The Battalion
/olume 103 • Issue 62 • 12 Pages
Tuesday, November 26, 1996
The Balt Online: http://bat-web.tamu.edu
owen discusses GUF with public
By JoAnne Whittemore
The Battalion
inday.
Tito Wooten
liking play, retun
able Irvin fumt
touchdown just®
e for a 13-3 leadf
iwn added a git
linching 4-yardt|| Dr. Ray Bowen, president of
down pass to Briajfxas A&M University, explained
zlowski with 6:0:le uses and benefits of the General
to play. Ise Fee to the public Monday night
a p ra( j Q a [|l Rudder Theatre.
had field Mil. 'b as * c idea here is to ex-
jJ 4 r an( i 4fi plain what the proposal is going
r - , li be to the Board of Regents and
tell you how much money that
generate,” he said. “All money
generate from the fee increase
be used to raise the salaries of
r staff and faculty.”
I Bowen has proposed an increase
a two-game
enging a 27-0
j) in the second
in the GUR from $24 to $34 per se
mester credit hour for Fall 1997. The
proposed increase must be ap
proved by the Texas A&M University
System Board of Regents, with the
earliest possible date of approval
being January 1997.
Every dollar per student increase
in GUF provides about $1.1 million
in recurring revenue.
Bowen discussed some of the
long-term effects of inadequate
funding, such as a weakened acad
emic infrastructure and difficulty in
retaining and recruiting faculty,
staff and graduate assistants.
He said the alternatives to in-
PART 5 IN A 5 PART SERIES
creasing the GUF are not promising.
“One option is don’t give raises,”
he said. “I don’t think that’s a good
one. We could use reserves, but the
problem is reserves are one-time
money and raises are recurring ex
penses. We have looked at other op
tions prior to the obvious one of try
ing to increase fees.”
He said as the cost of attending
the University goes up every year,
the percentage of that cost paid for
by financial aid has also increased.
Bowen said financial aid, through
scholarships, grants, loans and
waivers, has exceeded the rate of
rising expenses.
In a question and answer ses
sion, John Alvis, president of the
Graduate Student Council and a
nuclear engineering graduate stu
dent, said the increase in financial
aid does not necessarily net a de
crease in fees for students.
“You’ve (Bowen) mentioned an
increase in financial aid and that’s
wonderful, but all that does is in
crease our debt when we graduate,”
Alvis said.
Bowen said scholarship dollars
have gone up 30 percent in the
last six years. He pointed out that
these were not loans, but “real-
life” scholarships.
Another student claimed his fees
had gone up 110 percent since he
was a freshman, but his financial
aid had not. He also questioned
whether his children would have to
give 110 percent when they attend
ed the University.
Bowen said fee increases were
inevitable and people of the stu
dent’s generation were going to
confront high tuition.
Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice
president for student affairs, said
there is no short-term solution to
the problem of funding.
“Right now there is no long-term
perspective as to how that problem
can be adjusted except by action of
the Legislature.”
More information may be
found at http://www-
fiscal.tamu.edu/vp/guf/ on the
Internet.
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aStall Quadfest to serve
food, entertainment
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Event gives students place to go before Bonfire
By Erica Roy
The Battalion
Registratiof
Now thru Dec,
tors
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ire down to
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Dathe on the
iches.or visit
Gumbo and turkey wings will be served
at Bonfire Quadfest ’96 today at 3 p.m on
the Quadrangle to promote a non-alco
holic Bonfire.
Jason Waligura, head coordinator of Quad
fest and a senior petroleum engineering ma
jor, said the event provides students with a
safe, alcohol-free pre-Bonfire activity.
“If this keeps people from going to par
ties or big beer bashes ... then this would
be a great service to the student body,”
Waligura said.
There is no admission to Quadfest, but
tickets for food will be sold. A ticket for gum-
j bo costs $3 and a turkey wing ticket costs $2.
Drinks may be purchased for 50 cents, but a
' gumbo or turkey ticket includes a drink.
Entertainment will be provided by local
country band Highway 6, the TAMU Dance
Team, the Aggie Wranglers and the Aggie En
ergizers, a barber shop quartet from the
Singing Cadets.
