Page 6 THE BATTALION
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1978
‘Robbery’at Last National Bank
By BETH CALHOUN
When the Last National Bank of
College Station was robbed, the cul
prits didn’t have to dynamite a vault.
The loot was “lifted” off the wall.
The restaurant-bar opened last
Novemeber in the Bank of A&M’s
old facilities at411 Texas Ave. South.
The management wanted to pre
serve the atmosphere of a bank, so
they arranged with the U.S. De
partment of the Treasury to be sent
$1,260 in one-dollar bills. These
were mounted with two-way tape on
a wall in the old vault room and cov
ered with plexiglas. The result was
expensive wallpaper.
The bills are all new, all in serial
number order and to be used as a
display only. They aren’t for circula
tion.
Two of the one-dollar bills were
taken sometime between 11 a.m.
and 5 p.m. last Friday.
“Around five o’clock, one of our
employees noticed the bills were
missing,” said manager Gary
Cooper.
The side of the plexiglas where the
bills were taken is covered by five-
foot high plants.
"They pulled the plexiglas back
and took only two of the bills,”
Cooper said. “It had to be hard to do.
“They could’ve taken 25 or 30 —
the whole row, but they were proba
bly too scared.”
He and his staff watch the money,
Cooper said, but “not always that
closely. We didn’t think anything
like this would ever happen.”
If the bills are circulated, they
would be hard to trace, Cooper said,
because even though the serial
numbers are on file, only two are
missing and they aren’t in large de
nominations.
A $250 reward is offered for return
of the bills. “No questions asked,”
Cooper said.
He added that the collection is de
valued because of the missing bills.
T feel they were taken as a
souvenir,’ he said. “I hope we ’ll get
them back.“
Teachers learn writing
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To teach good writing to students,
one must teach good writing to
teachers.
One solution in recent years has
been the workshop for composition
teachers, but such a measure has
sometimes been unavailable to
schools in rural areas and smaller
towns around Texas.
Now, there could be an answer at
Texas A&M University, where offi
cials have received $20,000 from the
Sid W. Bichardson Foundation of
Fort Worth to plan and conduct
such programs later this year for the
59 school districts in Region VI
Educational Service Center.
Region VI, which covers a large
portion of East Texas, has its head
quarters at Huntsville, and organiz
ers say the workshop, specifically
keyed to smaller school districts,
will be held there.
Observers of three urban school
districts — Houston, Corpus Christi
and Fort Worth — will be par
ticipating in the workshop and will
also carry news of its outcome to
other service centers which might
consider similar seminars for
smaller schools in their area.
The Richardson Foundation is
dedicated to supporting such pro
grams, said Val Wilkie Jr., executive
vice president.
The objective of the workshop is
to give, the compostition teacher
more skills to impart to students be
cause of continued criticism about
today’s students.
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Dr. James Dixon confidently holds a Mexican
king snake, knowing that his squirmy friend is
like the majority of snakes in Texas — non-
poisonous. Helpful snakes like this one eat ro
dents and other pests but still prompt gasps
and shivering spines when the snakes enter
crowded rooms.
Battalion photo by Lurry Chandler
Snakes deserve respect —
for killing pests, not peoph
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By TRICIA BRUNHART
Have you ever wondered if the
snake you were about to kill is
poisonous or not? Well, if you live in
Texas it probably isn’t, because says
Dr. James R. Dixon, approximately
99 percent of Texas snakes are non-
poisonous.
Dixon, a professor of wildlife and
fisheries sciences at Texas A&M
University said Wednesday that
snakes are useful to man because
they help maintain the balance of na
ture, by preying on rodents. Certain
varieties of snakes, like Decay’s
snake, Dixon said, feed on slugs,
which are pests of cultivated plants,
he said.
Snakes thrive during warm
periods, Dixon said, and therefore
are seen most frequently in the
spring and fall. In the spring, snakes
come out during the day to feed and
breed, and in the fall they come out
to feed before hibernating, he said.
When it is very hot in the summer,
snakes become nocturnal and mainly
can be seen at night.
