate races.
Checkmate
ALISSA HOLLIMAN • THE BATTALION
Former president George Bush and Saddam Hussein are portrayed as
figures on a chess set given to Bush during the Gulf War. The unique
chess set is part of the Fathers and Sons exhibit at the George Bush
Presidential Library and Conference Center.
The exhibit compares the relationships between the only two sets of
fathers and sons to be U.S. presidents — John Adams and John
Quincy Adams, and George Bush and George W. Bush.
Fathers and Sons will be on display through July 31, 2002.
Sports Pg. 9
Ags find success
at relays
Battalion News Radio
Bryan pushes for
driving safety
Listen on KAMU 90.9 FM at 1:57 p.m.
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