Wednesday, October 22, 1986/The Battalion/Page 5
City official not afraid to dirty his hands
Look for the boss under the hood
By Scott Redepenning
Reporter
His of fice is pushed off to the side in the huge,
metal garage behind the police station — but
jon’t expect to find him there.
A better bet would be to go out onto the work
floor and take a look around the maze of broken-
down vehicles and other city paraphernalia. If
there’s a 57-year-old man hunched under the
hood of a garbage truck, showing a young,
grease-covered mechanic how to clean out a car
buretor, that’s probably him,
“He” is Alfred Miller, College Station’s direct-
ar of public services. This man runs the whole
place, and he’ll be the first to get his hands dirty
doing it.
“I don’t just come in and sit around the office,
so when the workers need something they have
:o find me,” he says in a slow, almost labored
drawl — a by-product of his small-town, East
Texas upbringing. “I go out and mingle with the
boys.”
From a weather-beaten, oversized, straw cow
boy hat resting directly above two bushy, gray
eyebrows, to a pair of scuffed, pointy-toed cow
boy boots, Miller is the picture of a working man
who’s made it to the top but just hasn’t noticed.
He flings his hat across his dimly lit office,
which is littered with books, manuals, letters,
charts and memos. Looking a bit out of place, he
plops himself down behind a seemingly unused
in 230 Vete® desk and transfers a large wad of chewing to
bacco from his cheek to the trash can.
“How would I describe myself?” he says with a
half-smile suggesting an air of modesty. “I’m
widespread and ready to get things done. That’s
how I show up to work every morning.”
And from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every working day
that’s just what he’s doing — getting things done.
Though his name may not be familiar to many
College Station residents, Miller contributes con-
iderably to everyday life here. He’s in charge of
ill College Station public services. This means his
lepartment keeps the city’s streets clean and re
paired, the city’s garbage safely disposed of, the
city’s cemetery pleasant to visit and the city’s vehi-
:les running smoothly.
With a lifetime of experience in the depart-
nent backing him up, Miller is enthusiastic about
tisjob, and it’s easy to see he takes it seriously.
“I wouldn’t say I’m hard to work for, but I can
sometimes get that way,” he says, peering
through a pair of tired, steel-blue eyes. “I go out
every morning and talk to all the gang. We get
ilong pretty well.”
In a wrinkled, light-blue, short-sleeved shirt,
, , inxious to untuck itself from his baggy, navy-
ngineennp t)lue pants, it’s no wonder Miller gets along with
bis workers so well — he fits right in with them.
He says some bosses can’t understand why
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their workers don’t do more. He seems to have a
better understanding of his employees’ limita
tions.
“I pretty much know what can be done and
what can’t be done,” he says. “I’m not one of
those who just walked in off the street into the of
fice. Anything they do out there I’ve probably
done at one time or another.”
He boasts that good employee-boss relations
are why his department runs so smoothly.
“We get pretty good ratings in the public ser
vice department, and I think I’ve got something
From d weather-beaten, oversized,
straw cowboy hat resting directly
above two bushy, gray eyebrows, to
a pair of scuffed, pointy-toed cow
boy boots, (College Station public
services director Alfred) Miller is
the picture of a working man who’s
made it to the top but just hasn’t no
ticed.
to do with it,” he says. “We do have a lot of peo
ple who stay around a long time. If something
conies up and a guy wants to talk about it, I’m
wide open to talk to.”
Miller is devoted to his job. He says he puts so
much effort into his job because, of all the hob
bies in the world, work is his favorite.
“I really enjoy it,” he says. “I guess that’s why
I’ve stayed here so long. You learn something
new every day no matter how long you stay he
re.”
Miller has an opportunity to learn a number of
things every day because of his active and varied
schedule.
From periodic trips around the city to look for
needed road improvements to making sure the
city’s garbage is disposed of according to govern
ment regulations, Miller manages to stay busy.
He says there are a few things about his job
that he dislikes.
“We get quite a few complaints, and there are a
lot we can’t do anything about,” he says. “Some
times this bothers us because we can’t take care of
everything. A lot of things are out of my hands. I
just work them out the best I can.”
With this kind of care and dedication to his
job, it’s surprising that he has the time or energy
to do anything else — but he does.
‘T’ve got a little farm and some cattle about 30
miles away, and that’s my time off,” he says. “I
like going and taking care of my stuff out there.
It helps me get away from all the hustle around
here.”
But when he does feel like being around the
hustle, or more accurately, the polka, he and his
wife do just that — they go dancing.
With their 23-year-old daughter out on her
own, he and his wife decided to go looking for a
little excitement. They found it in small towns be
tween here and Waco.
He says it’s about all the entertainment he
needs, and he prefers the quiet of his little farm.
He is used to a simple life, says Miller, who was
born and raised in Anderson in neighboring
Grimes County.
Though Miller says he leads a simple life, he’s
quick to add that it’s anything but dull. A veteran
of the Korean War, he is active in the local Veter
ans of Foreign Wars and American Legion chap
ters. He is also the local director of an association
that holds seminars around the United States on
innovations in refuse collection and disposal.
“It may not seem like a big deal,” he says, “but
sanitation has become a big thing with all the
rules and regulations you have to abide by.”
He leans back in his chair with a glimmer of
nostalgia in his eyes, remembering a day when
the job was less complex. He came to work for
the city at age 20 and has stayed in the same de
partment ever since.
