Y
The Battalion
Vol. 71 No. 139
16 Pages
Wednesday, April 19, 1978
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Inside Wednesday
What happens when you’re arrested
for D.W.I., p. 9.
New dean appointed for College of
Medicine, p. 3.
Preview of the Maroon and White
game, p. 14.
Senate ratifies
Panama treaty
| United Press International
I WASHINGTON — In a businesslike
I ual that signaled the end of a historic
la, the Senate Tuesday ratified the
I nama Canal treaty 68-32 and pledged
tli United States to give up the waterway
| the last of the 20th Century.
This is a day of which Americans can
ays feel proud, for now we have re-
rnuded the world and ourselves of the
ngs we stand for as a nation,” an exul-
a it President Carter said, accepting the
ii [gest political victory of his presidency,
le indicated he would travel to Panama
I' in the next few weeks to present for-
I ratification to Panamanian Leader
lar Torrijos. Carter said he had talked
|h Torrijos by telephone after the vote,
been assured Panama will accept the
ties with reservations placed by the
ate.
he razor-thin ratification decision —
vote more than the two-thirds major-
eeded — set U.S.-Latin American re-
ns onto a new course by formally re-
ing the 1903 treaty that was the cen-
iece of Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick
lomacy in the Americas,
anama quickly dispelled fears it might
ct the pacts by sending its ambassador,
riel Lewis, to the White House “to tell
I President that we accept the treaty.
■Now I really feel that Panama is an in
reporters as he headed for the executive
mansion.
Carter, too, was jubilant. The vote deli
vered him the most important policy
victory, foreign or domestic, he has yet
achieved, and he quickly announced his
pleasure — and Panama’s notification it
would accept the pacts — in a nationally
televised appearance.
He watched the roll-call on a television
set in the office of his personal secretary,
then telephoned his gratitude to Senate
Democratic Leader Robert Byrd of Wesr
Virginia, who steered the treaties through
one potentially fatal controversy after
another and cast the deciding 67th vote
Tuesday.
“You’re a great man, that was beautiful
vote!” he told Byrd, according to a White
House spokesman.
The parchment treaty, together with
the companion neutrality pact approved in
March, now go to Carter for signature of
the ratification documents — and a mo
ment of celebration before he must fight
the next battle in a canal treaty con
troversy that will continue.
Treaty foes, who condemned the pacts
to the end as a sell-out of U.S. interests
and prestige, were sure to try to block the
implementing legislation that must now be
approved by the House of Representa
tives.
lendent country, ” Lewis jubilantly told
Dance to benefit MD
By CHRIS PICCIONE
Members of the Omega Phi Alpha
PA) service sorority and their brother
ternity Alpha Phi Omega (APO) are
illenging the students and faculty of
xas A&M University to a showdown of
gie spirit and willingness to help those
icted with Muscular Dystrophy.
\pril 22, OPA, in cooperation with
0, will sponsor a Benefit Dance
irathon to be held at the Lakeview
ub. The marathon will begin at noon
1 run continually until midnight. Roy
bbins and the Availables will begin
lying at 9 p. m.
P
VISTA
the
3d. etc
6-27
m
uning^]
siniega
A
To enter the marathon, couples must
pay a $4 fee. This fee includes dance tick
ets, two dance marathon t-shirts and dance
numbers to be worn by the contestants.
Sponsored dancers who collect the most
money and dance the entire 12 hours will
have the opportunity to win the grand
prize of a color television and a stereo unit.
The organization that earns the most
money will receive a keg party.
Entry forms and sponsor sheets will be
available until Friday on the first floor of
the MSC. The entry forms must be com
pleted and turned in at the OPA/APO
cubicle. Sponsor sheets also must be
turned in no later than noon, April 22.
7 ood stamp program
maltered by decision
By BILL WILSON
Something changed, yet nothing changed.
Federal insbuctions regarding applications for food stamps have been changed,
ut the decision altered nothing in the Brazos County food stamp program.
A-recent federal court decision, Aiken v. Obledo, invalidated federal instructions
lat required proof of need for emergency food stamps.
Formerly, food stamp caseworkers were instructed to contact a person living
utside the applicant’s home to determine need, or to have the household prove its
eed. Also, no household could receive food stamps more than once every six
nonths.
The effect of the federal court order will be retroactive to August 1974.
Food stamp caseworker Patrice Fagan said federal guidelines allowed variations in
xal policy, so Brazos County’s program already conforms to the new policy.
