Wednesday, July 2, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3
stra
State and Local
ua
Organizers urge
Farm Aid il fans
to form car pools
Helping international students adjust
By Carla Crawford
Reporter
Leaving home to go to college
is hard for anyone, but for the
1600 international students at
tending Texas A&M, the Interna
tional Student Services Depart
ment makes things a little easier.
Tina Watkins, international
student adviser, says many sup
port groups at A&M and in the
community help students adjust.
Students from more than 100
countries attend A&M and 47
clubs have formed to represent
particular countries, Watkins
says.
She says the clubs offer a sup
port system by helping new stu
dents find housing and meet peo
ple from their own country.
Amer Benali, a senior environ
mental design major from Libya,
has been in America for four
years, but says leaving home was
difficult.
“You wouldn’t believe how
much I cried when I was coming
here,” he says. “Every mile the
plane took, I wondered if I’d ever
go home.”
He says he still has occasional
battles with homesickness, but
feels that College Station is his
second home.
During the recent Libyan con
flict, Benali, Who is active in
SCONA, says he received a lot of
support and concern from other
members wanting to know how
he was doing.
But Benali says he sometimes
has problems communicating
with American students. One big
communication gap for foreign
students is American humor, he
says.
“I’ve tried reading the cartoons
in the paper and I don’t under
stand them so they’re not funny,”
he says. “Things that are funny to
us are not funny to Americans.”
The International Student As
sociation is open to all interna
tional students and has a council
made up of the presidents of each
country’s club, Watkins says.
Tau Kappa, a junior honor so
ciety, helps integrate foreign stu
dents into the University by help
ing students with their English
before the students begin classes.
The members also meet indi
vidually with students once a
week to talk, Watkins says.
“Not only does this help them
learn English, but they learn
about the school, how to do
things American and slang ex
pressions,” she says.
Friendship International, a
group of interested students on
campus, has also taken foreign
students as English partners and
does much the same thing as Tau
Kappa, she says.
A&M student volunteers provide medical aid
By Cheryl Clements
Reporter
The Texas A&M Emergency Care
Team (TAMECT) is a group of 80
volunteer students who provide
medical assistance for student orga
nization activities and operate the
University ambulance service.
TAMECT Deputy Chief Ken
Hutchenrider says that the care
team provides emergency medical
attention for A&M football games,
bonfire, sorority and fraternity
events and all University functions.
The group also operates the two
A&M ambulances.
All students who have paid their
health center fees are entitled to free
ambulance service on campus and, if
needed, free transportation to a lo
cal hospital, Hutchenrider adds.
Nathan Schwade, chief of ambu
lance operations, said that TA
MECT has the quickest response
time of any medical team in this area
for the students. If a student was to
dial the emergency 911 number,
Schwade says, TAMECT would be
the first ambulance to respond.
The students in TAMECT are
trained in medical care, but they
don’t have to be pre-med majors.
“TAMECT is an extremely di
verse group of students. Members
range from business majors to pre-
vet students. Most of the people be
come involved in TAMECT because
they have an interest in community
service. Very few of them have aspi
rations of being an ambulance driver
for the rest of their life,” Schwade
says.
To become a member of the team
a student must be interviewed by
one of the organization’s elected of
ficials.
Phillip Nessler, a care team cap
tain, says the interview’s main pur
pose is to give the interviewee an
idea of what the care team is like and
what is expected of its members.
“TAMECT takes up a lot of a stu
dent’s time, so when people are in
terviewed for the team, the elected
officials try to let people know just
how much time in the week TA
MECT will consume,” Nessler says.
“Most of the people who interview
for TAMECT are accepted,” he says.
“The people interviewed who are
not accepted usually reach an
agreement with TAMECT officials
that they aren’t right for the team.
They may not have realized exactly
what TAMECT was.”
Schwade says that students who
are accepted are considered proba
tionary members of the team for
their first semester.
