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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1995)
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Opinion, Page 11 Carry on Junior transfer linebacker Jimmie Irby aims to follow in the footsteps of Aggie gre Sports, Page 9 The BattaeicV Vol . 102, No. 15 (12 pages) Established in 1893 Friday • September 15, 199 Arena’s groundbreaking set for Saturday □ The special events center will seat 12,500 basketball fans and 10,500 guests at graduation ceremonies. By Tara Wilkinson The Battalion Construction of Texas A&M’s new special events center, the Reed Arena, will be celebrated at 9 a.m. Saturday during a groundbreaking ceremony. The ceremony will be held at the comer of Joe Routt Blvd. and Olsen Drive across from the new Student Recreation Center. Steven M. Hodge, special events facilities director, said the groundbreaking will be a for mal start to construction, even though construction crews actu ally began digging about a month ago. “We’ll have shovels, and we’ll turn some dirt,” Hodge said. Wally Groff, Athletic Depart ment director; Dr. Ray Bowen, Texas A&M president; and Mary Nan West, Board of Re gents chairman, will preside over the ceremony. G. Rollie White Coliseum, A&M’s only coliseum, is not large enough to accommodate the crowds that show up each year for events like A&M Muster and commencement ceremonies. But the Reed Arena, scheduled to be completed in 1997 at a cost of $36.75 million, will seat 12,500 basketball fans, 10,500 guests at commencement ceremonies or 11,500 people at a concert. Upholstered armchair seats in the Reed Arena will be arranged in a double bowl for mation, with 7,500 seats in the lower level and 5,000 seats in the upper level. Hodge said the Reed Arena will be large enough to remove re strictions on the number of tickets Jon on at 6:30 Please for the tion, nor So- ble for e held MSC isocia- [ from lama- ire in- 363. bego- it the d the room rma- rvice and ferns than i de- lead- enfs Up. ease Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month Hispanic council kicks off Unity Rally tonight aHPC leaders hope to draw a crowd at Rudder Fountain with motivational speaker Mike Torres. By Wes Swift The Battalion The Hispanic Presidents’ Council is sponsoring a campus-wide Unity Rally to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month 1995. HPC leaders hope to draw 300-400 Texas A&M students to the 6 p.m. rally at Rudder Fountain to hear guest speaker Mike Torres, president of Bryan tejano radio station KBMA La Fabulosa. April Arias, Hispanic Journalists Asso ciation president, said the rally is an ex cellent way to start the Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 celebration designed to introduce A&M students to the Hispanic culture. “The Unity Rally is a great opportuni ty for everyone to get out there and get pumped up for the month,” Arias said. Maricela Ortiz, HPC director of administra tion, said Torres is a perfect choice to begin the month’s events. “He’s a very motivational speaker,” Ortiz said. “You can get caught up in everything he says. “He was bom and raised poor, and he brings this message that you can succeed if you try.” This year’s Hispanic Heritage Month is centered around the theme “Unidos Con Una Sola Voz,” or “United with One Voice.” Dr. Emily Santiago, assistant director and His panic adviser for the Department of Multicultural Services, said the month is an opportunity for stu dents to become more aware of the His panic culture. The activities are not confined to His panic students, Santiago said. “The idea is for people of all cultures to benefit by learning more about this culture,” she said. “Its an opportunity to for everyone to learn, Hispanics and non-Hispanics.” This is the third year the HPC has celebrated See Rally, Page 6 Academic Building put on deferred maintenance list □ The Physical Plant removed pieces of the building for safety reasons during last year's renovation. By James Bernsen The Battalion Renovations to the Academic Building, which have been put on hold for a year and a half, will remain on hold until more funding is available, Texas A&M officials said. Several sections of the structure’s north west front were re moved and not repaired in early 1994 when the building’s windows were replaced. Dick Williams, Phys ical Plant associate di rector for maintenance and modification, said workers and inspectors who handled the reno vation project noticed that several sections of the building had been Tim Moog, The Battalion Birds are now living in the broken parts of the Aca demic Building. weakened by weather and age. The