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75 No. 49
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Serving the Texas A&M University community
Monday, November 9, 1981
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
The Weather
Today Tomorrow
High .
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Low. .
43 Low
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By DANIEL PUCKETT
Battalion Staff
[met hours will be observed on the
ps Quadrangle today and flags flown
If-mast in honor of a student who
Friday night after being run over
a(tractornear the bonfire cutting site.
addition, cadets will observe a
lent of silence during supper, Todd
w T|» gepeth, Corps public relations
IJ n !er, said Sunday.
*• iViley Keith Jopling, 19, a sopho-
'ancing* eagricultural economics major from
j pgdoches, died after a tractor on
th he and two other students were
|ig hit a hump at about 6:40 p.m.
ing, riding on the left rear fender,
off and was crushed beneath the
|cle’s left rear wheel, said Trooper
|Kuhnle, of the Department of Pub-
lafety.
he tractor, driven by Richard Sav-
jasophomore mechanical engineer-
Inajorfrom Houston, was eastbound
jhe Old San Antonio Road three to
I miles west of the cutting site,
mlesaid. The cutting site is about 12
northeast of Bryan on Old San
mio Road.
e other passenger, Michael Dunn,
Inior mechanical engineering major
Sugarland, was not hurt,
jelling was rushed to St. Joseph Hos-
where he was pronounced dead at
it7 p.m., Kuhnle said. He said no
ges have been filed in connection
jh the incident but that an investiga-
n of Jopling’s death is still underway.
Savage and Dunn could not be
thed for comment. However, Art
Jc, head stack (coordinator) of the
(fire, said the bonfire committee has
m
1!
Wiley Keith Jopling
begun taking extra precautions to pre
vent a repetition of Friday’s incident.
He said no one is now allowed to ride
on the tractor fenders. Instead, passen
gers must ride behind the driver, so that
if they fall, they fall behind the tractor
and not in front of its wheels.
In addition, no students are allowed
to ride flat-bed trucks out to the cutting
site and tractors are no longer driven
there, but hauled on trailers.
Free said he would not be able to
comment further until after a meeting
with University officials, a meeting he
expects sometime Monday.
Jopling’s father, Floyd Jopling of
Nacogdoches, said his son was actively
involved in agriculture and communica
tions. He worked part-time for a Col
lege Station agriculturalist and kept his
own cattle near Nacogdoches.
“He was an enthusiastic Aggie, and
we were very proud of him, ” his father
said. He said Jopling was academically
above average, graduating 22nd in a
high-school class of 305, in addition to
filling several offices in the Nacog
doches Future Farmers of America.
His employer. Bob Franke, said Jo
pling, an extremely reliable worker, did
various jobs for him and tended his cat
tle. “When I first met Wiley, I was so
impressed that I found a job for him; the
longer he worked for me, the more im
pressed I was,” he said.
Franke added that Jopling was plan
ning to advise financial institutions on
agricultural loans after graduation. “He
wanted to give sound advice to the
banks and to the people applying for
loans,” he said.
Jopling’s roommate, Luis de la Reza,
a junior civil engineering major from
Bolivia, said Jopling was dedicated to
the bonfire and always happy. “I never
saw him depressed; he was friends with
everybody,” de la Reza said.
Tracy Cox, head resident at Mclnnis
Hall where Jopling lived, said Jopling
was very active in dorm affairs and chief
of the Mclnnis cutting crew. He said
Mclnnis cutters wore black arm bands
in Jopling’s honor this weekend.
The family requests that memorial
donations be made to the Wiley Keith
Jopling Memorial Scholarship Fund in
care of the Former Students Associa
tion.
Staff photo by Dave Einsel
A tough job
Mark Belcher, left, from Company M-2, helps
another bonfire worker chain on a tractor-load
of wood at the bonfire site northeast of Old San
Antonio Road. Muddy conditions at the site
caused trucks to get stuck, meaning the wood
had to be unloaded and pulled out by tractor.