During this probationary semes
ter, the students are trained in stan
dard first aid and CPR, he says, and
many of them continue their medi
cal training and become certified by
the T exas Department of Health.
Dr. Claude Goswick has been TA-
MECT’s faculty adviser during the
team’s ten-year existence.
“TAMECT is a dedicated group
of young adults,” Goswick says.
“They have accepted a great amount
of responsibility, and I have at no
time questioned the competence of
the students.
“The organization has been an ab
solute success. The students are
doing an excellent job. Absolutely
unqualified!”
AUSTIN (AP) — Farm Aid II or
ganizers are urging the thousands of
music fans expected to attend the
concert to form car pools to head off
a traffic jam around the concert site.
More than 28,000 tickets have
been sold for the 18-hour concert,
which will be held Friday at the
Manor Downs race track east of Aus
tin, said Sally Hinkle, a Farm Aid
spokeswoman.
Gates open at 6 a.m. for the con
cert, which begins at 7 a.m. Even at
that early hour, however, fans are
being encouraged to share cars to
keep traffic down as much as possi
ble, Hinkle said.
“When they see what is going to
go on, they will have wished they
had,” she said.
Farm Aid organizers also are ad
vising motorists planning to travel
from Austin to Houston to take al
ternate routes and avoid U.S. 290,
which is expected to be packed with
Farm Aid traffic.
To help ease congestion, Austin’s
Capital Metropolitan Transporta
tion Authority was considering of
fering shuttle bus service to and
from the concert. Farm Aid organiz
ers said.
Landowners in the Manor Downs
area have donated use of their land
for parking within walking distance
of the concert site. Motorists will be
allowed to park beginning at 6 a.m.,
Hinkle said.
Farm Aid II originally was
planned for Memorial Stadium on
the University of Texas campus. In
ability to obtain liability insurance
forced organizers to announce that
it would move to South Park Mead
ows, a 60-acre outdoor concert site
six miles south of Austin. But insur
ance problems also developed, and
the Manor Downs site finally was se
lected.
The concert, headed up by singer
Willie Nelson, is the second Farm
Aid benefit held in less than a year.
The first Farm Aid event was held
last September at Champaign, Ill.,
and raised about $9 million for
America’s family farmers, Nelson
said.
Farm Aid II will feature some 75
musical acts, including the Beach
Boys, Alabama, Roseanne Cash,
Judy Collins, Rita Coolidge, Mac Da
vis, Joe Ely, Arlo Guthrie, Emmylou
Harris, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Julio
Iglesis, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kris-
tofferson, Delbert McClinton, John
Cougar Mellencamp, Gary P. Nunn,
Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughn,
Jerry Jeff Walker, X and Neil
Young.
The strain on the Manor tele
phone system was eased this week
with installation of a microwave
tower system to transmit telephone
signals to more sophisticated equip
ment at Pflugerville.
Farm Aid II corflmunications
coordinator Mark Woodward said
the microwave tower was needed to
handle the increased volume and
features needed by the press, tele
vision and production crews cover
ing the concert.
What’s up
Wednesday
STUDENT GOVERNMENT: anpl ications for External
Communications and Public Relations will be available
through the summer months. Please come by 221 Pavilion
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to pick up applications. For more in
formation call 845-3051.
A&M CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP: will present “The Ul
timate Cost of Freedom” at 7:30 p.m. in 102 Blocker.
SAILING CLUB: will meet at 7 p.m, in 302 Rudder. For
more information call Tim, 696-8642.
Thursday
BRAZOS DUPLICATE BRIDGE CLUB: meets every
Thursday at 7 p.m. at the College Station Community Cen
ter. Beginners are welcome.
Saturday
SAILING CLUB: will sponsor a weekend outing on Lake
Somerville at Overlook Park all day Saturday until noon
Sunday. For more information call T im, 696-8642.
Items for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battal
ion, 216 Reed McDonald, no less than three days prior to
desired publication date.
