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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 5, 2001)
T UfsSDA. / June 5, 2001 blume 107 ~ Issue 149 6 pages Slews in Brief — State in admits on tape killing CS woman enneth Ray Kelly, a 27- k-r-old Bryan resident, has Blitted to the murder by suf- Bition of 21 -year-old Mandy 'ollersheim at Willowick rtments Sunday, ccording to information i the College Station Police )artment (CSPD), Kelly first ■ame a suspect when his *her approached them with Brmation that Kelly had ui dered Wollersheim and used her keys to gain en- r' |ce and burglarize her place lowing car Bmployment, Harp's Bar in event was m. n ■n. | Bolice later arrested Kelly at ^ Casa Loma Motel and ob- ~ ■ a tape recording of him BBiitting to Wollersheim's # urder. Kelly is believed to -j known Wollersheim as a ^Ipnjsral acquaintance. ^Belly is currently being held ■ie Brazos County jail and e investigation continues as atectives question additional Besses. Is ho pass e u| wo-year-old dies ler being left in o automobile ■.Hit Itlren holed . I iiesday after: as arrested Id neglect ch: ■ALLAS (AP) — A 2-year- OINT,Idaho 9 1:io y whose parents had Idren \vhosur ,r i ott:en he was in the fam- a five-da iin/| ar ^ as died because of deputies at: 1 e temperatures, law me will star ■ sa id. id undlajud:: jh e unidentified child, ►vill hannen r ho was pronounced dead rhoriti Jnday night at RHDMemo- '^^Bdedical Center in Farm ’s Branch, had apparently ?er left in the vehicle in Bt of his family's home for veral hours. . i, The Dallas Police Depart- ent's child abuse division Wday h n investjgate the death k ic\a to h. mi |y m ern b ers told officers ous oiaudKir at th had forgotten the ill elated thatP ;i|d was jn the car ec out \ve. autopsy was under way -Giinty Prose, t[|e Da||as County medica| mson. \er am j ner / s 0 ffj ce No ruling on ° ^ estr ‘ 11lU ' j death has been issued yet. ildren were Kite to ban visitors s'nunlav Th 0E 5 having paper idinga 15-yearloney in prisons ]° had T^ HUNTSVILLE (AP) — Visitors . uv, sure | A ? y exas p r ’, sons can carry only ae hospital S ^ jntQ the jnstitutjon ^ as ^ and f 6t? l keI a st to cut down on an in- a ., p'of paper money in in- . ites' pockets, officials said, ng \vasejq|P® e y exas p r j son S y S tem will o c etermine v j s jt ors from carrying en will stay ft 3e r mQn because ys,Robinsonsfj seen an y ipcrease jn paper m w leie tll . l)n by j n ce || s and work areas. !lu) ! '^ soners are prohibited from n'mil Walker yir f9 ca sh, which is typically i ‘ n ?d[ for illegal activities, said ecideiftlTeaty. oh " 5 ° f n ' f! 1 eCt ° r of tody ofthechilf 5 Institutional Division. 16/die judgei nma ^ es ® nd vlsltor5 o - return die chit 1 cau 9 ht passing bills , • )Ufh-to-mouth while kiss- >r send them l»i' pison officials said. • mother under: scrutiny. >rney for then' 1 n McGuckin, lot yet been al hi Idren. very relieved fe, and she can’t lem a highug.’i Biyce Powell ■hildrcn agre after ne L 1 to try to help ther. Bonner f I Phil Jams said' '■fit the children together “if 11 to say about it » - iators got a hre4^ v when the chi iefly with two ft lirough a wall® dcCiuckin sent i to her childre 1 ises they would - indicating she hey should coope Aggielife • Texas offers a variety of festivals to battle summer blues Opinion • Court R decision on f golfer Martin goes along with Disabilities Act sttalion News Radio: 57 p.m. KAMU 90.9 ww.thebatt.com Water main breaks, A/C fails University employees allowed to leave Stuart Hutson The Battalion Battalion The police and fire departments responded early Monday to a fire alarm at the Chemistry Building. No fire was found but a broken Physical Plant water main caused overheating to the building's air conditioning causing a haze. University employees were allowed to leave work early Monday because of a campus wide air conditioning failure that reportedly caused some build ings to reach temperatures high er than 85 degrees. A 8-foot break in a 12-inch water main crossing Agronomy Road near Raymond Stotzer Parkway resulted in the shut down of the Physical Plant early Monday. The plant relies on steam produced from the water supplied by the main to power, among other things, electric chillers that produce cold water for use by the campus’s air con ditioners, said Richard Williams, assistant vice president for the Physical Plant. Williams said the “gusher” re sulting from the 3:30 a.m. break lowered the water level in A&M’s 40-foot tall, 2-million- gallon water tower at a rate of five feet every 15 minutes. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he said. “In my 10 years at A&M I’ve never seen a break this big.” Cold water began to be re stored to A&M’s air condition ers around noon, hut Williams said the temperatures in most buildings did not begin to lessen until 2 p.m. To prevent the temperatures from adversely affecting A&M workers, Vice President for Ad ministration Charles Sippial re leased a memo at 11:30 a.m. stat ing that department heads may give employees the option to leave if their work environment See A/C on Page 2. A&M researcher studying impact of the proposed Alaskan drilling Robin Lewis The Battalion The Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is among the most complete, undisturbed ecosystems on earth. Locat ed on the northeastern tip of Alaska, it is rich with wildlife including 160 species of birds, 36 kinds of land mammals, nine ma rine mammal species and 36 types of fish. It is also a hot topics of political debate today. To meet the future energy needs of Americans, President Bush is searching for a plan to appease the energy shortage in America while preserving the wildlife in the ANWR. To help widi research on the impacts of drilling in this area, the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization that provides advice to the federal government, has nominated a committee to evaluate how drilling will effect the citizens and wildlife in Alaska. Mahlon “Chuck” Kennicutt II, director of the Geochemical and Environmental Research Center at Texas A&M, is a member of this committee. He will travel to Alaska and report on what has hap pened to the environment on the North Slope. “Alaska has been the location where oil and gas have been discovered and produced for the last 30 years,” Kennicutt said. The committee has been asked to take in formation from past years and predict what continued drilling will do to the Alaskan en vironment 50 years into the future. T he committee will meet five times within a year and a half, with the ultimate outcome being a written report and eval uation on environmental issues in Alaska. Kennicutt said the committee is com posed of several people ranging from dif ferent areas in the United States to their field of expertise. “I’m a contaminate chemist,” he said, “so I was tasked with looking at all the lit erature on contamination on the North Slope.” As odiers evaluate daeir area of expertise, it will create a variety of infonuation com ing from several different areas, Kennicutt said. During the committee’s first visit to See Alaska on Page 2. RUBEN DELUN Battalion Mock tornado ANDY HANCOCK/7h£ Battalion Area fire fighters attend to a victim of a mock torna- volunteer fire fighters participated in the drill to pre- do Monday afternoon in Kurten. All Brazos County pare them for an actual tornado. Let the summer games begin Shauna Lewis The Battalion For some students, the sum mer brings a dull routine of kicking around the house watching endless television re runs, but for students like Shawn McAden, the only kick ing summer brings is on a soc cer field. McAden is an intramural soccer captain and one of many students who have chosen to stay active by competing in A&M’s summer intramurals program. “You get to do stuff with your friends and be competitive with people,” he said. Stephanie West, assistant di rector of intramurals, said in- Intramurals provide Aggies with low-cost summer entertainment tramurals are a relatively cheap and easy way for students to keep active during the summer. Prices for team sports range from $10 to $40 a team, and individ ual or dual sports are free with the exception of golf, which requires a green fee. To com pete in intra murals, West said students need to fill out an entry card at the Member Ser vices desk at the Rec Center, pick a division and league and pay the entry Students then re ceive a rules packet with pertinent in formation about playing that sport. Students who wish to play a team sport but do RUBEN DELUNA/Tw Battalion not already belong to a team may enter the Free Agents Pro gram, which allows teams with out enough members to pickup additional players. Once the application dead line passes, a single elimination schedule for each sport will be filled out and posted at Member Services. West said there are many benefits of intramural sports, including the opportunity to compete, socialize, learn a new sport and exercise. She said some students join to meet other students and make friends, while others play on teams with their friends to See Games on Page 2. Interest rate cut on loans Federally backed student loan rate to drop 6 percent (AP) — Paying for college is about to get less expensive for students and families saddled by education loans. Starting July 1, the interest rate on federally backed student loans will be reset to what’s be lieved to be the lowest level since the student loan program began in the 1960s. Interest on student loans will drop to 5.99 percent, down from the current 8.19 percent, the U.S. Education Department said Monday. Students start pay ing off the loans six months after leaving school and typically have 10 years to do it. The rate for parents borrow ing in their own names for a child’s education will drop to 6.79 percent from 8.99 percent. T hose loans are owed immedi ately, like credit card debt. “This is the lowest rate in the history of the student loan pro gram, lower than even the 7 per cent in place when the student loan program began in 1965,’^ said John E. Dean, lobbyist for the Consumer Bankers Associa tion, whose members are the largest commercial banks in the student loan business. The new rates apply to loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 1998. A borrower could also benefit from the lower rates by consolidating loans taken be fore then. The federal government es timates the new rate will save the student borrower with a standard 10-year repayment plan about $136 for every $1,000 they owe. See Loans on Page 2.