he Battalion
Vol. 72 No. 138
24 Pages in 2 Sections
Thursday, April 19, 1979
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Senior countdown
Now is that awful time of year
when graduating seniors let you
know they’re just that. Slouch
comments, page 2.
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<3r^‘
marshal deny
a speed trap
[ By ROBIN THOMPSON
Battalion Reporter
ut 26 miles northwest of Texas A&M
[•sity on Highway 6 sits the quiet
Calvert. It looks like many other
Texas towns with one main street, a
|xaco station and a city cafe. But a
through Calvert should be wary
hakes nearly half of its income from
|ng tickets.
ng with Calvert, Navasota and
|e earn a significantly higher per-
|e of their income in municipal court
lo Bryan and College Station. The
[share” of this is from speeding tick-
pys Val Robertson, city manager of
pta.
jlavasota, 11.4 percent of the general
Revenue came from municipal court
5,152 of $595,529) in a period
iuly 1978 to January 1979.
j year in Hearne, 7.4 percent of the
fund revenue was gathered in
lipal court ($37,700 of $504,700).
[in Calvert, the smallest of the three
[with a population of 2,072, 47.6
pt ($31,755) of the total general rev-
pf $66,637.03 was earned by court
■ contrasts with College Station,
■ earned 5 percent ($177,800 of an
|ated $3,071,487.90) and Bryan,
earned 3.8 percent ($211,248 of
B,270) of its revenue in municipal
five
ipite the high amount of revenue
Irt earns in court. Mayor Cooper
P denies that the town is a speed trap,
re is what he terms a “unique situa-
ln Calvert.
have a wide open, four-lane high---
d only one traflEic light, ” he said. He
that there is not as much congestion
vert to slow traffic as there is in
■ towns like Hearne.
e Highway 6, which divides the
n two, is owned by the Texas High-
epartment, the city of Calvert does
t the speed limit on it. But Weise
lalvert is completely within its rights
ticketing speeders within the city
■ we ask them to do is abide within
v,” Weise said.
Calvert records show ikat, as time goes
on, fewer and fewer law-abiding folks have
been driving on Highway 6.
The amount of money Calvert gathered
in court fines went from $2,187.90 in 1974
to $24,637.75 in 1977. That is an increase
of 1,026 percent.
It was in 1975 that the town of Calvert
started cracking down on what Weise
deems “traffic control.”
That was the year the city hired Tommy
Singleton as city marshal. That same year,
the amount of court fines increased by
more than $4,000 and has been growing
ever since.
Singleton was born and raised in Calvert
and returned there after retiring from the
night club business in Houston.
He said the town folks thought he was
too young to retire so they put him back to
work as the city marshal.
One of the first changes Singleton made
as the new marshal was replacing the old
Please see related story Page 9.
handheld radar gun with a K55 radar like
that used by the Department of Public
Safety.
He said he bought the new radar equip
ment because his arm got tired of holding
the handgun and “you work better if you
have something good to work with.”
Although Singleton says his duties are
varied, he and his two deputies are in
complete charge of keeping law and order
in Calvert. He apparently spends most of
his time patrolling Highway 6.
“You’re not doing your job if you’re not
working,” he said.
As for being a speed trap, Singleton de
nies that this is the case for Calvert.
“We’re protecting lives,” he said. “You
can imagine what this town would be like
if I weren’t here. ”
Singleton has developed ways to con
fuse citizens band radio users and beat
radar detecters. To mystify CBers, he says
he drives his police car back and forth to
each end until they do not know whether
he is coming or going, northbound or
southbound.
He says he never hides from CBers and
it makes him angry when he hears them
talking about.!tim on the radio.
“How can I hide between two parked
cars in the middle of downtown?” he
asked.
Singleton’s trick to beat fuzzbusters
works best at night. He uses a squelch but
ton to turn his radar signal off, and flips it
an quickly when he sees the headlights of
an approaching car — when it is too late
for the driver to slow down.
Both Weise and Singleton agree that
strict enforcement of the speed limit is not
meant to be a revenue-producing proce
dure, but is solely for traffic control.
Weise said that before 1975 all the city
did was stop speeders and ask them to
slow down. He said the city gave out few
tickets and a warning was of “no value
whatsoever. ”
He said he was “a little surprised that so
many people are breaking the law.”
“We’re not doing anything to them,”
Weise said. “They’re doing it to them
selves. ”
Singleton says he regularly sets his radar
on 67 mph and does not issue tickets un
less drivers are going at least 10 miles over
the speed limit.
