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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1995)
REMEMBERING A&M The MSC gallery displays portraits of campus by first-year architecture students. Aggielife, Page 3 THE TAMIU TAKEOVER The Texas Legislature comes one step closer to merging the school with the UT System. Opinion, Page 13 Vol. 101, No. 134 (14 pages) iiliii “Serving Texas AdrM since 1893 ’’ ■■■BlSlllli* STILL SMOKIN' The Aggie baseball team wins its 14th straight, looks ahead to Tech. Sports, Page 9 Wednesday • April 19, 1995 tiPiiiii @ rsrn )izza| )izza dismnif r order. Gatti’s. City of Bryan faces lawsuit over Blinn college location DA citizens' group is at tempting to stop construc tion of a new Blinn campus. By Wes Swift Rhe Battalion K A local citizens’ group is suing the iity of Bryan, officials of Blinn College tid Bryan and Texas Attorney General ian Morales in an attempt to stop the instruction of a new Blinn campus. Citizens United for a Responsible ryan, a group of about 90 Bryan resi- snts, allege in the suit that Bryan and linn College officials kept plans for the impus secret and acted illegally by fi- ancing the project with bonds. | The campus would consolidate the three Blinn Campuses into one site on 75 acres of land on Villa Maria Road, near E. 29th Street in Bryan. Mel Meer, a CURB spokesman, said the site would cause unnecessary harm to local neighborhoods. He explained that the 16,000 students attending the school would create problems with traffic and residents. “That area already has inadequate traffic access,” Meer said. “The students are going to have to go through the neighborhoods to get to that campus. “This is also the center of the med ical and retirement community for the area. Some people think that elderly drivers and student drivers wouldn’t be a good mix.” But the Blinn Bulletin, a newsletter produced by the city of Bryan, said that 13,691 part-time students are expected to enroll by 2010. See LaWSUlt, Page 14 9-ball, comer pocket Andrew Meade, a junior parks and recreation major, practices his shooting abili ty at a game of pool in the basement of the MSC on Tuesday afternoon. Two top Air Force officials among eight dead as jet crashes near homes P Investigators are still trying to de termine the cause of the accident. • ALEXANDER CITY, Ala. (AP) — Investigators Recovered the black box recorders Tuesday from the wreckage of a military jet that crashed in flames, killing eight people, including an assistant Air Force secretary and a two-star general. The C-21, an Air Force version of the Learjet, Went down in a residential neighborhood Monday evening about four miles short of the Alexander City airport. “It was making an awful noise,” said Minnie Blair, who was walking her 7-month-old grand son when the jet roared into view. “I told my grandson, ‘Bud, this thing is going to hit us.’” “He must have been a really good pilot to have kept it away from the houses,” Mrs. Blair said. The passenger jet, with a crew of two and six Passengers, had left Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for Randolph Air Force Base at San Antonio. The crew reported “fuel management” con cerns and was diverted to Maxwell Air Force Base n Montgomery, some 50 miles from Alexander City, a senior Defense Department of ficial in Washington said. After that, it is possi ble that further problems occurred and they de cided to try for a closer airstrip at the Alexander |City airport, said they official, who asked not to See Crash, Page 7 Former student killed in jet crash By Amanda Fowle The Battalion A&M cadets are mourning the death of a former cadet killed Monday in a military jet crash. First Lt. Paul Bowers, Class of ’90, was killed when the Learjet he was flying crashed in Alabama. Bowers received his mechani cal engineering degree from A&M and was the commanding officer of Squadron 1 in 1990. Bowers’ roommate, Danny Mezza, Class of ’91, remembers Bowers as a good pilot who com mitted much of his time in the Air Force to public service. “He was a very caring individ ual,” Mezza said. “He had just completed a volunteer mission in Saudi Arabia over the holidays.” Mezza said Bowers often flew medical evacuations. “He would fly the premature babies to other hospitals,” Mezza See Student, Page 1 4 Houston Post shuts down after 111 years of publication □ The newspaper's assets were purchased by the Hearst Corp. which owns the Houston Chronicle. HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Post, which began publishing in 1880, closed today and then Hearst Corp., owners of the rival Houston Chronicle, purchased its assets. The transaction ends 94 years of competition between the papers and makes Houston the largest city in the nation to have only one daily metropolitan newspaper. “While we all regret very much the loss of The Houston Post after 111 years of continuous dedication to the city of Houston and its residents, the recent unprecedented rise in the cost of newsprint has made it impos sible to see viability for the city’s sec ond newspaper,” William Dean Sin gleton, president and chief executive officer of Consolidated Newspapers Inc., parent company of The Post, said today. Announcement of the transaction was made today by Singleton and Frank A. Bennack, Jr., president and chief executive officer of Hearst. No financial terms announced. Hearst is purchasing The Post’s printing facilities, in cluding five offset press