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Inside Friday:
Foreign languages in the elementary
school, p. 5.
Mrs. Olson s brew not as good as it
seems, p. 8.
Ags face Rice Owls, p. 6.
Vol. 71 NO. 85
8 Pages
Friday, January 27, 1978
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
ossible safety hazard
Eaue to acid corrosion
! 185.01
! 124,05
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By PAIGE BEASLEY
use of acids, which is causing corro-
a and outside the Oceanography and
Jorology Building at Texas A&M Uni-
could develop into a safety hazard,
problem originated with the design
building. Before construction was
leted, the building was redesigned
chemists discovered there were no
hoods capable of handling the use of
[iloric acid, a highly corrosive combi-
of oxygen and chlorine. Further-
, the fume hood ducts were not prop-
ilaced.
“A year or so after we moved into the
building, it was found that the blower
units put into the fume hood system were
inadequate for the volumes and types of
acids we were evaporating into the fume
hoods,” said Dr. Bobby J. Presley, as
sociate professor of oceanography. “The
blowers were getting eaten up, and the
fume hoods would stop working. ”
When you’re designing a building with
fume hoods in it, the fume hoods should
run straight up to the roof and discharge,
but in this building they go all over the
place,” said Dr. David Schink, associate
professor of oceanography.
The ducting, the passageways for fumes
being carried from the hoods, have right
angle bends, which slow down the speed
at which fumes leave the building.
An improper air balance, the inside air
has a slightly lower pressure than the air
outside, makes it difficult to blow the air
out of the fume hoods, Schink said.
Earl F. Cook, Dean of Geosciences,
said these conditions are causing “not only
corrosion, but somewhere down the line it
could cause unhealthy conditions in the
laboratories.
.S. confident peace talks
o resume in Middle East
United Press International
e United States, confident that
itiations between Egypt and Israel will
me next week, is now trying to bring
an’s King Hussein into the Middle East
e process.
gypt and Israel, who broke off negotia-
nine days ago in a bitter exchange of
iminations, predicted Thursday that
p stalled military talks will resume in
o next week.
raeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan
tone step further and said that thanks
J.S. mediation Israel and Egypt are
etoan accord on a “statement of princi-
on a Middle East settlement.
“I am hopeful that we can reach — and
this is mainly due to the American con
tribution — an agreement about the prin
ciples that would be acceptable to the
Egyptians and ourselves,” Dayan said.
Such guidelines could pave the way for a
resumption of the Israeli-Egyptian political
talks suspended by President Anwar Sadat
last week.
U.S. diplomats said Assistant Secretary
of State Alfred Atherton, who met with
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
for 90 minutes Thursday, will travel to Jor
dan Saturday to try to draw Hussein into
the peace process.
They said Atherton would meet six U.S.
ambassadors in Amman and then pay a
“courtesy call” on Hussein. The Hashemite
monarch’s participation is considered cru
cial for negotiating a settlement to the
Palestinian issue.
Officials in Jerusalem said Atherton will
arrive in Cairo next week, probably carry
ing new ideas that could prove crucial in
determining the next step in the peace
making effort.
In a related development, the New York
Times reported today that both Sadat and
Begin may travel to Washington within the
next month for separate meetings with
President Carter.
Deputy constables arrest
hree for check violations
By TERESA HUDDLESTON
and
GARY WELCH
ot check writers found tliem selves in
|n hotter water Thursday night when
izos County deputy constables con-
ted raids to round up area hot check
sers.
Thursday night is a good night to catch
m at home,” said Constable E. W.
ers. “Friday night everyone is gone.”
Sayers said he mailed about 100 sum-
ms to hot check passers around the
nty. Some were due for payment last
;day and others for last Monday. Those
who did not pay their checks by the dead
line had warrants issued for their arrests.
Deputies gave each hot check writer a
chance to pay both the unpaid check and a
fine for not answering the summons. If both
accounts were not paid in cash im
mediately, the person was taken to the
county jail and given the option to either
post bond or spend the night in jail.
By 10 p.m., deputies had arrested three
people who did not pay immediately. Most
of those who were home paid in order to
stay out of jail.
A local radio station announced Thurs
day that the raids would take place, driving
some offenders away from home for the
evening. )
But Sayers said the announcement
caused a flood of telephone calls from
people wanting to know if there were war
rants out on them.
“They really came out of the woodwork, ”
Sayers said. Although the announcement
allowed some offenders to elude the de
puties, he said, it made people aware that
hot check passers were being prosecuted.
Deputies Art Dixon and Johnny Ramirez
served a warrant to a local man for a $30
debt owed to a local merchant. The man
produced a money order receipt for the
same amount, and Dixon said he would
check today to see if the debt had actually
been paid.
The deputies also collected a $74.50 fine
for the man’s failure to answer the sum
mons.
