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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1989)
The Battalion Vol.89 No.49 USPS 045360 10 Pages College Station, Texas WEATHER TOMORROW’S FORECAST: Partly sunny, cooler HIGH: 78 LOW: 46 Wednesday, November 8,1989 ake a trio back in time Photo by Scott D. Weaver Proud drivers (from left) Melvin Foster, Darla Long, Dana Carr and Interurban Trolley System, the first public transportation system in Joe Minard stand in front of a “trolley” car used by the new Bryan the area since the turn of the century. See story on Page 4. exans vote against legislators’ pay hike Jl! 2! b;i1 ia I* i FS $22 AUSTIN (AP) — Texas voters S2$ Tuesday gave a resounding “no” to tnt; the Legislature’s request for a 224 _ percent pay raise, and at least one 5*™ lawmaker said he wasn’t surprised. “It’s a good thing there wasn’t a Hot alternative that said legislators’ ay should be lowered," Sen. Chet dwards, D-Duncanville, said. Edwards, a candidate for lieuten ant governor, said lobbyists spend ing fl.86 million on lawmakers this year and tricky wording about “lim iting” legislative pay combined to doom the proposal. I Proposition 1 on the constitu tional amendment ballot would have tripled lawmakers’ pay, from $7,200 a year to $23,300. Jf With 72 percent of the state’s pre- Wncts reporting, the amendment Iwas defeated by a 2-to-l margin. —' Those results showed 524,439 votes, or 65.7 percent against, to 273,955 votes, 34.3 percent, in favor. 1 Proposition 11, w hich would boost lawmakers’ daily expense allowance ^ from $30 to $81, also was defeated. The returns showed 54 percent Against and 46 percent in favor. ^Legislative leaders, including fe House Speaker Gib Lewis, D-Fort Candidates face runoff for Leland seat HOUSTON (AP) — State Sen. Craig Washington and City Councilman Anthony Hall will face a runoff election in the race to fill the unexpired term of the late Congressman Mickey Leland- - - . Neither candidate garnered a majority of the vote, sending them to a special election to be called by the governor. With 92.4 percent of precincts reporting, Washing ton had a 7.2 point lead with 41.5 percent of the vote, or 24,813. Hall had 34.3 percent, or 20,513. Hall and Washington, both black Democrats, emerged as front-runners early in the campaign to rep resent one of Texas’ most Democratic and racially mixed districts until the regular election is held in 1990. They were followed by state Reps. Ron W’ilson and A1 Edwards. A year femains on Leland’s unexpired .term. Leland was killed Aug. 7 in a plane crash in a remote jungle of Ethiopia while he was on a famine relief trip. Of the remaining nine candidates, Wilson, D-Hous- ton, was the closest with 4,462 votes, or 7.5 percent of the balloting. Other Democrats and their vote totals were Edwards, 2,827 or 4.7 percent; attorney Shirley Fobbs, 1,189 or 2 percent; businessman Timothy John Hattenbach, 1,196, or 2 percent; and Lee Arthur Demas Jr., 328 or .55 percent. Worth, campaigned hard for the pay hike. Lewis has said the low pay of $600 a month was forcing many qualified House and Senate mem bers to quit the part-time jobs. But opponents of the pay hike noted that lawmakers meet only 140 days every other year, plus in the oc casional special session. Opponents also pointed to the actual language of the amendment, which would strip voters of the ability to approve future pay raises by tying lawmakers’ salaries to the governor’s pay, which the Legislature sets. In addition, the pay raise issue went to voters following months of news reports about lobbyists spend ing more than $1.86 million during the 1989 legislative session to wine and dine lawmakers and take them on trips to Europe, Mexico and seve ral ski resorts. “The message is clear,” Edwards said. “Voters won’t get serious about a pay raise until legislators get se rious about lobby reform. The good news is maybe now we can make some progress in cleaning up the lobby mess.” “Also, it never should have been tied to the governor’s salary. That See Results/Page 5 Whitmire wins Mayor eases past Hofheinz for 5th straight mayoral term HOUSTON (AP) — Kathy Whitmire won a record-tying fifth consecutive term as mayor of the nation’s fourth- largest city, trouncing former Mayor Fred Hofheinz by a nearly 2-1 margin in balloting Tues- Whitmire day. Whitmire and Hofheinz, who held the top city job in the