Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 1955)
HEAD OF DEPT. COLLEGE ARCHIVES F.E. A ME 15 U CHRISTMAS EVERYONE The Battalion Number 66: Volume 55 COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1955 Price 5 Cents Fiery Crash Kills 'Two Aggies HOLIDAY GREETINGS—Among the prettiest of the many outside displays for Christ mas in our area is the home of Capt. and Mrs. Walter Heritage, 1209 Walton Drive in Col lege Station. Mrs. Heritage did the work herself. The College Station Chamber of Commerce and Development Association is again offering prizes for the best outdoor home Christmas decorations this year. They will tour the residential areas of the city to morrow night. The Birth of Jesus Told in The Bible And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was gov ernor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them. Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. St. Luke 2: 1-18 (St. James Version of The Holy Bible) Broken Die Cast Adds To Troubles ROCK ISLAND, Ill.—OP> — As if men weren’t busy enough with the Christmas rush, Postmaster John J. McCarthy had more work this week explaining to Rock Is landers their mail isn’t five years old. Monday began with a flood of telephoned compaints that pack ages and cards mailed in Rock Is land in December, 1950, were just being delivered. The callei’S said they noted the date in the post marks. McCarthy explained that the 1955 die used on machines to can cel mail was broken and that post office workers tided to chip at the 1956 die to make it look like 1955. They botched the job and the 6 turned out to look more like an 0 than it did a 5. It’s too late in the year to get a 1955 replacement die so Rock Is land mail will look like that until Jan. 1. The Battalion Trains You For A nyth ing Based on ASSOCIATED PRESS Former Battalion news edi tor Jim Ashlock was mighty slow bringing in the story for the San Angelo Standard- Times, but he did get it. Sent to Schleicher County, a 150-mile round trip, to inter view a farmer, deadline ap proached and no Ashlock and no story. When he finally rushed into the city room he was greeted with the howl, “Where have you been?” “Helping butcher a hog,” Ashlock i*eplied. “Had to help him finish that before he would give me a story.” Quebec Village In New Church This Christmas QUEBEC—(iP) — Villagers of Island of Orleans Parish will attend Midnight Mass this Christmas Eve in a mod ern stone church. For more than 200 years pai'ish- ioners in the village near Quebec have worshiped in a little wooden church built in 1717. Time at last caught up with the St. Lawrence River Island. The church has become a museum. Horse-drawn sleighs, with bells tinkling, will still bring villagers to .Mass this Christmas Eve, but they will share parking space be side late-model cars. With the spread of English in fluence,' sweeping changes have come over the “Jour de Noel” throughout Quebec province in the last few decades. New Yeai’’s Day, until recent years, was traditionally reserved for visits to neighbors and rela tives, the giving of presents and hospitality. Now it is still a time to visit but Christmas has be come the day when Pere Noel (Father Christmas) makes his trip from the North Pole. One tradition that has hung on, although considerably deflated, is the “reveillon.” On Chidstmas morning’ after Midnight Mass, the family gathers around the Christ mas tree—another innovation — for the exchange of gifts followed by a meal. This meal nowadays is inclined to be a modest affair of sandwiches, or a cold buffet and fi’uit cake or cookies. The Christmas Day dinner is al most a duplicate of that enjoyed in English-speaking families—stuffed turkey, baked potatoes, vegetables and dessert, usually pie. There is little of the strictly French tradi tion in the meals. Phone Dialing In City Will Switch Dec. 28 College Station, Bryan and surrounding areas served by the Southwestern States Tele phone Company will go to the new seven-digit system at 10 p. m. December 28. Exchange numbers for ’ College Station are VI (Victor) and for Bryan, TA (Taylor). College Station’s new phone building at North Gate will be cut into the main plant in Bryan right after 12 midnight. The operation will take only about 30 seconds to complete, after quite a long time to install. The new building in the city has entirely new equipment with inter-toll dialing. This inter-toll dialing will en able anyone, to call long-distance numbers directly when the system is tied into the nationwide Inter toll Dialing network in the future. New phone books are being mail ed and everyone should have theirs before the system goes into effect, according to company officials The Christmas rush on the Post Office may hold up the books for a short time. Consolidated Exes Plan Party Dec. 25 Ex-students of A&M Consolidat ed High School will hold their an nual Christmas get-together Christ mas night, Dec. 25, at 8 in the high school activity room. A previews notice