Tuesday, April 14, 1987/The Battalion/Page 5
2 tell A&M crowd of life behind bars
Inmates: Drugs can lead to prison
I
By Bridget Harrow
Reporter
“When you do drugs, you have
only three destinies — you can go
crazy, go to prison or die. Look at
me; I’m in prison today. You may
not be so lucky. You could die first.”
This was the basic message of 20-
year-old Eusebio, an inmate of the
Texas Department of Corrections,
to an audience of mostly parents and
students Monday in Rudder Tower.
Eusebio is part of the Community
Education Program, in which a
panel of inmates from the TDC
travel around Texas to tell young
people about their lives, drug use
and prison life.
The inmates present themselves
as negative examples, hoping others
will learn from their mistakes, said
Doug Eckles, an assistant adminis
trator at TDC.
The panel of inmates is chosen
from the inmate population of the
Pack II Unit, which houses male
first-time offenders between the
ages of 17 and 21.
The men are volunteers. They are
not told what to say or how to say it,
Eckles said.
“And they are very sincere,” he
said. “They are not getting paid for
doing this. They do it out of the care
they feel toward young people.
“It makes it hard for them, too,
because after this is over, and you
and I go out to what they call the
free world, they get to go back to
prison lockup.”
Eusebio is serving a 10-year
prison sentence for possession of
marijuana.
He said he can honestly say if it
weren’t for drugs, he would not be
in prison today. The only record
he’d ever had was for a speeding
ticket.
"I started making the wrong deci
sions, and hanging out with the
wrong crowd, and I went wrong,”
Eusebio said. “I let someone else
make up my mind for me. I said I
Photo by Marie McLeod
Eusebio, an inmate from the TDC, speaks about his drug addiction as another inmate, Dale, listens in.
would never see myself behind bars,
but look where I am now. And now
my so-called friends have forgotten
about me.
“Many people believe only the
poor and lowlifes do drugs, but that
is a big misunderstanding. Doctors
and lawyers are out there doing
drugs, too — committing crimes. In
prison they don’t care who you are,
who you know or where you came
from. Good family background or
bad family background, you are re
sponsible for your own mistakes.”
Another inmate, Dale, 21, of Con
roe, is serving a 10-year prison sen
tence for burglary. Dale said he’d
been spending 95 percent of his time
high on drugs.
He was arrested for burglary and
public intoxication, but was placed
on probation.
“I should have learned my lesson
then,” Dale said. “But no. The only
thing I cared about at the time was
letting everybody think I was cool.
People think drugs is a way to cope
with life, but they ain’t coping with
it. They are just packing up their
problems and running away with it.”
Dale also talked a little about daily
prison routine. The day starts out
normally, he said, when the prison
ers are awakened at 3 a.m. They
have to eat their meals in five min
utes, shower in three minutes and
are strip-searched daily.
Their incoming and outgoing
mail is opened and read. In the
fields, they may chop grass using a
shovel with a rough handle and dull
blade, which they call an Aggie. And
“rackup” — the time they have to be
in their cells — is at 10 p.m.
Because Dale and Eusebio are
trustees, they get to shower and eat
for a little longer time, and they live
in a dorm-type room instead of a
cell. But both regret that they are in
prison, and said they will not return
to prison or turn to drugs once they
are out.
Chimney Hill
Bowling Center
NEW
"A Family
Recreation Center"
A&M Student Special
M-F 9am to 5:30pm
SI. 25 per game
also good for faculty & A&M employees. 1987 ID required.
40 Lanes — Automatic Scoring
| League & Open Bowling
Bar & Snack Bar
701 University Drive East
Pool Tables
Video Games
260-9184
Trouble Finding A Place To Park?
MUD LOT PARKING
Guaranteed Parking With Permit
Summer Rates
$15. 00 -1 Session
$30. 00 -Both Sessions
If Bought Before
May 15,1987
$20. 00 a session if
purchased after May 15, 1987
Fall Session:
$55.°°-^ purchased before
Sept. 1,1987
$60. 00 -lf purchased after
Sept. 1,1987
*Daily Rates $1. 00
Get Your Xerox® Copies
Inexpensive, High-Quality Copies
From the Finest Xerox® Equipment
Also: Self-service copying, typing and word processing,
reductions and enlargements, binding, resume writing,
editing, business cards, wedding invitations, stationery
and many other services. One-stop service for reports,
term papers, theses and dissertations.
