Battalion
\Iq\. 12 No. 144
I2 Pages
Friday, April 27, 1979
College Station, Texas
Sunday gas closings now
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Two can play the
game
The Texas House of Representa
tives has approved a bill, already
passed by the Senate, that would
enable victims of crimes to recover
compensation from a special state
hind. See page 6.
Battalion photo by Howard Ervin
It’s lonely at the top
Alworkman drills holes in the top of Zachry Engineering Building to
‘ provide a mount for a pendulum similar to the one that hangs in the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It will be hung later this
week and will be on display through the end of the semester.
Spring forward; fall back
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Most of the nation
>es on Daylight Saving Time Sunday —
i you have two days to figure out how to
Wt your clocks and watches.
An expert in the Transportation De-
irtment, which administers the time
tenges, confides he uses the popular
pe words to keep things straight when
E switches from standard time to daylight
(neand back again.
The words: “Spring forward; fall back.”
Early next Sunday — it’s always the last
teday in April — 2 a.m. instantly be-
Itees 3 a.m. This means setting your
teepieces one hour ahead.
Most people find it convenient to do this
pnigh before instead of the next morn-
Kpie hour you lose will be returned
October.
|he resetting of clocks every six months
called for by the 1966 Uniform Time
( But the idea has been around, off and
since 1918, when Daylight Saving
'e was tried out to save energy during
rid War I.
tudent Government
sitions available
Man; positions are open in the 1979-80
sas A&M University student govern-
Hh Positions available are executive
,ra nch offices and places on University
^nuB^ees.
^ Place s open include: Judicial Board
chairman. Election Commissioner,
cutive Vice President, Executive Sec-
■y, Comptroller and Director of In-
^Bon.
Others are. Campus Chest Director,
Cents’ Day and Muster chairmen, and
cutive branch coordinators for business
[continuing programs and freshman
Also open are spots on the Judicia
board and all University committees.
Many students are selected each year to
help coordinate various University func
tions and activities through the University
committees.
Applications may be picked up in the
student government office in Room 216 of
the Memorial Student Center.
They are due at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Appointees will be announced by the
student body president and confirmed by
the student senate early in the fall semes
ter.
common throughout U. S
“People couldn’t stand it, ” an authorita
tive source recalls. “It was so ‘popular’ it
was repealed the next year.”
Some states continued to try it now and
then, and it was used during World War
II. After hours of argument each year.
Congress enacted the change annually
until it adopted the permanent Uniform
Time Act in 1966.
Under that law, all of the United States
observes six months of daylight time, ex
cept for states and territories that have
exempted themselves. Arizona, Hawaii,
Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American
Samoa and all of Indiana, except for 12
countries around Gary and Evansville, ob
serve standard time the entire year.
Saving energy also was the goal of
Richard Nixon when he persuaded Con
gress to enact year-round Daylight Saving
Time in 1973-74 because of the Arab oil
embargo.
But many parents complained about
sending their children to school in dark
ness and the idea was dropped.
California’s highway-happy motorists
lined up 15 deep at 24-hour stores charg
ing a “bargain” 99.9 cents a gallon this
week and Sunday closings became the
unwritten law of the land.
UPI’s weekly Gas Watch survey, taken
Thursday, showed three Chicago service
stations pushed pump prices through the
$l-a-gallon mark, joining New Yorkers and
Hawaiians.
Stations everywhere announced Sunday
closings to try to conserve the last of their
April allocations. Robert Jacobs, of the Il
linois Gasoline Dealers Association, pre
dicted nearly all Chicago-area stations
would shut down this Sunday.
Experts, indicated Sunday closings
would hit 66 percent of the stations in
Denver, 50 percent in Florida and west
ern Pennsylvania, 45 percent in Iowa, 35
percent in the Dakotas, and 25 percent in
Michigan.
In Kansas City, Getty Oil Co. padlocked
the pumps at 17 Skelly stations to prevent
their underground gasoline tanks from
running dry.
Lines of six to 15 cars waited to fill up at
the few San Francisco stations open for
business Monday and Tuesday, but many
motorists found signs saying $5 limit on
gas.”
In northern California, the 24-hour
Short-Stop chain attracted hoards of
motorists who waited patiently to pay 99.9
cents a gallon for premium unleaded
gasoline.
EPA gets
over fuel
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Environmental
Protection Agency — in th first case of its
kind — is asking for $159,000 in civil dam
ages from Texaco Inc., 11 service stations
and a distributor for allegedly selling
leaded gasoline as unleaded.
The agency said the case was the “most
serious instance of fuel switching ever
prosecuted by EPA.”
