Space station study
could be done here
See page 3
280 dorm spaces
available for women
See page 3.
Texas A&M * ■ 1 *
The Battalion
Serving the University community
Vol 78 No. 86 CJSPS 0453110 14 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, January 31, 1984
PO aids
isabled
students
By KATHLEEN REEVES
Reporter
■ Volunteers from Alpha Phi Ome
ga. a campus service organization, are
lile a second staff for the Handicap-
Bd and Veteran Service Center.
I They drive a shuttle bus for the
handicapped, help to give examina-
lions, stand in registration lines, re
pair electric wheelchairs and other
wise make the work of the ‘center
1 Center director Dr. Charles Powell
says the APO members augment his
staff during peak activity times such
is registration, so he doesn’t have to
hire extra people year round.
H Alpha Phi Omega members have
ieen volunteering their services for
he past three years.
B Of all those who volunteer to help
he center, Alpha Phi Omega has
teen the most loyal and available says
Powell, the center coordinator.
■ “I couldn't do it without them,” he
ays.
■ Powell says APO started by paini
ng curbs to mark handicapped park-
ng spaces and wheelchair ramps.
■ The fraternity is on stand-by so
fot Powell can call on it when he
iceds it.
■ “I have a small staff and at peak
ieriods, such as registration, APO
lips out a lot,” Powell said.
E He says that because of APO’s
idp, he doesn’t have to hire a larger
■ff that would be needed only at
ertain times of the year.
glAPO members help handicapped
tudents fill out forms during reg-
itration and drop-add and stand in
nes for them.
■ The fraternity also helps Powell
minister tests to handicapped stu-
ents.
I “If it is something like a Spanish or
omputer science test that no one on
ty staff is familiar with, we’ll call on
iPO,” Powell said. “They usually
ave someone that can help us out.”
Powell says one member of APO is
■ electrical engineering major who
elps repair the electric wheelchairs.
Brian Petty, president of APO, says
ie fraternity raises money for loans
it handicapped students.
259th U.S. Marine
killed in Lebanon
United Press International
BEIRUT — Druze militiamen bat
tered the Marine base at the Beirut
Airport Monday, killing an American
soldier and wounding three others.
U.S. forces retaliated with barrages of
tank, mortar and machine-gun fire.
The government news agency said
a Lebanese soldier also was killed and
10 civilians were wounded in the
fighting, which spread from the
Marine base to the southern suburbs
and Christian neighborhoods in east
Beirut.
The dead Marine, who was not
immediately identified, was the 259th
member of the American peace
keeping contingent to die in Lebanon
and the first killed since Jan. 8 when a
U.S. helicopter was attacked in
Beirut.
The fighting erupted shortly after
U.S. Middle East envoy Donald
Rumsfeld flew to Damascus in a bid to
halt months of warfare between Sy
rian-backed Moslem militias and
President Amin Gemayel’s Christian-
dominated government.
Shellfire forced the closure of the
Beirut Airport twice during the day
— once while two planes of Lebanon’s
Middle East Airlines were making
their descent to land in the battle-torn
capital.
Maj. Dennis Brooks said the
Marine died of his wounds before he
could be rushed in a helicopter to the
USS Guam offshore for emergency
surgery.
Another wounded Marine was
rushed to the Guam for treatment
and two others were returned to ac
tive duty after being treated on the
spot for slight wounds. Brooks said
131 servicemen have now been
wounded.
The attack on the Marines’ base
adjacent to the airport began at 9:10
a.m. (2:10 a.m. EST) when Druze
militiamen opened up with rounds of
sniper fire followed by a barrage of
rocket-propelled grenades and auto
matic rifle fire, Brooks said.
The Marines returned fire with M-
60 battle tanks, 60mm mortars, .30-
caliber machine guns as well as M-16
automatic rifles in an 80-minute ex
change that repelled an assault on the
base’s southeastern perimeter,
Brooks said.
“We always give them something
better than we get,” he said.
Several shells crashed into the air
port parking lot, spraying cars with
shrapnel and sending screaming
pedestrians to the passenger terminal
for safety.
A mortar shell exploded outside
the airport terminal, wounding four
Lebanese civilians.
The fighting resumed in the after
noon when the Druze retaliated with a
mortar and rocket barrage that sent
three shells a minute crashing into the
U.S. base and Lebanese army posi
tions in Kfar Shima, 5 miles southeast
of Beirut.
The Lebanese army, using heavy
artillery, joined the Marines in re
sponse to the rebel fire, which spilled
over into some Christian neighbor
hoods in Beirut including Ain Rum-
maneh and Hadath, a military source
said.
