A&M BUTCHERS 'HORNS
The Aggie baseball team crushes
Texas in Austin 25-6.
Sports, Page 7
PARENTAL NOTIFICATION?
Editorial: A Texas bill would require that doctors
inform a minor's parents before an abortion.
Opinion, Page 11
VILLAGE OF THE CLICHE
Carpenter's latest horror movie
attempt fails with mediocre plot.
Aggielife, Page 3
Vol. 101, No. 142 (12 pages)
“Serving Texas A&M since 1893
Monday • May 1, 1995
Provost to be chosen this summer
â–¡ Three candidates
have been picked by
the search advisory
committee.
By Lisa Messer
The Battalion
B A&M’s second-highest ranking
administrative position, executive
vice president and provost, may
be filled this summer.
; A search advisory committee
has chosen three candidates to
interview for the position: Dr.
B. Hobson Wildenthal, Dr.
Allen L. Sessoms and Dr. Debo
rah A. Freund.
Wildenthal, provost and vice
president for academic affairs
at the University of Texas at
Dallas, visited the A&M cam
pus April 24-25.
Sessoms, executive vice presi
dent and vice president for acade
mic affairs at the University of
Massachusetts System, will visit
A&M May 4-5, and Freund, vice
chancellor for academic affairs
and dean of the faculties at Indi
ana University-Bloomington, will
visit May 8-9.
The committee will make a rec
ommendation to Dr. Ray Bowen,
A&M president, who will choose
the vice president and provost.
The position could be filled by
July 1, pending approval by the
A&M Board of Regents.
Wildenthal, who is a physicist
with a Ph.D. from the University
of Kansas, said he wants to work
for A&M because it is a great uni
versity with great people.
“I’ve competed with A&M for
faculty and students while
working at other institutions,”
Wildenthal said. “All too often,
they’ve won because they have
a winning team, and I want to
join the winning team. I think
I have ideas and energy that
can help that team.”
Wildenthal said A&M needs
to grow from its traditions and
support.
“I think it needs to continue
to build on traditions, alumni
support and faculty and stu
dent excellence,” Wildenthal
said. “It’s had some bad luck in
the past few years, and it needs
to have a breathing spell and
then get back to business.”
Wildenthal, who taught
physics at A&M in 1968-69,
said the University has made
tremendous improvements
since he was on campus.
“I was here 25 years ago and it
was a good university then,”
Wildenthal said. “Its growth and
improvements since then are just
overwhelming.
“Twenty-five years ago I never
dreamed I’d go into administra
tion. It’s just fortuitous that I’m
See Provost, Page 6
Former students aid rescue
operation in Oklahoma City
â–¡ The recruiting coor
dinator for the Corps
of Cadets was called
as a part of the Federal
Emergency Manage
ment Agency.
By Kasie Byers
The Battalion
While many people sat, eyes
glued to their television sets,
watching the bombed Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma, some A&M former
students had the opportunity to
give first hand help to Okla
homa.
Lt. Col. Mark Satterwhite,
Class of ’70 and recruiting coor
dinator for the Corps of Cadets
Recruiting Office of the Com
mandant, was called on duty
Friday, April 21, to help in Okla
homa City.
“I was in El Paso getting
ready to speak at the local
Muster when I got a call,” he
said. “I was told to be in Okla
homa within 24 hours.”
Satterwhite is a reservist of
the Region Six Emergency Pre
paredness Liaison Team, which
is a branch of the Federal Emer
gency Management Agency.
See Rescue, Page 6
Roger Hsieh/THE Battalion
P/ay hall
Shirley Bilhartz, one of the ’94-’95 Parents of the Year, throws the first ball of the A&M - U.T.
baseball game Friday night.
Anniversary of war s end celebrated
â–¡ Vietnamese rush to
take pictures with
Americans during a pa
rade Sunday.
j HO CHI MINH CITY, Viet
nam (AP) — Twenty years ago.
Communist tanks rolled down
a broad avenue and smashed
through the gates of the South
Vietnamese presidential palace
to seize power and reunite the
country.
On Sunday, more than
10,000 soldiers, students and
children paraded down the
same broad, leafy boulevard
carrying flowers and balloons
and posing for pictures with
their former enemies — Ameri
cans — to celebrate the an
niversary of the war’s end.
â–  No recriminations were
heard against the United
States, which Vietnam now
wants diplomatic and trade ties
with. Mayor Truong Tan Sang
opened the ceremonies by
praising the patriotism that led
so many to their death, but
never even mentioned the Unit
ed States.
North Vietnam seized power
from the last remaining offi
cials of the U.S.-allied govern
ment on April 30, 1975, ending
a war that cost more than 3
million lives. Most Americans
had fled the city only hours
earlier in a desperate heli
copter evacuation.
On Sunday, Vietnamese
scrambled to have their pic
tures taken with American
journalists and tourists, and
once past the reviewing stand
soldiers flashed peace signs
and thumbs-up at an American
veteran with a camera.
“It was like they were happy
just to see me,” said Jeff
Fredrick of Tallahassee, Fla.,
who had part of his right leg
blown away in 1968 by a mine.
“I look at it detached, as a cele
bration of their independence.
How could I hold a grudge?”
The friendliness is more
than just official policy. To
many Vietnamese, Americans
coming back represent the re
turn of commerce and tourism
and revival of normal ties with
the West after years of relative
isolation.
Behind the smiles, however,
Vietnamese emotions run deep
about a war that set brother
against brother.