sent out gave the date as Dec. 24 which was incorrect. Weather Today PARTLY CLOUDY The weather prediction for Col lege Station and vicinity is partly cloudy and mild. It was foggy this morning and will be so tomor row morning. Temperatue at 8:30 a.m. was 59 degrees. COSTLY YULE TREES TORONTO — (•‘P* — The season’s most expensive Christmas trees, probably, are 1,000 Scotch pines taken from Ontario to Venezuela, under refrigeration. The six-foot trees have been or dered—at $35 each—by Americans, Canadians and Europeans living in that area, many of them connected with oil companies. Committee members are now busy planning the program and it is hoped that at least 200 pei’sons will be present. Last year more than 75 attended the party. Exes who plan to attend church that evening are urged to come aft er the services, said J. J. Ski’ivanek Jr., CHS principal. All ex-students living in this area also ai’e being urged to pass the word around to those who are coming home for the holidays. Superintendent L. S. Richardson appointed Edward Linton, Student Council president; Holland Winder ’46; and Skrivanek to make ar rangements for the affair. St. Nicholas DEMRE, Turkey — CP) — Camel a r a v a n s occasionally wander through this sleepy south Turkish town. Citrus fruit grows around the calendar. Snow comes only to the high mountains that sit back from the sea. There is nothing under the hot Mediterranean sun to hint why children and myth have put Santa Claus’ home at the NorKh Pole. Or why he travels by sleigh with a team of reindeer. But it was here in Demre and formerly Myra that Santa Claus lived most of his life and died 16 centuries ago — a beloved bishop and later saint of the Christian church. A tomb, empty but sup posedly his, sdill rests in a small and often rebuilt church that bears his name—the Church of St. Nich olas. It id not easy to get to. You can go by jeep over a winding, bridge- le»« road lined in some parts by Greek-Roman ruins. Small boats also come to Demre from villages and cities along Turkey’s southern coast. It was by boat that St. Nicholas was supposed to have arrived early in the 4th Century from his native village of Patara, about 40 miles away. He died here Dec. 6, 342 A.D. Scores of legends are the basis for today’s belief in Santa Claus as a kindly, jolly character with a gi'eat love for children. The best known concerns an impoverished nobleman and his three daughters in Patara when Nicholas was a well-to-do young man fn the then thriving seapoi’t. At night, in secret, Nidholas hurled three bags of gold coins into the nobleman’s riin-down house to provide dowries for his daugh ters. The girls, of course, were then able to marry in style and live happily ever after. The legend presumably gave rise to Santa Claus’ practice of giving secretly, at night and as a surprise. Daigle, Burlin Victims In Highway Collision Holiday traffic has claimed the lives of two Texas A&M students. Norman Scott Daigle and Richard II. Burlin died in a fiery crash near Ellinger, about 12 miles east of La Grange 071 state highway 77 early Sunday morning. Two others, Mr. and Mrs. Woodward G. Davis, died in the wreck which occurred in heavy fog. Sheriff Jim Flournoy of Fayette County said the stu dents’ automobile collided headon with an oilfield equipment truck driven by Davis, with both vehicles bursting imme diately into flames. By the time the La Grange Fire De partment put the fire out, all four bodies were burned beyond recognition. Identification was made by checking license ■♦■plates on the vehicles and by a few personal effects which were scattered through the wreckage, Flournoy said. The two students were driv ing ( to Houston after having at tended a dance in Austin. Daigle was going to his home at 2205 Collier St., Houston, and Burlin in tended to fly to his home in Tam pa, Fla. Funeral services were held yes terday morning in Houston for Daigle, 20, a junior history major. He is survived by his parents, Mr. and .Mrs. Louis T. Daigle and two sisters, Marsha and Ann. Funeral arrangements for Bur lin, 20, junior history major are pending, until arrangements can be made for burial in Arlington National Cemetery at the side of his father, the late Col. C. W. Bur lin. He is survived by bis mother, Mrs. Charles W. Burlin of Tampa, Fla., and two brothers, Lt. Col. Robei-t Burlin of Washington, D.C., and Lt. William Burlin of the U.S. Navy. The body will be taken to Houston before being shipped to Washington. The two deaths brought to four the number of A&M students killed in wrecks involving automobiles this semester. Association Offers Decoration Prizes The College Station Chamber of Commerce and Development Asso ciation is again offering prizes for the best outdoor home Christmas decorations. The purpose behind this program is to encourage beau tification of the community during the holiday season. A committee of judges from the A&M Garden Club will tour the residential areas of College Station