Friday, June 12, 1987/The Battalion/Paqe 5 l/arped by Scott McCuiiar UT regents elect oilman as chairman Photo by Robert W. Rizzo l(),()()()-mile round trip to Alaska from Bryan. The group will be driving 10 model-T Fords and will take about two months to complete the voyage. 'wo more Texas banks fail; stagnant economy blamed 0 (AP)'■ Ranking regulators shut down two more banks and a r HennM savings and loan association Thursday, the latest victims .lary Alutj of soured loans, poor management and the stagnant Texas economy. ■ The failures bring to 31 the number of banks that have collapsed in Texas this year, eclipsing the national record the state set last year with 26. Tout savings and loans have now been shut down in the state. I First State Bank of Milford and Northwest Commer- dal N.A. in Houston were closed and the Federal De posit Insurance Corp. named as receiver, FDIC spokes man Bill Olcheski said. H In Texarkana, meanwhile, regulators declared Secu rity Savings Association insolvent, citing bad lending practices and speculative land purchases, Federal Home Loan Bank Board spokesman Paul Olkhovsky. I The S&L — which had $424 million in assets — was a state-chartered stock association with 10 offices in East ,, lexas. It will reopen Friday as a federally chartered s woiil |l | mutual association with the same name, and no one lost money in the transfer, Olkhovsky said. ■ “I will not rule out a criminal investigation” against tie S&L’s former directors, Clifton Brannon Jr. and Don G. Jones, he said. I “After those two acquired the S&L in August 1983, it grew rapidly by 557 percent in 27 months, from $110 Haillion in July 1983 and $431 million in September ^^^4§j)85,” Olkhovsky said. f l The S&L collapsed because of speculative land acqui sitions, development and construction loans, as well as » - reckless and imprudent lending practices, he said. I Meanwhile in Milford, 50 miles south of Dallas, Ellis Bounty State Bank will assume about $6.4 million in day as» disease, I* e clangft ,n said. i hastww'i Ives, inH id four q icrra sai ruble® 'Pj regnant) I ;d finea'j later J r blue aal] aiiur. Ih incliidi#'! ■red oxtj ans ie in aW are anff nto tlr ( :: aiductedf m. 1,400 deposit accounts at First State Bank and will pur chase all of the failed bank’s assets at a discount of $ 1.45 million, Olcheski said. First State Bank, with total assets of $6.6 million, was closed by State Banking Commissioner Kenneth W. Lit tlefield. Littlefield said a high concentration of poor-quality loans extended by a former bank executive to a number of out-of-area borrowers resulted in losses far exceed ing the bank’s capital accounts. The bank’s directors and shareholders were unable to replenish the capital funds, and no new investors were found to purchase and recapitalize the bank, Lit tlefield said. The FDIC also approved the assumption of the de posit liabilities of Northwest Commercial, with assets of $12.1 million, by Jersey Village Bank of Houston. The failed bank’s two offices will not reopen, but its customers can do business at Jersey Village Bank begin ning Friday, he said. Northwest Commercial Bank was closed by Kevin Blakley, director for special supervision for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Northwest had a substantial increase in problem loans that resulted from imprudent lending practices of former management and poor supervision of lending practices, officials said. The declining local economy also contributed to its problems. The Texarkana S&L was the sixth S&L to close this year in the Dallas federal home loan district, which in cludes Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. Eighty-eight banks have closed nationally this year. TYLER (AP) — Houston oilman Jack . S. Blanton was unanimously elected Thursday as chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, succeeding a man who stepped aside after feuding with Gov. Bill Clements. Austin banker Shannon H. Ratliff and Bill Roden, a Midland oilman, were elected vice chairmen. Jess Hay of Dallas, who an nounced Monday he would not seek re-election as chairman but remains on the board, and the three new offi cials had been appointed to the nine- member group by former Gov. Mark White. Hay, a prominent Democratic fundraiser, had been under fire from Clements, a Republican, be cause he had repeatedly called for increased higher education funding while Clements worked to hold spending at current levels. Even though Hay chose not to run again for chairman, Clements has only three appointees on the UT board and won’t have control unless three White appointees leave the board during his administration. Blanton, a UT-Austin graduate, was appointed to the board in 1985. “Our goal is to have a University of Texas System that will be the fin est of anywhere, anyplace,” Blanton said after the meeting. He is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Scurlock Oil Co. He is a former president of the Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Asso ciation and was president of the Houston Chamber of Commerce in 1985-86. He said Thursday that a major emphasis will be on keeping profes sors and attacting new faculty to Texas universities. “I expect to be in feet-first, partic ularly trying to satisfy what we need to do for our faculty,” he said. Commissioner: Bill will moke highways safer AUSTIN (AP) — A bill awaiting the signature of Gov. Bill Clements would help make Texas highways the safest in the nation with regard to trucks, Railroad Commissioner John Sharp said Thursday. “I think this legislation lays the foundation for us having the safest highways in the nation with regard to the trucking industry,” he said. A trucking deregulation bill pushed by Sharp in the recent Legis lature was amended, at his request, to include safety provisions. Sharp said the bill would autho rize the Railroad Commission to reg ister many commercial vehicles that now do not have commission per mits, and when the Department of Public Safety issues a ticket to a driver it would note the name of the trucking company as well. The measure would authorize the commission to levy stiff penalties for safety violations. The deregulation portion of the bill would allow trucking companies to vary their rates 15 percent below or above a base set by the commis sion on shipments of 10,000 pounds or more. Between 500 and 10,000 pounds, rates could vary 5 percent. T he bill bans predatory pricing. “There are shippers that do not mind shipping overweight because they’re not going to get the ticket,” Sharp said in a Capitol news confer ence. “There are trucking compa nies that don’t mind ordering their drivers to speed — to go recklessly through Houston and Dallas and Victoria and every other place in the state, because it is that driver that’s going to get the ticket. “That has changed, and what we’re here to tell those trucking company owners, those shippers and those drivers is that the day of the Texas ‘road warrior’ is history, and that what they face now is not just administrative penalties of up to $10,000 but they also face the ability of the Railroad Commission, work ing with the Department of Public Safety, to put them out of business.” He also said that in six months or a year he might compile a list of the 10 or 20 best and worst trucking companies and “let the public judge whether they’re serving the public interest.” AM/PM Clinics Minor Emergencies 10% Student Discount with ID card 3820 Texas Ave. Bryan, Texas 846-4756 401 S. 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