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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 1999)
105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY THURSDAY Augusts, 1999 Volume 105 • Issue 182 • 8 Pages College Station, Texas aggielife ■ Clinton es yesterday as i Cuba undei ween the An® in mi has been move u ba, not Cuba remain ■d to the Cub; governing char r flights from Ni id Los Angeles ournalists, scho ps and others« rent rules alst y U.S.-based® ilowed to a rioted access band’s foreign to visit Cubaari a ns “considere; deluding ? said U.S. rules: a ting counterre ibuttal District afCdivJ 0 the decades-: v u'ring peop(e: ; ;l nr opportunities 1 id to persona rtf political editor;: he two groupsr| regulations a- , stitutional andil er needed gun d:h of cable, sfil and the Inter; ces of news r ation. • College Station’s bike run attracts Harley owners and vendors from across the U.S. PAGE 3 today’s issue Sports 6 News 8 Reminder: Today s issue is the final issue of The Battalion for the Summer 1999 semester. Fall publication will resume on Aug. 25. opinion • Texas’ unique characteristics make it ill-suited to play host to the Olympic Games. PAGE 7 pm Exhibit presents world kites n the 1 are interests >our top mi s Desk irtfst t W ith a tan background, red and black stripes and a circle cut out in the center, one of the Grandmas ter fighter kites from the Peo ple’s Republic of China is dis played as part of the Weifong International Kite Festival show cased at J. Wayne Stark Gal leries until Sept. 12. The Weifong International Kite Festival, displays interna tional kites of various shapes, sizes and themes as well as a wide range of form and purpose. They are organized by country of origin and are accompanied by informational essays describ ing the kites’ origins, the materi als used to make them and the cultural roles kites play. The Grandmaster kites can fly up to 3,000 feet without wind and are commonly used in competition to cut away oppo nents’ kites with their line. China is believed to be the first country to mimic soaring birds with its kites and to use light materials such as bamboo and highly balanced paper. By comparison, kitemakers in the United States use more modern materials because the Wind in the U.S. tends to be stronger than in China. Folklore-themed kites repre senting Japan are very large and need teams of people to fly them. The Japanese kites are much more intricately designed and are supplemented by 3-D visuals, while Malaysian Kites are more artistically shaped with promi nent geometric features, while they “add music to the wind,” ac cording to its informational card. Although the popularity of kite-flying declined in the in dustrial period because of high- tension wires, it now is on the rise again. see Kites on Page 2. Story by Suzanne Brabeck Photos by Guy Rogers Photo Illustration by Guy Rogers and Mark McPherson Thompson to retire Chancellor to take position as senior adviser BY CARRIE BENNETT The Battalion After five years as chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, Dr. Barry Thompson has an nounced his retirement, but will hold the title of “chancellor senior advisor” until Aug. 31 and help new chancellor Gen. Howard Graves make a smooth transition. The Board of Regents voted at their last meeting in July to make Thompson “Chancellor Emeritus” upon his official retirement Aug. 31. Thompson said since he began working for the System in 1975, he has been dedicated to improving higher education. He said he will continue to be a supporter of high er-education improvements into his retirement. “I will be more outspoken in the future than 1 have been in the past,” he said. “Also, I plan to be an advocate for students, student programs and help provide access for all students in Texas to higher ed ucation. J intend to continue to support those state policies that 1 think are important to the future of this state.” While serving as chancellor, Thompson accom plished many tasks, such as leading the establish- THOMPSON ment of the Texas Higher Education Coalition, a group of leaders representing all of the higher ed ucation institutions in the state dedicated to re taining and aiding college students in their gradu ation efforts. A proposal to the 75th Texas Legislature generat ed by the coalition resulted in $594 million in addi tional funding for increased partnerships between four-year universities, community colleges and pub lic schools. Thompson said he could not have ac complished as much as he did without the help of others on his staff. “There are a lot of people that work with me and one single person can do very little,” Thompson said. “There have been a number of significant ac complishments the people in Texas once again have trusted to the A&M System such as the fact that high er education has received the most funding its ever received in history over the last two [state legisla tive] sessions.” Thompson said his other accomplishments in clude the creation of the Texas A&M System Health Science Center, and the integration of the regional universities with Texas A&M and the eight state agencies so the System runs more smoothly. “It’s been a good ride,” Thompson said. see.Thompson on Page 2. Good as gold A&M professor examines potential uses of gold BY STUART HUTSON The Battalion A Texas A&M professor’s re search on manipulating the struc ture and functions of gold may lead to new applications in the field of medicine and the environment. Dr. John