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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1989)
Thomas iul Irwin M OlU tet ;es inseling, and Parmer’s bill ii mi tree to the I awaits a com- y Parmer and i, D-McAUen, iing trust fund sing Agency to :e-income peo ple affordable i Whitmire, D- larold Dutton, allow county to set up com ess. ‘SJOB for Stu- 389 to Wednesday, April 26,1989 The Battalion Page 5 Equine exhibition benefits A&M Research endowment gets proceeds from Houston horseshow By Sharon Maberry STAFF WRITER A Texas A&M equine research fund will bene fit from Horseman magazine’s Expo89 Thursday through Sunday in Houston. Horseman magazine will sponsor an exhibi tion of different horse breeds with proceeds going to the N.W. “Dick” Freeman Equine Re search Fund for Texas A&M equine research. The Freeman research fund honors a man who was a good friend of A&M, said Dr. Gary Potter, an animal science professor. “Dick Freeman was president of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and chairman of the board of Tenneco,” Potter said. “He was active in the horsebreeding industry and a strong sup porter of the horse program at A&M. He affec tionately referred to his ranch in Brenham as the A&M annex. “In his honor, the N.W. ‘Dick’ Freeman Fund was established for contributing money to a per manent endowment for equine research (at A&M^ ” David T. Gaines, editor and publisher of Horseman magazine, wanted to donate proceeds of Horseman Expo89 to A&M. Potter said he suggested the money go to the N.W. “Dick” Free man Fund. Horseman Expo89 will feature an exhibition of about 30 horse breeds, ranging from minia ture ponies to draft horses, at the Houston As- troarena. Expo89 brings together the broadest possible representation of horse breeds and horse manship styles and disciplines. “It will be similar to a competitive horse show. but it’s strictly for exhibition,” Gaines said. “There will be no winners or losers.” Apart from the exhibition, there will be a trade show in which industry experts answer questions about equine topics including breeding, showing, training and riding, Gaines said. Horseman Expo89 also will feature clinics and seminars addressing equine topics including broodmare and stallion management, parasite control, lameness, training and selling of horses and equine nutrition, Gaines said. A&M profes sors will lead several seminars. Gaines said he thinks Expo89 will be successful cpc and has tentative dates at the Astroarena for five years. Expo89 tickets, available at Ticketron, are $5 for adults and $3 for children under 12. Paper says Sears may relocate group to Dallas DALLAS (AP) — Dallas is one of three or four cities that Sears, Roebuck and Co., the nation’s largest retailer, has selected in narrowing possible relocation sites for its merchandising group, according to a newspaper report. Although Charlotte, N.C., has emerged as the leading con tender, Chicago-based Sears now has a “short list” of possible sites, the Dallas Times Herald reported Tuesday. The move would involve 6,700 of the group’s 8,000 employees, sources told the paper. But Sears spokesman Gordon Jones told the Associated Press Tuesday that the company would have no com ment on the relocation or when it might take place. “We have no deadline,” Jones said. Sears officials are expected to visit Dallas within the next two weeks to look at the area and meet with economic development officials, the newspaper said. “All of us are operating on feelings, but we believe that we are definitely on the list,” said Scott Eubanks, who heads Dallas Partnership, an economic devel opment agency. “The big un known is Illinois, and I don’t want to sell them short.” Since October, when Sears an nounced it wanted to build a cam pus-style headquardfefS complex forks merchandising group, Chi- cago-area officials have been working to keep the company in the city where it grew up. The merchandising division now has headquarters in the 1 10- story Sears Tower in downtown Chicago. In making the an nouncement, the company said it would look at other cities but pre ferred to stay in the Chicago area. Sears is selling the 15-year-old tower, but the company has said its corporate headquarters will re main there after the merchandise group is gone. The merchandise group, which oversees the retailer’s stores and catalog operations, ac counts for more than half of the company’s size. Sears also owns Allstate Insur ance, Dean Witter Financial Serv ices and Coldwell Banker Real Es tate, none of which is being relocated. Eubanks said he expects the company to make a decision in the next few weeks. “I think it’s real close,” he said. Leaders say legislature to start budget negotiations Thursday AUSTIN (AP) — Legislative lead ers Tuesday said they expected House and Senate budget negotia tors to start work Thursday on a 1990-91 spending plan for state gov ernment that will total more than $46 billion. The House gave final approval to its $46.5 billion budget Tuesday, but the Senate refused to accept the House version. Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby appointed the five senators who will serve on the House-Senate conference commit tee, with that delegation headed by Senate Finance Committee Chair man Kent Caperton, D-Bryan. The Senate’s budget totaled $46.75 bil lion. Hobby said the negotiators had agreed on a May 15 deadline to re solve the differences. House Speaker Gib Lewis said he would appoint the five House nego tiators later. “It’ll take a week or so, I’d say,” Lewis said of the negotiations. “There are some differences. Not any major differences, I don’t think.” The 1990-91 budget should be about 10 percent higher than cur- Author says Nazis killed in Texas during WWII VICTORIA (AP) — Nazi soldiers beat, tortured and ‘just outright murdered” folks in places like Whar ton, Ganado and Palacios during World War II, said Victoria author Richard P. Walker. But the victims of the crimes com mitted by Hitler’s Finest weren’t Texans, they were non-Nazi Ger man soldiers. The Germans — Nazi and non- Nazi alike — were captured by Al lied Forces on battlefields in Europe and Africa and brought to Texas for imprisonment in the 70 or so POW camps scattered across the state from 1942 through 1946. Walker, a member of the Social Sciences Department at Victoria Col lege who holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas, said the Nazis, who totaled about 10 percent of the 75,000-prisoner population, used terror to intimidate non-Nazis into obeying Nazi commands. “The Nazis wanted to manipulate the non-Nazis to try to convert them to Nazism,” said Walker, whose arti cle “The Swastika and the Lone Star State: Nazi Activity in Texas POW Camps” appears in the current issue of the magazine, Military History of the Southwest. “When I started doing research on this I was flabbergasted at the small number of adults who lived here at that time who’d ever heard of this,” Walker said. “For the most part the public didn’t even know that kind of stuff was going on, because the Army clamped a real tight se crecy lid on it.” The secrecy lid was so tight, in fact, that Walker had to pass back ground investigations by the Army and the FBI before he was allowed Couple faces July trial for alleged mail fraud BEAUMONT (AP) — A federal magistrate set a July trial for a Vir ginia couple linked to mailings of more than 26 million fraudulent ad vertisements in an alleged scheme to lure people to time-share resorts with false promises of valuable prizes. David Allen Hagen, 30, and his wife, Annette Louise DeFusco, 27, both of Great Falls, Va., were ar raigned Monday on charges of con spiracy and mail fraud charges listed in an eight-count indictment. The couple pleaded innocent to the charges before U.S. Magistrate Michael Bradford. Bradford allowed the couple to remain free on $50,000 bond each. U.S. Magistrate Harry McKee of Tyler set the bonds April 14 after the couple surrendered to federal authorities in Tyler. At the time, McKee asked Hagen to surrender his expired passport, which Hagen did Monday. Bradford scheduled jury selection in the trial before U.S. District Judge Richard Schell for July 17. The indictment accuses the cou ple of conspiring with Freedom Fi nancial Corp., a Dallas resort com pany. The couple and Freedom Finan cial conspired to mail more than 26 million fraudulent advertisements in a six-state area, the indictment states. U.S. Attorney Bob Wortham said the couple conducted business un der a variety of names and received money for each person who re sponded to the mailings by visiting a Freedom Financial time-share con dominium, authorities said. The indictment lists 20 incidents in which authorities said residents in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mis souri, Arkansas and Kansas were misled into visiting Freedom Finan cial time-share resorts. In each case, the letters guar anteed a new car along with either $10,000 cash, gold bullion or a 45- inch screen color television, the in dictment states. Wortham said people visiting one of the seven resorts in Texas and Missouri instead received such gifts as commemorative books about the Olympics . or redemption certif icates. The certificates required people to pay shipping and handling charges that cost as much as the re tail value of the prize, Wortham said. In October, Freedom Financial Corp. pleaded guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud and paid a $1.5 mil lion fine. The company also mailed about 2,000 restitution checks of $50 each to area residents who complained about the advertisements. to conduct research on the deeply classified subject of Texas prison camps. After the authorities granted him a top secret clearance in 1976, he went to Washington to conduct his research at the National Archives, the Library of Congress and the Pentagon. “After I got up there and they found out I was serious about doing some research, they gave me access to virtually anything they had,” Walker said. He found that the U.S. Army was aware of N&zi activities in the camps, but was never able to prevent Nazi groups, which included members of the notorious Gestapo secret police, from exerting control over other prisoners. The Nazis set up a clandestine communications network that reached from camp to camp — and even all the way back to Germany — which they used to direct beatings, intimidation and murders of non- Nazis, he said. “There was quite a bit of that that went on the entire time,” Walker said. “The Nazis would do things like control all the reading material and sometimes the work schedules, and often they led the rest of the POWs on strikes and gave the Amer ican authorities a hard time,” Walker said. He tells a tale of the murder of one non-Nazi POW who had been born in New York, but moved to Germany and joined the German army after