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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 1988)
i TKeBattalion Vol. 87 No. 104 CJSPS 045360 8 Pages College Station, Texas Friday, February 26, 1988 11 Helicopter crashes, killing at least eight CHICO (AP) — A twin-rotor Army helicopter caught fire in flight and smashed into a North Texas pasture Thursday, killing at least eight soldiers, badly burning 10 oth ers and sparking a raging grass fire, authorities said. Two soldiers fell 35 feet after leaping out of the flaming CH-47D Chinook as it hurtled down near Chico, about 50 miles northwest of Fort Worth, Department of Public Safety Sgt. Robert Rankin said. One of them died, and the other told Rankin that a fire had broken out at the helicopter’s rear and that everyone on board had tried to move toward the front to get away from the flames. “We do have some witnesses who said they saw parts falling off back toward Chico (several miles away), and some of the witnesses said it was on fire before impact,” he said. The craft skidded about 75 feet before breaking apart in a sheet of fire at about 3:29 p.m., witness Wen dell Berry said. Berry, a farmer who tried in vain to fight the flames with a hand-held fire extinguisher, said he helped douse flaming bodies scattered around the wreckage. “We put a lot of fire (on people) out,” said Berry, who lives near the scene. “We couldn’t do very much but get ’em out of the way.” Of the survivors, seven were taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where four were in critical condition and three in serious-to- critical condition, hospital spokes man Jean Mason said. The four crit ical patients were to be transferred to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio later Thursday. A&M officials to propose second 2,000-car garage New parking garage to offer stronger security for users Dogging the books Studying for his second round of exams, David Oakland, 20, and Reveille V go over one last chap- 'hoto by Cindy Mullican ter in the MSC. Oakland is a sophomore business administration major in Company E-2. Signs, maps will help guests find buildings at Texas A&M By Doug Walker Reporter How many times has a stranger asked you to give directions to G. Rollie White Coliseum or Sbisa Din ing Hall? Even if you know the cam pus well, chances are you had a hard time describing a building’s location. A system of signs and maps to help people find their way to build ings all over the campus is about to put up, said Eugene Ray, the oordinator of the project and direc- of grounds maintenance at exas A&M. be tor According to Stewart Cushon, project inspector for A&M, the cost of the entire project is under $600,000. Ray said the goal of the , project was to make the campus 'more attractive while holding the fcost far below $ 1 million. The project, to begin Tuesday, jwill include new lettering for some Ibuildings and a uniform system of lettering for all signs on campus, Ray iisaid. Also, there will be several maps ■ of the campus to aid visitors and new fsigns for the entrances and parking [areas of the school, he said. Although the project is long over due, Ray said this is the first orga nized effort to improve the situation in the 15 years he has been at the University. “There has been talk ever since I’ve been here about doing some thing about the graphics on campus, but there has never been much em phasis until now,” he said. Ray credited the Facilities Plan ning and Construction Department ith getting the project started. “The facilities construction people jinitiated it and the administration [decided our campus graphics were not sufficient,” he said. “The school i pursued the project and hired a {graphics consultant to make some [recommendations. “Now we’re at the implementation {stage. We’re going to do away with the signs currently used to identify buildings and the offices they house.” Ray said the graphics consultant for the project, James Glass of the Kelvin Group of Houston, walked around the campus last summer and made a campus map. “He (Glass) developed a campus map divided into sections showing the various sign locations,” Ray said. The contractor for the project, Cantrell Industries of Houston, is making the signs and will begin as sembling them on campus soon, Ray said. The campus won’t be without signs, he said, because the old signs will be taken down and replaced im mediately. “They (the workers) will be sys tematically moving about the cam pus adding new signs and replacing the old ones,” Ray said. Ray said the letters on buildings will be standardized with ten-inch bronze Helvetica lettering and will be supplemented by a numbering system. Helvetica is a easy-to-read type face used on many street signs. “Each building will have a number located in a certain place,” Ray said. “The number will match the number assigned to it on the University map. These will be porcelain-backed with a reflective number.” The signs for the buildings also will provide insight into what the buildings contain, Ray said. “There will be building identifica tion signs that will give the name of the building and a directory giving the major occupants of the build ing,” he