Battalion
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Inside Tuesday
Tornado drill exposes real dangers,
p. 7.
The Sex Pistols — an average band,
p. 6.
A day in the pits, p. 9.
Canal compromise
attempted before vote
takes a TGIF break from studying on the park
bench in front of the Academic Building.
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — A quest for com
promise to satisfy undecided senators con
tinued to the eve of the Senate vote on the
final Panama Canal accord, with treaty
foes and backers alike claiming victory
within reach.
Sixty House members have been trying
to establish that the House should vote on
the treaties as well as the Senate, because
under the constitution the president may
not dispose of U.S. property without the
consent of both houses.
The two Panama Canal documents,
which Carter signed on Sept. 7, have been
handled as treaties requiring approval of
the Senate only. The Senate already has
approved the first one and takes a final
vote today on the second.
Senate leaders worked to preserve a
fragile pro-treaty coalition in the face of
threatened defections.
A number of senators said they were
considering last-minute changes of heart
because of an amendment attached to the
companion neutrality treaty. The amend
ment allows the United States to intervene
in Panama to keep the canal operating in
the event of labor strife.
Senate leaders worked over the
weekend to clarify the provision without
alienating senators won over by it. They
tried to work out a pledge to Panama that
the United States would not
intervene in the nation’s domestic af
fairs.
evised constitution up for approval
By LIZ NEWLIN
Battalion Staff
vas be» le student government proposes to
he w,i ^’tribute the power in the revised stu-
[uck Jnt body constitution, which is up for ap-
RutheP 1 '! Wednesday.
eld. Benators OK’d the new document at
ce n t 0 p-,lust meeting with little debate, but
an. Du tents must ratify the whole constitution
trained 1 majority vote before it can take effect.
el les | # dents may vote 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed-
[ij s y lay in the Memorial Student Center,
j vjjjjj, ies of both constitutions will be availa-
ors said ,
and w he proposed constitution gives the
)me U aker of the senate more power, and it
joonSi 1 clarifies grade point requirements for
president. Under the proposed con-
jijj btion, the student body president must
g s yj Isfy GPR requirements in University
17351 !es and Regulations. Those standards
. Wor |[, |v state that a student officer must post a
^ n| l(! GPR each semester,
lowte "^ e S rac l e provision in the proposed
the
Her ti
istitution also applies to members and
cers of the senate. The cause of at least
time-consuming controversy over
t auades would have been eliminated if lan
era - ej j ige in the current document was that
n( ] jjjj alicit. The former president and vice
aresenl
his Co)
19.485
d set® 1
president for student services claimed
ambiguity in the constitution as a defense
before they resigned for poor grades.
Another significant change would be the
complete separation of the legislative and
executive branches. The executive com
mittee would be replaced with a “legisla
tive board” of the vice presidents and offi
cers of the senate.
This move would give the speaker more
power, enough power to balance the
News Analysis
might of the president. The speaker would
lead the legislative board, which would act
for the senate during breaks and the sum
mer. Now part of that responsibility is
with the president.
The speaker in the proposed constitu
tion also would have another tool for
power — the senate internal affairs com
mittee. This committee, appointed and
chaired by the speaker, would appoint
students to fill vacancies in the senate. The
president does this now. The committee
could also be charged with checking
grades or anything else the speaker
wanted.
The speaker would be responsible for
assigning all pending legislation to a com
mittee for review. Most of the legislation is
assigned for study now, but it is not man
datory. The new constitution also would
all ow a bill to "die in committee, some
thing that can’t be done now.
In the executive branch, the student
body president would have more freedom
to structure his department. He would
lose his strong voice in the executive
committee, but he would gain a vice pres
ident.
The executive vice president, recom
mended by the president and approved by
the senate, would replace the executive
director. The executive VP would proba
bly have more administrative power than
the executive director does not.
One interesting feature of the proposed
constitution is the revised succession
schedule. If the presidency becomes va
cant, the executive VP would automati
cally become president. Now the choices
are limited to the five vice presidents. If
the executive VP refuses to serve, the se
nate could choose any student to fill the
top spot.
Results might have been quite different
if the senate had been free to fill the presi
dency from the student body at large.
The proposed constitution would more
clearly separate the executive and legisla
tive branches, with trade-offs in power for
both.
School leader against
proposed tax program
Jneva t
a John
mdretli
:he bad
place.
loff,l
ow wen
Undents receive awards
for academic excellence
By CONNIE BURKE
Iwenty-nine students received the
omas S. Gathright Academic Excel-
ice Award in Rudder Auditorium Sun-
n
/-type
15 * 1 The award is given each year to the stu-
Int with the highest grade point ratio in
[class and college. It was established by
, 3 student government in 1973.
