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The Battalion
- Number 18: Volume 54
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1954
Price 5 Cents
Accident Committee
To Look for Hazards
Committee, Cadets
Will Make Reports
In an effort to stop accidents before they happen, the
A&M Accident Prevention committee has appointed members
of its group to watch specific areas of the campus for haz
ards, and is making arrangements for cadet officers to re
port hazards.
The committee will recommend to the college that the
hospital keep records on acci-^
dent cases, so the committee
can know what is causing
them.
,The cadet officers will re-
pdit accident hazards on a form
that will be given out to all com
pany commanders. The form has a
place to list the location and de
scription of the hazard, and a rec
ommendation for improving it.
It will be given to the commit
tee, which will then refer it to the
proper organization for improving.
“Most hazards can be cleared up
immediately, as soon as we know
what the hazard is,” said Bennie
A. Zinn, chairman of the commit
tee. “It’s just a case of finding
out where the hazards are.”
The 11 members of the commit
tee are representatives of all
phases of campus life, and each is
assigned to watch the area his work
covers.
The committee will also coordi
nate the work of safety represent
tatives appointed in each depart
ment. Zinn will speak to a meet
ing of these representatives at 4
p.m. Thursday in Goodwin hall.
They will be responsible for
watching for safety hazards in
their departments and for teaching
safety practices.
The committee, which met yes
terday, also approved stop signs to
be used to protect cadets marching
from the East area to Sbisa dining
hall.
The signs are white with red
letters in reflecting tape. They
will be mounted on stands.
The committee decided to discuss
Intramural football rules with Bar
ney Welch, intramural director, to
gee if injuries to intramural players
can be reduced.
Supervisor Course
A 40-hour course for safety sup
ervisors of Texas industries got
under way here Monday. The
course is under the supervision of
the Engineering Extension ser
vice, with L. K. Jonas in charge.
It will last through Nov. 19.
Don’t Gripe
If Letters
Aren’t There
Many students complain that
they open their mail boxes and
never find any mail, but con
sider one poor lad who couldn’t
open his box to get the mail
inside.
A1 Eisenberg told the offi
cials at the Memorial Student
Center post office that he had
been having difficulty opening
his box. They assured him
they would fix it.
The next time he twirled the
combination he found his box
was really stuck. After com
plaining to the officials again,
they informed him they had
changed his combination.
But so he would know, they
wrote out the new combination
and left it inside the box.
Fish Drill Team
Members Chosen
Thirty-nine regulars and five al
ternates have been selected for
the 1954-55 Freshmen Drill team.
A commander, guidon bearer and
right guide will be selected after
Thanksgiving. These selections
will be made on appearance, com
mand voice and aptitude of £he
participants in competitive stand
ing.
No trips have been scheduled but
the team will probably go to San
Antonio’s Battle of Flowers and
the Brenham Mayfest, Capt J. C.
Brusse, sponsor of the team, said.
Workshop Set
On Decorations
For December
The department of floricul
ture and landscape architec
ture will offer a workshop on
Christmas decorations during
December.
The workshop will be elementary
in approach and no technical knowl
edge, special background or pre
vious experience is required.
Classes are informa and no aca
demic credit will be given.
The sessions are open to anyone
wishing to attend. In order to
provide an opportunity for as many
interested persons as possible to
attend, three sections will be held.
Each section is limited to 20 per
sons.
The sections are as follows:
1. Dec. G, 8, 10, from 2-4 p.m.
2. Dec. 7, 9, 11, from 9:30-11:30
a.m.
3. Dec. 6, 8, 10, from 7-9 p.m.
All registrations must be made
in advance before Dec. 1. Regis
trations can be made by calling
6-6884 or by mailing a card to the
department designating the section
wanted.
The fee for the workshop will be
$3, and all decorations made will
belong to the student. Enough ma
terials will be furnished to com
plete one decoration in each two-
hour session.
All sessions will be held at the
new floriculture building.
Credit School Held
The fourth annual meeting of
the Texas Farm and Ranch Credit
School for Commercial Bankers
will be held Dec. 5-8 m the Me
morial Student Center.
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READY FOR THE WOOD—The first visible sign of the
annual Texas game bonfire rose above the drill field yes
terday as the 72-foot center pole was gingerly lifted into
position. The crane, supplied by a donor who asked that
his name not be mentioned, hoisted the pole, while a crew
of Aggies at its base guided it into the hole drilled for it.
Ropes were then used to brace it in place until the wood
stacking starts. The pole, which is two telephone poles
spliced together, was donated by Dr. Spencer Buchanan of
the civil engineering department.
