The Battalion
Ol. 72 No. 64
6 Pages in 2 Sections
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Monday, December 4, 1978
College Station, Texas
Spotlight on the ‘A’ in ‘A&M’
The Agriculturist, a special
supplement in today’s Battalion,
focuses on agriculture at Texas
A&M University. Mule trainers,
a student body president, a win
ning rodeo team, rodeo clowns
and a state rodeo queen are some
of the features. The magazine is
edited and produced by agricul
tural journalism students under
the direction of the Agriculturual
Communicators of Tomorrow
Club.
l&M hosts national
arm
conference
By STEVE LEE
Battalion Campus Editor
he Agricultural Council of America
A) and Texas A&M University are
nsoring the first National Farm Sum-
Conference at Rudder Center begin-
today and continuing through mid-
Wednesday.
he summit could assume national sig-
jance since more than 400 leaders rep
uting different segments of the farm-
ndustry were expected for this
ning’s convening. The stated purpose
ie summit is to arrive at agreement on
tions to economic problems facing the
ner today.
he conference centers around a series
task force reports, the culmination
p to a year’s planning by each group,
scheduled to speak at the summit are
tier Texas governor and cabinet
jiber John Connally and Sen. Robert
e, R-Kan. Connally is scheduled to
ak this afternoon at 12:30 after a lunch-
Room 224 of the Memorial Student
ter. Dole will speak Tuesday night fol-
ng dinner at the Ramada Inn ball-
,&M to he
oliday inn
terim housing will be provided for stu-
s who remain at Texas A&M Univer-
over the Christmas break, said Ron E.
e, associate director of student affairs.
3rty-four spaces will be available in
hmacher Hall for students currently in
lence halls and who have also reserved
m for the Spring Semester. It will cost
ents $75 for rooms during the holiday
Sasse said eligible students must
and pay the fee at the Housing
e in the YMCA building,
ie registration period begins Wednes-
and continues through next Tuesday,
12. Sasse said room assignments will
ade between 1-5 p.m. on Friday, Dec.
n Lounge A-2.
Each task force was led by noted
academic figures and will suggest solutions
to problems in a particular area.
At the summit the findings of each task
force will be summarized by the group’s
chair man. A panel of experts on each topic
will react to the reports and then the
floor will be open for discussion.
The first report to be discussed at this
morning’s session was scheduled to center
upon international trade. After Connally’s
speech this afternoon, a task force report
dealing with nutrition, product quality and
safety is schedided at 2:30.
Subsequent reports on Tuesday and
Wednesday will concern resource use and
product costs, farm commodity prices and
income, and agriculture’s role in govern
ment decisions.
As an interesting footnote to the sum
mit, about 200 members of the American
Agriculture Movement (AAM) have driven
about 50 grain trucks from as far away as
Wyoming to the summit to hold a three-
day rally. They will eventually drive to the
Port of Houston to market their grain
themselves, they say, to demonstrate that
no middleman is needed to do the job.
Regarding the summit itself, AAM
members say that not enough producers
will be present to provide needed policy
change ideas.
In a statement released last week,
summit officials rebuted the argument,
saying that several members of tbe AAM
have been members of the task forces as
signed for the conference.
Monday
12:30 p.m. — Luncheon, John Con
nally — Room 224 MSC
2:30 p.m. — Task Force Report —
Nutrition, Product Quality and Safety
— Rudder Theatre
3:45 p.m. — Task Force Reaction —
Rudder Theatre
Tuesday
9 a.m. — Task Force Report — Re
source Use and Production Costs —
Rudder Theatre
ueen of the rails’
six in crash
f, United Press International
pLMA, Va. — The luxurious Southern
pcent, queen of America’s passenger
fes, derailed in rural Virginia Sunday,
aming silver cars, in a wild tumble
i'n a steep embankment, piled on top of
In other like toys.
Tt least six people were killed and as
»y as 60 others injured, five critically.
ICrescent cook, Roosevelt Martin, was
Jpe kitchen and had just begun to pre-
p breakfast— bacon, eggs and sausage,
muffins and grits — over the train’s
stoves.
he first call for breakfast — at 6 a.m.