“This celebration is for the
winners,” said a former south
ern army officer surnamed
Tran, one of many still angry
over the punishment meted out
to them by the victorious North
after 1975.
A&M students’ idea takes flight
â–¡ Architecture students
have worked several
years to design a hospi
tal that has helped
thousands to see.
By Brad Dressier
The Battalion
A model plane, plaque and
tours for the general public will
commemorate the recently com
pleted DC-10 flying eye hospital,
designed by Texas A&M architec
ture students.
The model and plaque will be
presented to Ray Bowen, Texas
A&M University president, on
Friday, May 5 at 3 p.m. in the
president’s office.
The airplane hospital will be
open for tours to the general
public at the Houston Intercon
tinental Airport on Tuesday,
May 9 at 11 a.m. at the South
west Airlines Terminal A at
gate 1, 2 or 3.
The hospital was designed for
ORBIS International, a non-profit
group working to provide continu
al training to eye care profession
als in developing countries.
Dr. George Mann, a Ronald L.
Skaggs Endowed FYofessor in the
Department of Architecture, said
the project has been developing
for more than 10 years.
“The project began when I as
signed my students to design a
health care facility of the future,”
he said. “Eventually an opportu
nity presented itself and turned
the project of one student,
Richard LaSalle, into an effort to
design an eye hospital in an old
DC-8 airplane.”
Because there are 42 million
blind people around the world, 30
million of whom could be helped,
ORBIS International has been
working toward combating vision
problems, blindness and poor
health care, Mann said.
Project ORBIS has helped re
store the sight of more than
10,000 of these people.
Richard LaSalle, Class of ’84,
and Buddy Conner, Class of ’85,
both former Texas A&M architec
ture students, worked on the pro
posed replacement of an aging
DC-8. Other options, such as a
747, European air
bus and a DC-10
were explored, he
said. After much re
search and consider
ation, Mann said
that the DC-10 was
determined to be the
best suited.
Former student
Colleen DeMent,
Class of ’89, worked on a revised
plan for the DC-10 and continued
studies of the DC-8.
In 1990, Ben Childers, then a
senior architecture student,
joined the project and worked on
the interior design of the DC-10
flying eye hospital.
“It was a phenomenal project
from the beginning to seeing the
actual success in the field,” he
said. “It taught me that if you
keep moving forward and strive
for your goal, positive things will
happen.”
The new DC-10 hospital has a
classroom, audiovisual center, pa
tient exam and laser module, lab
oratory, conference/library area,
eye surgical suite, sterile area,
sub-sterile area, patient recovery
and communications area.
Throughout the year, the OR
BIS project has visited more than
70 countries to help with eye
problems and teach physicians
about eye surgeries.
Courtesy of ORBIS International
ORBIS has visited more than 70 countries.
Unanswered questions pose
problems for investigators
â–¡ A surveillance camera captured
pictures of the Ryder truck and sev
eral individuals before the bombing.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Was Timothy
McVeigh alone in Oklahoma City? Was he there
with John Doe 2? Or were there more like-mind
ed extremists involved in the bombing of the fed
eral building?
Competing theories on the shape and size of
the bombing conspiracy seem to rise and fall dai
ly as investigators try to place sometimes ill-fit
ting pieces of the puzzle into a coherent picture.
With each new revelation comes more ques
tions and more seeming contradictions.
A senior federal official involved in the investi
gation told The Associated Press such frustrations
are nothing new to such cases.
“The problem for you guys
(in the media) and the public is
you want it all to make sense
each day,” he said. “Cops learn
in their first few years on the
job that every case they ever
investigate is going to have
some things that are totally
unexplainable.”
An example: the 1977 yellow Mercury Mar
quis that McVeigh bought on April 14th in Junc
tion City, Kan.
The used car has become a touchstone for vari
ous theories about McVeigh’s movements, the pos
sibility of a second getaway car, or a scenario that
- has McVeigh setting off the bomb himself, then
fleeing in the previously positioned Mercury.
McVeigh was arrested in the car as he sped
north from Oklahoma City about 75 minutes af
ter the blast. The senior federal official said a
note found in the car read: “Not abandoned. Bat
tery cable problem. Will be back to pick it up.”
The note also included a date, which was not
i revealed.
Officials are trying to fit this with another
puzzle piece: Why did McVeigh have his friend
Terry Nichols pick him up in Oklahoma City and
drive him back to Junction City two days before
the bombing?
Nichols told the FBI McVeigh called him on
April 16; the two returned to Junction City early
on April 17, the day McVeigh is believed to have
rented the Ryder truck with a man investigators
identify as John Doe 2.
The owner of the Dreamland Motel, the Junc
tion City motel where McVeigh was registered
from April 14-17, reported seeing the Mercury
when McVeigh checked in. Within a few days the
Mercury was gone, she said, replaced by the truck.
Does this all add up to the possibility
McVeigh parked the car with its note in Okla
homa City, returned to Junction City with
Nichols, then drove down to Oklahoma City
alone in the rental truck, detonated the bomb
and escaped in the Mercury?
The federal official said the scenario is one of
several being explored.
“It’s absolutely possible, physically, for one
man to have detonated it,” he said.
But there are problems with this theory.
Investigators say McVeigh would have taken
a big risk by leaving the car on the street for
three nights. The surveillance camera in an au
tomatic teller machine across from the federal
building captured images of the Ryder truck,
several individuals and a possible second get
away car with Arizona license plates.
'Cops learn in their first few years on the job that
every case they ever investigate is going to have
some things that are totally unexplainable/'
— a senior federal official