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Vol. 71 No. 134
16 Pages
Wednesday, April 12, 1978
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Inside Wednesday
Paul Arnett’s last column, p. 14.
Minors can buy alcohol, p. 5.
Heyday for Gay Day, p. 2.
Iso
resolC
lit-
All-sports pass
has Councirs okay
Texas
...in a small town that’s big in oil. An oil field
worker carries a bag of chemicals to the rig.
Chemicals must be mixed with the soil to keep it a
certain consistency so the oil can be pumped from
the ground. See related story, page 12.
Battalion photo by Ann Richmond
By LIZ NEWLIN
Battalion Staff
Students must pay to attend baseball
and basketball games next year, but they
won’t have to pay the $40 originally pro
posed by Texas A&M University.
An all-sports pass option was approved
by the Athletic Council Tuesday after
noon. Students may sign up for the pcss,
which costs $25, at pre-registration.
The pass will include two coupons, one
for baseball and one for basketball, along
with the regular football ticket coupons,
said Joe Young, Athletic Council member.
Young, who is also a student senator,
authored a bill supporting the all-sports
pass in the student senate. The bill was
approved by senators March 23.
Young said original plans developed by
the athletic department called for $10 sea
son passes to baseball or basketball games.
Under the new system. Young said,
students with the all-sports pass will be
able to get baseball and basketball tickets
on the business day before the game. On
the day of the game, any student will be
able to buy tickets for half price. Football
ticket distribution will remain the same
and will cost $20.
Students with the all-sports pass will not
be guaranteed a ticket to all baseball and
basketball games, Young said, but they
will have an extra day to get their tickets.
Some student senators, in discussing
the bill three weeks ago, were concerned
that the athletic department would sell
more seats than it had. Young suggested
they might consider closed circuit televi
sion broadcasts of overflow games, but the
council took no action on the suggestion.
Revenues from the all-sports pass, if
10,000 students buy them, will equal rev
enues expected from the $10 season passes
for baseball and basketball, Young said.
If more than 10,000 students buy the
new pass, the athletic department will
have extra money.
Wally Groff, assistant athletic director
for business affairs, said the department
has not decided what it will do with any
extra money.
Groff also said that season passes for
baseball or basketball games will be avail
able for $7.50 each from the athletic de
partment.
Citizens debate
building of park
Ivalution results due in June
Architecture department reviewed
inta
By GREG PROPPS
The Department of Landscape Ar-
ecture was visited last week by an
luation team of the Board of Landscape
itecture Accreditation. It was more
a social call.
he three-member team took an intense
-and-a-half day look at the under-
luate program offered by the depart-
lent. Their findings will determine
hether or not the department will be
credited by the board for another five
gr period.
Don Austin, head of the department of
I scape architecture, said the results of
evaluation will not be given to the uni-
rsity until mid-June. Between now and
in, the information gathered will be
studied in Washington by the HEW,
studied by the accreditation board, and
then re-evaluated by the examining team.
Austin said there is no national criteria
by which a program is judged, that each
one is looked at differently to allow for var
iations in regional background and pro
gram emphasis. At present, there are 38
programs in landscape architecture that
are recognized by the board. Texas A&M
and Texas Tech are the only universities in
Texas where the programs are recognized.
Accreditation means several things to a
university. The prestige factor is obvious.
Not so obvious is that many state’s examin
ing boards require that a person taking a
licensing exam be from an accredited
university. Loss of a university’s accredita
tion could also mean a loss of incoming
students in the landscape architecture
program.
The evaluation itself consisted of studies
of student work, in-depth talks with stu
dents and faculty, evaluation of the finan
cial status of the department, and a hard
look at the courses offered. For this par
ticular visit from the board, the depart
ment prepared a display of what might be
expected of a student over four years.
Beginning with freshman design
courses, the display followed through to
the senior level, illustrating the main em
phasis of the four year program.
That display is located in the main gal
lery of the Langford Architecture Build
ing, and will be open to the public for sev-
udicial Board to let
election results stand
PER
By ANDY WILLIAMS
Battalion Stall
iThe student senate’s judicial board
Uesday night unanimously rejected an at-
npt to have last week’s campus elections
pided and new elections held.
| The board will meet tomorrow to de-
fcrmine whether “three or four’’ indi-
Hdual races would be run, said Chris
farmer, chairman of the board. He named
the senatorial races in the Veterinary and
Medical schools and in the College of Sci
ence as contests which will be examined.
Farmer said in delivering the decision
that the plaintiffs had failed to demon
strate that all races were biased by ir
regularities in the election.
However, Farmer said, “We do not feel
. that the election was run competently.”
