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Cbe Battalion
Inside
Student elections p. 3
Play review p. 5
Alcoholism P-6
Vol. 68 No. 98
College Station, Texas
Thursday, April 3, 1975
Meets deadline
Consol board rebudgets
funds in special session
By JERRY NEEDHAM
Staff Writer
The A&M Consolidated School
Board held a special meeting Wed
nesday night in order to meet an
April 4 deadline set by the Texas
Education Agency (TEA) for ear
marking Emergency Aid Funds.
The Board received a letter from
the TEA on March 21 informing
them that the $90,693 appropriated
for the school district must be
budgeted for specific purposes as
outlined by the TEA. The current
budget did not specify these funds
for the intended purposes and the
district was in danger of losing the
money unless it acted by Friday.
The money was rebudgeted ac
cording to TEA specifications. All
programs still receive the same
amount of money — only the
sources were rearranged.
The Board’s Building Committee
presented two approaches to deal
with the district’s space problem
and emphasized the need for a high
school vocational activities center
and physical education facilities at
the elementary schools. One ap
proach was a lease-purchase plan of
modular type structures which
could make the facilities available
for next semester. The second
proposal called for the school dis
trict to sell bonds.
The Consultation Committee
presented several proposals, three
of which were adopted by the
Board. The adopted motions per
tained to an index-scale system for
payment of teachers. This scale
would be based on several indices,
the primary one being the number
of years of teaching experience in
the Consolidated School District.
The intention of this system, as exp
lained by the Board, is to reward
teachers for staying with the dis-!
trict.
The district still has $67,000 of
uncommitted local funds for the
current fiscal year. Before deciding
how the excess money will be used,
the Board agreed it should reviewj
proposed programs that never were
funded in past years. Some prog
rams with high priorities mentioned
included erosion control at College
Hills Elementary and at the Middle
School, and building physical edu
cation facilities at the elementary
schools.
Robeck gets apology
for rumor of atheism
Students show talent
Laura Boatman performs a belly dance routine as
part of the talent show during TAMU’s first Inter
national Week. The festivities end Saturday with
a dance at the Poor House. photo by jack Holm
School board candidate Bruce
Robeck said last night he was of
fered “profuse apologies and a
promise to rectify” the rumors that
he is an atheist.
The “whisper campaign” in the
community and churches of College
Station became public when Chuck
McCullough, front page daily col
umnist for the Bryan Eagle, re
ported the rumors and a Robeck
disclaimer yesterday.
The Battalion traced the source of
the published rumor to Joan Teer,
vice president of the A&M Consoli
dated School District and campaign
manager for Robeck’s opponent.
Cubby Manning.
“Certainly these rumors did not
come from me and as far as I’m con
cerned, it’s not an issue,” said Man
ning. He said he had heard the
rumors indirectly. He said he had
not talked to Teer about the rumors.
Teer did not return a phone call
from the Battalion and could not be
reached by press time.
Janice Wood, 3710 Windridge
Dr., Bryan, was listed as the source
in McCullough’s column. A friend
of Wood’s had been contacted by
Teer and, the friend reports, was
asked if she was aware that Robeck
was an atheist. Other sources re
ported similar conversations with
Teer.
In a flurry of phone calls yester
day, Teer called Robeck, Wood,
Wood’s friend and other sources to
apologize for the rumors, saying
they were unfounded.
“It’s finally out in the open and
now people can talk about it,” said
Robeck. He said he thinks certain
people in College Station will be
chagrined that it ever came up. He
refused to speculate how the rumor
might influence his campaign. “We
won’t know until election day,” he
said.
John Tyler, V. P. of Student Govt. Rules and Regs., at student
senate. Photo by David McCarroll
SG filing
extended
once more
The 74-75 Student Senate con
cluded its term of office last night by
passing the second reapportion
ment resolution in a week. The fil
ing date for Senate positions af
fected by the reapportionment was
extended to April 9.
The bill would give three senators
to the Corps, seven to the civilian
residence halls, two at-large
senators to university apartments
and 18 off-campus senators.
In a bill, enabling the Senate to
oust a senator for insufficient com
mittee participation, discussion
centered around whether it was
right for this year’s senate to make
regulations for next year’s Senate to
abide by. Tom Dawsey expressed
the majority viewpoint when he
remarked that he and the rest of the
senate had to follow rules they had
no part in making, yet these regula
tions are standards a senator must
follow in order to do his job.