Named in the complaints were Texaco
Inc., Houston; Calleri Oil Co., San Lean
dro, Calif.; and 11 Texaco stations in
Alameda County, Calif.
A Texaco spokesman said the company
had “no knowledge of the alleged co
mingling (of gasolines) on the part of the
(San Leandro) distributor,” and denied
“any wrongdoing on the part of our com
pany.”
Texaco said the firm “for many years”
has sold its petroleum products to inde
pendent distributors who then service
their own customers, including retail serv
ice stations. He said the products were
serviced at the time they were picked up
in the distributors’ own trucks, and “after
that it belong(ed) to the distributor and he
is responsible.”
Leaded gasoline, when used in cars that
require unleaded fuel, damages and ul
timately ruins the catalytic converter, a
pollution control device used to break
down exhaust elements harmful to human
health.
The EPA has estimated as many as 10
percent of cars that should be using un
leaded gas are actually running on leaded
fuel, in part because of the higher prices of
unleaded gas.
However, it said, Thursday’s action is
the first major case where motorists who
were willing to pay the higher price of un
leaded were actually being sold leaded.
An EPA spokesman said profit, not
shortage, was the apparent motive for the
alleged fraud, since leaded gasoline is
cheaper and more money can be made if it
Couple shocked
when ‘dead’ son
walks in room
United Press International
COLUMBUS, Ohio — James and
Maxine Blakenship had notified relatives
of their 23-year-old son’s death and were
discussing funeral arrangements, when he
shocked them by walking into their West
Side home Wednesday night.
The Blankenships had been told by
Franklin County sherifFs deputies their
son, Kenneth, had been killed several
hours before in a motorcycle crash in Lin
coln Village South.
It turned out the man killed actually was
Kenneth’s best friend, John C. Snyder,
22, of Columbus. Snyder was riding Ken
neth’s motorcycle.
Kenneth’s aunt, Louise Burden, arrived
at the scene of the accident as the covered
body was being put on a stretcher. She
said she did not look at the body because
deputies did not ask her to, but told offi
cers she thought it was Kenneth.
Deputies, in turn, thought she had seen
the body and positively identified the
victim, so they told Mr. and Mrs. Blan
kenship their son was dead.
“Were converting our pumps to more
than a dollar,” said Short-Stop President
John Roscoe said. “Were in the
emergency gas business.”
Price pressures at the pump escalated
from coast to coast this week.
A spot check by UPI found gasoline
spurted 5 cents a gallon this week in San
Francisco, 4 cents in Oklahoma, 3.7 cents
in western Massachusetts, 3 cents in
Maine and parts of Florida, 2.5 cents in
Louisiana, 2 cents in New York and 1 cent
in Colorado.
A full-service Texaco station in
downtown Honolulu had the stiffest price
in the nation — $1.02 a gallon for pre
mium unleaded — and two pump-
ityourself Exxon outlets in Dallas offered
the best bargain of the week at 68.3 cents a
gallon for regular leaded.
In Chicago, three stations were charg
ing $1,014 a gallon for premium unleaded,
but 11 had passed the $1 barrier before the
Department of Energy made price
gouging inspections during the week.
In Dallas, the consumers are striking
back.
Motorists are driving into Dallas self-
service stations with rags covering their
license plates, filling up and then speeding
off before the attendants can collect. One
Dallas station owner has closed two out
side islands to combat consumer rip-offs
and another waits in a pickup so he can
give chase.
In a breakdown of gasoline prices by
grade, the UPI survey found regular
leaded gasoline sold for a high of 97.9 a
gallon at full-service stations in Honolulu
this week to a low of 72.9 cents a gallon in
Washington, D.C., Dallas, Atlanta and
Baltimore.
Prices for the motorist willing to do the
pumping ranged from the Dallas bottom of
68.3 cents a gallon to a nationwide top of
86.9 cents a gallon Minneapolis self-
service stations.
Regular unleaded gasoline at full-
service stations went for 74.9 cents a gal
lon in Dallas up to 99.9 cents in Honolulu.
At self-service pumps regular unleaded
ranged from 71.8 cents in Dallas to 89.9
cents in Honolulu.
UT newspaper
fights censor
hot
switch
is sold for unleaded prices.
The case was uncovered by the Alameda
County Department of Weights and Mea
sures in response to a citizen’s complaint,
EPA said.
EPA said it is stepping up its efforts to
stop fuel switching by forming enforce
ment teams in Washington, D.C., and
Denver, which will seek out violators na
tionwide. The teams, it said, will concen
trate on dealers and car repair shops as
well as gasoline stations.
By DOUG GRAHAM
Battalion Staff
The Daily Texan, the University of
Texas’ student newspaper, is resolving a
dispute over who has the power to censor
material: the students or the faculty.