Four students had filed a complaint,
gAnonymous $500 gift
^useless’ to candidate
js,
By GARY WELCH
Battalion Staff
A $500 campaign contribution received
it Thursday by county attorney candi-
ite Ed Elmore may be useless to him
use the contributor chose to remain
jflonymous.
1 Under state law, a candidate for public
Mice must list his contributors if he wants
I use their money to finance his cam-
'■gn. Because Elmore does not know the
'iitributor’s identity, he cannot list him
id therefore cannot use the money.
Since Thursday I have attempted to lo
cate the contributor, to no avail,” Elmore
Rid Tuesday morning in a news confer
ence at the Brazos County Courthouse.
| Last Thursday an unidentified man left
'th money with an employee of an Elmore
jcampaign supporter, then left im-
i 1 mediately.
F'The campaign supporter’s employee
who received the folded envelope had
never seen the man before,” Elmore said.
■The money, all in cash, was in a used
wvelope addressed to a Dallas insurance
pompany. The address had been scratched
out and the name of the campaign suppor
ter written on the envelope.
; The envelope also bore the return ad
dress of the same insurance company.
| T have tried to trace the envelope,”
Elmore said. But the insurance company
Is not listed in the Dallas telephone book,
he said.
Inside the envelope were the money
'Itod a note that read: “For Mr. Elmore,
’ candidate for Co. Atty. Use to best advan
tage. No name, please.”
r Elmore contacted the secretary of
state’s office in Austin, where he was ad
vised to turn the money over to Brazos
County Democratic Party Chairman
Neely Lewis for safe keeping until the
matter is resolved.
“The money is to be deposited with the
Brazos County Democratic Party’s funds,
and it will remain there until the con
tributor steps forward,” Elmore said. If
the contributor does not identify himself,
Elmore said, the money will remain in the
bank.
He is keeping secret the campaign sup
porter’s name, the time and location of the
contribution and the bill demonimation of
the $500. If the contributor comes for
ward, Elmore can verify his identity by
questioning him about the withheld facts.
“The pieces of information are within
the possession of Mr. Lewis,” he said,
“and I have asked him to keep the infor
mation confidential.”
Elmore said he hopes the contributor
steps forward because he needs the money
to buy media time for his campaign.
“I will admit to you than I am sorely
tempted to utilize these funds, and I have
been told by the secretary of state that
there may will be ways to use the money
before the election,” he said. “However, I
do not believe that such procedures would
be within the spirit — even if it were
within the letter — of the law.”
John Barron, Jr., the present county at
torney and Elmore’s opponent in the May
Democratic primary, was not aware the
news conference had taken place.
“He’s been doing a lot of things like that
that I can’t figure out,” Barron said. “He
sneaks around a lot.”
charging that the Texas A&M election
commission was guilty of “serious
violations of the electoral process.”
The four, Scott Gregson, Joe Beall,
Laura Brockman, and Austin Sterling,
specified 13 points of contention in the
presentation of their case.
Objections included charges that a
member of the election commission had
been a candidate during the election and
had campaigned actively for another can
didate, that polling places were without
supervisors for “a majority of the time,”
and that the extension of the elections for
an extra day violated election commission
regulations.
Other contentions were that the com
mission had failed to post sample ballots or
voting instructions at polling places, that
the commission had failed to supply the
student senate with polling places for
run-off elections, that instructions on mak
ing write-in or “no-confidence” votes were
not available at most polls, and that elec
tions were held over three days while the
maximum allowed was two.
Stan Stanfield, counsel for the defense
of the election commission, said that if
new elections were to be held, they would
probably be scheduled for dead week.
Stanfield argued that this would merely
have compounded the problem of gather
ing workers for the polling places.
Stanfield said that the commission had
done its best to staff the polls, but had only
been able to keep five open throughout
most of the elections.
Mike Gerst, member of the election
commission, testified that more than 700
ballots had been tabulated which had no
“demographic information” on them. De
mographic information refers to answers to
questions concerning on or off campus re
sidence and membership in the Corps of
Cadets.
Gerst tabulated the results with a com
puter in San Marcos. He stated that he felt
it was more important to allow a large
number of students to vote than to inva
lidate their ballots because of a lack of in
formation.
Gerst said that many people might have
voted in both the Residence Hall Associa
tion and the Off Campus Student Associa
tion presidential races due to the deletion
of demographic information.
However, Farmer noted that all candi
dates were subject to the same disadvan
tages in the elections.
eral weeks. Austin said it would be a
worthwhile exhibit for someone thinking
of majoring in landscape architecture.