mid 1970s, were the most prominent contenders in the non-partisan elec tion that included four others on the ballot. •Westmoreland loses seat over racial slur / Page 5 With 82.7 percent of the vote counted, Whitmire had 138,156, or 61.9 percent, to 74,196 or 33.3 per cent for Hofheinz. The other candidates shared the remaining less than 5 percent. “Tonight the campaign is over. Tonight we have a victory,” Whit mire said. “We need to move Hous ton into a great new decade that is only two months away.” “I don’t leave unhappy,” Hofh einz said. “We have accomplished something. This is not the end.” Also running for the two-year mayoral post were Rosie Walker, 48, a businesswoman; Greg Rosenberg, 23, a machinist running with the So cialist Party, Ted G. Walker, 54, an attorney; and Shelby Oringderff, 71, a retired pastor and teacher. Polls taken in the final week be fore the election showed Whitmire ulling away from Hofheinz and olding a comfortable 59 percent to 15 percent lead with about 20 per cent of the voters undecided. The election marked the second time W’hitmire, 43, faced a former mayor. In 1985, she trounced Louie Welch, whose mayoral longevity she is trying to match. In her most recent election two years ago, Whitmire — an accoun tant by trade and the first woman elected in a citywide race when she won the controller’s job in 1978 — won her fourth two-year term against token opposition. Hofheinz’s father was colorful Harris County Judge Roy Hofheinz, the prime mover behind building of the Houston Astrodome. Whitmire and attorney Hofheinz, 51, engaged in numerous debates throughout the campaign, with Hofheinz trying to show the incum bent had become complacent in of fice, lost track of federal money, re warded supporters with city contracts and lost the support of the police department. A&M student’s attacker may get death penalty By Kelly S. Brown Of The Battalion Staff A man serving a 99-year sen tence in Huntsville for the 1988 attempted murder of a Texas A&M student is facing the death penalty after being charged with the serial slayings of three Cen tral Texas women. Montgomery County District Attorney Peter Speers said he will seek the death penalty for Daniel Lee Corwin, who confessed to in vestigators earlier this year to the 1987 kidnapping, rapes and mur ders of the three women. The confessions are the subject of hearings in the 359th District Court in Conroe, where it’s being decided if the confessions will be admissible as evidence. Speers ex pects jury selection for the trial to begin by mid-January. Corwin’s criminal record goes back to 1976 when, as a juvenile, he was charged with a 1975 ag gravated rape of a Bell County woman. He was released on pa role in 1985 after serving nearly 10 years of a 40-year term for the crime. Three years after being set free from the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, Corwin kidnapped an A&M student from a parking lot near Olsen Field at mid-day on Oct. 20, 1988. He then forced her to drive south of College Station to Lick Creek Park, where he tied her to a tree, raped her and cut her throat. Somehow, the young woman See Corwin/Page 5 andals leave mark on SAA shanty y Mia B. Moody The Battalion Staff Vandals of the Students Against Apartheid shanty, ehind the Texas A&M Academic Building wrote, |jp“KKK,” “White supremacy” and “Long live racism” on the walls of the small, unstable structure. ' Members of SAA said they will not remove the shanty, which was built Sunday by five SAA members. They want to show that racism is not only in South Af- irica, but also at A&M, Irwin Tang, president of the group said. 5 Tang, a sophomore political science major, said the attack on the shanty is only a shadow compared to at tacks on blacks in South Africa. | “The people of color in South Airica have no rights,” Tang said. “They have been in a state of emergency since 1986, which means the government can do any thing it pleases to them.” Irwin said that although the shanty, built of materials taken from trash bins and vacant lots and junk yards, looks unsturdy and unsightly to students, it may be bet ter than the actual houses of black South Africans be cause it is built out of stronger wood. This is not the first year the shanty has been vandal ized. Last year someone put dead white doves in it and wrote, “There will be no peace until all niggers are dead.” “These sort of actions