: ‘ ie , ca f Gathright was the first president of
polisi
).
lodgers wins
)Y IN ^
m parathon
United Press International
For the second year in a row Bill Rod-
jrs of Melrose, Mass, won the Boston
(arathon. Rodgers slithered through a
ight headwind to gain the narrowest
Jctory in the 82-year history of the event.
iHis time of 2:10:13 gave him the fastest
Id second fastest finishes in the Boston
■arathon annals. Pie set the mark of
,—•<109,55 in 1975 on a sunnier day with the
HHlllHfind at his back.
Jeff Wells, a Rice University graduate
d now a seminary student in Dallas,
lished second in a time of 2:10:15. Wells,
io was not among the top five runners
itil midway through the race, ate up all
[it 15 yards of the 200-yard lead that Rod-
[rs had built on the field of 4,212 official
krants.
“I’m really disappointed that I didn’t
ish earlier in the race,” Wells said. “I
ay have made my push too late.”
1 Frank Shorter fell to the same curse as
|ght other Olympic gold medalists, finish-
ig 23rd after straggling over the 2.5-mile
Iretch of hills. Defending champion
Tome Drayton dropped out of the race
cause of a bothersome hamstring.
In the women’s division late entry Gayle
iron of Atlanta took command on the
ills to win her first marathon in 2:45:24.
fill
Texas A&M University, serving from 1876
to 1879.
Deans of each college selected three
students (a sophomore, a junior and a
senior) to receive the award. If several
students tied for the highest GPR, the
winner was selected on the basis of his ex
tracurricular activities and his total
number of credit hours at Texas A&M.
The College of Agriculture awarded
Karen Moore (senior), Thomas Wallace
Paterson (junior) and Sherly Ann
Hausinger (sophomore) the Gathright
award.
The recipients in the College of Ar
chitecture and Environmental Design
were Melanie Jane Francis (senior),
Donald Eugene Jeffers (junior) and Rollie
D. Childers (sophomore).
The College of Business selected
Michael Glass Pate (senior), Sara Joanne
Feldman (junior) and Theresa Louise
Bates (sophomore).
The College of Education selections
were Bonnie Sue Bendele (senior), Cathy
Marie Robinson (junior) and Kim Louise
Whisenant (sophomore).
The College of Engineering recipients
were Stancy Jean Akers (senior), Marcus
A. Watts (junior) and James Zimmerman
(sophomore).
The College of Geosciences awarded
Ronny Jay McWhorter (senior), Robert
Merrill (junior) and William Kingsbery
(sophomore).
Those selected in the College of Liberal
Arts were Donald Riche Deere, Jr.
(senior), Casey Eugene Zesch (junior) and
John Michael Earners (sophomore).
Moody College awarded Charmiane
Walter (senior), Pierre J. Riou (junior) and
John B. Sullivan (sophomore).
The College of Science selected Robert
Legare (senior), James Donald Seaver, Jr.
(junior) and Jan Leenette Dymke (sopho
more).
The College of Veterinary Medicine
awarded George Cantrell (third year) and
Jana L. Robbins (second year).
United Press International
AUSTIN — A proposed federal tax
credit program for private schools will
make public schools an educational waste
land and revert the nation to segregation, a
Texas school leader said Monday.
Will Davis, a member of the Austin
school board and until April president of
the National School Boards Association,
said a proposal to allow tax credits or
grants of as much as $500 per student in
private schools will encourage further
"white flight from public schools.
“It will be a re-segregation of schools in
a very detrimental manner,” Davis said.
"If you allow tax credits to these schools
you’ll have middle income and richer stu-
Rock band • ‘punk
without teeth’
By DOUG GRAHAM
Battalion Staff
They came to shock and to rock a local
club, advertised as a fifties group with
punk rock overtones. They were Vince
Vance and the Valiants, somewhat fresh
after 56 days on tour.
The college crowd was packed around
the tables, sons and daughters of the fifties
rock heritage, trying to taste vicariously
that which their older brothers and sisters
had drunk deep draughts.
Yet, Sidney, “The Professor, ” one of the
8-man band’s guitar players said, “Please
don’t use the word, ‘Fifties. ’”
Yet, what could you call it? Punk?
Glen Himmaugh, their sound man put
it simply, “We feel punk rock isn’t going
anywhere. We were punk before they
ever got started.”
Which is true. When it comes to punk,
the Valiants are about as punk as possible,
except for one thing.
They are punk without teeth.
And punk without teeth becomes almost
fun, almost too camp, which is something
“The Incredible” Andy Stone, the new
leader, said they didn’t want to occur. He
said they did songs they felt like doing and
that they weren’t a mere “study in genre. ”
The audience of affluent college stu
dents enjoyed the almost lewd, definitely
risque jokes and acts. After one crude re
mark, Stone said, “Hey, this is a family
show.”
Review
“A classic Catch-22 situation” in which
treaty backers risk losing votes either way
was the way Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev.,
characterized the situation.
Some senators opposed any tampering
with the intervention amendment au
thored by Sen. Dennis DeConcini,
D-Ariz.
The defection of any senator could
jeopardize the outcome of Tuesday’s vote
on whether to yield U.S. control of the
51-mile waterway to Panama on the last
day of 1999.
