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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 1998)
The Battalion TUTE Absentee vote Congressional representative receives monetary compensation despite absence HOUSTON (AP) — Despite having not attend ed a committee meeting or cast a vote in nearly a year, U.S. Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez continues to hold onto his congressional seat and draw a $136,000 salary. The 37-year veteran San Antonio Democrat, who announced last September he would retire at the end of the 1997 session and is not running for re-election, hasn’t voted since last July and or been to Washington since November. A serious illness kept Gonzalez away from the House for six weeks last summer. “No one is going to openly question whether he should resign or not because he’s Henry B.,” one Democratic aide told the Houston Chronicle in yes terday’s editions. “Everybody knows he’s not here ... doing the kind of job a member should be doing. But we just sort of shrug our shoulders.” His offices in the capital and his home district continue to provide basic constituent services, but his decision to keep his post has raised eyebrows among colleagues. However, no one in the Chronicle story was will ing to be quoted by name as suggesting that Gon zalez should retire, though some House members privately said exactly that. On July 24, the date of his last House votes, he was unable to finish the day’s business and checked himself into Bethesda Naval Hospital complaining of fatigue and congestion. Tests on the 82-year-old politician, the first Mex- ican-American elected to Congress from Texas, re vealed the problem was a gum infection that had spread to a heart valve. After a two-week stay in the hospital, Gonzalez went home to San Antonio to recuperate. A short time later, citing his heart condition, he an nounced that he would resign at the end of 1997. However, he reversed course last March and said he was going to serve out his term to avoid passing the cost of a special election on to the voters of his district. His term expires at the end of 1998. His son, Charlie, has since won the Democratic nomination for the seat and will face Republican James Walker this fall. The Chronicle reported it was unable to reach Gonzalez for comment. Aides in Washington and San Antonio told the newspaper no one on the staff had been authorized to speak for him. Friends say he still gets around San Antonio and checks in with his staff, but no one would discuss the current state of his health. “He’s very private. He’s been that way for the 35 years I’ve known him,” said San Antonio banker and Gonzalez friend William Sinkin, who said the congressman asked him not to comment on his condition or affairs. However, Sinkin acknowledged in the Chronicle story that some Gonzalez supporters assumed he would at least return to Washington from time to time as he served out his term. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, the second- longest serving Texas congressman behind Gon zalez, said through a spokesperson that Gonzalez still is being advised by doctors to avoid extend ed trips to Washington. One aide who declined attribution said both Re publicans and Democrats have come to assume that Gonzalez won’t be around to help or hurt them on crucial legislation. “It’s unfortunate that his great legislative ca reer is going to be defined by the fact that he just didn’t show up for the last year and a half,” the aide added. Tax breaks for Federal Exprep could help bring more busine 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m,Worker) Federal Express waitattlie| PC' Service Source’s packinl and load computer pd overnight delivery to tech:] across the country. And the companyadvete ability to deliver parts the r.-p "In our business,ifsabkl | k lot/, said. "Many business fy c a p ac i t a ted wi t hout their cl e rs and printers. They can'll] Promoters of RossPerot l ■ liance development, whi;:||t 1 | generated 12,100 jobs ci:jU{ past nine years, saytheFefiKtl at Alliance is an addedattnMJ in the Fort Worth areaforcJLl nies that make expensive® 1 nets and need to ship then* J keep customers happy. a , “You’re going to getthtfe v alue product industries time sensitive in deliveryitH, turners." Jay 1 laves,thedireMi business development I |aF liance developerHillwoodifatii opment (lorp, said. [uc< mf n g Mutual fund firm plans 300-acre business camjtjj. FORT WORTH (AP) — As a bill moves through the North Carolina General Assembly to give Federal Express $115 million in tax breaks over the next 20 years as incentive to build a similar hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport, FedEx’s promoters say that such a hub would attract big businesses to the Triad. But at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, business leaders say the FedEx hub is just one of many reasons that companies have set up shop here. “The FedEx hub is an enhance ment,” Mike Rosa, vice president for research and development at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, said. “It is not the be-all that ends all, that creates an entire economy.” Alliance also is home to major water lines, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail hub and Interstate 35, which runs from Canada to Mexico. “Our cup runneth over, basical ly, when it comes to transporta tion. The only thing we don’t have is you can’t sail a big freighter up and unload it,” Rosa said. “There’s not going to be many places that are going to have as many check marks when it comes to access, and this (FedEx hub) helps.” Intel Corp. plans to build a $ 1.3 billion computer-chip plant at Al liance over the next four years. A couple of hundred yards from that site, in the business park that surrounds the airport, pharmacists and technicians for PCS Health