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The Battalion
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Vol. 76 No. 17 USPS 045360 16 Pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, September 23, 1982
Steve Barcia, a Texas A&M student, was in
jured in a bicycle-motorcycle accident Wed
nesday at the corner of Jersey and Houston
streets. According to the accident report, Bar
cia was riding his bicycle along Houston and
entered the intersection on a red light. Robert
Weatherton, another student, was riding his
motorcycle on Jersey when the two collided.
Barcia was taken to the A.P. Beutel Health
Center. Weatherton refused treatment.
Mandatory class attendance
stresses academic value
Appraiser says friction
forced his resignation
by Hope E. Paasch
Battalion Staff
The chief appraiser of the Brazos
County Central Appraisal District
said he resigned Wednesday night be
cause of friction with the College Sta
tion Independent School District.
Johnny Neece, chief appraiser
since the appraisal district was created
in 1980, said his resignation was not
because of a business-level conflict,
but resulted from problems with
some of the officials he had to work
with.
“We’ve had no problem with prop
erty owners aind I have had no prob
lem with my Board of Directors,” he
said. “The problems I’ve had are with
four people.” He refused to name the
four people.
Neece’s resignation follows the dis
approval of the 1983 appraisal district
budget this month by the CSISD and
the City of Bryan ^nd a CSISD deci
sion to file suit against the appraisal
district when its petition against the
appraisal roll was rejected.
When the CSISD school board
voted to disapprove the appraisal dis
trict budget Monday, board member
Bill Wasson said he voted for the dis
approval as a vindictive action.
“They have been so uncooperative
in everything that I don’t care what
kind of budget they present,” Wasson
said.
CSISD Assistant Superintendent
Donald Ney said the CSISD fully sup
ports the school board’s action, but
said the school district is not vindictive
toward the appraisal district.
“We don’t care who’s down there
(in the chief appraiser position) as
long as the appraisal district can pre
pare a fair and equitable roll and op
erate in a cost-efficient manner,” Ney
said.
“We admit that there can not be a
perfect tax roll, but there is a degree
of acceptability,” he said. “The one
the appraisal district has prepared is
not acceptable.”
Inequities in the roll have shifted
the tax burden to the homeowner,
Ney said, because at least half the
business personal property values
were not raised from the 1977
appraisal.
Neece said: “I do not feel like
there’s an exceptional number of ine
quities. There are some bad ine
quities, but we will have some of those
every year. Most of the inequities are
because of inaccurate information
given to us from their appraisal re
cords.”
Faye Davis, tax assessor for the
CSISD, said the appraisal district was
to reappraise all the property on their
own by the end of 1982.
The Peveto Bill, which created cen
tral appraisal districts, calls for a com
plete correlation of appraisal rolls by
the end of 1982, but does not specify
that a reappraisal be completed by
then. Debbie Wheeler, assistant dire
ctor of education and standards at the
State Property Tax Board in Austin,
said the bill leaves the date for reap
praisal up to the individual appraisal
districts.
“The individual appraisal district
boards of directors and the chief
appraiser are the ones who decide
when reappraisal will take place,” she
said. “All the bill specifies is that all
the rolls in the county must be corre
lated by the end of this year and each
district must set up a plan for regular
reappraisals.”
The bill specifies all property in the
county should have only one value for
all entities by the end of 1982, but the
1981 special session of the Legislature
passed an amendment allowing ex
tensions. The Legislature granted the
extensions because reappraising all
property by 1982 is, in some cases,
See District, page 3
Strike broadens; more
teachers plan to walk
.1
ERY
by Carol Smith
Battalion Staff
James is a Texas A&M football
)layer.
He practices with the team an aver-
ige of four hours a day. Some morn-
ngs he’s tired, his body aches and he
doesn’t feel like going to class.
But he has to attend class because
q! the new mandatory attendance
policy for scholarship athletes that
Athletic Director and Head Football
Coach Jackie Sherrill established at
the beginning of the fall semester.
If James chooses to skip class, his
professor can report him. James will
be watched and if he skips again,
Sherrill can choose not to let James
practice or participate in that week’s
game.
Dr. Don Hunt, athletic academic
counselor, said: “Sometimes young
men and women get caught up in the
glamour of intercollegiate athletics,
and this is just a reminder that acade
mics are first and that the concept of
student-athlete means exactly that —
student first, athlete second.”
Sherrill said he thinks the policy
helps the department evaluate a stu
dent-athlete more accurately.
1 . “It’s a good way for us to get a
handle on the students’ activities,”
Sherrill said. “If they’re in class every
day, they’re in study hall every day
and you know they’re doing every
thing they’re supposed to be doing,
then we can better understand them.”
Hunt, a mathematics instructor,
counsels 300 student-athletes.