hurt me and others deeply, but the pain we feel is only one 100 millionth of the pain people feel in South Africa as a result of private and public racism,” Tang said. Photo by Jay Janner This racist grafitti appeared on the SAA shanty. The group said they have no plans to dismantle the structure. A&M profs receive rewards for superior teaching fy Mia B. Moody The Battalion Staff Twenty-nine Texas A&M faculty members ^received 1989 college-level Teaching Excel lence Awards from the Association of Former students based on nominations by Student Councils and Faculty Advisory Committees of colleges. Recipients, chosen for their superior teach ing techniques, preparation skills and com- ' litment to the learning process, received checks for $2,000 and framed certificates, lun Pittman, assistant to the dean of faculties lid. “This program is not designed to be a pop- ilarity contest,” Pittman said. “Rather, it is ised to give recognition to those teachers who ftinaintain the high expectations of their stu- itrients and who add academic rigor to their llcourses.” Winners of the 1989 Teaching Excellence Award are: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: • Ronald J. Newton — associate professor of life sciences • James O. Sanders — associate professor of animal sciences • Joe D. Townsend — associate professor of agriculture education College of Architecture: • Donald B. Austin — professor of land scape architecture • John O. Greer — professor of architec ture College of Business Administration: • Jeffrey S. Conant — assistant professor of marketing • John C. Groth — professor of finance • Asghar Zardkoohi — associate professor of management College of Education: • Paulette T. Beatty — associate professor of interdisciplinary education • Robert S. Hurley — professor of health and physical education College of Engineering • Kai Chang — professor of engineering • John L. Junkins — professor of aero space engineering • Thomas U. McElmurry — visiting pro fessor of aerospace engineering • Dan L. Taylor — senior lecturer in chemical engineering College of Geosciences • J. Richard Giardino — associate profes sor and head of geography • F. Dale Morgan — associate professor of geophysics College of Liberal Arts: • James C. Bradford — associate profes sor of history • Robert A. Calvert — associate professor of history • Sylvia A. Grider — associate professor of history and anthropology • Robert D. Newman — associate profes sor of English Library: • Hal Hall — associate professor of library science. Sterling C. Evans Library College of Medicine: • Hung Che — assistant professor of in ternal medicine • Jerome P. Trzeciakowski — associate professor of medical pharmacology College of Science: • Karl J. Aufderheide — associate profes sor of biology • Duncan S. McKenzie — assistant profes sor of biology • Richard P. Schmitt — associate professor of chemistry • Roger A. Smith — professor of physics College of Veterinary Medicine: • Thomas N. Craig — professor of veteri nary microbiology • William C. McMullan — professor of veterinary large animal medicine East German gov’t resigns amid unrest BERLIN (AP) — East Germany’s government resigned Tuesday amid growing nationwide unrest, a contin uing exodus of thousands of its peo ple and pleas from within the Com munist Party for a sweeping top- level shakeup. Also on Tuesday — one day after the government introduced a pro posed law promising up to 30 days of travel to the West — a parliamen tary committee rejected the measure and urged a new law allowing unre stricted stays abroad. The 44-member Council of Min isters resigned jointly, government spokesman Wolfgang Meyer said. The cabinet, led by 75-year-old Pre mier Willi Stoph, has little power and implements policy made by the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo. Stoph and several other ministers also are Politburo members. “We appeal to the citizens who in tend to leave our republic to recon sider their step once more,” said a statement issued by the outgoing cabinet. “Our socialist fatherland needs everyone.” Since early Saturday, more than 28,000 East Germans have fled to the West through neighboring Czechoslovakia. They arrived in West Germany on Tuesday at the rate of 120 an hour. The government will remain in office until Parliament elects a new Council of Ministers, Meyer said. He did not say when such an election would occur.