The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, July 07, 1994, Image 3

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Page 3
([ Students scon in fiemty pageant
[he Battalion
eauty pageants are trying
to overcome the image of
[^5 scantily clad, baton
^X^twirling, air-heads compet
ing for a title and a rhinestone
trown.
Today’s winners of pageants are
modem women who have it all —
lirains, ambition, and, of course,
beauty.
Brandy Peacock, a senior jour
nalism major, was fourth runner up
in the Miss Texas USA pageant at
South Padre Island on June 28, and
Tricia Vail, Class of ‘94, was one of
I2seinifinalists.
The two were chosen out of 127
contestants.
Peacock said she did not expect
to do so well because this was her
first pageant.
She was waiting tables at Fajita
Rita’s when the area director of the
Miss Texas USA pageant suggested
she enter the Miss Brazos Valley
USA pageant, she said.
She entered and was chosen first
runner-up, qualifying her to attend
the Miss Texas USA pageant as
Miss Brazos County.
Peacock said the Miss Texas
pageant was not what she expected.
“I expected everyone to be all
fixed-up, catty and manipulative,”
she said. “Instead, I made a lot of
good friends.”
Peacock said the pageant was
fun, but tiring.
“We rehearsed every day,” she
said. “I never slept later than 7:30
a.m. and did not get to bed before
1:00 or 2:00 a.m.”
All the work seemed to pay off
when she got onstage, Peacock said.
“I wasn’t nervous,” she said. “I
just had fun, and I even managed to
get in three ‘gig ‘ems’ on stage.”
As for the competition itself, Pea
cock said at first she felt intimidat
ed because she did not have false
eyelashes, fake nails or big hair.
But in retrospect, she thinks her
short hair and natural look worked
to her advantage.
Peacock plans to compete again
next year, and she is interviewing
to be a Star Search spokesmodel.
In addition to a modeling oppor
tunity, she said the competition has
given her more confidence.
“If you can get in your bathing
suit in front of six million people,”
she said, “then you can do any
thing.”
Vail, Miss Brazos Valley, said
this was her second year at the
Miss Texas USA pageant.
“This year I made it my goal to
be in the top 12,” she said.
Vail, who has been involved in
pageants for three years, said
pageants are a good way to improve
yourself mentally and physically.
“It’s important to grab any
chance to develop yourself,” she
said.
Besides spending the year as
Miss Brazos Valley USA, Vail is in
terviewing to be a buyer for Accente
and hopes to get involved in city
government.
Vail said the pageants of today
are different from pageants of the
past.
“In older pageants, (the models)
were all clones of each other,” she
said. “Today pageants stress indi
viduality.”
“It’s not just about the swimsuit
competition,” she said. “It’s truly
what is in your head.”
Vail said Chelsi Smith, Miss
Galveston County, was chosen as
Miss Texas USA because she pos
sesses all the qualities judges look
for in a contestant.
“She may not have been the
most beautiful, but her winning
was about inner beauty,” she said.
“More than anything else, it’s what
is on the inside that makes you
beautiful.”
Nikki Pederson, area director of
Miss Texas USA, agrees with Vail’s
perception of the changing pageant.
In pageants today, “superwoman
(or) I-will-save-the-world kind of
answers” are not heard, Pederson
said.
“Today, women are more focused
on their goals,” she said. “They
know what they want and how to
get it.”
Banishing Apartheid
AP Photo - Illustration by Stew Mllne/THF. Battalion
South Africans lined up outside of a voting station in Johannesburg, guided but fenced-in by
razor wire. Voters braved the long lines to participate in South Africa’s first free elections.
A&M's South Africans look homeward
with hope for a new country's promises
By Anas Ben-Musa
The Battalion
jk fter four
decades of
% apartheid and
300 years of
f waiting, South
▼ ^ Africa’s elec
tions may have begun to real
ize the dreams of establishing
a democratic society.
To Rapulana Seiphemo and
other South Africans at Texas
A&M, April 26, 1994 was the
beginning of a new era.
It was the first time South
Africa allowed non-whites to
vote in the national elections.
“People have died, people
have fought, people have spent
years and years in jail just
waiting for such a day,” said
Seiphemo, a senior theater
arts major from Johannesburg,
South Africa.
Seiphemo said it was the
reason that he voted. He trav
eled to Houston and cast his
vote.
“I knew I had to,” Seiphemo
said. “I knew that it would
make a difference.” Seiphemo
wasn’t the only South African
at A&M who wanted to vote.
