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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1982)
i I 82 local/state Battalion/Page 5 March 9, 1982 >k, “The ddressei .merican ible on- hologisii enal sue- dt to the Cowboy' des “Dal lowevet. ted lony a gracei I J.R. de- tern do it as wd ,aid. e of the ity of the mage ly profit i said. ie large? n stori itry, re increase to 19811 /boy als mous ro said, is neveii m, tnoi Id on tt I iin erica; Student group to sponsor FOIA Day Wednesday by Hope E. Paasch Battalion Staff Access to federal govern- ent agencies’ records will be ore dif ficult if a Senate bill is tssed by Congress, says Jen- fer Afflerbach, chairman of eedoni of Information Day tivities at Texas A&M. The T exas A&M chapter of the Society of Professional •arnalists, Sigma Delta Chi, sponsoring FOI Day on March 10. Signatures will be tthered for a petition against the pending Senate bill, ffierbach said. A copy of the petition will be sent to Presi dent Reagan. Reagan favors further limi- tions on the Freedom of In formation Act. ITie FOI Act, which was signed by President Johnson in 1966, says records of feder al government agencies are presumptively available upon request. Certain exemptions are specified to protect na tional security, Congressmen, the President, federal court judges and private corpora tions, Afflerbach said. In the last 16 years, the FOI Act has been used to find out about FBI harassment cases, auto design defects and school districts’ compliance with anti- discrimination laws. Republican Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah proposed a bill that would dilute the impact of the FOI Act. The bill seeks to increase the fees and to lengthen the amount of time an agency has to provide the requested information. Ex emptions for the CIA and the FBI also would be broadened by passage of the bill. The FOI Act gives an agen cy a maximum of 30 days to comply with a request, while Hatch’s bill would allow a year for the same task. This part of the bill is especially important, she said, since the information may be outdated by the end of a year. “Concern over Hatch’s bill should not be limited to jour nalists,” Afflerbach said. “We arejust the eyes of the public.” Locally, the mayors of Bryan and College Station, along with Texas A&M Presi dent Frank E. Vandiver, have been requested to proclaim March 10 as Freedom of In formation Dav. Hispanic group forms political action force i > 5 eads to uppers I ailure of local bank causes Idjustments in town lifestyles for v t and United Press International ■VOODSON — The folding of a small West Texas bank dilln't shake the nation’s central banking system or trigger a de- cliie on the stock market. The bank’s capital assets — $350,000 —fnright cover roughly the price a prize bull. But for Cora Mae Carpenter, the Woodson State Bank’s lock ed doors means a painful delay intetting her $ 1 15 Social Secur- itvlcheck. ^For Davy Jones, 24, it means he does not know who will pick up Ids low-interest $ 18,000 trail er mortgage note. For Woodson School Super- intndent Alton Fields, it means he cannot be sure his school’s $37 000 monthlv payroll will be me; “People are already leaving fol jobs in Breckenridge and rockmorton,” said Carpen- who at 90 is the oldest mem ber of the community. Wood- about 100 miles west of Fort in j ias a population of 340. cases, )^^ c ] cenr i ( jg e anc [ Throckmor- are 20 miles away. kep FB‘Without the bank, the town’s going to go — wither on the she said. itting in her white clapboard ie, Carpenter said she will e to move her Social Security peck account to a more distant k. I Jones, who builds trailer homes for local residents, has no intention of leas ing. ■l can t really leas e just now,” he [said. But there are a lot of wor- reatet i r j es j i iave an $18,000 note on ( l er 1 m\ trailer, and I guess I'll base ice h u> negotiate svith a new bank to prison 1J u pj ( 'g ec l U p. Others are a lot years more worried than 1 am.” The small Woodson school SJnbers 100 students and 12 hers, grades 1 through 12. payroll must be met each (nth. The state bank commission miners svere closed- uthed about reasons for the k’s collapse, the first in ^^as in three years and fourth inuie nation this year — possibly [king 1982 a record year for balik failures. HPeople in this town of white- ^■hed buildings surrounded by fields of dried cotton stalks, me quite bramble and rusting ■ pumps attributed it to too ^Jnv unsecured loans to friends ■ relatives of bank owner nmy Ballard. ■ Ballard, of Bowie, has been ^ftvailable for comment. ■ ‘A bank dies and a town dries