Aggies cancel out
Cyclones' Henderson
See page 14
Sherrill goes to Ag
bullpen for ISU win
See page 9
DWI arrests down
locally in early 1984
See page 3
aiiii
Texas A&M ^ _ mm a
The Battalion
Serving the University community
| - ‘ " " ' ‘
|0l 80 Ho. 18 (JSPS 045360 14 pages College Station, Texas Monday, September 24,1984
I
Regents listen
Corps report,
dedicate park
I\ '
By ROBIN BLACK and KARI
FLUEGEL
Staff Writer
| Members of the Texas A&M Uni
versity Board of Regents rose for a
moment of silent prayer at their
meeting Sunday in memory of Cadet
Bruce Dean Goodrich after dis
cussing the events surrounding and
following Goodrich’s death.
Goodrich, a sophomore transfer
student in company F-l, died Aug.
30 following a late night “motivatio
nal exercise.’’
Joe C. Richardson Jr., chairman
of the board’s Corps committee, said
despite the Goodrich incident, en
thusiasm about the Corps is still pre
sent on campus.
To support his statement, Rich
ardson said he had received money
for three more Sul Ross Schol-
iarships, which are presented to
! members of the Corps, last week.
Board members also stated their
j support for the Corps.
| ' 1 he Corps is, has been and will
|continue to be the lifeblood of this
1 campus,” said William A. McKenzie,
vice chairman of i he board.
During the discussion about the
Corps and the Goodrich incident,
Chairman H. R. “Bum” Bright read
to the board the letter published in
The Battalion from Goodrich’s fa
ther.
“It’s a magnificent letter from a
magnificent family,” Bright said.
Vice President for Student Serv
ices John Koldus gave a report to the
board about the investigations sur
rounding the incident.
“It’s a complex matter and the in
vestigations will be on-going,” Kol
dus said.
Regents then questioned Koldus
about Corps rules, regulations and
traditions. Bright asked what poli
cies were in effect and gave exam
ples of traditions which were com
mon when he was a cadet, such as
posting cadets’ grades on their
dorm-room doors, having manda
tory call-to-quarters and making up
perclassmen responsible for seeing
that underclassmen studied.
“We have all those things and
have expanded on those,” Koldus
said. “We have stressed academics
more in the past 10 years than ever
before.”
At the end of the discussion, A&M
President Frank E. Vandiver said he
was pleased with the attitude and
support for the Corps from the rest
6f the student body.
The Goodrich incident pulled stu
dents together as never before, Van
diver said.
Saturday, the board’s Planning
and Building Committee met and
discussed plans for proposed build
ings on the main campus.
The board saw presentations of a
proposed new engineering building
that would be constructed behind
See REGENTS, page 5
Photo by PETER ROCHA
Slippery when wet
Texas A&M split end Jimmy Teal gets buried underneath the ball during the third quarter of the Ags’38-17 victory Sat-
lowa State cornerback Kevin Williams before he can catch urday. Williams was called for pass interference on the play.
Another student killed in car-train collision
Lynn Cash McDonald
By ROBIN BLACK
Senior Staff Writer
Two Texas A&M students were
killed last week in separate but simi
lar car-train accidents at the poorly
marked intersection of Luther Street
and Wellborn Road.
The second A&M student was
killed Friday night in a car-train acci
dent at the same intersection where
one student was killed and another
injured almost 24 hours earlier on
Thursday night.
Lynn Cash McDonald, 20, was
killed when the blue Ford Fairmont
he was driving west on Luther Street
in College Station crossed the rail
road tracks in front of an oncoming
Missouri Pacific freight train.
The train hit the car broadside
and dragged it almost half a mile be
fore coming to a complete stop. Mc
Donald was pronounced dead on the
scene.
McDonald, a biomedical sciences
major from San Antonio, was active
in Aggies for Christ, an organization
for college students in the Church of
Christ.
The accident that killed McDon
ald happened under almost identical
circumstances and at almost the ex
act same time as the accident the
night before.
Katherine Hossley, 18, was killed
Thursday night when the Volvo in
which she was a passenger was
struck broadside at the same inter
U.S. envoy in Damascus
to investigate bombing
United Press International
BEIRUT, Lebanon — American
warships cruised off Lebanon Sun
day, and a special U.S. envoy trav
eled to Damascus for talks with Syr
ian leaders toinvestigate the suicide
bombing that devastated the new
U.S. Embassy.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Richard Murphy’s arrival in Damas
cus coincided with Syrian charges
that the U.S. warships were de
ployed for possible retaliatory strikes
by U.S. and Israeli forces.
Murphy was dispatched to Leb
anon Friday to lead an investigation
to determine how a suicide bomber
penetrated embassy security to deto
nate a truck loaded with explosives
outside the embassy Thursday, kill
ing 24 persons, including two Amer
ican servicemen.
President Reagan, in New York
Sunday for Monday’s opening of the
U.N. General Assembly, rejected
suggestions of negligence in embassy
security measures and said there is
no plan to send a Marine de
tachment back to Beirut to guard the
facility.
