105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
MONDAY
June 28, 1999
Volume 105 • Issue 159 • 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
opinion
• The Wellborn tunnel idea
offers solution to travel on
other parts of campus.
Page 5
today’s issue
Nation 6
Battalion Radio
Tune in to 90.9 KAMU-FM at
1:57 p.m. to hear about Noah’s
Ark, an endangered-species
cloning project started at A&M.
sports
• Sports camps offer school-
age athletes the services of
A&M coaches and campus.
PAGE 3
Former mascot put to sleep
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AGGIELAND
former Texas A&M mascot Reveide V was put to sleep Friday afternoon
at the age of 14.
BY NONI SRIDHARA
The Battalion
She beat out 1,999 others to gain
the famed title she carried for nine
years. During her 1985 -1993 reign,
she paraded around Kyle Field, ac
companied the Aggie football team
to all its games home and away, in
cluding six Southwest Conference
Football Championship and two
Cotton bowl titles.
She also went to all home bas
ketball games. She managed to fit
into her busy schedule guest ap
pearances at many baseball and
volleyball games.
As she attempted to gain a high
er education, one of her favorite
shenanigans was stealing erasers
off chalkboards in classrooms.
But during the dog days of sum
mer, 14-year old Reveille V was put
to sleep Friday afternoon due to
rapidly deteriorating health condi
tions and old age.
Dr. Claudia Barton, a veterinar
ian and professor of small animal
medicine who was in charge of
Reveille V’s medical treatment,
said in a press release the decision
to euthanize her was based on
medical and humane concerns.
“Reveille V suffered from severe
arthritis and degenerative myelopa
thy,” she said. “The arthritis was
causing severe pain and the de
generative myelopathy was im
pairing the neurological function of
her rear legs. We were at the point
where medication could no longer
maintain her quality of life.”
Reveille V came to A&M in De
cember 1984 when she was four
months old and made her first ap
pearance as A&M’s mascot Jan. 11,
1985 at a basketball game. She was
selected for her marking and lin
eage and because she was a direct
descendant of a championship,
purebred American Collie.
Jon Andresen, a senior political
science major in Mascot Company
E-2, said the Reveilles are general
ly retired around 9 1/2 or 10 years
of age.
“We want to give them a couple
of years without such busy sched
ules so they can just run around in
the backyard and relax,” he said.
Even after her retirement, she
maintained close contact with
cadets in Mascot Company E-2,
Reveille VI, current and former
mascot corporals and former yell
leaders, thanks to the family of Dr.
Joe West who took care of her dur
ing her retirement.
Andresen said Reveille V will be
the first Reveille to be interred in
Cain Park because of the construc
tion currently taking place at Kyle
Field. He said after the construction
is complete she will be moved back
to Kyle Field.
Carleton Johnson, commanding
officer for Company E-2 and a se
nior finance major, said because
the death occurred during the sum
mer break, a military-type memor
ial service for Reveille V will be
held Sept. 11 so the entire student
body can participate.
Andresen said he expects the
burial ceremony for Reveille V to
be similar to that of Reveille IV who
died in 1989, which turned out to
be a very large production.
“There were about 40 to 50,000
people at the ceremony for Reveille
IV,” he said.
He said there will probably be a
march-in by the Corps of Cadets
and then a reading of the poem
see Reveille on Page 2.
- Changes made to loan program
BY STUART HUTSON
■ ^ r ^ ie Battalion
■ The U.S. Department of Educa
tion is reducing fees on the Direct
Loan program to make the fees sim-
, ilar to those charged by the Feder
al Family Education Loan program
(FILL).
■ The FFEL program, which is cur
rently in use at Texas A&M, allows
students to borrow money from
banks and other third-party
lenders. Schools may also use the
Direct Loan program, in which stu
dents can borrow money from the
ti,j federal government through their
schools.
KThe Department of Education
will reduce the up-front loan fee on
l direct loans from 4 percent to 3 per-
M cent, and reduce the interest rate
^ by 0.25 percent. It will also offer an
additional 0.6 percent interest-rate
reduction for direct loan borrowers
who consolidate their loans before
they enter loarr repayment: -~*~
“The reason A&M is
staying with the FFEL
program is that it
offers students the
benefit of saving
more money.”
—Robert Lawson
Student Financial Aid Department
Jane Glickman, a spokesperson
for the Department of Education,
said the direct loan fee drops will
result in an average total savings of
$631 for a graduate with a debt of
$10,000 and a standard 10-year re
payment plan.
“We feel this is an appropriate
mate-to change to at this time to
make the Direct Loan program dis
count similar to the ones offered by
the FFEL program,” she said.
