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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 1976)
Vol. 69 No. 58 sMwwmei ^ - -twm |rj?Y 14 T!?I« It;? OIL i B15f .iITS*t IT POLL , ' This weatherbeaten sign marks the spot of the late, apparently unlamented Student Car Service Area. The Hensel Park loca tion, which featured a grease rack where students could service their cars, has been closed for several years. The sign reads “This facility is closed because it pollutes a public stream. The Student Senate will open a Student Car Service Center in another location.” So far, the promise has remained unfulfilled. 'ampus •clayed registration will take place Jan. 6. Classes begin ^an. 19. early 5,000 persons attended the con ing education programs sponsored by isA&M University from Sept. 1 to Nov. uring November, 1,589 people came to i-and off-campus programs, 29 of them e field of agriculture, total of 4,713 participants have at- led 117 programs since Sept. 1, logging JOS contact hours, adds Bradley, jember’s attendants clocked 26,315 of hours. nsoring programs were the Colleges griculture, Education, Engineering, ciences, Liberal Arts and Veterinary icine. tinging Cadets hit the road Saturday on a ui-day, three-state between-semesters be choral organization will perform in jjs, Arkansas and Louisiana Jan. 10-16. sregular feature of the Singing Cadets |al performing schedules, the tour ; Saturday (Jan. 10) in Lufkin. The 58- : all-male glee club performs Sunday in ihall. ie next three dates mark firsts for the s A&M group directed by Robert L. 1 ie and accompanied by Mrs. June Bier- I londay will find them in Eldorado, Ark., ie Cadets first performance in the They take their program featuring sricana Jan. 13 to Alexandria, La., and 14 to New Orleans. The latter two stops City firsts for the Singing Cadets, ihey bus to Baton Rouge Jan. 15 for a irh engagement and sing Friday, Jan. 16 asper. Performances are sponsored by thers and A&M clubs. • ! s A&M and a program on nuclear go back on the road Jan. 12, for 87 ments. > Atomic World,” a demonstration- on uses of nuclear energy, will tour ing in Southeast and South Central The tour starts Jan. 12 at Rice High in Altair. i L. Ihms conducted the 40-minute i in 73 South Texas high schools last Atomic World” is a cooperative of Texas A&M’s College of En tering and Oak Ridge Associated Uni- lities. It is coordinated here through the ttric Power Institute of the Electrical pneering Department. Prof. John Deni- supervises arrangements; Prof. Col in Loyd schedules tour stops. &M Consolidated and Bryan High iols are on the agenda in April, along other area schools. Ihms will take the ram to Sabine Pass in the far southeast er of the state. ;oes as far north as Jasper and Grove- len swings west to round out the tour he Rosebud-Cameron-Taylor-Temple m. # r. Jack K. Williams, Texas A&M Uni ty president, has been elected to a consecutive term as chairman of the mission on Colleges of the Southern ciation of Colleges and Schools, ie SACS commission is the accrediting agency for 677 public and private institu tions of higher learning. Founded in 1895 and headquartered in Atlanta, the overall association is composed of nearly 10,000 col leges and universities, occupational institu tions and secondary and elementary schools. • Scientists from across the nation hope to link the sometime terrifying weather of the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico during a three-day conference of Texas A&M Uni versity beginning Jan. 14. Eleven weather experts will instruct in the conference concerned with the role of the Gulf of Mexico on the climate and weather of the United States. The meet is supported by National Science Foundation and sponsored by the Center for Applied Geosciences at A&M. The objectives of the conference are to assess the importance of the influence on the Gulf on the weather which occurs over the U.S. and areas adjacent to the Gulf and to also determine research needed to pro vide a better understanding of the influence of the Gulf in relation to weather forecast ing. • Judges and organizers of the 1975-76 Texas A&M Arts Committee Poetry and Fiction Contest are preparing to receive the majority of this year’s entries after students return to class Jan. 19. Deadline for the second annual competi tion is Feb. 13, rejxjrt contest directors, and most entries will probably be submitted in the latter part of January and early Feb ruary. Six winners will be chosen from the con testants in each category with the top three receiving cash prizes during an awards ceremony later in the spring. All graduate students enrolled for nine hours or more and all undergraduates carry ing at least 12 hours are eligible to submit original works forjudging, although