State funding cuts
Caperton says he'll fight for A8cM
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PV"V V Texas A&M W n %
The B
/ol. 80 No. 98 GSPS 045360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, February 18, 1985
student
insiders
council seat
By JERRY OSLIN
Stuff Writer
I A Texas A&M student said Sun-
day he is “very strongly” considering
running for a spot on the College
Station City Council.
1 Michael Hachtman, a junior in
dustrial distribution major f rom Dal
las, said he is considering running
Because students at A&M are not
IJeally represented in the Council
and that College Station needs to
broaden its economic base.
8 Hachtman has been the Student
'Senate’s liason with the council for
■wo years.
8 Hachtman, 20, said three places
on the council will open on April 6
but none of the incumbents will run.
I “I will be the closest thing to an in
cumbent in the election if I were to
run,” he said.
| Hachtman said he has received fa
vorable feedback from people who
know he is considering the job.
I “After talking to me they realize
. ■that I’m not some fly-by-night stu
dent,” he said. “They know 1 have
[ done my homework.”
I Hachtman said the biggest prob
lem facing the community is the
need to diversify its economic base.
I “The community is too dependant
on A&M and on oil,” he said. “The
oil glut has hurt College Station and
the coming budget cuts for A&M
will hurt it even more. We need to
attract more business so w'e won’t be
hurt as much.”
Hachtman said he wants to rep
resent the whole community and not
just students.
I “If I represented just the students
of A&M, I would be alienating the
rest of the community,” he said
Photo by FRANK IR WIN
Is It A Princess?
Dr. John Koldus, vice president for student services, tried his
magic at creating a princess by kissing a frog during halftime of
the Texas A&M-TCU basketball game Saturday night. Koldus
“won” McFadden Hall’s Kiss a Frog contest by collecting more
money than any other participant. The money was donated to the
American Cancer Society. Other contestants were David Alders,
student body president; Kelly Joseph, head yell leader; Kevin
Murray, an A&M football quarterback; and Miss Texas A&M Kim
Walters.
Artificial heart operation
‘routine’ third time around
Associated Press
! LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Surgeons
■working with record speed gave
■ Murray P. Haydon the world’s third
Jf|permanent artificial heart Sunday
Hand expressed hope the 58-year-old
Hretired autoworker will become the
Vfirst recipient to make a full recov-
■ ery.
“The heart is working perfectly ...
phis vital signs are stable and every-
■ thing appears to be in great shape,”
■ said George Atkins, spokesman for
‘ Humana Heart Institute Interna-
p tional.
; “He is not in danger” because
i there is no sign of internal bleeding
or other complication, Atkins said.
But 1 he added, “You can’t say he’s
out of danger” as long as he is in crit-
H ical condition.
At 9 pan., 9V-2 hours after the op-
■ eration finished, Atkins reported
Haydon’s vital signs were stable and
doctors were beginning to remove
the respirator helping him breathe.
“He is awake and aware and has
moved all of his limbs,” Atkins said.
Haydon regained consciousness
around 6 p.m., said Robert Irvine, a
Humana spokesman.
Institute chairman Dr. Allan M.
Lansing said Haydon, whose own
heart was diseased and swollen,
came through surgery with no sig
nificant bleeding and required no
blood transfusions.
Surgery began at 7:47 a.m. and
was completed by 11:30, when Hay
don was taken from the operating
room to intensive care, Atkins said.
Doctors had predicted the operation
would last five hours.
The first artificial heart implant,
in Barney Clark on Dec. 2, 1982,
took 7 1 /2 hours. Schroeder was in
1st class letter
mailing costs
now 22 cents
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The cost
of mailing a letter rose this week
end from 20 cents to 22 cents, the
first increase in first-class postage
in 3'/a years.
Virtually all classes of mail
were increasing in price by an
amount similar to the 13 percent
increase in first-class rates. Post
cards rose from 13 cents to 14
cents and sending a package by
parcel post increases 11.4 per
cent. Overall, rates increase by
about 9 percent.
Postmaster General Paul Car
lin has said he hopes the next rate
increase will not be needed for
three years or perhaps even
longer.
Libel suit against
CBS terminated
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Retired Gen. Wil
liam C. Westmoreland and CBS un
expectedly agreed Sunday to “termi
nate” his $120 million libel action
against the network, a source close to
the network’s case said.
Citing unnamed sources close to
the case, The Washington Post said
lawyers for Westmoreland signed an
agreement Sunday in New York to
dismiss the long and complicated
case.
