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[>1.89 No.88 USPS 045360 10 Pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, February 6,1990
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&M radio
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[y KATHERINE COFFEY
If The Battalion Staff
Asia might seem like a million
miles away to some, but a new
meekly Texas A&M radio show will
bring events there closer to home.
1 Asia Weekly Review, a news pro-
jam created to inform the A&M
rmmunity about weekly news
ents in Asia and the Pacific Rim,
red its second program Friday on
\MU-FM.
Brad Hicks, executive producer
nd creator of the show, said the
piogram’s purpose is to provide a
news service for the Asian interna
tional community and other inter
ested KAMU-FM listeners.
■ “When I came to A&M I noticed
the availability of information for
Isian students and faculty was miss-
itjg and that there was a substantial
ternational community that would
nefit from the program,” said
Hicks, who also hosts the show.
He said these residents need a
Juice of news and information
omer than dated newspapers to in
form them of developments in Asia.
■ Kate Taggard, editor and pro-
jicer of the show, said the program
mould be beneficial for staff as well
as students.
I “I remember when I lived out of
lie country and I always wanted to
|ear news from home,” Taggard
lid.
Hicks, a geography Ph.D. candi-
ate, said he knew most Americans
ave a large interest in Asian coun-.
ies such as Japan, Taiwan and Ko-
:a. He said most people have a cer-
lin respect and wonderment of
urrences in Asia and the Pacific
im and this is why he proposed the
rogram to KAMU.
Kayonne Riley, KAMU program
ciirector, said Hicks came up with
Je proposal in August and played a
demonstration tape to her. She said
lie demo sounded professional and
luunded like a quality, national pro-
jram.
I The show received Riley’s appro-
ialand is scheduled to air Fridays at
■ p.m. for fifteen minutes to review
Je weekly events.
I Riley said the student-run pro-
Jam includes Hicks, Taggard and
Jven reporters. The reporters, who
Je all journalism students, are: Syd-
■ey Whitlock, Alicia Kitchens, Te-
Jsa Benfer, Melinda Cox, Christina
lee Asia review/Page 5
Silver Taps
-Hours i' i
ceremony
jrdaf to honor 3
scree-
C* S | The solemn sound of buglers
piOlO - playing “Taps” and the sharp ring of
an (j Jmfire will be heard on campus to-
3> Jgh 1 as three Texas A&M students
ag are fiho died during December and Jan
uary are honored in a Silver
Taps ceremony at 10:30 in
front of the Aca
demic Building.
T he deceased stu
dents being honored are:
• Kirk Jason Mauthe,
18, a freshman biomedical
sciences major from Plano,
who died Dec. 26.
Marjorie Ann John
son, 21, a junior kinesiology
major from El Lago.who
died Dec. 24.
• Timothy D. Hogg, 19,
alfreshman business administration
major from Lamesa, who died ]an.
1
I Dating hack almost a century, the
stptely tradition of Silver Taps is
practiced on the first Tuesday of
^“^e^rh month from September
through April, when necessary. T he
mimes of the deceased students are
Jsted at the base of the flag pole in
Sontof the Academic Building, and
le Hag is flown at half-staff the day
■ the ceremony.
Lights will be extinguished and
le campus hushed as Aggies pay fi-
Jl tribute to fellow Aggies.
■ The Ross Volunteer Firing Squad
begins the ceremony, marching in
Jw cadence toward the statue of
Jwrence Sullivan Ross. Shortly af
ter, three volleys are fired in a 21-
gun salute and six buglers play a spe-
Jl arrangement of “Taps” three
htjnes — to the north, south and
west.
dials'
Slip slidin’ away
Photo by Mike C. Mulvey
Jefferey Pendergruft, 8, slips down the steel spiral slide at
Brothers Pond Park in College Station Monday afternoon.
Gorbachev urges changes
New movement calls for end of absolute power
MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail S. Gorbachev declared
Monday that Communists must surrender their unchal
lenged right to rule the Soviet Union to the tide of dem
ocratic reform he has unleashed.
The Soviet Communist Party chief, in a historic
speech to the party’s Central Committee in the Krem
lin, tacitly acknowledged the growing power of the pro
democracy movement that has swept away Communist
regimes in Eastern Europe, set several Soviet republics
on the road to multi-party politics and on Sunday drew
a huge crowd of protesters in Moscow.
But his move was unlikely to bring about the disinte
gration of the Communist Party, and Gorbachev, who is
also head of the government, did not address the possi
bility of the party losing power.