Radio stations KTEX 106 and Mix 104.7,
both Quadfest sponsors, will broadcast from
the Quad during Quadfest.
Entertainment will end at 6 p.m., but
guests are welcome to stay until the Aggie
Band marches to Bonfire site.
Waligura said Quadfest gives students a
place to gather before Bonfire.
“They don’t have a gathering point be
fore Bonfire,” Waligura said. “Everybody’s
kind of spread out doing their own thing,
then why don’t we do something? Bring
everybody together and give everybody a
gathering area before they go over and
watch Bonfire burn.”
Waligura said the organizers of Quadfest
wanted to open up the Quad to students who
are not in the Corps of Cadets. In the process
of planning the event, he said, they realized
they were also promoting a non-alcoholic
Bonfire.
“It (Quadfest) started out as a good event
for the Corps, inviting everybody to come eat
on the Quad,” Waligura said. “Then, in doing
so, we realized by doing it on the Quad it is a
non-alcoholic environment, so we’re also
promoting a non-alcoholic Bonfire ... then
once we realized that, that became the cen
terpiece for it (Quadfest).”
Waligura and a team of sophomore cadets
will cook the gumbo. The recipe they will use
was provided by Jim Burnett of Huntsville.
His son, Jason Burnett, is a senior at Texas
A&M. Jim Burnett will be at Quadfest today to
help the cadets prepare the gumbo.
See Quadfest, Page 4
The Circle
of Life
Pat James, The Battalion
Jeff Geisen and Larry Howard, members of the Class of ’98, pet Nanda, a 24-year old
African elephant at Bonfire site Monday for E-Walk.
Outfit runs game ball to Austin
Bonfire
Coverage
Bonfire Wrap-Up,
Page 5
Concessions at Bonfire,
Page 2
By Wesley Poston
The Battalion
Corps of Cadets outfit Chal
lenger 17 will jog to Austin tonight,
carrying the game football from
Bonfire site to the University of
Texas Memorial Stadium to benefit
the Brazos County Boys and Girls
Club.
After speaking to the Bonfire
crowd, Head Coach R.C. Slocum
will toss the game ball to Squadron
17 Executive Officer Andy Cuellar
to begin the 15-hour relay to
Austin. The 59-cadet unit will run
to Fish Lot (Parking Area 61), divide
up into their cars, and drive to their
stations along the route.
Challenger 17 cadets will take
turns running individually with the
football along George Bush Drive to
FM 2818, on to Highway 21 and
then west toward Austin along
Highway 290.
Each Challenger 17 cadet will
run along the shoulder of the road
wearing a reflective vest, followed
by one of the outfit cars and bathed
in its headlights for safety. The
cadets from each vehicle will take
“When we get
there, the outfit
does a run
around the t.u.
campus, ending
at Memorial
Stadium."
Andy Cuellar
Squadron 17
turns running a 1.5-mile stretch
before passing the ball to the
cadets from the next vehicle.
Cuellar, a senior health major,
said the entire outfit will reunite at
the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential
Library on the UT campus around
11 a.m. Wednesday.
“It’s a long process,” Cuellar
said. “When we get there, the outfit
does a run around the t.u. campus,
ending at Memorial Stadium.”
The ball, sealed in a protective
wrap and carrying the Texas A&M
emblem, will be given to a UT ath
letic official and later returned to
the A&M Football Team for use in
Friday’s game.
Cuellar said UT officials have been
cooperative in planning the trek into
Austin and around campus.
“They know we’re coming,” he said.
“They’ve been quite supportive.”
Squadron 17 was reorganized in
1992 as a memorial to the astro
nauts who died in the space shuttle
Challenger explosion on Jan. 28,
1986. Challenger 17 is the only
Corps outfit formed in memorial of
others.
The outfit’s goal is to raise $5,000
for the Brazos County Boys and
Girls Club, supporting local chil
dren in need, with the game foot
ball escort.
he Battalion
TODAY
Fiery Affair
gie spirit goes up in
mes as Bonfire
rns, symbolizing
e desire to beat t.u.
Bonfire, Page 5
rgy
irfcout
urning Desire
ith one game against
IIHft flfltf aflS fexas, A&M can erase
e memories of a dis-
Ppointing season.
Sports, Pages 6-7
9
10 p.m.
led on this day
iftattherocl^ 1
Bonfire to burn bright Both sides of rivalry have
for out-of-town Aggies common ‘burning desire’
Redemption
aldez: If nothing else,
new prison program
ill at least save the
iouls of inmates.
Opinion, Page 11
By Marika Cook
The Battalion
The Fightin’ Texas Aggie Bonfire will burn in
Aggieland tonight. At the same time, a Fightin’
Texas Aggie Bonfire will light the sky over the
small East Texas town ofWoodville.
Dave Bordelon maintains his burning desire
"to beat the hell outta t.u.” through his own Ag
gie Bonfire tradition, which began in 1984. Bor
delon is not an A&M graduate, but his son, Dan
Bordelon, is Class of ’84.
Dave Bordelon said the tradition began with
Just family, but now many friends and mem
bers of the community attend the Bonfire,
wliich coincides with Aggieland’s blaze.
“It’s pretty strong Aggie ebuntry over here,”
Bordelon said. “For a town of 2,000 people, we
have a large number of Aggies.”
The day after it bums, the Bordelons begin
building the Bonfire for the next year from any
thing flammable and non-toxic.
“We stack trees, limbs, whatever we have,”
he said. “We also build an outhouse from card
board and put an Austin city limits [sign] on it.
This year, we’re adding timbers to the outside
with cables.”
The 15-foot replica of the real Bonfire, built
annually OF Army style, is burned in a clearing
with torches lighting the way.
Bordelon announces a public invitation on
the local radio station. Graduates from many
different schools attend, including the Univer
sity of Texas and the University of Houston.
“We always have a good crowd,” he said.
“We serve coffee and hot chocolate. They enjoy
the camaraderie.”
The Bonfire burns for approximately one
and a half hours and includes other traditions.
“We plug in the band tapes and do a little
sawin’ Varsity’s horns off and some yells,” Bor
delon said. “t.u. has only out scored us twice
since we started this. We may not be the real
reason A&M’s winning, but we like to think
we’re part of it.”
The Bordelons, who have attended Bonfire
in College Station once, began the tradition be
cause they could not always make the trip to
Aggieland and wanted to join in the spirit of
the rivalry.
Bordelon’s wife, Mary Lou, is a charter
member of the Tyler County Aggie Moms Club.
“We throw together what we can for our
Bonfire,” Mary Lou Bordelon said.
By John LeBas
The Battalion
As the flames leap from
Bonfire 1996 tonight, thou
sands of hearts will swell
with Aggie pride.
Texas A&M students, for
mer students and visitors
will sway and yell, eager to
“saw Varsity’s horns off.”
Their “burning desire to
beat the hell outta t.u.” in
Friday’s football battle will
materialize as the wood
stacks go up in smoke.
In Austin, Longhorns
will be doing the same
thing — sort of.
Tonight also marks UT’s
annual Hex Rally, a “high
school-type pep rally,” as
one UT student described
it. Longhorns will gather
and burn red candles to
show support for their
team.
Granted, flickering can
dles don’t compare to the
ferocity of a raging Bonfire.
And rallying around melt
ing wax may not make
sense to many Aggies, who
“When you burn
something,
that's pretty
rough.”
Adil Khan
UT student
have built and burned
some of the largest bonfires
in the world for more than
80 years. But, likewise, it is
hard for many Longhorns
to understand exactly why
A&M students make Bon
fire so big, so loud — and
so uniquely Aggie.
Adil Khan, a freshman
physics major at UT, said
Bonfire takes Aggies’ “burn
ing desire” too far. He said
Bonfire promotes A&M’s
animosity toward UT and
makes the schools’ rivalry
one-sided.
“It seems like there’s a
lot more hatred from A&M
to UT than a rivalry,” Khan
said. “When you burn
something, that’s really
pretty rough.”
Khan, who has never
been to Bonfire but would
like to attend one, said he
wants to see if Bonfire is re
ally as “bad” as he’s heard.
“I would expect to see a lot
of Aggies bashing UT, not
promoting football or their
school,” he said. “More nega
tive than positive.”
Some UT students see
nothing positive in Bonfire.
See UT, Page 4