Anthony Chinnah, a re
search scientist at Carrington
Glycobiology Labs, missed the
one day South Africans living
overseas were allowed to vote.
Many South Africans living
overseas were confused about
the days allowed for voting,
Chinnah said. But, he said he
is happy that Mandela won
the election, becoming the first
black president of South
Africa.
“T never thought one day in
my lifetime that this would
happen,” Chinnah said. For
Chinnah, the new government
means his self-imposed exile
may end.
“I wanted to major in bio
chemistry and to do research
that was not reasonably avail
able for non-whites,” Chinnah
said. “I wanted to make some
thing of my life, and there was
no way I could have succeeded
there.”
Chinnah, however, is origi
nally from India. His grand
parents migrated to South
Africa. Chinnah was bom in
Danshuser located in the Na
tal province, but lived for near
ly 19 years in Durban, South
Africa’s largest port city locat
ed on the east coast.
Apartheid did not segregate
just whites and blacks. Chin-
The Texas A&M
South Africans
The aftermath of the South African
elections has reached across the ocean
and touched A&M student Rapulana
Seiphemo from Johannesburg and A&M
research scientist Anthony Chinnah,
who once immigrated to
South Africa and lived in
Durban for 19 years.
Durban
Indian
Ocean
AP/Tom Holmes
nah said that a person was
classified into four categories,
“...white, colored (mulatto),
Asian (from China or India) or
black.” The most oppressed
were black, he said.
Yet, Chinnah did not escape
the grip of apartheid. His fam
ily was ordered to move out of
their home in Durban in the
early 1960s. Chinnah said his
family was given 810,000 for
the house when the actual
market price was nearly
$200,000.
The whole neighborhood
was leveled and declared a
white zone, he said.
Till this day, no white
South Africans have moved in.
Chinnah said they refused to
move into the neighborhood.
He still doesn’t fully under
stand why. The memory of
those days is a scar that will
never heal, Chinnah said.
But the system of segrega
tion in South Africa is differ
ent compared to what was ex
perienced in the U.S. by black
Americans, A&;M theater pro
fessor Roger Schultz said.
“Not one place in South
Africa did I see total segrega
tion,” Schultz said, who visited
South Africa in 1991.
Schultz arrived on July 1,
the day the Apartheid laws
were repealed.
He saw all colors and ethnic
groups beside each other.
However, during his first day
there Schultz saw the real hor
ror of apartheid visiting the
township of Soweto on the out
skirts of Johannesburg.
All he could say was “How
could this be?”
“There was tremendous in
equity, in the lifestyle of the
people,” Schultz said. “I saw
the abject poverty and condi
tions, the squalor, the shacks,”
News reports have brought
back the images from the tran
sition, a mostly peaceful one.
“The spectacle is a political
and human ‘miracle,’” said
two reporters from U.S. News
& World Report. “As other na
tions in Europe, Africa and
elsewhere are tom limb from
limb by old grievances, new
greed and ethnic hatred, the
most deeply and bitterly divid
ed country in the world, a na
tion long ruled by racist laws
and consumed by racial, tribal
and ethnic hostilities is poised
to bind its wounds and start
over.”
The key to starting over say
Seiphemo, Chinnah and
Schultz is and will be the infi
nite patience of South
Africans.
“It defies human belief and
understanding," Schultz said.
“The control of fear and anxi
ety.”
Seiphemo said you could see
the black people’s extreme pa
tience during the elections.
“People were standing in re
ally long lines, spending a
whole day, waiting to vote,” he
said.
Schultz said patience
brought changes in the law
and the basic government.
“But, apartheid still exists
in practice and will take a
tremendous amount of effort to
change,” Schultz said. “The
waiting game is still being
played.”
It is a game that deals with
economics, Schultz said, citing
that nearly 95 percent of
wealth resides in the white mi
nority of South Africa.
With increased investment
by foreign companies, all of
South Africa can prosper,
Chinnah said. Several compa
nies, including Pepsi Cola,
Sara Lee, Reebok, IBM, and
Proctor & Gamble have estab
lished operations in South
Africa, making their stake in
the future of the nation.
The economic waiting game
is bound to continue, but a lev
el playing field may be in the
works for a mending South
Africa, including their A&;M
compatriots.
By Jeremy Keddie
The Battalion
B eneath the roads and sidewalks of
Texas A&M, lies a labyrinth of
mysterious tunnels and lore known
to the few who travel them. In win
ter the steam rises from beneath the roads,
but it is not until one walks over a vent, re
ceiving a blast of hot air, that summer
strollers realize what is under them.
