I,
JP BEATO/Thk Battalion
; Former employee faces
-felony charges in theft
BY STUART HUTSON
The Battalion
Rachael Rhea Ingram turned herself in to
College Station Police for arrest March 15 af-
er being charged for the Feb. 24 theft of
illO.OOO from the Northgate office of the
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ly a wreath Monday at a
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exas Aggieland Credit Union.
Ingram, a 25-year-old former employee
ifthe credit union, will now face the charge
theft of U.S. currency in the amount of
iverS 100,000, a second-degree felony pun-
shableby imprisonment for not more than
years and a fine of not more than
!0
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e obstacles, as well, intnii
,veen India and Pakistan,
wars over the last half ceil
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Aggieland Credit Union Vice President
3regg Baird said the stolen money was dis-
:overed during a routine audit on March 2.
“We were doing a normal audit of our
general ledger and we discovered that we
were $110,000 short — so'after doing a
physical count of all the cash in the office,
we determined the amount had been taken
and notified the police immediately,” Baird
said. “The [auditing] detection devices
worked very quickly in discovering the
source of the loss.”
Baird said that upon further investigation,
it was discovered that the missing money, tak
en in the form of $50 and $100 bills, was di
verted from a Feb. 24 cash delivery to be used
for the credit union’s cash registers and ATM.
“It appears that certain checks that work to
ensure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen
were being overlooked,” Baird said.
“Changes have since been made to ensure that
does not happen again — along with new, ad
ditional devices to add extra security.”
Baird added that Ingram has not been
legally identified as the thief, but that she has
since been fired from her job as teller super
visor where she overlooked teller activity and
cash flow.
According to police reports, Ingram told
police she had sent the missing amount back
to the delivering credit union, but the estab
lishment’s records show no sign of such action.
The report also states that additional evi
dence against Ingram were credit union
records showing large transfers and deposits
of cash from her account into her husband’s
and her recent purchase of two new vehicles,
a 2000 Tahoe and a 2000 Dodge pickup.
Baird said the missing money will not af
fect the deposits of the members of the credit
union, and that it will be refunded by the cred
it union’s federal insurance.
Head-on car collision
claims life of student
BY MEREDITH HIGHT
The Battalion
Amanda Ritchie, a
junior agricultural busi
ness major from Hous
ton, died March 10 on
her way home for
spring break.
According to Lin
da Chanek, Ritchie’s
mother, Ritchie died
in a head-on collision
on Highway 6 about
10 miles south of Col
lege Station.
“A [sport utility
vehicle] had swerved to miss a stalled car, lost
control and went into the ditch,” she said.
When the driver of the vehicle attempted to get
back onto the highway, he collided with Ritchie’s
car. Police reports on the accident were not available
to The Battalion.
Ritchie, a member of Off Campus Aggies (OCA)
and an active participant in Aggie Bonfire, trans
ferred to Texas A&M this year after two years at the
University of Houston.
“She was a devoted Aggie all the way. She loved
the Aggie spirit and the traditions, especially bon
fire,” said Justin Ellis, Ritchie’s former bonfire crew
chief and a senior agricultural development major.
“She was out there at eveiy stage, from cut to
stack. And when it fell, she was out there the whole
time,” Ellis said.
Chanek said Ritchie was to be the co-chair for
OCA’s bonfire activities next year.
“She was at cut every weekend and did the Re
plant thing a few weeks ago,” she said.
Ritchie had planned to work on bonfire the night
of the 1999 Aggie Bonfire collapse.
“She traded with another person because she had
an exam or something. When I heard the stack fell, I
felt she was there,” she said.
Chanek said she was relieved to discover that
Ritchie was not at the site.
About 45 of Ritchie’s Aggie friends attended her
“She was a devoted Ag
gie all the way. She
loved the Aggie spirit
and the traditions ..."
— justin Ellis
friend
funeral March 14, including some OCA members in
volved in bonfire. Six of the pallbearers wore pots at
the funeral. Ritchie’s pot was placed in her coffin.
Chanek said several items, including an ax han
dle that read “We love Amanda” signed by the Ag
gies that attended the funeral, were given to the fam
ily. The group also sang a hymn at the funeral.
“She had her family here, but her second family
was in College Station,” Chanek said.
She would have celebrated her 21 st birthday March
18. She will be honored at the April 4 Silver Taps.
last summer when Pafe
itain peaks inside India. M(
ed before Clinton pers«
a/ Sharif of Pakistan toiti
ire, India and Pakistanki
1998, dramatically heieta
feud. Clinton acknowli
:at when he described then
dangerous place in thew
s over Kashmir and
Computer lab
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printing tees
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expected to pump $50 mil
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Jordan a bare muddy trick'
ismal site that John Paulis
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often here as a collects?
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BY ANN LOISEL
The Battalion
At least once a day, Clint Hajovsky, a freshman general stud-
esmajor, prints out guitar music and school-related work at a cam-
)us computer lab. He said he can not count the number of pages
le prints out every week, much less every semester.
print something every day - it might be one page, it might
>e20pages,” he admits. “But I think I print responsibly.”
The number of pages students have printed out on campus com-
luter labs has almost doubled since the Student Computing Cen-
er opened in Fall 1998, bringing estimated number of copies that
Mil be made this year to 22 million said Dr. Pierce E. Cantrell, the
issociate provost for information technology.
Cantrell said $382,000 a year from the Computer Access Fee
scurrently pays part of the cost of student printing, but the esti-
tated cost of printing comes to $850,000.
