HAIR DESIGN
694-9755
Formal Up Do’s
118 Walton Dr.
Across from Main Entrance to Texas A&M
O
1/2 Price Margarita
w/ Purchase of Any Entree
Bryan Location
3610 S. College Ave.
846-4275
CoUege Station Location
2003 S. Texas Ave.
696-2076
Help Spread Your Aggie Spirit
Before we beat the hell outta t.u. let’s pass on
the Aggie spirit to Camp For All
r ^OR/Av
Cv Va
Aggie Orientation Leaders will have a Bonfire Tree filled with
things that Camp For All needs in the MSC November 15-19.
Please stop by and grab a flame from the Bonfire, purchase the
flame item, and bring your spirit gift to Room 314 YMCA for
donation to Camp For All by Monday, November 22.
Any questions about Camp For AH or the Bonfire Tree may be directed to
Jason Word, Jenny Barratt, or David Kessler at 862-2746.
Aggie Orientation STUDENT Department of Student Life
Leader Program LIFE Student Life Orientation
The Perfect Gifts
for Your
Aggie
Graduation.
Citizen
Watches with
Official A&M Seal
Gold-Tone $179 00
Two-Tone $159 00
Quartz Movement. 3 yr. Warranty. Water Resistant.
*Call for Quantity Prices
Available in Mens and Ladies Sizes
Sorry no mail orders
John D. Huntley ‘79
313B S College Ave.
846-8916
TAG-Heuer
SWISS MAD€ SINCE I860.
An official authorized
dealer for Tag-Heuer and Breitling.
BREITLING
1884
Page 6 • Tuesday, November J 6, 1999
s
TATE
African-American friends testi
on behalf of Berry in Jasper tri
JASPER (AP) — Several black
friends testified yesterday on behalf
of a white East Texan accused of
dragging a black man to death be
hind a pickup truck, saying they
did not believe he was a racist.
Joseph Glenn, Larry Don Buford
and Ann-Marie Norman all testi
fied they have no reason to believe
former movie theater manager
Shawn Allen Berry is a bigot.
“Shawn [Berry] had black
friends,” Buford said. “Sometimes
if a [black customer] at the theater
didn’t have enough for a ticket,
he’d give them money out of his
pocket or give them a ticket.”
Glenn, who once worked with
Berry at a tire store, said he had
never heard Berry make racist state
ments and that Berry was close to
John Jefferson, a black man who is
now deceased. Berry cried at Jef
ferson’s funeral, Glenn said.
The three were among a parade
of more than a dozen witnesses
who told jurors that they had nev
er known Berry to be a racist. Some
also testified that Berry did not like
confrontation and backed down
from fights.
Berry’s brother, Louis Berry,
said they were not raised to hate
blacks or anyone else.
“1 know people would expect
me to say that
because he’s
my brother, but
it’s the truth,”
he said.
Prosecutors
in the capital
murder case
have not tried
to prove that
Berry, 24, har
bored long
standing racial
prejudices. i.
They do charge
that he participated in the June 7,
1998, dragging death of James
Byrd Jr., making him as culpable as
his two former roommates, who al
ready have been convicted and
sentenced to death.
Berry and the roommates
picked up an inebriated Byrd, 49,
along a Jasper road. Byrd was tak
en outside of town, beaten,
chained to the back of Berry’s pick
up and dragged three miles along a
'7 did not find him to
espouse any white
supremacist dogma
or doctrine,...."
Dr. Edward Gripon
Witness
rural road. Byrd’s decapitated
corpse was left beside the road.
John William King, 25, and
Lawrence Russell Brewer, 32, were
portrayed at their
trials as avowed
white suprema
cists covered in
racist tattoos.
Berry could
join King and
Brewer on death
row if jurors de
cide he was more
than the fright
ened bystander
he claims to
have been.
Dr. Edward Gripon, whose tes
timony helped put King and Brew
er on death row, said yesterday that
Berry did not share the racial ha
tred of his friends.
“I did not find him to espouse
any white supremacist dogma or
doctrine, and there’s no prior histo
ry to indicate that,” Gripon said un
der questioning from Berry’s attor
ney, Joseph C. “Lum” Hawthorn.
Gripon conceded that Berry
showed “relatively poorj;
in picking up Byrd whe
about his friends’ allegi| |
racist prison gang.
Prosecutors asked se ■.
nesses why Berry moveJ|
racists. Christie Marconiu
girlfriend, explained if
grandfather evicted hk: :
house about 15 milesotL
town because he did nr
able transportation towob|
ten borrowed a vehicle: .
her grandfather’s name.
“If my grandfatherwc.:
let him stay at the house
never would have mota
Marcontell said.
When asked aboutac.:.
she once filed claiming:,
abused her during a doiir
pute, Marcontell said she:!
a ted the events.
Dr. Lynn Pearson,anon
surgeon who examinedBr
days before the killing. -
that a broken bone in . .
hand would have made :
to struggle with ByrdorheJ
heavy chain.
Supreme Court hears debate over pray
before public high-school football gam
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court
re-entered the emotional debate over school
prayer yesterday, agreeing to decide whether
public schools can let students lead group in
vocations at high school football games.
A Galveston County, Texas, school board is
asking the justices to overturn a lower court
ruling said student-led prayers over the public-
address system at football games violate the
constitutionally required separation of church
and state.