There are four basic types of
poisonous snakes in Texas: the
rattlesnake, of which there are at
least eight varieties; the cotton-
mouth; the coral snake; and the cop
perhead, which is locally the most
common poisonous snake.
Dixon said it is almost impossible
to give a description of the poisonous
snakes for identification, because the
non-poisonous snakes share similar
patterns with the poisonous ones.
Snakes will sometimes not inject
any venom when they bite, Dixon,
said.
He suggested putting a tourniquet
on the wounded limb and wrapping
the bite with ice to slow down blood
circulation. He advised against an
extremely tight tourniquets and cut
ting the wound.
Most deaths occur, Dixon said,
when people are bitten directly in
the vein. If a person has been drink
ing alcohol, the spread of venom and
blood circulation is increased, he
said.
In the United States, Dixon con
tinued, there are more deaths from
bee stings than from snakebites.
A person will usually know if he
was bitten by a poisonous snake be
cause he will experience severe pain,
like 50 bees hitting you at one time
and in one place,” Dixon said.
He said the treatment which doc
tors in San Antonio are recommend
ing for snakebite involves cutting a
four-inch flap of tissue on three sA
of the bite. Then the doctor pullslli
tissue back. If hemorrhaging ism
oceuring, the snake was not pois#
ous. However, if it is hemorrhagw
the doctor would scrape tbemateii
out and tries to get all the poisonw!
Dixon said.
Snake venom consists of twoel
ments: the hemotoxic element 4
affects the circulatory systemand4
neurotoxic element that affedstl |
nervous system.
The coral snake for example,li
only five to thirty percent oftl
hemotoxic element, while
rattlesnake has only five to 30 pi
cent of the neurotoxic element.
There are problems with ant
snakebite serum, Dixon said, l)
cause venom can vary among snail
from different countries. Ant
snakebite serums are specifically 1 ! Ad
signed for each country, he adde to 1
Dixon said the best precaution ^
for people always to look before tk
step. He also recoin mends carryinj M.4
staff when hiking, especially ift U.
area is known to be snake infest! ,
The staff can be used to tap alongtl
ground while climbing, andtoaleit
sleeping snake so it has plenty ,
time to leave. ^
!
Thought it was cold? You’re righj
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January, 1978, goes into the rec
ords as the coldest in Texas in more
than 50 years.
It occurred, said state
climatologist John Griffiths, without
any record low temperatures, or
lows even approaching records.
“The official low temperature for
the month at Easterwood Airport
was 21 degrees, which is not all that
low for a January here, the Texas
A&M University meterology profes-
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sor remarked. Januarys of 1976 and
1977 had lows in the mid-teens.
Last month included 18 days with
freezing temperatures, normally a
winter total for the area. The Na
tional Weather Service recorded 92
straight hours of freezing tempera
tures. It went from 1 a.m. Jan. 19
through 9 p.m. Jan. 22.
As far as we are aware, that is a
record, Griffiths added. He noted
that the nature of records for some
periods rule out certainty.
We do have records for an 84-
hour span of below-32 tempera
tures,” he said.
Last month s 40.5-degree average
was colder than January 1930, the
previous record, by a tenth of a de
gree. It normally hits a mean tem
perature about 10 degrees warmer,
near 51, Griffiths said. January 1976
averaged nearly 50, and last year
41.2 degrees.
Lack of daytime warming overt T
whole month explains the newrf
ord low monthly average. Dai ^
maximum averaged 48 degrees,! J
lipsing the previous low in thatal )►
gory by two degrees for anothern ^
ord.
But January 1978 contain]
another peculiarity, in viewed
records, Griffiths said. The Ja»
high was 82 degrees. For the lint
days of the month, that was onl)
degree short of the record, 83on)i
17, 1917.
Griffiths observed that thi
records coupled with recent
unusually cool winters, donotm
sarily indicate the onset of an ice
“It could be just a two or
year thing,” he said. “We ve
that way before.”
The NWS outlook for Febi
he added, is for cooler than noi
here.
*
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