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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1999)
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She THURSDAY April 1,1999 Volume 105 • Issue 119 • 10 Pages College Station, Texas vho was ^ Event draws 4,000 all lovedeadfl North by Northgate organizers call it a success BY MELISSA JORDAN The Battalion jotmg s >d, which crime areata' ced such bl:l some relafeBNorth by Northgate coordinators recorded dated that the 4,C|00 wrist bands were sold to event atten- It of gangsot dants at last weekend’s music festival. ™^|Bjaime Thomas, event coordinator for North by Northgate and a senior biomedical science Mjor, said, in addition to the 4,000 attendees, several hundred volunteers, band members ami free-concert audience members attended. ^■Thomas said North by Northgate grossed : the same amount as last year, but the net earn ings decreased because of increased spending 3S some so in preparation for the event. lereforseveriMThomas said she measured the success of soured rel of the you ‘ riend. parks, 85, ross thedii hooting ra there had ebuiidinea ameone woi i little boy ou len go back re ruckus. Hi pie of men in , a light blot is initially! iy Abilenepol were invfi deaths wetfff tight shoe • imy Estrada ver, Valdesi s not rttaf the event by the variety of musical entertain ment it offered attendees, as well as the sup port it provides to charity. (■“From my point of view, success is not de termined by the amount of money we made,” Thomas said. ■ Thomas said half of this year’s earnings will be given to charity and the rest will go toward preparation for next year’s event. ■ Kristine Ogilvie, co-chair for the MSC Town Hall committee and a senior industrial engi neering major, will serve as event coordinator Mike Puentes and Robert Hynecek/The Battalion for North by Northgate next year and said the event affects the College Station music scene for the entire year. “I would say it breaks people into the Col lege Station music scene,” Ogilvie said. Stephen Sandlin, art director for North by Northgate and lead singer of Haywood, said North by Northgate helps strengthen the local band scene by increasing people’s knowledge and recognition of bands in the area. “North by Northgate helps get people inter ested in the local music scene,” Sandlin said. BY APRIL YOUNG The Battalion shooting.® not knc'" '.-: ■ juveniles*® police thev £ ■ Educating the public about the effects of un protected sex is the focus during Sexually Trans- Mtted Disease (STD) Awareness Month. 0 fJlwH Margaret Griffith, health education coordina- -L ter at the A.P. Beutel Health Center, said STDs are • jptoblematic for students. UrMl “There is a huge problem with STDs in this A country, and people need to protect themselves the newspa»d get tested if they are having unprotected sex,” t is schedi. Griffith said, Hay 2. Data from the New England Journal of Medi- ro, formerS : cire reports a one-in-five occurrence of herpes r, Democrat!prong people age 12 and older in the United ernor and - States, representing an increase of 30 percent over ■planning thi past two decades. : Party fundi® Griffith said students need to understand that Clinton’s vi®lamydia, the number-one bacterial infection fac- id. ing students, is curable. iblican Gov ® “Four million people are diagnosed yearly with formed a ptWamydia, and many have it and don’t know be- ry committtfpuse the symptoms are often not noticeable,” rer to seekSpiiffitil said. ie White H® Griffith said chlamydia is 75 to 80 percent cur- allle. She said Beutel offers a test for chlamydia. s focus of month Robin Johnson, director of health educatior and health promotion at the Brazos County Healtl Department, encourages people to take necessar precautions to prevent contracting STDs. “Most STDs are preventable, so people shouh take caution by either abstaining from sex or hav ing safe sex to prevent contracting or spreadin; STDs,” Johnson said. “Anyone who is sexually active should be test ed for STDs, and if they definitely know they hav< an STD, they should get treated, because it cai lead to infertility.” Griffith said HIV is an STD affecting society a a whole. Griffith said experts at Beutel try to educat people on the effects of HIV. “We try to treat it, but the end result is death, she said. Students can make an appointment at Healtl Education Services for free HIV testing, which i provided by the AIDS Services of the Brazos Valleg Testing is available from 1 to 4:15 p.m., and test can be taken anonymously or with identification Although Beutel has not planned any program to focus on STD Awareness Month, Griffith en courages anyone interested in learning abou STDs to visit the health center for brochures. Mourning ■ MIKE FUENTES/T he Battalion Betsy Anderson, a sophomore International Agribusiness major, stops to pay her respects at an impromptu memorial that was set up for William E. Berry Jr. Berry died Tuesday afternoon after falling from the fourth floor of the Northside Parking Garage. U.S. Mint creates new coins BY ANDREA BROCKMAN The Battalion In an attempt to honor the diverse history of the United States, the U.S. Mint designed the 50 State Quarters Program. Every year from 1999 to 2008, five new coins will be circulated, each rep resenting one of the 50 states. The states will be honored in the or der they joined the Union, the first five being Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut. State designs are on the tail side of the quarters, while the heads continue to display the image of George Wash ington. The Delaware quarter was released in January, and the Pennsylvania quar ter, released in early March, should be in national circulation this summer. Dr. Victor Treat, a former associate professor of history at Texas A&M, said Photoillustration by Mike Fuentes/Thu Battalion the new coins are interesting, but they may cause confusion with the public. “We get set in our ways, especially when