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The Battalion
Vol. 92 No.121 (8 pages) 1893 - A Century of Service to Texas A&M - 1993
Senate committee OKs hate crimes bill
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN — Riding the emotion of a contro
versial jury verdict in the slaying of a black
man by a white supremacist, a Senate commit
tee Tuesday approved a bill cracking down on
hate crimes.
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee vot
ed 6-0 to approve a measure that would en
hance punishment for crimes motivated by the
race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin
or sexual orientation of the victim.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-
Houston, will now be considered by the full
Senate. Gov. Ann Richards has said she favors
the measure.
The committee's vote followed moving tes
timony by Carolyn Thomas, the wife of Don
ald Thomas, who was killed in Arlington in
1991 by a member of a white supremacist
group.
A Fort Worth jury last week sentenced
Christopher William Brosky, 18, to 10 years
probation for his part in the shotgun slaying of
Thomas.
Brosky and two companions who assisted
in the shooting are skinheads.
"I believe in my heart things will work out.
That's why I'm here. I want the hate crimes bill
to pass. I will be here until justice is done,"
Thomas said.
"My husband and I had goals. We wanted
to get an education, further ourselves and have
kids one day. That's taken away from me now
. . . because three white teen-agers came by
and decided to kill my husband because of the
color his skin."
More than 200 people from the Fort Worth
area traveled to Austin on buses Tuesday to
voice their support to the hate crimes legisla
tion. They held signs reading, "There Is No
Place for Hate Crime in Texas" and "Texas —
End Plantation Mentality."
The supporters, who packed a conference
room with their signs, gave the Senate commit
tee a standing ovation after its vote.
"It is up to our elected officials to pass laws
that will make Texas safe. We hold them ac
countable for their actions," said Marylyn
Miles, organizer of the support group called
African American Summit. "We don't want
any death to be in vain."
Ellis said the "recent case in Fort Worth un
derscores the feeling of many minorities that
justice in Texas is for whites only."
Both Robert Kepple of the Texas District At
torneys Association and John Boston of the
Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
testified in support of the bill Tuesday.
The bill increases the punishment for crimes
motivated by hate, including murder, kidnap
ping, sexual assault and harassment.
Get involved with campus
through voting, leader says
By JENNIFER SMITH
The Battalivn
Texas A&M students should
et involved in campus issues
y voting in Wednesday and
Thursday's campus elections,
said an Election Commission
chairwoman.
Michelle Campbell, a junior
chemical engineering major,
said low voter turnout for stu
dent elections is a result of stu
dents not understanding the re
sponsibilities of each position.
"People that don't know
what each position is or does
should find out," Campbell
said. "Students can't complain
about things that don't get done
for them if they didn’t vote to
try to put someone into office
who can do something."
She said many students un
derestimate the importance of
the students who represent
them.
Campbell said the Election
Commission has tried to publi
cize the elections with advertise
ments in The Battalion, banners
at the MSC and fliers.
"Nothing’s going to get any
better unless people get out and
See Voting/Poge 2
The wall at A&M?
German citizens to present
part of Berlin wall to Bush
By KEVIN LINDSTROM
The Battalion
The citizens of a free Berlin
will present Former President
George Bush with a piece of the
Berlin Wall in a
ceremony April
21 at Texas
A&M Universi
ty-
The ceremo
ny will take
place behind
the Bush Li
brary Center,
near the
Twelfth Man
statue, where
the wall will
temporarily remain until a per
manent site is found at the presi
dential library.
University President William
Mobley said the 2 1/2 ton section
of the wall will give students and
visitors to the campus a tangible
piece of the Cold War.
"The Berlin Wall was a major
symbol of the struggle between
East and West," he said. "Having
a section of the wall will be inter
esting to all who come to the
campus."
Mobley is expected to attend
the one-hour ceremony will begin
at 11 a.m. and is open to the pub
lic.
Shirley Joiner, assistant execu
tive director of the Bush Presiden
tial Library Foundation, said the
wall will serve as a strong re
minder of the importance of free
dom and the suffering East Ger
mans had endured.