Lawsuits against A&M
unresolved in courts
olidarity, Polish government
Wildcat strike settled
United Press International
I WARSAW, Poland — Solidarity un-
| a negotiators reached agreement with
Iplimcl s communist government today
end a nearly three-week wildcat
ke by 200,000 people in the western
Ovince of Zielona Cora.
'Although other strikes persist around
I Bcountry, the Zielona Cora walkout
I is the biggest, longest and most bit-
complicating chances for the re-
I ttiption of national negotiations be-
| |e| Solidarity and the government.
!;Union officials in Zielona Gora, the
flital of which is 270 miles west of
Warsaw and near the East German bor
der, withheld complete details of the
agreement until a signing ceremony
could be arranged later in the day.
But a spokesman at Solidarity’s na
tional headquarters in Gdansk said the
workers won their chief demand — re
moval of a state farm manager whom
they accused of anti-union activities.
The workers also won full back pay
for the period of the strike which began
19 days ago. The spokesman said the
union’s national fund would pay 50 per
cent of the strikers’ wages, with the gov
ernment making up the other half.
The union’s press spokesman in
Zielona Gora, Marion Podsada, con
firmed the outline of the tentative
agreement. He said representatives of
Solidarity and the government must
still sign documents making formal their
understanding.
The state farm director, Henry Les-
niewski, was a delegate to last summer’s
Communist Party Congress and is a
member of the provincial party leader
ship. His removal obviously was a diffi
cult point to agree on, but Solidarity in
Gdansk said the agreement guarantees
his ouster.
Staff photo by Colin Valentine
Sun's out at last
After several gloomy hours of rain and overcast
skies Sunday, the sundial across from the
KAMU studios was finally rewarded with the
brief appearance of the sun.
By TIM FOARDE
Battalion Staff
Although the Gay Student Service
Organization’s lawsuit has captured
most attention recently, previous high-
ly publicized suits against Texas A&M
University are still unresolved.
Lawsuits involving Texas A&M have
kept University lawyers arguing in the
courts about alleged sex discrimination
in the Corps of Cadets, freedom of infor
mation and the University’s right to
copyright Texas A&M logos.
The sex discrimination suit
The class action sex discrimination
suit began in 1979 with former cadet
Melanie Zentgraf, Class of ‘80.
Zentgraf charged the University with
sex discrimination because at that time
women were excluded from the Aggie
Band, Ross Volunteers, Fish Drill
Team, Rudder’s Rangers, Parson’s
Mounted Cavalry and the Brigade Col
or Guard.
Women are still excluded from the
Aggie Band, Ross Volunteers and the
Fish Drill Team.
James Bond, System vice-chancellor
for legal affairs, said a Houston District
Court has determined that Zentgrafs
point is moot (because she has gradu
ated) but has preserved her right to rep
resent women at Texas A&M in her
same situation.
Bond said the Justice Department in
tervened on the premise that there
were civil right violations, but the court
has restricted the department’s involve
ment to questions concerning 14th
Amendment violations.
Should the court decide in Zentgraf s
favor. Bond said, the University could
be forced to change any policies in the
Corps determined discriminatory and
may be required to pay attorney’s fees
incurred by Zentgraf.
The freedom of information
suit
The University filed An appeal Thurs
day after an Austin District Court ruled
against the University in a freedom of
information suit filed by the Bryan-
College Station Eagle.
The Eagle in February requested
disclosure of a search committee’s pre
liminary list of candidates to succeed
former Texas A&M President Jarvis
Miller.
The Board of Regents refused to dis
close the list of names and the Eagle
sued the University for violating the
Texas Open Records Act.
The Texas Open Records Act pro
vides access by the public to informa
tion in custody of governmental agen
cies and bodies, with exceptions involv
ing “unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy.”
The district court ruled in favor of the
Eagle following Texas Attorney General
Mark White’s opinion that the list was a
matter of public information. Bond said.
White has said there could be harm
ful results in a liberal interpretation of
the Open Records Act but he inteprets
the law to say the information should be
public.
