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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1971)
be Battalion Cool, cloudy, windy scorer, L s ts in the6 y the la yed Friii most exciti years, s also a He scored c of ninefin 2 of six (j in early Is e to 6-1 r first hall 'ore wasti uccessive 1 hrow. Las and built at 17-12 x half, r the leads Tth, but i df, Overlm with an as d Lamar i >• The big was eight me was 43- ie out in red five po; the Cardis ird, then Hi and madt ist from i ad to nine ay at the la f. tying it d again r aining. Tl each hit* i&M an SI eft Duplu md the Cu with a 5 led it allii nary, La overwhein was the m or the App of 6'/} wee was more e Lamar h h 6:34 left es led theh : Stewarts j;gies only ield, and t: r 27 times. No. 63 College Station, Texas Wednesday, January 20, 1971 Thursday —• Clear to partly cloudy. Winds southerly at 10-15 mph. 42 0 -68°. Friday — Partly cloudy to cloudy. Winds southerly at 15-20 mph. 51 0 -74°. 845-2226 Mutscher implicated government suit AUSTIN (.dP)—House Speaker Gus Mutscher and two of his top aides acknowledged Tuesday they bought and sold shares of a stock the federal government alleges was used as an inducement to win passage of a state deposit insurance bill. Dr. Elmer Baum, state Demo cratic chairman, said he and Gov. Preston Smith also bought shares of National Bankers Life Insur ance Co. stock in 1969. Smith was expected to issue a statement about the purchases. The U.S. Securities and Ex changes Commission filed a civil suit in Dallas Monday against National Bankers Life, Sharps- town State Bank, Frank Sharp, former State Atty. Gen. Waggon er Carr, Austin lawyer John Os- rio and others. The SEC asked for an injunction against alleged violations of securities laws. The suit alleges that a plan was put through the legislature to al low private insuring of state Senate to hear Williams tonight Texas A&M President Dr. Jack K. Williams will address the Stu dent Senate at a special meeting tonight at 7:30 in the second floor library conference room. "He will speak on what he wants to do for A&M and student government and what he thinks student government should be doing,” Student Senate President Kent Caperton said. Also on the agenda is the ap pointment of seven Student Seiw- ice Fees Committee members. The committee was established recent ly to make recommendations to the university president concern ing student seiwice fees, Caper- ton said. Caperton will also appoint two students to fill vacancies made by seophomores Nanette Critchlow (Soph-Ed) and Mark Jarvis (Soph-Eng) who have left school. The Constitutional Revision Committee which met during Christmas vacation will report, Caperton added. hank deposits. To get the bill passed, “certain legislators, leg islative employes and members of the executive bi-anch” were loan ed lai-ge amounts of money to buy stock in National Bankers Life, the SEC petition claims. According to the suit, the stock later was sold for the men at a profit. During the second special leg islative session in 1969, a bill passed by both houses would have permitted private, nonprofit cor porations to insure state bank de posits that exceeded the $15,000 federal deposit insurance. Smith vetoed the bill Sept. 29, 1969, saying it would lead to a large number of small, weak de posit insurance corporations “which would not provide the protection anticipated.” Mutscher; one of his aides, Rush McGinty; and Rep. Tom my Shannon of Fort Worth, house sponsor of the deposit insurance bill and Mutscher’s right hand man in administering the House, all said they bought National Bankers Life stock in 1969. Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes; his top advisor, Frank Erwin Jr.; and former Sen. Jack Strong of Long view, who sponsored the bill for a time in the Senate, all said they had not bought any of the stock. Mutscher said he lost money on the stock deal; McGinty said he took a loss on some of the stock and made money on some of it; Tommy Shannon said he made a good profit. All three House officials de nied any connection between the deposit insurance bill and the stock transactions. All three said they felt the deals were free of any taint. Mutscher and McGinty said they were not sure how much of the stock they bought, how (See Mutscher, page 3) C of C invites Williams as IGNORING THE DANGER presented by his big teeth, three turtles known as red eared sliders take a ride on the back of an alligator at Memphis, Tenn. Overton Park Zoo. Their apparent philosophy is, why swim yourself when you can let somebody else to do it for you. The incident is also rare but balmy weather in Memphis has brought them out, because turtles are usually in hibernation at this time of year. (AP Wire- photo) dinner speaker i ,. 