In other actions, the Senate pas
sed two constitutional amend
ments. The first one enables a
senator’s constituency to call for a
re-election with a petition contain
ing 10 per-cent instead of the previ
ous 20 per-cent of constituency sign
ing. The other amendment lowers
the number of student signatures
needed to bring an issue before a
campus-wide student referendum
from 20 to 10 percent.
Speaker studies conflict theme
CAMAC presents folklore expert
By CINDY MACIEL
Staff Writer
Songs and conflict were the
center of Dr. Americo Paredes’ lec
ture last night for the Committee for
the Advancement of Mexican-
American Culture (CAMAC).
Paredes, director of the Center
for Intercultural Studies in Folklore
and Oral History, University of
Texas at Austin, was originally sup
posed to use “The Corrido as an Ex
pression of Cultural Conflict” as his
topic. Instead, he chose to speak on
“the people who sang the songs,
how they sang the songs and what
the songs meant to them.”
The corrido, a folk song, is one of
the kinds of Mexican folklore. It is a
Mexican and Mexican-American
ballad form that is very strongly in
fluenced by conflicts. The various
topics of the corrido include rebell-
Youth may get facility
Frame house to replace jail
By STEVE GRAY
Staff Writer
The pre-delinquent juvenile wel
fare facilities in Brazos County,
termed “grossly inadequate’ by
District Judge W.C. Davis, may get
some much-needed and long over
due relief by mid-April.
The Texas Department of Public
Welfare contracted with Twin City
Mission, Inc. of Bryan in mid-
March to provide care for 10 neg
lected, abandoned or abused chil
dren on a temporary basis until a
Permanent place can be found for
them.
The action appears to be good
lews for many people, particularly
those who deal directly with
juvenile delinquents.
Twin City Mission is primarily
•nvolved with rehabilitating al
coholics but was asked by the wel-
a re department recently if it would
consider providing an emergency
shelter for non-delinquent children
who have become wards of the
court.
The idea won approval from the
razos Valley Development Coun-
$99 ^^^C) which authorized
,650 for the mission, to purchase
j* two-story, six-bedroom frame
house at 507 W. 27th in Bryan.
Io early March, the mission
® u ght the house, which needs
4 tu* worth of renovation.
The Rev. Hugh Eiland, executive
Sector of the mission, said he
opes public donations will ease the
U <^, en °f buying the house,
t m hoping that the community
can com e through with about $5,000
c help buy furniture and other
* n ,riS we need to make it a live-
a e place, Eiland said.
The contract between the mission
and the state stipulates that the state
will pay $10 a day per child for
maintenance costs or a maximum of
$3,100 a month. The state will not
pay for any capital outlay.
“That’s not much,” Eiland said,
“but we need to make do with what
we have because this is something
that we’ve needed for a long time.
The new facility is scheduled to
open April 13. Eiland said wards of
the court usually spend about two
weeks in these types of detention
facilities until they can be placed
elsewhere. The shelter will serve
Brazos, Burleson, Grimes, Leon,
Madison, Robertson and Washing
ton Counties under the direction of
the mission.
District Court Judge W. C.
Davis, who concurrently serves as
juvenile court judge, says he hopes
the new facility will keep potential
juvenile offenders out of the cour
troom.
“I’ve got an awesome responsibil
ity in these juvenile cases because I
have to apply the law, but at the
same time I’m determining what
might be the future of a child,” he
said.
Davis said there are two types ol
juveniles that appear in his court:
those who have committed delin
quent conduct and those who have
been abandoned and neglected.
“Right now, we don’t have the
proper place to put those who have
violated the law except in the
county jail,” Davis said. “That s no
place for a kid.
The mission is forbidden by state
law to house juveniles who have
broken the law and is only allowed
to care for those who are non
delinquent.
A juvenile who has been arrested
can expect to spend probably one
night in the county jail. A detention
hearing must be held not less than
one working day after the child is
taken into custody. At this time, the
child is advised of his rights to coun
sel and a trial by jury.
If the court finds that the child has
engaged in delinquent conduct, a
disposition hearing is held to con
sider reports from probation officers
and other court officials on the
child’s alleged delinquent conduct.
Should the court find the child
guilty the court may then place him
or her on probation or in another
facility like a foster home or public
institution.
Davis said the only remedy is ef
fective counseling to keep potential
offenders out of trouble.
“What we need is a juvenile pro
bation department separate from
the adult probation department,”
Davis said. “If we had a separate
group handling nothing but chil
dren I think the kids would get bet
ter supervision.”