“As far as I know we didn’t do that (limit emergency food stamp recipients to once
very six months) here,” she said.
Fagan said the court decision “didn’t change anything as far as regulations.” The
Deal limit generally does not allow anyone who has received food stamps within the
last month to receive emergency food stamps.
However, if a family is not expecting income for seven days and does not have
nough money and food to last until they receive their next authorization-to-purchase
ard, they may be eligible for emergency food stamps. Authorization-to-purchase
aids, used to purchase food stamps, are issued from Austin once a month.
The local program will still use a person outside the home whenever possible to
letermine if there is a legitimate need for food stamps.
Fagan said case workers will continue to visit homes of food stamp recipients.
“A lot of tilings are obvious when you go into someone’s home,” she said.
Larry Carnes, director of food stamp program and policy development, said the old
policy instructions were abandoned because they had not been published in the
Federal Register, and were therefore invalid. The Federal Register is a list of all laws
d amendments open to public comment for revision or adoption.
“It was a technicality,” said Carnes. “We were doing what they told us to do and, in
essence, they were wrong.”
Boy war hero fighting
for honorable discharge
United Press International
FORT WORTH — At the age of 12 Cal-
fn Graham was a navy war hero. Now he
}48, crippled with arthritis and forgotten.
In 1942 Graham quit the seventh grade
/ i Houston and convinced a naval recrui-
I I er he was old enough to join his brothers
T# World War II.
He was a gunner in the Pacific front at
le battles of Guadalcanal and Santa Cruz,
aring his combat tour he was awarded
le Asiatic Pacific Service medal with two
impaign stars, the World War II Victory
ledal and a Navy Unit Commendation
dth a Bronze Star.
But when officials found out they had an
dolescent on their hands, his service rec-
M and medals were revoked. Graham,
Vho became known as World War II’s
|Baby Vet,” so embarrassed the Navy that
le was jailed for three months when his
ge was discovered.
The Navy says his enlistment was illegal
nd refuses to acknowledge Graham ever
ved.
All he wants now is an honorable dis-
harge.
Carson and Barnes five-ring circus appeared yesterday in College
Station, south of K-Mart at Texas and Deacon. The two-hour spec
tacle, billed as “America’s largest wild animal circus,” was pres
ented by the Bryan-College Station Jaycees, the second circus they
have presented in four years. Acrobats, trapeze artists, tightrope
walkers, clowns, lions and tigers, elephants, jugglers and much
more entertained the audience that filled the big top to quarter
capacity for the first show at 4:30 p.m. A second show was at 8 p.m.
Admission was free.
Battalion photo by Colin Crombie
10,000 booklets to be distribtited
Prof evaluations available Friday
By LINDA SULLIVAN
Ten thousand teacher evaluation book
lets compiled by the six-member Professor
Information Committee will be distrib
uted Friday around the Texas A&M Uni
versity campus. Committee Chairman
Mike Flores said the booklet serves as a
student to student communication device
in determining a choice for professors.
The 80-page newspaper stock booklet
contains over 390 entries from colleges
throughout the university, with a sepa
rate, more representative section survey
ing 80 percent of the College of Liberal
Arts professors. Each entry has the re-
spones to 13 questions numerically coded
from 1 through 5. The questions cover
categories ranging from exam fairness to
instructor attitude towards the course.
The entries include an average score tal
lied for each question from the varying
number of students surveyed.
Flores said the high faculty response
enhances this year’s evaluation results.
From 1,600 requests for survey participa
tion, 390 teachers replied, not including
the College of Liberal Arts. Survey tabula
tions could only be volunteered, said
Flores. “When the teacher agrees to go
through with the survey, they are also
agreeing to have the results published,”
he said.
The College of Liberal Arts offered 80
percent faculty participation with its own
evaluation survey drawn up by the col
lege’s Joint Excellence Committee. Their
13 questions differ in that Flores’ commit
tee’s questions vary from a positive to a
negative formulation; the liberal arts’
questions are all in a positive form.
Distribution date of the booklet is later
than Flores had hoped for, but due to the
student government internal shuffling,
“We let it slip up on us,” he said.
Students may receive a free evaluation
booklet from any of the dormitory resident
advisers or corps officials. Flores also
hopes to have several copies available at
each campus shuttle bus stop.
Dan Sullins, director of information for
student government, served as the prod
uction consultant of the two-semester long
project. Sullins said the operation as a
whole went smoother than last year’s. “We
cut corners where we could on the produc
tion cost, but we need to figure out a bet
ter type of computer program to put it to
gether quicker than the ten hours it took
us this time,” he said.
