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Silver Taps to be observed
tonight in honor of 4 Aggies
—Page 7
Aggie lacrosse team deals
with winning identity crisis
— Page 10
The Battalion
. 83 No. 90 CISPS 075360 12 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, February 4, 1986
5 Portions
1 of Texas
) taking g, m m
sllooded
rakes
seep
Associated Press
â– Heavy rains pounded North and
[Central Texas on Monday, flooding
I! , |5 , a ( l s anc * creekbanks, snarling big-
cit\ traffic and prompting one com
munity to seek help from the Texas
d pet
National Guard.
es on a I
e cross-
ENo deaths were reported.
hat
inc
ght, dm
eporten I
handle
hwab, i
letiniesi
it’s more
^lore than seven inches of rain
fell in less than eight hours in Mexia
•to the south of Dallas and in Bon
ham to the north, and four to five
Thes dropped on numerous other
Anmunities, flooding streets and
houses.
' a FP^lore than 65 traffic accidents
d ou were re p 0r t ec l from midnight to 8
1 a! anr. Monday in Dallas as commuters
d to cope with several inches of
in after a dry January — a record
land 51 days without measurable
precipitation.
â– The National Weather Service is
sued flash flood warnings in numer
ous counties throughout the day,
with scattered thunderstorms
throughout much of the state pack
ing winds of up to 50 mph. Af
ternoon temperatures were in the
60s and 70s.
spy Manager Jack Parker in
lemple, 60 miles north of Austin,
â– ea the National Guard to provide
equipment and help sandbag homes
threatened by runoff from swollen
geeks. Mike Cox, spokesman for the
^exas Department of Public Safety,
said four trucks and eight men were
â– patched in the early afternoon.
KkV'ater from Bird Creek in south
ffemple flowed over its bank and
fnto nearby houses.
Bfo the east, more than six inches
Main fell in the community of Bon-
lam by mid-morning and although
pi slowed to a patter, authorities
tere warned of potential additional
d closures and other problems.
jHazel Graves watched as rain-
oilen waters from Lake Bonham
ftnpletely encircled her home. She
id spent the weekend putting in a
Sv garden and piles of peat moss
dried around the knee-deep water
in her front yard.
I Authorities closed Farm Road 271
â– ding to Bonham State Park, one
of many roads blocked off in north
£ |p central Texas due to flooding.
Rampaging waters cut off eastern
rtions of the tiny city of Mart in
[Southeast McLennan County south
. ofWacoand three families in Stam-
T/\t pode Valley near Waco were
Branded by rising creeks,
its, feC' I A car was sw ept off a bridge on a
.'l on g goad near McGregor west of Waco,
! [but the driver, who got out when the
Jbie w leaf, engine stalled, escaped without
current |injury, authorities said.
^Another car was washed off a
d west of Waco, and one car was
lept from a road in Burnet
County, authorities said. No injuries
r ere reported.
I
ms Ml
ebruaf)'
ip to
elistfe'l
I Spo^
Photo by DEAN SAITO
Workin’ For A Ph.D.
Rosa Llusar, a graduate chemistry student from Valencia, Spain,
does inorganic chemistry research in the synthesis of new com
pounds Monday afternoon in the Chemistry Building. The re
search is for her Ph.D.
Pathologists studying
remains from Atlantic
Associated Press
Pathologists are examining hu
man remains recovered from the At
lantic to see if they are those of Chal
lenger’s astronauts, sources said
Monday.
NASA said Monday that so far it
has recovered no shuttle debris from
the ocean bottom despite six days of
searching with sonar and robot sub
marines.
Two promising “targets,” the
space agency said, turned out to be
the old wreckage of a helicopter and
a light airplane.
That left 17 other potential tar
gets about 15 miles offshore where
photographs and radar indicated
that large objects hit the water,
NASA said.
But with the sea yielding less de
bris each day, officials weighed cut
ting back on the search of the ocean
surface.
The Navy was pulling its ships out
at the end of the day Monday, leav
ing the sea sweep to the Coast
Guard, which also was reviewing
whether to continue.
The sources, who spoke on condi
tion they not be identified, would
not disclose how many remains had
been found or what they were but
said they had been taken to a hospi
tal at nearby Patrick Air Force Base
to be preserved and studied.
Seven astronauts died in the space
shuttle’s explosion a week ago, and
parts of the shuttle have been found
as far away as 220 miles north of
Kennedy Space Center.