Austin said that the preliminary out
come of the team’s visit looked positive,
and that an early write-up cif the evalua
tion said “that the overall quality of the
program was excellent.’
Several members of a senior design lab
didn’t agree. A spokesman for the lab, who
asked that he not be named, said that
“probably 50 percent of the senior land
scape architecture students would have a
serious gripe about the program.” He
added that there is an extreme amount of
negativism among the students towards
the department.
A main complaint of the class, which
was expressed to the accreditation team,
was that they didn’t feel they were pre
pared to step out into a working environ
ment. Another complaint was one of the
intense overload.
Austin said that he knew about the
senior’s gripes, and that he had encoraged
them to “call a spade a spade” when the
team began asking questions. He also said
that the complaint of overload is a common
one among landscape architecture stu
dents, that he had the same gripes when
he was in school.
Austin said that this particular design
lab was unhappy because they had been
caught in the middle of a program change.
The department had been trying to tie the
construction courses in with the design
courses and these seniors got caught in the
middle of the change.
Both sides have now had their say in the
matter, and it is now up to the accredita
tion board to make the final decision.
By TIM RAVEN
Two opposing citizen’s groups and the
College Station Parks and Recreation
Committee locked horns for two hours
Tuesday evening at City Hall in a heated
debate over the development of Anderson
Park. Other items on the agenda for the
regularly scheduled meeting were post
poned by the committee because of the
large number of citizens who turned out to
discuss the Anderson Park situation.
Plans for the park, as they now stand,
call for a lighted softball field, a 38-car
parking lot, a small play ground, and a na
ture trail. The lights and the parking lot,
however, will be only temporary, and
plans are to remove them at the end of
next summer.
The debate brokeout over the proposed
lighting and possible traffic problem
around the park.
Residents of the area surrounding the
park who attended the meeting spoke out
against the lighting of the park because of
the distraction it might cause. The resi
dents spoke of the possibility of games last
ing past midnight and of the lights distract
ing their children.
Also, one of the residents compared the
“temporary” part of the plans to “tempo
rary” buildings at some schools which, he
said, sometimes remain at one location for
20 to 30 years.
Proponents of the temporary lighting
and parking set-up represented local ath
letic associations. They spoke of the “des
perate need” of local soccer teams and
girls’ softball teams for a lighted game
field.
The proponents said that there are so
many teams that games must be played
into the night. They added that the lights
would probably only be used for about an
hour each night.
Most people in attendance agreed that
extra parking was needed at the park.
Andy Czimsky, interim director of the
College Station Parks and Recreation De
partment, was asked by the committee to
draw up several revised parking plans for
the park to be presented at the next regu
lar committee meeting.
Gay supporters schedule
national ‘blue jean day’
“The idea is, if you’re gay, wear blue jeans.” David Kotara, speaking for the
Gay Student Services Organization, gave his opinion on the purpose of Blue
Jeans Day.
Blue Jeans Day is Friday, April 14. The National Gay Task Force has asked
gay groups on college campuses across the nation to promote gay awareness on
that day. Gay persons and gay rights supposed to wear blue jeans to show their
support for the movement.
The idea is to help pull the gay groups together, Kotara said. He said the pos
sibility that straights might wear blue jeans and thus be harassed might help
them see world from a gay’s point of view.
“This gives the gays a chance to come out in force and show that they’re not
afraid, Kotara said. “It will let everyone see how many gay students there are
on campus, as well as let others show their support,” he said.
The National Gay Task Force is a nation-wide organization for promoting gay
rights and educating the public on the gay lifestyle. It publishes a monthly news
letter, Action Report, which discusses the results of lawsuits and legislation deal
ing with gay rights.
According to Action Report:
“Adequate publicity and participation of gays in Blue Jeans Day may be an
effective consciousness-raising tool, on the one hand, to suggest how many gay
students there are on campus; and on the other to let non-gays caught’ in jeans
feel for a moment what our oppression is like.”
Kotara said Blue Jeans Day is given national publicity but seems to go over
better on college campuses.
The ad for Blue Jeans Day which appeared in Monday’s Battalion was paid for
by the GSSO, Kotara said.
When asked if he feared repercussions from straights, Kotara laughed.
‘Are you kidding?” he asked. He said he has already been harrassed so much
he is not afraid any more.
"Last time I quit counting after the hundredth phone call,” he said.
‘Where’s the fire?’
College Station firemen examine the charred
engine of a Volkswagen belonging to Paul Wad
dell, a Texas A&M University junior. The car
caught on fire as Waddell was waiting at the traf
fic light at the intersection of West Main and
Wellborn Road. No one was injured. Waddell did
not notice the fire until a car honking behind him
caught his attention.