The county’s probation depart
ment, staffed by three people, has
gotten some relief from the Trou
bled Youth Program in counseling
juvenile delinquents. The program,
which is federally funded, began in
1973 as the result of an attempt by
the probation department and the
Community Outreach Center to
treat the more severe cases of male
juveniles.
But Davis said it’s too early to tell
whether or not the program is doing
any good.
‘“The youth program has not de
monstrated its usefulness yet but it
hasn’t been around long enough for
us to see any results,” Davis said. “I
think it’s going to be a good pro
gram,” he added.
Chief Probation Officer John
Godfrey, in his 1974 annual report
on the probation department, said
he felt the program had been effec
tive and recommended that it be
funded for another year. He also
asked for a grant through the BVDC
that would expand the probation
department staff and the number of
clerical workers because of the in
creased caseload.
That increased paperwork is re
flected in the rise of burglary and
theft cases committed by juveniles
between the ages of 10 and 17. In
1974, juveniles committed 173 of
fenses under these two categories,
an increase of 38 cases over 1973.
“Those sort of statistics are some
thing I don’t want to see go up,”
Davis emphasized. “I don’t like hav
ing to send anyone to the facilities
operated by the Texas Youth Coun
cil, even though they are well-
equipped to handle juvenile delin
quents.”
The council has jurisdiction over
four correctional institutions and
three homes for neglected and de
pendent children. The correctional
institutions include Crockett State
School for Girls, Gainesville State
School for Girls, Gatesville State
Schools for Boys and Mountain
View School for Boys. Institutions
for neglected children include Cor
sicana State Home, Waco State
Home and The West Texas
Children’s Home in Monahans.
ions, civil rights, love, death, and
other conflicts.
Paredes referred to the border
people (along the Rio Grande) as
“my” people. .He said, “We did de
velop, I suppose, in a very special
way. We developed as pioneer peo
ple. These songs (the corrida) really
do reflect the peoples past. They
settled on the river’s banks long be
fore there was a United States of
America and took roots there.”
Paredes went into the back
ground of the border families. “The
father had the role of the oral his
torian with the mother dealing in
legends and tales of the super
natural,” he said.
He added, “As long as people be
lieve there is more than what they
see, there will be legends. People
used to say that when everyone
could read and write, there would
be no superstitions. Now people
simply say, ‘You’re superstitious, I
haYe beliefs’.”
Paredes described the corrida as
“a man’s song. It was lusty, vigorous
and dealt with things of conflict.”
In Spanish-speaking countries
singing is part of the entertainment
of the evening, along with sonnets,
prose narratives and games,
Paredes said.
Some songs were sung in a lone
some manner and these were not
sung for their subject matter but
rather for their tempo, if it fit the
situation.
When asked why the old songs
persisted, Paredes answered,
“These old songs reflect the con
cerns, the attitudes of the people.
Environments change but the con
cerns remain the same. That is why
the old songs are still around.”
Dr. Americo Paredes
Photo by Jack Holm
Aggies to receive credit cards
if Brooks, Eberhard have way
By PAUL McGRATH
Staff Writer
Whether Texas A&M students
will be able to say “charge it” or still
have to hand over greenbacks is a
question soon to be answered by the
Student Government.
Student Body President Steve
Eberhard and Vice President of
Student Services Barry Brooks re
ceived information that college stu
dents on the West Coast were able
to participate in a program which
allowed them to establish credit
with banks by use of Master Charge
cards.
The pair decided that a similar
program would be beneficial to
A&M students as well. They con
tacted officials with the Republic
National Bank in Dallas where the
idea met favorably.
The program will go through a
trial stage with the Student Gov
ernment sending a mailing list of all
graduating seniors and graduate
students to the credit firm. Applica
tions will then be mailed to those
students on the list and the decision
to accept the offer will rest with each
individual.
If accepted, the firm will mail a
credit card to the student to be used
once. The student then has the op
tion of continuing service with the
firm or sending the card back.
The card is only good for under
five dollars at a time so the tendency
to overdraw will be avoided.
The program has also been tried
in the Dallas area with some success
so the bank was “a little less hesitant
than if it was a first time thing,” said
Brooks.
Since A&M does not accept Mas-
tercharge cards, the card is only
good for off campus purchases at low
rates. The service is established in
the student’s name and not the
parent’s.
Brooks said one benefit of the
program is that “it allows students to
establish credit with a national firm
and you can expand your lines later
after graduation.”