beginning at 7 tonight to select the winners. Ribbons will be awarded to win ners of the first three places and an additional thi’ee selections will be made for honorable mention. Our Santa Claus Lived in Turkey As a bishop of Myra, Demre, he healed the sick, saved the sailors from the sea and pi’ovided grain for his townspeople when famine threatened. Nicholas also had his troubles. Records in Turkey indicate the Ro mans imprisoned the future saint awhile during a vast purge throughout Asia Minor. The Church of St. Nicholas has been rebuilt several times. The only remnants from Nicholas’ time are noW underground, surrounded by silt washed down from the mountains. It is no longer used. In 1807 A.D. Italian merchants from Bari removed the relics of the saint from his neglected church and took them home. There they built a church to house them that still stands. Turkish historians say (See SANTA CLAUS, Page 6) Minister Objects To Bing’s Bubbling MINNEAPOLIS— UP) —A Luth eran minister told his congi;egation Sunday that he doesn’t approve of the way Bing Crosby “bubbles ‘Si lent Night.’ ” Moreover, said the Rev. Lasse J. Stohl, he gets no great lift out of Arthur Godfrey’s singing “Joy to The World.” Rev. Stohl, in his sermon at Gesthemane Lutherane Church in suburban Hopkins, criticized fac tors which he said “tend to obscure the real meaning of Christmas— the coming of the Holy Child.” Funeral Today At 4 For ‘Doc’ Lipscomb Funeral services will be at 4 p.m. today for Samuel A. (Doc) Lipscomb, 68, owner of Lipscomb Pharmacy who was found dead in his bed early yesterday at his home. The services will be held in the Chapel of Hillier Funeral Home with the Rev. Nolan Vance of the A&M Methodist Church officiating. Internment will be in the Bryan City Cemetery with the following serving as pallbearers: Marion I’ugh, Walleman Price, C. C. Smith, Sid Loveless, A. E. Carver and Kenneth Mills. Lipscomb is smwived by his wid ow, Mrs. Carolyn Lipscomb, Col lege Station; two sisters, Mrs. C. C. Young of Hamburg, Ark., and Mrs. Ulalah Grant, Houston; and a niece, Kathryn Johnson of Hous ton. He was born in Franklin, April 21, 1887, graduated from A&M College with the class of 1907 and later attended the Little Rock School of Pharmacy in Arkansas. Winner of a “T” in baseball, Lips comb had long been a sports enthu siast and annually presented the Lipscomb trophy to an outstanding Aggie football player. He was for a long time repre sentative on the A&M Ex-Stu dents Council and served as alumni representative of the school’s Ath letic Council for three years. One of the founders of the. College State Bank he served for a while as its president and was a member of the board of directors. Lipscomb was formerly on the executive committee of the Texas State Pharmaceutical Association and before ill health caused his resignation he was active in the College Station Kiwanis Club. A son, Sam Webb Lipscomb who graduated from A&M in 1940 was a World War II casualty. For tlie Stocking NEW YORK—O^)- -For last-min ute shoppers in need of a new Christmas gift idea, consider a real estate gift certificate. A national realty dealing house has them for anything from a $6,900 summer cottage in New Hampshii’e to a villa on the Riviera or a castle in Ireland. System Accident Committee Meets The problem of constructing a uniform system of accident report ing for the A&M College System constituted the main point of dis cussion at Monday’s meeting of the System Accident Prevention Committee, with J. W. Hill, direc tor of Workmen’s Compensation, as chairman. The Committee decided to extend further study to the problem, con centrating on a system that would cover both persons under Work men’s Compensation and not cov ered. Other topics covered included a poster safety - program and the bringing in of outside teams to the system. Chairmen of the Accident Pre vention Committees, or their rep resentatives, make up the members of the System Committee. The next meeting will be held the week of May 7. FIRST CHRISTMAS—Little Ann Williamson, sitting in her mother’s lap, will be enjoying her first Christmas this Sunday, although she won’t quite know what is going on. Her parents are Bill and Jean Williamson, and they live at 205 Walton Drive in the city. He is a pre-medical major at A&M. Professor’s Son In Austin Shooting Alvin L. Bennett Jr., son of Dr. Alvin L. Bennett, assistant profes sor of English at A&M, was arrest ed last week on a charge of at tempted murder in the shooting of a 17-year-old girl, Francis Spen- kel, at an Austin night club. Miss Spenkel, shot in the mouth as she left the Flamingo Lounge with her escort Steve Hawley, was reported in satisfactory condition at Breckenridge Hospital. Hawley told Austin city detec tives who investigated the shoot ing that he and the wounded girl were preparing to leave the club after an evening of dancing when a man shoved open the front door and fired two shots, one of them striking the girl in the mouth.