Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 3, 1986)
Thursday, July 3, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local mg to message ose toci isic or | hat’s k] )Ut. 1US1C, i • Ameti •S ffltl! il harm: edent v express: ned wit(: ther an. I he Siei >re dead 'eedom rating) ie useti ey accoi l asks pe ! al convt l i accepil t their liil ople J relegati mass all the Nat ■ i into it , overtat march I them a ire in ^ : until it ted on iggingt put® ; home t was m i nur® idniott : ncle Mi> t a coif ian, P rf J erse) f from 1 ,uldH idol' 1 etty. rus r® /alb't ukness » r it'" emen'I enm 111 *' >r doci Mom3 ; n Flo rl( | miss oth ^ other 111 irrive c d no' give - her. rJ Farm Aid fans can use shuttle service to avoid traffic jam AUSTIN (AP) — Farm Aid orga nizers and city officials said Wednes day that shuttle bus service to the event will be offered in an attempt to minimize the anticipated traffic jam around the rural concert site. “We’ve seen stories in the paper about the possibility of real traffic congestion out there,” said Cynthia Darwin, spokeswoman for the Capi tal Metropolitan Transportation Au thority. “ I hope people would see this as a good way to go.” The 18-hour Farm Aid II concert, being staged to raise f unds for fam ily farmers, will be held at Manor Downs, a horse racing and training facility 11 miles east of Austin. Farm Aid ticket manager Bob Ful ler said more than 30,000 tickets had been sold for the 18-hour event, which is scheduled to begin shortly after 7 a.m. Organizers have urged spectators to form car pools or ride shuttle buses to keep traffic down as much as possible. Darwin said Capital Metro will provide 15 buses that will run from northeast Austin’s Reagan High School to Manor Downs every 30 minutes. Service will begin at 6 a.m. Friday, with return trips continuing until 2 a.m. Saturday, she said. Tick ets are $3. The concert has attracted more than 75 acts, although Farm Aid of ficials said Wednesday they won’t have a tentative schedule for each until Thursday evening. The concert is being organized by singer Willie Nelson, who also orga nized the initial Farm Aid concert. Nelson said the first concert raised about $9 million and that he hopes this event will do that well or better. So far, some $4.3 million has been used for rural relief efforts in nearly 40 states, funding such projects as telephone hot lines for farmers, le gal services, food pantries and pur chases of seed for farmers who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to make this year’s crop. The concert will be carried live on cable television channel VH-1. Spokeswoman Margaret Wade said portions of the event also will be car ried on the Voice of America radio network to listeners overseas. This event comes within a year of the Live Aid concert for African famine relief, the first Farm Aid concert and a nationwide series of concerts to raise money for Amnesty International. But Nelson said he doesn’t believe Americans are tired of giving to worthy causes. “The American people are gener ous,” he said. “I don’t think any body’s tired of giving.” Nelson, a native of the small Texas town of Abbott, said he hopes the concert helps convince the public of how serious the farm crisis is. “I’m sure a lot of people were just as ignorant as I was — before I got into this — about the problems of the American farmer and how many of them are going out of business even though they are good farmers, even though their credit has always been good,” he said. A&M studies bluebonnet bloom cycle By Nancy Conces Reporter The Texas Agricultural Exten sion Service is competing with Mother Nature to grow Texas’ state flower, the bluebonnet. If research to control the bluebonnet’s blooming cycle is successful, the Extension Service hopes the wildflower may be commercially sold so it can be grown in yards and gardens as well as along Texas highways. The Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth, whose emblem is the bluebonnet, has given the Exten sion Service a special three-year, $30,000 grant that will support intensive investigations into the bluebonnet’s germination, polli nation and color variations. Extension Service horticultur ists Dr. Jerry Parsons and Dr. Don Wilkerson are researching what makes the bluebonnet bloom. “Our role is to continue study ing the plant’s germination char acteristics,” Parsons says. “We hope to eventually unlock the se crets of the bluebonnet’s bloom ing cycle to make commercial production of seeds for garden annuals both efficient and reliab le.” Wilkerson says many people think that bluebonnets are wildf- lowers and, therefore, don’t be long in flowerbeds. “But, with the bluebonnet transplants that are available at most nurseries, people can plant them in their gardens in the fall and enjoy them (the flowers) in the spring,” he says. Wilkerson says that before the bluebonnet transplants were available, gardeners who planted bluebonnet seeds couldn’t always be sure the flower would grow where the seed was planted. “The flowers could wind up in the middle of your lawn or even in your neighbor’s lawn,” Wilker son says. “With the transplants, you plant them where you want them and when they start looking