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Che Battalion
Today in the Batt
Judicial Board . . .p. 3
A&M film p. 6
Injured Ags p. 7
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, November 5, 1974
Raise bids flood
budget hearings
Rolled-up blue jeans and bobby socks
The “nifty fifties” returned briefly Saturday night
when Aggies dressed as their mothers and fathers
probably did during their teenage years. The
dance was sponsored by the sophomore class. Dan
Stagoodell and Patty Todd tried out some of the
dances of the era. (Photo by Glen Johnson)
By STEVE GRAY
Staff Writer
After hearing a deluge of requests
from various county officials for sal
ary raises and part-time help,
Commissioners Court voted Mon
day to postpone approval of the
proposed 1975 county budget.
The court, at its annual budget
hearing, said it will consider ap
proval of the $3,396,809 budget
next Monday at its regular monthly
meeting. The proposed budget re
flects a $148,161 increase over this
year’s budget.
Raymond Buchanan, county tax
assessor-collector, told the court he
questioned the differences in salary
increase percentages for some
county officials.
“I THINK if one elected official
gets a certain per cent increase in
salary then all should,” he said.
Under the proposed budget County
Attorney Roland Searcy will receive
a 50 per cent salary increase from
$12,000 to $18,000 a year. County
Judge William R. Vance will receive
a $4,500 increase to $18,000, up 33
per cent.
Eight other county officials will
get a $3,000 boost from their pres
ent $12,000 salaries, a 25 per cent
Memo thought lost
Hunt evidence enters trial
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pro
secution lawy ers jolted the Water
gate cover-up trial Monday with the
disclosure that they had obtained a
copy of an E. Howard Hunt Jr.
memorandum they thought had
been destroyed.
Prosecutor James F. Neal said a
copy of the two and a half-page
memorandum was obtained over
the weekend from William O. Bitt-
man, Hunt’s former lawyer. Neal
said that for a year and one-half
Bittman had denied that he ever re
ceived the memo.
The memo introduced into evi
dence by Neal was headed “Review
and Statement of Problem. ’ It
Don’t
speaks of the administration keep
ing its commitments in behalf of the
seven defendants in the June 17,
1972, Watergate break-in.
The surprise disclosure promp
ted lawyers for two of the five de
fendants in the cover-up trial to
move for a mistrial.
“I am faced with a cover-up
within a cover-up,” said Jacob
Stein, lawyer for Kenneth W. Par
kinson, the man Hunt said he in
tended to receive the memo.
U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica
made no immediate response to
Stein’s request for a mistrial. He
denied a similar request from John
J. Wilson, lawyer for H. R. Halde-
man, former White House staff
chief and one of the five men
charged with conspiring to block the
investigation of the Watergate
break-in.
The judge told prosecution and
defense attorneys to submit legal
arguments by the end of the week
on whether he should summon
Bittman to court to testify about
what happened.
Bittman was named an unin
dicted co-conspirator in the case
and the prosecutors had indicated
they wanted him to testify.
But after disclosing how he had
obtained the memo, Neal said he
had dropped all plans to call the at
torneys as a witness.
Roof goof slows
tower progress
A mistake in installation of roofing
plates will cause a two-week delay in
completion of the new water tower,
said Charles E. Brunt, construction
manager for Facilities Planning and
Construction.
The plates are color-coded at the
factory, Brunt said. They are
painted a bright orange on the out
side and a duller shade on the in
side. The plates for the water tower
roof arrived with the colors re
versed. When put in place they did
not lay correctly and the mistake
was discovered.
The plates were removed and are
now being reassembled correctly.
One panel was bent slightly when
a bolt broke and the panel dropped.
It was straightened and will not
need to be replaced. However,
three support girders had to be re
fabricated as a result of the accident.
Projected completion date for the
tower is now sometime in mid-
January 1975. There may be a
further delay if the weather con
tinues to be wet-and windy. Brunt
said.
The cost of the delay will be ab
sorbed by the contractor, Brunt
said. He said he did not anticipate
any serious problems because of the
delay.
increase. They are the county tax
assessor-collector 1 , county clerk, the
four county commissioners, the
sheriff and the county auditor.
