WEDNESDAY JANUARY 16. 2002
VOLUME 108 • ISSUE 74
TUE PATTATir^M
1 rlii rSAl lALilvJiN
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
tudents give feedback at Bonfire forum
■irefighter Dwight Rabe expresses his
view at one of the Bonfire 2002
MEREDITH CLINTON • THE BATTALION
forums held Tuesday in the Memorial
Student Center.
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
Students expressed support for
Bonfire 2002, but enthusiasm for the
drastically revamped tradition was
muted at three open forums held
Tuesday to get student feedback on pro
posed Bonfire designs.
“The design is probably the best we
could hope for considering Bowen’s
parameters,” said Matt Giese, a junior
marketing major. “We need to get some
thing started now or else Bonfire will
never come back, and maybe it will
grow and change into something better.”
Members of the Bonfire 2002
Steering Committee and representatives
from CBM Engineers and Turner
Construction, the engineering and safety
consultants for the project, briefed stu
dents on the three proposed stack
designs and what role students will play
in building Bonfire.
Among the safety measures mandat
ed by A&M President Dr. Ray M.
Bowen are the elimination of cut, the
use of professional design plans and a
one-level stack structure in which all
logs touch the ground.
Steering Committee Coordinator Dr.
Bryan Cole said the proposed Bonfire
designs could accommodate up to
2,500 students, but each student would
be limited to only a few hours working
on the project. Also, work on Bonfire
will be limited to 14 days.
Despite the restrictive guidelines.
Cole Walsh, a freshman civil engineer
ing major, said he is eager to participate
in the hallowed Aggie tradition of
building Bonfire.
“I really want to see this happen
and I’ll definitely help and do what
ever it takes so that Bonfire is a suc
cess,” Walsh said.
Attendance was sparse at the first two
forums, but the third, scheduled in MSC
292, was moved to Rudder Theater to
accommodate an overflow crowd.
Students also will be able to partici
pate in a survey today through Friday to
gauge support for Bonfire under the
safety parameters. A link to the survey,
available at http://vote.tamu.edu, will
be sent to all students through the Neo
email system.
In addition to a vote on which
design students prefer, the survey will
explain the new safety measures and
ask students if they are willing to attend
and participate in building Bonfire. The
See Forums on page 2
ompames
relocating to
Research Park
By Tanya Nading
THE BATTALION
I The newest addition to Texas A&M’s Research Park, a 69,CXX)
a.|uare foot building, will house Compaq’s testing and develop
ment center and Schlumberger, an oil and gas company.
I “This is a $7 million capital investment,” said Kim Foutz,
(firector of economic development with the College Station
Bity Council. “It is the city’s perspective that the new building
will be completed Dec. 31, 2002.”
I Located on Research Parkway on West Campus, employees
ol Compaq and Schlumberger, which both hire student interns
in testing and development, engineering and accounting,
respectively, will have an easier time getting to and from work.
I “We are moving to Research Park because we are hoping to
grow eventually,” said Peggy Cruse, staffing and operation
Manning analyst and intern manager of Compaq. “We want to
be closer to A&M because of our year-long internship pro-
giam. This move is both beneficial to us and the students.”
The Compaq Testing Center will hold 30,000 square feet of
tie new building for both labs and offices and will continue to
provide testing and development resources.
Lynntech Inc., which had planned to expand into the
|sime building as Compaq, has decided to build a second
building in the same area.
“We are planning to have a building built in the A&M
Hesearch Park and hope to move into it by the end of the year,”
said Oliver Murphy, president of Lynntech Inc. “We will be
! using approximately 19,000 square feet of the building and we
jwill be sharing it with other companies.”
The Coastal Engineering Research Lab building is also
uiider construction in the Research Park area.
“The Coastal Engineering Lab is designed to test and
jresearch tidal action on the coast,” said Phil Haas, architec
tural project manager for Texas A&M Facilities Planning
, and Construction.
According to the Facilities Planning and Construction
[Website, the contracted construction amount for the Coastal
!Research Lab totals $4.2 million and is slated to be completed
I in late 2002.
Spring fever
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Paul Hensen warms up with Kyle Houser
during the first day of Spring Training for the
JOHN LIYAS • THE BATTALION
Texas A&M baseball team. The Aggies will
have their season opener Feb. 8.