The censorship dispute arose over a car
toon by Daily Texan cartoonist Berke
Breathed in which a four-letter synonym
for sexual intercourse was used. Faculty
member and editorial manager Robert
Hilburn cut the cartoon.
On April 19, The Daily Texan’s editorial
page carried a blank space with a note that
the cartoon strip, “Academia Waltz” was
censored because it violated obscenity
guidelines in the Texas Student Publica
tions (TSP) Handbook.
The next day an editorial by editor Gary
Fendler was censored. The editorial used
the word and cited court cases supporting
use of the word was upheld.
Fendler, in a telephone interview, said
he had to appeal the censorship of the car
toon and editorial to a three-man board of
the TSP within 24 hours.
The board decided against him. He then
appealed to the entire 11-man TSP board
where he won an 8-2 (with one absent)
victory.
Assistant Editor Mark McKinnon said
that by that time. Breathed had already
changed his cartoon. “Berke changed the
last frame, which we would rather he had
not done,” he said.
Fendler said he was fighting the censor
ship system of the TSP.
At UT, the paper’s editor is elected by
the student body, and the editorial man
ager reads all material going into the pa
per. He decides what gets printed.
At The Battalion, Texas A&M Univer
sity’s student newspaper, the editor is
chosen by a publications board, but has
complete discretion about the paper’s con
tent.
McKinnon said that the conflict was not
with the editorial manager.
“Hilburn was with us on our side when
we went up to the TSP board,” he said.
“He said all he wanted to do was get a
clarification of the vague TSP handbook
guidelines.”
Fendler said Hilburn was popular with
the students. “He’s a great guy. If you’re
not down here to see what happens, it is
easy to make him a villain.
Generally, most letters to the editor
supported the student editor’s decision to
run the cartoon.
Fendler said the present UT editorial
system may be overhauled. He said he,
the editor-elect Beth Frerking, and Hil
burn will meet soon to reach an agreement
on handling censorship in the paper. He
said the committee will probably increase
the student editor’s power to make those
decisions.
But the committee probably won’t re
write the TSP handbook, Fendler said.
The UT Board of Regents would be un
likely to pass the changes the committee
would make, he said.
McKinnon disagreed, saying the Board
of Regents would pass a new set of TSP
handbook regulations, if they were pres
ented.
CS to get new computer set-up
By KEVIN D. HIGGINBOTHAM
Battalion Reporter
The College Station City Council ac
cepted the recommendation of A. E. Van-
dever, assistant city manager, on a choice
of bids for a new computer system Thurs
day night.
Vandever suggested the council accept
the bid of National Cash Register (NCR)
for $140,940 for a complete system.
Initially, the new computer system will
handle budgetary control, payroll and util
ity billing for the city, City Manager North
Bardell said.
Later, the system will be expanded to
include property tax statements, in
ventories, cost control, and court and
police records, he said.
The bid includes the purchase of three
cash registers to aid in cash handling and
posting of bills.
The council was wary of purchasing the
new computer system because of prob
lems with the four-year-old system cur
rently in use.
“Do you think the National Cash Regis
ter equipment will do the job?” Council
man James Dozier asked Vandever.
Vandever assured the council the
equipment would meet the city’s needs.
The old system is outmoded partly be
cause of the transient nature of College
Station’s population, Bardell said.
He estimated that about 4,000 utility
accounts are changed each year, mostly
due to students moving.
The old system also was hampered be
cause apartment complexes are now using
individual metering systems instead of
master metering systems.
The old machine was not sophisticated
enough to handle this workload, Bardell
said.
Another problem with the old computer
system, Bardell said, was that it was not
readily expandable to handle the growth of
the city and its accounting needs.
The new NCR system though, will be
expandable, Vandever told the council.
Vandever said he expects the new sys
tem to last about seven to ten years before
any extensive changes would have to be
made.
He also expects the conversion from the
old to the new system to take eight months
at the most.
In other business, the council voted to
purchase a new breathing air compressor
system for the city fire department.
The new system. College Station Fire
Chief Doug Landua said, will allow the
firefighters to maintain an adequate supply
of air for firefighting purposes. This will
enable them to fight the fire from the in
side, he added.
The new system will cost about $16,000.
Lets get this synchronized
Several Aggies demonstrate freestyle foot-cooling
in the Rudder fountain during some recent warm
weather. The forecast for the Bryan-College Sta
tion area calls for a high temperature in the low to
mid 80s. Winds will be north-northeast at 15-20
mph, switching to north-northeast at 10 mph gust-
ing to 18 by mid-afternoon. Wind warnings are out
On area lakes. Battalion photo by Bill Wilson