bad. you just pull them up and plant something else,” he says. Wilkerson says the color varia tions of the bluebonnet include pink, white, dark blue and a re cently discovered pale blue which has been named the “Worthing ton Bluebonnet”. The pale blue bluebonnet was named in honor of the Worthing ton Hotel grant. “These different colors really aren’t that pretty standing by themselves, but in combination they’re striking,” Parsons says. The Extension Service is trying to establish new color varieties of the bluebonnet by separating the odd color seeds from the normal color seeds. “We do this with successive generations until the seeds come back 80 to 85 percent in the odd variety,” Wilkerson says. Parsons says the white variety of bluebonnets are becoming more common but research is several generations away from firmly establishing colors and mass production. The ultimate goal of the Wor thington grant, Parsons says, is to produce pot-culture bluebonnets so people in Texas can give away bluebonnets at Christmas instead of poinsettias. ERA issues strict new discharge rules for Gulf DALLAS (AP) — The Environ mental Protection Agency issued its strictest discharge regulations ever for the Gulf of Mexico on Wednes day, guidelines that are already spar king protest in the oil and gas indus- try. For the first time, the EPA has in cluded enforceable toxicity limits for all drilling fluid discharges including mixtures of water, clays, minerals, oil and special chemicals used in dril ling gas and oil wells, EPA spokes man Roger Meacham said. About 2,000 sites in the Gulf — spanning an area beginning three miles from the shoreline and ex tending up to 200 miles offshore — are covered by the new general per mit that went into effect Wednesday, Meacham said. Bobby Hall, oil production direc tor for the American Petroleum In stitute said, “We can see some prob lems already, and we haven’t even finished digesting it. We’re not sure exactly what some of the limits mean.” Technically, all companies operat ing in the Gulf now comply with the permit, Meacham said. Companies violating the permit could face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day per violation. Crim inal violations, which the EPA would have to prove intentional disregard of the law, could bring up to $25,000 per day per violation. Meacham said he didn’t know how many companies are affected by the permit, which he said protects bi ologically sensitive areas such as co ral reefs by limiting discharge rates within about one-third of a mile of those areas. But Clark said the cost of comply ing with the permit could doom marginal oil leases in the Gulf. What s up Thursday STUDENT GOVERNMENT: applications for External Com munications 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 informa tion call 845-3051. BRAZOS DUPLICATE BRIDGE CLUB: meets every Thurs day at 7 p.m. at the College Station Community Center. Beginners are welcome. Items for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, no less than three days prior to de sired publication date. No-pass, no-play Statistics 'don't prove' minority, handicapped discrimination HOUSTON (AP) — Statistics from 700 of 1,000 Texas school dis tricts don’t prove that no pass, no play rule discriminates against hand icapped and minority students, a special court master has ruled. “It’s a rare case where statistics and imbalance alone are enough to prove an equal protection case,” Gerald Treece, who served as special master, said Tuesday. Treece said the trial, set for July 16, will have to expose a historical background of discrimination, spe cific events that led to the discrimi nation, any departure from the norm and the legislative history. “I will agree there is some im balance between Anglos compared to the handicapped and minorities, but these statistics should only be the beginning of the inquiry, not the end,” said Treece. His report showed 29 percent of handicapped children, 23 percent of excluded by the law from participat- black students and 22 percent of ing in school activities, compared Mexican-American students were with 15 percent of Anglo students. The July 1 issue of The Battalion mistakenly printed the emer gency number for the Texas A&M Emergency Care Team. The correct number for phones with an 845- or 260- prefix is 9911 not 911. The Battalion re grets the error. Wholesale Diamonds! Shop & Compare We Never Have A Sale! Because We Are Wholesale! Don’t be mislead by 50% to 70% savings advertised elsewhere! Afterall, will they give you a 30 day Money Back Guarantee on their Loose Diamonds? We are able to offer this Guarantee because we are sure of our Quality and Prices and we own our inventory (it’s not in on consignment). We want you to get the best diamond possible at the best possible price! The largest inventory in the area on Loose Diamonds with a 30 day Money Back Guarantee College Station Store open July 4 C@M EXCHANGE 404 University Dr. E. College Station 846-8905 3202 A Texas Ave. Bryan 779-7662 at {mir u) FREE 2 liter COKE with fillup of 8 gallons or more S if2000 6 pac Budweiser $2.89 Hot Dogs 2/990 16oz. COKE 480 2 liter COKE 990 w/o gas purchase Thursday-Sunday July 3-6 Battalion Classified 845-2611