upland blows away,” said Graf- for 1 Wolfe, owner of R & E Dye Supply in nearby Breckenridge. Wilfe grew up on a 120-acre ^■m near Woodson. ■' It happened before in Gad- ■ Crystal Falls, Necessity, ^■vland," he said. ■'All those towns had banks in boom days of the oil rush ■ k in the ‘20s. When the hanks ^fcppeared. so did the schools, the places stopped ■wing." ■ But the tiny bank survived ■ upheavals of the Great De- ^■ssion and oil bust-boom cy- ■ |Tt was a spirit of the com- Binity to keep that bank ^■nt," Stephens Countv Judge ■ler Tuttle said. I Hard times meant people to tr\ harder, work longer ■l use their imagination to ( the bank alive.” Tuttle is a ^■cher in his native Woodson. ■He recalled a story told by his ■ le. Roy Miller. 87, a teller at ■ Woodson bank in the 1920s. ■ 'One dav the Woodson bank clean out of cash,” Tuttle said. “There had been a heavy run of people who wanted their cotton gin checks cashed. The bank tried to keep the whole thing secret to keep from a panic. “Then in struts this big flashy oil man and demands cash for a $200 check. Uncle Roy thinks a bit as he walks to the back of the bank. He wheels around and tells this fellow t hat the bank still has some gold. “Why that oil man’s eyes just lit up. So out walks this fellow with a shiny stack of 20-dollar gold pieces and Uncle Roy yvalks right behind him and locked the door.” Zana Anderson, 47, a Roby banker, used to own the Wood- son bank, chartered in 1907, and agreed it takes something beyond a profit motive to run a community service bank. The bank was sold for a half million dollars four years ago. Anderson and a partner are now in the process of helping Wood- son resident apply for a new bank charter. “We’re telling potential inves tors that they can expect no re turn on their money for several years,” Anderson said. “The depositors have been burned once. Will they come back? That’s the big question.” Wednesday, officials of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. liquidated the assets of the brick column-adorned building, despite a lawsuit filed by the bank owner earlier in the week to prevent the action. The bank’s 1,000 depositors lined up for cash. Rex Sullivan, 29, was one of them. “I have two children and a yvife and did all my banking there,” he said. “It’s a blow to see this thing go.” TS-O now open in College Station 8008 Post Oak Mall 764-0010 Bring your eyewear prescription to TSO. We guarantee absolute accuracy and the Finest quality materials in filling your ophthalmic prescription. And at a price you can afford. Texas ics O OATE RTICAE Since 1935. United Press International CORPUS CHRISTI — Six million Hispanic voters in the United States will make a politic al action committee just created by the League of United Latin American Citizens a potent poli tical force, the group’s president says. “This is a major development for LULAC,” Tony Bonilla said Sunday after the LULAC execu tive board approved creation of the political action committee. Traditionally, LULAC has not endorsed political candi dates, but Bonilla said that will change. “We feel it is time the Hispa nic community started flexing our muscles and electing people who are sensitive to Hispanic issues,” Bonilla said. During its three-day meeting that concluded Sunday in Dal las, the executive board of the oldest and largest Hispanic organization in the nation also voted to support the Reagan administration policy giving economic aid to the poor and oppressed in Latin American countries. But the directors went on record opposing direct or indirect military intervention in the region. The board also adopted a re solution supporting holdout pitcher Fernando Valenzuela in his salary negotiations with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although they threatened to call for a boycott of Dodger games if the team does not nego tiate in good faith with Valen zuela, the LULAC. directors con demned as censorship a boycott of RCA products by the Coali tion for Better Television. BLUE BELL ICE CREAM? Cl ID C RUMOURS HAS IT! OPEN DAILY MON - FRI 9 TO 3PAA 2 Around the Corner from the MSC Post Office MSC TOWN HAIL presents ONKIE JLSAF UJ€DN€SDflV 8:00 p.m. MARCH 31 G. Rollie LUhite Coliseum Prices: $5 50, $7.00, $7.50 General Soles begin March 8th TICK6TS fiVRILflBl€ RT MSC BOX OFFIC6 SC CAMAC PRESENTS TT EL LOS CURRQ“ V FLAMENCOS de SAN March 9* 1982 RUDDER AUDITORJUM TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY 8 : 00p.m. tickets available at MSC BOX OFFICE in RUDDER TAMU students $3.50 GENERAL PUBLIC S5.00 m Presenting a Mexican Dance Company and a Flamenco Guitarist