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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 2001)
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Perez, 20, said he drove to the girl’s neighborhood on May 21, 2000, with Dennard Walker and Charles Pona, intent on silencing her as she got ready to testify against Pona in the murder of a 17-year- old in 1999. Pona was later convicted in that slaying. Prosecutors say Walker shot the witness, Jennifer Rivera, twice in the head. Perez and Pona allegedly stayed in the car. Walker remains in prison for robbing a man at gun point last year. Perez’s lawyer, John P. Larochelle, said his client is ready to testify against Walker and Pona. PUBLIC EYE (W 1F.Y.I. Percentage of all automobile accidents in Texas caused by drowsy drivers 30 TODAY Page 1 B Home for holidays • Students discuss their plans for the break and holiday traditions Page 3A battle rith Badgers in Sweet 16 No. 15 A&M hoping to upset No. 6 Wisconsin Page 7B Get help when you need it • Tutoring can be helpful during finals crunch time WEATHER TODAY m- ) TOMORROW HIGH 80° F LOW 64° F HIGH 64° F LOW 45° F FORECASTS COURTESY OF www.weathermanted.com Texas A&M University — Celebrating 125 Years S E R VING THE TEXAS A&M COMMUNITY SINCE 1893 Volume 108 • Issue 71 College Station, Texas www.thebatt.com Rigsby gives life lessons to students By Christina Hoffman THE BATTALION Dr. Rick Rigsby has become known as the “character coach” of the Texas A&M football team dur ing the past six years. Rigsby is the life skills development coordi nator for the football team and teaches courses in the Department of Speech Communication at Texas A&M. Football head coach R.C. Slocum created the position of life skills coordinator in 1996 with the attitude “that there is more to life than just football,” Rigsby said. Rigsby said he teaches the football players four important life skills: character, commitment, cooperation and communication. “I attempt to teach these skills so that these young men will not just be successful in football, but to make them successful for the rest of their lives in any field of life,” Rigsby said. “All of these life skills are taught with one goal in mind: to challenge these young men to really be the very best they can be.” Rigsby stands on the sidelines of each game and travels with the team, acting as counselor, coach, father, minister or anything else the players need. Rigsby said it can be very diffi cult for players to manage being watched everyday, handling stud ies, and being apart of a major football organization, especially as a freshman. “I help the players maintain per spective,” Rigsby said. Besides acting as life skills coor dinator, Rigsby is a professor, min ister, husband and father, and founder of Impact Family Communications, a business for which he travels year round giving motivational speeches at church functions, men’s gatherings, family camps and youth conferences, Rigsby said. Rigsby said the catalyst for start ing this business was produced by tragedy. “My wife Trina of eighteen years died after battling breast cancer for six years,” Rigsby said. “I was just lost, I thought my life was over.” Rigsby said he never set out to be a motivational speaker — it just happened. He said after his wife’s death, he made the decision to be grateful for what he had. “I wouldn’t have made it without my two boys, who were 9 and 12 at the time,” Rigsby said. “I found my call in life is to be an encourager born out of the ashes of tragedy.” Rigsby’s business is an impor tant aspect of his life, along with his family today. He married his cur rent wife Janet and she adopted his first two sons Jeremiah and Andrew. Later Zachary and Joshua were born, he said. Rigsby is a two-time winner of See RiGSBY on page 2. JOHN LIVAS • THE BATTALION Students line up outside A + Tutoring at Northgate Tutoring sessions were offered for finals in basic for last-minute study sessions during dead week. classes such as chemistry, physics and math. Free coffee y hot cocoa available in dining halls By Rolando Garcia THE BATTALION Food Services will be making on-campus dining facilities, and complimentary coffee and hot chocolate, available to students burn ing the midnight oil studying for finals. “Its something we do every semester to meet students’ studying needs,” said Ron Beard, director of Food Services. “I think it helps students to have a nice quiet place to study with free coffee.” Commons and Sbisa Dining Centers will be open from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. from Sunday through Tuesday with free coffee and bever ages. Free coffee will also be available at Rumours from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., the Sterling Evans Library and the West Campus Library. Duncan Dining Center will be open for Corps of Cadets members to study from 8 p.m. until midnight. Students up late studying rely on coffee to keep them awake, and last year during finals time, when the temperature dropped to 40 degrees, students were downing coffee at an unusually quick rate. Beard said. Food Services usually refills the 10 gallon coffee container at the Evans library about every hour. Beard said. “The coffee goes pretty quickly,” Beard said. Free coffee will also be available at Hullabaloo! Food Court from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The Commons and Underground C- Stores will be open each day during finals from 7:15 a.m. to midnight to accommo date students in need of school supplies and Outbound meals. Bookstores: Sell hooks back early By Emily Peters THE BATTALION Bryan-College Station textbook dealers agree that students should sell their books back as soon as possi ble to get the best prices. “Don’t wait until next semester to sell back your books,” said University Bookstore manager Philip Beard. “Take the 20 minutes it takes to sell them before you leave town, because you will get more money back for them.” If a store has already bought back its quota of a certain book, the money the student gets back drops dra matically. MSC Bookstore assistant manager Jason Stocks said students will never get back more than 50 percent of what they bought books for, and only if all of the stu dent’s books are going to be used next semester. He said buy-back prices are set based on the future demand and condition of a book. Bookstores consider a book in “good condition” when binding, pages, and cover are intact. Stocks said. “New condition” is a book in good condition, but with no dog-eared pages or ink marks. If a book was ordered by Texas A&M faculty for next semester, a retail price is set, and a student gets back 50 percent of what was paid for the book, unless the bookstore has already bought its quota. Stocks said. Otherwise, a national com pany calculates a wholesale price based on its demand. The wholesale price is rarely more than 30 percent of what was paid for the book. University Bookstore and the MSC Bookstore are the only two that differentiate between the new and used retail prices. If a book was bought new and is in new condition, the buy-back price See Buy-back on page 2. STUART VILLANUEVA* THE BATTALION Jerry Strawser, dean of the Lowry Mays College and Graduate School of Business, watches as shovels are handed out at the groundbreaking ceremo ny for the Cox Graduate Business Center on West Campus Wednesday. Groundbreaking held for Wehner building expansion By Tanya Nading THE BATTALION Texas A&M officials kicked off construction of the Jerry and Kay Cox Graduate Business Center . at a ground-breaking ceremony Wednesday. “This is a dignified and special day,” said Jerry Cox, president and chairman of Cox and Perkins Exploration, Inc. of Houston. “We are fortunate that the University granted us and our project pri ority, and I am grateful to them.” The 58,000-square-foot expansion of Wehner will cost about $15 million, funded by private donations from 36 individuals and corporations. “This building represents a template for the type of things that can be created when Texas A&M University and corporations come togeth er,” Cox said. The new building will hold the Reliant Energy Securities and Trading Center, a facility that will provide students with simulated commodities- trading experience. “With this new addition, this college (Mays College) is going to become greater and greater,” said A&M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen. The building will also hold six special-purpose study areas, eight classrooms/seminar rooms, two computer labs and the Benton and Dianne Cocanougher special-events room. Dr. Jerry Strawser, dean of Lowry Mays See Expansion on page 2.