“As we move away from this terri
ble day, we must devote our energies
to finding out how it happened and
how it can be prevented from hap
pening again,” President Reagan
said Monday in naming a commis
sion to investigate the cause of the
catastrophe independent of NASA.
Whether the human remains were
washed up on the beaches or found
at sea, the sources would not say.
They would not say when the re
mains were found.
NASA would neither confirm nor
deny the report.
See Pathologists, page 12
See Related Stories:
• First man, page 5
•NASA estimates, page 5
NASA no longer over
probe into explosion
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President
Reagan took the investigation of
the space shuttle Challenger ex
plosion away from NASA Mon
day and entrusted it to an inde
pendent board “with no axe to
grind.”
In an executive order, Reagan
directed the panel, headed by
former Secretary of State William
P. Rogers and former astronaut
Neil Armstrong, the first man on
the moon, to report its findings
within 120 days.
By making the commission in
dependent of NASA, the admin
istration appeared to be trying to
avoid criticism that the investiga
tion of the Jan. 28 accident, which
claimed the lives of all seven crew
members, was one-sided or bi
ased.
Yet, half the 12 commission
members have current or past ties
to NASA or the space program.
Under Reagan’s order, NASA
becomes a research arm of the
new commission. An interim in
vestigative board set up by NASA
on the day of the accident is being
abolished.
The commission, which can be
comprised of up to 20 members,
includes former test pilot Chuck
Yeager, astronaut Sally K. Ride,
the first American woman in
space, and Nobel laureate Rich
ard P. Feynman.
In another development, Capi
tol Hill sources said Reagan will
ask Congress to provide roughly
$7.7 billion for the NASA budget
for the 1987 fiscal year.
Speakes said the commission
members will serve without pay.
Former students eligible to receive refunds
A&M will return property deposits upon request
By BRIAN PEARSON
Senior Staff Writer
Texas A&M will return, upon request, a
$10 property deposit to former students who
have graduated or withdrawn, do not plan to
enroll in more classes and who do not owe
money for damage to University property.
According to the A&M class schedule di
rectory, “Every student, unless registered in
absentia, must make a property deposit to
protect the University from damage to or loss
of University property.” Students registered
in absentia are doing work outside the formal
classroom setting.
Students eligible for the return of the de
posit must fill out a request form in 004 Coke
Building to receive the $10. Bob Piwonka,
manager of the Financial Fiscal Department,
said the deposit, which is included in stu
dents’ first fee payment, will be returned
within about 30 days after the request is
made.
Quoting from the Texas Education Code,
Piwonka said, “An institution of higher edu
cation may collect a reasonable deposit not to
exceed $10 from each student to insure the
institution against the losses, damages and
breakages in libraries and laboratories. The
deposit shall be returned on the withdrawal
or graduation of the student less any loss,
damage or breakage caused by the student.”
Piwonka said students eligible to receive a
refund must request the money since the de
partment doesn’t know if they will return.
“You’re not eligible to receive it ($10) until
the semester’s over,” Piwonka said. “At that
oint, we have to wait until the department
as a chance to bill you for any damage for
that semester.
“A lot of students stay on and go to grad
uate school. A lot of students donate their
money to the Association of Former Stu
dents.”
Faye Pruitt, staff accountant in the Finan
cial Fiscal Department, said 362 former
A&M students requested their property de-
sposit during the 1984-85 school year. Dur
ing the 1984-85 A&M school year, 6,242 stu
dents received bachelors degrees, 1,093
received masters degrees and 282 received
their doctorates.
Pruitt said the department does not for
mally notify students that a refund of the _
property deposit is available.
Piwonka said all the property deposits are
held in an interest-earning account. At the
end of 1985, he said that about $921,000 had
accrued.
Besides refunding the deposit upon re
quest, there are two other options for the re- -
fund.
One option is to donate the $10 to the As
sociation of Former Students.
Pruitt said $350 of property deposit
money was donated to the Association of
Former Students in 1984. She added that the
amount of property deposit donations vary
from year to year.
Another route for the refund is through
the Student Financial Aid Office in the Pavil
ion.
All property deposits not requested within
four years from the date the student last at
tended A&M are forfeited into a student de
posit scholarship account.
Lynn Brown, administrator for schol
arships and employment in the student fi
nancial aid office, said her office receives the
interest from the $921,000 in property de
posit money as well as all the forfeited de
posit money.
She said the office received $90,000 of for
feited property deposit money in the 1982-
83 school year and $144,000 in the 1983-84
school year. She said the amount varies
widely.