no pre vious winners may be re-entered. • Industry’s battle against air pollution continues at Texas A&M University when representatives gather from across the state for the Stack Sampling Short Course on Pol lution Control, Jan. 12-16. The featured lecturer will be William F. Harris who is in charge of engineering pro grams of the Technical Program Division, Texas Air Pollution Control Services. The course is sponsored by the Chemical En gineering Department and is headed by Dr. W. B. Harris. The short course is designed to train in dustrial personnel to comply with the Texas Air Control Board provisions which state that stacks in Texas which emit pollutants must be sampled upon request and the re sults submitted to the TACB. Library expecting millionth volume The library’s millionth book could be on the shelf by Spring, its associate director, Dr. Henry Alsmeyer, Jr., said yesterday. The recently dedicated Sterling C. Evans Library now holds 926,882 volumes. A sharp increase in state and university allocations for library support is helping the library reach its goal. The library s new budget of $2,867,741 is more than $800,000 higher than the previous year’s figure. Library funding includes state appropria tions set by the Legislative Budget Board, special University allocations made by Uni versity President Jack Williams and Vice President John Calhoun, gifts from Friends of the Texas A&M University Library, fed eral grants and other sources. A 65 per cent increase in the allocation for library materials provides $1.3 million for the ordering of new books during 1976. Books are requested for library acquisi tion by faculty representatives appointed by department heads. Students may make requests for books dealing with non-academic subjects (recre ational activities, science fiction, etc.) by leaving the request in the box opposite the circulation desk on the library’s first floor. Student requests for academically oriented books should be channeled through the departmental representative. Although there is no definite date for the appearance of the millionth addition, Alsmeyer was confident it will appear some time during 1976, during A&M’s Centen nial celebration. A new computerized cataloging system now in operation at the library should speed the acquisition, Alsmeyer said. The system, using cathode ray terminals, instantly provides librarians with cataloging data from a central bibliographic base in Ohio. The Southwestern cooperative is known as AMIGOS Bibliographic Network and is part of a larger cooperative also ser vicing New England and the Southeast. The database is located in the Ohio Col lege Library Center. Race OK await > speedway sale By ROD SPEER After two years of inactivity two 1976 auto races have tentatively scheduled for the Texas World Speedway. Confirmation of the races awaits the offi cial sale of the speedway fron the current owner, the Holloway Sand & Gravel Co., to an unnamed Eastern racing syndicate, ac cording to Jack Martin, director of public affairs for the United States Auto Club (USAC). Dan Holloway Sr., owner of the sand and gravel company, would not comment on the sale. His local agent for the speedway, County Judge Bill Vance, acknowledged se rious negotiations are underway for the sale of the five-year-old track, which lies eight miles south of College Station on State Highway 6. Martin said USAC plans to sponsor a rac ing double-header on April 4 at the track. A 150-mile stock car race will be paired with a 150-mile championship (Indianapolis-type) car race. He estimated the purse to be about $75,000. The same kind of doubleheader is set for Oct. 17, he said, only the distance of the races will be increased to 200 miles. National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) officials have not been approached concerning races at Texas World Speedway since the track closed in 1973 and were unaware of the impending sale of the track. NASCAR has sponsored several races at the speedway, including the “Texas 500,” once the annual finale of the Winston Cup stock car circuit. The $6.25 million speedway opened under the name Texas International Speedway in November 1969, but, after only two racing slates were held, was closed because of poor weatber and inadequate financing. The Holloway company, which held the largest mechanic’s lien against the property for work it did preparing the track, forec losed on the speedway in December 1970. Holloway then bought the speedway after a federal judge ordered it sold in a public auction in the fall of 1971. The speedway’s first race under its new owner and current name was the NASCAR “Texas 500” in December of that year. Holloway’s races fared little better than ; his predecessor’s. Rain postponed several races