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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 1971)
1970 marked by changes in Texas A&M’s leadership Texas A&M University’s growth and diversification during 1970 was marked by sadness in the death of Earl Rudder, the institution’s president for more than a decade. The 94th year of the state’s first public institution of higher learning was climaxed by the selection of its 17th president, Dr. Jack K. Williams. Other milestones this year included record enrollment of 14,406 students and start of construction on the first two buildings at the university’s new Mitchell Campus in Galveston. Texas A&M also experienced unparalleled expansion of facilities at its College Station campus, with contracts awarded for an oceanography-meteorology building, a 1,000-student residence hall, chemistry building addition and an auditorium complex-continuing education tower. The 15-story oceanography-meteorology building will be the second tallest facility between Houston and Dallas and will contain 121 highly specialized research laboratories. The continuing education tower will be 11 stories. In addition to a record number of students in 1970, Texas A&M attracted a large number with top academic standing. The freshman class, for example, included 47 National Merit Scholars—approximately twice as many as entered any other institution in Texas. Rudder died March 23 in a Houston hospital after an extended illness. His funeral on campus was attended by thousands of persons, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson and Texas Gov. Preston Smith. During Rudder’s illness, the Texas A&M board of directors named Dr. Horace R. Byers, Tom D. Cherry and W. C. Freeman to share responsibilities for operation of the university and its system. All three men are vice presidents. A. R. Luedecke, a classmate of Rudder’s, was named acting president March 30 and later selected for the newly created position of executive vice president. Luedecke, who was associate engineering dean, returned to his alma mater in 1968 after leaving the Air Force to serve as general manager of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and later as deputy director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Williams took office Nov. 1 and promptly was greeted by several thousand sign-carrying students-all bidding him a warm, friendly welcome. Williams is no stranger to Texas. He was the first commissioner for the Coordinating Board, Texas College and University System. Named to the post in 1966, he directed the development and publication of long-range academic planning for Texas’ public institu tions of higher learning. He came to Texas A&M from the University of Tennessee where he had served two years as academic vice president. Other highlights of the year included the start of telecasts by KAMU-TV, the university’s educational television station, and acquisi tion of an additional oceanographic research ship, the 86-foot R/V ORCA. ■ ■ > ' , Texas A&M continued to provide leadership in research. Its annual research budget grew to approximately $26 million for hundreds of different projects, ranging from highway safety to pollution control. The year of 1970 at Texas A&M was not without its milestones for the record 1,233 women enrolled at the once all-male school. Mrs. Patricia Self was named the institution’s first counselor for coeds. Texas A&M coeds also gained the right to compete with Texas Woman’s University students for selection as Aggie Sweetheart. Texas A&M also gained its first woman graduate to be commis sioned into the armed forces-Army 2nd Lt. Shirley Oates, daughter of Residence Hall Programs Director Eugene Oates. Cbe Battalion % Vol. 66 No. 60 College Station, Texas Wednesday, January 6, 1971 Thursday—Clear, with north erly winds 12-18 m.p.h. High in the high 40s-lower 50s, low 25. Friday—Clear to partly cloudy with northerly winds 12-18 m.p.h. High near 50, low around 28. Weekend—C 1 e a r to partly cloudy with continued cold tem peratures. 845-2226 > L \ The right form properly filled out y gets attention. I \ \ ,|A REVENUE DEPARTMENT INCOME TAX FORM 5QO-B 1 BILLBOARD MESSAGE is Georgia State Revenue Cbm- come tax returns filed on form 500R and having no errors, inissioner John Blackmon’s way of calling attention to his The billboard is being posted statewide. (AP Wirephoto) department’s new policy of processing first all state in- Singing Cadets ready for tour Sounds of Aggieland will ring in Corpus Christi, Refugio, Alice, McAllen and Del Rio Jan. 9-15 while the Singing Cadets are on tour. The lower Gulf Coast and Rio Grande Valley tour by the all male glee club will be made en tirely during the university’s in tersession period, said Director Robert L. Boone. “Not only are the fellows not missing any classes to make this goodwill tour for Texas A&M, they are giving up a week of the between-semester vacation for it,” Boone pointed out. The 40 Cadets, Boone and pia nist-accompanist Mrs. June Bier- ing will make five major two- hour performances, a “Sermon in Song” and two high school as sembly program