The Battalion
Serving the University community
I——
Vol. 83 No. 129 CJSPS 075360 10 pages College Station, Texas Monday, April 7, 1986
Sausalito apartment fire destroys 13 units
By Scott Sutherland
Assistant City Editor
and
Brian Pearson
Senior Staff Writer
College Station fire fighters bat-
kted flames that destroyed 13 apart
ment units at Sausalito Apartments
Sinday night, leaving about 50
fexas A&M students homeless and
iom fireman injured.
■No students were injured during
me fire, but College Station fire
man Mike Reusink was taken to
Humana Hospital and treated for
Bioke inhalation and heat exhaus-
Bn. He was released at 10:30 p.m.
Sunday.
■ Lt. Bart Humphreys of the Col-
ilet;c Station Fire Department said
■e cause of the blaze and the ex
tent and cost of the damage proba-
m will be determined Monday.
■“The area was extensively dama
ged,” Humphreys said. “There’s
not a lot to sift through but ashes.”
Fire officials reported the blaze
probably began in a corner unit on
the bottom floor of the south end of
the building. Aided by a breeze, the
fire spread throughout the building
by way of the common attic.
A general alarm was sounded at
7:04 p.m., and six College Station
fire trucks, two ambulances and all
off- and on-duty department fire
men went to the scene. Bryan fire
men were on standby while College
Station firemen fought the blaze.
Six trucks and over 35 firemen
battled the flames for nearly an
hour and a half before getting the
fire under control.
Fire officials said that at one
point nearly 5000 gallons a minute
were being pumped onto the fire.
Residents said they smelled
smoke around 7 p.m., saw the bur
ning apartment and immediately
began removing belongings.
Nigel Henley, a mechanical engi
neering major from Houston, said
he was sitting in his apartment next
door to the suspected apartment
when he smelled smoke.
Henley said he and his room
mate Colman Rowland, an account
ing-business analysis major from
Houston, looked outside their back
window and saw a wall of flames.
Henley said they managed to
save some belongings but had to
leave most of the furniture.
Henley said that when they first
noticed the fire they might have
been able to hook a hose to an out
side spigot and possibly control the
flames, but the spigot had no on-off
handle.
Mike Brinker, an environmental
design major from Carrolton, said
he was in his apartment on the
other side of the building.
He said he was surprised how
quickly the flames spread.
“We didn’t think there was any
way in hell it would get this far but
before we knew it, it was in our
apartment,” he said.
Brinker said other residents ran
into his apartment and helped him
carry out some of his belongings, but
several things perished in the fire.
Brinker said his roommate re
turned from studying at the Sterling
C. Evans Library to find the building
engulfed in flames and his belong
ings in the parking lot.
Students also drove cars parked
near the building further away
from the burning complex.
Sausalito manager Van Anders
said the complex was supplying
rooms at the Texian Inn for
burned-out residents.
She said the complex owners
have four other apartment com
plexes in College Station and will
See Fire, page 10
Photos by John Makely
Texas A&M students evacuate Sausalito Apartments Sunday night as fire fighters battled a general alarm blaze.
Aggieland, video yearbook editors nominated
1st black Battalion editor nominated
Khadafy suspected
in bombing in Berlin
BERLIN (AP) — Police investi
gating a nightclub bombing that
i killed a U.S. Army sergeant and a
[Turkish woman and wounded
1191 other people are focusing on
Arab extremists who may have
entered West Berlin from Com
munist East Germany, news re-
I ports said Sunday.
U.S. diplomats said Libyan
[leader Col. Moammar Khadafy
[was suspected of complicity in
[Saturday’s bomb blast that de-
[stroyed the La Belle discotheque,
[which was popular with Ameri-
|can soldiers stationed in Berlin.
I Of the 191 injured, 63 were
I Americans.
I U.S. military and West Berlin
authorities identified the two
people killed as Sgt. Kenneth
Terrance Ford, 21, of Detroit,
and Nermin Haney, 28, a Turk.
“The Libyan angle is being ex
plored very vigorously,” said a
U.S. diplomatic source, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Khadafy is a very active suspect.”