Pday — W as only 20 minutes away,
pdore Coleman, 64, of Atlanta, a wai-
Itor 38 years with Southern, was setting
I tables.
fuddenly, three of the train’s four
pmotives and all eight passenger cars
[j|Ped the tracks near Elma, a rural town
v ay between Charlottesville and Lyn-
purg.
|I was just standing there by the re-
prator and then all of a sudden every-
jig came flying forward,” said Martin,
u 0 Was treated for minor injuries at
'University of Virginia Hospital.
L ^tin said he was momentarily buried
| er ° e bris and trapped in darkness, but
|' v as able to escape the wrecked car
pugh a window.
Neman escaped serious injury but his
htional uniform of white coat and black
w as bloodied.
e dining car was split in half. Two
(s . w ® re trapped beneath the stove,
oithem Lewis Price, of Atlanta, died,
other, Med Haynes, of Atlanta, was
person pulled from the wreck
than 11 hours later.
L e lining car and the baggage car were
pooped and rolled down the embank-
® > parallel to the track. A sleeping car
L p in to the dining car perpendicu-
T fl ° r ITlan sa i < d if the accident had oc-
„ e , a few minutes later after breakfast
oeing served, the toll would have
R much higher.
16S ^ Ue crews worked throughout Sun-
'■& V mes i n a driving rain, to remove
j ea d and dying, some of them pinned
. er the twisted metal.
L S ^ Ue efforts were hampered by the
JT terrain and the steep embank-
[ > which dropped sharply from the
Bill Tk° a 40 ' foot gully,
id r 10m P s °n, a member of the Rose-
escue Squad, was one of the first on
; ^ene.
j 0 i got there, there was mass con-
Th n0t mass hysteria,” he said,
jjj ?P ass engers were still all in the
1 « , e got most of them out through
Endows.”
The whole idea behind the Crescent,
the last of America’s long-distance pri
vately owned passenger trains, has been to
keep alive a dying tradition of quality
passenger service.
Since 1926 the Crescent has plied the
rails between Washington and New Or
leans. Its dining car, with silver tableware
and pitchers, was its trademark. It had
crisp, white linen tablecloths, fresh carna
tions on each table, and excellent South
ern cuisine cooked on wood stoves.
10:45 a.m. — Task Force Reaction —
Rudder Theatre
1:30 p.m. — Task Force Report —
Farm Commodity Prices and Income
— Rudder Theatre
3:15 p.m. — Task Force Reaction —
Rudder Theatre
7 p.m. — Dinner, Robert Dole —
Ramada Inn ballroom
Wednesday
8:30 a.m. — Task Force Report — Ag
riculture’s Role In Government Deci
sion — Rudder Theatre
10 a.m. — Task Force Reaction —
Rudder Theatre
11:30 a.m. — Summit Review —
Rudder Theatre
12:30 p.m. — Adjournment
These grain trucks, some coming from as far as
Wyoming, were driven by farmers Sunday to pro
test the National Farm Summit Conference here.
Battalion photo by Steve Lee
After the conference, which begins today, the farm
ers will travel to the Houston Ship Channel to sell
their grain in person, without middlemen.
Tornadoes cause $100 million damage
Lousiana, Arkansas ravaged
United Press International
BOSSIER CITY, La. — Rare winter tor
nadoes spawned by unseasonably warm
weather dropped like deadly bombs across
northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas
Sunday killing four persons, injuring hun
dreds of others and causing more than $100
million in property damage.
The killer tornadoes struck in the pre
dawn darkness out of a thick line of thun
derstorms leaving a trail of destruction
from the red-clay banks of the Red River to
the industrial community of El Dorado,
Ark., 100 miles to the northeast.
The worst hit of the half dozen southern
communities was Bossier City in northwest
Louisiana, across, the. Red River from
Shreveport, where state police said two
young girls were killed and more than 180
persons were injured — at least three
dozen severly.
More than 1,500 persons were left home
less.
A third fatality was reported at Heflin,
La., a small farming community near Bos
sier City where six persons were injured.
A fourth person was killed in El Dorado
when a frame house was demolished by
a dozen trees uprooted by the winds.
Another half dozen people were injured in
that Arkansas town.
Officials called the low death toll “a mira
cle.”