Robert Lawson, assistant direc
tor of the Student Financial Aid De
partment, said that the reductions
come from benefit packages offered
for things such as making pay
ments on time.
“The reason A&M is staying with
the FFEL program is that it offers
our students the benefit of saving
more money,” he said.
Lawson said he doubts the direct
loan reductions, which must be
approved by Congress, will actual
ly be enacted due to resistance by
the Republican party.
Glickman said she thinks there
will be little resistance in Congress
because section 455 of the Higher
Education Act, which created the
Direct Loan program.
Bryan falls short of All-America City
Former yell leader, Aggie Wranglers
accompany delegates to Philadelphia
BY VERONICA SERRANO
The Battalion
. iittBryan’s best was not enough to bring the title of All-Amer-
A It ica City home to Bryan when the 10 unranked winners of the
'title were announced Saturday night in Philadelphia, Pa.
Bpormer head yell leader Brandon Neff and four Aggie
Wrangler couples accompanied the more than 100 repre-
pent" sentatWes for the city of Bryan to the three-day competition
n Cerfwhieh began June 24. The city vied against 29 other cities
competing for the title of All-America City. Representatives
were judged on a 10-minute presentation and a 10-minute
, question-and-answer session about the city.
n0 ca ; Joe Brown, public information officer for the city of
nctibfcBryan, said he was disappointed by the loss. He said while
expen^his year’s loss was harder to swallow than last year’s, he
and the other delegates learned a great deal from other
? -cities. He said the portion of the competition during which
4) c jties had to discuss three projects in which local busi-
format'ness, government and nonprofit organizations worked to-
:ARE igether to improve the lives of the community’s residents
was a good source of information.
H‘Tm sure in the near future, we’ll (Bryan representatives)
sit down and discuss how to implement new programs or im
prove the ones we already have,” Brown said.
|F‘ Brown said Neff and the Aggie Wranglers brought a unique
flail to the city of Bryan’s presentations.
While other cities hollered pep-rally style as they were in
troduced at orientation last Thursday, the delegates turned
beads when they presented modified Aggie yells to the crowd
Df delegates from other cities, Brown said.
||“The yells we’ve been doing are just like the Aggie yells,
accept we say ‘Bryan’ instead of ‘Aggies,’” Brown said.
gllHe said the yells drew smiles and cheers from other del-
?gates and a comment from one of the judges, who said the
4her delegates would have to start working on their yells.
All-America City winners
(Unranked)
Shreveport, Louisiana
Wichita, Kansas
Union City, California
Tri-Cities, Tennessee and Virginia
Lowell, Massachusetts
Stockton, California
Rocky Mountain, North Carolina
Greater Green Bay, Wisconsin
Tupelo, Mississippi
Tallahassee, Florida
Laura Adams, secretary for the Aggie Wranglers and a se
nior kinesiology major, said she would love to come back if
the city decided to compete again.
The Wranglers were not part of the official compe
tition but were part of an optional entertainment por
tion of the All-America event. Adams said the Aggie
Wranglers were approached by other dancers after
their performance, during which the Aggie Wranglers
performed a high-speed polka and a jitterbug.
“They told us they had never seen that kind of dancing,”
she said. “People from California and Shreveport [La.] asked
for business cards.”
Brown said this year’s results were disappointing, and un
like last year he is unsure of what the city’s representatives
could have done to improve their performance.
“We’re very proud of everyone who represented our
community,” he said. “It just wasn’t what the judges
were looking for.”
TERRY ROBERSON/The Battalion
Christopher Scoggins, a senior mechanical engineering technology major, plays Plinko, a
nutrition-themed game, Friday in the Memorial Student Center.
‘Food Fling’ presents
tips for healthy Hying
BY NONI SRIDHARA
The Battalion
The Food Fling, coordinated by stu
dents in the Nutrition 430 course. Com
munity Nutrition, in conjunction with Stu
dent Health Services, dispensed advice to
students on how to maintain healthy
lifestyles.
Students got a chance to visit different
interactive nutrition booths at which they
could win free food and prizes.
The booths covered topics including
snacking, sports nutrition, fad diets.
herbal remedies, weight control, exercise
and fluids.
Heather Foster, a senior nutrition ma
jor, provided information on how to pre
vent dehydration at the fluids booth. Fos
ter said many times people do not realize
they are dehydrated.
“People think once they hear you should
drink 8 to 12 glasses of water per day that all
you can drink is water,” she said. “But it can
be anything, like juice or milk, as long as
there’s no caffeine or alcohol.”
see Food on Page 2.
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