1 . 1 . ^ , Dr. Jack K. Williams, president IlllUfif -IclStS Ulltll AUCSClclV of the Texas A&M University t ^ w Dr. Jack K. Williams, president of the Texas A&M University System, will be featured speaker at the annual Bryan-College Sta tion Chamber of Commerce Ban quet Thursday. The program begins at 7 p.m. in the Ramada Inn. Tickets are available at the chamber office, 401 S. Washing ton Ave., Bryan. Applications for five top posi tions in the Memorial Student Center Council and Directorate are now being accepted from Texas A&M students, announced Don B. Mauro, MSC executive vice president. Applications must be turned in to the MSC Student Program Of fice by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Applicants for the 1971-72 council president and chairmen of the Great Issues, Political For um, Town Hall and Contempor ary Arts Committees will be in- tex*viewed Jan. 28 by the nomi nating committee. Mauro said minimum require ments for council president are an overall 2.5 grade point ratio and a 2.5 or higher in the previ ous semester. Committee chair men must carry an overall 2.5 GPR and not less than 2.4 for the previous semester. Applicants cannot be on any type of probation in either case, Chamonix skiing, seeing, late parties—10-day life for some By GARY MARTIN Special Correspondent Santa Claus was good to lots of people, but probably none were graced more by the holidays than we good Ags who spent part of those days in Europe on the MSC Travel Committee sponsored Ski the Alps ’71 trip. An unlikely but fun-loving combination of some 180 A&M students, faculty, staff, former students, and their immediate families left Houston at 1 p.m. on New Years Day. After a shox-t stop in Cincinnati to pick up 70 kids from the University of Ken tucky, our 250-seat chartered DC-8 headed out across the At lantic. Since our transistor radios could not be used because of their interference with the aircraft’s instrumentation, the pilot kept in touch with the ground periodical ly to come over the plane’s public address system with play by plays of the Cotton Bowl. Somewhere over Iceland, just after the second round of drinks had been served, rumors spread in board that the pilot was con sidering cutting off the engines the rest of the way to, Geneva, sin^e everyone inside was already flying so high. At aqy rate, it was one happy bunch of people who got off that plane at 9 a.m. on Jan. 2. Our first glimpse of Europe as we stepped off at Geneva in cluded an all too obvious force of Swiss Army guards who pa trolled the airport with very painful looking machine guns in hand. They no doubt were there to remind everyone that you could go only where your ticket said and that unscheduled side trips to Egypt and Israel were frowned upon by the Swiss Government. Very effective reminders, to say the least. Author Gary Martin sits on a marker designating the Ffench-Swiss border. He said the marker on a mountain- top could be reached by a 400-yard uphill walk on skis. Fondue and wine were popular fare for the Aggie partygoers. From left to right, Sammye McPherson, Jim Summers Herman, a Swiss acquaintance and Glenn Head. Geneva is where everyone went their separate ways. Those who went along only for the plane ride cut out, reminded only that we would leave without them if they weren’t back in 10 days. These same instructions went to the Car Rental Option people as they picked up their Avis Rent-a-Bugs at the airport and frantically tried to recall the meanings of the various European road signs. There was confusion, however, as we heard later that someone had mistaken a stop sign for a parking zone sign and — well, that’s another story. Those of us brave enough to travel this far just to taunt our insurance men by skiing were fortunate enough to spend a night in the French corner of Geneva before risking our necks in the snow. Its’ an understatement to say that this first night was a mem orable one for everyone. We stay ed in such classic places as L’Hotel de Savoie, the Terminus, and the Pax Hotel (because of the feather pillows, soon renamed the Chicken Pax). Bathroom down the hall and endless flights of stairs — the hotels left every one with insight into a part of real Europe. There’s