Retired oceanography
professor dies from stroke
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
Richard A. Geyer, emeritus professor of the
ioceanography department, died from a stroke in
|his home Jan. 9. He was 87 years old.
Geyer served as head of the Department of
fOeeanography from 1966 to 1976. He retired
Jfrom the University in 1980 but returned in 1989
Ten years is a long time to serve
as head of the department. He
was the second permanent
department head we\e had.
■ — Ed Shaar
oceanography department assistant head
for the construction of a three-dimensional wave
basin that was a joint project with the University
of Texas. He again retired in 1993.
H “Ten years is a long time to serve as head of
the department,” said Ed Shaar, assistant head of
the oceanography department. “He was the sec
ond permanent department head we’ve had.”
Geyer was born in New York, graduated from
New York University and received his doctorate
in geophysics from Princeton University.
“He was very entertaining and had lots of
friends,” said Dr. Richard Rezak, emeritus pro
fessor of oceanography.
David Brooks, associate dean of research in the
College of Geological Sciences, said Geyer was a
“valued contributor” to the area of oceanography.
Geyer served four years as an exploration
geophysicist and geologist with Standard Oil
Co. of New Jersey and worked four years with
the Bureau of Ordinance for the U.S. Navy. He
spent a year as a senior field instructor at Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution and served on
several committees, advisory boards and similar
industry and governmental groups.
“He was a terrific guy to work for; you knew
where you stood, and he tried to help all his
employees as much as he could,” Rezak said. “I
remember when he hired me in 1967, I moved
here with my whole library of books and there
was no one to help me carry them up to the third
floor, but he chipped in and helped me carry
them. It was quite a job.”
“We then became good friends,” he said.
The Geyer Banks in the Gulf of Mexico is
named in his honor, as is the A&M research ves
sel RV Gyre, which is intentionally misspelled in
accordance with state regulations.
A&M professor
finds sea creature
Mystery squid has ten arms
By C.E. Walters
THE BATTALION
They were not 20,000 leagues under the sea, but while on
a research dive expedition last October, Texas A&M
Professor William Sager and other crewmembers located and
took pictures of an unusual organism in the Gulf of Mexico,
a rare squid-like creature that scientists have yet to classify.
The sea creature is something between an octopus and a
large squid, Sager said.
The discovery was made by luck while the crew was look
ing for other organisms and gas hydrate, Sager said.
While the sea creature looks like a squid, Sager said there
are many key differences. The organism has large fins along
with tentacles and arms that are up to 10 times its size. Normal
squid are also a brownish color and can change, while this one
was “ghostly white” in color. Sager said that unlike a normal
squid, which would have fled, this squid just “hung there.”
While most octopods have eight arms and squids typically
have eight arms and two tentacles, A&M biology professor John
Warmath said the mystery squid has 10 similar appendages.
“[The organism] looks like an ambush predator,”
Warmath said. He added that this means it probably preys on
small fish, shrimp or crab type creatures.
While this was one of the only times the squid was seen
in person, pictures of it have been taken by several remote-
control vehicles. The French vessel Nautile, Sager said, also
spotted the organism about 10 years ago.
Two teens
wounded
in school
shooting
NEW YORK (AP) — A teen
ager opened fire in the hallway at
a high school near Lincoln
Center on Tuesday, seriously
wounding two fellow students in
what may have been a gang-
related shooting, authorities say.
The shooting on Manhattan’s
Upper West Side occurred at
Martin Luther King Jr. High
School on what would have been
the 73rd birthday of the apostle
of nonviolence. The public
school has 3,000 students.
Authorities did not immedi
ately give a motive, but School
Chancellor Harold Levy said the
shooting may have been gang-
related. He said the suspect was
an 18-year-old who had not been
attending school.
Police spokesman Lt. Brian
Burke said a young man outside
the school was questioned, but
no one had been arrested by
Tuesday evening.
“We were in school and we
heard two gunshots,” said senior
Romain Morrison, 17. “They
were telling everyone to get out
of the hallways.”
Authorities said Andrei
Napper, 17, and Andre Wilkins,
18, were shot from behind in a
fourth-floor hallway. One was
shot in the back and the other in
See Shooting on page 2
Opinion Pg. 7
A senseless
surprise
Top 20 plan will not
solve diversity problem
WIEATH13
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