“The amazing thing about this disaster is
the amount of damage to buildings — the
structural damage throughout the area —
and the so few casualties,” said Maj. Gen.
O.J. Daigle Jr. of the Louisiana National
Guard.
“When you fly over and see some of
these houses completely dismanteld you
wonder how so few died. I’d say there was
over $100 million worth of damage. ”
Bossier City mayor Marvin E. Anding
confirmed the money estimate and said the
city was spared by God from more misery.
“He must have been with us. I can’t be
lieve we only had two deaths with the mis
erable mess we have out there,” he said.
Authorities partially credited the end of
the horse racing season for the low fatality
figures.
The Bossier City tornado leveled a
nearly vacant motor hotel on the city’s east
side near the track, injuring about 60 per
sons. A week earlier, the hotel, the city’s
largest with a capacity of several hundred,
would have been packed with visitors.
Anding said about 65 residential build
ings, including one large apartment Com
plex, were destroyed in the two-block
wide, eight-mile long path of the giant tor
nado. The mayor also said some looters had
been arrested.
“I cannot believe that we did have some
attempts at looting 20 minutes after the
tornado passed through the heart of Bos
sier, ” Anding said.
T’m not going to have people and their
homes and businesses looted. We are going
to deal with these people as severly as pos
sible.”
National Guardsmen, armed with rifles
and billy clubs, patrolled the area at night
fall.
The mayor said a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew
would be imposed for the city “until further
notice.”
“We have the entire Bossier City area
sealed off,” said state trooper Harold Car
penter. “Only emergency people and
people who can actually prove they live in
Bossier City can get in.”
The Bossier City storm struck at 1:50
a.m. Sunday dropping down northeast of
the Red River and leveling homes, schools,
trees and businesses.
“At that time of night, there’s not much
warning,” said civil defense director W.C.
Eberhard.
“It developed so fast. It’s the most mas
sive tornado a National Weather Service
radar operator had seen in many a day.”
Although tornadoes generally are rare in
December, weather forecasters said the
Gulf State area was ripe for their develop
ment because of the equally unusual Indian
summer the area had been experiencing for
the past week. Temperatures had climbed
into the 80s Saturday and humidity ho
vered around the 90 percent mark in most
areas.
“Tornadoes are not that unusual consid
ering the weather,” said Herbert Roseman,
the NWS forecaster based in Fort Worth.
“Although they are most numerous in the
spring, Louisiana and other Gulf Coast
states can have them any time of the year.
“Yesterday and last night we had warm
moist air colliding with a very sharp cold
front. It produced a very unstable air condi
tion — thunderstorms developed east and
south of Dallas intensified very rapidly and
headed northeast.
The tornadoes were an obvious end
result,” he said.
Lesson learned the hard way:
door no protection from tornado
United Press Internationa!
BOSSIER CITY, La. — A serviceman on
a cross-country trip to a new assignment
said he sought protection behind a motel
room door but both he and the door were
flung across the room by a Sunday’s tor
nado.
“I was sleeping and I heard like a thun
der,” said William Carserino, who was
spending the night at a Best Western motel
that was destroyed by the storm. “I guess it
was setting down. And then I heard the
rattling and stuff at the window and I
thought it was raining real hard. I got up to
look out and about that time the window
came through. And then I ducked behind
the door.
“Next thing I knew, I flew with the door
across the room and landed on top of the
kids. And that quick it was over.”
Carserino and his family were traveling
from San Diego, Calif., to his new Navy
assigment on the East Coast. They also
planned to visit relatives in Jackson, Miss.,
during the trip.
The motel was one of the most severely
damaged structures. Carserino said guests
reacted quickly after the storm passed,
“‘We started bringing out the kids, the
dog and everything. And we, the Carserino
family, all came through surviving all right.
It quieted down real quick and we just
started gathering what we could and get
ting out of there.
“Everybody was injured a little bit, beat
up, bruised a little bit. Everything we had
in our room — trash cans and all — landed
on top of the kids.
“Our car was demolished. It looked like
the roof from on top of the upper floor
landed on top of three or four cars over
there.”
Carserino and his family were treated at
Bossier General Hospital and released.