Dixon and Ramirez served another war
rant in the Pinfeather Acres trailer park,
but found the person had moved. They
checked with a neighbor and found the per
son had left in November and moved into
an apartment in Bryan.
“I’ll have to do some tracking down to
morrow,” Dixon said. By checking with
local utility and cable companies, he said,
deputies should be able to find correct ad
dresses on some outstanding warrants.
“We’ll do a lot of cross checking,” he
said. “We ll get ’em.”
Sayers said that many warrants could not
be served because the people had moved,
but deputies were able to find out where
most of them could be found.
“Although we didn’t collect them all,” he
said, “we found out where we can get
them.”
Cash limits reduced
“Before the later happens, we’ve got to
get the problem corrected, and it’s a dif
ficult and expensive thing to do because
we don’t know what it involves,” Cook
said.
Acid fumes can burn the eyes and skin
and cause lung deterioration, said Pete
Rodriquez, administrative services officer
and chemist.
Nevertheless, Cook said, chemical
oceanographers must conclude research
on time, ‘without endangering our
people.
“They are using the fume hoods until
they come to the point where the situation
is really dangerous, and they have to cut it
(research) down, and try to patch them.”
The acids we are using are not unusual,”
Presley said. “Laboratories all over the
world use these kinds of acids.
Laboratories all over the world have fume
hoods that work. The question is, why
don’t the fume hoods work in Aggieland?”
Schink said that along with faulty
ventilation, there is a shortage of hoods for
the lab work. Researchers are forced to
use acids outside of the hoods, which in
turn causes corrosion inside the
laboratories.
Corrosion is also taking place outside
the building. “The building is faced with
limestone which is soluble in acid, so
when the acid fumes go out the ducts and
they touch the walls of the building, they
dissolve it,” Schink said.
“The fume hood exhausts are not prop
erly placed so the fumes are hitting the
windows up there in the observatory,” he
said. “We use hydroflouric acid which
etches glass so we are etching the win
dows. ”
Paul Stevens of the Texas A&M physical
plant said there are three possible options
to decrease problems in the building: to
redesign the ventilation system, to in
crease the speed at which the fumes leave
the building, or to provide a means of re
plenishing the fresh air in the laboratories.
Presently contractors are working on
plans and prices. Until presentation by
contractors and approval by the Univer
sity, research will continue at half speed
because of the inadequate fume hood sys
tem.
Tom McCall
Students’ battle
needed in combat
By DEBBIE GOLLA
Students in Texas must combat
big oil and business companies to
preserve the state’s environment,
said Tom McCall, leading
environmentalist in a speech at
Texas A&M University Thursday
night. McCall’s talk was presented
by the Great Issues committee.
McCall, former governor of Ore
gon, talked about “The Future of
Man’s Environments: Earth, Space,
and Seas."
Environmental control is not a
one-time effort, but a continuing
struggle in small areas as well as
large, he said.
“There is such a tiny percentage
of the total population of Texas that
are environmentalists that it is al
most an endangered species,” he
said.
McCall quoted such
environmentalists as Herman Conn,
the “eternal optimist, as McCall re
ferred to him, and Earl Cooke.
McCall cited the wholesale killing
of eagles, the increasing sale of flood
lands, and the country’s polluted
rivers as only a few of today’s
environmental problems.
“We all have to come down to
earth, no matter how far we sail into
space,” McCall said, referring to to
day’s space travel. He said it is im
portant to “take care of what we
have before we look for anything
else.”
McCall’s accomplishments in
clude the titles of Encompassed
Conservationalist of the Year,
Environmental Educator of the
Year, and Education’s Citizen of the
Year. He is recipient of the Audu
bon Society Medal.
Extension of hours
ready for approval
By PAUL BARTON
Closing hours at the Memorial Student
Center will be extended from 11 p.m. to 2
a.m. Sunday through Thursday, if a propo
sal passed by the MSC council is approved
by the University Center Board of Direc
tors.
The new hours are the result of
university-wide survey that showed stu
dents would prefer to have the MSC
open later for studying purposes, said Sha
ron Taulman, vice-president for adminis
tration on the council.
The council approved an overall budget
request of $540,094.05 for 1978-79, an in
crease of $45,113.05 over this year’s
budget. Of the total, $173,617.05 will
come from student service fees, an in
crease of $14,685.05 over 1977-78. These
budget requests must now be approved by
the Student Service Fee allocations Com
mittee during its hearings Jan. 31-Feb. 2.
The money will be used to support 20
MSC committees ranging from Aggie
Cinema to Political Forum and Town Hall.
Opera and Performing Arts, Town Hall
and the Video Tape committee
among organizations requesting
were
the
largest budget increases.