“I’m termed more of an academic
person than an athletic person and I
think it gives the faculty more confi
dence in me (as academic counselor
for athletes) because I am, so to speak,
one of them,” Hunt said. “It can help
them to realize that what we’re trying
to do is help people graduate, and the
reason we’re trying to help them gra
duate is because of the restraints put
on their time by intercollegiate athle
tics.”
Before the beginning of the fall
semester, Sherrill sent a letter to Dr.
Charles McCandless, interim vice-
president for academic affairs, in
forming him of the new policy and
asking his cooperation. In the letter,
Sherrill outlined his plan, which calls
for mandatory attendance at all clas
ses by all scholarship athletes, both
men and women.
At the beginning of the fall semes
ter, the athletes took letters to their
instructors explaining the policy and
asking for cooperation in making the
policy successful.
At the end of each week, the
athlete takes a card to the instructor,
who signs it if the athlete has been in^
class. If the student has not been in
class, the instructor can report his or
heir absence to the Athletic Depart
ment.
After the card is signed, the athlete
returns the card to the counseling
office in Cain Hall. The student re
ceives a new card each week.
“We have received about 600 re
sponses (from instructors and profes
sors),” Hunt said. “Approximately 40
declined to participate, either be
cause of class size or because they
were not in favor of the policy.”
The policy was enacted not only to
increase class attendance among stu
dent athletes, but also to help the stu
dents to adjust to a combination of
classes, studying and the time re
straints of intercollegiate athletics, he
said.
“One of the main directions of the
attendance policy is to increase com
munication with the instructor,”
Hunt said. “Now that’s not through
winning over the professor either. If
we increase (the student’s) communi
cation with the professor, eventually
maybe that person will go by the
office and visit and perhaps increase
his understanding of the material co-
See ATTEND page 9
United Press International
With the school year nearly a
month old, spreading teacher walk
outs plagued four northern industrial
states Wednesday and strike leaders
in New Jersey faced possiblejail terms
for defying a back-to-work order. Ab
out 285,000 youngsters were affected
by the strikes.
The key issues were pay, staff re
ductions and job security in strikes in
Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey
and Michigan — where Detroit’s giant
strike entered its 10th day under a
news blackout.
Dozens of other school districts
across the country were still bargain
ing for contracts, some of them with
strike deadlines.
Striking Pennsylvania teachers en
ded walkouts in two school districts
Tuesday — the Meyersdale district in
Somerset County and the Tamaqua
Area district in Schuylkill County —
but strikes languished in 19 others,
affecting 66,500 students and nearly
4,000 teachers.
A state mediator has joined talks in
a 10-day strike in the Central Bucks
district in Bucks County. No progress
was reported in talks to avert a Sept.
30 strike by teachers in Shaler Area
schools, Allegheny County.
Full-time teachers at Delaware
Community College in Delaware
County said they will strike if a con
tract agreement is not reached by
Friday.
Teachers in Waldwick, N.J., went
on strike Tuesday after contract talks
collapsed and about 100 students
joined teachers on picket lines at two
schools. Classes for the district’s 1,750
students were being taught by substi
tutes.
New Jersey’s other teachers’ strike
in Teaneck went into its sixth day with
no new talks scheduled and strikers
were to appear in court today for a
hearing to determine if their union
leaders should be jailed for defying a
back-to-work order. Substitutes were
teaching about 5,000 students.
Detroit’s strike, which has kept
200,000 school kids out of classes
since Sept. 13, showed no signs of en
ding as negotiations returned to a
fact-finder in hopes of clarifying dif
ferences.
As students went into autumn with
out schooling, a coalition called the
Detroit Association of Black Organi
zations urged teachers to return to
work by next Monday while negotia
tions continued.
State mediator David Tanzman,
explaining that a news blackout hand
cuffed his responses to reporters’
questions, said both sides were “ex
ploring different approaches.”
“I would not say there was any
movement in either direction, but the
teachers and board are talking and
that’s always a good sign,” he said.
The teachers have been unyielding
in refusing a school board demand
for pay cuts to help wipe out a district
deficit projected as high as $60 mil
lion.
Teachers in the southern Illinois
communities of McLeansboro and
Dghlgren went on strike Tuesday,
keeping 1,560 students out of classes.
The state’s other strike in the Bre
men Community High School District
in the southwest Chicago suburbs
affected 5,900 students.
Three-hundred striking Deer
Park, N.Y., teachers voted to return
to classes Tuesday for three days as a
“show of good faith,” a spokeswoman
said, leaving the threat of another
walkout if there is no cotract agree
ment. Classes for the Long Island
community’s 1,400 student have
been taught by substitutes paid $100
a day.
S
Gemayel takes office hours before French troops land
United Press International
I Amin Gemayel took office as war-
Itorn Lebanon’s president today with
an ammunition dump exploding
nearby, hours before the arrival of
French troops spearheading the mul
tinational peace force to replace
Israeli troops in west Beirut.
