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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1994)
mmmmmmsmmmam Frontiers Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History offers insight in area. Opinion Sports JENNY MAGEE: When you're home and the things in it are no longer provided for you, they Page 13 Lady Aggie Volleyball overpowers rkansas-Little Rock in four sets. Page 5 MONDAY September 12, 1994 Vol. 101, No. 11 (14 pages) "Serving Texas A&Msince 1893" —WW I, r >9 arch ? ^ each J99 each NEWS RIEFS k&M Corps of Cadets honor former POWs Texas A&M’s Corps of Cadets will jonor former prisoners of war and sel lers missing in action this week dur- g National POW/MIA Week. Former students Lt. Col. Alton B. eyer and Col. James E. Ray, both rmer prisoners of war, will speak hursday at 5:30 p.m. in Rudder Audi- rium. The meeting is open to all in- rested individuals. Visitors and guests are invited to ine with the Corps in Duncan Dining all following the presentation. POW/MIA flags will be flown in the orps housing area and at the Acade- ic Building on Friday, the day official- y declared by Congress as POW/MIA Recognition Day. Cadet members of the Arnold Air Society will hold a silent vigil Friday at he Academic Building flag pole. The week will end with a ceremony and a military formation at Simpson Drill Field at 11:30 a.m. on Friday. Former POW’s and POW/MIA families will be guests at the formation. Four F-16 fighter planes from the 147th Flight Group of the Texas Air National Guard will fly over the drill field at noon in the "missing man” formation. The Arnold Air Society and Angel Flight will have POW/MIA bracelets available all week in the Memorial Stu dent Center for a $5 donation to the National League of Families. Cadets will wear yellow ribbons on their uniforms in observance of the week. POW/MIA recognition activities are sponsored by the First Cadet Wing in Texas A&M’s Corps of Cadets, the U.S. Air Force, the Air Force Association, the Arnold Society and Angel Flight. A&M administrator’s son dies in accident The son of John David Crow, Texas A&M athletic development director, was killed in an automobile accident Satur day in Birmingham, Alabama. Funeral services for John David Crow Jr. will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. in Birmingham at the Jefferson Memorial Funeral Home on Highway 150. Crow Jr. played football at the Uni versity of Alabama. Kegs lets Plane crashes into White House lawn T 1 ' -D TooaylnB . at-t Classified 4 Frontiers 2 Opinion 13 Sports 5 Toons 8 Weather 14 What's Up 4 Enrollment skyrockets at A&M schools By Melissa Jacobs The Battalion The South Texas schools of the Texas A&M University System are dealing with booming enrollment figures, following a recent migration of people into the Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Paul Orser, Jr., associate vice pres ident for academic affairs at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said the growth of the South Texas population is a factor in the admissions increase. “It is certainly true that the southern portion of this state grows faster than other parts,” he said. Maria Rosillo, director of admissions and advisement at Texas A&M Interna tional University in Laredo, said the growth of South Texas has affected ad missions quite a bit. “Just this past summer we have had a 20 percent enrollment increase,” she said. “We have had an average of an 8 percent to 10 percent increase for the past two to Increase in migration to South Texas creates student population boom three years.” Rosillo said people in the Valley are beginning to recognize the importance of a college education. “This is a strong Hispanic communi ty, and a lot of Hispanics are starting to go for the bachelor’s degree instead of a technical school degree,” she said. “Having a strong degree offers a lot of job opportunities.” Margaret Dichant, director of admis sions at TAMU-Corpus Christi, said she has seen a slight increase in enrollment every year. “There are a lot of people in this area, and there is a big market for recruiting students,” she said. The Corpus Christi campus has always been an upper level school, but it just be came a four-year university this fall. Dichant said that after the university changed it’s name, and not because of the name change, the legislature mandated that it become a four-year university. “This fall is our first time to have freshmen and sophomores,” she said. “It’s really neat to have the freshmen around campus.” Dichant said the legislature set the en rollment capacity for freshman at 400 for this year. “We registered 417,” she said. “Next year our cap is set at 500.” To prepare for the conversion to a four- year university, some changes were made, she said. “We’ve built new buildings,” Dichant said. “We have