The county treasurer will get
$12,000 a year, up nearly 18 per
cent from his present $10,200 sal
ary.
VANCE SAID if the budget is
approved he will draw the full
$18,000 a year. He told the court he
no longer considers the county
judgeship a part-time job as his pre
sent salary indicates.
“I’m spending almost all o my
time with the county now and less
with my private practice. I hope to
wind up my law practice by the
middle of next year and devote full
time to my job as county judge,”
Vance said.
Vance also pointed out that his
salary shovdd be commensurate
with his duties.
“I will probably ask for another
increase of $6,000 to $8,000 in my
pay at next year’s budget hearing,”
he said.
SEARCY SAID he will also begin
winding up his private practice to
become a full-time county attorney.
“I expect there will probably be
about 1,000 cases filed in county
court this year, ” Searcy said. “That’s
a 30 per cent increase from last
year.
Searcy said nearly 900 cases have
already been filed this year.
“My office is also handling most of
the worthless check cases,” he said,
“and we had to call in extra help a
couple of times last year to help re
duce the backlog. It’s gotten to the
point where my secretary is taking
files on these cases to work on at
home at night.”
HE SAID his office is handling
about 200 bad check cases a month.
About 100 such cases were filed in a
two-week period between late Sep
tember and early October, he said.
“We’re going to have to have
some help to alleviate the situa
tion,” Searcy said before asking the
court to consider hiring two part-
time assistants to work on nothing
but bad check cases.
He said he would let the court
propose salaries for the part-time
help.
Searcy also requested a $100 a
month car allowance and a salary
increase for his secretary from
$5,996 to $6,500. The proposed
budget specifies a $6,440 salary.
JOHN GODFREY, chief county
probation officer, asked the court to
allocate funds to hire a fee clerk for
the probation department.
“We are handling about 1,400
persons (on probation) a year among
myself and two deputy probation of
ficers. We are also the only ones
handling the payment of fees and
restitution. It’d be a great help if we
could get someone whose job would
be to just record these payments,”
Godfrey said.
He requested that $5,400 be allo
cated for the position.
Godfrey also requested an in
crease in the probation
department’s car allowance. It is
presently set at about $1,200 a year.
“WE HAVE had about the same
allowance for the past 14 years,”
Godfrey said, “and costs are just
doubling all the time. ”
County Auditor Mary Nichols re
quested an increase in the salary of
an assistant county auditor from the
proposed $6,400.
“There’s just no way to hire
someone at that salary to that much
work in the auditor’s office,
Nichols said.
She asked the court to consider a
$7,200 salary for the position.
DISTRICT CLERK W. D. Bur
ley requested money to hire an ad
ditional deputy clerk.
“I feel that this would eliminate
some of the trips that the deputies
have to make in and out of the dis
trict courtroom while it is in ses
sion,” he said.
Burley said he would plan to
promote one of his three present
deputies to the position of chief de
puty. They are presently paid a
combined salary of $17,418 a year.
The proposed budget has allocated
$19,320 in salaries for next year.
look, Ethel!’
Ray Stevens scores again
By KEN STROEBEL
Special to the Batt
Ray Stevens jokes about the Arabs without
getting the star from Cadillac owners, plays the
piano, organ, vibes, drums, bass, trumpet, face
and leg and wears a Caterpillar Tractor Com
pany cap as he yells, “Don’t look, Ethel! ”?
And who, as Jonathan Winters repeatedly
and rhetorically asked on the 1970 Andy Wil
liams Show summer replacement, is Ray Ste
vens?
Stevens is one of those rare entertainers to
befall Aggieland that becomes an occasion,
own Hall hostess Beth Boyd was with Stevens
w hen he arrived Friday afternoon for his first
concert at TAMU. She remembers his
orseplay—pulling the arm and hair of the
and member sitting in the front seat and jok-
j n g about rolling up the sidewalks. Which
caves some doubt about this being his first trip
toTAMU.
°NCE HERE, HE SPIED the dark green
midnight uniform shirt hanging in cadet
Larry Marble’s car and declared, “Hey, I really
I'Ke those shirts. Can you get me one?”
