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75 No. 6
Pages
Serving the Texas A&M University community
Tuesday, September 7, 1981
College Station, Texas
ilver Taps to honor
1 deceased Aggies
0CcC r
entry
eTexas A&M campus will be hushed
sday night in a final tribute to 11
iversity students who have died dur-
the last five months.
The Silver Taps ceremony, a Texas
|l M tradition to honor deceased stu-
■ its that dates back almost a century,
Wlbeheldat 10:30 p.m. in front of the
■ idemic Building in the center of
1 npus.
Lights on campus should be exting-
I bed from 10:20 p.m. till 10:50 p.m.
Students also are asked not to act in a
id or disruptive manner during the
emony.
During the ceremony, the Ross
unteers honor guard will fire a 21-
salute and buglers will play a special
arrangement of taps.
Several thousand students are ex
pected to gather in silence to honor
those who have died since Aggie Mus
ter, which is held April 21.
Silver Taps will be held tonight for
the following students:
-— Joseph Lynn Dill Jr., a freshman
accounting major from San Antonio
— Harold James Ewald Jr., a fresh
man marine science major from
Arlington
— Roger Thomas Gill, a freshman
electrical engineering major from Uni
versal City
— William Ernest Jochec, a senior
petroleum engineering major from
Houston
— Stephen Courtney Kleck, a junior
finance major from San Antonio
—James Richard Mearns, a freshman
environmental design major from Li
berty
—Jimmy Lee Newman, a sophomore
environmental design major from Los
Fresnos
— William Wayne Overman, a senior
mechanical engineering major from
Andrews
— Nancy Anne Powell, a junior edu
cational curriculum and instruction ma
jor from Houston
— Tana Louise Springer, a junior'
animal science major from Snyder
— Frederick Axel Youngberg IV, a
freshman biology major from Irving.
lir controllers march
n Labor Day protests
United Press International
raditional Labor Day festivities
e overshadowed this year by the pa-
es of irate union members, notably
striking air traffic controllers, who
ched in New York, Michigan and
ho to express their discontent with
sident Reagan’s labor policies,
it tk| Rea g an ’ 111 a conciliatory gesture to
on members, promised his econo
program would mean millions of
jobs in coming years, but he was
spicuously absent from New York’s
t Labor Day parade in 13 years,
ich drew more than 150,000 workers
IjFifth Avenue Monday,
asts, «■ Thousands of air traffic controllers
t delifistd Ly Reagan were joined by carpen-
Iriveliters, electricians, laborers, plumbers,
hegrftStjfcamfitters and others.
,e Pul
“It’s a message to everyone in this
country, including the administration,
of our resolve and solidarity,’’ Robert
Poli, president of the Professional Air
Traffic Controllers Organization, told
marching workers.
The depressed auto industry also put
a damper on the first Labor Day parade
to be held in Detroit in 15 years. Only
about 2,500 people showed up for the
event, most of them speaking out
against the administration’s handling of
the air traffic controller strike.
In Boise, Idaho, unions representing
just about every worker in the state car
ried placards in support of Idaho’s air
traffic controllers, among the 12,000
fired because of their strike for better
wages and a shorter work week.
“It’s our Labor Day parade. A show of
trim els Bermuda tourists
>ut(f
Hurricaine nears island
V>Tilled "Press International
lympicBHAMlLTON, Bermuda — A
mi feakening Hurricane Floyd bore down
fee (Put on tourist-packed Bermuda today while
e n fed Wins from Tropical Storm Cert inun-
jve AlBted the Leeward Islands on the way to
y mil 6 Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
{Bermuda, a rocky resort haven filled
(the brim with stranded tourists, bat
tled down as Floyd approached — its
Inds down to minimal hurricane
length of 75 mph as it moved north
■to colder waters.
I Thousands of tourists tried to leave
forborne Monday when Floyd changed
Ifurse and headed toward the island,
lost of today’s flights were canceled
and the cruise ship Volendam, headed
for Bermuda with a full load of tourists,
said it would stay out at sea.
I In the Leeward Islands, residents of
fuadeloupe and Dominica, which was
Ivastated by Hurricane David in 1979,
felt the torrential rains of Cert as it pas-
|d by on its way to predicted landfalls
day on the Virgin Islands and Puerto
co.
Onetime-Hurricane Emily, which
never threatened land, disintegrated in
chilly North Atlantic waters off Canada
and hurricane forecasters said it likely
would cease to be a storm late today.