Student Body President Mike Hum
phrey said the total cost of the publication
was about $2,700. These funds were allo
cated to the committee through the Stu
dent Senate.
Plans for the 1978-79 instructor evalua
tion booklet are already underway. Flores
said a joint committee with the Student
Government and the College of Liberal
Arts is looking into the possibilities of for
mulating a new set of survey questions.
“I had already given up fighting for the
discharge,” Graham said. “But then they
came along with this discharge program
for deserters. I know they had their rea
sons for doing what they did, but I figure I
damn sure deserved an honorable dis
charge more than they did.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944
promised Graham, then 14 years old, an
honorable discharge from the Navy, his
battlefield medals and a Navy Cross.
“I’m still waiting,” Graham says.
Since he had no official service record,
Graham was to be drafted when he turned
20. He joined the Marines but suffered a
broken back and was discharged. After
that, his health began declining. His brief
stint in the Marine Corps brought him a
medical discharge and 40 percent disabil
ity. A Navy dischage would help cover the
expense of dental work and other medical
expenses.
Now Sens. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas,
and John Tower, R-Texas, are working to
have Graham granted an honorable dis
charge.
Parents, students oppose
graduation requirements
Careful, dontfall!. . .
Ronald Ross practices his skate-boarding by the MSC fountain for
the skateboard contest that will be held at the Grove on Saturday
at 11:00 A.M. Anyone is welcome to enter the contest that is spon
sored by the TAMU surfing club. Photo bv Dehhie Parsons
By MICHELLE BURROWES
Parents, students, and teachers ex
pressed their discontent with proposed
A&M Consolidated High School gradua
tion requirement changes at a special
school board meeting Tuesday night.
The board rescinded the recommenda
tion that the changes be made when citi
zens expressed their opposition at the
board meeting Monday night. The meet
ing will be in the Special Services Building
on Jersey Street. A curriculum meeting
will be held Wednesday at 7 p.m..
One main complaint that surfaced at the
meeting was that band students would no
longer be able to substitute band for phys
ical education.
Several citizens said that if students took
all required courses, required electives
and physical education, not enough elec
tives would be left under the proposed
changes for the students to take both band
and college preparatory courses like ad
vanced math, advanced science and
foreign languages.
“Music contributes to their lives and
lifestyles,” said James Matheny, A&M
Consolidated High School’s choir director.
“If that isn’t what education is about, then
I must be mistaken.”
Physical education requirements are not
the only ones affected by the proposed
changes. Six additional credits would be
required from career guidance laboratory,
a vocational skills class, and the optional
but controversial free enterprise system
class.
The free enterprise class, labeled by
students and parents at the meeting as “a
propaganda course,” is a state-mandated
elective. Board president Bruce Robeck
said he understands it to be “a course on
the virtues of capitalism.”
One citizen, Aurthur Wright, said stu
dents might benefit by studying our eco
nomic system.
Parents and students also complained
about non-transferable summer school
credits.
Many A&M Consolidated students take
(Consolidated offers no summer courses)
but receive no credit for them.
Superintendent Fred Hopson said the
district’s policy is to accept transfer credits
only if the course was taken as remedial
schooling.
Many parents and students objected to
this practice, saying it is hard for a student
to remain interested in school when he is
unable to work at his own pace.
A “closed campus” proposal aimed at re
stricting students’ “off periods also met
with opposition, since many students use
the last period of the day as an off period
and work in the afternoons.
Court upholds
judgment for
Yarbrough case
United Press International
AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court
today upheld a $98,966 judgment against
former Justice Donald B. Yarbrough for
Yarbrough’s role in dealings with two
Houston men concerning a bank stock
purchase.
The high court on which Yarbrough
served for six months before being forced
to resign in the face of legislative proceed
ings to remove him from office upheld the
lower court decisions against Yarbrough
without written comment.
Rex L. Cooper and D.W. Ford, both
former business associates, filed the suit
against Yarbrough contending he induced
them to finance the purchase of controlling
interest in Commercial Bank of Victoria,
that Yarbrough used the f "■ 1
stock in his own name, and that Yarbrough
wrongfully surrendered to stock to
Greater Houston Bank to secure a loan.
Cooper also sued Yarbrough for fraud
and legal malpractice, contending Yar
brough failed to provide him with a tax
shelter as Yarbrough had agreed while act-