MUSIC REWIND
Clark: The 1995 music industry
had little to offer fans.
Aggielife, Page 3
IL102, No. 72 (14 pages)
A DAY TO REMEMBER
EYEING TEXAS
Martin Luther King jr. Day prompts thoughts on the The A&M Basketball Team seeks its
meaning and significance of the civil rights movement. first SWC win tonight against UT.
Opinion, Page 13 Sports, Page 9
Battalion
% .1
Serving Texas A&M University Since 1893
Tuesday • January 16, 1996
Sexual
3 The Texas A&M
graduate was arrested
after the survivor saw
lim in a Bryan store.
lyGretchen Perrenot
The Battalion
The suspect in the January
D5 sexual assault of a Texas
ji&M student near Olsen Field
Las released Friday on a
'ioO.OOO bond.
assault suspect released on bond
Don Richard Davis, Jr., a
Class of ’95 environmental de
sign graduate, was arrested and
charged Jan. 9 with aggravated
sexual assault. His arrest is the
culmination of a police search
that began almost a year ago.
See related EDITORIAL, page 13
DNA testing showed that
Davis’ blood sample matched
that of the semen taken last year
from the rape survivor’s clothes
after the assault.
Bob Wiatt, University Police
Department director, said police
are investigating whether Davis
was also involved in the May
1995 sexual assault of an A&M
student near Research Park. An
other sample of Davis’ blood is
being compared with a semen
sample from the second victim.
“A second charge of aggravat
ed sexual assault will be made,”
Wiatt said, “if the results posi
tively match those from the sec
ond victim.”
Wiatt said both survivors
identified Davis in a photo
graph lineup.
University detectives and
Texas Department of Public
Safety officers are investigating
items retrieved from the suspec
t’s parents’ home in Houston, he
said. These items, which may
have been taken from the vic
tims during the attacks, could
lead to an additional charge of
aggravated robbery.
If found guilty of the aggra
vated sexual assault charge,
Davis could face five to 99 years
in prison.
Davis was arrested in Dallas
two months after the first victim
recognized a cashier while she
was shopping at a Bryan grocery
store as her attacker.
“She was very shaky, very
nervous,” Wiatt said of the sur
vivor. “She wrote the check and
left. Then about two days later,
she somehow got hold of our offi
cers and said, ‘All I know is his
name tag said Don.’”
See Suspect page 6
"A second charge of aggravated sexual assault will be
made if the [blood and semen] results positively match
those from the second victim."
— Bob Wiatt
University Police Department director
Rejoicing in the Legacy of a Leader
Speakers share King’s
inspiration, passion
□ B-CS elementary school
and A&M students honored
Martin Luther King Jr.
during Monday night's
celebration.
By Wes Swift
The Battalion
It was a time when the bearers of
the future honored a great man of
The Martin Luther King Jr. cele
bration at Rudder Theatre was
filled with song and impassioned
words Monday, as a group of sever
al hundred people heard about
King’s impact on the lives of a myr
iad of speakers.
The gathering was the second an
nual King celebration at Texas
A&M. The University recognized
Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an of
ficial University holiday for the first
time last year.
Yesterday also marked the first
time all schools in the A&M System
celebrated the holiday.
Dr. Ray Bowen, A&M president,
and Dr. Pierce Cantrell, Faculty Sen
ate speaker, spoke of the changes the
slain civil rights leader made.
But the night belonged to youth,
as students from Bryan-College Sta
tion schools and from A&M shared
their thoughts about King.
Courtney Harnsberry, a second-
grade student from Milam Elemen
tary School in Bryan, said King’s ef
forts have made it possible for her to
experience a life of equality.
“Because (King) was concerned
with equality and freedom for all, I
can go to any school I want, I can
live wherever I want, I can eat in
any restaurant, and I can sit wher
ever I want to in any public trans
portation,” Harnsberry said.
The parade of youth continued
with Marcus Moore, an eighth-grade
student at College Station Junior
High School, who characterized King
as a man of determination, excellence,
See MLK, page 6
Tim Moog, The Battauon
The Voices of Praise choir sings Monday evening in the finale to the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration in Rudder Theatre.
Students travel civil rights road through Deep South
By Wes Swift
The Battalion
The civil rights movement swept
across the United States in the
1950s and ’60s, blazing a trail of
hope and blood.
In December, 12 Texas A&M stu
dents retraced the rocky civil rights
road, leaving their own trail of tears
and inspiration.
The students traveled through six
states in the Deep South on a civil
rights tour sponsored by the Depart
ment of Multicultural Services. The
tour stopped at civil rights land
marks in Alabama, Georgia,
Arkansas and Tennessee.
Museums, memorials and churches
dotted the tour’s track, each landmark
telling its own chapter in the struggle
that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The students toured Selma, Ala.,
where demonstrators marching to the
the state capital were beaten by state
troopers on March 7, 1965. Today, in
the National Voting Rights Museum
in Selma, a wall is covered with notes
from those who marched in that city.
Niki Gerra, a senior civil engineer
ing major, said the Selma Museum
and similar stops in Memphis, Term.,
and Atlanta, Ga., put a human face on
the civil rights movement.
