Monday, October 5, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
eeiPoultry industry growth causes
xpansion in A&M department
iring.Thebar
te, “I think
By Clark Miller
Staff Writer
P eo pl e t ^ e United States now
ider, I said.'H f lonsume more poultry than pork,
and poultry consumption is even
Raining on beef. To keep up with the
“No excuse, decelerated growth of the poultry in-
lustry, the poultry science depart-
lient at Texas A&M has modernized
and expanded its facilities.
olitical science
for The
I In May 1986, the department
Bioved into its $5 million, high-tech
production center on FM 2818 near
■asterwood Airport. The facility al
lows the poultry department to do
Iverything from hatching a bird
Ifiom an egg to selling the bird as
■ucken nuggets seven weeks later.
I Dr. C.R. Creger, head of the poul-
Itry science department at A&M, says
he doesn’t know of a college poultry
[center in the country that is as mod-
fern and efficient as the one at A&M.
I “It has had the impact of recruit
ing students and has greatly helped
our outside research funds,” Creger
|id.
I Funds from outside research have
inrreased 100 percent in the year
and a half since the new facility
[opened, he said.
■ The number of students also has
increased dramatically. In 1982
there were 13 undergraduate stu
dents in the poultry science depart
ment. Today there are 47, a more
than 300 percent increase.
Because the poultry industry has
been rapidly expanding, not all the
student and research fund increases
can be attributed to the new poultry
center, but it has made a significant
contribution, Creger said.
“Almost all the advances in poul
try research have come at the uni
versity level,” he said.
The new center allows A&M to be
a leader in poultry research, he said.
Researchers at A&M have helped
develop antibiotics that combat dis
ease in poultry and have developed
vitamin requirements and other nu
tritional requirements of poultry, he
said.
The researchers even have af
fected the Thanksgiving Day meal
by aiding in the development of a
white turkey. White turkeys are al
most the only color of turkey com
mercially produced because it is eas
ier to process the white bird than
one that is a darker color.
However, Creger said, the most
important goal of the department is
education, such as teaching students
to judge poultry for quality.
The poultry center comes with its
own judging barn and, combined
with the coaching of Dr. Willie F.
Krueger, a professor in the poultry
science department, has produced
the national collegiate poultry
judging team for the past two years.
Creger said the department also
has a perfect placement record for
its graduates.
Janet Greer, a junior poultry sci
ence student at A&M, said the hard
part of graduating is deciding which
job to select, because the new poultry
center gives students experience in
almost every facet of the poultry in
dustry.
The center, which is composed of
17 buildings and covers 16 acres,
looks like a park with a few buildings
strategically scattered between the
trees. Special care was taken to pre
serve as much of the grass and as
many of the trees as possible, Dale
Hyatt, farm manager of the poultry
center, said.
“We even produce our own fertili
zer,” Hyatt said, explaining what
3,000 birds can do to keep grass
green.
Despite the fact that 3,000 birds
are capable of making a big mess,
the center is remarkably clean. Most
of the buildings housing the birds
have automatic cleaning systems that
push the manure to the end of the
barn and into a fertilizer spreader.
Everybody who works at the cen
ter spends time sweeping and shov
eling to keep the barns clean and the
odor that usually accompanies a
place with a large concentration of
poultry is absent, Hyatt said.
The site also has a small proc
essing plant where students learn
how to produce food products from
the birds raised at the center.
The process includes the slaugh
ter, cleaning, smoking and pack
aging of birds for consumer use.
The students can produce smoked
chicken and turkey, franks, nuggets
and eggs, all of which are sold at the
plant at prices comparable to super
market poultry prices, Hyatt said.
Although the poultry department
isn’t competing with the supermar
kets’ prices, he said, the facility does
produce a better product.
“Our eggs are much fresher than
the supermarkets’,” Hyatt said.
“Their eggs may be seven days old
but ours are one or two days old.”
All the birds raised at the center
are used for research or teaching
purposes, he said.
Creger said the center gives the
department a much better image
around the country.
lew almanac shows Texas crime rate on rise
1
. i
wh ge
ej-jJvgiiE
DALLAS (AP) — The cover of the 1988-89
[fexas Almanac pictures a sunny, calm beach, a
picturesque scene that belies the grim and some-
Jmes unsetding statistics included in the book.
I One of the first discrepancies is found on page
" with a cover story on Texas beaches and its
problems with litter. But the truly unnerving
pets appear on page 261, under the section enti-
jtled Crime and Punshiment.”
■ The 12-page section is a fascinating compen-
Idiumof news and statistics on Texas crime rates.
jl “In 1986, the crime rate took a leap of almost
: 14.9 percent. . .,” the book says. “The state’s six
largest counties —Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris,
farrant and Travis — have a total crime rate of
9,894.2 index crimes per 100,000 population.”