However, the University still re
fused to disclose the list and Thursday
appealed the decision.
If the appeals court does not decide
in the University’s favor, Regents
Chairman H.R. “Bum” Bright has said
the case will be taken to the Texas Sup
reme Court.
“This case is of crucial importance
not only to the University but to every
government agency in the state,” Bond
said. “It says to cities, counties, univer
sities and state agencies that they must
go through the process of receiving raw
data (such as prospective personnel) tot
ally out in the sunshine.
This would not allow agencies to get
highly crediblp nominees at an early
date and investigate raw data concern
ing them. Bond said. If names can’t be
kept confidential, he said, people would
not permit their names to fall into the
system and get instant notoriety.
Bond said this would pressure candi
dates in a premature fashion, “long be
fore they are even a serious candidate,
or even give consent to be considered. ”
Officials from both the University and
The Eagle said in early August they
would pursue the matter even if a Uni
versity president was named before the
dispute was resolved. This became real
ity when Dr. Frank E. Vandiver was
named president Aug. 26.
Both sides have kept their word and
the case is still in court.
The copyright case
No progress has been made aside
from the filing and answering of charges
in a suit about the copyrighting of Texas
A&M logos. Bond said the next step will
be interrogatory hearings to gather in
formation from both sides.
The University is being sued by four
local bookstores and a manufacturer
who protest the University’s decision to
copywrite the Texas A&M insignia and
emblems.
The University has registered with
the secretary of state the letters TAMU
in any form, the ATM symbol, the A&M
crest and seal, the “Gig ’em Aggies”
slogan, the raised thumb symbol and
the drawing of Old Sarge.
Other universities including the Uni
versity of Texas have their logos copyr
ighted Bond said.
“There is nothing abnormal, unnatu
ral or atypical about a university copyr
ighting their logos. The University is
very secure in its position.”
Changes may be on the way
for leadership in Soviet Union
United Press International
MOSCOW — The absence of two
prominent Soviet politicians from the
annual Revolution Day parade in Red
Square has Kremlin watchers speculat
ing that important changes may be afoot
in Moscow’s leadership.
The Saturday parade marked the
64th anniversary of Communist control
in Russia, and was used to deliver a
stern message to the United States that
achieving a military edge over Moscow
was impossible.
But the message broke no new fore
ign policy ground and Western obser
vers were more intrigued with the abs
ence of ideologist Boris Ponomarev and
Viktor Grishin, controversial chairman
of the Moscow city Communist Party.
Neither was standing atop the
mausoleum of V.I. Lenin, where the
Soviet leadership traditionally reviews
the military march.
Western analysts said only illness or
impending political downfall could
account for their failure to appear on a
Soviet red-letter day. Neither the
Soviet Foreign Ministry nor Tass new's
agency could explain their absence.
The incident took on special signifi
cance since a plenary session of the
Communist Party Central Committee,
at which changes in the ruling Politburo
are normally announced, is expected
within the next 10 days.
Most sources agreed that Pono
marev, 76, one of the leading party
ideologists, was politically secure and
probably was ill during the weekend.
But Grishin, 67, has been out of the
public eye for more than a month. His
last major assignment was representing
the Kremlin at the Polish Communist
Party congress in July, when Stanislaw
Kania was re-elected its chief. Kania
was deposed last month.
Grishin was caught in an embarras
sing incident at the 1979 Mayday parade
that has never been officially explained.
The newspaper Evening Moscow —
which Grishin’s party organization pub
lishes — printed a picture of Soviet
leaders atop Lenin’s tomb that omitted
Andrei Kirilenko, now 75, the man most
often mentioned as a successor to
Leonid Brezhnev.
In an altered photograph, Grishin
was shown in the picture one spot closer
to Brezhnev than he had actually been
standing. The next morning other news
papers published a photograph of the
leadership that included Kirilenko.
Kremlinologists surmised at the time
that Grishin, a dark horse candidate to
succeed Brezhnev, had made a clumsy
attempt to embarrass Kirilenko.