Before a G. Rollie White audience, he jokes
about a three-legged dog named Tripod which
alls over every time he walked up to a bush and
me advantage to dating Southern girls because
oy the time she gets through telling you she’s
n °t that kind of girl, she is.
> describes electric guitarist Stuart
keathley’s baked bean birthday cake: “It didn’t
taste so good but it blew out its own candles. ”
He introduces the band but adds, “You
n otice I got the prettiest suit. Let’s hear it for
my suit.”
He also does impersonations, such as Jimmy
tewart: I-I-I-I-I gotta go potty, in addition to
John Wayne, Boris Karloff and Walter Bren-
n an. But his favorite is George Montgomery,
er > he reaches up and rubs his piano.
HE IS AN ENTERTAINER who has time in
his dressing room to reflect on his art and his
manipulation of it—a curious manipulation of
contrasting hits.
One is “Mr. Businessman.” It became
number one on the charts only seven weeks
after its release in 1970 and hit many Estab-
lishmentites squarely between the eyes witfi 1
lyrics like:
I despise the things you covet
As you squander through your life.
Bigger cars, bigger houses,
Term insurance for your wife;
Tuesday evening with your harlot
And on Wednesdays with your charla
tan
Analyst, he’s high upon your list.
You’ve got air conditioned sinuses
And dark, disturbing doubts about re
ligion
And you keep those cards and letters
going out
While your secretary’s tempting you
Your morals are exempting you
From guilt and shame.
Heaven knows you’re not to blame.
The same man sits down at the same piano
and writes songs like “Harry, the Hairy Ape,”
“Along Came Jones,” “Freddie Feelgood and
his Funky Little Five-Piece Band” and “Gitar-
zan.”
“IT’S NEVER EASY,” he concedes, think
ing back to the number of demonstration re
cords he made. “I thought I was gonna get the
Golden Record for a million releases. But when
you work at it, it becomes easier.”
Friday night he sings hits by Kris Kristoffer-
son and Charlie Rich plus his own kind of music
that teeters on the chasm between pop and
country-western.
He has written songs like “America, Com
municate With Me,” and expresses concern for
the environment.
“I don’t know, it’s really frustrating,” he
shrugs. “There are solutions to most of our
problems. But it’s hard to get people together
to correct some of the things we’ve done
wrong. ”
HOW, THEN, DID HE COME to write
“Everything is Beautiful”?
“I used to be an optimist. I’m not as much as I
used to be but I’m not a pessimist either. I’m a
musician. ”
His words aren’t empty. Since 1962, Stevens
has a train of hits including “Ahab the Arab,”
“Along Came Jones,” “Everything Is Beauti
ful,” “Turn Your Radio On” and the current,
“The Streak.”
“They’re all satisfying, ” he says, leaning back
in his folding chair in his dressing room. “I
don’t have any favorites. ”
HE IS NOT SATISFIED with the show he is
to perform for 3,500 Aggies. “This isn’t the
show that I would like to do for a college audi
ence,” he confides. “We’ve been on the road
since Hitler was a Pfc. I mean, we haven’t had
time to brush our teeth. ”
He turns to electric guitarist Stuart Keathley
stooping to comb his hair in the mirror. “Espe
cially Stu over there—he’s got enough green on
his teeth to play 18 holes.”
Stevens says he’d like to get off the road for a
while, to write and record some new songs in
addition to taping a pilot television series. If
aired, “Travellin’ On” would show current re
cording artists entertaining on college cam
puses around the nation, Stevens said.
Stevens’ first reaction to the Aggie crowd was
to whoop back at them. Stevens paused during
the concert, asking to hear that “horse laugh”
he’d heard about. Yell leader Chuck Hinton
appeared at the foot of the stage, made the
appropriate signal, and the audience humped
it, doing the horse laugh.
“I hope you won’t think we re partisaned
’cause we’re in among you people but I hope
you beat ’em tomorrow,” said Stevens.
Ray Stevens at Town Hall Friday
Remember to vote—polls close at 7 p.m.