“There was a card (at the Selma
museum) from a lady who had
walked 57 miles to Montgomery,”
Gerra said. “When she got there, she
was beaten. All her teeth were
knocked out. She couldn’t go on the
second Selma march because of that.
But she was there again on the
third. It felt like I was there.”
The reality of the movement thun
dered into the students’ emotions
when they visited each site and met
people involved with the movement,
Raymond Boney, a senior speech com
munication major, said.
“Once I got to visit these places and
talk to people who were actually part
of the movement, it just struck me,”
Boney said. “I think that’s what we re
ally needed (to realize the power of
the movement).”
After touring Atlanta, where the
Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non
violent Social Change stands, and
Birmingham, where King was jailed in
1963 and the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church was bombed, killing four young
girls, the group reached Memphis.
See Civil RIGHTS, page 6
Legislation affects student workers’ paychecks
IQ Some state employees
will be compensated for
1 the impact a new state
social security law will
jhave on their pay.
18y Heather Pace
| The Battalion
I Texas A&M student workers
| sired after Sent. 1, 1995, will find
that their paychecks are smaller
| this semester than those of their
I fellow workers.
The state of Texas used to pay
| both the employer and employee
portions of social security for all
state employees, but as of Dec. 31,
1995, some workers became re
sponsible for their own social se
curity taxes.
Pete Stovall, a clerk in
A&M’s payroll office, said the
University uses a method
called benefit replacement pay,
which results in slightly higher
hourly wages, to protect em
ployees hired before Sept. 1,
1995, from the effects of this
statewide change.
“The state Legislature decid
ed to quit paying portions of so
cial security, but the state of
fered benefit replacement pay
to make up for the lost bene
fits,” Stovall said.
The difference in pay will be
determined by the A&M payroll
office, which uses a formula to fig
ure out how much additional pay
is necessary to replace lost wages.
Payroll officers figure out how
much employees were earning on
Aug. 31 and then determine how
much employees should be earn
ing per hour to compensate for
lost social security payments.
For example, student workers
who receive $4.53 an hour will re
ceive $4.80 after the formula is
applied to their earnings.
Deborah Johnston, senior
staff accountant in the payroll
office, said that once benefit re
placement pay is determined, it
does not change as pay increases
or decreases.
“As they work, they will get so
much more per hour to make up
for the lost social security,” John
ston said.
The new legislation, Senate
Bill 102, was initiated to save the
state money.
Harold Stone, special assis
tant to the Texas Senate Fi
nance Committee, said the bill
makes the state’s social securi
ty policies more like private
business policies.
“The bill brings new workers
in line with the private sector,”
he said.
New employees, however, will
not receive the benefit replace
ment pay compensation.
Building purchased for proposed day-care center
|^Bowen's goal is for a 150-child
I day-care facility on West Campus
lobe in operation by Fall 1996.
By Lily Aguilar
The Battalion
Texas A&M students, faculty and staff in
search of convenient day-care services for
their children may soon have a new option
available to them.
A&M purchased the Grenada Building
on West Campus in December and plan to
house a proposed day-care center there.
The building will also house the Universi
ty Police Department and several academic
departments.
Sandi Osters, assistant to the vice presi
dent for student affairs, said 7,900 square
feet of the Grenada Building is being reno
vated to house a full-time day-care facility.
The initial cost of the day-care center will
be paid for with concessions money, which will
come from contracts between the A&M and
the campus bookstore and other businesses.
Osters said that after the full-time day
care facility begins operating, it will be self-
supporting and funded by the faculty, stu
dents and staff who use the center.
In order to ensure that the day care is in
full operation by September, A&M Presi
dent Dr. Ray Bowen appointed a day-care
task force.
“Right along with the full-time day-care
center,” Osters said, “we are looking for a
See Day CARE, page 7
Spring semester brings
new registration fees
Late registration or missed
payment deadlines will cost stu
dents up to $200 this semester.
New late-registration penalties
will be assessed to students who
do not register before the first day
of class in an effort to offset losses
in state funding.
A late-registration penalty of
$100 will be assessed to all stu
dents who register after the first
day of classes but before the 13th
day of class.
Students registering on or af
ter the 13th day of class will be
penalized $200.
Students will also be fined $50
for adding courses after the 12th
class day, if adding the class in
creases their number of semester
credit hours.
But students who have already
registered for even one credit
hour will not be penalized for
adding credit hours to their
schedules on or before the 12th
day of class as long as they pay
the day they register.
Bobby Piwonka, student finan
cial services manager, said A&M
has lost funding in the past, in
the range of $1 million, because of
students who were dropped for
missing payment deadlines or for
registering after classes began.
ihoursth
The state determines Universi
ty funding based on the number
of enrolled students and credit
hours they are taking each se
mester, and the University does
not receive state money for stu
dents who enroll after the 12th
day of class.
Piwonka said late registration
also hurts academic departments
because it causes confusion about
which classes need to be offered
and how big they should be.
The provost’s office decided to
increase late-fee penalties after a
Fall 1994 funding audit indicated
the University was losing money
because of late registration.