Hermann estate seeks $3.8 million from former trustee
HOUSTON (AP) — Attorneys for
the Hermann Hospital Estate want a
judge to issue a $3.8 million
judgment against former trustee
John B. Coffee in connection with a
stock sale that a jury found he bene-
fitted from personally.
Attorneys for the state’s largest
charitable foundation on Monday
also asked State District Judge Wil
liam N. Blanton to order Coffee’s co
defendant, Neill Amsler Jr., a for
mer estate executive vice president,
to pay $200,000.
In May, a jury found that Coffee,
74, engaged in self-dealing while
serving as a trustee. The estate ac
quired $2.8 million in unmarketable
stocks under Coffee’s direction,
according to the jury findings.
T he jury also assessed $1 million
in exemplary damages against Cof
fee and $200,000 against Amsler.
But Mike Caddell, Amsler’s attor
ney, argued that his client should
not be legally liable for any damages
in the case because a two-year statue
of limitation expired before the es
tate sued Amsler. The statue, there
fore, would nullify the $200,000
award, he said.
Public TV problems
Stations in oil-producing states get ready for tighter budgets
(AP) — When the oil industry
hurts, public television yells “ouch!”
It’s not so much the national pro
gramming that has suffered, how
ever, but the stations in states where
oil once was king.
The rapid drop in world oil prices
has cut into state revenues in Alaska,
Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana,
and many public TV stations will be
living with tighter budgets in the
new fiscal year which began Tues
day.
Farm problems have hurt stations
in Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska and Kan
sas.
“We’re in the oil and gas business
and we just didn’t know it,” said Ter
rell L. Cass, president and general
manager of KEDT in Corpus
Christi, where more than half the
staff has been laid off since January.
Donations to KUHT in Houston
fell $500,000 during the past fiscal
year, or nearly 30 percent, and its
budget is being cut 11 percent for
the new year.
General manager James L. Bauer-
said, “We are reflecting what is hap
pening in the oil industry, and it
looks like it is going to be trouble.”
In Dallas, however, KERA will
spend $12.5 million in the new fiscal
year, compared with $9.9 million last
year. More than half the increase is
for production of national program
ming, including the fall series “The
West of the Imagination,” and the
new productions are fully under
written by corporate and foundation
grants, said Richard Meyer, the sta
tion’s president.
Nationally, Mobil is continuing to
support “Masterpiece Theater” and
Chevron is not cutting its support
for the National Geographic spe
cials, but Exxon will phase out its
support for “Great Performances.”
Exxon will contribute $3.6 million
for “Great Performances” again this
fiscal year, but that will fall to $1.2
million in the next year and nothing
the year after. However, Exxon is
committed to $1.2 million per year
for “Live from Lincoln Center”
through the 1989-90 fiscal year, said
communications manager Ken Kan
sas.
Among the major producers,
WNET in New York has cut its bud
get and staff for the new year, but
WGBH in Boston, KERA in Dallas,
WTTW in Chicago, WQED in Pitts
burgh and KCET in Los Angeles will
be spending more than last year.
Henry Becton, WGBH president
and general manager, said, “I don’t
think there is a general cutback in
public broadcasting.”
It’s a different story in the oil belt.
Alaska’s public broadcasters get
up to 90 percent of their funds from
the state, which in turn gets 85 per
cent of its money from North Slope
oil revenues.
Every $1 drop in the price of a
barrel of crude oil deprives the state
of $150 million a year. With oil
prices down nearly 50 percent since
December, Alaskan officials expect
to cut more than $1.1 billion from
operating and capital budgets by the
end of fiscal 1987.
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2951 S. Texas Ave •
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Shiloh PLace • ColUqE StatIon 696^8700
TASTE.. ■something different
SIP.. ■your favorite mixed drink
RELAX.. ■in our garden atmosphere
ENJOY.. ■contemporary jazz
Now open Sunday 5-10
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Mon.-Fri. 4-8, All Day Sat.
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(next to the Campus Theater)
846-7275
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