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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 14, 1976)
la The weather Partly cloudy and warm with hances of afternoon and early vening showers and thunder- howers through tomorrow. High idayin upper 80s, low tonight, in >w70s. High tomorrow in low 90s. recipitation probability 20 per cent day and tomorrow. Battalion r sea, theo yinfe 1 lit Cons team,i ptimia presis imenla basicii bee iKartlii baft sk ycoh Vol. 70 No. 8 8 Pages \\ \ : - f nd), i m We Berna istow lhanli i m Battalion photo by Ruth Marie Cowie Harmonious fathers Two fathers, Hucklebee, played by Philip Hafer (right) and Bellomy, played by Bruce Kates, sing a duet in the Aggie Players’ production of “The Fantasticks.” The play had a successful summer as an MSC dinner theater presentation and reopened last week for a 4-day sched ule that ended Saturday. [Top of the News Associated Press [Secretary of the Navy J. William Mid- mdorf II said yesterday in Dallas that one the Navy’s newest nuclear-powered, fast tacksubs would be called the USS Dallas, lerthe city. Middendorf, in speaking to the Dallas , council, said that Russian naval buil- fphas outdistanced the United States on Marine and surface combatants, but tbyl981, the United States should be ling the gap. bent Republican-Conservative Sen. James Buckley. Ij&L Enterprises, managers of the jawaii Kai amusement park in Arlington, bankruptcy petition after poor at- fndance plunged them into financial diffi- Jlties. IThepark, which was first opened in 1972 [Seven Seas and is now under its fifth [anagement in four years, will never losper because it is too near Six Flags [ver Texas, Arlington Mayor Tom Van- trgriff said. The city council is expected Niscuss the park’s options today which Wude such possibilities as conversion [to a fine arts or civic park that would pefit Arlington citizens. A Senate subcommittee will explore fur ther a charge that an aide in the Nixon White House asked a former Grumman Corp. official for a $1 million campaign con tribution in return for promoting the firm’s sale of aircraft to Japan. Dr. Thomas B. Cheatham, former presi dent of Grumman International, testified Monday that in April 1972 he was solicited for the contribution when he attempted to get Nixon to bring up the matter of Grum man aircraft sales at the upcoming Hon olulu summit talks. Other witnesses expected to testify be fore the panel include Richard Allen, then-President Richard M. Nixon’s deputy assistant for economic affairs in 1972, and some Grumman executives. National |A strike by 170,000 Ford Motor Co. irkers in Detroit today appears certain t midnight today after United Auto orkers bargainers, rejecting the com- ly’slatest offer, left the negotiating room no plans to return. A strike would force shutdown of 102 ilities in 22 states from Massachusetts to ’ornia and would paralyze the nation’s 2 auto maker. [ New York’s Democratic voters pick a U. Senate nominee today from a five- todidate field sprawling across the party’s ieological spectrum. | When the nominee is chosen, the Dem- pts, who have lost every Senate race in [estate but one in the past 25 years, will fcvejust seven weeks to patch up their Ivided campaign and try to beat incum Tuesday, September 14, 1976 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 C3s >vm»»*' High-rise bridge topples Associated Press MANCHAC, La. — The top section of a busy high-rise bridge was hit by a barge yesterday and collapsed, carrying with it at least two vehicles and an unknown number of persons. Witnesses said a tractor-trailer truck and at least one car plunged into the water 56 feet below as a 220-foot section of the U. S. 51 bridge fell out from under them. Occupants of the car were presumed drowned. The two men in the truck were taken to a hospital — one with a broken back, the other with a broken ankle. No one was certain how many cars or persons were missing. There were uncon firmed reports that as many as five vehicles may have fallen in. Divers searching the wreckage were hampered by swift currents and poor visibility in the murky water. The two-lane U.S. 51 bridge was on a north-south highway that parallels an un completed section of Interstate 55, the main route between New Orleans and Jackson, Miss. The bridge crossed Pass Manchac, a 40- foot-deep channel between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, about 25 miles northweast of New Orleans. Two men whose car skidded to a stop at the edge of the gap in the bridge said it appeared that two persons were in an au tomobile which plunged into the water ahead of them. “All I could see was this truck falling, going down with the bridge and the car falling after it,” said George Lewis of New Orleans, who braked just in time to save himself. “I saw the trailer rig go over and then the car behind it went over. “When I saw the car in front of me go over, I swerved my car to the side. I’d rather run into the side than run over into the water. I stopped my car about one foot from the edge. I was lucky.” Lewis said that a second before the barge hit the bridge support, the towboat sounded a frantic blast on its horn. The Coast Guard said the barge was one of two loaded with oyster shells and being pushed westward from Lake Pontchartrain