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i il I OnAe Battalion
said ArsJ [) r p a y m Bowen’s restrictions
a andaseft the 2002 Aggie Bonfire have pro-
yoked more than 2,000 signatures,
nedia ouiMjd Becky Bartschmid, the petition’s
an the \1: organizer.
ijunctioml Since mid-October, Bartschmid has
ociation. *en collecting signatures in an effort
:o educatta beseech Bowen to change the re-
IslamAv strictions on Bonfire 2002.
^ue said I Following the release in May of the
ntirely K Special Commission report on the
1909 Aggie Bonfire collapse, Bowen
/. 13 to llftposed a two-year moratorium on the
theme e h aze. He created special provisions
tocontim for Bonfire’s continuation in 2002, in-
Middlel quding the elimination of cut, the use
of pre-cut lumber, a one-tiered teepee
,t Muslr designed by professional engineers and
rs living increased University supervision.
.sc to h(!r|:; The petition calls the limited student
sedtol involvement, cancellation of cut and
itinual; two-year ban on the tradition unneces-
; said. "®ry limitations on the future Bonfire,
hat lives* “I'd heard a lot of people talking
r butieA 30111 w hHt they’d like to see done and
ecausetfe what should happen with Bonfire. And
| the one thing I wanted to do was work
i atxwilWjphhtheadministration by sending a pe-
the.ffl- hhonuptothem, to really see something
ir accomplished for the students who want
'. Bonfire hack,” said Bartschmid, a
Isophomore journalism major.
Reinstatement of cut and maxi-
IniZation of student involvement and
leadership is needed to make the next
‘Bonfire a true Aggie Bonfire,
Bartschmid said. Signers agree that
Ihere is adequate time to design and
|)lan for Bonfire to be built in 2001, the
petition states.
The purpose of the petition is to
lake clear to the administration that a
umber of current and former students
[do not agree with the stated limita-
ons Dr. Bowen has placed on Bon-
re,” and to “encourage the adminis-
ation to rethink their decision.”
“Different people have different
asons for wanting this petition and
r signing it,” Bartschmid said. “For
[ome, it’s more important to see a Bon-
re next year in 2001. And it seems like
lie only reason for waiting two years
* to get rid of all the people who know
|hat Bonfire is really about. But it’s
Iso about getting cut back, and even if
takes two years to get it, I will wait.”
Luke Cheatham, a sophomore civil
ngineering major who is aiding
artschmid’s drive for signatures,
ided logs with Walton Hall last fall and
I’ould have been a crew chief this year.
1 The greatest bond an Aggie can feel
tomes from participation in cut, he said.
I “No matter what we’ve supported in
she past, whether we think we should
[ollow Bowen’s guidelines or we
Ihought we should build our own bon-
fre, this is one thing we can all agree
tn,” he said. “To preserve the spirit of
iJponfme, we have to have more than the
H 1 idministration is giving us. Without
® Cut, you take the entire spirit away.”
After he participated in Bonfire and
bund out what being involved and tak-
ng a leadership role are about,
-neatham said, Bowen’s proposal for
See Petition on Page 5.
Railroad agreement reached
Trains to continue through town, stop for emergencies only
By Richard Bray
The Battalion
Texas A&M has reached an agreement with
Union Pacific Railroad that will prevent trains
from stopping as they move through campus,
except in the case of an emergency.
The agreement was motivated by an inci
dent in which a student tried to pass beneath
a stopped train with his bike. He made it
through before the train began to move, but
his bike did not.
Mary Miller, associate vice president of ad
ministration, said another incident with Union
Pacific that had not been revealed to the public
file photo/the battalion served as a catalyst for reaching the agreement.
An agreement between A&M and Miller said that about four weeks ago, two
Union Pacific Railroad will end trains students approached the tracks at a location
stopping on campus unless it is an without a crossing when a train was moving
emergency. through campus at about 30 miles per hour.