Brown said $15,000 of the deposit money
received goes to scholarships each year.
“The rest of the money goes to grants
awarded through the financial aid process,”
she said.
Past plaguing Cambodian Aggie
ES
Sources say East West
to trade prisoners
Associated Press
BONN, West Germany — An
East-West prisoner exchange w'ill
be made next week on a Berlin
bridge, a Western government
source said Monday, and the
svord in Israel was that it includes
Soviet Jewish dissident Anatoly
|Shcharansky.
The source in Bonn said the
swap was arranged by U.S., Soviet
ind West German officials. Offi-
:ials in Bonn and Washington re
fused comment on newspaper re
ports that such a swap was in the
making, and White House
spokesman Larry Speakes said:
‘We will have no comment, pe
riod. Top to bottom, no com
ment.”
Israel radio said the United
States had informed Israel that
Shcharansky would be freed in
three days as part of an East-West
arisoner swap. It said the Reagan
administration sent a message
about the plan to Prime Minister
Shimon Peres and Foreign Min
ister Yitzhak Shamir.
An Israeli official in Jerusalem,
speaking privately, said the deal
involved 12 prisoners held in
Western countries to be ex
changed for Shcharansky and
perhaps one other person held by
the Soviets.
Shcharansky’s wife Avital was
not at her Jerusalem home Mon
day. The radio said she would
meet her husband in West Ger
many.
The Bonn source, who is in a
position to know the details of
such an exchange, said it would
take place Feb. 11 on the Glie-
nicke Bridge linking Potsdam in
East Germany with West Berlin.
It will involve both spies and East
bloc dissidents, he said, speaking
See Sources, page 12
By MARY ANN HARVEY
Staff Writer
Texas A&M is a long way from
Battambang, Cambodia, but one Ag
gie freshman has found that he can’t
leave the nightmares of his home
land behind. Just 11 years ago, Ch-
homrith Un, 19, was witness to the
atrocities and horror of the Commu
nist regime in Cambodia.
After witnessing more than 40 ex
ecutions, the youngster painted pic
tures of what he saw which attracted
the attention of refugee officials and
journalists.
Now Un (pronounced oon) strug
gles with pre-calculus and literature
classes while trying to put the images
behind him.
Un was separated from his family
in 1975 when Communist-led insur
gents occupied most of the Cambo
dian territory. The struggle for po
litical control had begun and Un’s
life would never be the same.
“About three or four months after
they occupied the whole country
they separated me from my family
Chhomrith Un
for five years,” Un said. “I never saw
my family during that time.”
Un is the oldest of four boys and
three girls. His parents and his si
blings were separated from each
other and re-located hundreds of
miles apart.
Un was placed in a prison where
he worked like a slave and was sub
jected to abuse.
“They put me in jail and tortured
me,” Un said. “There are several
things they did — because I was tor
tured several times — but they are
things that are hard to tell. I don’t
like to say them.”
It was in this prison that Un was
forced to watch the executions of his
fellow countrymen.
“Sometimes they’d kill someone
right in front of the prisoners to try
and scare them,” he said.
Un witnessed only one execution
where the soldiers used a gun, he
said.
“After that, all the executions I
saw, they never used a gun,” he said.
“They tried to do it any way that
would make the person really suffer.
“They tortured them to death,
sometimes using a plastic bag to
cover the victim’s head and suffocate
him. Other times they would beat
him to death.”
But before the executioners, who
were mostly teenagers, killed their
victim, they performed a bloody rit
ual to show their power.
“Everytime they would kill a man
they would chop right here (point
ing to his lower back) and pull the
gall bladder out and eat it,” Un said.
“They did this to show that they
were cruel and mean.
“Most of the killers were between
15 and 19 years old and they seemed
to have fun doing what they did.”
Un escaped from the prison seve
ral times and tried to survive in the
jungles of Cambodia by himself.
“I ate wild fruit and animals in the
jungle,” he said. An earlier interest
in survival techniques became inval
uable to his existence in the jungle.
However, despite the young boy’s
attempts to escape, he was caught
and brought back to be punished
each time.
Un was finally freed in 1979 when
a revolution was organized and a
new Communist force took over his
country.
Un, who was then 14, was left on
his own to find his family and home.
When he located his hometown
and family, Un found his parents
malnourished and near starvation
from the poor treatment they had
received in prison camps. Because of
the years of separation and drastic
weight loss, it was hard for family
See Freshman, page 12