Index crimes are murder, rape, aggravated as
sault, armed robbery, burglary, theft and motor
vehicle theft.
“Individually, Potter County (Amarillo) in the
Panhandle had the highest crime rate in 1986,
reaching 13,202.8, an increase of 27 percent over
the previous year . . .,” the book says. “Dallas
County, with 12,352.19 crimes per 100,000, and
Tarrant County, with 11,425.19, followed Potter.
“Texas’ high crime rate has brought about an
other phenomenon: An average of one in every
43 of the state’s citizens is under some sort of su
pervision by the criminal justice system. This in
cludes the number of people on felony or misde
meanor probation, on parole, in prison or in
local jails.”
However, the almanac does contain some
other interesting information that is not as neg
ative as that of the crime rate.
A historical piece on the movie industry in
Texas written by Mary G. Crawford, associate ed
itor of the almanac, details the Hollywood inva
sion.
Crawford traces the development of Texas
movies from the 1920s, when a rash of movies
made in San Antonio capitalized on military
posts in the Alamo City, to the 1984 Academy
Awards ceremony in which films made wholly or
in part in Texas scored seven of the top eight Os
cars.
The Texas Almanac, published by the Dallas
Morning News, is a 130-year-old journalistic tra
dition, costing $14.95 for a hardback copy and
$8.95 in paperback. The book is distributed by
Texas Monthly Press.
Protesting taxpayers
threaten rebellion
over rate increases
DALLAS (AP) — Groups of
irate taxpayers could stage a tax
rebellion in Texas despite a re
cent opinion by Attorney General
Jim Mattox that tempered the
power of rollback elections, a pro
test leader says.
Tax protester C.A. Stubbs of
San Antonio said, “The anger
and frustration of taxpayers ev
erywhere has reached a fever
pitch. The pendulum is about re
ady to swing in the direction of a
total tax rebellion in Texas.”
Stubbs is president of the
newly formed Texas Association
of Concerned Taxpayers. At the
group’s first convention in San
Antonio two weeks ago, almost
2,000 people attended.
A growing number of taxpayer
movements across the state are
requesting rollback elections in
protest of tax increases. And offi
cials say irate taxpayers have be
come even more determined in
their efforts in reaction to Mat
tox’s ruling on the constitutional
ity of such elections.
In a legal opinion issued Sept.
25, Mattox ruled it was unconsti
tutional for voters to roll back a
county’s tax rate.
Although the opinion does not
carry the weight of law and would
have to pass a court challenge be
fore it could be enforced, it was a
blow to tax protesters.
To some, the opinion left more
questions than it answered. The
ruling didn’t address rollback at
tempts involving other taxing en
tities such as cities, school districts
or hospital districts.
Mattox spokesman Elna
Christopher said the opinion
didn’t discuss the other issues be
cause the inquiry from DeWitt
County officials involved the le
gality of county rollback elections
and nothing else. “It would not
surprise me to get some requests
for opinions” on the other issues,
Christopher said.
Debbie Wheeler, special pro
jects director in the office of gen
eral counsel at the State Property
Tax Board in Austin, said, “We’re
not sure what it does to any of the
past rollback elections.
“Since (previous rollback elec
tions) are over and past, it proba
bly doesn’t apply to them, but
we’re not sure at this point. We’re
still looking at the opinion.”
Tax protester Stubbs, who re
tired to San Antonio after being
on the federal payroll for 31
years, said he considers Mattox’s
ruling “a declaration of war on
the taxpayers,” and his group has
asked for the attorney general’s
resignation.
“We charge that if there was
something wrong (with the 1982
tax revision), he or his predeces
sor could’ve ruled back then,”
Stubbs said. “Up until this time, it
hasn’t been challenged by any
one.”
The state’s 1982 tax reform law
said that if county commissioners
raised the tax rate more than 8
percent over the previous rate,
citizens could gather signatures
on petitions and call an election to
limit the increase to 8 percent.
Officials in DeWitt County
asked if that was legal because the
state’s constitution says county
commissioners are the only ones
with the authority to set county
tax rates. Mattox said the consti
tution prevailed.
Stubbs said tax rate increases
wouldn’t be necessary if elected
officials were more frugal.
“If all of these political entities
will start biting the bullet the
same way we, the people, have
been biting it for five years, we’ll
get a whale of a lot more bang out
of our bucks,” he said. “We have
never seen a budget — anybody’s
budget — that couldn’t be
whacked by 10 percent and the
essential business still be carried
rom the
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