A State Department spokesman in
Washington said Murphy was in
Damascus Sunday for talks with Syr
ian leaders as part of a tour of Mid
dle Eastern states. He refused to give
details of the discussion.
The visit came a day after the new
Israeli government announced it
would ask the United States to act as
a go-between with Syria to work out'
arrangements for a withdrawal of Is
raeli troops in southern Lebanon.
Syria has said it will not withdraw
its 40,000 troops from eastern and
northern Lebanon until Israel pulls
out 10,000 troops that have occu
pied southern Lebanon since the
June 1982 invasion.
U.S. Embassy officials said the
amphibious transport ship USS
Shreveport and support ships ar
rived off Lebanon Saturday night to
provide medical and helicopter sup
port for the evacuation from Beirut
of American and Lebanese embassy
staff wounded in the Thursday blast.
The shadowy Islamic Jihad ter
rorist group has claimed credit for
the bombing.
Two U.S. Navy helicopters flew
four Americans wounded in the at
tack from Beirut to Tel Aviv Sun
day, embassy spokeswoman Carol
Madison said. Eight other Ameri
cans and a Lebanese were airlifted to
West Germany Saturday.
“The only American wounded
evacuated today were the four to Tel
Aviv,” said a senior embassy official,
who declined to be identified. “We
still have one American and 19 Leb
anese employees being treated in
Beirut hospitals.”
The decision to send the four
Americans to Israel contrasted with
Washington’s rejection of a similar
Israeli offer to treat U.S. servicemen
wounded in the October 1983 sui
cide bombing of the Marine head
quarters in Beirut.
Madison said the wounded went
to Israel “entirely on medical
grounds.”
section on Luther Street.
Mary Kaye Pahmeier, who was
driving the Volvo when the accident
occurred, is in satisfactory condition
at St. Joseph Hospital in Bryan. Pah
meier has a broken collarbone, two
broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Hossley was a freshman from Dal
las and a pledge in the sorority Delta
Zeta. Pahmeier is a senior journalism
major from Dallas and is a member
of Delta Zeta. She also works as a
copy editor for The Battalion.
In the accident that happened
Thursday night, Pahmeier’s Volvo
was travelling east on Luther Street
near Wellborn Road, when the car
was hit by the train. The intersection
is about a half mile south of Jersey
Street and the A&M campus.
There are no warning lights or
safety gates at the crossing on Lu
ther Street and lighting at the inter
section is poor.
The intersection, which is really
no more than a side street on Well
born Road, is being used more fre
quently since the opening of several
apartment complexes near the street
west of Wellborn Road.
Police are investigating the cir
cumstances surrounding both acci
dents.
“The investigation is basically
some follow-up work that has to be
done after an accident like that,”
said College Station Police Sgt. Billy
Stark. “Right now, we’re just trying
to contact everybody we can — espe
cially any witnesses — to find out
what happened at the accidents.”
College Station City Councilman
Gary Anderson said that the inter
section will “almost assuredly” be
brought up at the council meeting
on Wednesday .
Anderson said the issue is not on
the agenda, but that it probably will
be brought up when council con
cerns are discussed.
The possibility of closing the in
tersection of Luther Street and Well
born Road has not been brought up
before the council during Ander
son’s term of office, but there has
been some discussion about the ex
tension of Holleman Road.
Committees to increase
college minority students
By SARAH OATES
Staff Writer
A 15-member advisory com
mittee formed to investigate ways
to increase black attendance in
Texas colleges and universities
held its first meeting in Austin on
Friday.
The committee is headed by
Dr. Ivory Nelson, executive assis
tant to the chancellor at Texas
A&M.
The Black Student Retention
Committee spent the day “setting
up goals and priorities for later
meetings,” said Teresa Acosta, di
rector of retention services for
the Texas Coordinating Board.
These goals include improving
black student performance and
attendance in Texas secondary
schools and colleges.
“They’re looking at the way the
public education system affects
black students,” Acosta said.
“They want to see how well public
schools involve blacks academical-
iy-”.
Different levels of education,
ranging from junior high to col
lege, are represented within the
committee, which consists of sec
ondary school and college faculty
and counselors, as well as finan
cial aid Officers and a representa
tive from the Texas Education
Agency.
The group discussed issues
such as poor academic counseling
for blacks in public high schools.
The committee also listened to
a report from Balthazar Acevedo,
chairman of a separate advisory
committee for Mexican-Ameri-
can student retention.
Kenneth Ashworth, commis
sioner of the coordinating board,
said the committees are separate
because of “fine differences” be
tween educational problems of
black and Mexican-American stu
dents. Both committees were
formed by the coordinating
board.
For example, he said, Mexican-
Americans face more language
problems than blacks.
Acosta said the committees will
be in touch with each other.
“There are some similar prob
lems to both minority groups,”
she said. “For example, both
blacks and Mexican-Americans
have a lack of encouragement
and motivation to participate in
education.”
Ashworth said both commit
tees are working to increase mi
nority enrollment in graduate
and professional schools.
“What I want is advice,” he
said. “We’re losing a heck of a lot
of students at the lower levels
each year. That means fewer go
to college and graduate school.
The committee will advise on
what colleges can do to help high
schools keep kids enrolled.