by the towboat Leander Jr., owned by Clyde Torres of New Orleans. Frank Reno, owner of Manchac Seafood Restaurant, was in his restaurant when the bridge collapsed about 1,000 feet away. “We were sitting there and then we heard all the rumbling,” he said. “The lights flickered and we looked out the win dow and saw that the barge had hit the bridge. That all happened within seconds.” Richard Smith, owner of Middendorfs Restaurant near the bridge, said it was al most a miracle that more cars were not on the bridge when the center of it collapsed. “We have a lot of traffic through here,” he said. “We always have 10 or 12 cars on the bridge.” The accident happened a few minutes after 5 p.m., usually a busy time on the highway. “I have a CB radio,” Smith said. “When I saw this, I got on with a Mayday and said the top of the Manchac bridge had fallen in. “When I did that, I could hear those trucks and cars relaying like mad. I’m sure there was some slamming of brakes.” Police immediately blocked off traffic on a 20-mile stretch of highway from Pontchatoula to LaPlace. State highway of ficials said it would take months to repair the half-mile-long bridge. Northbound traffic from New Orleans is being detoured to the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, a 24-mile-long bridge parallel to and 20 miles east of the span at Manchac. Educational supports increase By LOUISE COOK Associated Press Back to school can bring budget blues to college students and their families these days, with costs soaring to record levels. But a number of government programs are available to ease the bite. The College Entrance Examination Board says that the average student at a four-year college, living on campus, will have to spend $4,568 this year. That’s 6 per cent more than it cost last year and 54 per cent more than it cost in 1970. Both the Republicans and the Demo crats in this election year have urged in creased federal support of higher educa tion. President Ford says his policy is guided by two basic principles: “First, no student should be denied access to a postsecondary education because of financial barriers. Second, in most cases, aid should be pro vided to individuals rather than to institu tions.” The Democratic platform calls for “a coordinated and reliable system of grants, loans and work study.” It also says the fed eral government “should directly provide cost-of-education payments to all higher education institutions... to help cover per-student costs, which far exceed those covered by tuition and fees.” The U.S. Office of Education supports five programs of student assistance: basic A&M students may get aid Undergraduate and graduate stu dents at Texas A&M University are eligible for financial aid from the American College and University Service Bureau. Dr. Robert J. Boileau, the bureau’s director, said recently that most students do not know about this program. Boileau said that millions of dol- ** lars go untouched each year due to the lack of student knowledge of the funds or the unwillingness of founda tion directors to publicize the funds. Students may check on obtaining foundation funds by writing to: American College and University Service Bureau, Dept. F, 1700-5050 Poplar Ave., Memphis, Tenn., 38157. educational opportunity grants, supple mental educational opportunity grants, col lege workstudy, national direct student loans and guaranteed student loans. The grant programs provide outright gifts; the loans must be repaid. The amount of money available to an individual generally is determined on the basis of financial need and academic eligi bility. Information on the programs is usu ally available through a school financial aid officer. In order to qualify for a basic grant, a student must be attending an approved in stitution: a four-year college, a community or junior college, a vocational school, a technical institute or a hospital school of nursing. The student must be enrolled on at least a half-time basis in a program of study which lasts for six months or longer. You can file an applicaton to find out whether you are eligible for a basic grant as soon as you are accepted for enrollment; the sooner the better. Once you are notified of your eligibility, you must submit the notice to your school, which will determine the amount of the award. Applications to determine eligibil ity are available by writing P.O. Box 84, Washington, D.C., 20004. The supplemental grants are for students of exceptional financial need who would not be able to finish their education with out the extra money. The program is lim ited to undergraduates; graduate students are not eligible. The grants range from $200 to $1,500 a year, with a maximum of $4,000 over four years and $5,000 over five years. The national direct student loan program enables students to borrow up to $2,500 if they are enrolled in a vocational program or have finished less than two years of a pro gram leading to a bachelor’s degree. Stu dents who have completed two years to ward a bachelor’s degree can borrow up to $5,000 and graduate students can apply for up to $10,000. 