The party wants to remain the leading force in so
ciety but must prove its worthiness, Gorbachev said.
In the future it “intends to struggle for the role of
ruling party, but do it strictly in the framework of the
democratic process, rejecting any kind of legal or politi
cal advantage,” Gorbachev said.
Political reform that has strengthened the Soviet gov
ernment at the expense of an all-controlling party ap
paratus, “has been accompanied by a growth in political
pluralism,” Gorbachev said, presenting a draft platform
to the 249-member Central Committee. “This jarocess
can lead to the creation of parties at some stage.”
Central Committee sources said Gorbachev told the
closed meeting that political changes he has pushed
through in almost five years in power have in effect cre
ated a multiparty system already.
He called into question a tenet of Leninism — demo
cratic centralism, the theory that requires strict adher-
ance by the party’s 20 million members to decisions
once they have been made at the top.
“The party’s renewal presupposes its thorough, com
prehensive democratization and rethinking the prin
ciple of democratic centralism with emphasis on democ
racy and power of the party masses,” Gorbachev said.
He proposed the Central Committee meet again in
about three weeks to consider new party rules.
Gorbachev indicated he did not foresee the reform
overturning the country’s socialist system as well as the
communists’ assurance of power.
The party was “ready to act with due account for
these new circumstances, cooperate and conduct a dia
logue with all organizations honoring the Soviet Consti
tution and the social system it endorses,” he said.
The Soviet president said he had hoped 1989 would
be the turning point for his economic reforms, but ac
knowledged that “recent events have shown there has
been no change for the better.”
Tanks approach command post
of Lebanese Forces commander
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Gen.
Michel Aoun’s tanks broke into a
stronghold of his Christian militia ri
vals Monday, after a week of battle,
and advanced toward the command
post of Lebanese Forces chief Samir
Geagea, police said.
They said the tanks, with cannons
blazing, drove to within 300 yards of
the Kassardjian militia base in Ein
Rummaneh, a working-class district
of Christian east Beirut.
Witnesses in hills above the Chris
tian sector, reached by telephone
from Cyprus, reported heavy fight
ing in Ein Rummaneh south of the
Karantina quarter, where Geagea
has his headquarters.
Explosions echoed across the city
as militiamen crouching in alleyways
fired armor-piercing rockets at the
tanks and their comrades hurled
grenades from rooftops.
Shells hit hospitals, schools and
churches. They set fuel tanks, power
lants, factories and apartment
ouses ablaze.
Fires burned out of control be
cause pumping stations were
knocked out and no water was avail
able to fight them.
Several hospitals said they could
not function for more than two or
three days because water, blood,
plasma and oxygen' supplies were
virtually exhausted.
Shellfire slackened in some dis
tricts at dawn Monday, allowing tens
“V
■ ou can’t believe what
those monsters have done
to us. They’ve ruined us.
Ashrafiyeh looks like it was
hit by a hurricane.”
— Youssef Khazen,
Beirut resident
of thousands of civilians to leave
basements and underground bomb
shelters where some had lived for six
days.
Youssef Khazen, 35, said his elec
trical tools store in the east Beirut
residential district of Ashrafiyeh was
destroyed.
“You can’t believe what those
monsters have done to us,” he said.
“They’ve ruined us. Ashrafiyeh
looks like it was hit by a hurricane.”
In Geneva, the International
Committee of the Red Cross asked
for an immediate truce so it could
help civilians.
Geagea has said the 6,000 regu
lars and 30,000 reservists of the Leb
anese Forces, the largest Christian
militia, would “resist unto death ... to
end the dictator’s reign of terror” in
Christian territory north and east of
Beirut.
Aoun, who has been dismissed as
army commander but refuses to step
aside, commands nearly 20,000
Christian troopers and is trying to
gain complete control ove:r the 310-
square-mile enclave, where 1 million
Christians live.
On Monday, his paratroopers se
cured the key coastal town of Dbaye,
5 miles north of Beirut. They seized
it Sunday in a fierce hand-to-hand
battle.
The Lebanese Forces conceded its
80-man Dbaye garrison had been
overrun and made a “tactical re
treat.”
Police said 59 soldiers and mili
tiamen were killed in Dbaye.
Grandmother teaches A &M man important life lessons
First black enrollee recalls college days
' Multicultural Services Center/Page 4
► Black History Month activities/Page 4
•African-American fraternities and sorqrities/Page 4
■ Special KAMU radio program Page 5
• MSC Black Awareness Committee/Page 5
: ^ - ffsapplg
* * i'" ?
i "i i '
James Courtney, the first African-American admitted to A&M
and the third to graduate, is pictured in the 1967 Aggteland.