said. He said parking areas also will re ceive new signs, which will be slightly larger and will continue to be color coded. “All these signs will have reflective lettering as opposed to lighting,” he said, explaining that lighted signs would be too expensive. There will be a visitor center built in conjunction with the new parking garage under construction on the north side of the campus, he said. and several maps to aid campus visi tors. “There will be a number of direc tional maps placed around the cam pus and some locators that tell you where you are for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic,” he said. “I think these will help because this has become such a big place.” He said locators will be placed in the dorm areas for parents and oth ers who need to find a student. Signs at three major bus stops on the cam pus will list bus routes and their hours of operation. By Richard Williams Senior Staff Writer By January 1989 Texas A&M could have a second 2,000-car park ing garage on campus, an A&M offi cial said Thursday. Wesley E. Peel, vice chancellor for facilities planning and construction, said “we will submit the proposal to initiate the project to the Board of Regents at their next meeting.” The proposal to initiate is an offi cial step toward final approval for construction of a building. If the proposal to initiate is approved, the Board still would have to approve the design plans and bids before construction could start. Peel said the proposed garage probably would be similiar to the one under construction on Univer sity Drive. That garage should be completed in October and will cost about $9 million. Robert Smith, vice president for finance and operations, said the new garage will be funded by bond sales authorized at the last Board meet ing. A&M recently received bond ratings of AA and A1 on bonds cur rently being sold, he said. “I’m immensely pleased with the ratings of the bonds,” Smith said. He also said there had been a “strong positive reaction” to the bonds. The Battalion first reported the possibility of a new garage on Jan uary 22 after Bob Wiatt, director of security and University Police, said the project was in “the basic dis cussion stage.” Wiatt said the garage was being talked about because A&M already had decided to build four dormito ries in the Commons area. Other A&M officials, including Peel, denied any “official” work was being done at that time. However, at a regents meeting on January 24, Peel brought up the possibility of the garage after being questioned about the parking in that area by Regent Royce E. Wisenbaker. Wisenbaker and other regents expressed con cern about the lack of parking in the Security at Texas A&M’s parking garage on University Drive will offer extra protection for its users, A&M’s director of security and University Police says. Bob Wiatt says that extra security measures have been included to in crease security in the $9 million ga rage. Wiatt says the garage will include a vistor’s information center similiar to the one in Rudder Tower and a security office. The security office will be staffed by A&M police offi cers for. at least 16 hours every day, he says. These officers will be able to monitor the 44 video cameras that will be placed in the building and people in the garage will be able to contact officers by using an intercom system that will be installed, Wiatt says. There will be intercom termi nals on each level of the garage. The cameras and the intercom also can be monitored in the main police of fice. Wiatt says an individual in an en closed area is much more likely to be attacked then someone in the open. To lessen the chance of attacks in the garage, the exterior walls of the ga rage stairwells and elevators will be made of glass, he says. This will al low people outside the garage to see into these areas and should discour age attacks in these usually secluded areas, Wiatt says. area of the new residence halls. Peel said the new residence halls will house 1,000 students and about 700 of those will have cars to park on campus. The new halls, scheduled for com- E letion in September, are going to e built on part of the Commons area parking lot. The parking lot will lose between 350 and 400 spaces. Smith said officials also are con sidering building the garage on Parking Annex 60, which is the vis- tor’s parking lot south of Rudder Tower. However, Smith said A&M needs to have parking facilities close to res idence halls to be competitive with the private sector. Wiatt said students probably would be the biggest users of a ga rage built in the Commons area. Smith said a parking garage in the Commons area would make it easier to fill the new residence halls being built there. It could be hard to fill the new halls if “we tell students they can live here, but they have to park way over there,” he said. Peel said locations in the vicinity of the Commons area are also under consideration, including the Com mons parking lot and the golf course. “I hope they put it on the golf course because if we put it on the parking lot we will lose those 400 spaces that are left,” Peel said. The golf course would have to change a couple of greens if the parking garage