an apartment complex on campus that serves as a dorm and has room for 360 people, 65 percent of which are freshmen.” In addition, food services were expand ed and Taco Bell, Whataburger, a pizza place and TCBY are now on the campus. “We’ve known we were going to be come; a four-year university for four years, so we’ve had time to prepare,” Dichant said. The Laredo campus is not equipped to handle the enrollment increases, and the school is planning to move to a new cam pus next year. “At this point we are making due with what we have,” Rosillo said. “We are hav ing to lease space for classrooms. “Next year we are moving to a brand new campus. The campus will house 14,000 in the next ten years.” Dichant said she thinks the admission rate will continue to increase. “We are an up and coming university, and we also have a very good core cur riculum,” she said. Harris County ranks number one as nations death penalty capital WASHINGTON (AP) — A single engine light plane pierced the restricted zone around the White House early to day and crashed into the South Lawn, tumbling against the presidential man sion and killing the pilot. Security forces launched an intense investigation of the security breach. President Clinton and his family were not in the White House when the crash occurred about 2 a.m., said spokesman Arthur Jones. The Clintons have been staying across the street at Blair House, a government guest house, during renovations of the White House heating and airconditioning sys tem. The plane, a Cessna 172 single wing aircraft, flew down over the Mall and made a left-hand turn toward the White House complex, said Adolphus Roberts, an eyewitness. "It had lights on both wings, it turned left and lined up with the White House,” Roberts said. “I heard a large boom sound. There was no fire, no nothing.” “278 bottles of 'Ibeer on the wall” f FORT MITCHELL, Ky. (AP) — [ Three days and 278 kinds of beer | means one sure thing for participants I in a popular summer camp: aspirin by I Sunday morning. Welcome to Beer Camp at the ; Oldenberg Brewing Co., a three-day [j brew to-do so popular that the session that began Friday is full and the camp I scheduled for March is nearly sold out I as well. "Granted, it’s quite silly in a way — :y a camp where people can drink hun dreds of kinds of beer,” said Benjamin [, Myers, co-chairman of the North American Guild of Beer Writers. HOUSTON (AP) — This could be the week when Harris County lives up to its reputation as the nation’s death penalty capital. Six capital murder cases in which the death penalty is be ing sought are scheduled to be gin this week — a caseload that prosecutors and judges say is unprecedented. “I’ve never heard of anything like that,” State District Judge Doug Shaver said. “That’s al most outrageous, isn’t it?” That figure comes in a year when Harris County is expected to try a record number of capital cases, Shaver told The Houston Post in Sunday’s editions. By the end of 1994, the coun ty is expected to have prosecut ed 22 or 23 cases in which the death penalty was sought. Prosecutors tried 18 and 19 in the last two years. No other jurisdiction in the country comes close to Harris County in death penalty cases prosecuted in a year, said Shaver, administrative judge for the county’s criminal courts. Dallas County, the next most populous county in Texas, has tried only one capi tal case this year and has av eraged one to three a year over the past few years. Most jurisdictions in Texas have decided that prosecuting death penalty cases is too ex pensive and time consuming, Shaver said. Instead, they seek the mandatory life sentence. District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr., who makes the fi nal decision whether to seek the death penalty in Harris County, does not believe cost and time should be a factor. The six cases scheduled to begin this week include the si multaneous prosecutions of three Houston gang members charged with raping and stran gling two teen-age girls and the retrial of a man accused of killing a woman for her car. Down the hatch Junior Stacy Cameron, left, sophomore Will Brooks, center, and graduate student Jiles Davis enjoy tornado taters at the Caldwell Ko- Stacy Cameron/The Battalion lache Festival on Saturday. The two-day festi val featured pastries from all over the Texas as well as arts and crafts and a petting zoo. Student environmental group to help clean up Texas beaches By Constance Parten The Battalion An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 volun teers will hit Texas beaches at 9 a.m. Sat urday to take part in the 9th annual Texas Coastal Cleanup. The cleanup, sponsored by the Texas General Land Office Adopt-A-Beach pro gram, will clean 180 miles of Texas beaches. Texas A&M environmental groups do not usually take part in the Texas Coastal Cleanup, but the local chapter of the Texas Environmental Action Coali tion has organized its own Matagorda Bay cleanup. A&M’s TEAC President Chris Auger said the group has tried in the past to or ganize the cleanup for the same time as the Texas Coastal Cleanup, but it has not been possible. “We don’t take part in the annual Texas Coastal Cleanup due to problems with scheduling,” Auger said. “But every year we organize our own cleanup and go down and camp on the beach and clean the next morning. “Last year we had about 30 TEAC members, and some Wildlife and Fish eries people joined us also,” he said. “We will take anyone that wants to go, really.” Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mau- ro, who led legislation for the Adopt-A- Beach Program, the first such program in the nation, said the gulf area has been subject to decades of neglect. “Debris dumped in the gulf kills birds and fish and causes tons of trash to wash up on Texas beaches,” Mauro said. “Part of the debris - litter, pesticides, motor oil and yard wastes that go down storm drains - finds its way into rivers and lakes and winds up in the gulf and on our beaches.” The gulf, which provides critical habi tat for 75 percent of the nation’s water fowl, including the Roseate Spoonbill, Investigators look at engine parts to determine reason for crash l)S\ir disaster Photo courtesy of TEAC Brown Pelican, and Whooping Crane, also produces 40 percent of the nation’s offshore oil and gas and 40 percent of the domestic catch of seafood. “This is not just an ecological issue,” Jeff Long, a spokesperson in the General Land Office, said. “It’s an economic issue as well.” Many animals are adversely affected by trash found along our beaches. Sea turtles, fish and birds have all been found dead or dying due to litter related inci dents. “The turtles eat plastic bags, mistak ing them for jellyfish, and die because they can’t digest them,” Long said. “The fish and birds get caught in drifting nets and can’t get untangled.” See Beaches/Page 14 ALIQUIPPA, Pa. (AP) — Investi gators found two more engine parts that could indicate that thrust re- versers deployed on a US Air jet that crashed, a safety official said Sun day night. A total of three thrust reversal ac tuators from the Boeing 737-300’s right engine have now been found in the deployed posi tion, National Transportation Safety Board member Carl Vogt said at a news conference. Thrust reversers are used to slow a plane after it lands and can only be deployed by the pilot on the ground, Vogt said. If they had been deployed while the plane was in flight, they could have caused the crash. Despite the findings, Vogt said inves tigators have no theories yet on what caused USAir Flight 427 to nose-dive from 6,000 feet. “We’re not centering our investigation anywhere,” Vogt said. The actuators, a supplemental part to the thrust reversers, could have shifted on impact, he said. A fourth thrust re versal actuator from the right engine was found to have not been deployed. Two others from the right engine are still missing. The plane went down Thursday night six miles short of Pittsburgh In ternational Airport, killing all 132 peo ple aboard. Investigators Friday combed tnrough the wreckage of USAir Flight 427, tacking for clues to the crash that killed all 13 ‘ The crash was USAir s fifth in five years. The flight 'k Originated in Chicago Q Sy. jj ^ and was to stop in -:>■ Pittsburgh © before continuing on to West Palm Beach. Fla. 0 The Boeing 737-300 had received a routine maintenance check on Wednesday and an intensive check in February 1093. The ptane was manufactured in 1087 and had logged 23,846 flight hours and 14.489 takeoffs and landings. The crash Flight 427 was meant to follow the Ohio River past the airport turn around above downtown Pittsburgh, then approach the airport from the east. Instead, it veered to the nght, rolled over and nose-dived into a ravine in a wooded area . northwest \ of the city. Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Jane's All The World's Aircraft. AP research AP / Karl Gude Eileen Glanton. Carl Fox, Ricky Kowlessat A thrust reverser is a ring on the back of a jet engine that changes the direction of force used by airplanes. When air planes are flying, the thrust is coming from the back. When stopping, the thrust switches to the front of the aircraft — or goes into reverse — and decreases the plane’s mo mentum on the landing strip. Passen gers typically can hear a load roar from the engines upon landing. Vogt said no one should overestimate the significance of the position of the thrust reversers. “In the event of an inadvertent deploy ment of the thrust reversers you would ex pect to see some reaction in the engine, and we don’t see that,” Vogt said. “How much were they deployed, if at See Crash/Page 14