The cost of a ticket in Calvert is $9.50
plus $1 for every mile over the speed limit
a driver is going. This is less than the cost
of a ticket in Hearne, Navasota, College
Station and Bryan.
Weise and Singleton stress that they are
not out to get Texas A&M students.
“Tell them down at A&M that we’re not
picking on the Aggies,” Singleton said.
“That radar doesn’t know who it’s picking
up.”
Conroe anticipates
flood, evacuates
United Press International
Civil Defense teams and local au
thorities Wednesday evacuated Conroe
residents along the San Jacinto River in an
ticipation of a 25-foot crest that would send
the rain-swollen river 7 feet over its banks.
Waves of moist sea air slamming into a
stalled wall of low pressure dumped more
than 8 inches of rain in 12 hours on Conroe
Wednesday, flooding homes, businesses
and schools, blocking roads, stranding
some residents and forcing the evacua
tions. Rainfall totaled 10 inches by late
Wednesday.
“It’s getting deeper by the minute,” said
Police Capt. Mike Arthur. “The rains have
stopped but the concern now is the river,
which will crest sometime in the morning.
Arthur said seven shelters had b&en set
up to house those evacuated and many
children had remained at their schools
rather than trying to go home on the city’s
rain-choked streets.
“There are so many subdivisions there’s
no way to get an accurate number of how
many families we re talking about, ” Arthur
said. “We’re still working to get the rest
out and will be through the night.
The National Weather Service reported
that at 3 p.m. the river was at 23.4 feet, its
highest level in several years. By early
today it was to reach 26 feet, 7 feet over its
banks.
The weather bureau predicted more
rain for the area Wednesday night and to
day.
“I was told we have a cool front bringing
more showers tonight,” Arthur said Wed
nesday. “We sure don’t need more rain on
top of what we’ve got. ”
There were no reports of deaths or in
juries from the flooding and damage esti
mates were unavailable. Reports of tor
nadoes also were unconfirmed.
School was dismissed for Thursday and a
school district spokesman said some citi
zens were renting helicopters to get their
children.
Gene Medford of the National Weather
Service in Houston said the heavy rain
started around 4 or 5 a.m.
“It’s an isolated circumstance up there at
Conroe really,” he said, “but it’s raining
east and northeast of there in Liberty
County, a little west of Cleveland, and it
extends into San Jacinto County.
“The reason it rained so much is it
moved slowly. It’s real weak, but it doesn’t
take much this time of year. ”
The San Jacinto River runs just south of
Conroe, but Medford said the flooding ap
peared to be occurring because “it’s just
flat as a table up there. It hasn’t got any
where to go when it rains hard.”
The thunderstorms were part of a vast
system that crossed Texas Wednesday,
dumping more than IV2 inches in some
areas and adding to flooding problems that
had already made streets impassable and
evacuated residents in low-lying areas in
the Edinburg area.
Earlier, about 30 persons in the lower
Rio Grande Valley city of Edinburg were
told to leave their homes due to 4- and
5-inch pools of water entering houses and
closing streets on the city’s east side.
Some 6.92 inches of rain fell in the city
early Tuesday turning streets into streams
and forcing cancellation of classes at Pan
American University.
City manager Ralph Garza termed the
flooding the worst in several years, but
there were no reports of injuries.
In other areas of the state, rain or fog
was reported in temperatures ranging from
50 degrees in the Panhandle to the 70s
in southern Texas.
Forecasts called for widespread thun
derstorms to continue today with warm
temperatures.
They ‘got the show on the road’
Senate meets, despite
rule
By DIANE BLAKE
Battalion Staff
The new student senate suspended
rules to “get the show on the road” Wed
nesday night.
Senate rules prohibit a meeting less
than 14 days after the election of new
members certified. The newest senate
members, including the new president,
were elected only Monday.
No one, however, made an objection to
having the meeting. Ronnie Kapavik,
new student body president, addressed
the 1979-80 senate and said it can re
establish the purpose and credibility of
student government.
“We have to be committed to the pur
pose of student government,” Kapavik
said. He told senators they must put aside
selfish desires and work for the good of
Texas A&M University students.
The senate elected Robert Van Winkle
as speaker and Dorothy DuBois as speaker
pro tempore in its first order of business
Wednesday night.
Van Winkle was elected by a vote of
39-26. In remarks to the senate, the junior
ag education major stressed fairness and
impartiality as qualities he would strive for
as speaker. He also said that each side of
an issue can be heard in senate debate
without dragging the meeting on
endlessly.
