he Battalion STATE & LOCAL 3 Monday, September 25,1989 Page 3 APO members work Saturdays Museum benefits from service fraternity’s service By Cindy McMillian Of The Battalion Staff ly are. is to i efortli I me, U Ve hail ;ery set remir; Photo by Kathy Haveman APO workers Roland Deike and Kathy Foster lay 2X4s across a walkway a nature trail behind the Brazos Center. Saturday morning for many col lege students holds nothing more stressful than an episode of the Roa- drunner, but Saturday for Alpha Phi Omega pledges often begins early with hard work. About 30 members of the service fraternity showed up at 9 a.m. Satur day to help clean up a nature trail for the Brazos Valley Museum in Bryan. Kay Reiter, an APO pledge who participated in the project, said she enjoyed the work. “You’d think work like that wouldn’t be fun, but it’s a challenge,” she said. “We have a good time.” The group picked up trash, cleared a fallen tree from a picnic area and defined the lines of the trail with logs, Reiter said. They also dug a trench to drain water from a swampy area and made a makeshift bridge. Mike Bradley, APO’s pledgemas- ter, said the museum contacted APO and requested the cleanup because up with, we’ll do it if it’s service- oriented,” he said. The co-educational national orga nization is based on leadership, friendship and service, Bradley said, and members are responsible for finding, planning and preparing all When you walk away from a project, you’re tired, but you feel really good about having done it.” — Mike Bradley, APO Pledgemaster projects. All pledges must serve 55 hours during their first semester in the fraternity, and then they are ac tive members serving 20 hours a se mester. The Texas A&M chapter is one of the nation’s largest, Bradley said, and put in 15,000 service hours last children who visit the museum often walk through the trail. The frater nity does similar work at community centers, graveyards, highways and other places in the area, Bradley said. “Basically whatever people come year. Chapter projects include work ing campus blood drives, raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association at a Super Dance, baby sitting for a “Parents’ Night Out,” visiting Boys and Girls Clubs every week and driving the Fish Lot Night Shuttle. Bradley said the organization can be time-consuming but also “very re warding.” Talking at meetings in front of 180 pledges or 230 actives helps members develop speaking skills and leadership, he said. Bradley said he enjoyed APO be cause they “cut through all the ste reotypical barriers and go out and help people.” Getting up on Saturday mornings is hard, he said, but worth it. “When you walk away from a pro ject, you’re tired, but you feel really good about having done it.” Oceanography council Adopts-a-Beach By Holly Becka Of The Battalion Staff in on: telling of dn ?d toir. leircn: sand: Amec ive an I Members of the Oceanography Graduate Council traveled to North Padre Island this weekend to assist in a statewide cleanup of beaches sponsored by the General Land Of fice and the Center for Marine Conservation. Mike Cook, treasurer of the graduate coun cil, said 25 people traveled in two vans to North Padre. Most of the group were grad uate students, and the rest were friends and family members. They helped pick up and classify garbage found on a 17-mile stretch of beach. “Everything went well,” Cook said. “We picked up trash and recorded information on the data sheets from about 9 a.m. to noon, and afterward we met at a central spot and we had a little party. We picked up about 40 bags of trash. When we were done, the beach looked really good.” Martin Ebel, vice president of the council, was interested in the cleanup project and took the initiative to get A&M students involved for the first time. The annual cleanup started in 1986. He said the group decided to go to Nortn Padre because he thought they could do the most good there. “I thought if we could get a fair number of people together to do this, which we did, we should go where we’re needed,” Ebel said. “I didn’t want to go someplace easy like Galves ton because it’s so close to Houston that there probably would be a lot of people there. “When I called the (Texas Adopt-A-Beach Program of the General Land Office) ‘800’ number, I asked them where they needed people and they said North Padre and Mus tang Island, so we decided to go to North Pa dre.” Cook said other volunteers also helped with the cleanup in the North Padre and Mustang Island areas. About 2,200 people helped in the area this year, compared with 1,500 last year, he said. The group was provided with garbage bags, data sheets and pencils so they could classify the trash collected. He said the Adopt-A- Beach program was conducting research on the trash to determine where it comes from. Group members classified the trash in rough categories, such as plastic, metal and wood to determine the percentages of each kind of garbage. “The cleanup is part of research and we’re providing raw data for some researcher to say something significant, hopefully, about trash on Texas beaches,” he said. Ebel and Cook said the cleanup was impor tant to them as oceanographers. “One of my chief concerns about the ma rine environment is all the plastics and the damaging effects on the animals,” Ebel said. Cook said he wants the general public to re alize there is a problem. “I think it’s important that you get ordinary people, the public as a whole, involved in un derstanding there’s a problem with trash on our beaches and to get people involved in cleaning it up because maybe next time — even though a lot of this trash isn’t caused by people actually throwing it on the beach -— they may think twice about littering the beach.” Cook said. Ebel said the beach cleanup project started in Texas and has since expanded throughout the Gulf Coast region and Costa Rica. Study: Houston mission plagued by bad leaders HOUSTON (AP) — The city’s largest mission for the homeless lacks a clear sense of purpose and is managed in slipshod manner by an unqualified administrator, according to a professional management study. The recently completed study says Star of, Hope treats and pays its em ployees unfairly, practices nepotism and fails to properly plan its spend^ ing or monitor grant requirements, the Houston Chronicle reported in a copyright story Sunday. The report, prepared by The Hay Group and Peterson & Co., recom mends that Don Johnson, the orga nization’s president, be replaced be cause his “skills and experience do not match the requirements” of his position. “Star of Hope’s operations require a chief executive officer who is a strong leader to provide direction. This individual must also be a sound See Mission/Page 8 Clarification In a Sept. 20 story on business contact Gail Macmillan of the City of management and ownership classes Bryan, 361-3838, or Carolyn Allen given by the Bryan-College Station at the Bryan Development Founda- Small Business Development Sys- tion, 260-9615. The Battalion re- tem, The Battalion gave an incorrect grets the error, contact. Those interested should Vii { n iii .1110' -eeU find the!; irts is "'d pen; thai action jecf Fhet ichtr i re* ielves iaco isal* eks- 'BELL REGULARTACOS each plus tax EVERYDAY TACO BELL OF BRYAN/COLLEGE STATION UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP: AUSTACO, INC. 920 S. TEXAS AVE., BRYAN 3901 S. TEXAS AVE., BRYAN 310 N. HARVEY RD. COLLEGE STATION How’re you going to do it? V “I guess its just you and me. Coach. Everyone else is at the IBM PS/2 Fair ’ ' T ^ PS/2 it! Come to the Fair and save on the IBM PS/2. Meet the IBM Personal System/2® and find out how easy it is to use. With the PS/2,® you can get your work done and still have time for fun. You can organize your notes, write and revise your papers, and create smart-looking graph ics to make a good report even better. And best of all, you can get a PS/2 at a special student price that’s more than fair. IBM PS/2 Fair MSC Room 224 September 25-26, 1989 9-4 M icroComputerCenter Gmtputer Sales and Supplies Located on the main floor of the Memorial Student Center Monday thru Friday 7:45 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (409) 845-4081 IBM, Personal System/2 and PS/2 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. © IBM Corp. 1989