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Texas A&M
Battalion
Serving the University community
lol. 76 No. 11 USPS 045360 16 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, September 15, 1982
ebanese leader killed
United Press International
BKIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese
sident-elect Bashir Gemayel was
assinated Tuesday in a bomb ex-
pion that demolished his Phalange
ty headquarters, government
frees said.
|At least eight people, including
;r senior Phalange officials, were
ed in the explosion, which carried
force equivalent to 440 pounds of
[T. No one has claimed responsib-
for the blast.
^Government sources said the 34-
Ir-old Christian leader, scheduled
fte sworn in as president Sept. 23,
about 6 hours after the blast out
side the East Beirut building where he
was meeting senior officials of his
party.
Gemayel was reported killed] ust as
many believed the new government
was about to take control of the nation
after eight years of anarchy.
His death left the country in a void
at a time when it faced some of the
most critical problems of its history.
“This plunges half the country into
despair and the other half into ter
ror,” said one university professor in
West Beirut.
The government sources said
Gemayel’s body was taken to the
Hotel Dieu hospital in the Ashrafiyeh
section of East Beirut, the same
neighborhood where he died.
For more than an hour after his
body was dug from the debris, official
Beirut Radio played funeral music
without interruption.
The Voice of Free Lebanon radio,
operated by Gemayel’s party, made
no mention of his death but issued
statements telling members of the
Phalangist Lebanese Forces militia
not to venture out in uniform or carry
guns without specific orders.
The death was the first time in the
history of Lebanon, which gained in
dependence from French mandate in
1943, that a president or a president
elect had been assassinated.
A former commander of the
Christian Phalangist militia, Gemayel
has been the target of two previous
assassination attempts. In one
attempt in 1980, his infant daughter
and a bodyguard were killed by a car
bomb intended for Gemayel.
Gemayel was a fiercely controver
sial figure who was bitterly resented
by Lebanese Moslems and other
Christian groups both for his cooper
ation with Israel and for his ruthless
military tactics.
race dies after auto crash
United Press International
10NTE CARLO, Monaco —
cess Grace, who gave up her
ar-winning movie career for a
-book marriage to Prince Rainier
Monaco, died Tuesday night of in-
s suffered in an auto accident
nday.
rake failure caused her sports car
reen off a scenic Alpine route
crash in flames, leaving her with
Itiple fractures and bruising her
ghter, a royal spokesman said. Af-
entering the hospital, Grace’s
1th deteriorated.
he former American movie star’s
tish-made Rover 3500 missed a
on the snaking road in the Mari-
ie Alps and plunged dwwn a tree-
filled hill, flipping over and bursting
into flames in a nursery garden 45
feet below.
Sesto Lequio, 62, the owner of the
nursery, rushed to the garden, ex
tinguished a fire in the motor, drag
ged Princess Stephanie from the car
and called emergency aid to rescue
Princess Grace.
Grace, 52, had been trapped be
hind the driver’s wheel with multiple
injuries and a blood-covered face.
A royal spokesman in Monaco said
the former Grace Kelly of Philadel
phia, who gave up a brilliant career in
Hollywood to marry Prince Rainier
III in 1956, suffered a fractured right
thighbone, a broken rib and a shat
tered collarbone.
He said the brakes failed and the
car slid off the road.
Stephanie, 17, the younger of the
royal couple’s two daughters, was
bruised and taken to the hospital with
her mother and is still under observa
tion.
ruling
prmcipal-
eamblir
Prince Rainier is the
monarch of the liny coastal
ity best known for its gambling
casinos.
The couple’s other daughter, Prin
cess Caroline, 25, was attending a film
festival in Deauville, France, during
the weekend but the palace spokes
man said she returned to be with her
family.
Lequio rushed to put out the en
gine fire when he saw the crash. “You
must notify my father,” Stephanie,
only semiconscious, told him.
“I don’t know who your father is,”
he recalled having replied. “Then she
told me,” he said later.
The gardener said Grace, who won
an Oscar for her performance in
“The Country Girl” and whose classic
beauty won her acclaim, had to be
pried from behind the steering wheel
and removed through the car’s rear
window.