lines, land and buildings. Hearst said the printing facilities would be used to help produce the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle listed its circulation at 412,337 daily and 606,707 on Sunday. The Post circulation was put at 287,215 daily and 316,852 on Sunday. Speculation about The Post’s future had grown over the past several months. In January, religious broad caster Pat Robertson spent two days inspecting The Post and heightened the speculation, although Singleton denied then that the newspaper was for sale. Singleton today said that newsprint prices for the newspaper, which were less than $400 per metric ton a year*ago, will reach $675 per metric ton in May with predictions from analysts that the upward spiral would continue. “We very much appreciate the ef fort and dedication of our employees and the tremendous support of the Houston community through what has been a very challenging operat ing environment,” Singleton said. “It is unfortunate that we must all face the loss of a great institution.” Singleton said Post employees would receive salaries for at least two months and get job placement assistance. Consolidated Newspapers dis closed late last year it hired a news paper broker to find a buyer for The Post. After a lengthy and ex haustive search, it was determined there were no buyers, according to today’s announcement. Today’s developments makes Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and the largest in Texas, the third Texas city in recent years to be come a one-newspaper town. According to 1994 figures from the Newspaper Association of America, 33 U.S. cities had competing newspa pers with separate ownership. An other 30 American cities had more than one daily but with the same ownership. “We fully recognize that the loss of The Houston Post, which has fall en victim to the inexorable economic forces that have caused more than 98 percent of America’s markets to be served by only one newspaper, in creases the responsibility that the Chronicle has to the Houston com munity,” Bennack said. Students with Post subscriptions can apply credit to Chronicle delivery By Lisa Messer The Battalion Students with subscriptions to the Houston Post will be able to ap ply their remaining credit with the newspaper toward a subscription to the Houston Chronicle. Post subscribers received their last issue of the newspaper Tuesday morning, shortly before the Post an nounced i t was closing its doors. Hearst Corp., owner of the only other daily metropolitan newspaper in Houston, the Houston Chronicle, bought the Post’s assets. Julian McMurrey, the College Station distribution representative of the Houston Chronicle, said the Chronicle could not fulfill the Post’s subscriptions because Hearst Corp. did not buy the Post’s customers, only its customer list. “They bought the plant, the equipment, the supplies and the trucks, but they did not buy the customer base,” McMurrey said. “They bought the list.” McMurrey said the Chronicle was allowed in the Posts building at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Chronicle work ers got the Post’s list of customers and started calling. “We’re going to call all the peo ple on the list and say, ‘This is what the Post’s records say. Would you like to apply that to ward a Chronicle subscription?”’ McMurrey said. McMurrey said all the Post’s subscribers should be contacted within a week. “It’s a logistical problem,” Mc Murrey said. “We need to know who the Post’s customers are. The See Credit, Page 14 r We very much appreciate the effort and dedication of our employees ..." — William Dean Singleton president and CEO of Consolidated Newspapers, Inc. Leaders of the Pack New Battalion editors stress expanded coverage, improved communication □ Jay Robbins and Rob Clark have been selected as the new editors for the summer and fall semesters. By Wes Swift The Battalion Jay Robbins and Rob Clark have been announced as the Battalion editors-in-chief for Summer and Fall 1995, respectively. Robbins and Clark have long histories with The Battalion. Robbins worked his way through the ranks at the opinion desk, serving as an editorial writer, assistant opinion editor, opinion editor and as managing editor this semester. Robbins, a senior political science and English ma jor from Breckenridge, said he believes that his variety of experiences will help him as editor. “I know what every desk does,” Robbins said. “I’ve written at or for every desk.” Clark came to The Battalion two years ago, working as both a copy editor and Aggielife writer simultane ously. He was the Aggielife editor for two semesters, including this spring when Aggielife began to run five days a week. Clark, a senior journalism major who has experience with newspaper, television, and radio, said his experi ence with other media will aid him during his tenure. “I’ve been involved with every form of media,” Clark said. “I think that’s important.” Both said they had no radical changes planned for The Battalion, but they hinted at more subtle changes. Robbins said he wants to improve communication with other organizations. “I want to establish lines of communication with every group,” Robbins said. “I want to make sure all students are included. I want to make sure The Bat talion represents the community and its readers.” See Editors, Page 7 Nick Rodnicki/THE Battalion Jay Robbins and Rob Clark will be serving as the summer and fall editors of The Battalion.