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.