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ol. 89 No. 15 USPS 045360 14 Pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, September 21,1989
35! Blank Stair Photo by Mike C.Mulvey
^ Eric Trekell, an educational administration to view the art displays at the new Forsythe
32( graduate student, walks up the spiral staircase Gallery in the MSC.
»County agencies fight alcohol,
2 drugs during awareness month
By Pam Mooman
pp
in
Of The Battalion Staff
>r
Brazos County drug prevention agencies and treat
ment centers are teaming up to educate the community
about substance abuse during Natonal Drug and Alco
hol Treatment Awareness Month.
The Brazos Valley Mental Health and Mental Retar
dation Authority kicked off the month with an open
house on Sept. 14 at its rehabilitation facility on
Marylake Drive. MHMR also plans additional activities
with local treatment centers to raise awareness about
the dangers of drugs.
Tom Gray, substance abuse unit director for the Bra
zos Valley MHMR, said that two workshops will be held
Thursday at the College Station Community Center.
“Anybody and their dog can come,’’ Gray said.
The first workshop, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., will dis
cuss “Professional Enabling.” This term refers to the
ways people can help maintain someone’s addiction,
Gray said.
“You fail to confront the fact that a person is abusing
chemical, or you keep a person from feeling the con
sequences of use,” Gray said.
A second workshop, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., deals
with the “Recognition of Substance Abuse Problems in
Families.”
Gray and Dr. Mike Wilbourn, with the Student
Counseling Service, will conduct the first workshop.
The second workshop will be conducted by Dr. Dennis
Reardon, coordinator for the Center for Drug Preven
tion and Education, and Sharon Sandifer, clinical coor
dinator of outpatient programs at Parkside Lodges.
Reardon said the center, located on the second floor
of the A.P. Beutel Health Center, does not deal with ac
tual treatment of substance abuse.
“What we do through this office is primarily preven
tion, education and intervention,” he said.
Sandifer is pleased to be participating in the
workshop, but she said that fighting drugs requires con
stant activity.
“We do have an ongoing series of lectures on drug
abuse,” she said.
HCA Greenleaf Hospital is sponsoring a program of
its own this month. HCA, in conjunction with Alpha Phi
Omega, a Texas A&M service fraternity, will hold an
See Awareness/Page 10
French airliner crash
in Niger takes 171 lives
Moslem terrorists claim responsibility
Crash claims lives of 5 Texans
PARIS (AP) — A Moslem extrem
ist group claimed responsibility
Wednesday for the downing of a
French DC-10 jetliner in southern
Niger that killed all 171 people on
board.
U.S., French and UTA airline au
thorities said they believe the plane,
bound Tuesday from Chad to Paris,
was blown out of the sky by a bomb.
A U.S. team of investigators was to
leave later Wednesday for Niger.
Two callers who claimed to rep
resent Islamic Jihad but did not give
their own names made their claims
of responsibility in separate tele
phone calls to the airline and to a
Western news agency.
Islamic Jihad is among several
radical fundamentalist groups in
Lebanon believed to be part of Hez
bollah, or Party of God, the umbrella
group thought to hold 16 Western
ers hostage in Lebanon, including
eight Americans.
Among the passengers on the
French jetliner were seven Ameri
cans, including Bonnie Pugh, wife of
the U.S. ambassador to Chad, Rob
ert L. Pugh.
UTA Flight 772 was on a flight
from Brazzaville, Congo, to Paris
when it crashed Tuesday shortly af
ter making a stop in N’Djamena,
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Four Texas-based oil workers and
a Peace Corps volunteer returning
to the United States were aboard the
French airliner that crashed in
Niger, family members and officials
said Wednesday.
The five were among 171 passen
gers killed on a UTA flight from the
Congo and Chad to Paris that
crashed after an explosion ove 1 '
Chad. Debris was scattered over a
16-mile expanse of desert about 400
miles northwest of N’Djamena.
The French army, whose troops
stationed in neighboring Chad were
the first to reach the scene, said the
15 crew and 156 passengers died, in
cluding eight children.
Authorities said indications are
that a bomb was the cause of the
crash.
“It exploded at high altitude leav
ing every reason to believe it was a
bomb,” UTA spokesman Michel
Friesse said. He said it was possible,
but less likely, the explosion was due
to technical failure.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman,
central African country Tuesday.
In separate telephone calls to the
airline and to a Western news
agency, a caller claiming to rep
resent the Moslem extremist group
Islamic Jihad asserted responsibility
for downing the plane.
Of the seven Americans on board
the flight, four were from Texas. In
addition, a Canadian national who
See Texans/Page 10
speaking on condition of anonymity,
echoed that sentiment: “The pieces
are widely scattered, so it didn’t
crash on impact.”
“The obvious wide-spread nature
of the debris suggested it blew up in
the sky and not on the ground,”
presidential press secretary Marlin
Fitzw'ater said, adding that President
Bush had been briefed on the mis
hap.
Representives of the National
Transportation Safety Board, the
Federal Aviation Administration
and builders of the plane and en
See Airliner/Page 10
Jet splashes into East River,
splits into pieces, killing 2
NEW YORK (AP) — A USAir 737
carrying 62 people skidded off a
runway on takeoff from LaGuardia
Airport late Wednesday, landing in
the East River near the city jail at
Rikers Island, authorities said.
At least two people were killed,
said Fire Department Dispatcher
Adam Krause. The Port Authority
also said it had reports of fatalities.
Officials had no figures on possi
ble injuries.
One passenger reported that the
aircraft split into two or three pieces.
Some people were trapped in the
plane’s tail section and were being
removed, said Coast Guard Lt. Com
mander Paul Milligan.
Milligan said the plane skidded
off the runway during takeoff and
landed in the water, about 2,000 feet
from the end of the runway, at 11: 35
p.m. EDT.