Sys tems Inc. fill 20,000 prescriptions a day and ship them hy FedEx, Unit ed Parcel Service or the U.S. mail to patients as far away as Maine. A few miles away, white ware houses are rapidly spreading to cover the prairie on both sides of a highway. Being next door to FedEx’s hub at Alliance has helped PC Service Source Inc., the largest supplier of repair parts for computer-service companies. Paul Klotz, a vice pres ident, said the company has ex tended its cutoff for orders from FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Fidelity Investments, the mutual fund giant, has contracted to buy about 300 acres north of downtown Fort Worth for a business campus that initially could house as many as 2,000 workers, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Sunday in a copyright story. Citing sources close to the deal, the newspaper reported that Fidelity would pay in the range of $35 million for 200 acres belonging to developer Ross Perot jr. and 100 neigh boring acres belonging to Westlake mayor Scott Bradley. Boston-based Fidelity already has a regional operating center in nearby Irving — one of seven national) employs 2,000 people. Officials with Fidelity, the nation's largest mots, management firm, declined to comment forthep any plans for North Texas expansion. The deal could hinge on whether a legal dispu town boundaries can be settled among Perot; Worth suburb of Westlake and Fort Worth. Sow told the newspaper that the company does notw suits to interfere with its building plans. HTUa| L' 1 .ou Scientists look to uncover 120-year-old remains DALLAS (AP) — The body of thrice-hanged Texas outlaw Bloody Bill Longley, whose burial site has long been missing, could be unearthed in central Texas this week. Scientists are set to excavate an unmarked grave on Saturday in Giddings, the town 180 miles south of Dal las where the outlaw was finally executed. The plot is one of dozens they've explored in their lengthy search for the bones of the missing and storied gunslinger. “It's promising," University of Texas at Arlington researcher Brooks Ellwood told The Dallas Morning News in a story for yesterday's editions. Samples taken from the suspected grave suggest that it is more than a century old. And research based on old photos indicates the site is where Lon- gley's grave should be, the newspaper reported. Born in 1851 in Austin County, Longley was first hanged by anti-rustling zealots in Arkansas, but some how lived through it. Legend holds that he was either cut down after the lynching broke up, or that one of the departing vigilantes fired a parting shot that by chance cut the rope from which Bloody Bill dangled. The crime that got him officially sentenced to death was the fatal shotgunning of Wilson Ander son as he plowed on his Lee County farm in 1875. Longley apparently suspected the farmer had slain his cousin, Cale Longley. Longley got away, but was captured two years lat er in Louisiana and brought back to Giddings, where he was convicted and sent to the gallows. At the Oct. 11, 1878, proceedings, the con demned man, who once boasted of killing more than 30 deserving people, told the crowd that he had miscounted. Though he said he only killed eight, he was hanged anyway. Not easily, however. When the trap door fell from under his feet, Longley dropped all the way to the ground and collapsed in a very-much-alive heap. Officials quickly hoisted Longley and launched him into eternity — or myth — making it the third of infamous gunslinger time he danced on air. Applause broke out among the more than 4,000 spectators. From there, his body was reportedly buried in the town's cemetery. A piece of petrified wood was placed on the Lon gley plot as a marker. But it was carelessly moved about the cemetery, arid the grave was lost. The Longley bones have been on the Smith sonian Institution's most wanted list for more than a dozen years. Ellwood, his associate Suzanne Ellwood and Smithsonian Museum forensic anthropologist Dou glas Owsley will open the promising grave in Gid dings Cemetery as they did 21 others in the grave yard after the hunt began in 1992. Using sensitive scientific instruments, the Ellwoods detected 34 unmarked graves in the Giddings Ceme tery. Each was eliminated as a potential Longley grave. If successful, the exhumation would end years of speculation as to his final resting place. New look-alike cerebral pf 11 discovered, found treats FTiH 1*3.95 % CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Some children who are thought to have cerebral pal sy, a devastating and largely untreatable movement disor der, may instead have a rare look-alike disease that can be treated, according to a Uni versity of Virginia scientist. Joel Trugman discovered the new disease in a 3-year-old cen tral Virginia girl. His findings were published Friday in the medical journal Annals of Neurology. Trugman said the child's dis ease is a new form of a genetic disorder called GTP-cyclohy- drolase enzyme deficiency. Unlike cerebral palsy, the problem can be treat! a combination of two L-dopa and biopter/n, man said. Trugman cautioned I probably only a smallporl children diagnosed withe* palsy have this treatabletF In a survey by KeithH;I the University of Texas,o‘l of the first 30 childrenwifl bral palsy tested positivef new disease, Trugman sa l Trugman encouragedtf of children with cerebral* visit a cerebral palsy cliniU| a physician to testtheirof for a biopterin defideiK| hallmark of the disease pager airtime Discount Paging System Free Activation 'Accessories Calling Cards Aerial phones sold here vJX www.schulman-theatres.com Bcs online www.lockon.com 2080 E. 29th St., Bryan 775-2463 BOX OFFICE OPENS AT 12:30 /Vow Showing - Today’s Times Only ARMAGEDDON EH (PG13) 1:00 4:00 7:00 10:00 DR. 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