At 3 a.m. EDT, the National Hurri
cane Center in Miami said Floyd was
about 140 miles southwest of Bermuda
and its center was expected to pass
south of the island later today.
An Air Force reconnaissance plane
reported Floyd’s winds were down to 75
mph and forecasters said the hurricane
was not expected to get stronger be
cause of colder waters.
Cert, which formed late Monday
from a tropical depression in the Atlan
tic, was reported crossing the Leeward
Islands, just west of the island of Guade
loupe, with its 45-mph winds early
today.
Forecaster Joe Pelissier said Cert
had the potential to strengthen, but its
rendezvous with the Virgin Islands,
Puerto Rico and possibly the Domini
can Republic — all mountainous land
areas — could keep it from gaining hur
ricane strength quickly.
orm fires reveal snags in detector system
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
The Weather
Tomorrow
High 88
Low 70
Chance of rain 20%
Today
High 87
Low 68
Chance of rain 40%
m - • ") ' H
ip \
IIISIIP ^ISj.,
I •* - * ^ „
Wmmm
■ w —
—Jk- f-w , TT
-—“■** M < •ipy. fe y ■ k h#
unity and togetherness with PATCO,”
said James Kerns, president of Idaho’s
AFL-CIO.
Reagan, in New York to present
Mayor Edward Koch a federal check for
$85 million for a highway project on
Manhattan’s west side, told an outdoor
audience of 350 — many in hard hats —
his economic program would usher in “a
new age of the American worker.”
The president said he envisioned
“the creation of 3 million more jobs in
this country by 1986, in addition to the
10 million already expected.”
But AFL-CIO President Lane Kirk
land scoffed at Reagan’s holiday pledge
to generate “jobs, jobs and more jobs.”
Kirkland said the federal budget already
has directly eliminated 1.25 million
jobs.
The hurricane center said rains up to
5 inches could produce flash flooding in
the Leewards — including the island of
Dominica, the banana-growing island of
80,000 people where 80 percent of the
homes were destroyed by Hurricane
David.
On Bermuda, a British colony of
56,000 permanent residents filled with
Labor Day tourists, the emergency Me
asures Organization, an umbrella group
of relief organizations, set up a com
mand post manned by police.
Homeowners were told to shutter up
and tie down all loose objects, but there
was no panic and the Ministry of Educa
tion said it would wait until early today
to decide whether to cancel classes.
Emily, which brushed Bermuda on
its way north, was reported about 310
miles south southeast of St. Johns, New
foundland, early today with highest
winds around 60 mph. Forecasters said
Floyd was churning northward mainly
because of Emily’s effects on Atlantic
weather patterns.
Staff photo by Greg Gammon
Silver Taps will be held tonight at 10:30 for these Texas A&M students who have died since Aggie Muster.
Sadat attempts to squelch Islamic
opposition by taking over mosques
United Press International
CAIRO, Egypt — President Anwar
Sadat’s goverment will take control of
40,000 mosques and require licensing of
Moslem preachers to halt a militant Isla
mic opposition a newspaper today
blamed partly on a Soviet-trained pro
fessor.
The move to regulate Islamic organi
zations in Egypt was the latest step by
Sadat to stop unrest that has led to
bloody clashes between Coptic Christ
ians and Islamic fundamentalists like
those who toppled the shah of Iran.
The Al Ahram newspaper reported
the Egyptian intelligence service had
foiled a three-year conspiracy by a Cop
tic professor to undermine the country’s
national unity by inciting the religious
battles.
The agriculture professor at Cairo
University, who graduated in the Soviet
Union in 1973, is charged with activities
that “directly” led to clashes between
Coptics and Moslems last June in Cairo
that killed 17 and wounded 112 others.
Using different Coptic names, he
sent letters from around the country
hostile to Islam, the paper said. The
leader of a militant Islamic group at Ale
xandria University received the letters
and angrily distributed leaflets hostile
to Christians.
The intelligence agents noticed the
similarity in the handwriting of the let
ters and tracked them to the unidenti
fied professor, Al Ahram said.
Sadat, citing a “serious threat to na
tional unity,” last week purged journal
ists and professors, closed seven news
papers, banned three Coptic and 10
Islamic societies, and arrested more
than 1,500 people.
His biggest crackdown on opposition
since taking office in 1970 continued
with Mayo, the official journal of Sadat’s
National Democratic Party, saying
Monday that ousted Coptic Pope She-
noudah III had been barred from reli
gious meetings and will be exiled to a
desert monastery.