"This is visual proof of what
the people of East Berlin were
staring at," she (Joiner) said. "It
represents a divided nation, a
people for many years op
pressed."
Perry Adkisson, executive di
rector of the Bush Presidential Li
brary Foundation, said the wall
will serve as a reminder of the
hardships of the cold war.
"This way the current genera
tion will understand what the
struggle between East and West
was all about," he said. "The
piece of the wall will be a re
minder that freedom is bought by
blood."
Chairman of the Board of Re
gents Ross Margraves will also at
tend the ceremony along with Dr.
Hildegard Boucsein, undersecre
tary for federal and European af
fairs with the Berlin Senate.
While at A&M, Bush will also
attend this year's Muster but not
participate in the ceremony.
Two German businesses, the
Axel Springer Group and the
Krone Group, sponsored bringing
the section of the wall to A&M.
The ceremony will be broad
cast in Europe through the U.S.
Information Agency.
Bush
Aggie swimmer keeps in shape
■DARRIN HILL/The Battalion
Cindy Focht, a junior political science major from Lake Forest, Calif.,
>ractices her swimming technique at the Wofford Cain pool Tuesday,
is a member of the Texas A&M University swimming team and
practb
Focht
recently took third in the 1650 at a conference in Austin. Focht swims
twice daily to keep in shape and once volunteered to practice her
swimming last winter when it was hailing.
Space pioneer describes flying X-15 aircraft
By J ASON COX
Hie Battalion
A former test pilot during the early days of
NASA's experimentation into orbital flight
called the X-15 aircraft a "hero and a stepping
stone to space."
Bill Dana, assistant chief of Flight Opera
tions at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facili
ty, said flying the plane, which achieved alti
tudes of over 254,000 feet, was the "literal high
point" of his career in a speech sponsored by
the American Institute of Aeronautics and As
tronautics Tuesday.
At 50 feet long and with a wingspan of 22
feet, the X-15 was NASA's first attempt at de
veloping a vehiicle that could leave and re-en
ter the atmosphere.
The plane was launched from under the
wing of a B-52 and required 8,000 to 10,000
feet of runway for landing. It had a typical fly
ing time of 11 minutes - four of which were
spent in pre-landing flight patterns.
Dana said upon re-entry to the atmosphere,
the speed of the vehicle caused the pilot's sen
sations of motion to reverse and extreme tem
peratures would cause buckling of the air
craft's skin that sounded like "the crackling of
a hot stove".
Having flown the triple-sonic YF-12 re
search aircraft and the Advanced Fighter Tech
nology Integration (AFTI) F-16, Dana said the
X-15 was his favorite and a "bargain" at
$600,000 a flight.
He said the program, which was only in its
planning stages in 1954, had reached all of its
objectives by 1959.
Dana said he thinks the one death incurred
during the X-15 era caused NASA to abandon
the project.
"The fatality was the project's death knell,"
he said.
Dana said if the U.S. is serious about a fu
ture mission to Mars, it is considerably short
on research into the long-term affects of zero-
gravity.
He said the results of an approximate 400-
day trip in such a medium are unstudied, and
the space station, which would be an ideal set
ting for research, is not likely to find funding.
"Negative research is as important as posi
tive research," he said, "and many things fall
into the category of 'nice try'."
Dana shared other stories with the audi
ence, recalling Germany's early research into a
rocket that would alternately dip in and out of
the atmosphere before ultimately bombing
New York City.
"I give them high marks for originality, and
maybe even a B-plus for wanting to bomb
New York," he said.
Dana was awarded NASA's Exceptional
Service Medal and in 1976 received the Ameri
can Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Haley Space Flight Award for his work on M2-
F3 control systems research.
Jury indicts 3 cult members
on murder, firearm charges
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WACO— Grand jurors indict
ed three members of the Branch
Davidian cult Tuesday on charges
of conspiracy to murder federal
agents and possession of a
firearm.
