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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2000)
How would you LSAlVGMAiVGREXMCAfkj>AT Take a FREE Test Drive and find out! Now is your chance to take a practice test under real test conditions. Experience Kaplan’s Test Drive and you’ll receive individual feedback on your performance. Don’t miss this free opportunity to find out how you would score on the real exam. Saturday, February 19 check-in 8:30 am Texas A&M University Heldenfelds Hall MCAT room 105 • LSAT room 107 Call 1-800-KAP-TEST to register! Or take it online from February 15-29 at kaptestdrive.com! KAPLAN 1-800-KAP-TEST kaptest.com AOL keyword: kaplan Camp Day 2000 Tuesday, February 15, 2000 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM MSC Hallway & Flag Room Interview for summer positions as camp counselors and staff. Wanted: People with an interest in kids and skills in archery arts baseball basketball boating camping canoeing crafts dance drama equestrian activities fishing football hiking lifeguarding music nature/outdoor education riflery tennis soccer, swimming theater Sponsored by the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, the RPTS Majors Club, and the TAMU Career Center STATE Page 8 THE BATTALION I uesday, Febnu- Two firefighters killed Houston McDonald’s roof falls in blaze, cause unkm HOUSTON (AP) — Lewis Mayo and Kimberly Smith stonned into a burning McDonald’s early Monday morning to try and save the restaurant and, more importantly, anyone who might have been inside. A signal to evacuate blared when the tire Hared unexpect edly, racing toward the veteran firelighters. In an instant, the roof cratered, killing the two in the department’s lirst on-scene fatalities since 1996. Smith, 30, was the first woman among 56 Houston firefighters who have died on duty, Chief Lester Tyra said. “I was blessed by knowing these individuals and having them pass through my life,” Tyra said. Mayo, 44, and Smith took a hose into the southwest I louston restaurant before dawn to light the blaze from indoors and search for any victims. When the flames “I call upon all Houstonians to join me in prayeia firefighters and their families,” Brown said. The last full-time firefighter to die at a scene wasCjj ie Ludwick, 43, who died in a house lire in 1977.H; fighters died during the early ’80s in separate trafficaj en route to calls, and volunteer Houston lirefigkj Lopez, 39, was killed “I was blessed by know ing these individuals and having them pass through my life.” - Lester Tyra Police Chief rent I loh u as ong plao |lc wrong t lit he neve 11 ■mild have hou f hre - riJ blessed it. Meven Mayfield,47,■ llcuas last Houston firelighter l herehew duty w lien he suileredj j sl |pp 0SCt | ( ( tack during a 1998 t«M av j n g glul near I )allas. ■ a game a "We’ve been lucky. M e was dd, I look at it. So many clox| 0 ff act , hav Parry said. "I can thinkc went on where 1 thoi should have been linalitH Parry said. pk ' B'i ,U R :: K n spread, boms and radio calls alerted firefighters to get out. The captain in charge traced the his hose outside to safe ty, but the others never emerged. Mayo was found after the roof collapse but died en route to the hospital. Smith’s body, pinned in nibble, was recovered about four hours later. There were no other injuries reported from the restaurant, which was destroyed. Firelighters from Mayo and Smith’s station congregated at another nearby station to receive grief counseling and debrief ing. About 100 firefighters formed a "wall of honor,” lining the street with hats off as an ambulance carry ing Lewis passed. The cause of the fire remained under investigation Monday afternoon. Mayor Lee Brown, who visited firefighters at the scene, ordered city flags to be flown at half-staff'. Mayo, who joined the department in 1981. issu wife and three children. Parry, whiuserved alongsid the late 1980s, called him a "regular, stand-up guy/ “I le was very passionate about his job, and liken guys, he had a great sense of humor about it,” saidl like other firefighters w ore a black strip across his la Smith, who was engaged to be married, wassrcpi resentative of the department in the "combat chalte fighter skills contest. “I talked to her just three weeks ago to see it she* to be on the combat challenge team this y ear." said! described Lew is as intensely athletic and religious she couldn’t because she was going to have reconstm.' sunjerv.” Austin homeless fear Census Bureau’s tally AUSTIN (AP) As the Census Bu reau begins its tally of the U.S. population next month, officials are renewing efforts to get an accurate count of the homeless. But it will not be easy. Just try ques tioning Marjie, a 60-year-old homeless woman living behind a tool shed in Austin. “Tell them that I am one,” said Maijie, a small-boned wrinkled woman who was visibly agitated by questions in an inter view with the A us tin A mericon-Statesman. She refused to give her full name, her exact age or the year she moved to Austin. "Why do they have to know all that?” she asked. Outdoor homeless encampments in Austin are so concealed and transient that the federal government is struggling to map them. The camps violate a city “no camping” ban enacted in 1996, and they harbor people who have a profound mis trust of outsiders. Confronted with such barriers, the Census Bureau counted only 76 home less people in Austin in 1990, a figure that both city officials and homeless ac tivists say was significantly off-target. City officials estimate the homeless pop ulation now is closer to 3,800. Part of tiie problem with the 1990 count was that census takers were not