Olympic winners
honored at capitol
See page 3
Texas A&M
Vj > exas Ac
Tne
Vol 78 No. 187 USPS 045360 12 pages
Officer confesses
to planting bomb
See page 5
m
Slocum comments
on Aggie workouts
See page 11
■■■
Battalion
Serving the University community
College Station, Texas Wednesday, August 15, 1984
'I-OUghlj K
le unuffrf
athleif"!
inceAmJ
and 'ill
ss when i
final th
hilecomp
i Lewis,
AA in®
ar, nud
rht with
10.
Gymnast flips — coin
Photo by PETER ROCHA
Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton meets members of
the New York Jets and the Houston Oilers before last Satur
day night’s game in the Astrodome. Retton, who is 16, re
turned to Houston, where she trains, after finishing the
Olympics in Los Angeles. She flipped the coin before the
game and received an ovation.
Dorm check-in/out starts Friday
jarandfl
a pew:
He wall
leadin'
tole sec®'
rathcer
, enter
i by H 0 -
lore nii»
diit, 1 ;
, Mari':
.ached® 1
jases- A
dds lin (
i clear
on D 1 " 1
in the
i, ad«
elder
errror
Davis'
By KARI FLUEGEL
Staff Writer
Beginning Monday morning, resi
dence halls that have stood vacant
for three months will open for the
Fall semester. However, before the
halls can be open for the fall, the stu
dents livjng in dorms for summer
school must check out.
All summer halls will close Friday.
All students must be moved out and
checked out by 6 p.m., Tom Murray,
housing services supervisor, said.
To check out students must have
their room checked by their resident
advisors, return the keys and sign an
inventory card. Each student must
check out with the resident advisor.
One roommate may not check out
for the other.
Graduating seniors may stay in
their rooms Friday night, but must
check out with their head residents
by 10 a.m. Saturday.
Students who have been living in
the residence halls during the sum
mer sessions will be allowed to check
into their fall spaces from 1 to 8 p.m.
Friday. Only students who have
been living on campus during the
summer will be allowed to check in
early, Murray said. No exceptions
will be made.
If summer school students are not
checked into their fall rooms by 8
p.m., they will have to wait until the
halls open at 10 a.m. Monday.
Residence hall staff also will allow
freshmen attending Fish Camp C to
put their belongings in their rooms
from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Sunday.
“This will not be an official check
in,” Murray said. “They won’t get
their keys yet.”
Fall dormitory check-in officially
begins Monday at 10 a.m., Murray
said. Students have until 5 p.m. Aug.
27 to claim their rooms or they will
forfeit their spaces.
To check in, students should re
port to their assigned dorms amd
present their paid fee receipts.
Murray said the busiest and most
hectic time to check in is Monday or
Tuesday.
“If you can wait, come later,” he
said.
The first time room and hall
change requests will be accepted will
be Aug. 24. Requests will not be ac
cepted before that time for several
reasons, Murray said.
First, students who turn in re
quests early in the w-eek often change
their minds about moving after
meeting people in their dorm. Sec
ondly, the housing office cannot act
on room requests until final housing
numbers are available after check in
ends.
Check in closes at 5 p.m. Aug. 27
which also is the deadline for room
and hall change requests. Cards for
room changes will be available from
the head residents and cards for hall
changes will be available in the area
offices.
The housing office will begin to
notify students of room and hall
changes and permanent assignments
for students in temporary spaces the
evening of Aug. 29. Approval cards
will be distributed by the head resi
dent or resident advisor. Students
should not change rooms or halls
without proper authorization, Mur
ray said.
Students moving to a different
room or hall must be out of their
original space by 5 p.m. Aug. 31.
After assigning spaces to students
in temporary situations, the housing
office will begin assigning spaces to
walk-on applicants.
Signing the walk-on list does not
guarantee that any space will be
available, Murray said. If spaces do
become available, they will be as
signed in priority order according to
the date of the student’s application
for housing.
Students will be able to sign the
walk-on list from Aug. 22 to Aug. 30
starting at noon.
Beginning at 9 a.m. Aug. 31, stu
dents will be able to find out if they
have been assigned a space. If the
walk-on student has not claimed the
space by 5 p.m. Aug. 31, it will be re
assigned.
It is the student’s obligation to
claim check with the housing office
to claim his or her space, Murray
said.
lerw'fi
>bbie tc :
keof'*
Utlli 8'
exiCO i
-o mp
Banks warn: treafcards like money
Local credit card fraud growing
iers
Sylvie
ricans'
;U ferM_
•mcerf
,oyco t|f
lt ^
Jgoldf
dV,
laH
hroatf
By Dolores Hajovsky
Reporter
The “plastic money” of today that
makes life easier for shoppers also
can bring difficulties they can’t af
ford. Credit card abuse is a growing
problem because stolen credit cards
are so easy to use.
Credit card purchasers seldom
have to show identification or proof
of ownership, said Angie Scar-
mardo, bank card manager at First
Bank and Trust.
And in most cases, nothing hap
pens to people caught using a stolen
credit card unless they confess to the
crime, said Lt. Bernard Kapella of
the College Station Police Depart
ment. Credit card fraud is a third
degree felony, which means if a per
son is convicted of the crime the
penalty is 2 to 10 years in the state
penitentiary and/or a fine of up to
$5,000.