Westmoreland, who commanded
U.S. ground forces in Vietmim,
claimed that a 1982 CBS docu
mentary libeled him by asserting he
misrepresented enemy troop-
strength figures to then-President
Lyndon B. Johnson.
The Post said “according to
Pending budget cuts
‘trouble’ company
Associated Press
DALLAS — One of Texas’ biggest
catches in the state’s ongoing effort
to lure high-tech companies may not
have taken the hook if it had known
about pending cuts to university
funding, the company chairman
says.
“Betrayal is too strong a term,”
said Bobby Ray Inman, president of
the new Microelectronics and Com
puter Technology Corp., a consor
tium of 20 corporations dedicated to
a new generation of computer tech
nology. “I am troubled.”
When MCC decided two years ago
to locate in Austin, the state’s power
brokers heralded the news as the
best thus far in Texas’ campaign to
attract high-tech industry.
But now there is some second-
guessing by the company, Inman
told The Dallas Morning News. Leg
islative proposals to slash as much as
26 percent from spending on state
universities are worrisome, he said.
“If we were making the site selec
tion decision for MCC in the spring
of 1985 instead of the spring of
1983, I would have to think very
carefully about whether I would rec
ommend MCC coming to Texas,”
Inman said.
“There were other states — Michi
gan — where a superb presentation
was made by the governor and the
presidents of the University of Mich
igan and Michigan State,” Inman
said.
Unfortunately, Inman said, Mich
igan’s governor also announced a
major reduction in education fund
ing at about the same time. Michigan
“dropped off the list” of prospective
sites, he said. Austin was chosen be
cause of what was perceived to be
the state’s unyielding commitment to
higher ed ucation, Inman said.
Legislators have been wrestling
with a 1985-1987 budget shortfall of
more than $1 billion since January,
and the Legislative Budget Board
recommended cuts in higher educa
tion of about 26 percent to balance
the budget.
Since then, Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby
has proposed an alternative plan
that would mean cuts of only 6 per
cent to 10 percent.
State officials said Inman’s crit
icism is premature.
After a discussion with Inman
earlier this month, Gov. Mark White
told the Texas Bankers Association
that he told Inman the proposals are
recommendations, not realities.
To settle in Texas, Inman said
MCtb was promised that the univer
sities associated with its research
would receive $15 million in en
dowed university chairs in engi
neering and the sciences, $5 million
in new equipment, $1 million in dis
cretionary research and devel
opment funds and $750,000 a year
for 10 years in grants to graduate
students.
Inman claims talk of funding cuts
has already chased away faculty “su
perstars” who want to come to
1 exas.
The signal Texas is sending the
rest of the nation about its commit
ment to higher education is “poten
tially damaging,” he said.
Instead of slashing university
funding, Inman suggested reduc
tions in the number of state employ
ees or a tax increase,
“There were years before the
great increase in oil prices when
state legislatures had to increase
taxes every year,” he said.
Burger wants new court
to ease case overload
surgery for 6'/a hours.
“This was a much more routine
operation,” Lansing said.
Haydon suffered from cardio
myopathy, a progressive deteriora
tion and swelling of the heart that
left him unable to get out of bed and
unable to leave the hospital for the
past three weeks. Lansing said.
The Jarvik 7 artificial heart, a
metal and plastic assembly weighing
two-thirds of a pound, is powered by
a $40,000 external air compressor
the size of a small refrigerator.
For the rest of his life, Haydon
must remain tethered to that drive
system or to a smaller, battery-pow
ered compressor the size of a camera
bag that can allow him to live a rela
tively normal life.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger on Sunday urged
Congress to create a new national
court to help the Supreme Court
cope with its “avalanche of cases.”
“Years ago we passed any sensible
limit on what the Supreme Court
should be asked to do,” said Burger,
the nation’s highest-ranking judge
and one of nine Supreme Court
members.
Although aiming his message
squarely at Congress, Burger trav
eled to Detroit and used an Ameri
can Bar Association convention as
his forum. The text of his speech to
the ABA was released here.
Noting he has tried to obtain va
rious forms of relief from Congress
for more than a decade, Burger
asked the ABA: “Why is it so diffi
cult to grasp the reality that, just as
we need more police and more
courts to deal with automobile traffic
than we did 75 years ago when there
were very few automobiles, we need
something more to deal with the av
alanche of cases coming to the Su
preme Court?”
