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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1987)
Tuesday, January 20, 1987Trhe Battalion/Page 5 ilIfnoiT’c im WVIIVII 9 U^r i Tuesday TAMU SAILING CLUB: will hold a membership drive from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Rudder Fountain. AGGIE PARTNERS FOR SPECIAL OLYMPICS: will hold an executive board meeting at 7 p.m. followed by a general meeting in 274 Read. BUSINESS CAREER FAIR HOSPITALITY COMMMIT- TEE: C areer Fair company hosts will meet at 7:45 p.m. in 150 Blocker. DATA PROCESSING MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION: will meet at 7 p.m. in 150 Blocker. TAMU WOMEN’S CHORUS: will hold auditions through Friday. Arrange an audition time in the Vocal Music Of fice, 003 MSC. Auditions are also being held for a bass gui tarist and a drummer. Wednesday TAMU SAILING CLUB: will hold a membership drive and novice test at 7 p.m. in 308 Rudder. TAMU BOXING CLUB: will hold an organizational meeting at 5:30 p.m. in 260 G. Rollie White. MSC LITERARY ARTS: is now accepting submissions for Litmus. Call 845-1515 for more information. PARENTS WEEKEND COMMITTEE: applications for nominating 1987-88 Parents of the Year are available in the Commons, Sterling C. Evans Library, the Memorial Student Center and the Pavilion. Items for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, no less than three working days prior to desired publication date. Lawsuit to contest funding method for state schools AUSTIN (AP) — Texas’ prop erty-poor school districts are pitted against wealthy districts in a trial starting today over the method the state uses to allocate funds to public schools. At last count, at least 115 districts had entered the suit, which is ex pected to last at least several weeks. Texas Civil Liberties Union legal director Jim Harrington said Mon day that TCLU will join the suit on the side of poor districts, which claim the present system discrimi nates against them. Preliminary hearings were held Dec. 17 before State District Judge Harley Clark. In a court petition, 67- school dis tricts claim that state funds for schools are not being distributed equitably under school reform legis lation passed in 1984. Eight districts in South Texas originally sued the state in March of 1984. The state, backed by 48 other school districts, claims state money is being spread evenly over the state. State lawyers say the poorer dis tricts simply are not collecting as much local school taxes as they could. During the December hearing, the attorney general’s office con tended that any change in school fi nancing should be made by the Leg islature, not the courts. Assistant Attorney General Kevin O’Hanlon said the poorer districts do not want equity. They just want more state money without having to raise local taxes, he said. Austin lawyer Rick Gray, rep resenting a group of the poorer dis tricts, said some school districts with wealthy assets can collect local taxes of only 8 cents per $100 property valuation and spend up to $19,000 per student in school. As a result, low-wealth districts, which are limited by law to a tax rate of $1.50 per $100 valuation, can spend only $3,000 per student. mids devour 12,500 burritos a week Tom Oil Ihance. rch Pij i on It: role * :e the i Parti ported: School district has big grocery list rice Dai op ■ODESSA (AP) — Among the ite ms on Ron Clark’s weekly grocery liv are 12,500 frozen burritos, 3,000 Hllons of milk and 62 cans of scour- in.; powder. ■ His “family” — the more than 25,000 students of the Ector County Independent School District — also consume 3,000 pounds of ground and Frosted Flakes, Clark noted. Students consume about 11,180 packages of cereal each week. At Burleson Elementary, fifth- and sixth-grade students say that they most enjoy eating fast-food en- item appears on the menu, Clark said. That happens twice a month. Sixth-grader James Parrish, 11, said he also liked the hamburgers and frijoles. “I like just about everything,” Par- -Tk; dpeddc River Oi ost excb s 40 pr ears, rer ward p ibsided. for pt il booir e late li beathit bed weekly. ■ Clark, the associate director of food servic es, said students and tea- clers are expected to eat about 3 Imillion meals by the end of this aca- demic year. ■ The food they consume is stored il a warehouse, where staffers work amid giant-size cans of fruit cocktail, catsup and cases of cereal boxes stacked to the ceiling. ■ Popular cereal choices include Brix, PacMan, Country Cornflakes “Kids are getting away from what we’d call traditional meals such as meat loaf, fried chicken or lasagna. ” — Ron Clark, associate director of food services for Ector County ISD trees like hamburgers. “I like the hamburgers, burritos, everything,” said Edward Torres, 11. The district uses 14,000 prepared hamburger patties each time that rish said. “The food’s pretty always good.” Clark, 39, said students tend to avoid the kinds of meals he ate when he was going to school. “Kids are getting away from what we’d call traditional meals such as meat loaf, fried chicken or lasagna,” Clark said. “Convenience foods have really grown, and kids are eating out more and more so that’s what’s pop ular— like chicken nuggets. “Fast food is not bad for you as long as you eat it in moderation.” Goulash and lasagna are among the district’s least favorite entrees, Clark said. Sixth-grader Corey Abila, 1 1, agreed about the lasagna: “I never have tried it, but I don’t want to” be cause it looks bad, Abila said. Some people complain that the school lunches have too many starchy foods, Clark said. But some items are served because the federal government sends surplus products to the schools, he said. Gramm fights opponents of twin plants HARLINGEN (AP) —- Sen. nOaut phn (; ramn vowed again Mon- g is a rfi vf a hois an ini- .. DauA specia et. com, P 6 ice bids ty, and up pn« Today, Dsidedt more s homes 1 st SI 1,11 1983 to: 1 it uiidft $1.5® day to fight congressional oppo-! nents of the twin-plant industry that assembles U.S.