OPAS’ $4,075 increase and Town Hall’s
$15,300 increase were due largely to in-
tflation and the new federal copyright law,
said Lynn A. Gibson, president of the
MSC Council.
According to Sarah Ferry, OPAS com
mittee chairman, royalties have to be paid
to composers and copyright companies
whenever their works are performed be
fore audiences. Ferry says the group hir
ing the performer must pay the royalties.
The video tape committee requested an
increase of $7,655. John Hancock, chair
man of the committee, said the money will
be used to purchase a portable video tape
camera and recorder.
In other action, Ray Daniels, Town Hall
committee chairman, announced that his
organization is negotiating with comedian
Steve Martin for a Texas A&M appearance
later this spring.
Jury finds Yarbrough
guilty in prejury charge
United Press International
AUSTIN — Former Supreme Court As
sociate Justice Donald B. Yarbrough was
found guilty Thursday of aggravated per
jury by a five-man, six-woman jury.
Merchants alter check policy
Battalion photo by Susan Webb
Chester Price, deputy constable of Brazos County, knocks to
serve a summons for writing hot checks. A “raid” was conducted
last night, requiring persons to pay for the bad checks, and a fine,
or go to jail for the night.
By JANICE STRIPLING
More and more businesses in College
Station are refusing to accept checks be
cause of losses from bad checks.
Although businessmen have accepted
inconveniences in dealing with checks,
they now protect their interests by im
plementing check cashing policy changes.
Due to excessive losses, businesses in Col
lege Station are now accepting checks on a
limited basis.
Bobby Bosquez, Piggly Wiggly assistant
manager said, “Students assume we are a
bank and that’s not true.” The $5 cash
limit is a convenience and it shouldn’t be
taken for granted, he said.
Six months ago Piggly Wiggly set a $10
limit for cash. That policy was changed re
cently to a $5 limit.
“Seventy-five percent out of 100 bad
checks are from students,” Bosquez said.
Students closing their accounts at banks
for the summer is Piggly Wiggly’s largest
problem said Bosquez.
Piggly Wiggly has to put a lot of time,
effort and money into locating violators.
Piggly Wiggly used a collection agency
called Continental Collection Bureau of
Houston, said Bosquez. “I don’t know how
the collection agency handles the cases,
but we get results,” he said.
Restaurants as well as grocery stores are
having problems collecting on bad checks.
“We only take checks from our
trustworthy customers,” said Sambo’s
manager, Calvin Littlejohn.
Trustworthy customers are local resi
dents that haven’t written bad checks at
Sambo’s.
Sambo’s does not accept any checks
from students. The restaurant originally
accepted checks under a liberal basis. Be
cause of excessive losses this policy was
changed after Christmas. Littlejohn didn’t
know exactly how much they lost.
Sambo’s had problems with bad checks
before implementing the new policy,
Littlejohn said. The three problems areas
were checks involving endorsement, insuf
ficient funds and closed accounts.
The average insufficient check at Sam
bo’s is for $4. “It’s not worth my time,
effort and money to track down the per
son,” said Littlejohn.
The older account is usually a stable one
Littlejohn said. New checking accounts
where the check number ranges from 101
to 301 are checks that most frequently
bounce.
Littlejohn admits that turning custom
ers away has hurt business a little. He adds
that now they have only 10 percent of the
checks returned.
“The time, effort and money that was
saved, was worth losing a few customers,”
said Littlejohn. “Because I stopped taking
checks liberally International House of
Pancakes (IHOP) received my check busi
ness.”
Because of the overflow of bad checks,
IHOP has stopped taking them, he said.
(See Checks, page 3)
The jury deliberated only 15 minutes be
fore announcing it had determined Yar
brough lied to a Travis County jury on
June 28, 1977, about a meeting with a
former business associate.
Yarbrough stood solemnly with his
hands folded in front of him as District
Judge Mace B. Thurman read the verdict,
he showed no signs of emotion.
The jury will resume deliberations
today to consider the sentencing for the
36-year-old former justice,
Just before the jury received the case,
Travis County District Attorney Carol
Vance gave the final argument for the
state, saying the jury had to find Yar
brough guilty.
“I submit to you we have proven this
case not only beyond a reasonable doubt,
but beyond any doubt, Vance said.
Yarbrough was accused of lying to the
Travis County grand jury which was inves
tigating allegations he had participated in
the forgery of an automobile title.
Yarbrough told the grand jury he had
not met his former business associate John
W. Rothkopf between Christmas of 1976
and June 10 of 1977.
Evidence presented at the trial, includ
ing testimony of Rothkopf and tape rec
ordings of a conversation between the two,
showed Yarbrough met Rothkopf at an
Austin motel May 16 and supervised the
forging of the automobile registration.
Testimony ended early Thursday with
no evidence presented in Yarbrough s de
fense.
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