Bonfire Guard Set
During This Week
Positions Open
For Draftsmen
The federal service needs engi
neering draftsmen in positions pay
ing from $2,750 to 5,940 a year,
announced the U. S. Civil Service
commission.
No written test is required, but
to qualify, applicants must have
had appropriate education or ex
perience or both.
Further information and applica
tion forms may be gotten from the
U. S. Civil Service commission,
Washington 25, D. C., or from the
local post office.
Box Lunch Sales
Termed Successful
More than 486 box lunches were
sold at the Rice-A&M game Satur
day by the Kiwanis club, according
to Woody Briles, chairman of the
finance committee.
The lunches were sold at $1 per
box. Twelve of the boxes, which
were left over, were sold to Ki
wanis club members. Approxi
mately 200 man hours were used
selling and packing the lunches.
Bonfire guard will begin today
at 7 p.m., Cecil (Bud) Fair, corps
adjutant, has announced.
Composite personnel will guard
the bonfire while the corps is in
the mess hall. Athletic units not
training for sports will also assist
in guard duty, Fair said.
Each company and squadron
commander will be responsible for
the distribution of the members of
his unit in the area which it is as
signed to guard. All reliefs are
Aggie Ramblers
Play For Lions
The Aggie ramblers, a five-man
hillbilly band, and Ted Steck, ac-
cordianist, entertained the College
Station Lions club this week with
their favorite mountain music and
accordian selections.
Members of the Ramblers include
Clifford Hobbs, Bill Barefield, Wal
ter Miers, Pat Wrestly, and Dick
Beard.
Guests at the luncheon were Dr.
George Huebner and Pat Wooten
of the economics department.
Dan Davis, agriculture economics
department; John Barlowe, and
Charles Bretschneider, both of the
oceanography department and Maj.
Edward Scott, commandant’s of
fice, were introduced as new mem
bers.
to be posted at the exact prescribed
time.
Guard units for today and time
are as follows:
Units
7 to 11 p.m.—A Field Artillery
and Squadron 1.
1 p.m. to 3 a.m.—B Field Ar
tillery and Squad
ron 2.
3 to 7 a.m.—C Field Artillery
and Squadron 3.
Kyle field and the drill field will
be the only areas guarded today.
Other areas, two, three, four and
five, will include entrances to the
campus.
Organizations guarding Kyle
field will dispatch 15 men to the
stadium. The rest will guard the
bonfire.
Uniform for all bonfire"and gate
outpost guards is optional.
Kitten Found
In Gift Shop
A two-month-old kitten strolled
into the Memorial Student Cen
ter gift shop last week.
It’s approximately a Persian
kitten, said Mrs. C. C. Gay jr.,
an employee of the gift shop.
Anyone who claims ownership
to the cat can get him back by
notifying either Hank Funchess
or C. C. Gay jr., both of 201
Patricia St.
Christmas Seals
To Go On Sale
The 1954 tuberculosis Christmas
seal sale has been set for Nov. 22
through Dec. 25.
In surveys over past years, tu
berculosis has been found in every
phase of the college. Profs, stu
dents and etnployees have been
helped with hospitalization and re
turning to their jobs by the Brazos
County Tuberculosis association.
Joe H. Sorrels, president of the
board of directors of the associa
tion, is also a member of the
board of directors of the Texas
Tuberculosis association. Miss
Malcolm Mclnnis is this year’s
chairman for Brazos county.
The association serves and bene
fits everyone in that it is working
to wipe out the communicable dis
ease. As long as the disease is
in the county, no one is safe.
The association sponsors the an
nual X-ray survey put on each
year by the State Department of
Health. Local arrangements, pub
licity and all local expenses are
taken care of by the BCTA.
In past years, Christmfhs seals
have been sent to students in other
colleges of Texas. The response
has been reported as good. This
year, for the first time, Christmas
seals will be distributed to A&M
students.
Letters containing the seals will
be given out to students by hand
and are to be returned by mail.
Each letter will have two sheets of
seals at $1 per sheet although any
William Degenhardt
Graduate Likes Caging Snakes
HOBBY-SNAKE—William Degenhardt, graduate assist
ant in the biology department, holds two vicious-looking
but harmless snakes from his collection. One is a New
Jersey pine snake, and the other is a Texas bull snake.
He offered to hold a rattler and a mocassin for the jricture,
but the photographer declined the offer.
Some people do the darndest
things for fun, and William Deg
enhardt says he just likes to collect
snakes.