Khadafy called for Arab as
saults on American interests
worldwide after a U.S.-Libyan na
val clash in the Mediterranean
two weeks ago.
U.S. officials in West Berlin re
fused further comment on the in
vestigation launched by a special,
See Bomb, page 10
Apartheid protest
About 100 faculty members,
jstudents participate in rally
By Mona Palmer
Staff Writer
I About 100 Texas A&M students
|d faculty members marched Fri
day to protest the South African
bvernment and A&M’s financial in-
[stments in South African related
Jmpanies.
I Norman Muraya, president of
itudents Against Apartheid, said the
■ally, in observance of National Di
vestiture Day and the assassination
of Martin Luther King, was held to
jinform students about apartheid
land to get their support for Univer
sity divestment.
■ “Everyone is vehemently against
ijtertheid — now we need to do
■mething about it,” he said.
■ A&M’s Faculty Senate, Student
Sbate and Board of Regents all
have declared opposition to South
Africa’s government but say they
feel it’s not their place to make a
Woral statement through financial
dons, Muraya said.
In October, the organization sub
mitted a request asking the board to
make a moral statement and with
draw University money from South
African companies.
Board Chairman David Eller, in a
Jan. 14 letter to A&M Chancellor
Arthur G. Hansen, said the subject is
a public policy matter and not within
the purpose of the board.
“But”, Muraya said, “I know that
with the other institutions it’s been
an issue that only the Board of Re
gents can legislate.”
Divestment is now a major move
toward more democratic actions,
Muraya said, and everyone can take
action by divesting.
“Divestment is the most moral and
effective way to bring about change
in South Africa,” he said.
Muraya also said that 70 percent
of South Africans support divest-
See March, page 10
By Rodney Rather
Staff Writer
Editors for the fall semester of
The Battalion, the newly authorized
video yearbook and the Aggieland
were nominated by the Student Pub
lications Board Friday. They are Ca
thie Anderson, Ricky Telg and
Molly Pepper, respectively.
Dr. Gordon P. Eaton, provost and
vice president for academic affairs,
must approve the nominations to ap
point the new editors.
Anderson, 21, if appointed,
would become the first black editor
of The Battalion. She has worked
for the paper for 1 'A years as a staff
writer, copy editor, assistant news
editor and news editor.
She says she enjoys her work be
cause it is important to inform peo
ple of what is going on around them,
so that they can make intelligent de
cisions.
As fall editor, Anderson says she
hopes to make The Battalion run
more efficiently.
“I just think it needs im
provements in the use of some of its
positions,” she says.
She says she also wants more sto
ries written about the University and
organizations here.
Anderson will spend the summer
working for the Boston Globe under
a Dow Jones internship.
Michelle Powe, The Battalion’s
current editor, was nominated to
keep keep her position through the
summer.
Telg, 20, who was nominated as
the producer of the University’s new
video yearbook, is a senior journa
lism major and has worked at KBTX
television station in Bryan since Au
gust, 1983, he says.
Because Telg would be the first vi
deo yearbook producer, and one of
few in the nation, he says he sees the
job as an opportunity to start a new
tradition.
“Since this is the first time it’s been
done, all (video) yearbooks after
next year will be based on this first
one,” he says. “It’s going to be like a
motion picture of life at Texas
A&M.”
Pepper, 20, is a junior journalism
major who has worked for the Ag
gieland since her sophomore year.
She was the editor of her high school
yearbook.
Pepper became an assistant in the
Aggieland’s organization section her
sophomore year and the classes edi
tor her junior year.
The fun of working on the na
tion’s largest yearbook, Pepper says,
is designing the yearbook at the be
ginning of the year and knowing
what it’s going to look like, although
the work is often tedious.
Because the yearbook is big, she
says, many of its pages have no
meaning. One of Pepper’s plans to
correct that problem is to document
more of the news-making events at
A&M.
“I want to make every page
count,” she says. “The book’s a mem
ory. It’s something to remind you of
your college days.”
Texas A&M faculty members and students march down Texas Avenue on their way to Rudder Tower in protest of apartheid. photo b y Dean Saito