were built there, he said. Johnny Andrews, the golf course greens and grounds superintendent, said stakes already have been set up to define the area the garage would be placed in if the regents approve the course as a site. The course pro shop is in the mid dle of the proposed site and would have to be moved if the garage were built there, Andrews said. If the garage were built on the golf course, tees No. 1 and 10 and the No. 18 green also would have to be moved to accomodate it, he said. Athletic directors worry about A&M network By Anthony Wilson Sports Writer While Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Jackie Sherrill ex plores the possibility of Texas A&M abandoning the Southwest Confer ence Radio Network to form its own radio network, the conference’s other athletic directors are worried about its possible impact on other SWC schools. Rudy Davalos, University of Houston athletic director, said the SWC’s smaller schools could suffer if A&M strikes out on its own. “I think that when you do look for ways to increase your own revenue, you have to look and see how it would affect the other people in the conference,” Davalos said. A&M’s athletic department said Tuesday that it had sent bids to nine radio stations across the state, hop ing to improve on the $95,000 it re ceived from Host Communications last season. Host has a contract with the SWC for the rights to broadcast its football games. But A&M and Arkansas are the only schools in the SWC that did not sign the contract with Host Commu nications. A&M Sports Information Director John Keith said that be cause A&M is not legally bound to Host Communications, A&M is try ing to increase its revenue by finding a more lucrative radio pact. “I don’t think we have to chal lenge them in court,” Keith said. “I don’t think they have anything le gally that binds us. They have an agreement with the conference. They don’t have an agreement with Texas A&M. “Let’s put it this way. If we get the kind of deal like Oklahoma or LSU, we’ll take a real hard look at it.” Oklahoma and Big Eight foe Ne braska have radio deals worth $1 million a year. Louisiana State signed a three-year contract for $2.1 million. A&M hopes to receive offers three to 10 times bigger than what it received from Host. “We can make more than that ($95,000),” Keith said. “As scarce as money is and as much as every ath letic department needs money, we’re just looking at the idea of forming our own radio network and breaking off from that thing. Texas, Texas A&M and Arkansas could all proba bly do better on their own. “I think they’d (UT and Arkansas) probably love to see us do that. That way, we’re the bad guys and they can go in and do the same thing without taking all the flak. The rest of the schools might not be able to.” That’s precisely what worries the smaller schools in the SWC. Davalos said he thinks if A&M forms its own radio network, the big ger schools in the SWC will follow suit, which could hurt the smaller schools financially. Davalos said that although he un derstands that A&M is looking for ways to increase its finances, he be lieves A&M should consider how that could affect the conference. He said that the Big Eight conference is' ''phone calls Thursday below par because Oklahoma and Nebraska financially dominate the Windegger acknowledged that other teams in the conference. A&M should be able to look at its money options, but that he thinks “Our first responsibility is to our A&M has an obligation to the con- university,” Davalos said. “But we ference. whether they signed it or not, they’re a member of the Southwest Confer ence and the conference signed the contract.” The question of whether A&M is legally bound to stay in the Host con tract is unclear. SWC Commissioner Fred Jacoby did not return Battalion certainly hope there would be some feeling for the rest of the people in the league. . . . “I don’t think anybody comes out a winner if one or two schools share all the wealth and the other schools are really hurt financially. I’m not talking just about radio. I’m talking about the total picture.” Frank Windegger, Texas Chris tian University’s athletic director, said that because the SWC signed a contract with Host Communications through 1989 and A&M is part of the SWC, A&M should honor the contract. “They’ve participated in the pack age,” Windegger said in a telephone interview Thursday. “I think there’s one entity legally that says as long as they were part of the package and participated, then regardless of “I feel that A&M has a right to look at any resources they can get on their own,” he said. “At the same time, they’re a member of the South west Conference and as long as they’re a member, they will abide by what the majority votes on as far as conference affiliation. I’m sure Jackie feels that way.” Sherrill released a statement on Wednesday dismissing reports that A&M is planning to leave the SWC or use the possible radio deal as a bargaining chip. “We want to state emphatically that we have no intentions of leaving the Southwest Athletic Conference and never have,” Sherrill’s statement read. “We are merely exercising our right to explore this matter from an economic point of view.”