The princesses were returning
from a weekend at the royal family’s
country retreat at Rosagel when the
accident occurred, the palace spokes
man said.
miors advised to start search early
Jobs become harder to find
staff photo by Jane Hollingsworth
by Carol Smith
Battalion Reporter
teve Niles is a 26-year-old gradu;ite student in
struction management. In Fall 1981, he was
ng his thesis in wildlife and fisheries science
preparing to start work on his doctoral degree.
But Ronald Reagan was elected, federal prog-
s were cut, the economy took a downturn and
pie with doctoral degrees in wildlife and fisher-
were out of work. Private industry was unwilling
ake an investment in the resources, Niles said,
consequently, when the federal resource
get was cut, a lot of jobs were cut as well.
It was really discouraging,” Niles said. “When I
is getting out of undergraduate school, the wild-
people were telling me to go on and get my
ister’s. So I went on and did that, but then they
d that you practically had to have a doctorate to
dajob. When Reagan was elected, even a docto-
te wasn’t enough.”
So he changed to construction management and
w is working on a master’s degree.
Niles is lucky. He got into a discipline where he
obably will find a job. But he’s not the only stu
nt whose career plans have been altered by the
rrent recession.
Because of the economy, an increasing number
of students have entered their final semester at the
University wondering whether of not they will have
a job w’hen they graduate.
Judy Vulliet, an assistant director at the Career
Placement Center, said:
“The areas having the greatest impact on A&M
are the energy fields. We get a large portion of our
recruiting activity from that area.”
Vulliet said the large oil firms and subsidiary
firms have been hit hard by high interest rates and
decreased gas prices.
“They are closing down some refineries, capping
some wells and generally just sort of slowing down
and grinding things to a halt,” she said.
Because of high interest rates and low gas prices,
firms have been hiring fewer people, and in many
situations, Vulliet said, are laying off a large num
ber of employees.
“We got calls all summer long from engineers in
Houston, who had worked for a company for a year
and a half or so and had been laid off,” she said.
“They were wondering what we could do for them
as far as jobs were concerned.”
She said the recruiting list for companies coming
to interview students was booked totally and had a
long waiting list last March and April. But the cen
ter did not remain booked, she said.
“We began getting cancellations in the summer
when it became apparent to these firms that they
were not going to be in a position to make a lot of
new hires,” she said.
The center is still about 80 percent full, she said.
“That means fewer schedules, more students
wanting to sign on those schedules, and it makes
sign-ups and job search more competitive,” she
said.
But Vulliet said the Placement Center and the
students are both more prepared this fall.
She said engineering majors have been hit har
dest by the crunch.
“It was a function of the fact that their disciplines
have been in demand so consistently in the past,
that they waited last year, through no fault of their
own, until the spring of their senior year to begin
interviewing,” she said.
Vulliet said they expected one semester of inter
viewing would get them where they wanted to be.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “they happened to
pick the semester where the bottom was falling out,
see JOBS page 7
Venus de Kyle
This mannequin is being tested by the Department of Health
and Physical Education on its new biostereometrics machine.
The research machine measures total body surface through the
use of lasers.
Festivities to mark
Mexican freedom
Traditional Mexican dances and a
queen’s crowning will be part of a
Mexican independence celebration
tonight and Thursday night at the
LULAC grounds on Sandy Point, off
Highway 21. The celebration is spon
sored by the local chapter of the
League of United Latin American
Citizens.
Although LULAC is commemor
ating Mexican independence tonight
and Thursday, the celebration in
Mexico is held Sept. 14 through 16,
said Linda Rosas, a member of the
LULAC women’s council.
Each night, the Association of
Mexican Students at Texas A&M will
perform traditional Mexican dances
using authentic costumes.
The celebration also will include a
dance from 8 p.m. to midnight. At
about 9:30 p.m., a Queen of Fiestas
will be crowned by District Judge
W.T. McDonald Jr.
|Drunk driving kills 26,000 a year;
MADD is working to stamp it out
by Gary Barker
Battalion Staff
On a winter morning in January
1981, 18-year-old Curtis Timmons
got into a Ford Pinto with two of his
friends, James Martinez and Frank
Davis. They left Timmons’ house to
pick up another friend and headed
south on the Gulf Freeway in
Houston.
They never arrived.