Brooks said commanders did not
call for the use of naval gunfire, such
as the 16-inch guns of the battleship
USS New Jersey, because the mortars
and rockets were being launched
from Druze residential areas in the
mountains overlooking the Marine
base.
Redistrict plan ruled valid
Photo by DEAN SAITO
Stuart Lew, a senior Mechanical Engineering major from
San Antonio, helps Dennis Akins, a sophomore Agricultural
Engineering student from Flat off of the van furnished as
a service by the Handicapped and Veterans Service here.
Fraternity members also drive a
special shuttle bus, which takes hand
icapped students to and from class. It
is used mainly by students who are
temporarily handicapped, but during
bad weather others, such as students
with electric wheelchairs, also use the
bus.
In addition to volunteering at the
Center, the fraternity also works on
other service projects.
APO runs a regular shuttle bus
that circles the freshman parking lot
and the north side dormitories Sun
day through Thursday from 7 p.m. to
1 a.m. Both this bus and the handicap
ped bus plus the fyel for them are
provided by Texas A&M.
Petty, APO president, says the
fraternity has co-sponsored the Blood
Drive. In the spring, he says APO will
co-sponsor a dance-a-thon for Muscu
lar Dystrophy.
“Our motto is service,” William
Scott, faculty adviser to APO, says. “I
basically stay out of their way. They
are adults and I figure they can hand
le it.”
United Press International
AUSTIN — A three-judge federal
panel ruled Monday that Texas’ con
gressional redistricting plan was valid,
dismissing claims that the division of
Dallas County minority voters into
two districts was discriminatory.
The redistricting plan was chal
lenged by the Texas Republican Party
and the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People,
which claimed the plan approved by
Legislature in 1983 was designed to
limit the political strength of Dallas
County minorities.
Under the reapportionment plan,
minority voters in Dallas County were
divided between districts represented
by Reps. Martin Frost and John
Bryant, both moderate to liberal
Democrats.
Instead of the division, opponents
of the plan said, the minority voters
should have been clumped into a sing
le district where a minority congress
man almost surely would be elected.
But the judicial panel, in a 2-1 deci
sion, disagreed with the NAACP and
GOP.
“Obviously, the Legislature con
cluded that the minority population
in Dallas should be placed into two
districts,” the majority opinion said.
“It does not follow necessarily; in
deed, it may not follow at all, that the
Legislature’s decision was infected by
a racial motive or that the result of the
Legislature’s decision is to dilute
minority access to the political pro
cess.”
The court also noted that Frost,
who faced a black opponent in 1982,
and Bryant received overwhelming
support among black voters and were
given 100 percent favorable ratings
by the NAACP. ,
“There simply is no right — statu
tory or constitutional — to be repre
sented by a member of a particular
race,” the ruling said.
The majority opinion was drafted
by Appeals Court Judge Sam Johnson
and U.S. District Judge Robert Par
ker. U.S. District Judge William Ste-
ger of Tyler dissented in an opinion
not immediately available.
Contacted in Washington, Frost
said he was pleased by the ruling but
expected it would be appealed.
“I just hope the matter will be final
ly resolved before too much longer,”
Frost said. “I feel pretty sure it will be
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Everything has dragged on far too
long. We need some certainty as to
what the districts are going to be.”
Bryant, also contacted in Washing
ton, said he was relieved by the deci
sion.
“I was prepared to run in whatever
districts were drawn,” he said.
Aggie testifies in Moreno’s capital murder trial
P United Press International
1 RICHMOND — The trial of the
nan accused of killing a state trooper
nd five others during an October
ampage began Monday and in-
luded testimony from an A&M stu-
lent.
IgEliseo Moreno, 25, is going to trial
irsi in the Oct. 11 shooting death of
Texas trooper Russell Lynn Boyd,
fhe 25-year-old trooper was shot to
leath beside Texas 6 near Hemp-
lead after stopping Moreno's car.
i Boyd died of a single gunshot
round to the chest, fired through a
bulletproof vest at point blank range,
investigators said.
At the time, investigators say
Moreno was fleeing from College Sta
tion where he allegedly shot his wife’s
brother and sister-in-law after a day
long argument about his estranged
wife, Blanca.
Three other people were fatally
wounded in the six-hour, 130-mile-
long crime spree.
The first two witnesses Monday,
Lake Jackson school teachers William
Norris and wife, Janey, testified they
happened upon the roadside death
scene shortly after Boyd was shot.
They said Moreno tried to wave
them to a stop, but they saw Boyd
lying beside the road, became fright
ened and kept driving. They said
Moreno pulled a shotgun to try to
make them stop.
