Page 4
THE BATTALION
College Station, Texas Wednesday, September 1, 1971
Best time for smog, noise is predictable
jWedm
Rodeo star
’til now, says
lucky
wife
NEW YORK CP>—-It started in
Memphis last September with five
broken ribs and a punctured lung.
It was followed by fractured fac
ial bones in Oklahoma in Decem
ber and torn knee cartilage in
March.
Dickey Cox is a rodeo cowboy
specializing in bull riding and
these are the scars of his trade
during the past year.
“In the nine years he’s ridden
professionally, he’s been lucky,”
said his friendly brunette wife,
Judy. “He’d never had anything
worse than a pulled muscle. Now,
all of a sudden he’s getting hurt.
Maybe it’s time for him to stop.”
For Judy, who grew up with
Dickey in McKinney, Tex., and
married him 14 years ago when
she was 17, rodeo is as much a
part of life as her dishwasher.
It’s beans one day, steak the
next. It’s dust in her beehive
hairdo and pungent animal odors,
and home is a motel in Mangrum,
Okla., or Cody, Wyo., or Livings
ton, Mont.
She insists that she thrives on
this life, although she admits
Dickey’s eight-second rides seem
to last a long time. Cox is re
quired to remain aboard his 1,600
pound Brahma bull for eight sec
onds in order to win a check.
Most of the time he does —
he won $14,000 last year—but re
cently he has been having his
problems. Judy Cox was watch
ing at the national finals in Okla
homa City when Cox’s bull, known
around the circuit as the infamous
number V-16, jerked him down
and butted him in the face, de
stroying the facial bones on his
left side.
“I don’t sit around and make
myself sick like some of the
other wives,” she said. “I actually
worry more when he’s driving
long distances or flying around in
those small planes. But I know I’ll
worry more when he starts riding
again, now that he’s been hurt.”
Cox will be grounded until the
first of the year because of the
knee injury, but he hasn’t exactly
been deprived of a livelihood. He
has been judging rodeos for $100
a performance, including a recent
run at Madison Square Garden
here.
“I don’t like to judge at all,”
the husky, leathery cowboy, said
over dinner at a fancy steak-
house, his 10-gallon hat resting
on the seat beside him. “But
you’ve gotta do something when
you’re crippled.”
When she’s home, Judy helps
tend their 200-acre rented ranch
in Walnut Creek, Tex., an out
post of 490 persons midway be
tween Waco and Fort Worth, and
chauffeurs the oldest of their two
children, Kenneth, 12, to junior
rodeos.
Lucas to head
commissioning
Capt. William E. Lucas has
been named the new Marine Corps
officer responsible for explaining
and administering Marine com
missioning programs for students
at A&M.
Lucas, a native of Fort Worth
and 1967 graduate of Texas Chris
tian University, succeeds Capt.
Ronald E. Crane who has been se
lected to attend artillery school
at Fort Sill, Okla.
Captain Lucas, accompanied by
Captain Crane, will make his first
official visit to A&M Sept. 13-17.
The officers will operate an in
formation booth in the Memorial
Student Center and be available
to explain the Marine Corps’ two
basic means for earning a com
mission, the Platoon Leaders
Class (PLC) and Officer Candi
date Course (OCC) programs.
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Tape Recorders
Mech. Drawing Sets
Guitars & Amps.
Cameras, Radios
TAPES
Buy - Sell - Trade
PAWN LOANS
On
Anything of Value
TEXAS STATE
CREDIT CO.
1014 Texas Ave.—Bryan
822-5633
“When he was a year and a
half, he fell out of the car, frac
tured his skull and had to have
surgery,” she says. “I’m glad he
likes rodeo so much because it
keeps him out of trouble, but I’m
scared thinking about what could
happen if he fell again.”
(/P)—The Royal Australian Air
Force has an instrument which it
claims will show when the time
is ripe for a city to have bad
/smog or damaging supersonic
booms.
RAAF research physicists, di
rected by Prof. V. D. Hopper,
developed the equipment which
can probe through the earth’s
atmosphere and detect different
layers of air.
They claim the system is the
only quick, cheap and practical
way of doing the job. The ortho
dox method has been to send up
balloons laden with expensive in
struments and radio equipment.
The new system uses an acous
tic sounder with very high fre
quency sound waves. These are
projected into the atmosphere
like the headlights of a car.
When the “beam” hits layers
of air which have differing tem
peratures or humidity, some of
the sound waves are bounced back
and recorded.
The system was developed as
part of a broad atmospheric re
search program, but authorities
charged with combating smog and
alleviating supersonic booms al
ready are showing interest.
The acoustic sounder is likely
to be marketed commercially for
around $11,200.
The physicists say the worst
city smogs are caused by what
is known as an inversion layer
—a layer of cold air which lies
above and traps warm air near
the ground. The cold air forms
a barrier so that smoke and other
gases are trapped in the warm
air near the ground, and build up.
are caused by the same situation
— the shock waves penetrate
downwards and are then trapped
in a huge “reverberation box”
near to the ground.
The RAAF academy’s new
acoustic sounder can monitor tkl
sky above cities and airports, anl
give warnings when conditioul
favorable to the build-up gjl
smogs—or damaging superset*|
booms—develop.
Bulletin Board
Thursday
Cepheid Variable Science Fic
tion Club will meet in Room 3B
of the Memorial Student Center.
The 7:30 meeting is open to all
interested in science fiction.
Rugby Club of A&M willliolll
a seminar and film showing at t|
in the Assembly roomoftlit|
MSC. The public is invitedatn
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