Wanted: Soccer Referees!!! The Brazos Valley Soccer Referee’s Association invites referees and prospective referees to our General Meeting Monday, January 31st, 7 p.m. Fuddrucker’s Patio 2206 Texas Ave. S., College Station For further information call Claude Cunningham at 764-2989 or Jere Smith at 846-1565 Extra Spending Money & Fun Page 14 The Battalion Thursday, January 27,199J The Battalion is looking for people to fill positions on the following desks: City Photo AggieLife Sports Applications are available in room 013 Reed McDonald, and will be due back Jan. 31. All majors are welcome to apply. O A’’ . CP c p ' o G ° .O' o- c o^ ^ Postal watch dogs Mail carriers keep a look out for crime in neighborhoods The Associated Press not ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - They move quietly down your street almost every day. They know where you live. They know what kind of car you drive. For postal carriers, it comes with the ter ritory, so why shouldn't they use their unique positions as lookouts for crime? "Who better than mail carriers to be out there as concerned citizens with their eyes and ears open," said carrier Bill Pick, who began a Postal Crime Watch five months ago. "Most carriers have been on their route for years — they know when things aren't normal." Two months after St. Petersburg's crime watch began in September, Las Cruces, N.M., started equipping its 64 carriers with donated cellular phones to report suspi cious activity. Cab drivers, telephone installers and util ity workers in some other cities also are participating in the war on crime, encour aged to use radios in their vehicles to report suspicious activity. Not everyone is excited. Last month, Scott Witzke filed a federal lawsuit asking that the voluntary St. Petersburg program be stopped because the mission of the Postal Service is delivering the mail police work. "The Postal Service should stick to what Congress authorized it to do," said Witzke, who is studying to be a paralegal. "Anyone should report something if they happen to see it, but these carriers don't need to be re ceiving briefings on what people and cars to lookoutfor." The idea in St. Petersburg was born of a personal scare. Pick's children were ap proached last summer by a man who tried to lure them into his pickup. The children backed away and the man sped off, but Pick began keeping an eye out for the stranger and the truck while deliver ing mail. He soon began asking other carri ers to do the same. The man was never found, but what evolved through months of meetings and planning was an arrangement with police that uses carriers as a citywide network of tipsters. "Somebody has to do something," said carrier Candy Shaw, who helped organize the program and estimated more than 90 percent of the city's 600 carriers participate. "People are fed up with crime. We no longer can say we don't have time to be bothered." Carriers are asked to help only in miss ing persons cases and crimes against chil dren, the elderly or property, not murderer drug cases where they could be "put on the line,” said police crime prevention officer Bob Ortiz. Every morning, carriers at nine postal branches read police bulletin boards so they know what to look for when they hit the streets. Notices have appeared about a child stalker in a light-blue truck, a roaming flasher driving a blue compact car, a band of burglars in cars with Illinois plates anda con man posing as "Jim Hobson from the bank" who tries to bilk the elderly. So far, none of the tips from carriers has led to an arrest, but police crime prevention officer Bob Ortiz said it's only a matter of time. A few carriers in high-crime areas object to publicity about the program, fearing all carriers could be viewed on the streets as "rats" or "narcs" and become targets of ret ribution. "There's nothing wrong with watching We just don't need to let everyone know we're watching," said John Bourlon, presi dent of the local chapter of the National As sociation of Letter Carriers. "Why put somebody at risk? I wonder what's going to happen to this program when a letter carrier gets his head blows off." Vol. 9 R The |may b Board The IBoard Iplan o Isiderin Tim ?lannii option; (that ha Oil 1-800-COLLECT SIMM People YOU Mil % Health Plan ig adrr Continued from Page 1 come fo ne attac workers should be in the pook ■' ot to ^ That would be too smallli spread the risks around, hear gued. 10 Olympic Rep. John Dingell, D-Midii Figure Energy and Commerce Comm;: >, ... tee chairman whose panel mayii f a [~ in < the first out of the gate on heal "j 1 }!. reform, said the timetable!# i ‘ achieving universal coverage ; H arc ji ne open to friendly negotiation will nr the president. h The Clinton bill would rq® ionals all Americans to be covered! "Win Jan. 1,1998. ineford Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V| gj ve m y ; at a news conference where zens from every state told a dozen Democratic senators personal health care woes, Clinton had added "somesto our spine." Kennedy, the chairman offli Senate Labor and HumanFi sources Committee, recalled when his son, Teddy Jr., was tling cancer, the senator met pa ents struggling to pay huge mefteck on ical bills for their own children. Her s iff Gillc cond c id wai Ange f B attack. Harv< e USO frganiza atemen dative t Genetics Continued from Page 1 Brittany, who weighed, pounds, 12 ounces, was bo: Travis about three weeks early becaiiney Rom Mrs. Abshire developed a co;need for mon gall bladder problems business went into labor, said Gibbcethics in l who also is chairman of obsfecal Forun rics and gynecology atthefy ! Earle ern Virginia Medical School. Viet but t( The Jones Institute is pa:: "It's ai the medical school. DoctonBe law d the institute delivered the:.'! depen tion's first in vitro, or so-cai; "test-tube baby," in 1981. David and Renee Abskf each carry the gene for la Sachs, which killed their! daughter at age 3. Without the test, they havj - 25 percent chance of havir: child with Tay-Sachs. IT Victims of Tay-Sachs arebl without an enzyme necessan _ In recc remove fatty substancesfij^F Space the brain. Most victims are b'A&VTs q and paralyzed by age 2ank c *Lty as a by age 5. shuttle. There is no central registry At 9:3C Tay-Sachs births, but aboi::9 Ua d fort Tay-Sachs children were ^R "Echo lieved born in the UnitedStil Stephe: last year, said Debbie Gutte:TJ a j 0 r saic rector of National Tay-Sachsbim feel v Allied Diseases, which rev:; ;"They research on about 40 genetic; orders. Do you have a recer SPRAIN, STRAIN or FRACTURE? dis' Con pitd Are you experiencing moderate to» pain due to a sprain, strain, orfracM ■ , r so, and you are 18 years of age or* * V c you may qualify to participale pharmaceutical research stud) possible relief of musculoskeletalf 1 Participants must have hadai (within three days) injury involve" sprain, strain, or fracture, dual 1 participants will be given study medi# and a free physical exam Pltl remember to call as soon as possible' your injury so that you meel requirements of this study. For* information, please call: G&S Studies Pro- at Tl Rob! day 846-5933 USE IT EVERY TIME YOU MARE A LONG DISTANCE COLLECT CALL.