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
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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.