“The conductor said it looked like they were
debating whether or not they could make it
across the tracks in time, and they decided they
could, so they darted in front of the engine to
get across and the girl tripped and fell on tfoe
tracks,” Miller said. “The conductor lost sight
of the girl, and he panicked and called his head
quarters and told them he thought he had run
over a student.”
The conductor stopped the train and walked
back to check on the girl and found nothing.
Moving trains are not the only problem, said
Bob Wiatt, director of the University Police De
partment (UPD). He said crossing the railroad
tracks while a train is stopped can constitute
criminal trespassing if Union Pacific decides to
press charges against violators.
“The railroad and right-of-way belong to
Union Pacific,” he said. “If we have signs up
and students are caught by us, they could be
charged with a criminal trespass. They are tres
passing on property of Union Pacific that they
are not entitled to do so.”
Wiatt said trespassing on railroad tracks
qualifies as a Class B misdemeanor, which car
ries a maximum of six months in jail and a
$2,000 fine, though it would be unlikely for stu
dents to receive the maximum punishment.
Miller said Union Pacific asked to meet
with A&M representatives after it saw pic
tures of students breaking the law to get past
stopped trains.
“They had initiated the meeting because they
had seen the pictures on the PTTS Website, in
which students were crawling over and under
stopped trains, and that was of great concern to
See Train on PageS.
Close call
PATRIC SCHNEIDER/The Battalion
Linebackers Jarrod Pennright and Harold Robertson team up to break up a pass in
Texas A&M's 21 -16 win over Oklahoma State on Saturday. The Wrecking Crew shut
down the Cowboys' passing offense and avoided a near-fourth quarter comeback for
the win. See game coverage on Page 7.
A&M students designing
peace sculpture for Jasper
By Noel Freeman ■ ,
The Battalion
When James Byrd Jr. was killed in June 1998,
the town of Jasper was torn. The town will try to
heal some of those wounds and unite the commu
nity with a little help from some Texas A&M land
scape architecture students.
Proposed landscape architecture designs for the
Circle of Peace Sculpture Gardens to be created in
Jasper were unveiled Wednesday in the Langford
Architecture Center Gallery. The project began this
summer when Circle of Peace Foundation Inc., a
private, nonprofit organization, devised plans for a
“circle of peace” to be created just south of Sandy
Creek Park in Jasper.
Jody Naderi, professor of landscape architecture,
said the project was designed to create a place where
the community can come together and reinforce the
unity that existed prior to Byrd’s murder. Naderi
said the landscape and construction design offer was
extended to A&M landscape architecture students
at the beginning of the fall semester.
Dr. Michael Murphy, professor of landscape ar
chitecture, said the land was donated to the organi
zation with community plans in mind, specifically
See Jasper on Page 5.
Local, national
races approach
B-CS residents / t
prepare to vote in
local elections
By Courtney Stelzel
The Battalion
As Election Day approaches, eli
gible voters everywhere eagerly wait
to see whether their favorite presi
dential candidates will be chosen to
lead the United States into the 21st
century. However, the presidential
elections are not the only topic of po
litical discussion in Brazos County.
Registered voters in the Brazos
Valley area will vote for local posi
tions, such as county commissioner,
and a special election bond proposi
tion for a new coliseum. These issues
and positions are just as important as
the presidential elections, despite the
lack of emphasis placed on cam
paigning within the county, said Mary
Anne Ward, Brazos County clerk.
“The local elections are not be
ing run by the city of Bryan or Col
lege Station, but it is a general elec
tion and is therefore run by the
county clerk’s office.”
Positions on the ballot of particu
lar concern to Brazos Valley citizens
See Local on Page 10.
Governorships,
House and Senate
seat races in the air
By Kristin Rostran
The Battalion
The presidency is not the only po
sition up for grabs Tuesday. Several
seats in the House of Representatives
and Senate are open, along with 11
governorships.
