The Battalion
WEATHER
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Vol. 89 No.44 USPS 045360 10 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, November 1,1989
The Flight of the Great Pumpkin
Photo by Jay Janner
Geoff Anthony, a junior in Company C-2, fights off freshmen in Tuesday night. A tradition since 1970, the “Flight” pits C-2 upper-
the Aggie Band during the annual “Flight of the Great Pumpkin’’ classmen against the freshmen who defend their dorm.
Toddler suffers
gunshot to head
Police believe pistol was part
of day care employee’s costume
FROM STAFF & WIRE REPORTS
A 3-year-old boy was in serious
condition Tuesday night after being
shot in the head with a .22-caliber
pistol Monday. Police believe the pis
tol was part of a day care worker’s
Halloween costume.
Kenny Archer of Normangee un
derwent four hours of neurosurgery
Tuesday afternoon at St. Joseph
Hospital in Bryan. The bullet en
tered his head above the right eye
and lodged in the back of his skull.
Archer was transferred to Texas
Children’s Hospital in Houston,
where he was listed in serious but
stable condition and was on a venti
lator, hospital spokesman Tina Fos
ter said.
Leon County Sheriff Royce Wil
son and Texas Ranger Bob Cannell
said they plan to talk Wednesday
with the owner of Twice As Nice day
care center in Normangee and a
worker, who apparently wore the
pistol as part of a western costume.
“I’ve heard that someone was
dressed up for Halloween and had
their husband’s pistol and didn’t
know it was loaded,” Wilson said.
Cannell said, “Surely, it was
thought to be unloaded.”
Wilson said he heard two accounts
of the shooting Tuesday.
“One said the child reached and
got the pistol and the other said that
another child got it,” Wilson said.
Wilson and Cannell said the inter
views were delayed a day because of
the shock among the witnesses fol
lowing the shooting.
Workers at the day care center
said they were told not to answer
questions, but to refer all calls to the
center’s owner, Janice Roberts, who
was not at the center at that time.
Wilson and Leon County District
Attorney David Barron said no
“I
I’ve heard that
someone was dressed up
for Halloween and had
their husband’s pistol and
didn’t know it was loaded.”
— Royce Wilson,
Leon County Sheriff
charges have been filed in the case
pending the interviews Wednesday.
Barron said a grand jury that is
scheduled to meet Friday may dis
cuss the possibility of charges in the
case. He said the central question be
fore the grand jury will probably be
whether criminal negligence was in
volved in the shooting.
The child’s mother, Helen
Archer, is a secretary for the Depart
ment of Adult Education.
Regulators find University National Bank sound
By Julie Myers
Of The Battalion Staff
Although third quarter liabilities at Univer
sity National Bank exceeded assets by $2.5
million, bank president Stan Stephen said
bank regulators say there is no danger of im
minent failure.
Associate professor of finance James Ko-
lari said there are two ways to calculate a
bank’s solvency or equity position: accounting
values and market values.
The two can be different. Kolari compared
iccounting values to the dollar amount of a
loan made five years ago to purchase real es
tate.
The loan’s present market value, however,
is the current market price for the land. It
could be either more or less than the original
price.
As a result of the early 80s economic bust,
market values of some UNB assets have been
devalued, Stephen said.
“Market values change from day to day,”
Kolari said. “It takes a sizeable amount of
time to determine these.”
To update UNB’s financial status, these as
sets were voluntarily taken out of capital by
UNB. Capital was lessened by the amount of
the devaluation of the old loans and real es
tate.
“We knew it was coming, and recognized
that, rather than putting it off,” Stephen said.
UNB must now recapitalize, or bring in
new money, Stephen said, to offset devalued
real estate and old loans which were taken out
of capital.
Seven area banks have failed since 1983, all
requiring heavy FDIC intervention.
The FDIC, however, has not contacted
UNB, but Stephen said he could expect to
hear from them if UNB was not able to reca
pitalize.
Kolari said the fact that regulators are as
sessing UNB’s financial standing is not a neg
ative. In fact, all financial institutions come
up for review at least once a year.
“It’s good we have federal regulators to
oversee these problems,” Kolari said. “It’s re
assuring to know the government has the re
sources and financial backing to fully insure
all deposits up to $100,000.”
In any case, Kolari said current events at
UNB would not make much difference to
loan and deposit services in the community.
“It’s business as usual,” Stephen said.
Bush 9 Gorbachev plan informal shipboard summit
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi-
ent Bush announced Tuesday he
rill hold a shipboard summit in the
[ lediterranean with Soviet President
I likhail S. Gorbachev Dec. 2 and 3
I to put up our feet and talk” infor-
[ (tally, prior to a full-blown super-
t tower meeting next year.
l Bush described the weekend
neeting as an open-ended dis-
ussion with no fixed agenda. He
^ aid neither he nor Gorbachev “an-
icipate that substantial decisions or
r tgreements will emerge” on arms
I :ontrol or other matters.
I The talks will take place on U.S.
and Soviet naval ships on alternate
days. The precise location was not
announced, but a site off Italy ap
peared likely since Gorbachev is to
visit there from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.
Bush acknowledged he originally
had opposed the concept of a get-ac
quainted meet
ing, favoring in
stead a well-
planned meeting
with assurances
of concrete re
sults.
However, he
decided that with
dramatic demo
cratic changes
sweeping across
Eastern Europe,
the leaders of the
two superpowers
“should deepen
our understanding” of each other.
“I don’t want to have two gigantic
ships pass in the night because of
failed communication,” Bush said. “I
just didn’t want to — in this time of
dynamic change — miss something,
something that I might get better
firsthand from Mr. Gorbachev.”