dispatched to remote areas in parks and under bridges where many homeless people live. Hi is time, the plan is to do exactly that. "We did the best we could, but we just didn’t do it all that great in 1990,” said Dorothy Douglas, regional Census Bu reau official in charge of counting those who don’t live in conventional housing. This year, the bureau has sent letters to city and social service agencies re questing lists of outdoor places where the homeless live. The agency also has asked community activists and outreach work ers to seek jobs as census takers. Douglas recently met with advocates for the homeless to try to allay fears that police would accompany census takers who visit illegal encampments. Advocates for the homeless expressed interest in recruiting the homeless to count themselves. Even if that happens, opinion is divided over the results. “There’s a lot of mistrust,” said Cindy Bretschneider, who produced a docu mentary about a homeless camp that was disbanded by police a few years ago. “They won't let just anybody in. Some of them are not wanting their fam ily to find them. Some of them have done something wrong. They'd be afraid to be found because of the way police treat them. Some of them have mental health issues,” she said. Europeai colony unearthel News in Brief Defendant enters surprise guilty plea SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A man about to go on trial for capital murder in a triple slaying pleaded guilty Monday, even though he still could get the death penalty. Clifford Kimmel, 24, entered the plea as opening statements were to begin in his trial. Jury selection had taken more than three weeks. Kimmel and another man were charged in connection with the deaths last April of Rachel White and Susan Halverstadt, both 22, and Brett Roe, 29. All three victims suffered multiple stab wounds. Their bodies were found in an apartment in northwest San Antonio. Pagans object to signs on campus NACOGDOCHES (AP) — Religious differences spurred by a roadside ban ner have pitted pagans against Christians at one East Texas university. The sign — strung across a road at Stephen F. Austin State Univer sity — came down Tuesday but is scheduled to go back up in two weeks. It read “This campus belongs to God” and had hung across the main entrance leading to the school’s administration building. According to university rules, the sign can go up for 14 days, must come down for two weeks and then can return for another 14 days. CORPUS CHR1STI Work is advancing on the moa sive excavation of Fort St. earthing conclusive evidence historic Spanish outpost was the same soil where French ' Sieur de La Salle established' first European colon): A paper trail dating back to the lateUMshavl ways stated the fort dubbcdPres La Bahia in Goliad - wentupi the state’s 300-year-old French ment site. Scholars said the discovery shed the state's first European ment, as well as the Spanishcolflj lion of the region. “This is where Texas started,] James I . Bruscth, the state’s Hist) Commission director of archat “La Salle’s building of Fort St. L<f why we have our Spanish herit are so proud of.” The 1996 discovery of eight! iron cannons belonging to La the Keeran Ranch near Victoria! pave the way. The historical ct sion’s team of archaeologists full-scale investigation ofthesiteirj uary, only recently narrowing cus to a 4 1 /2-acre site on the Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur 1 Salic, setting sail from Francein with four ships and a crew of400 tie the Mississippi River basin, around the tip of Cuba hut river — wandering instead Matagorda Bay. Today, a state archaeologist] claim to locating La Belle in brackish waters about 25 miles the fort site. La Salle led thee' tion that found the fort deserted 1 all the settlers had died from hit lacks and disease. A break came last spring chaeologists, using a sum metal detector called a magnt finally ferreted out the elusive 1 Nuestra Senora de Loreto debit del Espiritu Santo, the fort Domingo Ramon established in' on the ruins ofFort St. Louis. two qu lookin that streak, limon’s elh I Here's h ■at elbow \ ir prison. Aggress essential )rts. No c boost th; ve toapk listed, how< ayers are i •ession. Oi ught to pi; bid, most o Fouls an ■art of the g football, six here conta tught up ir |and, playei ctions may o not even During I ast January fourt away imon took his elbow it received a t |oom, havii nd acomp hat he di |he official m SCHOLARSHIP OF»F»ORTUIMITIES For Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors <] a >< r i > Office of Honors. Programs and Academic Scholarships If you are going to t»e a sophomore or junior next year and you are interested in the Barry Go Id water Scholarship competition, or if you will be a senior and are interested in the National Science Foundation Scholarship for graduate school funding, there will be an informational meeting on February *1 6 at 4:00 p.m. in room 402 Rudder. Both scholarships are for students interested in research as a career, especially in relation to mathematics, the natural sciences, the history or philosophy of science, or engineering. Research experience is helpful for both competitions. *’«*»• On Sat. February 5, over 150 Aggies and supporters gather the Brazos Animal Shelter’s new property to begin land clearir the shelter’s Expansion Plan. Shelter staff would like to following for their participation in this special day: Aggie Fish Club Alpha Phi Omega Silver Wings Conservation Class at Blinn Texas Commercial Waste Readfield Meats Slovacek Sausage Co. William’s Family , Bra^ Animal Sh# ■ HUKAXl 2207 Pinfeather Roac Bryan, Texas 77801 775-5755 ■ ......