What Burger wants — and what
Congress is considering — is cre
ation of a so-called “intercircuit
panel” that would field cases sent to
it by the Supreme Court.
As envisioned by Burger, the new
court would be a five-year experi
ment. It would sit in Washington
four weeks a year, and have nine
members — selected from the na
tion’s 226 federal appeals court
judges.
Burger envisions the Supreme
Court appointing one appeals judge
from each of the 13 federal circuits
— nine to sit on the new court and
four as reserves.
“Cases would continue to come
from the courts of appeals to the Su
preme Court, but the Supreme
Court would have the option to refer
cases involving circuit conflicts and
interpretation of federal statutes to
the intercircuit panel,” Burger said.
He added that one-third of the
151 cases fully decided by the Su
preme Court in each of its last two
terms involved conflicting decisions
among the 13 federal appeals or cir
cuit courts.
Of the 5,100 cases to reach the Su
preme Court in its 1983-84 term,
only 151 were chosen for lull study
and signed decision.
“If the panel took 30 to 50 cases
off the Supreme Court calendar,
that would obviously be of help,” he
said.
Blacks celebrate heritage
Regaining religious zeal
sources close to the case, some of
Westmoreland’s friends, attorneys
and financial backers suggested that
he drop the case” following testi
mony last week from retired Army
Col. Gains B. Hawkins, who was the
chief of the Order of Battle, a roster
of enemy troop estimates in Viet
nam.
Hawkins testified that in 1967,
Westmoreland had called higher
enemy troop estimates “politically
unacceptable.”
According to The Post, “West
moreland’s decision to withdraw,
which CBS is expected to claim as a
major victory, reportedly involves no
apology by CBS concerning the
broadcast and no agreement that the
network pay settlement costs or at
torneys fees.”
By CATHIE ANDERSON
Staff Writer
“We’ve (black people have) come a mighty, mighty
long way,” Bernice Hill, a member of the Galilee Bap-,
tist Church, said Saturday night.
Hill welcomed a crowd of about 150 people to “I
Have a Dream,” a black heritage celebration that bene
fited the Memorial Student Center Black Awareness
Committee.
The Voices of Praise, the gospel choir for Black
Awareness, participated in the program at New Jerusa
lem Baptist Church.
“First we were ‘niggers,’ then we were ‘colored,’ then
it was ‘Negro,’ then we were ‘black,’” Hill said. “And in
case you clidn’t know that’s where we are today; we’re
black.
“Our people have done some great things. I think
about when they (slaves) had to chop and pick cotton,
and they couldn’t call the Lord’s name.”
But now black people can do that, Hill said. They can
serve, praise and sing about God.
Hill said blacks have lost some of their religious fer
vor. They need the “old” church again; they need to
serve God, to thank him.
That “old” church, which includes rituals and song,
is an integral part of black heritage, Hill said.
“My uncle is always telling us about how they went to
church on Friday evening, Saturday evening and all
day Sunday,” Deierdre Jimerson, a choir member, said.
When older blacks talk about the “old” church, they
mean more thanjust the condition of the building.
' The “old” church was a religious feast.
People came to the church from miles around to lis
ten to Bible reading and sing hymnals. They came on
Friday and Saturday evenings, not for one hour but for
several hours.
People flowed out of the building, and windows were
opened not only to let the air in but also to allow people
outside to hear, Hill said.
Church used to be the place to be, older relatives
have said. The faith that brought black people to this
point is the only thing that will take them further, Hill
said.
Many of the hymns black people sing today, she said,
originated while slaves worked to pick and chop cotton.
Their faith carried them through the day. Hill said.
The “I Have a Dream” program also commemorated
the religious faith of Martin Luther King Jr., a civil
rights leader of the 1960s.
King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washing
ton D.C., was re-read by Bishop D.C. Moore of the
Church of the Living God.
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from
every village and every hamlet, from every state and ev
ery city, we will be able to speed up that day when all
God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join
hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual,
‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are
f ree at last!’ ” Moore read.
The Voices of Praise also participated in a “Musical
Extragavanza” the same evening at New Jerusalem
Baptist Church. They sang with four other groups, in
cluding the Spiritualettes, the Voices of Joy, and the
Annointed Gospelaires.
Money from both programs will help sponsor the
Voices of Praise in a trip to Atlanta, Ga. for the Baptist
Student Union retreat where the group will participate
in a gospel music contest.