and turned j the earthen parking lot into a mud pit. j Summer racing fans once had to contend ! with 100-degree temperatures and a blaring j sun, because only 6(X) of the tracks’ 26,000 seats are under cover. The track closed in October 1973 with the management’s citing the energy crisis as the j major factor. Since that time the track has been used only to host Willie Nelson’s (1974) Fourth of July Picnic. A&M economic impact sets record in 1975 Texas A&M University’s economic im pact on the Bryan-College Station area to taled a record $136,600,000 for 1975. The 1975 total represents an 18.6 per cent increase over 1974. The sharp increase is attributed to the university’s enrollment gains and expanded research activities. Texas A&M’s 3,784- student increase for the 1975 fall semester was the largest ever and pushed total en rollment past 25,000 for the first time — 25,247. The university’s volume of research also continued to rise, totaling $39.3 million for fiscal year 1974-75 and currently run ning about $4.2 million ahead of last year’s pace. Lex as A&M s 1975 economic impact fig ures include a payroll of $86.2 million for the more than 6,200 permanent Texas A&M University System employes residing in Bryan-College Station. This represents a gain of approximately $10.7 million over the previous year. Some 600 additional staff, research and support personnel joined the institution during 1975, for a payroll equivalent of two or three medium-size businesses for the community. Federal judge removed, but claims good intentions Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge or dered removed from the nation s biggest antipollution case for taking sides says he did his best “to provide for the maximum protection of the public health. U.S. District Court Judge Miles W. Lord acknowledged Tuesday’s order from the U. S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals lifting his jurisdiction over the Reserve Mining Co. case, but no more. Lord, the appeals court said from St. Louis, “seems to have shed the robe of the judge and assumed the mantle of the advo cate” in the lengthy pollution case. “I have done my best to provide for the maximum protection of the public health consistent with due process to all con cerned,” the judge said in a brief statement issued by aides. “As of today, I can do no more. I am hopeful that the next judge will be given the power and support necessary to protect the public health of the people in Minnesota and the environment in which we live. “That’s all I’ll say today,” the smiling, 55-year-old judge told reporters who gathered in his chambers here. Reserve Mining, which discharges 67,000 tons of waste rock daily into Lake Superior from its Silver Bay, Minn., taco- nite plant, complained to the appeals court last month that Lord was no longer acting impartially in the case. The complaint came after Lord, once Minnesota’s attorney general, ordered Re serve to pay $100,000 to continue filtration of the minicipal water supply at Duluth, Minn., and other communities along the North Shore of Lake Superior. The 16-page appeals court ruling referred to “obvious impropriety in Lord s order requiring Reserve to deposit the money “without proper notice and hearing. The court said it was dissolving the district court order and returning the $100,000 deposit to Reserve. Don Wright, Reserve’s director of com munications, declined comment on the ap peal court’s decision. “We haven’t seen it and we won t com ment until we’ve seen it, ” he said. It would be very inappropriate to say anything until we see the judges’ order.” The appeals' court directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to adequately filter drinking water and furnish safe drink ing water for the relevant communities on the North Shore of Minnesota and asked the district court to determine what amounts Reserve must pay for the costs of pollution abatement. Because of Lord’s actions, the appeals court said, the district court “thus becomes lawyer, witness and judge in the same pro ceeding, and abandons the greatest virtue of a fair and conscientious judge " impar tiality. ” The dispute over the Silver Bay plant has been in the courts for four years. After a nine-month trial in 1973-74, Lord ordered the plant closed. He found a health hazard resulted from asbestos fibers some witnes ses said came into the lake with the taconite tailings dumped by Reserve. Two more countries may aid Angola faction Texas Nacogdoches and the surrounding smaller East Texas communities will have the chance to benefit from a new program developed by Texas A&M University ac counting researchers. Beginning Jan. 7, a five-day workshop will be held for “anyone with accounting and finance responsibilities in an area city. ” The