it comes to money," he said. “I wonder if they will be accepted in so ciety. ” Tfeat gave the Susan B. Anthony sil ver dollar as an example. “When the new dollars came out, people didn’t like them, and a lot of people refused to use them,” he said. “They had to be discontinued.” Craig Patke, a College Station resi dent, had a first-hand experience with confusion when returning items at a Best Buy. “In my change, I got one of the new Pennsylvania quarters,” he said. “At the time, I had no idea about the new coins, so I thought it was fake. I even argued with the clerk, until they final ly convinced me it was a real quarter. ” This is the first change to the quar ter since the production of the Bicen tennial quarter in 1975-1976. The tra ditional “Eagle” quarter will be put into production again in 2009. The new coins are available through circulation in commercial transactions and in collectible sets by contacting the U.S. Mint Web site at www.usmint.gov. This program is self-supported by the U.S. Mint at no additional cost to taxpayers. irried, dirk y awaiting! rture, and f I emotionally * ; both ofusJf IMU. Stay-ai’ f ed Dad. Lo v;: : awaiting tit'' andidates address urpose of tuition, fees 1 Editor’s note: With the current student body elections, the editorial board of The d Ash lee toll- Battalion has selected three topics which 1-35 5-8307,1% feels ate among the biggest issues fac- d expenseso Jng the Texas A&M campus. The seven —^ candidates for student body president as w ^identified by the election commission FE WA at : Were as ^ ecl about diversity, student safe- ^u^ ( |tyand fee increases. Each day, an article r roommate will be dedicated to one of these issues thanks to ancl Wednesday, each candidate will dis- the persona- cuss their top platform priority. This is the e that help*(pst installments, move into place witH BY EMILY SNOOKS hassles.Yo4 AND NONI SRIDHARA laning. The Battalion gstreet.c^ /p in. The seven student body president can didates hold varying opinions regarding Student fees. Kendall Kelly said raising student fees |o fund faculty salary increases has more nerit and priority than using the money Bryan to build another parking garage. opens ATjo^ Kelly said the idea of raising student rodays Twffs/ f ees percent to benefit the construc- —■ (PGi3]__j^ tion of a new parking garage is too ex- ^ pensive. She said the University should (R) implement the use of a debit-card system yjji 4nd allow students to pay for hourly-rat- jMd parking at a discounted rate. Kelly said (Jebit systems, like AggieBucks, generate (PG13) interest for the University, and the extra money could be used to fund the garage. Kelly said raising any fee needs to be justified by lowering another. Brandon Clarke said fees should in crease as needed to keep A&M current with technology and building repairs to fulfill the goals of Vision 2020. Clarke said the existing parking fees and parking accommodations are ridicu lous and need to be remedied. He said many fees are unavoidable, but students need to voice concerns to the adminis tration. “Students need to realize the power they have,” he said. “Students should go back to the day when Aggies would go knocking on the president’s door, voicing their opinions.” Brandon Neff said the student body president has a dual role concerning stu dent fees. “The student body president repre sents student government and the Uni versity,” he said. Neff said he will delegate the respon sibility of looking into how funds are dis tributed. Through communication with the faculty and administration, I believe peo ple can make more informed decisions about how funds from fees are to be al located,” he said. Neff said he wants to eliminate the possibility of printing fees from the open- access computer labs. “Students already pay enough com puter fees,” he said. “To charge students extra money for printing once they go into the labs and write up a paper would be injustice.” Will Hurd said an A&M degree is an affordable education for the majority of people in Texas. Hurd said he wants to keep the amount students pay for fees low and remove obsolete fees. Hurd said new-fee proposals should be evaluated and meet one of four crite ria before enacted. “I feel a fee is necessary if it is going toward enhancing the academic environ ment, magnifying the sense of commu nity, campus services or student ser- see Fees on Page 2. AMA president discusses life experiences, issues BY MEREDITH MIGHT The Battalion The first female president of the Ameri can Medical Association (AMA] spoke about succeeding in a male-dominated career and women’s health-care issues yesterday as part of the concluding event of Women’s Week ’99. Dr. Nancy Dickey, a board-certified fam ily physician from College Station, spoke about her rise through the ranks to become president of the AMA in 1998. “During my residency, the AMA decided to include students and residents on their policy-making bodies,” she said. Dickey ran for one of the eight council po sitions created by the AMA and was selected. Dickey said after joining the board, she became fascinated by the issues being dis cussed. “In the 1970s, we were discussing the ex cessive costs of health care and variations on health insurance — issues we are still dis cussing today,” she said. Dickey said she was surrounded by old er white males on the board and described the AMA as political. “You have to spend six to eight years on the county level, 10 years on the state level and then national level,” she said. “If med ical schools were only accepting four to five percent women in the 1960s, no wonder TERRY ROBERSON/The Battalion women weren’t able to climb that ladder be fore. It would have to take an extraordinary person.” Dickey graduated from the University of Texas at Houston Medical School in 1973; and in 1980, she was asked by the president of AMA to serve on the judicial board. Dick ey said she accepted, not realizing at the see President on Page 2.