Prohibited on account of the many dan
gers contained throughout them, the steam
tunnels have naturally generated curiosity
among students.
The mystery begins with the history of
the steam tunnels. Thought to be original
ly constructed in 1916, the tunnels were
built as shelter for utility pipes, which pro
vide the campus with heating, cooling, and
domestic water.
There is little mentioned of the steam
tunnels’ history at the university’s
archives, and only one account, aside from newspa
per clippings, depicts student exploration of the tun
nels. In George Sessions Perry’s book “The Story of
Texas A and M”, Corps of Cadets use of the tunnels
is mentioned.
“Incidentally, the steam is piped through many
miles of tunnels connecting each of the buildings,”
Perry wrote. “Sometimes one class or company, or
whatever sort of group, has gone to raid another by
means of these subterranean approaches and has
encountered its like-minded adversary in mid-tun
nel.”
A journey into the steam tunnels, provided by
Sam Porter, employee of the Physical Plant, provid
ed proof of the Corps presence of the tunnels. Graf
fiti and squadron emblems from various units illus
trate the walls and pipes of the tunnels. The most
impressive included a large room beneath Helden-
fels Hall, which is completely covered with Corps
artwork.
“I don’t know how someone got into here, unless
they had a key,” Porter said.
The basement room underneath Heldenfels is
locked at three different points and contains motion
sensors near the gates of the tunnels for security.
However, members of the Corp are not the only
ones who have left their mark in the tunnels.
“R.A.B.”, a slogan from Moses Hall, a northside dor
mitory, ranks among the popular spray-painted
phrases.
Porter began the two-hour tour revealing a scar
from the hot piping while working in the tunnels.
Steam pipes within the tunnels can exceed tempera
tures of 180 degrees, and varies based on the num
ber of leaks and the current condition of the insula
tion of the pipes. His point was made.
“You see that pipe right there - that will bum
you in a heart beat,” Porter said. “There is no need
for students to be down here.
“This is strictly a maintenance area.”
However, steam and hot pipes are only few of the
dangers that an illegal explorer will encounter with
in the steam tunnels.
“Should someone come down here and not pay at
tention to what they are doing, they could easily slip
on the mud and silt and hurt themselves on pipes or
other protruding objects,” Porter said.
The only ventilation provided in the steam tuii-
nels comes from grates and vents in the sidewalks
MSI* ^
A::; iTysA;
Both photos by Stew Milne/Tnf-: Battalion
Texas A&M’s steam tunnels (above) house dangerous hot
water pipes and electrical wiring, as well as graffiti (right)
from illegal Corps and residence hall travelers.
and streets, which allow rain water to flow in and
leave slippery mud and silt deposits.
Water also accumulates on the floors of the tun
nels from leaking pipes. Porter said leaks are gen
erally minor, but at any given time something major
could go wrong.
“Should a pipe break causing water to flow, that
water will get real hot once it reaches the level of
the steam pipes and present an extreme hazard,”
Porter said.
Yet, these potential hazards also allow students
to easily access the tunnels.
“We have no way to secure the tunnels at all
times due to the safety hazards which (preventive
measures) would present to our workers,” Porter
said.
As most tunnelers ignore the possible dangers,
the only means of deterring students from explo
ration remains through disciplinary procedures.
Students caught in the tunnels risk arrest by the
University Police Department and can be charged
with criminal trespassing. Furthermore a report by
the police department can be filed with the Student
Conflict Resolution Center for secondary punish
ment.
“Students caught in the steam tunnels will re
ceive an administrative hearing and can receive
punishment ranging from a written reprimand to
probation,” said Kim Walter of Student Affairs.
Walter said she does not recall the last time an
incident occurred, nor did the University Police De
partment’s Assistant Director of Criminal Investiga
tion Josie Hoelscher.
However, seven individuals were arrested while
trying to escape the tunnels in 1986. The individu
als had triggered an alarm near Heldenfels.
The motion detectors and alarms were placed as
a means of security, and are located in tunnels near
buildings as a means of security.
But most tunnelers continue to explore. Many
choose to tunnel in hopes of dispelling myths which
they heard from their friends.
One myth is the belief of an ammunition dump
below Kyle Field. Rumor has it that weapons and
excess ammunition left after World War II are
stored there.
However, Porter said he doubts any such thing
exists and snickered.
“I have been working here for 13 years and
haven’t found such places,” Porter said.
Page 3
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