presentations. Due to cancellations in Laredo, the troup will lay over Wednes day in McAllen. The director said it is possible another major con cert in Harlingen, or a series of high school performances or a church service will be scheduled for the open date. An 8 p.m. Saturday concert in Del Mar Auditorium at Corpus Christi will initiate the eight (or more) performance, 1,200-mile tour. A 3 p.m. Sunday concert at Refugio High School will be followed by the Singing Cadets’ famed rendering of a “Sermon in Song” at Refugio’s First Bap tist Church that evening. Arrival in Alice Monday morn ing will be in time for an Alice High School assembly program performance. The Maroon and black-clad cadets headed by pres ident Larry W. Altman of New Ulm will eat lunch at Alice High and “stick around for awhile an swering questions about Texas A&M,” Boone said. The Monday evening concert at Alice High, like Refugio’s ma jor performance, is sold out. Concerts also are scheduled Tuesday and Friday nights in McAllen and Del Rio, respective ly, with a Thursday afternoon as sembly presentation in Del Rio. The group will board buses at Del Rio the morning of Jan. 16 for their return trip. Known for their ability to han dle a broad variety of music, the Singing Cadets will dip into their ample repertoire for program se lections on the tour. Music will include sacred numbers, school songs, folk and spiritual selec tions and patriotic songs for which the three-quarter century old group is famed. “The only pointed part of the program will be a tribute to Irv ing Berlin,” Boone said. “We’ll also do popular pieces, including some by Burt Bacharach. “The programs will include a little bit of this and a little of that, but we think it will be a good program,” he added. The tour continues a busy sea son for the Singing Cadets, who trace their history at Texas A&M to 1894. In addition to perform ances for A&M-visiting groups ranging from junior college jour nalists to rocket engineers, the organization has sung before na tional conventions of dairymen and highway engineers in Hous ton and perfromed for the sev enth year on the annual Miss Teenage America Pageant (CBS- TV) at Fort Worth in early De cember. MSC employe has ‘sound’ job If a sound gets amplified at Texas A&M, chances are A1 Thielemann will be the man to put electrons to it. The dynamic, 5-foot-4 Me morial Student Center building superintendent has set up public address systems for the annual Thanksgiving bonfire and famed Aggie Muster for 11 years. Commencement and commis sioning in G. RoUie White Coli seum feel his touch, as do bas ketball games. Complex sound systems required by Town Hall performing groups fit right into the MSC specialist’s circuits. From field-wide sound for Corps of Cadets reviews to look ing after an array of six to 18- inch-long, eighth-inch diameter metal bars and associated elec tronics that sound the time every quarter hour through the MSC chimes system, he has his finger to the socket all around the cam pus. “He’s a handyman’s handy man,” observed Sanders Letbet- ter, MSC assistant director. “In addition to being a top-notch electronics technician, A1 knows air-conditioning, carpentry, up holstering and plumbing.” An auto mechanic in Brenham, Thielemann was transferred to Cade Motor Co. in Bryan in 1935. He was also a full-time electron ics and TV serviceman and movie projectionist before joining the MSC staff in 1959. His son is in electronics school at the Texas A&M Annex and works part-time for the Ocean ography Department. His daugh ter was graduated from Texas A&M last June with a degree in accounting and works in Bryan. AI Thielemann checks the MSC’s chime system. A wireless hand microphone allows the system to be used as a PA for corps reviews. Nixon will try to keep nation’s wheels moving WASHINGTON <*») — Presi dent Nixon will press vigorously for early enactment of a law to prevent emergency strikes such as the still-threatening nation wide railroad walkout, his labor secretary said Tuesday. “Such strikes become some thing like an industrial H-bomb,” said Secretary of Labor J. D. Hodgson in announcing the White House is putting top priority on the first new antistrike legisla tion since the Taft-Hartley Act a quarter century ago. “They cause hardship, mass inconvenience, danger and a threat to the nation’s health and safety,” Hodgson told newsmen. “Decisions are going to be re quired of the nation whether we will enact a realistic law to deal with national emergency disputes in the transportation industry or limp through repeated crises with a wornout crutch,” Hodgson said. Congress halted a 24-hour na tionwide rail strike last Dec. 10, imposing a partial 13.5 per cent pay hike for some 500,000 work ers involved. But the special law expires March 1 and the strike could resume if there is no settle ment. Key congressional committee chairmen told The Associated Press three weeks ago hearings will be held early this year on emergency strike legislation. Hodgson said Nixon will re submit a strike law proposal similar to the one that languished in Congress last year. That pro posal would