P. Fackler has been re searching gold since the mid-’70s, and is continuing research on the properties of gold pertaining to its use in the field of medicine. One of gold’s first uses as a drug was an unsuccessful attempt to mix a form of the element with sul fur. The mixture was supposed to treat tuberculosis. Instead, what doctors found was an improvement in patients’ suffering from symp toms of rheumatoid arthritis. “Gold has been used as a medi cine for a long time,” Fackler said. “But only in the last two decades have we begun to understand why it is effective.” Fackler said gold ions have a tendency to eliminate damaging chemicals in the body, such as ox idants and cyanide, commonly found in arthritis-afflicted cells. He “Gold has been used as a medicine for a long time, but only in the last two decades have we begun to understand why it is effective” — Dr. John P. Fackler A&M professor said gold may sometimes act in place of certain enzymes, ridding the cells of these chemicals. Gold’s tendency to act in place of enzymes is being explored for use in targeting cancer cells in can cer-laser therapies and will soon be used to produce new forms of light sources. Fackler is also studying how the luminescent properties of gold may be used to detect harmful chemicals. He found that a certain chemi cal structure of gold, when exposed to ultraviolet light, glows until it comes in contact with certain chemicals, such as chlorine or bro mide, which may be harmful to the environment. Fackler said this finding may be used to create a chemical de tector. The. detector would be made from a strip of gold-covered paper and then be exposed to a black light. Fackler said one of the most useful potential applications of gold as a chemical detector would be to use a water soluble-form of luminescent gold to detect water pollutants. s Desk ide paged®; gner >r h? ? (include cial attention 1 r publicafiti' miples). | Police investigating Aggie junior’s death BY VERONICA SERRANO The Battalion Officials are investigating the death of an A&M student that oc curred Tuesday morning, his 21st birthday. Michael Duane Wagener, a ju nior environmental design major of Porter, was found unconscious in his apartment after police re ceived a 911 call at 7 a.m., Sgt. Charles Fleeger of the College Sta tion Police Department said. Fleeger said Wagener was treat ed at the scene then taken to the College Station Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. He said the police department is in vestigating the death. Sgt. Labam Toscano of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Com mission (TABC) said the commis sion is also investigating the death. “Through a preliminary inves tigation and eyewitness reports. the indication is that it [the death] was alcohol related,” Toscano said. “But we can’t say conclu sively [if it was alcohol related] until we get the medical exami nation and autopsy.” He said some College Station establishments that serve alcohol have been questioned by a TABC agent. John Miller, manager of The Dixie Chicken, said the restaurant was not questioned by the TABC. He said the establishment’s policy is to wait until 12 a.m. of a person’s birthday before serving him or her alcohol. He said bartenders will not serve alcohol to a person who ap pears “somewhat intoxicated” unless he or she is accompanied by a designated driver. “We want the person to have fun responsibly,” Miller said. see Death on Page 2. Library namesake Evans turns 100 BY NONI SRIDHARA The Battalion CODY WAGES/Th e Battalion Texas A&M graduate student Allison Henry signs a lOOth-birthday card for Sterling C. Evans last week. The card was presented to Evans during his birthday party this weekend. The namesake of Texas A&M’s main library will turn 100 years old today. Sterling C. Evans, who graduated from A&M jn 1921 with a degree in agriculture, formally celebrated his birthday early last weekend in his present hometown of Bracketville, where a gi ant birthday card signed by hundreds of A&M students was presented to him. “We wanted to celebrate and capture the monumental achievements of Sterling Evans in a birthday card that was signed by as many stu dents as possible,” Fred M. Heath, dean and di rector of the Sterling C. Evans Library, said in a press release. The customized card “pictorially captures Evans as ‘the Man of the Century,”’ and features historical moments and heroes of the 20th cen tury, a press release said. In recognition of his reaching the century mark, the Evans Library acquired the Kelmscott Press edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer through a gift from John and Sara Lindsey of Houston. Charlene Clark, public relations officer for Evans library, said Evans was instrumental in shaping the library even before it was officially named in honor of him in 1975. Clark said he founded the Friends of the Li brary Program in 1970, which allows supporters to donate money and materials on various levels. “He’s our [the library’s] No. 1 champion,” she said. “He has been very active in building support for the library and has also served as president.” William N. Stokes, author of Evans’ biogra phy which was published in 1985 and a former employee of Evans who is 90 years old, joking ly said he always thought Evans was a lot old er than him since he met him back in the 30s. “He was around 34 or 35 when I met him and I was in my early 20s,” Stokes said. “But I always thought he was 100 years old back then.” see Evans on Page 2.