The president said he expected “a
lot of discussion” about Eastern Eu
rope.
The summit
was jointly an-
nounced in
Washington and
in Moscow, where
Soviet Foreign
Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze
said the talks be
tween the two
leaders were
“aimed at allow-
L n a g ch h oX r kn be“ Gorbachev
ter” and would “contribute to broa
dening the changes taking place in
the Soviet-American relationship.”
Shevardnadze said the meeting
“should be regarded as the most
important stage in preparing nego
tiations which will take place during
the official state visit by Mikhail Gor
bachev” to the United States next
year.
Much of the planning appeared
still to be done.
When asked what country Bush
would use as the staging area for the
talks. White House chief of staff
John Sununu said, “We don’t know
yet.”
Officials also said they did not
know which ships would be used or
whether first ladies Barbara Bush
and Raisa Gorbachev would accom
pany their husbands.
Bush said he decided to meet on a
ship so “we can do it without too
much fanfare . . . where there’s a rel
atively few number of people, not a
lot of crush of bodies out there and a
chance to put our feet up and talk. . .
“I think it’s easy logistically for
both sides.”
It will not be the first shipboard
summit.
In August 1941, five months be
fore the United States entered
World War II, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt met with British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill aboard a
battleship off Newfoundland, Can
ada, and proclaimed an Atlantic
Charter providing for freedom of
the seas and leading to the arming of
merchant ships.
It will be Bush’s first meeting as
president with Gorbachev, although
he participated in talks in Washing
ton and New York with the Soviet
leader while serving as Ronald Rea
gan’s vice president.
Bush and Gorbachev have agreed
to meet in late spring or early sum
mer to deal with major issues, and
Bush said Tuesday he still hopes to
be able to sign a treaty then to re
duce strategic nuclear weapons.
The December meeting * gives
Bush a defense against Democratic
charges that he has been slow to re
spond to initiatives from Gorbachev
and to the striking changes under
way in the Soviet Union and else
where in Eastern Europe.
Bush
Corps freshmen spurs jingle for SMU game
By Holly Becka
Of The Battalion Staff
Freshman spurs
Photo by Mike C. Mulvey
Freshman Corps of Cadets mem
bers quit pounding and flattening
hundreds of bottle caps at the begin
ning of the week.
Now the caps can be seen pound
ing the pavement, worn as spxtrs on
cadets’ shoes to promote spirit be
fore the Texas A&M-Southern
Methodist University game.
For the first time in two years,
freshman cadet members are “spur
ring the hell outta the SMU ponies”
this week by wearing the bottle cap
and coathanger spurs.
Cadets who entered the Corps af
ter the spurs were worn last year also
are wearing fish spurs.
Because SMU’s football program
suffered the NCAA’s death penalty,
which didn’t allow the Mustangs to
play for two years, cadets have worn
the spurs before A&M’s football
game with Texas Tech for the past
two years.
Cadets in the Class of ’93 are re
turning to the original tradition.
Clay Whitaker, Corps public rela
tions officer and a senior in Squad
ron 2, said cadets are supposed to
wear the spurs as freshmen before
they can wear their senior boots and
spurs.
“They’re worn to show support
for the team, and you’re supposed to
wear freshman spurs before you can
earn your senior spurs,” Whitaker
said.
“A lot of people hang onto them,
and then later they mount them with
their senior spurs to show their pro
gression through the Corps,” he
said.
Individual outfits determine the
number of bottle caps on the spurs.
The number is usually the year the
freshman will graduate, or the year
of graduation plus the outfit’s num
ber.
“When I was a freshman, our se
niors told us to go to bottle cap alley
by the Chicken and get our caps,”
Whitaker said.
“You find out that those are
rusted and corroded, so you usually
go to Coca-Cola and get a bag of bot
tle tops.”
Cadets have to wear the spurs
anytime they are outside or in uni
form for the remainder of the week.
They aren’t required to wear them
inside buildings or to Corps forma
tions.
Students
protest
in Houston
Teenagers complain
about food, dress code
HOUSTON (AP) — Three stu
dents were arrested and about
160 students were suspended af
ter they staged a walkout at Jack-
son Middle School and marched
to nearby Austin High School.
The three were taken into cus
tody Monday after they allegedly
commandeered a beer truck and
threw beer bottles at the high
school’s security guards, said
Houston Independent School
District Superintendent Joan
Raymond.
Nearly two weeks ago, the city
of Austin was the scene of a walk
out by about 1,000 students.
In the Austin walkout, admin
istrators found student gripes
about scheduling and shortages
of textbooks and school materials
legitimate and replaced the
school’s principal. But Raymond
said the complaints of the Jackson
students’ were nonacademic.
In a separate incident, about
50 students walked out of Mayde
Creek High School to protest
changes in the Katy Independent
School District’s dress code. The
changes include restrictions on
hair length and clothing and ban
male students from wearing ear
rings.
Mayde Creek Principal James
Carthel said the school will con
tinue to help students “work
through their frustrations” about
the dress code. About 1,500 stu
dents attend the school.
One complaint by the Jackson
students involved restrictions on
the use of the cold-drink ma
chine. But school officials said
they had limited use of the ma
chine because students had been
abusing it.
A second complaint had to do
with the school’s upcoming
homecoming dance. Some stu
dents thought it had been
canceled, but Raymond said stu
dents with discipline problems
had been told they could not at
tend.
Raymond said students also
complained about the perceived
outcome of a discussion about
controlling food fights in the caf
eteria. The students thought the
school was going to require sack
lunches, but she said that had not
been decided.
At Jackson, which has about
1,650 students, those involved in
the walkout are suspended until
they return to school with their
parents, Raymond said.