Bond hearing
for Texaco
postponed
HOUSTON (AP) — A hearing
Texaco Inc. requested to deter
mine what bond it must post to
continue its legal battle with Pen-
nzoil Co. was postponed Monday
after Texaco attorneys claimed
the issue was moot since the giant
oil company filed for bankruptcy
protection.
The 1st Court of Appeals in
Houston agreed to stay the hear
ing, which Texaco had asked for
to seek relief from an $ 1 1 billion
bond required to appeal a multi-
billion-dollar judgment awarded
to Pennzoil.
“It is my understanding we
cannot proceed,” Texaco attor-
neyjim Sales told the three-panel
appeals court. “There is no action
that can be taken. Everything is
stayed.”
Texaco, the nation’s third-larg-
est oil company, announced Sun
day it had filed under Chapter 11
of the federal bankruptcy code.
The action makes the White
Plains, N.Y.-based corporation
the biggest U.S. company ever to
seek bankruptcy protection.
Citing the burden of its legal
battle with Pennzoil and failed at
tempts to reach a settlement,
Texaco officials said they had no
choice but to file for protection.
CHECK THE
Call
Battalion Classified
845-2611
University begins research
on saving water resources
ON THE DOUBLE
331 University 846-3755
HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sat. 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sun. 10 p.m.-6 p.m.
By John Marr
Reporter
Texas A&M officials on Thursday
announced 14 interdisciplinary wa
ter research projects totaling
$394,000 as part of the University’s
Research Enhancement Program.
The $18.1 million enhancement
program is a long-range plan cre
ated by the Board of Regents in June
1986 to enhance research at A&M by
helping faculty members contribute
quality research and compete for
funds outside the University, said
Dr. Duwayne Anderson, associate
provost for research.
“These funds (Available Univer
sity Funds) will help in the formation
of interdisciplinary teams needed to
solve problems in hydrology and wa
ter resources,” Anderson said.
“Scientists from the colleges of agri
culture, architecture, geosciences,
engineering and liberal arts must
team together to solve the most diffi
cult problems.
“Water resource is the No. 1 prob
lem facing Texas in the coming de
cade. Research devoted to the devel
opment of surface water uses can
offset groundwater depletion in cer
tain areas of the state. New technolo
gies are being developed to use exist
ing water resources more
efficiently.”
The program is directed heavily
at researching problems in Texas
and assisting A&M researchers in
addressing them, Anderson said.
If Texas is to grow by attracting
new industries that use tremendous
amounts of water, it needs additio
nal water resources or more efficient
uses of existing ones, he said.
Dr. Wayne Jordan, director of the
Texas Water Resource Institute, ex
pressed similar views.
“In order to maintain a favorable
climate for economic development,”
Jordan said, “we must learn to use
Texas’ limited water resources wisely
and efficiently and must prevent
them from contamination.”
To understand water problems
more completely, the research pro
gram in hydrology and water re
sources is concentrated in water pol
icy and economic development,
urban water use, groundwater qual
ity and water resources systems tech
nology.
Six projects are directed at water
quality with emphasis on contami
nation and its environmental effects,
while another six projects are aimed
at water resources systems technol
ogy-
Each project has two or more re
searchers from the various colleges
and is coordinated by the TWRI.
Jordan said this is the first broad-
based program coordinated by the
institute that uses University-
funded, interdisciplinary teams and
he believes the program will foster
cooperation instead of competition
among faculty members.
“The whole program was de
signed to build research competence
at Texas A&M,” he said. “By solving
problems too complex for one disci
pline, the program places faculty
members in a better position to re
ceive federal funds.”
Harlow Landphair, professor of
landscape architecture, said, “No
body has a single lock on all the an
swers, and interdisciplinary teams
are absolutely the way it has to go to
solve these problems.”
One area of research in urban wa
ter use that could affect local resi
dents and landscape is in peak water
demands, which occur during the
summer.
t
Trying to decrease peak water de
mands by determining which plants
use water more efficiently may
sound simple, Landphair said, but it
requires a lot of monitoring by many
researchers.
FMEfiSMMET
s
THE MSC JORDAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL. AWARENESS
PRESENTS
"THE BEAR IN REPOSE:
THE PEOPLE OF MOTHER RUSSIA"
A PRESENTATION OF TWO FILMS ON THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15,1987
601 RUDDER
8 p.m.
ADMISSION IS FREE
SPECIAL GUEST:
DR. MIKHAIL BARSZAP WILL BE AVAILABLETO ANSWER QUESTIONS.