Cabinet Minister Zakaria elBarri said
$12.5 million had been allocated for a
plan to assume full control over the
40,000 mosques, mostly built by reli
gious organizations.
By DENISE RICHTER
Battalion Staff
All duct smoke detectors in Aston
Hall have been tested and are in work
ing order, a university safety and health
officer contends, although none of the
detectors sounded during a fire in the
hall last week.
Dorm rooms and hallways in Aston
are equipped with sensing devices lo
cated in return-air vents, R. H. Stiteler
said, which are supposed to detect the
smoke in the rooms and hallways and
sound an alarm.
However, last week’s fire in a com
munity bath on the first floor of the
dorm did not trigger the alarm, Stiteler
said, because the community baths are
connected to a vent that leads to the roof
and are not hooked up to this return-air
vent system.
Most of the smoke from the bath
room fire was taken out of the building
and did not enter the hallway to trigger
the alarm, he said.
The fire allegedly was started after
someone deliberately piled toilet paper
in the bathtub and ignited it, Capt. Tim
Fickey of the College Station Fire De
partment said. The plastic shower cur
tain caught on fire and the room was
filled with smoke.
Stiteler didn’t deny the duct system
is without fault, however.
Air in the dorm is continually circu
lated through the return-air system.
There are four air-handling units and a
number of duct detectors hooked up to
the system on each floor.
Stiteler said the large number of
rooms each air-handling unit is respon
sible for causes problems. “If one room
was filled with smoke, this smoke would
be combined with the air from all of the
other rooms tied into the system. By the
time the smoke reached the sampling
tubes in the air-handling unit, there
would be quite a bit of dilution and the
smoke might or might not set off the
duct detector.”
Similarily, alarms were also not trig
gered during another fire Sunday at
Keathley Hall in a trash chute. Stiteler
said chutes in the dorm, like the com
munity baths in Aston, also are not con
nected to the duct system which is
equipped with smoke detectors.
Central Area Coordinator Tom Mur
ray said the fire apparently was started
when hot coals from a hibachi were
thrown into the trash chute. College
Station firemen were summoned, but
the fire was extinguished by an automa
tic sprinkler system before they arrived.
“We have sprinkler heads in those
rooms and they should be enough to put
out the type of fire that we would have
in these rooms,” Stiteler said.
All campus buildings are connected
to a $100,000 “Hawkeye” system for fire
protection.
Under the Hawkeye system, instal
led in 1979, each building is assigned a
four-digit code number which is trans
mitted to the University emergency
operator and the University Police
when a building’s alarm sounds. Sup
posedly the fire’s location can be pin
pointed.
Texas A&M dormitories also are
hooked up to the Hawkeye system.
When an alarm sounds, a light flashes
on a central reporting panel in the head
resident’s room. A two- to three-minute
See related editorial page 2.
delay before the general alarm sounds
enables the head resident or resident
adviser to check the floor where the fire
has been reported and determine
whether it is a fire or a false alarm.
Each head resident and resident
adviser is equipped with a chemical fire
extinguisher. If the fire is one they feel
they can handle, they are advised to put
it out themselves. But, in the case of a
large fire, the College Station Fire De
partment is notified.
The Corps-style and modular dormi
tories are equipped with smoke detec
tors and pull stations on each floor,
while the Commons dorms have built-
in fire protection systems.
However, the five balcony-style
dorms present a problem in the area of
fire detection, Stiteler said.
Each balcony-style dorm is equipped
with duct detectors. Under this system,
smoke from a room has to travel down
the building’s return-air system before
it triggers the detector. The smoke is
usually so diluted by the time it reaches
the detector that it will not set off the
alarm, Stiteler said.
The housing office is looking into the
possibility of installing individual smoke
detector heads in each room, Stiteler
said.
As additional safeguards, Ron Sasse,
associate director of student affairs, said
fire drills will be held this semester in
the campus dormitories.
“Each area has been instructed to
have a drill in each dorm this semester,” i
Sasse said. “Whether they do these
separately or combined with other
dorms doesn’t matter, but each hall will
be involved in a drill this semester.”
The first fire drills ever on the Texas
A&M campus were held last spring in
Davis-Gary, Mosher and Spence halls.
Commons Area Coordinator Paul
Henry said, “Last year’s fire drill in
Mosher was fairly successful. It pointed
out problems for us — like the fact that
the alarm bells aren’t loud enough and
that some people aren’t familiar with
the exits they should take to get out of
the dorm. They (the fire drills) helped
but they made it evident that we need
more fire drills across the campus.”