By CHRIS VAUGHN
Of The Battalion Staff
Every chance Cindy Courtney
■ i, she told her grandson James
it if he wasn’t prepared for life,
he was going to be left behind.
She told him over the dinner
table night after night that there
was no difference between a
rvhite man and a black man.
James didn’t listen much to her,
though. He had too many other
things to do.
James, upset at his mother’s re
marriage when he was a young
teen, ignored his grandmother
and rebelled. After run-ins with
police in Galveston, James
dropped out of high school at 15,
forged his birth certificate and
joined the U.$. Marine Corps.
The Marines gave James
Courtney a chance to think about
what his grandmother had said
all those years. She was, after all,
born under slavery in 1863.
Maybe she was much wiser than I
thought, Courtney pondered.
So after serving his four-year
stint in the Marines, almost all of
it while underage, Courtney be
gan to correct his wrongs and
prove to himself that his grand
mother was right.
And that lie did.
Courtney eventually graduated
from Texas A&M with a bachelor
of science in veterinary science in
1967 and a doctor of veterinary
medicine degree in 1970.
His accomplishments would be
extraordinary if they ended here,
but they don’t.
Courtney was the first African-
American to he admitted to A&M
and the third to graduate, accord
ing to research done by the regis
trar's office at A&M and The Bat
talion.
Courtney, who is now an area
supervisor in Jef ferson City, Mo.,
for the Department of Agricul
ture, gives much of the credit for
his success to his grandmother.
“My grandmother gave me the
determination to keep going,” he
said. “She was very wise, and she
taught me the ways of people.
She knew things were going to
change for Blacks and those who
were prepared would reap the
benefits. She had the most to do
with whatever I’ve become.”
Courtney came to A&M in
1964 when he was almost 25years
old. It was the culmination of
years of hard work and a few
lucky breaks.
After his discharge from the
Marines, Courtney worked at a
hospital in Galveston during the
raveyard shift and attended
igh school during the day lor
two years.
One night at the hospital,
Courtney came across Dr. Hank
Jameson, Class of ’41, a veterinar
ian in Galveston. Courtney ex
plained to Jameson that he
wanted to attend college, but that
he couldn't afford it.
Jameson told Courtney there
was one scholarship left from the
Galveston County Aggie Club,
but that Courtney would have to
take the Scholastic Aptitude T est
and do well.
“I was pretty nervous," Court
ney said. “Up until that time 1
had depended on my physical
skills and not my academic skills.
But I prepared myself for it, and
I did quite well for a black kid
back then. It was a beginning."
Courtney earned the schol
arship from the club, but the one
scholarship was not enough
money for him to go to school.
Jameson and his wife, Grace,
came through again.
Jameson steered Courtney to
Harris and Eliza Kempner who
had a foundation to help young
people attend school, ft was
through the Kempner Founda
tion that Courtney was able to ful
fill his and his grandmother’s
wishes.
“It was because of them that 1
was able to go to school,” he said.
“They lent me every penny. And
I made sure I paid every penny
back.”
Courtney, a pioneer for other
black students, endured name-
calling, taunting, discrimination
and other racist slurs during his
time at A&M. He said he realizes
now that the bigotry was not Uni*
versilv-wide.
“There were some individuals
who didn’t want me there.” he
said. “It took me some years to re
alize that. It was not the Univer
sity, just some people. A&M is the
greatest school in the world.”
Courtney hasn’t remained an
active A&M alumnus, but he said
it is not because he wants to for
get his experiences at A&M.
“It was a wonderful experien
ce;” he said. “T here were enough
negative things to cause problems
for me, but ! wouldn’t trade it for
anything in the world.”
The last 20 years have been
busy for Courtney, They began
when he got married one week
after graduating with his DVM,
and then moved to California to
establish a private practice. He
joined the Department of Agri
culture in 1971 with the intention
oT returning to his private prac
tice shortly after, but he never
has.
Courtney and his wife, Alva
Evelyn, have moved six times in
his rise within the ranks of the
U.S.D.A. His last move took him
to Missouri’s capital, where he is
an area supervisor for the food
safety inspection service of the
meat and poultry office.
His office in Jefferson City is
responsible for the meat and
poultry activities of 270 employ
ees, including 60 veterinarians,
Courtney, years later, can still
hear his grandmother telling him
over dinner that he had better be
prepared for life or he will get
left behind.
Grandma would be proud.