“I swear by almighty God that I
shall respect the constitution of the
Lebanese nation and its law and pre
serve the independence of the home
land and the safety of its territories,”
the 40-year-old Gemayel said.
A huge ammunition dump packed
with heavy artillery shells seized from
Palestinian and leftist guerrillas blew
up in thousands of explosions near
the barracks where Lebanon’s new
president was being sworn into office.
Gemayel, 40, is the older brother of
the late Beshir Gemayel, the presi
dent elect who was assassinated last
week, prompting the Israeli invasion
of west Beirut. He replaced President
Elias Sarkis, whose term expired
today.
U.S. envoy Philip Habib, the
architect of the withdrawal of Palesti
nian fighters from Beirut, attended
the ceremony.
For more than 25 minutes after the
initial blast at the ammunition store
house, complex shells whistled
through the air, landing up to IV2
miles away from the dump and start
ing secondary fires.
Television cameras outside the
military barracks where Amin was
being sworn into office swiveled and
broadcast pictures of the thick col
umn of smoke rising over the com
plex.
Israeli troops carting off files and
office equipment from a Palestine
Liberation Organization office 2 , /2
miles away ducked for cover when
they heard the explosions.
“It’s Katyusha rockets,” the fright
ened soldiers cried.
Official sources said they believed
the explosion was an accident.
The ammunition dump, located
near one of main crossings between
east and west Beirut, until recently
was a base for the right-wing Pha
lange Party militia.
Israeli troops moved out of the
area three days ago and Lebanese
regular army troops took over the
site, the sources said, using it as a
storehouse for tons of captured ex
plosives.
Flames from the dump leaped 50
feet, filling the sky with columns of
smoke, as citizens ran for shelters. Re
sidents said the initial explosion felt
like an “earthquake,” shattering win
dows throughout the surrounding
area.
Police sources did not immediately
know if there were injuries.
Details of the return of the tri
nation peace-keeping force were un
clear, but the French Embassy said
the first 350 French paratroopers
would be ashore late in the afternoon.
Police suggest tracing calls in order
to discourage frightening messages
by Johna Jo Maurer
Battalion Reporter
“The calls usually come in the mid
dle of the night, when you’re half
asleep and so shocked by the phone
ringing — then they start pouring
vulgar language in your ear.”
Sandra Gary, a senior secondary
education major, has been victimized
by persistent obscene phone calls
since January.
Obscene and threatening phone
calls are problems the phone com
pany is trying to solve.
Gary is just one of an estimated 500
victims of obscene phone calls re
ported in the Bryan-College Station
area each year.
This figure represents only about
one-third of the number of calls
actually made, said patrolman Mark
Langwell of the College Station police
department.
“Of the approximately 500 reports
made in a year, maybe less than 1
percent of the callers are actually pro
secuted,” he said.
Difficulty in prosecution lies in the
phone company’s inability to trace
calls. If a victim reports a call received
in the 696 exchange, for instance, a
tracer will work only when the call was
placed in that exchange.
The Bryan-College Station area
has a large number of exchanges,
making the tracing procedure close to
impossible.
In Gary’s case, three months
elapsed between the time she got the
first obscene call until she reported it
to police.
“It shocked the policeman that we
had waited so long after he heard the
things the obscene phone caller had
been saying to us,” she said.
Victims usually wait until the
second or third call before they report
them, Langwell said.
“As the caller gets braver, his
threats may become worse,” he said,
“and studies have shown that people
who begin by making obscene calls
sometimes go on to commit more se
rious crimes.”
Langwell suggests victims be per
sistent in hanging up the phone as
soon as they hear an obscenity, get
their phone number changed or fol
low the phone company’s procedure
for tracing the calls.
“The policeman I reported the
calls to advised me to try to catch the
guy,” Gary said, “but he said if we did
trace and were successful in finding
the caller, I would have to testify.
“This didn’t bother me in the least
because the guy is a criminal and he
should get what he deserves for dis
turbing my privacy.”
State law prohibits making calls of a
threatening or obscene nature with
the intent of disturbing or alarming
the recipient.
Violation of this law is punishable
by a fine up to $1,000, up to 180 days
in jail or both.
Langwell said: “It is hard to prove
intent and hard to prove the sus
pected caller was on the other end of
the line.
“It is so easy for the guy to say one
of his buddies was just on the phone
when we go in to apprehend him.”
The General Telephone Company
of the Southwest handles each prob
lem individually.
Terry Cooper, administrative
clerk responsible for handling re
ports of obscene calls for GTE, said
customers are advised to change their
number and have it unlisted.
“We also tell them to click the re
ceiver one time when the obscene cal-
See OBSCENE page 9
inside
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National 8
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Whatsup 11
forecast
Today’s Forecast: High of 81,
low in the high 50s tonight. Partly
cloudy skies, drier, cooler day with
less humidity.