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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 22, 1979)
The Battalion Vol. 73 No. 36 12 Pages Monday, October 22, 1979 College Station, Texas USPS 045 360 Phone 845-2611 Cable car accident kills 1 at State Fair Volverint'P lorado gotten Ik■ Pablo Cruise-ing David Jenkins, lead vocalist and guitarist for Pablo Cruise, reflects the emotions of a song as he per forms at Texas A&M University. Most of the music the group played Saturday night in G. Rollie White Coliseum ran the rock gamut, from soft to dow nright hard and loud, and the audience stomped for more. See the review, page 3. Battalion photo by Ken Herrera United Press International DALLAS — A gondola car moving on a cable 80 feet above the packed midway at the State Fair of Texas hung up on a tower Sunday and was hit from behind by another car, knocking both loose and send ing them crashing down on tent-top booths below, killing one and injuring 15 others. The accident forced officials to close the fair grounds immediately while ambu lances moved onto the midway to rush away the injured and fire department re scue crews began maneuvering “cherry pickers” to lift down other persons stranded when the workers brought “Swiss Sky Ride’ to a stop. The accident occurred while 40 mph winds were buffeting the ride and officials initially thought the gusts had knocked the cars together. Those officials said later, however, that although the gondolas were rocking back and forth, the accident was caused by the one hanging up on the tower. “I heard something that sounded like a real loud drum,’’ said a woman operating one of the concession stands. “Then one of (the gondolas) crashed down next door. “I got my shoes on and ran out —- and then the other one landed right on top of my place.’ The first gondola smashed through the canvas tent and onto the black asphalt midway just a few feet from where thousands of fairgoers were making their rounds. The second car fell a few feet be hind the first one but did not go through the canvas top. The cars fell at about the midpoint of the tramway and near the Cotton Bowl Stadium. The fair, which annually hosts up to 3 million people and calls itself the largest state fair in the nation, was in its final day when the accident occurred. The dead man was identified as Fred Millard, 41, of Dallas, who was riding with his wife and two daughters in the first gondola car. Millard died at Parkland Memorial Hospital about two hours after the accident. His wife Sandra, 35, and two daughters, Roxanna, 9, and Renee, 8, were in good to fair condition. Parkland hospital’s assistant adminis trator, Kent Norman, said 14 persons in jured in the gondola accident were admit ted there and a 15th person, a Dallas fire man who received a broken leg when he was hit by a rescue unit, also was admit ted. “Most of the injuries are head and back,” he said. “Most of them aren’t too serious. There’s just the one (in serious condition). A lot of them have cuts and bruises. ” Two others injured on the ground were treated at Baylor Medical Center with cuts. A spokesman there said the injuries were “not too bad.’’ After the injured were moved away, fire department trucks with “cherry pickers” moved from gondola to gondola to lift down those stranded on the ride. The crowd pushing in around the, trucks applauded each time a gondola door swung open and its occupants crawled out to the waiting firemen. While persons waited to be rescued a band played at one end of the tramway. Near where the accident occurred the huge “Big Tex,” a 30-foot statue of a cow boy that booms messages to fairgoers, ap pealed for calm. The ride was built by the same com pany, Von Roll of Switzerland, that made a gondola ride at Six Flags Over Mid- America in St. Louis on which three per sons were killed in 1978. A three-month investigation determined that accident was caused by the mechanical failure of a 4-inch nylon bushing. That car plunged about 75 feet to the ground, killing two young girls and their 25-year-old uncle. No one on the ground was injured. Officals at the Texas State Fair said an investigation of the accident would begin immediately. 7 freshmen campaigning for Wednesday’s election 3 ittsburf!:! oiindat k By ELLEN EIDELBACH L Battalion Reporter 35, WaslBNj ne ty- seven students have filed to run un D' for offices in the freshman elections, to be er the'(held Wednesday from 9 a. m. to 6 p.m. ’ars spiai®The number of candidates represents an ainst k Arease of about 49 percent from 1978. ’ornia MflPositions to be voted on are Class of’83 1 tough; president, vice president, secretary- win treasurer, social secretary and student 38, Wy« government senators. s has 0,1( BThere will be eight polling places. In 2 game order to vote, freshmen must bring their student I.D. cards to one of the following locations: — main floor in the Memorial Student Center — in front of Sbisa Dining Hall — Corp of Cadets Guard Room —- Commons main desk area — main floor in Zachry Engineering Center — Rudder Tower-MSC bus stop — outside between the library and Har rington Tower — main floor in the Kleberg Animal and in Bonfire cutting mwomen take part icordjfl* will Food Science Center (across the railroad tracks). Two of the polling places are different from last year, said Bill Jentsch, election commissioner for 1978-79. This year’s election commissioner, Bruce Russell, said the polling place at the Reed McDonald bus stop was moved to Zachry Engineering Center and the one at the Commons bus istop was moved be tween Harrington Tower and the Sterling C. Evans Library. Russell, who hopes for a better voter turnout than last year, says he picked the polling places by observing where the biggest concentrations of people are. He says the increased number of candi dates may be due to class interest, extra publicity and the cooperation of depart ment heads in reading out memos con cerning election filing dates (Oct. 3-10), election date and available positions. Unlike other classes, the freshman senatorial positions represent the class at large. Glass officers are part of a class council and are not connected with student gov ernment. Candidates qualified to run by paying a $1 filing fee and meeting scholastic re quirements. First-semester freshmeh who aren’t on scholastic probation and those with grade point ratios of 2.25 or better were eligible. Campaigning began Oct. 15 and will continue until the run-off elections Oct. 31. Each candidate may spend up to $75 on campaign material and an additional $35 if he participates in the run-off elections. Freshman interested in meeting th^ candidates should come to “Meet the “It’s for anyone who wants to meet the candidates, because in the past, people have complained that they don’t know who Candidates Night” today at 7 p.m. in Room 201 of the MSC. they’re voting for,” Russell said. He said that speeches would not be gi ven, but candidates will post their answers to the following questions: — What qualifies you to be a leader of the Class of ’83? — Do you have any specific goals for the Class of ’83? The election commission, part of stu dent government, is made up of one com missioner and 11 election supervisors. Russell says the group has spent three weeks preparing for the election. There will be one election supervisor and two volunteer poll workers at each poll throughout the day, he said. SMUafl By ANGIE JONES at the sat®' Battalion Reporter indArksBFor the first time, women were allowed ed reJ to work on the Bonfire cutting site Satur- alldidKWy- ■ They were there as a result of a decision By Dr. John J. Koldus, vice president for piudent services. Koldus approved a rec- [ommendation by the Texas A&M Univer- 1 sty Bonfire and Yell Leader Committee /KS N women be allowed to work on the SJoject. ir footwB As a result of the decision, 25 women tfrom Squadron 14 appeared at the cutting redAi# site Saturday and Sunday prepared to take oweari’M their share of the work, il meetiiiK Georgia Hughes, senior member of id shf ^Squadron 14, said she and the other (women were shown to the cutting site along with the men. “They’ve been really Ipood to us,” she said of the men on the —“^Icutting crews. “We haven’t tried to pick a fight and neither have they.” Past Bonfire cutting policies have pro hibited women from cutting or carrying out the trees used in building Bonfire. However, the Bonfire work supervisors — redpots -— let the women work this weekend as long as they had a cutting card, proof that they had attended a man datory cutting class. Redpot Sterling Price said the first cut ting weekend went well, “There were no accidents and no problems.” The women worked from noon until 4:45 p.m. Satur day and from 6 a.m. until 1 p.m. Sunday. Hughes said they women will continue to work at each of the remaining mandatory cutting weekends. Ron Hilton, area coordinator for the Corps of Cadets and a committee member, said he requested a meeting which led to the proposal after some women cadets did not receive cutting cards upon completing the cutting class. Exhumation opposed by Oswald’s mother 6 Good bulV water fight As the semester progresses, some Texas A&M University students are finding it harder to concentrate on those sometimes monotonous assign ments. Letting off steam becomes an absolute necessity. These Moore and Davis-Gary hall residents partake in a little ‘good buir session by throwing trashcans of water on each other. It may be cold and wet, but it’s more fun than doing physics problems. Battalion photo by Sam Stroder United Press International FORT WORTH — The mother of Lee Harvey Oswald — the man accused of kill ing President John F. Kennedy — has labeled as “asinine” a British author’s ‘theory that the body of a Soviet agent lies in Oswald’s grave. I Lawyer-author Michael Eddowes, who visited the Oswald grave in Fort Worth Saturday, claims there were two Oswalds I- the real man who defected