“When I came to College Station, it was a small
town and there were only 10 of us employees
doing the whole bit,” he says. “Now there are
about 500.”
He has watched the growth of College Station
and gives credit to Texas A&M University for the
city’s vast development. Miller says some older
people he knows complain about the mass of stu
dents overrunning the city, but he doesn’t agree
with them at all.
“If A&M wasn’t here, not much of anything
would be,” he says. “People complain about the
crowd, but I say if it wasn’t for the crowd, there
would be no use for us here. I’d probably get
bored and go someplace else.”
He need not pack his bags. There’s plenty of
need in College Station for Alfred Miller. The
question is, how long will Alfred Miller need Col
lege Station?
He wants to retire within the next eight years,
he says, so he can spend more time on his farm
and travel around the country with his wife. He
says he would rather see the United States than
go abroad.
“I’ve been in the Army, so I’ve already seen a
lot of the world,” he says. “There’s a lot of things
here I haven’t seen that I would like to, but until
then, I’ll just concentrate on my job.”
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The following were reported
to the University Police Depart
ment through Monday:
DESECRATION OF A VEN
ERATED OBJECT:
• The Lawrence Sullivan Ross
statue was spray-painted orange
and blue.
ASSAULT BY CONTACT:
• A student reported that a
man came into her dorm room
and began attacking her. She said
that when she started screaming,
the man ran out of her room to
ward the golf course.
MISDEMEANOR THEFT:
• A student reported that
someone stole her rust-colored,
cotton knit sweater from under
the bed in her dorm room. At the
monthly dorm meeting she re
ported it had been stolen, and a
few days later she said she found
it outside her front door.
Mon gets 50 years, fine for killing
boy by force-\
HOUSTON (AP) — A man con
victed of killing a 2-year-old boy by
forcing pepper down his throat was
sentenced Tuesday to 50 years in
prison and fined $10,000.
A jury in State District Judge Mi
chael McSpadden’s court handed
Raymond Edward Coffey, 26, the
sentence after deliberating about
four hours, court clerk John Wash
ington said. Prosecutors had urged
jurors to sentence Coffey to the
maximum term of life in prison.
Coffey was convicted Monday in
the May 7 death of Christopher
Kalmbach, the son of Coffey’s girl
friend, after the jury deliberated for
3!/s> hours.
Prosecutor Chuck Rosenthal said
the case was one of the worst epi
sodes of child abuse he has ever
seen. Pictures of the child intro
duced in the trial showed severe
bruises all over the boy’s body, as
well as scalds and cigarette burns on
his arms. He said Coffey deserved
life in prison.
Coffey’s defense attorney, Wayne
Hill, argued for probation, saying
the facts of the case did not warrant
a long prison term. He asked for 10
years probation or, at the most, 10
years in prison.
Hill said it was the boy’s mother
and not his client who force-fed the
pepper to the boy.
In a statement to police, Coffey
said he used pepper to discipline the
boy but contended the child took the
pepper himself the night he choked
to death.
Patty Kalmbach, 21, refused to
testify in Coffey’s two-day trial de
spite an offer of immunity. She is
facing a charge of murder by omis
sion.
McSpadden held Kalmbach in
contempt of court after she refused
to identify her son in one of the pho
tos shown to jurors.
Coffey told police he left the pep
per shaker with the boy after he had
repeated a bad word. Upon return
ing, Coffey told police he found
brown and gray matter coming out
of the child’s mouth. The boy’s face
was purple, the statement said.
Emergency room personnel at
Parkway General Hospital testified
the child was not breathing when
Coffey brought him to the hospital.
Prosecutors said the mother was
home when the boy started choking.
frat linked to earlier handcuff incident
i AUSTIN (AP) — The use of
andcuffs in fraternity hazing, one
* tuf the allegations in the drinking-re-
Bated death of a University of Texas
■raternity pledge, apparently had a
precedent, it was reported Tuesday.
Sworn statements given to police
say Mark Seeberger, 18, a Phi Kappa
pledge from Dallas, and two
other pledges were handcuffed the
night of Sept. 17 during a fraternity
“ride.” Seeberger died Sept. 18 of al
cohol poisoning.
The UT student newspaper, the
Daily Texan, reported Tuesday that
it obtained an earlier police report
giving details of a January 1984
hazing incident involving 11 Phi
Kappa Psi fraternity members —five
of whom were handcuffed and
bound by the ankles with tape.
The report said an apartment
manager called Austin police to the
complex because several fraternity
members, whose legs were bound
and whose hands were cuffed, were
nearly thrown into the swimming
pool, the Texan reported.
“They stated they were members
of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. .. . They
all stated that they were not aware it
was illegal to haze,” police officer
Edmund Garza wrote.
No charges were filed because
those bound did not wish to file any
complaint against those who tied
them up, the newspaper reported.
Brenton Monteleone, Phi Kappa
Psi president, said the fraternity no
longer uses such practices.
“There has been a national trend
away from hazing,” Monteleone
said, “and our fraternity has been at
the forefront. ...”
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Congratulations to Freshmen
Election Winners
Class of ’90
President: Dan Gattis
V.P.: Michael Aspinall
Trea: David Gribble
Sec: Jeff Brennan
Soc. Sec.: Kathleen Broderick
Senators
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Mike Cougar
Tim Barrett
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