Report reveals politics does pay
Pickin’ and grimacing
Ian Matthews concentrates on a chord during his performance at G.
Rdlie White Coliseum Thursday night. Matthews was the openmg act of a
program that included David Gates and Bread. A rev.ew of the concert ,s
prog! ax Battalion photo by Lee Larkin
on page 6.
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Some of America’s
highest paid government officials — with
scores of them making hefty salaries of
$50,000 a year or more — aren’t elected by
the people, appointed by the president or
selected by tests.
The well-heeled officials work for the
U.S. Senate, which paid hundreds of staff
members such as administrative aides,
press officers and secretaries salaries of
more than $40,000 annually in 1978.
The figures are in the 1,110-page,
green-covered Report of the Secretary of
the Senate, which came out last week with
salary listings for the lowliest summer
intern to the mightiest committee staff
chief.
Only the other Green Book — Washing
ton’s version of the social register — affords
as much interest, though it has only a frac
tion of the useful information in the secre
tary’s report.
Senators earn $57,500 a year, but just
below them are 64 aides pulling in $50,000
or more and another 331 who make more
than $40,000. In comparison, cabinet offi
cers get $66,000 and top civil servants
$47,500.
The secretary’s report said the Senate
paid some 7,000 employees $51.3 million
in the last six months of fiscal 1978. In
addition, the the Senate spent $13.1 mil
lion on office expenses and travel, compil
ing a total bill of $82.9 million.
The House employs about 11,000 people
and would spend more due to its larger
membership. But in general, individual
Senate salaries are higher.
The top paid staff people at $52,500 are
Secretary of the Senate J. Stanley Kimmitt,
Sergeant at Arms F. Nordy Hoffman and
Legislative Counsel Harry Littell.
Right behind them is Secretary to the
Minority William F. Hildenbrandt at
$52,000. Nine other offiicals — including
Kimmitt’s assistant, the parlimentarian and
the clerk who compiled the figures — earn
$51,500.
Following them at $50,478 is George F.
Murphey, head of the office of Classified
National Security Information.
Although the law limits top pay for a
senator’s office aides to $49,941, the report
lists 21 committee or subcommittee staff
chiefs and two Republican and one Demo
cratic policy staffers who earn between
$50,000 and $52,000.
There are 26 top personal aides — most
of them called administrative assistants —
making the maximum, $49,491.
Others earning above $40,000 include
four persons in the legislative councils, 41
who work for Kimmett or Hoffman, 161 on
committee staff and 125 on senators’ per
sonal staffs.
The size of a senator’s staff and the salary
levels are up to the the lawmaker himself,
within limits based on the state’s popula
tion.
Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., had 156
persons on his six-month payroll at a cost of
$282,701 while retiring Sen. William Scott,
R-Va. — always a low spender — got by
with 19 persons for $140,347, less than half
his allotment.
California’s two senators were entitled to
spend $510,583 for the six months — plus
up to $149,000 extra for certain committee
specialists.
Sen. S.I. Hayakawa, R-Cal., paid 111
persons $555,148 in the period, while Sen.
Alan Cranston, D-Cal., paid 71 persons
$516,159, plus $59,607 to five others given
to him because he is assistant Democratic
leader.
Sens. Abraham Ribicoff, D-Conn., Adlai
Stevenson, D-Ill., and Barry Goldwater,
R-Ariz., each had five staff members paid at
an annual rate of more than $40,000. The
lowest paid top aide, at a rate of $28,550,
was Oregon Republican Sen. Mark Hat
field’s personal secretary.
Press secretaries, whose functions range
from shaping a senator’s image to deliver
ing publicity releases, earned from $16,100
to $49,941 a year.
Most of the book — 900 pages — is de
voted to listing every expense voucher —
from 30 cents for a copy of the New York
Times for the Senate library to $108,846 to
pay July’s telephone bill.
A&M official
charged with
DWI in Austin
Harold Lee “Spec” Gammon,
sports information director for Texas
A&M University, was charged with
first offense driving while intoxicated
in Austin Thursday night.
Gammon was stopped by police
about 9 p.m. in the 4600 block of
Interstate 35.
Gammon was charged before
Municipal Court Judge Alberto Gar
cia. He was released on a personal
recognizance bond.