have junked the 45- year-old Railway Labor Act which now covers rail and airline disputes and replaced it with one covering all transportation strikes. The earlier Nixon bill would have given the White House sev eral options including the power to order strike delays of up to 110 days, instead of the current 90 days, to permit partial strik ing of a major industry, or to appoint a neutral board to choose either management’s or labor’s final contract proposal as a bind ing settlement. Hodgson said Nixon’s new bill will be much like the earlier one. Both rail labor and manage ment opposed the initial Nixon proposal, and Hodgson said “I doubt if we can get something both sides will like.” Hodgson said Nixon will put high priority also on a reintro duced version of his family- assistance plan of welfare reform to put a $1,000 floor under the annual income of an indigent urban family of four. It will be revised to meet some of the objec tions that caused it to become bogged down in the Senate after House passage last year. “Reform of the nation’s run away welfare system remains at the center of the New Federal ism,” Hodgson said. “This program will be a boon to working people in this country and to all citizens who feel that work is the way out of poverty and dependency,” he said of the welfare - reform proposal that would require recipients to regis ter for work or job training and provide a network of child-care centers for working parents. He said the administration also will continue to seek labor bar gaining based on real productiv ity growth, and curb what he called unreasonable wage settle ments in some industries such as construction. “The number of strikes and the astronomical level of the wage settlements in this industry (con struction) are ruinous. It is in everyone’s interest that we find better answers to the problems that have marked bargaining in that industry in the last two years,” he said. Auto licensing time is here AUSTIN—If you own one or more of the more than seven mil lion motor vehicles in Texas, there is some important mail coming your way early in Janu ary. It is your registration renewal application. This is the second year of op eration fofr-lJifi^fiomputerized reg istration procedure devised by the Texas Highway Department. Last year the system greatly reduced waits and long lines which plagued vehicle owners at county tax offices and substa tions in years past. Prospects are that the system will work even better this year. Also, it is not necessary to pre sent .last year’s registration re ceipt of the certificate of title. The renewal application you will receive in the mail is all you will need. Registration begins Feb. 1 and continues through April 1. The renewal application will arrive in the mail in a slendor envelope marked, “Important— This is Your License Plate Re newal Application.” The application is a three-part form with instructions printed on it. One important thing to re- GREAT SAVINGS PLAN made even better by new legal rates at FIRST BANK & TRUST. Adv. member is the card should not be torn apart. After the registration period begins, each vehicle owner can take the renewal application and the fee to his county tax office, Elmendorf gets mere honors All-American safety Dave El mendorf continued to he honored for his football prowess over the Christmas break. The senior from Houston was named Most Valuable Player for the South in the North-South Shrine game in Miami Christmas Day. Elmendorf’s selection was an indication of his overall con sistent play from his safety po sition, because he did not inter cept a pass and it is a rare event when a defensive back can re ceive an All-Star game MVP award when he doesn’t intercept a pass. He was also named—along with 32 other college athletes including Bill Zapalac of the UT-Auslin and Bill Burnett of Arkansas from the Southwest Conference— to receive a $1,000 scholarship from the NCAA for post-graduate work. Already named Academic All-SWC, Elmendorf has a 3.84 GPR in economics. or he can order his plates by mail. If the owner wishes to register his vehicle by mail he should send the entire three-part renewal ap plication, the fee and an addition al $1 to the local county tax of fice as early as January with the understanding that his license plates may not be mailed until Feb. 1. The additional $1 charge cov ers the cost of handling and post age. If owners are to receive their plates by mail before the April 1 deadline then they must send the renewal form, fee and $1 for each vehicle to be registered to the lo cal county tax office by March 1. This allows 30 days for delivery of the plates before the April 1 registration deadline. If the owner decides to go to the county tax office or substa tion, he will find shorter waiting lines. All he needs to take with him is the renewal application and the fee. He will then receive his new plates and part of the form as his receipt. Another part of the form is retained by the county and the third is sent to the Motor Vehicle Division of the Texas Highway Department in Austin. University National Bank “On the side of Texas A&M.” —Adv.