That deficit costs Computing Information Services (CIS) mon-
lyitdoes not have, and Cantrell estimates the number of printouts
mil continue to increase by 20 percent each year if the system of
unrestricted printing continues unchanged.
“The current approach of virtually unlimited printing does
Mtencourage responsibility in printing,” he said. “The deci
sion has already been made to up the printing costs, but how
be done will be decided by the students by means of
be Student Senate.”
Cantrell said his office will be working closely with the Stu-
lent Senate to work out the details of how to execute the increase.
In September 2000, students can expect to pay for the pages
ig, punching and bead bey print in the computer labs, either by paying for each sheet sep-
)les. They knockedhiml irately or with a quota system that charges for excess printouts,
said.
Cari Eggenberger, a CIS student technician and a senior ani-
er the past decade,
est, which left several^
linor injuries, contras®
quiet after
n election
(AP)
hina’s
nee and chaos werer? nal science major, said that after observing the printing process
m the job, she feels the quota is necessary and fair for students.
, “Ihadaguy that just printed out a 1,000-page document,” she
es } s „ 1 , ave § rown [ n ®' aid. “When someone does that, all the students have to pay for
s full democracyhas^ t |fwe , re , l||otted „ certain number of sheetSj your money is
icing used for your sheets. It’s more fair.’
She said CIS had been running different programs to test the
th the tone of Chen'st f f Vera l= e amount of pages students print each semester to help de-
st day as president# bdea fair quota.
“Students will have to pay for printing one way or another, and
brectcharges will keep students from subsidizing those that print
*cessively,” Cantrell said. “Anecdotal reports from other univer-
itips suggest that printing volume will reduce by 50 percent or
lore when direct charges for printing are instituted because indi-
After montlis! iduals will avoid unnecessary costs.’
government" ^ es ti n - ia ( :es t[ iat w j t i T a q UO t a system, students would not pay
after Taiwan s election 1
uld be saying, “Let'st^ See Printing on Page 2
had laid out its
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Shui-bian’s victory^
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fered a softer stance*
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22,050,55? pages
$847,847
focal Year '98
Fiscal Year'99 Fiscal Year'00
ROBERT HYNECEK/Thk Battalion
Burn, baby, burn
STUART VILLANUEVA/The Battalion
Firefighter L. Fryoux, of Norco Firefighting, instructs fellow firefighters (R to L) Jim Strohbeck, Keith Haydel and Gail Babinaux during a drill at
the Brayton Fire Training School on Monday.
Student body president candidates
address transportation concerns
This is the second part in a five-part
series. The four student body president
candidates were asked five questions in
separate interviews.
BY ROLANDO GARCIA
The Battalion
Parking and transportation issues are al
ways near the top of students’ concerns, and
the four candidates for student
body president said they are
ready to solve the problem once
and for all.
All support the Universi
ty’s move to become a pedes
trian campus and said they are
committed to improving the
busing system.
“I don’t know that putting
parking garages up everywhere
is really going to answer our problems. I think
the key is providing students with access to
any part of campus easily through our trans
portation system,” said Corey Rosenbusch, a
junior agricultural development major.
Rosenbusch said he supports implement
ing a transportation fee so bus operations can
buy new buses and run more routes to make
riding the bus a more viable option for students
living off campus.
“If we increase our busing frequency,
quality and the routes that they run, that
means you know you can be on campus in 10
minutes and be dropped off in a central hub,”
Rosenbusch said.
An improved bus system would also allow
students who live on campus convenient trans
portation to the mall, gimcery store and other
places in the community, Rosenbusch said.
Forrest Lane, a senior political science ma-
jor, said that while a commitment to the bus
system would be costly, it is the best solution
to the campus’ parking and traffic woes.
“It’s expensive, but at some point, we’re
going to have to take that bite and go for it,
because we’re in the 21st century and we
need to have a better transportation system,”
Lane said.
Jeff Schiefelbein, a senior marketing ma
jor, said closing the campus to traffic would
also improve bus efficiency.
“Once you get rid of the traffic that they
deal with on campus, then their efficiency
steps up a notch or two and all of a sudden
they’ll be running better because the conges
tion is gone,” he said.
Schiefelbein also said that while the new
parking garage and pedestrian tunnel being
built on West Campus will help alleviate traf
fic problems for students, the projects were not
designed to cater to students.
“It seems to me like a place where alumni
can park, walk underneath Wellborn and go to
a football game,” Schiefelbein said. “I would
rather have seen the garage
across the street closer to
West Campus, and for that
tunnel to be by Albritton
Tower so students that have
to go to West Campus eveiy
day could use it.”
Schiefelbein said it is im
portant to make students
more aware of transportation
issues so they can register
their opinions before final decisions are made.
“We need to be able to know why a garage
may or may not be located there, rather than
when it’s all said and done for us to be guess
ing why the garage is there,” Schiefelbein said.
Brandon Garrett, a senior international stud
ies major, said he supports a transportation fee
to improve the bus system. In particular, he said
he would like to see new bus routes to new
housing developments in College Station.
See Candidates on Page 2.
STUDENT BODY ELECTIONS
INSIDE
• The Har
vard School
of Corruption
Student electio
scandal handle'
poorly by Uni
versity.
• Ags split pair in
tournament
First time baseball team finishes last
in Continental Classic. Page 9
• Research Week
presenters compete
, JLajj^for scholarships
. Projects showcase differ-
Hent student research ef-
L Wk forts ' „ 7
Page 7
•Listen to KAMU-FM
90.9 at 1:57 p.m. for
details on Bryan ISD
violence preparation.
• Check out The Battalion
online at
battalion.tamu.edu