When they did not stop, the Nor
rises testified Moreno jumped into a
car parked beside Boyd’s and pur
sued them at 100 mph speeds before
giving up the chase in Hempstead.
They said they then went to the
Waller County sheriffs office to re
port the incident.
Others killed in the incident were
Moreno’s in-laws, Juan Garza, 30. and
wife, Esther, 31; and three elderly
Hempstead residents.
One of the state’s witnesses testified
he saw Moreno shoot Mrs. Garza at
point blank range in her home with a
.357-magnum pistol.
Anthony Casper, 26, a Texas A&M
student, testified Monday that after
the shooting at his neighbor’s home,
Moreno confronted him and
threatened to kill him, too.
“I get out of here or I’ll blow your
head off, too,” Casper said Moreno
told him while pointing the gun in his
face.
Despite objections from defense
lawyer Robert Scardino Jr., of Housz
ton, state district Judge Oliver Kitz-
man ruled in favor of prosecutor
James Keeshaw because he said it was
necessary to establish Moreno’*
whereabouus on the day of Boyd’s
slaying.
Police said that after Boyd was kil
led, Moreno parked his car behind
the home of Ann Bennatt, 70, to try to
take her car. When she told him the
car did not run, police said Moreno
shot Bennatt. She died later.
Police said Moreno also shot Ben-
natfs neighbor, Allie Wilkins, 79, and
Bennatt’s brother, James, 71, in the
same confrontation. They died at the
scene.
Authorities said Moreno took six
hostages, including a family of five, as
he tried to flee Hempstead. All were
freed unharmed, but Moreno faces
kidnapping charges in those inci
dents.
One group of hostages, the Bill
Shirley family of Hempstead, said
Moreno not only let them go un
harmed in Pasadena but gave them
his last $6 so they could buy gas to
drive the 70 miles back home.
I/ISC Council names new president
By Ed Alanis
Stall writer
IfPat Wood, a senior civil engineer-
ng majpr from Port Arthur, was
hosenas next year’s MSC president
>ythe MSC Council Monday night.
■ Wood currently serves as the
•ISC executive vice president for
•■grams, and in the past has served
RISC vice president for public re-
atinns. He will replace current MSC
‘resident Greg Hawkins in April.
■Wood outlined three main goals
for his term of office:
■ First, he said, he hopes to estab-
ish a sound financial future for the
Be programs. Through close
Ibrk with Student Government,
pod hopes to increase awareness
Bong University administrators
foheerning MSC funding. Current-
■30 percent of the MSC funds are
upplied by a portion of the student
ervice fee.
Pat Wood III
Secondly, he said, he plans a ma
jor campaign to promote student
awareness of opportunities in the
MSC. The MSC is currently the
largest college union program in the
world, with 35 programming com
mittees and more than 1700 active
members. With such a large student
population to draw on, Wood says,
he would like to see the MSC grow
even larger.
Finally, Wood says he will work to
increase motivation within the MSC
Council. Fresh ideas are needed if
MSC programs are to effectively
compete for students’ time, Wood
says. Increasing entertainment
opportunities in the Bryan-College
Station area are making it more and
more difficult to draw large crowds
at MSC programs, he said.
“I am very proud to pass on my
position to Pat,” Hawkins says. “The
MSC will continue to grow under his
leadership.”
As MSC president, Wood will su
pervise the 60 major student leaders
involved in MSC programs. He will
also serve as chairman of the MSC
Council, the body which sets policies
for all aspects of the MSC.
In other business:
• The council gave final approval
for the creation of the International
Programs Committee. The commit
tee was established to provide a
means for international students to
get involved in programming at the
University. This is the 35th commit
tee formed by the MSC.
• A representative from the En
dowed Lecture Series announced to
the council that contracts had been
made Alexander Haig and Henry
Kissinger. The title of the program
is “Perspectives on U.S. Foreign
Policy.” The cost of the program will
be $65,000.
Invitations were originally sent to
Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter,
but both declined because of elec
tion year activities.
• A proposal to change the name
of MSC Gamers to MSC Nova was
passed. Under this new name the
committee plans to expand into
programs involving historical
awareness.
In Today’s Battalion
Local
• See close-up for February’s SCONA on page 2.
• TAMU marketing students were chosen to help GM
with a new ad campaign. See story page 4. „
State
• The jury is being chosen in the trial of a Jefferson
woman accused of fatally beating her 3-month-old child. See
story page 6.
National
• Detroit Lions’ running back, Billy Sims is in court trying
to break a deal with the Houston Gamblers of the USFL. See
story page 14.