-made prod- acts with Mexican labor. Gramm said maquiladoras vould be coming under attack in Congress from legislators who lon’t understand the program benefits people on both sides of he U.S.-Mexico border. Speaking to the dedication of a aew training center at the Har- ingen campus of Texas State Technical Institute, Gramm said \merican jobs are preserved by he twin-plant industry and shut- ing it down would be “devastat ing to the Valley, devastating to iTexas.” Steelworkers optimistic over news of tentative contract agreement BAYTOWN (AP) — With unem ployment benefits running out, steelworkers say they are relieved union leaders and USX Corp. offi cials have reached a tentative agreement to end a six-month work stoppage. “All I can tell you is I’m opti mistic,” United Steelworkers mem ber Ken Bradford said Monday. “I’m waiting to see the package,” he said. “It has to be fairly decent with so many presidents approving it.” On Sunday, the leaders of the lo cal unions voted 38-4 in favor of a four-year pact that cuts pay 8 per cent and eliminates 1,350 jobs, while boosting job security for those who remain. The union’s International Exec utive Board also approved the tenta tive pact. The contract now goes to a secret- ballot vote among 33,000 union workers. If approved, it would end the longest work stoppage in the steel in dustry’s history. The 750 union workers at Bay town’s Texas Works Steel Manufac turing plant will meet Saturday to discuss the proposed contract and then vote on it, said Pete Brady, vice president of Local 7756. “We’re upbeat at this point,” Brady said. Brady said union members ap peared to get what they wanted in the form of increased job security. “As it stands right now, it looks pretty good,” union member Betsy Mendez, 40, said Monday. “We’ll have to get the full details. Everyone is in limbo right now. No one wants to get real excited. But we have a lot of smiling faces today.” Already, Mendez’s 14-year-old daughter is planning a celebration. “She’s pretty anxious for me to go back to work,” Mendez said. “Every one’s eager to go back to work.” Bradford, 29, said he has been de pending on unemployment benefits, occasional work such as mowing lawns and his wife’s wages as a clerk to support their family of four. “Our savings was exhausted a long time ago,” he said. “You’d be surprised how high the price of (baby) formula is.” Their second daughter was born less than a week after the company locked workers out of the plant Aug. 1 when labor negotiations broke down, he said. Bradford said he is prepared to take a wage cut to be able to go back to work. Like most of the workers, his un employment benefits will end in late January, he said. “I’m pretty confident we’ll go back to work,” Bradford said. “I just don’t know when.” None of the union members lost a car or home during the work stop page, Brady said. Problem Pregnancy? we listen, we care, we help Free pregnancy tests concerned counselors Brazos Valley Crisis Pregnancy Service We’re local! 1301 Memorial Dr. 24 hr. Hotline 823-CARE Icut hereI Defensive Driving Course Jan. 21,22; Jan. 27, 28; Feb. 4, 5 College Station Hilton Pre-register by phone: 693-8178 Ticket deferral and 10% insurance discount LI cut here] PACK YOUR BAGS FOR COLLEGE MAIN! LARGE APARTMENTS all electric with ceiling fans, pool and clubroom CLOSETOTAMU walking distance to campus on shuttle bus route GREAT PRICES one Bedroom from $240 2 Bedroom Studios from $310 (only $155 per roommate) 846-2089 4302 COLLEGE MAIN, BRYAN The Better™ BaU Point Pen 89 c Whatever the assignment. Pilot has the formula for writing comfort and precision. Pilot’s Better Ball Point Pen, in medium and fine points, lets you breeze through long note-taking sessions. In fact, we’ve made writer’s fatigue a thing of the past! This crystal barreled veteran of the campus has a ribbed finger grip for continuous comfort find is perfectly balanced for effortless writing. Best of all, you’ll never throw it out because it’s refillable. The perfect teammate to the Better Ball Point Pen is Pilot’s Pencilier 0.5mm mechanical pencil. It has a continuous lead feed system and a cushion tip that helps eliminate the frustration of lead breakage. The Pencilier’s jumbo eraser does the job cleanly while the ribbed grip offers the same comfort as the Better Ball Point Pen. Pick up the Pilot Team at your campus bookstore today...The Better Ball Point Pen and The Pencilier. PILOT : S ET B# DAR.jjC’ ET 9 -7599 A ' 6P &- C0UN tS VITED TAU KAPPA EPSILON FRATERNITY Presents with “The Pet Peeves” Tuesday, January 20th Begins at 8:31 at the TKE house Plenty of snacks and refreshments Texas Ave. Bryan - to o>