The indictment named cultists
Brad Branch, Kevin Whitecliff and
Kathryn Schroeder. All three re
cently left the compound where a
federal raid Feb. 28 turned into a
45-minute shootout that left four
agents dead.
Richard Ferguson, Branch's at
torney, said the indictment is the
latest "tactic" by prosecutors to
keep the cult members in jail.
"They are losing the battle on
material witnesses — they had to
come up with another strategy,"
he said.
"The indictment speaks fordt-
self," U.S. Attorney Ron Ederer
responded.
Ms. Schroeder, 30, last week
was ordered released on her own
recognizance. But federal attor
neys kept her in jail by issuing an
arrest warrant accusing Ms.
Schroeder with conspiring to kill
federal agents.
Meanwhile, U.3. Magistrate
Dennis Green on Tuesday or
dered that cult member Liv
ingston Fagan continue to be held
in the McLennan County Jail as a
material witness. Fagan, 33, has
been in custody since March 23.
Zaeske mocks Barton at press conference
Student body
elections today;
I.D. required
Students can vote
Wednesday and Thursday
from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the
MSC, Sterling C. Evans Li
brary, Blocker Building, Kle-
burg Center and Zachry En
gineering Center.
Voting is open to all stu
dents including graduating
seniors. Students need to
bring their student I.D. with
them to vote.
The election results will
be announced at midnight
Thursday in front of the
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
statue.
By JASON COX
The Battalion
Independent U.S. Senate candi
date Lou Zaeske called Rep. sen
ate candidate Joe Barton the
"Lena Guerrero
of the U.S. Sen
ate race" in a
press confer
ence Tuesday
at Texas A&M
University in
the Zachary
Engineering
Building.
A banner
hanging in the
atrium of Zaeske
Zachry which
proclaimed Barton as the only Ag
gie engineer in the race motivated
Zaeske to hold the conference.
Zaeske said he wanted "to correct
Barton's blatant misrepresentation
of himself" and to bring to the
public's attention other "indiscre
tions" in Barton's political career.
"I became a professional engi
neer before he was even a gradu
ate, and he has the audacity to call
himself the only engineer," said
Zaeske who earned a mechanical
engineering degree from A&M in
1964.
Craig Murphy, a spokesman
for Barton's office, called the Za
eske press conference "a humor
ous sidebar to a serious election."
"The people that painted that
banner are probably as surprised
as anyone," he said. "I think it
should be amended to say 'The
only Aggie that is a serious candi
date.'"
Zaeske said Barton continued
to call himself an engineer even
after the state board of engineers
requested that he no longer refer
to himself as one in campaign lit
erature or in public.
"Here's a man running for
public office saying he will not
comply with the law," Zaeske
said. "Misrepresenting yourself
and refusing to comply are cut
from the same bolt of cloth."
Murphy said the issue of Bar
ton misrepresenting himself as an
engineer was laid to rest in 1984
when he was elected to Congress.
Zaeske also criticized Barton
for claiming he was a deputy to
the Secretary of Energy and a
member of the Grace Commis
sion. Barton was, in reality, a
White House fellow, Zaeske said.
"Barton has the propensity to
stretch the truth and incline facts
in his favor to a fault," he said.
Murphy said it makes sense for
a candidate who isn't well known
to associate himself with one who
is more popular.
"It's an age-old custom," he
said. "He's like the man who put
his name on the ballot as 'none of
the above'."
Barton didn't get re-elected by
trying to find technicalities on a
banner, Murphy said, but by
working as a liaison to the Grace
Commission and helping Con
gress cut budget costs.
"Lou Zaeske is a candidate
known by about one-tenth of 1
percent of the state of Texas and
he's trying to double that," he
said. "If I could sum up this inci
dent in two words it would be
'Lou who?'"
Sports
•Third-ranked Aggies sweep
double-header with Mary
Hardin Baylor, 8-7, 11-4;
move to 31-3
•Basket ball banquet at Hilton
presents post-season awards
Page 5
Opinion
•Editorial: Vote yes to Sterling
C. Evans library referendum
•Column: Resume padders for
president? p age7
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