becoming influenced by an American pro-Nazi group. The New York Nazi was captured in North Africa and sent to a POW camp in Huntsville, where he be came a collaborator with the Ameri can forces. “The Nazis found out he was a collaborator,” Walker said. “A group of them, about 10, sneaked into his compound and beat him to death.” When the man began screaming, American guards ran to rescue him, but other Nazis, numbering about 50, blocked the guards’ way. Walker said. There was an altercation be tween the guards and the Nazis. “It started off being just clubs, then the Nazis broke and ran as if they were trying to escape, so the guards shot about four of them,” Walker said. The New York Nazi died of his wounds two days later, Walker said. Walker also tells of a German pris oner who made a speech in the bar racks in which he questioned Hitler’s ability to lead. The Nazis warned the orator that they were going to “get” his parents back in Germany, Walker said. “Sure enough, about six months later, he received word from Ger many that his parents and his little sister had been brutalized and perse cuted by Nazis,” Walker said. When the prisoner found out that his family had suffered because of his barracks harangue, he com mitted suicide, Walker said. Walker found no evidence that ei ther the Nazis or the Gestapo had any impact on the civilian popula tion in Texas. “(Their activity) seemingly was confined among themselves and their fellow prisoners,” said Walker. rent spending, but leaders said it would contain no tax hike. “We will do it without a tax increase. There’s no question about that,” Lewis said. The pace and smoothness of this year’s budget work stands in sharp contrast to the 1987 budget battle, in which the Legislature failed during its 140-day regular session to write a spending plan. The budget finally was finished in a July special session. Rep. Jim Rudd, chairman of the Appropriations Committee which drafted the House budget, predicted that negotiations with the Senate will be different than in 1987, when the Legislature faced a mammoth bud get deficit and eventually passed a $5.7 billion tax increase to pay for it. The major differences in the House and Senate proposals involve- prisons, education, health and hu man services and restoration of the state Capitol, Rudd said. The House proposal spends $108 million to build more than 4,000 new prison beds, while the Senate recommendation calls for issuing bonds to finance the added prison capacity. In higher education, the Senate calls for a 7 percent faculty pay raise for each year of the biennium, while the House proposal recommends a 3.4 percent raise for each year. The House spending plan in cludes about $140 million to restore the state Capitol and build a four- story underground annex, while the Senate wants to issue bonds for the project. Senators have endorsed an increase of nearly $ 1 billion in health and human services; the House, a $690 million increase. Austin banker to be sentenced in June for fraud AUSTIN (AP) — One-time mil lionaire banker Ruben Johnson will be sentenced in June after a federal court jury convicted him of 13 counts of bank fraud. Johnson, 59, faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count. The jury in U.S. District Judge James Nowlin’s court took about an hour Monday before convicting Johnson, who oversaw the rapid rise and eventual failure of United Bank of Texas. He was convicted on charges involving kickbacks from contracting work on the bank’s downtown Austin building. “I’m surprised and I’m disap pointed in the verdict,” Johnson said. “I’m sorry of course, as to the verdict.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Blankinship, who prosecuted the case, said, “We’re very satisfied with the verdict. I think the evidence was real strong. It’s a demonstration by the jury that bank fraud is not going to be tolerated.” The former chairman of the board of United Bank of Texas bought controlling interest in Uni versity State Bank in 1974 and soon became a major banking, devel opment and political force in Austin. He presided over the change of the bank into United Bank of Texas, which became the fifth-largest bank in Austin, and moved the institution hi 1981 to the 17-story United Bank Tower, which he developed. . Johnson was friend, contributor and lender to a number of top Dem ocratic state officeholders, and was appointed by then-Gov. Mark White to the State Finance Commission, a post he later resigned. The charges against Johnson al leged he received a 15 percent fee from a contractor for finish-out work done for the lavishly decorated bank in United Bank Tower, and for work done at two other bank loca tions. Lawyers for Johnson contended during closing arguments that John son did not have the required “intent to deceive” when he took the money, and pointed out that he paid taxes on the income Weds. April 26th THE EDGE ALL NEW 1989 REVUE TICKETRON including Dillards 1(800) 426-3094 21 & over w/i.d. $1 b 00 Day Every Tuesday and Wednesday *New Releases Included over \ 4,000 Videos to Choose From Nintendo Games Also It’S 4303 Texas Ave S. 846-7312 ^ Conviser-Duffy-Miller .e. <o <<y 4>_o- c <p- 'O <3? cpa ■ review GET THE CONVISER CONFIDENCE’ • Course Materials Include 5 Textbooks • 3 Month Format • Payment Plan Available/Major Credit Cards • Exam Techniques Clinic 76% PASS RATE □ Enclosed is $95. 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