Democrats hope to gain control of
the Senate, which is a possibility con
sidering the number of close races.
The most publicized senatorial
contest is that of first lady Hillary
Clinton (D) and Rep. Rick Lazio (R)
for the New York Senate seat. De
bates between the two have been la
beled “rowdy” by the media. Lazio
has not shied away from calling Clin
ton untrustworthy and a public poli
cy disaster waiting to happen.
Clinton’s spokespeople have
characterized Lazio as a bully and
use Vice President A1 Gore’s slogan
for presidency, “You can trust me to
fight for you.” In most polls Clinton
has held a slight lead over Lazio
since the beginning.
See Elections on Page 10.
Strife PDprcsentdUvo
Positions
United States Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison Republican
Gene Kelly Democrat
Mary L Ruwart Liberal
Douglas S. Sandage Green
County wide
Positions
United States Representative, District 5
Pete Sessions Republican
Regina Montoya Coggins Democrat
Ken Ashby Liberal
£oun ty Tax Assesso r <!ollector
Art King Republican
Gerald L "Buddy" Winn Democrat
Scot B. Adams Liberal
County Commissioner, Preclnt No. 1
Tony Jones Republican
Wm. (Bill) M. Wilder Liberal
Sheriff
Chris Kirk Republican
Christopher A. Olsen Liberal
Special Bond flection (all local)
Proposition 1 - The Issuance of $18,500,000 coliseum bonds.
Special flection (all local)
Proposition 1- Abolishing the office of elected county public weigher
Proposition a- Abolishing the office of county surveyor of this county
RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
id.
expected to continue
AUSTIN (AP) — Weather officials said an approaching
jstorm system could bring more flooding to Central Texas, where
tigh waters already have contributed to at least five deaths since
"hursday.
Don Rogers, a spokesman for the Texas Division of Emer
gency Management, said more storms were expected to rage
along a line from Del Rio to Austin and continue to Bryan and
Ufkin by noon Sunday. Flooding was anticipated by evening,
ae said.
“It’s similar to what we already have,” Rogers said. “But
when this started a couple of days ago, the ground wasn’t satu
rated. Now it is.”
On Saturday, the Llano River in Junction was receding after
See Weather on Page 2.
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Aggie TV adds free programming
Tate
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RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
By Richard Bray
The Battalion
Following the College Television
Network’s (CTN-TV) failed bid this
summer to provide student program
ming to Texas A&M-owned stations,
Aggie TV has stepped up to the camera
to try to become the first successful stu
dent-run television station at A&M.
For years, the Residence Hall Associ
ation (RHA) has tried to begin a student-
run station, but it has been unable to do
so in the past because it lacked resources.
Last year, RHA assigned the re
sponsibility of organizing such a pro
gram to Cameron Cushman, a junior
political science major. After receiving
information from a variety of compa
nies offering to provide A&M with pro
gramming, Cushman said, he decided
on CTN-TV, which would provide tele
visions and programming in all of the
residence halls and dining halls.
“When I assumed this job, I received
materials from several different corpo
rations that help students start their own
television stations, and one of them was
CTN,” he said. “They would provide
MTV-style programming to campus, but
the beauty of it was that it was free.”
Cushman said the proposal for CTN-
TV failed over the summer during con
tract negotiations.
“I left it over the summer with a
lawyer from the contract department,
and all I ever heard was that it was a ‘no
go’ because they didn’t allow the com
mercialization of campus, meaning they
wouldn’t allow us to show commercials
on campus,” he said.
Ron Sasse, director of Residence Life,
said the contract negotiations broke down
when A&M realized it would have no
control over the advertising content.
“The University really has a prohibi
tion on commercial advertising on this
campus,” Sasse said. “Except for the
football stadium, commercial advertis
ing is not permitted on campus.”
Annabell Cortina, the Aggie TV pro
gram director and a junior speech com
munication major, said Aggie TV will
not have the outside advertising that
See Aggie TV on Page 2.
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