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.”