Degenhardt, a young graduate
assistant in the biology department,
is an ardent herpetologist, and he
believes in studying live specimens
of reptiles, rather than old, pre
served specimens in museums.
His office, dubbed the “Snake
Pit” by students and fellow pro
fessors, is a den of snake cages
and live lizards chasing flies.
“No, I’ve never been bitten,” he
said, as he took a four-foot rattler
out of its glass case. “You just
have to know how to handle them
and not get careless.”
Degenhardt, 28, has been han
dling them since he was about 13
years old. His office collection in
cludes more than 20 species, in
cluding hog-nosed snakes, copper
heads, king snakes, water mocas
sins, eight kinds of rattlers, and
even tropical boa constrictors.
Besides the collection in his of
fice, Degenhardt keeps an exhibit
in a specially-constructed terra
rium on the ground floor of the
Biological Sciences building.
A few reptiles are kept here,
with information about them posted
by the exhibit. The exhibit is
changed regularly, and is an at
traction for students, staff, and vis
itors.
In the terrarium one can see a
blacksnake attack and feed on a
live rat, or a chicken snake swal
low an egg twice as big in diameter
as the snake.
Degenhardt’s collection contains
many species not found in Texas.
A native of New York and a grad
uate of North western university,
he has hunted snakes in all sec
tions of the United States except
the Northwest.
He says the Southeast is his fa
vorite hunting region, but admits
he hasn’t given the Southwest a
real test yet.
He also has had exhibits at the
Syi’acuse Museum of Natural His-
tory, the Staten Island Zoo, the
New York Zoological society, and
many other places.
He has some advice for people
who aren’t too sure about snakes:
“There are only four species of
poisonous snakes common in this
country, so it should be easy for
anyone to know them. They are
the coral, mocassin, copperhead,
and rattler. Of course, there are
about 20 kinds of rattlers, but they
are all recognizable by the rattles.”
The copperhead is almost iden
tical to the rattler, but does not
have the waming rattles, he said.
The old theory that all snakes
are poisonous if they have the V-
shaped head like the rattlers is
wrong, Degenhardt said.
Other bits of information:
The striking distance of the rat
tler is one-third of its body length.
(Degenhardt did not say how to
go about measuring an angry rat
tler.)
Snakes will attack and bite in
water, and their venom is unaf
fected.
To sum it up:
“My advice for everyone in
places where reptiles may be,” Deg
enhardt said, “is to give them
room.”
“Even rattlers in coil will run
away from a disturbance; they at
tack only if easy, quick escape is
not apparent to them,” he said.
Degenhardt is in his second year
as a graduate assistant here, work
ing toward his PhD in zoology.
amount is appreciated by the asso
ciation. Frank Ford, colonel of
the corps, will be in charge of giv
ing the letters out to military stu
dents while house masters will be
responsible for the non-military
students.
The BCTA is an affiliate of the
TTA and the National Tuberculosis
association. It supports their pro
grams with 18 per cent of its seal
sale receipts. This leaves 82 per
cent of the funds raised in the
county to be used for local patients.
The objectives of the tuberculo
sis association are to spread in
formation about TB, find unknown
cases and try to get them hospi
talized, and to wonk toward co
operation of the community and all
health and welfare agencies for the
eventual eradication of tuberculo
sis.
A board composed of 20 to 25
citizens elected at-an annual open
meeting sets the policies of BCTA
and makes the budget and program
outline. The funds are controlled
by the board and are spent only for
the purposes for which they are
raised.
Last year, $5,000 was collected
from seal sales. This year, the as
sociation will try to raise more
than that amount. Each year, the
budget has been cut because of the
lack of funds.
The average total cost per pa
tient is $15,000. The health unit,
local doctors and hospitals, and
the tuberculosis association co
operate on a weekly free tubercu
losis clinic serving persons un
able to pay.
The address of the BCTA is the
Masonic Building, Bryan, Texas.
Senate Will Meet
Thursday Night
Student Senate meeting will be
held Thursday night at 7:30 p.m.
in the Memorial Student Center
senate chamber.
Advertisements and posters be
ing placed on dormitory bulletin
boards will be discussed and side
walk committee will be appointed
to determine if there is need for
additional sidewalks on the cam
pus.
The welcoming committee will
report on their trips to Rice In
stitute and Mary Hardin Baylor.
Weather Today
The forecast for today is to be
clear in the afternoon with a light
cold front late this afternoon or
early tonight.
The high yesterday was 76, low
54. The temperatur* at 10:80 this
morning was 59.