The Coast Guard said the plane
remained afloat and was in relatively
shallow water, 25 to 40 feet deep.
“They’ve got people in water in
life rafts, some people in tail sec
tion,” said Petty Officer Gary Rives.
“The plane is sitting at a 60-degree
angle in the water with the cockpit
down.”
A USAir spokesman in Pitts
burgh, Susan Young, said Flight
5050, a Boeing 737-400, was bound
for Charlotte, N.C.
“We do have an airplane that ap
pears to have gone into the water at
LaGuardia,” said Young. “On take
off it went off the end of the runway
and is now partially submerged in
the water.”
The pilot tried to abort the take
off for an unknown reason, said
“X
I hey’ve got people in
water in life rafts, some
people in tail section.”
— Petty Officer Gary
Rives,
U.S. Coast Guard.
Kathleen Bergen, spokesman for the
Federal Aviation Administration in
New York. -
The plane was carrying 55 passen
gers and seven crew members and
was being evacuated, said a Fire De
partment spokesman, John Mulli
gan.
Mulligan said survivors were be
ing transported to the Pan Am Shut
tle terminal at LaGuardia.
Coast Guard small boats and
planes were on the scene, as well as
police vehicles.
Lobbyists to interview
faculty regarding wages
Although faculty salaries in
creased over the past year, many fac
ulty members have not seen a real
increase in pay, Dr. Claudine Hunt
ing, area Texas Faculty Association
president, said.
Members of the TFA will be on
campus Sept. 25-29 conducting in
formal interviews with faculty to get
input on salary and academic issues.
The TFA works with the National
Education Association and other or
ganizations to present faculty con
cerns to the state and national legis
latures.
Hunting, an associate professor in
modern and classical languages, ex
plained that the TFA has vigorously
lobbied the Texas Legislature over
the past three years on behalf of the
faculty’s professional and personal
concerns.
The TFA successfully lobbied for
the elimination of a mandatory re
tirement age, and is currently lobby
ing to establish a standard wage for
beginning teachers and to achieve
parity in pay raises, Hunting said.
“This University has many, many
faculty that earn less than $20,000 a
year — full time, some with a Ph.D,
some without a Ph.D,” Hunting said.
Hunting said the TFA also is con
cerned with the problems experi
enced by graduate teaching assis
tants and is working to put a faculty
representative on the A&M Board of
Regents.
For further information regard
ing the interviews or the association,
contact Hunting at 845-2130 or 774-
7250.
Representative says session
By Holly Becka
Of The Battalion Staff
State Rep. Richard Smith, R-College Station,
on Wednesday night said November’s special 30-
day session of the Texas State Legislature will
help determine the economic vitality of the state’s
future.
Smith. Class of ’60, spoke at a meeting of the
Buster’ Brown focuses on drug
war/See Page 4
19
Republican Women of Brazos Valley. The special
session will cover workman’s compensation —
House Bill 1.
“The next session will be a difficult session,” he
said. “I don’t think we’re out of the woods on the
economic front yet. If we don’t get workman’s
comp, settlement. . . and this will be the only
thing I’ll say about it, it is a jobs issue, it’s not an
insurance issue, it’s not an issue about safety or
about medical health care.”
He said he knew of a clothing company that
was deciding whether to move to North Carolina
or Texas, and it was found that the insurance
rate for apparrel workers in Texas was $8.11 per
SlOOof payroll, while in North Carolina it was 94
cents.
“When businesses look at those figures and
find the difference in workers’ compensation in
surance premiums are enough to make business
-lose money in Texas, and make money some
where else, it’s very simple folks, they’re going to
go somewhere else,” Smith said. “Until we get
control of the benefit delivery system in Texas,
we’re going to have serious problems. I consider
that to be the biggest threat for the economic wel
fare and vitality of the state.”
During Wednesday’s meeting, Smith, who has
been a state representative since 1984, also re
layed to his constituents the highlights of the 71st
State Legislature, which came to a close in the
spring.
Smith said that among the topics of the legis
lature, state prisons were one of the greatest con
cern to the legislators and himself, and that the
legislature approved a motion to add 15,800
prison beds across the state. The amendment to
provide the funding for these additional beds
will be on the ballot in a November election for
numerous constitutional amendments.
“If I had to state a fundamental purpose of
government on the state and local level w r hen you
get away from the question of national defense,
it’s really the defense of the honest citizenry
against attacks by hoodlums, thugs and criminals
of all stripes,” he said. “If we don’t have safety in
our own homes and streets, it really doesn’t mat-
deals with state’s economic future
ter what our parks look like or w'hat kind of li
braries we have if we have to lock ourselves in
our houses.”
Smith, chairman of the house public safety
committee, said Texas has a tremendous drug
problem that has created a backlog of prisoners.
“It’s a plague upon our state and our land,” he
said. “I believe in a combination of (education
and incarceration), and I don’t subscribe to the
belief rehabilitation is the purpose of prison.
People need to be put into prison because they’re
bad people and they need to be taken out of so
ciety.
“We need to provide the beds (to do that),” he
said. “I’m proud to tell you during this past ses
sion the legislature did approve a mechanism by
which we can add 15,800 new prison beds, con
trary to what the (Bryan-College Station) Eagle
said in an editorial recently (that) the legislature
had done nothing to solve the prison overcrowd
ing situation.”
“I called Dennis Thomas, the publisher, and
we had a discussion about that and I pointed out
what had been done. I didn’t read the correction,
but I assume it will appear some point in time,”
he said.
Smith also said legislators discussed the AIDS
problem in Texas, rural health care, education
and the Texas budget.
Photo b y Kath y Haveman
(From left) Dick Birdwell, Rep. Richard Smith and Rep. J.E.
“Buster” Brown