At 11:40 a.m., a car in front of
them pulling a boat swerved sud
denly and the Pinto was hit head-on
by a car driving the wrong way on
the six-lane, divided highway. Tim
mons was killed instantly; Mar
tinez, who was riding in the back
seat, was thrown onto the guard rail
in the center of the freeway and
also died instantly. Davis, the driv
er, was injured seriously.
A Life Flight helicopter, which
was passing over on its way to Her
mann Hospital, was able to land on
the freeway about five minutes af
ter the crash and take Davis to Her
mann where he later recovered.
The driver responsible for Tim
mons’ death was drunk. He had
one prior conviction for driving
while intoxicated and had been
arrested for public intoxication two
months before the accident.
Timmons’ mother, Marinelle,
was outraged.
The drunk driver was charged
with two counts of involuntary
manslaughter and Timmons was
told he would probably receive a
probated sentence.
“It was because of that (the prob
ated sentence) and because I felt
that these two prior arrests had
served as no warning to him, and
because he had made a conscious
decision to drink and drive, that I
felt if that’s the way the system
works, then the the system needed
to be changed,” Timmons said.
The driver responsible for her
son’s death eventually was sent
enced to eight years in prison —
though Timmons said he’ll prob
ably only serve a third of that — but
Timmons attributes this, in part at
least, to group pressure.
In August 1981, she contacted
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers in
California and started the first
Texas chapter in Houston. Tim
mons, formerly a secretary for Phil
lips Petroleum Co., became full
time Texas director of MADD. By
the summer of 1982, Texas had
more than 8,000 MADD members
in six chapters, including Dallas-
Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin,
El Paso and the newest one in Bra
zos County. Chapter approval is
pending in several other Texas
cities.
Brazos chapter president Dr.
Kirk Brown said the new chapter
has about 23 members and is grow
ing rapidly. He also said the pur
pose of the group is not just to
change laws.
“MADD is a movement at the loc
al, national and state level to streng
then our (DWI) laws and help en
force them,” Brown said. “I think
we need to realize writing a law
doesn’t do it... we need some long
term activity to get our statistics
turned around.”
Timmons agreed.
“We’re not a crusade against the
use of alcohol,” she said, “only
against the combination of drink
ing and driving. We ask that people
be responsible and know their
limits.”
MADD was started in May 1980
by a mother, like Timmons, who
had a child killed by a drunk driver.
Candy Lightner joined with several
of her friends and started MADD
in Fair Oaks, Calif. Today MADD
has 83 chapters in 29 states, and has
chapter approval pending in all
other states.
MADD is one of the key forces
behind a current nationwide move
ment against drunk drivers. Com
munity pressure, MADD and
groups like MADD have led to
tougher drunk driving laws in 27
states this year. Twenty states have
raised their drinking age. And
Congress is considering a bill that
gives funds from the existing High
way Trust Fund to assist and re
ward states in trying to solve the
drunk driving problem.
Even high school students have
joined the push. In several eastern
states chapters of Students Against
Drunk Driving have formed in
high schools.
In Texas, Timmons said MAt)D
is working in three areas; commun-
see MADD page 6
inside
Classified 12
National 8
Opinions 2
Sports 9
State 4
Whatsup 10
forecast
Today’s Forecast: High in the
low to mid 90s, low in the low 60s.
Forty percent chance of afternoon
showers.
almanac
Today is Wednesday, Sept. 15, the
258th day of 1982 with 107 to
follow.
The moon is moving toward its
new phase.
The morning star is Venus.
The evening stars are Mercury,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Those born on this date are
under the sign of Virgo.
Republican William Howard
Taft, 27th president of the United
States, was born Sept. 15, 1857.
On this date in history:
In 1942, armies of Nazi Ger
many began the siege of Stalingrad,
Russia.
In 1963, four black girls were
killed in the bombing of a church in
Birmingham, Ala. Two black boys
were shot to death that day as city
wide rioting broke out.
In 1966, Gemini 2 splashed
down in the Atlantic Ocean after a
then-record 3-day space flight.
In 1972, two former White
House aides and five other men
were indicted on charges of con
spiracy in the break-in of Democra
tic National Committee headquar
ters in Washington (Watergate).