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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 1997)
mi umuf** 1 V' Texas A & M University 1 r 7 97 pi • . J Tomorrow B Today See extended forecast, Page 2. s olume 103 • Issue 165 • 6 Pages College Station, TX Wednesday, July 16,1997 lorrec Jews Briefs [they! OrpS to host first g lunion celebration I former members of the Texas A«&M rps of Cadets will gather at the first fps of Cadets Reunion this fall. ^The reunion will take place in con- etion with the A&M-University of uthwestern Louisiana football “jfneon Sept. 20. IheCorps celebration will begin with current Corps’ practice march-in at m. at Kyle Reid. Other activities in- ares (le open house in the dorms, pro ms and displays at the Sam Hous- Sanders Corps of Cadets Center. The Texas Aggie Band will hold its , wal reunion the same weekend, not ob iculty Senate OKs search program The Texas A&M Faculty Senate mimously approved the Research lolar Program Monday. The program encourages students - participate in research projects and Ijlll Msh their findings. Students com ing the program will be recognized aiesearch scholar at graduation cer- lonies and on official transcripts. (program will begin in the fall. In other business, the Faculty Sen- eapproved a name change from the (Mays College of Business Ad- inistration and Graduate School of jsiness to the Lowry Mays College KlGraduate School of Business. ngci- Iwoti I, part ’olitical Forum hosts ampaign speaker SuzyWoodford, the executive direc- irofCommon Cause Texas, will discuss finance reform, conflict-of-in- ^estissues and public information ac- 'ssat4p.rn. today in Rm. 230 MSC. TheMSC Political Forum is spon ging the free event. Common Cause fights to open vernment meetings and records to public and prevent unpublicized %k-deal legislation. ury rules in favor (former executive MILWAUKEE (AP) — A jury award- 1126.6 million Tuesday to a former % Brewing executive who sued ecompany for firing him after he scussed a racy episode of “Sein- I’with a female co-worker. Jerold Mackenzie was fired from 195,000-a-year job in 1993 after told Patricia Best about the •sode and she complained. Mackenzie said he was relieved by verdict. You should be able to talk to your wkers. You should be able to talk subordinates as you would talk to 'body else,” he said. Miller will appeal, spokesman ikeBrophy said. ingers President Tom theiffer discusses the future major league baseball. See Page 3. OPINION ONLINE ^p://bat-web.tamii.edu 'ok for fevious 'ttalion Tories in le archives. Academic Building repairs to begin Weathering, age have caused deterioration . ; By Robert Smith The Battalion The Academic Building will under go repairs for exterior holes starting the first week of August. The building’s stone enclosure that lies just below the copper dome will be replaced. The enclosure has been steadily deteriorating and has several cracks and large holes. Rick Thomas, an informant of maintenance, said weathering and age have made repairs necessary. “The fact that it is an old building has caused it to deteriorate,” Thomas said. The Physical Plant planned this maintenance on the Academic Build ing in September 1995. Thomas said repairs have been de layed due to a lack of allocated funds. “It’s been on deferred maintenance for over a year, and we’re just now getting the money to work on it,” Thomas said. David Godbey, assistant director of the Physical Plant for Engineering and Design Services, said the project will be complex. “It’s pretty involved,” Godbey said. “They have to erect a scaffold to remove the old blocks one at a time and replace them with new ones that match the sur rounding blocks exacdy.” Godbey said the project has a min imum cost of $79,185. “That is the bottom line cost,” God bey said. "There may be more damage than what we can see right now, and it could be more.” Godbey said he expects the repairs to be completed in four months. The building’s most recent major repairs were done in January 1994, when the original wooden window frames were replaced with alu minum frames. The Academic Building was con structed in 1912 and is one of the old est buildings on campus. The building lies on the same ground once occupied by A&M’s Old Main Building, which burned down in 1911. Godbey said the repairs will signif icantly improve the appearance of the building. “That part of the building is pretty worn down right now,” Godbey said. “When everything is done, it will look like it did when it was first built.” \ H it Mjy : n w <r- Photograph: Tim Moog Workers will begin repairs on the exterior holes of the Academic Building in August. m % w i *' c »•mm £ A&M jolted by power outage By Erica Roy The Battalion . The Texas A&M campus was without electricity for over two hours last night. Jim Harless, a superintendent of utilities main tenance at Physical Plant, said the power outage oc curred at 6:20 p.m., and electricity came back on around 8:20 p.m. in some parts of campus. “We picked up lights on a gradual basis,” he said. Harless said the cause of the power outage is undetermined. He said Bryan Utilities said the cause might have been a lightning strike on “transmission incoming” land that two Bryan power plants are on. A&M utilities are tapped into the two power plants. After the the land was investigated, Harless said, the system was energized, and power was restored. “We did not find any permanent damage to any thing,” he said. Fashion designer shot to death outside Miami Beach mansion Police believe Versace may have been the target of a serial killer m. Mi xll' : at Helping Hand Photograph: Sarah Johnson Betsy McFarland of the University Press Marketing Department, donates blood Tuesday morning for the American Red Cross on campus. Halogen lamps banned in campus residence halls iter: Successes of women, reer achievements remain erlooked by society, A&M. See Page 5. By Jenara Kocks The Battalion Texas A&M students are no longer permitted to have halogen torchiere fixtures in residence halls starting this fall. Ron Sasse, director of the Depart ment of Residence Life, said the de partment recently banned them from the halls because it heard the heat the lamps produce makes them a fire hazard. “We’d be at risk if we didn’t [keep them out of the halls],” Sasse said. According to the policy, “torchieres found in student rooms will be confis cated, and residents will face discipli nary charges.” Eric Williams, RHA president and a senior biomedical science major, said many students in the residence halls own these lamps. “This (policy) will definitely affect many students,” Williams said. He said that many students in the Commons have the lamps because they brighten up the dark rooms of these residence halls. Sasse said he had not heard of any accidents occurring in the halls because of the lamps, but Williams said he has heard of a few small incidents. He said he heard that a year or two ago a poster fell on top of a halogen lamp in Aston. Part of the poster MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Gianni Versace, who dressed celebrities the world over in his glamorous, sexy designs, was killed outside his oceanfront villa Tuesday by a man who shot him twice in the back of the head at point-blank range. The FBI was looking into the possibility that suspected serial killer Andrew Cunanan, one of the FBI’s 10 most- wanted fugitives, had struck again. The 27-year-old Cuna nan, who is suspected, in the slayings of four men from Minneapolis to New Jersey, was known to move in gay cir cles. Versace was gay. Versace, 50, was returning home from the News Cafe on South Beach’s Ocean Drive after buying an Italian newspaper when he was gunned down outside the gates of his Mediterranean-style mansion. There was no sign of robbery. “I do know it is not a random act of violence,” Police Chief Richard Barreto said. “I believe that he was targeted.” Police said the fashion designer was shot by white man in his mid-20s, dressed in a white or gray shirt and dark shorts and carrying a backpack. Officers later cordoned off a five-story municipal park ing garage near the shooting scene after a witness saw a man fitting the description of the suspect. WTVJ-TV in Miami reported that police found cloth ing under a red Chevrolet pickup truck in the parking garage, and that the truck’s vehicle identification num ber matched that of the vehicle Cunanan was last re ported driving. Police believed the clothes belonged to the suspect. The station also quoted unnamed police sources as saying Versace was killed with a .40 caliber handgun, the same caliber weapon used in the murders Cunanan is suspected of committing. “This guy’s a serial killer,” said a Miami Beach homicide detective at the garage who refused to give his name. “We know who he is.” 11th St. South Beach Xx ■■Ilk \ B MacArthur Causeway JFK Causeway S / MIAMI BEACH Julia Tuttle M 6 1 MacArthur Causeway „ $3-1 Rickenbacker Causeway , Biscayne Bay AP Photograph: Tim Moog Fluorescent lamps (left) burn cooler than halogen lamps (right). But the new lamps cost over $100. caught on fire and fell onto a comforter that also ignited. Williams said a resident advisor smelled smoke and used a fire extin guisher to put the fire out before it did a lot of damage. Sasse said he also talked to other hous ing directors at Big 12 universities, and some are considering a similar policy. Anna Cauvana, administrative as sistant to the assistant director of Res idence Life at the University of Texas, said the department banned halogen lamps that produce more than 120 watts from their halls in June. Campus housing offices at univer sities outside the Big 12 are also try ing to keep halogen lamps out of res idence halls. Please see Lamps on Page 6. Houstonians remember Flight 800 victims HOUSTON (AP) — Crime victims’ advocate Pam Lychner and her two young daughters, all vic tims of the crash of TWA Flight 800 a year ago this week, were being remembered Tuesday with ded ication of a bronze memorial. Lychner, 37, a former TWA flight attendant, was one of the founding members of the Houston vic tims’ rights group Justice For All. She was heading to Paris for a vacation with daughters Shannon, 10, and Katie, 8, and were among 230 people to die in the July 17,1996, crash. The life-size bronze of Lychner with her arms around her daughters is the centerpiece of a pink granite circular plaza at Town Hall Park near the Lychner home in Spring Valley, an enclave of Houston. Local officials described the sculpture as a per petual remembrance of Lychner, the family values she embodied and her work for their community. “It’s Pam protecting her children forever in bronze,” sculptor Patrick McGuire said. “I think it’s beautiful,” said Joe Lychner, who lost his family in the crash. “It’s been a long time com ing. A lot of people have put in a lot of hard work.” Justice For All was founded in mid-1993 af ter a man with a history of sexual assaults at tacked Lychner, who was working as a real es tate agent, while she was showing a house. Under her leadership, the group attracted several thousand members to become Texas’ largest yictims’ rights group, campaigning against early release of prisoners and expan sion of privileges for Texas prison inmates. The group also pushed legislative programs to aid crime victims and opposed repeated delays in executions of Texas death row inmates. Texas honored Lychner late last year by naming a Houston-area state jail after her. The 747 jumbo jet’s crash remains a mystery. Investigators this week are using a rented sim ilar jet outfitted with electronic sensors in hopes of finding a cause. The plane’s center fuel tank exploded as the aircraft, which had just left New York’s Kennedy Airport, climbed to around 13,700 feet in calm weather. The jet then dropped to about 9,000 feet before exploding in a fireball off the coast of Long Island.