Physical Plant had the pieces re moved to prevent them from breaking off and then falling. “It’s more important that it’s safe,” Williams said. “We used money out of emergency ac counts to make it safe.” Williams said there is now a lack of money, and this has prevented the department from repairing the building. “There are other higher-priority things now,” he said. “We have roofs that are leaking. If we get the money to make it es- thetically pleasing again, we will.” Bryan Mason, chair of the Old Main Soci ety, a student organi zation formed to help preserve A&M build ings, said he can see why the Physical Plant is not in a rush to re pair the building. “That (the unre paired building) is kind of an unsightly blem ish,” Mason said. “But it’s not something that is destroying the struc ture and is not some thing they have to do.” Williams said the building’s repair has been given a high-priori ty position on the list for deferred maintenance items. That means any repairs will have to wait until a surplus of funds is acquired. “Deferred mainte nance funds are always limited,” he said. “The vice president [for fi nance and administra tion’s] office has em phasized that they want this fixed, and we’re trying to scrape up some money.” Dr. Rick Floyd, asso ciate vice president for finance and administra tion, said such fund limitations are new. “We probably feel the constraints more to day,” Floyd said. “We’re going to have to be very cautious as*we move into the future, and we’re going to have to make hard decisions.” Floyd said the Acade mic Building was put on the deferred list because of the large number of more urgent projects. “There are some buildings that if we don’t repair them there may be structur al damage, or someone may get hurt,” he said. “What must be under stood is that we give a higher priority to those structures that are damaged.” A&M graduates can distribute among family and friends for commencement ceremonies. “We believe that we’ll be able to let anyone come in who wants to come in,” he said. The facility will contain a main arena with a removable basketball floor, a practice gym, meeting rooms, visitor and home team dressing rooms and a 1,500-space parking lot. Groff said the Reed Arena will take A&M’s basketball program to a higher level because specta tors will be more comfortable, and the state-of-the-art facility See Arena, Page 6 Battalion File Photc Construction on Reed Arena, shown by an artist's sketching, is slated to be finished in 1997. Total costs are estimated at $36.75 million. — Grody ■SllSiil ■—I Louis Craig, T he Battalion Roger Gordon, a freshman geophysics major, handles his "grodes" after tackling and grading his crew chiefs and yellow pot after his cut class on Wednesday. 1 III II Missing soldiers’ families speak out □ "Never giving up" is the advice friends and family members searching for soldiers missing in action gave at the POW/MIA Remembrance Symposium. By Melissa Keerins The Battalion Arnold Air Society and Angel Flight hosted a symposium in Rudder Theater as a part of POW/MIA Remembrance Week. Kay T. Graves, Class of ‘53, and Susan Baker Powell, Class of ‘93, spoke about the research they have done regarding sol diers missing in action. Powell spoke emotionally about her brother, Maj. Arthur Dale Baker, who has been missing in action since 1965. In 1974, 11 months after the return of the POWs, Baker was declared “killed in action/ body not recovered.” The family of Baker accepted his death until they received a phone call from an Air Force rep resentative who said there was a chance Baker was still alive. Powell started researching the issue and discovered that government agencies had re ceived at least three reports that might be related to Baker. An American soldier was in structed to take toiletries to a Laotian general in May of 1965, Powell said, and the man report ed that he saw two Americans being held prisoner in the gener al’s home. The general was later ques tioned, in 1991 and denied the report, she said, but also said he knew of no Americans taken prisoner in Laos. “All three governments — Laotian, Vietnamese, American — must be held accountable,” she said. Powell challenged people to search for the facts and not de pend on others. She also said to look at both sides of the issue be fore making a decision. Graves spoke about his close friend, Capt. Lester Lackey, Class of ’52, who was reported shot down over the Black Sea during a reconnaissance mission Dec. 14, 1965. The plane was found, but Lackey’s body and the body of the pilot were never recovered. See Soldiers, Rage 12 if o >f E- >f 5. a JC1 :y a is >n It ae ia