classes will be held in the Nacogdoches Holiday Inn. Associated Press WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence sources predict two more Western Hemi sphere countries will soon come out in sup port of the Soviet-backed faction in the An gola civil war. Intelligence sources said they have re ceived strong indications that the govern ments of Jamaica in the Caribbean and Guyana in South America will formally rec ognize the Popular Movement for the Lib eration of Angola (M PLA), an action already taken by Brazil. These sources forecast that such action will follow expected recognition of the MPLA by tbe Organization of African Unity OAU, which convenes later this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. U.S. intelligence sources also have been watching the movement of a Soviet guided-missile destroyer down the west coast of Africa in recent days for any indic ations it may sail toward Angola. At last report, the destroyer was steaming west of Guinea. The Russians have stationed an amphibi ous tank-landing ship some 300 miles off the northern Angolan coast for some time in what is regarded by some U.S. analysts as a further demonstration of Soviet interest in that area of Africa and its adjoining waters. The Soviets have moved destroyers and tank-landing ships in and out of Conakry, Guinea, for several years. Analysts say that even if the destroyer meets with the tank landing ship at sea off Angola, it would be more a symbolic, show-the-flag gesture than a significant military show of force. 3 A&M engineers on ‘rotten mission’ A trio of Texas A&M University engineers are attempting to stop the slow deterioration of San Antonio’s San Jose Mission. The 198-year-old mission is falling victim to deterioration due to water, pollution, and possibly fungus. Even Rosa’s Window, considered one of the finest pieces of Spanish colonial ornamentation sculptured in our country, is being weathered away. The National Park Service, through the Texas Department of Commun ity Affairs and the Texas State Building Materials and Testing Laboratory, is funding the project and passed it on to Drs. Al Meyer, a materials re searcher; Kirk Brown, a soils physicist; and Bob Lytton, a soils engineer with the Civil Engineering Department. “We were approached with the job of determining what is causing the deterioration of the missions in San Antonio,” Dr. Meyer explained. “Aud what we learn here we hope will be applicable to other national shrines- “During the Christmas holidays we took samples of the walls in part of the mission,” he said. “We will establish a weather station there to record climatological data at the mission. This will coordinate thermal gradients with temperature (to see if it causes condensation of water in the walls) and compare rainfall with the movement of water in the extremely thick walls of the structures. “The mission was founded in 1720, by 1749 it was the leading mission on the northern frontier, and in 1777 the present church was nearing compl e ’ tion, ” Meyer said. “Part of the structure collapsed in the 1920’s and v*'®* restored in the 1930’s. Our task now is to preserve particularly the original portion which is in jeopardy. > “Some of the simple solutions that involve modern technology can’t b e easily used because of the desire to retain the original looks of the San Juj>® Mission, ” he said. “Epoxy’s and sealers that would eliminate the water woul also ruin the looks. “The walls are four to five feet thick supporting ceilings that are 12 to 14 inches thick, ” Meyer said. “They are natural stone and mortar constric tion covered with plaster. We want to find out if the water is coming frd in the ground up, the ceiling down, or from the inside out through condensati 011 caused by the thermal gradient. "The foundation can be sealed if it is coming from the ground, the rooi can be fixed if it’s coming from the ceiling, and if fungi is pulling the water up, it can be killed and regrowth prevented,” he said. “We can determi ne the protection if we can determine the direction the water is moving. , “This is extremely fascinating work, trying to preserve the original and effort that went into these buildings,” he said. ) Students contributed almost $39 million to the local economy, up more than $5 mil lion. Food and housing account for the major expenditures, along with clothing, school supplies and recreation. The university spent about $6 million locally for utilities, services and supplies. Expenditures in this category rose about $1.2 million. Visitors attending athletic events, con ferences and short courses at the university accounted for approximately $5.5 million, an increase of about $900,000. Most expen ditures in this category were for food, lodg ing and entertainment.