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"
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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
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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