5 Croatians charged Associated Press NEW YORK — Five Croatian nation alists, held on $1 million bail each on air piracy charges after a weekend the pilot called “30 hours of hell,” also have been charged with second-degree murder in the bomb death of a policeman. Federal and local authorities were to meet today to decide who should get first crack at prosecuting the four men and a woman, who used fake bombs to force a New York-to-Chicago Trans World Air lines 727 jet to fly to Paris. A real bomb the hijackers claimed re sponsibility for leaving in a Grand Central Station locker killed a policeman, who was to be buried in New York today. The Yugoslav government accused the United States of tolerating anti-Yugoslav terrorists, a charge denied by the State Department in Washington. The four men — ringleader Zvonko Busic, 30, Peter Matovic, 31, FranePesut, 25, and Mark Vlasic, 29, all are natives of Croatia long active in the independence movement. Basic’s 27-year-old wife. Julienne, a schoolteacher from Eugene, Ore., apparently became dedicated to the same cause after she met Busic in Vienna. World Tens of thousands of blacks stayed away from their jobs in Johannesburg again today on the second day of a three-day strike protesting the white government’s racial policies. Some companies reported 70 per cent absenteeism today, but others said more blacks reported for work than on the previ ous day. Second and third presidential debates scheduled for October Ambassador William W. Scranton an nounced yesterday in Washington after a meeting with President Gerald Ford that he would veto the Vietnamese application for U.N. membership because Hanoi has failed to account for about 800 Americans still listed as missing in action in Vietnam. The Security Council is expected to vote on the application late today or tomorrow. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger flies to Tanzania*today on the first stage of a search for peace in southern Africa. Kissinger said he hopes to convince three key leaders that agreement on the form, forum and agenda for black-white negotiations is necessary before the sum mer rains fall. Associated Press WASHINGTON — The second and third debates between President Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter will be Oct. 6 and 22 with the single debate between the vice presidential candidates sandwiched in be tween, the sponsoring League of Women Voters announced today. The league said the debate between Republican vice presidential candidate Bob Dole and Democrat Walter Mondale has been tentatively set for the week of Oct. 11, but that no date has been agreed upon. The locations and other details of the debates are still being worked out, the league said. The first Ford-Carter confrontation will take place in Philadelphia on Sept. 23, a Thursday. Jim Karayn, project director for the League’s education fund which is sponsor ing the debates, said the arguments had been worked out in meetings with the na tional networks which will broadcast the debates live on television and radio. The length of the debates has not been settled, but all will begin at 9:30 p.m. EDT, regardless of length, Karayn said. The subject of the first debate in Philadelphia’s historic Walnut Street The ater will be economics and domestic pol icy. One of the others is expected to deal with foreign policy and national defense, with the third open to a variety of issues. _ ' .-****? I- i Battalion photos by Kevin Venner You re all whetted Yes, many Aggies have been titillated by the 19-0 shutout of the Virginia Tech Gobblers by the A&M football team Saturday. Yell leader, Joe Reagan, who took a swim after the game, compliments of some freshmen corps members, drips from head to toes while directing the post game victory yells in front of the YMCA building. Index The government has been advised to wait before it bans material containing fluorocarbons. Page 3. Classifieds. Page 4. Bulletin board and Peanuts. Page 5. Weekend music reviews. Page 6. m . Bugs off t t A three-foot-long bug was found in a dark alley in Des Moines, Iowa, by a passerby . The citizen called police, who returned the $200 advertising design to its owners, a Des Moines exterminat ing company. The bug, carried on top of one of the company’s trucks, had been taken off during the night by some prankster skilled at opening trucks and removing bolts that the bug was fastened to the inside of the cab with. Des Moines Terminex International manager William Keller, who describes the bug as “a sporty little critter with a top hat,” this morning said that he can’t think of any reason to steal one of the bugs except to decorate a college dormitory room. Perhaps, if the bug is removed and abandoned in a dark alley again, the finder might call the exterminator first. After all, if YOU found a three-foot-long termite wearing a top hat. Battalion art by Steve Korte Ags 11th Associated Press The Top Twenty teams in The As sociated Press college football poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, season records and total points: * Team W-L-T 1. Michigan (28) 1-0-0 2. Ohio St. (18) 1-0-0 3. Pitt (9) 1-0-0 4. Oklahoma (4) 1-0-0 5. UCLA (2) 1-0-0 6. Missouri 1-0-0 7. Penn St. 1-0-0 8. Nebraska 0-0-1 9. Georgia 1-0-0 10. Maryland 1-0-0 11. Texas A&M 1-0-0 12. Arkansas 1-0-0 13. Kansas 2-0-0 14. Alabama 0-1-0 15. Boston Col. 1-0-0 16. Louisiana St. 0-0-1 17. N. Carolina 2-0-0 18. Arizona St. 0-1-0 19. Texas 0-1-0 20. Mississippi 1-1-0 J