to Russia ftnd a KGB imposter who returned to the United States on June 13, 1962. I “It’s an asinine theory, said Marguerite ipswald Saturday in a radio interview with Columbus, Ohio, radio station WCOL from her Fort Worth home. f Fingerprints taken of the man arrested One week until Q-drop deadline Students have until next Monday to |rop classes with no penalty. A student’s record will show a “Q” for [classes dropped through that day. Stu- Jdents who drop a course after Monday will Ireceive an “F” unless unusual circum- Istances exist. in Dallas after the assasination matched Oswald’s Marine Corps fingerprint rec ords, but Eddowes maintains the Soviets may have infiltrated the FBI’s fingerprint file system, or that the FBI may have switched records “in the interests of na tional security.” The Dallas County medical examiner has proposed that the remains in Oswald’s grave be exhumed and re-examined to es tablish positive identity. However, Tar rant County officials in neighboring Fort Worth have said they will not accede to disinterment without a court order. A spokesman for the Dallas County dis trict attorney’s office has said there were no plans to petitition for disinterment. Mrs. Oswald, 72, said that exhumation of the body would not help to determine who killed President John F. Kennedy. “You open that grave, and let’s just say it’s not Lee Harvey Oswald, how . . . are you going to prove who it is?’ she asked. “There are some things that don’t jibe and I think it is better to answer the ques tions than to allow the speculation to con tinue forever,” said county medical exam iner Dr. Charles Petty. Mrs. Oswald said she talked with her son in jail on Nov. 23, 1963, the day after Kennedy was shot. She emphasized that the man she talked with was her son. Eisenhower taped Oval Office talks United Press International HOUSTON — Dwight D. Eisenhower installed and for more than five years of his presidency used a secret Oval Office tap ing system to record the conversations he had with his staff, congressional leaders, reporters and Vice President Richard Ni xon, the Houston Chronicle reported in its Sunday editions. The widow of the Army Signal Corps colonel who supervised the installation said Eisenhower used a taping system “you wouldn’t believe to record meetings as frequently and commonplace as “every time he blew his nose,” the newspaper said in a copyrighted story. “The existence of Eisenhower’s secret Oval Office tapes was doubtless one of his and his administration’s best kept secrets,” said Francis L. Loewenheim, the Rice University historian who authored the story and who found transcripts of the tapes at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan. Loewenheim said records showed Eisenhower began recording meetings in his office in October 1953 and continued until at least December 1958. Among those aware of the installation and operation of the president’s recording system, Loewenheim said, was John Fos ter Dulles, who served as Eisenhower’s secretary of state from January 1953 until shortly before his death in 1959. “Existence of the monitoring operation was almost certainly also known to a number of other top members of Eisenhower’s White House staff, includ ing Murray Snyder, then assistant press secretary, James C. Hagerty, the presi dent’s press secretary, later vice president of ABC, and Maj. Gen. Wilton B. Persons, deputy assistant to the president,” the newspaper said. “The transcripts of the tapes were gen erally, if not invariably, prepared by the president’s trusted personal secretary, Ann C. Whitman. ‘Tough cookie’ dies in Nevada gas chamber United Press International CARSON CITY, Nev. — Jesse W. Bishop, a smalltime criminal who bragged about his life of fancy cars, beautiful women and drugs, died in the Nevada State Prison gas chamber early today, ful filling a wish attorneys tried to deny him. Bishop, condemned to death for slaying a newlywed in a Las Vegas casino holdup, maintained his bravado to the end. His last meal of filet mignon evoked a joking comment: “My compliments to the cook.” “He was a tough cookie,” Prison Superintendent Rober Lippold told re porters. The execution came after, an endless flurry of legal moves to save him — all spurned by Bishop on the ground they would only prolong the inevitable and constituted cruel and unusual punish ment. He said he was ready to take his punishment. Bishop, who spent 20 of his 46 years behind bars, wore a white shirt, prison denim trousers and white socks into the death chamber where he became the sec ond person to be executed in the United States this year. The first was John Spen- kelink, who was electrocuted in Florida in May. The last time Nevada used its gas chamber was nearly two decades ago. In Las Vegas, District Judge James Brennan rejected a last minute appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union Satur day to stay the execution on grounds Nevada’s capital punishment law was un constitutional.