DuBois said as speaker pro tempore she
would try to improve communications
within the senate. The junior political sci
ence major was elected by a 42-21 vote.
In other business, the senate passed an
emergency resolution recommending the
defeat of a bill now in a Texas Senate
committee.
The bill would limit items sold in uni
versity bookstores to those which are re
lated to education. The resolution says
many Texas A&M organizations, such as
the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band, Fish Drill
Team, Residence Hall Association and
Debate Club, receive funding from book
store profits and “most probably could not
function without this funding.”
The bill is backed by College Station
bookstore owners who feel the Univer
sity’s bookstore unfairly competes against
private business.
Other legislation that received first
readings but no vote were a visitation
hours recommendation, a financial aid
practices investigation act and a semester
honors revision resolution.
Vice presidents from each of the senate
committees — academic affairs, external
affairs, finance, rules and regulations, and
student services — encouraged the
senators to get involved in committee
work.
John C. Calhoun, academic affairs
committee vice president, said that com
mittee has worked on issues such as
Q-drops, night examinations, teacher re
tirement, professor evaluations, and qual
ifications for distinguished students.
The external affairs vice president, Jeb
Hensarling, said his group is responsible
for representing Texas A&M in local,
state, and national government and in the
local business community. Three primary
concerns are business and consumer rela
tions, city council liaison work and na
tional student group affiliation, he said.
The finance committee’s work centers
on student government budget and stu
dent service fees, said its vice president,
George Black. He told senators that one of
his goals is to conduct a survey to deter
mine where students want most of their
money to go.
Paul Bettencourt’s committee, rules and
regulations, is a “dynamic” one, he said,
and concerns issues from constitutional
rewrites to parking rules to student elec
tion regulations.
The “catch-all committee” is student
services, said its vice president Brad
Smith. Next year this committee will look
into creating a student government
magazine, off-campus food cooperatives
and a campus escort service.
Peace treaty may prompt
widespread terrorism
United Press International
WASHINGTON —- U.S. embassies
around the world have been instructed to
be alert for a wave of terrorism sparked by
the Egyptian-Israeli settlement.
Anthony Quainton, director of the office
for Combatting Terrorism, told UPI that
U.S. embassies and consulates have been
put on a “heightened alert status” after
threats from Palestinian groups and sev
eral recent terrorist attacks.
“We are entering a period of potential
problems and we are on the lookout,” he
said. “What else can we do?”
Each embassy has a “security watch
committee, ” made up of representatives of
all the main agencies and offices of the in
stallation. The committees have been or
dered by Washington to step up their re
view and reinforcement of security mea
sures, including the use of Marine armed
guards.
A U.S. cultural office in Beirut was
heavily damaged by a bomb early Monday
and the Beirut Embassy was slightly dam
aged earlier by a rocket-propelled gre
nade.
Quainton said the killing of an American
serviceman in Ismir, Turkey, apparently
had no connection with the U.S.-
sponsored negotiations which led to the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
b Hearne bank
r College Station
United Press International
STIN — The Texas Supreme Court
esday overturned a lower court de-
and ruled the First State Bank of
e cannot move to a new location in
. Station.
! bank had applied to the State Bank-
d in 1976 for permission to move
Dege Station and change it named to
£e Station Bank.
banking board by a 2-1 vote ap-
d the change, although the member
g the deciding vote had not read the
fd of the hearing in the case.
existing banks in Bryan and Col
lation filed suit in district court chal-
ig the board’s decision, and the dis
trict court overturned the board’s decision
authorizing the move.
The Court of Civil Appeals reversed the
case again, ruling in favor of the Hearne
Bank.
Wednesday’s decision by the Supreme
Court overturned the Civil Appeals deci
sion and ruled the trial court was correct in
prohibiting the bank’s move.
The Supreme Court decision said the
board foiled to consider the impact that
moving the bank would have on banking
business in Hearne, and also said the
board should not have allowed a member
who had not read the record in the case to
cast the deciding vote on the requested
bank move.
Splashing among drops of sunlight
Some recent summertime weather drew swimmers, splashers and sun-
ners to Wofford Cain pool. The pool is now open from noon to 1:30 p.m.
and 3-7 p.m. Monday through Friday; and 1-7 p.m. Saturday and Sun
day. The area forecast calls for cloudy and humid weather today, with a
high temperature near 80. There is a 50 percent chance of precipitation.
Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper