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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.”
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Photograph: Tim Moog
Workers will begin repairs on the exterior holes of the Academic
Building in August.
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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.
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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
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MacArthur
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JFK
Causeway
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$3-1 Rickenbacker
Causeway
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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.