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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 1981)
The Battalion Serving the Texas A&M University community Vol. 74 No. 188 Thursday, August 13, 1981 DSPS 045 360 Gret 14 Pages College Station, Texas Phone 845-2611 ilOtfS — oustonljp Today The Weather Tomorrow High 98 High .... 98 Low 75 Low .... 75 Chance of rain. .... 20% Chance of rain. . . . . 20% % m Jackie Mackney, owner of Action Outdoor Advertising, puts the finishing touches on a bill board located on Wellborn Road. Mackney has owned the billboard business for five years, hav ing bought it from an 87-year-old woman and her brother. Mackney said she often hires Texas A&M University students, but that hanging pap er in 90 plus degree weather and trying to main tain a difficult balance on a scaffold 20 feet in the air creates a high turnover rate. oyi KEiAlarm system may contribute to large number of fire calls By BERNIE FETTE Battalion Staff More than 90 percent of the fire calls on the Texas A&M campus since Jan. 1 have been false alarms, and College Sta tion Fire Marshall Harry L. Davis Sr. said he expects the problem to get worse before it gets better. “I would say that close to 95 percent of the calls we respond to (on the cam pus) are false alarms,” Davis said. “And it’s going to get worse as College Station I gets bigger.” Most of the buildings on the campus employ the Hawkeye alarm system which Davis said is both very sophisti- .pited and very expensive, but it is those | If ^buildings which have the greatest fre- *|\\quency of unexplained false alarms. ■Davis said that of 112 fire calls on the campus between Jan. 1 and July 31, >ur there was only one building fire. [ | “We don’t know what the problem iCt6|is,” Davis said. “And they (University officials) don’t seem to know either.” But alarm system malfunctions are not the only type of false alarms that College Station firemen respond to. Thirty-one of the false alarms during the six-month period were caused by alarm malfunctions and the rest were either prank phone calls or phone calls from people who thought they smelled smoke in a building. Davis said he doesn’t know how the Hawkeye system works or what is wrong with it but that it has been used here for at least three years and, “it seems that that would be enough time to work the bugs out of it.” He said the city of College Station has more than twic6 as many fire alarms as the University but, while the Universi ty^ false alarm rate is almost 95 percent, the city’s is less than 5 percent. One way to remedy the problem is to replace the Hawkeye systems with more efficient sprinkler systems, Davis said. “A sprinkler system is almost fool proof,” Davis said. “They malfunction less than 1 percent of the time. ” He said the problem was helped par tially by University Police officers who would respond to fire calls and then call city firemen if there was actually a fire. But that practice carried the potential of greater fire losses due to the firemen arriving late, he said. Davis said the worst part of the prob lem is that when the department re sponds to a University call, all available trucks are usually sent, causing the potential for a considerable delay if fire men must respond to a call in College Station. But if calls from the city and the University are received at almost the same time, the University will have to wait, he said. “It’s the city first, the University second; that’s our standard operating procedure,” Davis said. “College Sta tion residents pay taxes to pay for fire protection but, the University doesn’t pay for anything. ” Medicare recipients may get option _ United Press International Si WASHINGTON — The Reagan administration said Wednesday it is considering a major change in Medicare that would allow the 29 million reci pients to drop out of the program and fall S et vouchers instead to buy private health insurance. |;| Such a change — which officials emphasized is only one of a number of health care policy options being consi dered — would not force recipients off the rolls, but would instead give them a choice. Backers of the move argue that the fight among private insurers for such ^business would help keep down health lS care costs. Another major problem is that the Medicate trust fund faces se vere financing problems in about 10 years. The Washington Post reported Wednesday the government vouchers would be worth about $1,700, but spokesman Dick McGowan said that fi gure was “speculation.” The Post ar rived at its figure by dividing the $48 billion cost of Medicare by the 29 mil lion Medicare beneficiaries — all but 3 million of whom are elderly. The other 3 million recipients are disabled. “The concept of going to the vouchers is just one of a number of op tions under consideration,” said McGo wan. The administration has promised a comprehensive health care legislation package later this year with the emph asis being on competition. The voucher idea reflects the Reagan administration’s basic preference for re ducing the federal role. Another idea reportedly under study would restructure the program to have the government negotiate fixed-fee agreements with those providing health services to Medicare beneficiaries. Under the present program, the gov ernment reimburses doctors and hos pitals for what it defines as reasonable charges for services rendered. Backers of change in the system argue there is now no incentive for health care profes sionals and vendors to hold costs down. Graduation day Saturday for summer school Aggies By DENISE RICHTER Battalion Staff The widow of a Texas A&M student who was killed in an oilfield accident will receive his posthumous degree dur ing graduation ceremonies Saturday. Wilham Overman, 23, a senior mechanical engineering major from Andrews, was killed instantly when he was struck by a hydrosub swivel. The accident occurred in Burleson County on June 12. Pita Overman said her husband lack ed six hours of credit for his undergra duate degree. He had planned to com plete the courses during the current summer session and return to Andrews to work for Exxon, she said. In its summer meeting held Aug. 5, the University Academic Council de cided to grant Overman a posthumous degree. Dean of Faculties Dr. Clinton A. Phillips said it’s not unusual for the