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Baby got back
Pencil-thin? Columnist Julia Stavenhagen
(and at least one model) ain't down with that
Weather
iTMostly sunny on Wednesday
Rockets one game away
Houston will face Utah today at The oummit to
decide the Western Conference champion.
Page 3
TUESDAY
May 31, 1994
Vol. 98, No. 147 (6 pages)
“Serving Texas A&M since 1893’
Friends, faculty cope with students’
"Crystal was extremely energetic. She was alwavs excited
and wanted to share things with others."
— Sheri Schmidt, coordinator of Diversity Education
"It was just a senseless act. Broadus overcame all the obsta
cles for people of color only to become just another statistic."
— Chris Alvarado, chair of CAMAC
5y James Bernsen
Ihe Battalion
Students, faculty and staff are still
toping with the murder of two Texas
A&M University seniors in DeSoto,
lexas last week.
Reginald Broadus and Crystal Miller
iere found dead in a field in the Red
Sird Mall area of Dallas last Monday,
apparently robbed of valuables and
Sroadus’ car.
DeSoto police arrested two individu
als last Friday based on evidence found
lithe car.
Kevin Carreathers, director of multi-
tultural services, said Broadus and
Her were outstanding as leaders and
as people.
“They were people with bright f
tares ahead of them,” he said.
“With Reginald, we were both in the
same fraternity,” he said. “He was an
active student leader, a memoer of the
Prime Time Posse acting group — and
you could just go on and on.”
Chris Alvarado, chair of the Commit
tee for the Awareness of Mexican-Amer-
ican Culture, said he interacted with
Broadus through his work c n the Black
Awareness Committee.
“He was quiet but had a very strong
personality,” he said. “He w T as very
sure why he did certain things and did
n’t back down or compromise on any
thing.”
Sheri Schmidt, coordinator of Diver
sity Education, said she worked with
Miller through the ExCel program, for
which Schmidt was adviser.
“Crystal was extremely energetic,”
she said. “She was always excited and
wanted to share things with others.”
Alvarado said his first reaction to news
of the murders was disbelief.
“It was just a senseless act,” he said.
“Broadus overcame all the obstacles for
people of color only to become just an
other statistic.
“He personified the words ‘sxud : i nt
leader,”’ Alvarado said. “He did it all
because he wanted to.”
Ron Going, a junior philosophy ma
jor, said he also worked extensiv ely
with Broadus through the Diversity and
Equality Commission.
“I came to work on Tuesday and
found out,” he said. “I was just dazed.
“We don’t really know many details,”
he said. “All we know is the conse
quences. There’s a lot of pain there, but
as far as emotion, you’re just numb.”
Going said it will take a long time be
fore he can deal with the loss.
murder
He said he was particularly sad
dened by the story because it is not just
one isolated incident.
“It happens a lot,” he said, “and you
only realize it wh: n it happens to some
one you know.”
Schmidt said the tragedy only proves
no one is immune to violence.
Going said something should be done
so that Broadus and Miller are not for
gotten.
“We have to focus on positive things
to remember them by,” he saic.
Schmidt said she has spent the last
few days coming to grips with tlw
tragedy and trying to think of something
that can be done to remember the tw .
“A lot of students have called from
here and at home not knowing how to
deal with it,” she said. “They were two
top-notch individuals, and we’re really
going to miss them.”
Darrin Hill/THt Battalion
Defense! Defense!
Sean Cronin, a senior English major from San Antonio, tries to block his friend Matt Balfour
during a friendly game of basketball outside Walton Hall on Monday. The two said they were
trying to get in a little exercise and a studybreak during the first day of classes.
Tax may snuff some smokers
A&M researcher says proposed cigarette tax could
decrease nationwide consumption by 30 percent
COLLEGE STATION (AP) — If Congress
adopts a proposed Si.25 increase in tax on a pack
age of cigarettes, it could cut cigarette consump
tion by as mucn as 30 percent across the United
States, a researcher says.
“I don’t think there’s anything to mitigate the
impact of such a large price increase,” said Dr.
Thomas Blaine, a consumer economist with the
Texas A&M University department of recreation,
park and tourism sciences.
Blaine, a specialist in leisure-related consumei
spending and an expert in domestic cigarette con
sumption, bases his estimate on studies shewing
that for every 1 percent increase in price, there is
a half-percent decrease in consumption.
A 10 percent increase in price, for instance,
would result in a 5 percent decrease in consump
tion, Blaine said.
Any tax increase on cigarettes would probably
be passed on to the consumer because manufactur
ers had already cut prices by some 40 cents a pack
in the fall of 1993, Blaine said. His current esti
mates are based on a per-pack cost of Si.80.
A 75-cent tax hike would mean a price increase
of approximately 42 percent, likely resulting in a
consumption decrease of 21 percent, he said.
A Si.25 tax increase would cause prices to surge
approximately 69 percent, with consumption likely
falling almost 35 percent.