no sight more comfort ing to an American in Europe than to see a fellow American having more trouble than himself in communicating. My seventh, eighth, and ninth grade French turned into a handy tool around suppertime. Three girls at the table next to me ordered what they thought to be ham sand wiches from the menu, but an hour later, after I had ordered, finished my meal, and lingered with a quiet bottle of red wine, they were somewhere between the third and fourth course of the royal banquet and had yet to see an oink of ham. But as everyone found out that very first night, one of the most enjoyoble things about France is the wine. Red, Rose, or White, at 30 cents a bottle, it’s a cheap drunk’s heaven. One of our Aggie self-proclaimed wine experts im mediately defined the difference between the cheap wines and the fine French fermentations — the really good stuff sold for 60 cents a bottle. But wine was wine to most of us, and my not-so-instant recall of the little French I ac tually knew was aided immeas urably by those grapes. My flu ency increased with my fluidity, and by the end of that first night, University National Bank “On the side of Texas A&M.” —Adv. I was communicating like a na tive. I was feeling much better about the whole thing. And then there was Bernard, a Swiss soldier on a weekend pass who met us in the hotel bar and somehow managed to find enough friends with cars to shuttle at least 40 of us to a French version of the KC Hall some 10 miles away, after midnight. But that, too, is another story. With the morning came the bus ride to France’s Chamonix Valley located within five miles of the Italian and Swiss borders. But that morning also brought rude awakenings for some of the girls who found out that the French 220 volt DC current just wouldn’t run an American 110 volt AC hair dryer. So after a puff of white smoke and some bitter words, a bus full of rollered heads hooked it for the hills. Hills is an understatement. As we rolled into our apartment com plex parking lot and off the bus, we were surrounded by the most magnificent display of the gods’ fury and Mother Nature’s pacify ing hand I could have ever imag ined. From the floor of the valley where we stood, nothing but omi nous white peaks piercing a crys tal blue sky surrounded us. And towering above it all was Mont Blanc, the white mountain, the highest peak in all Europe, cover ing the entire valley with its shadow. Excuse the poetic de scription, if you will, but I can find no other words to do justice to the spectacle. Fantastic is too subtle. Overwhelming might come close. But if there is a God, this place must surely be his home. Hit the slopes is the term, but we added new meaning to it as the kids and cowboys did just that, we literally hit the slopes. The ski instructors were tops, but those six foot ice cream sticks had a very bad habit of not going where you wanted them to. By the end of that first day, the A&M delegation had found the exact location of every tree, rock, stump, and pole on the ski runs, and as we straggled in, we had more bruises than a stalk of man handled bananas. But true Ags we were, as fatigue stepped aside for fun, and parties spread night ly like the virus. There would be time for rest later was our rationalization. We didn’t fly 6,000 miles just to sleep. Besides, who could sleep with a party going on down stairs. The apartments were ul tra-modern, brand new, and spac ious. Split level jobs with three twin beds upstairs (I guess with three, though, they must have been triplet beds), kitchen and bathroom down, with fireplaces and twenty feet of glass for one wall that left only the mountains for wallpaper. And perfect apart ments they were for parties. There was plenty of head room and a high ceiling for popping corks, plenty of places to sit, stairs to set wine bottles on, a balcony to cool off on. And parties there were, every night. They often moved around, and usually wound up at the hotel night spot where a surprisingly good five piece French band played nightly. The organist was the best of the lot, I suppose, and where he dug up a Leslie speaker in the middle of the Alps we never could figure out. But the showman of the group was the bass player, and lead vocalist, who became well known for what he no doubt considered a very sexy rendition of Suzy-Q, but which more closely resembled a stereo (See Ski trip, page 2) A&M students saw much Old World beauty, such as this church in a valley near the Chamonix ski area.