Uni versity to award posthumous degrees in such cases. “If a person is in his or her last semes ter and would have graduated, ” he said, “that person would be awarded a degree with the approval of the Academic Council.” The Academic Council consists of University administrators, elected fa culty representatives and the student body president. The council approves major decisions concerning academic matters, including approval of academic courses and degree candidates. Phillips said at least one or two post humous degrees are awarded each year. Silver Taps will be held in September to honor Overman and other Texas A&M students who have died since Aggie Muster April 21. Saturday’s commencement cere mony is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. in G. Rollie White Coliseum. Dr. William O. Trogdon, president of Tarleton State University, will address the degree can didates and their guests. Commissioning cermonies will be held in the coliseum at 1:30 p.m. Solidarity accuses Russia of shirking responsibility United Press International WARSAW, Poland (UPI) — The head of the Roman Catholic church in Poland Wednesday arranged a meeting with Communist party chief Stanislaw Kania in an apparent bid to help medi ate a growing rift between the govern ment and Solidarity. That rift has been widening steadily since last week and grew worse when the communist party and Solidarity approved separate hard-hitting resolu tions, each critical of the other. Solidarity accused the government of shirking responsibility for Poland’s worsening economic problems. The government blamed Solidarity for plan ning street demonstrations and increas ing tensions. Kania’s office confirmed the party secretary had agreed to meet with Archibishop Jozef Glemp, appointed primate of Poland earlier this summer. No date or place for the meeting was announced, but Glemp apparently asked for the appointment to discuss the rapidly worsening situation, which Kania said Tuesday had brought the na tion to the brink of tragedy. The church has become more active in trying to help mediate the national crisis since Pope John Paul II appointed Glemp to replace the late primate Ste fan Wyszynski. Word of the meeting came as Solidar ity leaders meeting in closed emergen cy session for a third day approved a pair of resolutions accusing the government of trying to shirk responsibility for Po lands crisis. The charge was leveled in resolutions approved just 10 hours after a special session of the Communist Party Central Committee adopted a hardhitting re solution of its own blaming Solidarity extremists for escalating the national crisis. The charges came as the Soviet Union massed an armada of at least 62 ships near the Polish coast for combined land- sea military exercises. Officials in Washington, while saying they saw nothing to indicate the man euvers “were directed against Poland,” said the naval exercises were the biggest in five years and would be joined by Soviet “command and staff’ land exer cises, which do not involve troop move ments. “The central committee declares a very serious worsening of the situation in the country has taken place,” the Communist party resolution said. “New tensions and particularly street demon strations organized by the extremist links of Solidarity are (to blame).” Brochure warns swimmers A safety brochure focusing on the dangers encountered by bathers along Texas beaches is being distributed in Galveston and other coastal cities. Produced by the Texas A&M Univer sity Sea Grant College Program, the leaflet, written in Spanish and English, was developed following the release of a report last year that rated Galveston Beach among the most dangerous in the nation. Galveston Beach was given a five-star rating in a survey conducted last year by the United States Lifesaving Associa tion. Five stars indicate a high risk beach with high potential for danger and is the association’s most dangerous rating. “People stay in the water longer and get tired before they know it. “Compared to West coast beaches, our beaches are warm and have less wave energy,” said James McCloy, di rector of the Coastal Zone Laboratory at Texas A&M University at Galveston. More than 12,000 copies of the brochure have been distributed in Gal veston alone and include an insert that describes the dangers peculiar to that beach including illustrations of rip cur rents, holes, sand bars, dangerous marine animals and statistics on drown ing accidents. The eight-panel leaflet entitled “Have Fun, But Know the Dangers of the Beach,” was developed in coopera tion with the Galveston County Medical Society Auxiliary and is available through the Sea Grant office at Texas A&M. Office hours altered during 2-week break During the two-week period when summer school students leave and stu dents start trickling back to campus for the fall semester, most campus facilities will operate under different hours. Schedules are as follows: Sterling C. Evans Library AugustM 7:30a.m.-5 p.m. Beginning August 17, Monday-Friday 8a.m.-5p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 1p.m.-5 p.m. Creamery Continues regular hours Monday-Friday 8:15 a.m.-5 p.m. MCS Main Desk Open 24 hours a day Check cashing: August 14-24 8:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Beginning August 24 . 8:30 a.m.-8p.m. MSC Bowling and Carnes Closed August 17-23 Open Monday(August 24)-Thursday 8a.m.-ll p.m. Friday and Saturday. . . . 8 a.m.-1p.m. Sunday 1p.m.-11 p.m. Intramural Department East Kyle Field and G. Rollie White Coliseum: Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-midnight Saturday and Sunday . . 8a.m.-10p.m. Deware Fieldhouse: Closed August 15-28 Wofford Cain Pool: Monday-Friday 12p.m.-6p.m. Saturday and Sunday .. . 1p.m.-6p.m. Tennis Courts: Courts are open all the time on a first come-first served basis, except for re servations. Reservations can be made Monday Friday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Change of command The members of the Chemistry Department bid farewell and good luck to Dr. C. S. Giam (right) at a party held in his honor last week. Giam resigned as head of the department to take on a position as dean at the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Joe Natowitz received congratulations from Giam on being named the interim department head.