After President Bill Clinton proposed an addi
tional 75-cent per-pack tax on cigarettes, Congress
increased the proposal to an additional SI.25 a
pack. Either way, the tax would have a significant
impact on consumption, Blaine said.
Cigarettes are currently taxed at 24 cents a
pack.
The tax increase was proposed by the House
Subcommittee or Health as a means of paying for
changes in national health care proposed in House
Bill 3600. The bill should be considered by the
House Ways and Means Committee in June, a
committee spokeswoman said.
Blaine had earlier done studies predicting a
consumption decrease to 106 packs per year, or
2,120 cigarettes, per capita among all adults by
the year 2000. That’s down from current figures of
2,550 cigarettes a year, or 144 packs, for each U.S.
adult.
Approximately 25 percent of the adult U.S. pop
ulation smokes, officials say. That makes the aver-
Please see Tax/Page 4
Nation of Islam member attacked
Khallid Muhammad
shot by former NOI
member James Bess
SEATTLE (AP) — The man
arrested in the shooting of for
mer Nation of Islam spokesman
Khallid Abdul Muhammad has
appeared frequently on public-
access television as a preacher of
his own vacant of Islam.
James Edward Bess, 43, once
headed a local branch of the Na
tion of Islam but was kicked out
of the faction three years ago. He
also is known as Abdul Haqq
Mohammed and goes by Brother
James X on his Seattle TV
shmws.
Bess is accused of shooting
Muhammad and three others
Sunday after Muhammad spoke
at the University of California,
Riverside. Bess was beaten by a
crowd before police dragged him
away.
He was booked for investiga
tion of attempted murder.
Bess has no arrest record in
his hometown, police Sgt. Ed
Streidinger said.
“It’s public knowledge that he
was at odds with the people run
ning the Nation of Islam,” he
said.
In a column entitled “Prophe
cy Fulfilled At Last,” in the Oct.
2, 1991 edition of The Facts, a
weekly black community news
paper, Bess wrote that Nation of
Islam founder Elijah Muham
mad was the subject of a death
plot “which was hatched by the
American government. However,
this plot did not end with only
the American government, but
involved the Vatican City (the
Catholic Hierarchy), her branch
es, worldwide Communism,
worldwide Jewry, excluding an
honorable few who await the
‘Messiah.’ Also, the tentacles of
the ‘death plot’ reached into the
Nation Of Islam.”
In the same issue of the news
paper, Bess was attacked in a
letter signed only Jamaatul
Ikhlas, translated as “communi
ty for purity in worship,” for a
previous column in which he was
accused of making an unneces
sary 7 public defamation of Imam
W. Deen Mohamn ed.
Former student recovering from
lightning accident
"The doctors cannot say one way or another,
but signs look good that there will not be any
brain damage."
— Pastor Ray Muenich of Fellowship Community Church
\&M graduate in crit
ical condition after
struck by lightning
By Sara Israwi
The Battalion
A Texas A&M University
graduate is in critical condition
at Scott and White Hospital in
Temple. He was struck by light
ning last Saturday in Tabor, a
few miles outside of Bryan.
Witnesses said Varghese
Thomas was at a friend's out-
ioor wedding when the thun
derstorm oegan.
The lightning struck near the
neck and shoulder area, leading
doctors to believe it was Thomas’
chain necklace that attracted
the lightning, and not an um
brella, as was reported earlier by
other media on Monday.
Scott and White spokes
woman Shirley Meadows said
Monday night that Thomas was
in critical but stable condition
and was improving.
Thomas suffers from second
degree burns on his chest, neck
and left arm.
Cindi Erickson, Thomas’
girlfriend, said, “Contrary to
early media reports, he was
never in a coma. The burns in
ternally and externally both
seem to be minimal.”
However, Thomas is still in
the intensive care unit at Scott
and White.
As of Monday afternoon,
Thomas was able to acknowl
edge people when they spoke to
him and was able to squeeze
their hands.
Erickson said doctors are
hopeful that Thomas may be
home by the end of the week.
“They have taken him off the
respirator, and now he just has
an oxygen mask,” she said.
Pastor Ray Muenich of Fel
lowship Community Church wus
beginning the wedding ceremony
when Thomas was struck.
MuenLh reported that although
lightning usually damages inter
nal organs, doctors at Scott and
White Hospital have confirmed
that the lightning didn’t harm
Thomas’ internal organs.
“The EKG showed no signs of
permanent heart damage,” he
said. “The doctors cannot say
one way or another, but signs
look good that there will not be
any brain damage.”
Thomas, 27, received hN mas
ter’s degree in inoustrial engi
neering from A&M.
His brother will be arriving
within the next 48 hours from
India, where VargLese is from.
Thomas was planning to leave
for Missouri on Thursday, where
he was offered a job.
Today's Baii
Comics
6
Ciassifieds
4
Opinion
5
Sports 3
Puppy play
Alexis Hill,a senior education major from Longview, and
her golden retriever, Scout, return from playing frisbee and
catch at Research Park on Monday afternoon.