Last year 40 cases of fraud with
loses totalling $1,963, were reported
to College Station Police. Thirteen
of the cases still are not cleared, said
Chris Schommer, a records techni
cian for the College Station Police
Department.
Last year there were more than $ 1
million in stolen card costs reported
to First Bank and Trust by its card
holders, and about $15,000 had to
be written off, Scarmardo said.
So far this year there have been 25
cases of fraud, Schommer said — a
67 percent increase over the same
time last year. Most of the time it is
one or two people who keep using a
stolen credit card, she said.
Kapella said people need to be
careful when using credit cards so
they will not become victims of credit
card fraud. He said that after using
credit cards the owners should be
sure to take the carbon papers along
with their part of the receipt. Any
one can learn credit card numbers
and card holder names from dis
carded carbons, and once an account
number falls into the wrong hands
the bills add up, he said.
Kapella said customers should be
wary of giving out credit card num
bers over the telephone for pur
chases. There is no way to tell what
happens with the account number
after the intended purchase is made,
he said.
Kapella said all bills should be
checked to make sure purchases
equal receipts in hand.
When a MasterCard or Visa card
is reported stolen the account num
ber is put in a warning bulletin for
30 days, Scarmardo said. If someone
is caught using a stolen card the card
is cut apart. It is up to the store to
deal with the indiviual.
Banks that issue cards give this ad
vice: Treat credit cards and account
numbers as you would cash and
never let them out of sight.
GOP platform
committee
nixes tax hike
United Press International
DALLAS — Rebellious conserva
tives ignored opposition from White
House watchdogs Tuesday and re
wrote the Republican Party platform
to prohibit President Reagan from
raising taxes after election day.
Reagan aides who thought up to
the last moment they could forge a
compromise that would give Reagan
a loophole in case of emergencies,
caved in after a unanimous subcom
mittee vote went against them.
“We can live with it,” said former
Transportation Secretary Drew Le
wis, Reagan’s chief operative at the
platform drafting. “He will not have
to repudiate the platform.”
The rest of the platform, which
Reagan can ignore as Republican
and Democratic presidential con
tenders have frequently done in the
past, went straight down the conser
vative White House line.
The document made no mention
of the Equal Rights Amendment,
proposed a constitutional amend
ment banning abortion, called for a
hardline stance toward the Soviet
Union and demands a continuation
of Reagan’s military buildup.
Lewis said the White House likely
will not fight against the tough anti
tax language on the floor of an
otherwise coronation-like Republi
can National Convention that opens
in Dallas next Monday.
The administration suffered a se
ries of setbacks in the economic sub
committee which also inserted lan
guage calling for a modified flat tax
that would tax most incomes at the
same rate. The committee had to roll
back on a proposal to stop taxing in
come from saving account interest
when they were told by the adminis
tration it would add $7 billion a year
to the deficit.
The determination of conserva
tives was voiced by Rep. Vin Weber
of Minnesota, who told reporters: “I
believe we should have an unequivo
cal, absolute, ironclad statement
against taxes and I’m not going to
back away from that until the con
vention is over. I don’t want to com
promise.”
The anti-tax hike language con
cludes: “We therefore oppose any
attempts to increase taxes, which
would harm the recovery and re
verse the trend to restore control of
the economy to individual Ameri
cans.”
The key to the sentence was the
comma after “taxes” which when in
serted, bans all tax hikes. Without
the comma the sentence would ban
only those tax increases which hurt
the economic recovery.
Disciplinary hearings
begin in assault case
By SARAH OATES
Staff Writer
Disciplinary hearings began Tues
day for six Texas A&M students ar
rested Thursday and charged with
an attack on another student.
“The hearing process will proba
bly be completed this week,” said Bill
Kibler, assistant director of student
affairs.
Kibler said no decision has been
made about whether the students
will be expelled. That decision de
pends on each student’s involvement
in the incident. He said he may try to
get additional information about the
incident from other students.
The students and their lawyers re
fused to comment Tuesday.
The closed hearings continued
for about three-and-a-half hours
Tuesday afternoon.
The incident occurred Aug. 5
when the victim was invited to an
other student’s dorm room for a
pizza, police said. He reported to po
lice that he was grabbed, stripped to
his underwear, bound and gagged,
then taken outside and put in the
back of a pickup truck. He told po
lice he was covered with molasses
and feathers and left in front of
Tinsley’s restaurant in College Sta
tion after unsuccessful attempts to
chain him to a light pole. College
Station police found him as he
walked down Texas Avenue.
The students have been charged
with criminal assault and false im
prisonment, both misdemeanors.
The county court administrator’s of
fice said the students probably will
be arraigned later this month.
The students charged in the inci
dent are: Evagelos Lorentzatos, 19,
of Houston, Manuel Gardea Jr., 21,
of Galena Park; Philip E. Shaw, 21,
of Galena Park; John S. McDonald,
18, of Houston and Ernesto Rodri
guez, 17, of Houston. Each paid a
bond of $375 Thursday night and
was released from Brazo County
Jail.
University officials said the victim
withdrew from the University Fri
day.
In Today’s Battalion
Local
• A Texas A&M architecture professor says Texas is lack
ing energy efficient building designs. See story page 4.
• A Hindu religious leader will speak Thursday at Texas
A&M. See story page 5.
State
• Riding with a load of watermelons, Texas Agriculture
Commissioner Jim Hightower drew attention to the state’s
program to help farmers market their produce directly to
food stores. See story page 10.