“The school district is not causing prayer or
endorsing prayer if it leaves to the student the
choice of what to say,” school district lawyer
Lisa A. Brown said after the nation’s highest
court granted review. “There’s a long tradition
in many states of having this pre-game cere
mony of having a moment of reflection before
the game begins.”
But the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans Unit
ed for Separation of Church and State contend
ed such prayers at officially siponsored school
events violate the Constitution.
“The school’s giving you the microphone; it
will sound like an officially sanctioned religious
statement, and that’s what has no place at a
high school football game,” Lynn said.
The Supreme Court’s decision, expected by
late June, could help clarify the jumbled state
of the law surrounding school prayer.
The justices’ last major school-prayer ruling,
in 1992, barred clergy-led prayers at public school
graduation ceremonies.
“The Constitution forbids the state to exact re
ligious conformity from a student as the price of
attending her own high school graduation,” the
court said then.
The ruling was viewed by many as a strong
reaffirmation of the highest court’s 1962 deci
sion banning organized, officially sponsored
prayers from public schools.
But in 1993, the justices let stand a federal
appeals court ruling in a Texas case that allowed
student-led prayers at graduations. That ruling,
which also applies to Louisiana and Mississip
pi, conflicts with another federal appeals court
decision barring student-led graduation prayers
in nine Western states.
Yesterday’s case comes from an area of the
country where some people joke that football is
almost a religion.
Four students and their parents sued the San
ta Fe Independent School District in 1995, seek
ing to end student-led prayers over the public-
address system at home football games in the
Houston suburb. The district’s policy allows stu
dents to give an “invocation” or “message.”
The students also challenged the district’s pol
icy of allowing student-led prayers at graduations,
but the Supreme Court said its review will be lim
ited to the issue of prayers at football games.
A federal judge allowed student-led prayers at
football games if students were told to keep them
“nonsectarian and non-proselytizing.” The case
does not involve prayers in team locker rooms.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals reversed the decision and said
student-led prayers at high school football
games are always out of bounds.
Football games are “hardly the sober type of
annual event that can be appropriately solem
nized with prayer,” the appeals court said with
a 2-1 vote.
The school district’s appeal to the Supreme
Pick up your FREE
AGGIE RING pictures
At the Senior E-Walk table
located in the MSC.
11-8 to 11-19
Some past school-prayer rulings!
Supreme Court:
• Public school officials cannotr:
students to begin each school dayr
nized prayers by saying a state-cor
prayer. Engel vs. Vitale in 1962.
• Public school officials cannot
students to recite the Lord's Prayer
from the Bible as part ofadevotior
else. School District ofAbington Tom
Schempp in 1 963.
• Public schools generally must 3^-
student prayer groups to meet and l
ship if other student dubs ave permitt#
school. Westside Boord of Education vs. “
gens in 1 990.
• Clergy-led prayers — invocation!-
benedictions — at public school gracL'
ceremonies violate the constitutional
quired separation of church and state.t|
Weisman in 1992.
Court said its policy “neither requiresr
hibits a religious message” and is “aimed]
sons with the maturity to realize tl:
sage given is, in fact, that of a student;
that of the state.”
Barring students from sayingapraye:
violate the Constitution’s free-speedi;
tee, the district’s lawyers said.
The district’s appeal was support;
friend-of-the-court brief submitted byT;
eight other states — Alabama, Cc
Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, NebrasL
Carolina and Tennessee.
Bonfire long sleeve t-shiili
and sweatshirts
are on sale in the MSC
this week between 10 and
Long sleeve $14
Come on Baby
Light my Fire
Sweatshirts $20
From Trash
to Tradition
Brought to you by Traditions Council
4^ MSC HOSPITALITY
presents...
Hunger <& Homelessness Awareness Week
November 15th-19th
WEDNESDAY
11/17/99 12:00pm
Come join a discussion panel
featuring homeless members
of the B/CS community. Learn
about hunger and poverty in our
local area.
MSC FLAGROOM
Questions call 845-1515
t Personswithdisabilitiejplrasecall8<5-I515toiiilomuijofyom-
/t special needs. We request nctif cation three (3) wirtdng days piior
to the event to enable o to astst you to the best of our abilities.
This week:
THURSDAY
CAMP OUT FOR A CAUSE
The Grove 6:00-dawn
From 6:00-8:00 enjoy FREE
food and pitch your tent.
Beginning at 8:00 with Dr. Southerland,
Yell Leaders, Date Auction, music by
24/7 & Black Bird, and a late night movie.
FRIDAY
Koldus 110 12:30
HUNGER BANQUET
An opportunity to gain an understanding
of how much poverty and hunger exists,
tickets: $3.00
MSC E.L. Miller"
Science and Technology Committee
Science and Technology Tour and
Professional Development Trip - Austin
Institute for Advanced Technology
Friday, November 19th
MSC E.L. Miller presents its first tour and professional development trip 10
Institute for Advanced Technology, a research lab for the U.S. Military.
Information about internships, co-ops, and permanent positions will ben 1 '
available, and resumes will be accepted. Cost for the trip will be $3.50. VY
may possibly be visiting other sites in Austin as well.
ac For more information, please call 845-7 , €>25
by noon on Tuesday, November 15th.