Rejection of the second accord would
scuttle both agreements negotiated during
13 years of arduous U. S.-Panamanian
talks.
The March vote to ratify the neutrality
accord was 68 to 32, giving victory to
treaty backers by a scant one vote.
Two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 senators
if all 100 vote, is needed to ratify the
treaty.
School board hears
complaints on election
A large crowd gathered Monday night as
the A&M Consolidated School Board
heard complaints about possible dis
crepancies in last Saturday’s runoff elec
tion.
Ann Jones, who unsuccessfully opposed
Robeck in the April 1 election and the
Arpil 15 runoff, told the board she felt the
runoff election Saturday was “sloppy. ”
She called upon another citizen to speak
on her behalf . He said he saw the election
clerks emptying the ballots onto a table
while the election was in progress. He said
the clerks told him they were counting the
ballots, but not the votes.
“That’s just not the way it ought to be,”
he said.
Doris Watson, who has served as an
election judge, told the board it is “nor
mal, legal procedure” for election clerks to
unlock the ballot box during the election.
Since the ballots are punched to be
counted by a computer, she said, the
clerks must make sure that all the holes
are clearly punched and that no ballots are
mutilated. Watson said clerks are also re
quired to count the ballots before sending
them to be counted by the computer.
In other action, former board member
Roger Feldman asked the board to rescind
an April 3 motion to raise high school
graduation requirements. He was
applauded by the large crowd.
The board rescinded the motion, and
scheduled a public meeting to discuss the
issue. The meeting was set for 7 p.m.
today in the A&M Consolidated High
School cafeteria.
The board accepted Watson’s state
ments and swore in Robeck for another
term as school board president.
The board also scheduled a Board of
Equalization meeting for 3 p.m. Tuesday
at 107 Timber.
dents in private schools and a public
school system that’s composed primarily of
minority students.
“The tuition tax credit is probably the
biggest threat to public education at any
time since Congress has been involved in
public education,” he said. “It will erode
support for public schools.”
Davis and representatives of the Texas
Association of School Administrators,
Texas Association of School Boards, Texas
Council of Parents and Teachers and Texas
State Teachers Association held a Capitol
news conference Monday to urge defeat of
the $1.7 billion tuition tax credit bill pend
ing in Congress.
The Professors’ reply was, “Yeah, the
Manson family.”
They let the audience in on their pun-
kified tough act. It was almost gratifying to
see them hint that those “collegiates” in
the audience were actually “tuff,” too.
Stone licked his microphone, grabbed a
girl from the audience, and hammed it up
for the audience while in a cast. He said
Battalion photo by Jana Hazlett
The guy with the chains on his chest is called “The Hood” and he’s
part of a band from New Orleans called Vince Vance and the
Valiants. The group performed in College Station Monday night.
he’d broken his foot performing at Willie
Nelson’s Whiskey River in Dallas. The
Professor, too, had his ankles taped, com
menting the band was the "walking
wounded” after their 56 day tour.
Yet they performed, and they per
formed with intensity. They were having
fun, and they wanted to let the audience in
on it. The New Orleans based band was
not merely camping it up; they were play
ing their own sort of game using their fa
vorite elements of the fifties and sixties
music.
Stone said, “There’s nothing important
in the past, it’s the entity tonight.”
He was referring to the group’s act. He
said each act to them is something new, a
chance to participate with the audience
and ram “our fantasy down their throats so
they won’t think about their troubles. ”
And the audience did just that; they
swallowed the act and left Texas A&M be
hind them. When the Professor asked
what time it was, one guy in the back of
the audience ventured, “Howdy Doody?”
“No,” was the reply, laced with friendly
profanity, it was “Hoodsy Woodsy Time.”
And then they introduced the Hood.
Girls in the audience yelled out “Hood,
Hood,” which Stone said was both annoy
ing and gratifying.
It was annoying in that the Valiants still
needed to get on with their lines, but ul
timately gratifying in that they were get
ting that intimate participation they
wanted from the people in the crowd.
They are skilled musicians, which
showed they possess something greater
than the ability to parody. In fact, theirs is
not so much an imitation of the fifties as a
departure from it, though they still retain
a close feel for their roots.
Amidst a group of kids whose toughest
encounters lately are probably exam
inations and bouts at the backgammon ta
bles, Vince Vance and the Valiants poured
on the semi-punk. From swaggering with
their fifties heritage, to playing their
guitars behind their backs, they invited
the audience to escape the world of trou
bles. Stone said his band’s biggest asset is
an affinity for crowds. He said they want to
see people leave their shows smiling, as
many in the club did. They want participa
tion, he said, and get it.
Compared to punk rock groups which
attack their audiences this is different be
havior than what might have been ex
pected.
Vince Vance and the Valiants fouled up.
They showed that beneath their punk,
they’ve got at least a little civilized lining,
and beneath the fifties label there’s a
group of talented entertainers.