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108 Years Serving Texas A&M University
Volume 108 • Issue 163 • 6 pages www.thebatt.com Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Wehner construction set to finish in 2003
By Jessi Watkins
THE BATTALION
Construction on the addition to the
Wehner building on West Campus is
progressing as expected and scheduled
to be completed in July 2003, said Jerry
Strawser, dean of the Lowry Mays
College and Graduate School of
Business.
Construction on the 58,000-gross
square foot center began Jan. 7.
Strawser said students should be
able to use the new Jerry and Kay Cox
Graduate Business Center by Fall 2003.
The new building will help relieve
the space shortage in the existing
Wehner building, which opened in late
1994.
“The new building will have more
classrooms, breakout rooms for our
graduate students’ team projects, a
computer lab and a trading center with
state-of-the-art technology sponsored
by Reliant Energy,” Strawser said.
Don Hellriegel, a management pro
fessor in the Lowry Mays College and
Graduate School of Business, said the
trading center will simulate similar
tasks associated with trading in busi
nesses.
“The trading center will give stu
dents real life experience,” Hellriegel
said. “It will replicate decisions and
tasks that someone involved in trading
would go through in the real world.
Students will have access to a lot of the
same databases that those in trading
have access to.”
The trading center will also have a
small replica of a trading floor.
Strawser said the funds for the new
graduate business center were provided
by both the University and by college
donors. Mr. and Mrs. Cox made the pri
mary contribution to the project.
Hellriegel said the project cost is
estimated at $15 million. After comple
tion, an additional $1.5 million will be
added to the original cost for a telecom
munications center on the ground floor
of the new building.
The telecommunications center will
be a hub for Internet and telephone
connections.
Bush Museum features new exhibits
'Kuwait'
shows oil
disasters
By Christina Hoffman
THE BATTALION
July 31 will be the last day for
visitors to the George Bush
Presidential Library and Museum
to see the photograph and video
exhibit “The Fires of Kuwait.”
The exhibit opened June 3.
When first walking through
the exhibit, visitors see devastat
ing photos of burning oil wells
covering the ground with oil,
and the sky masked with fire and
smoke, museum volunteers said.
Near the entrance a caption
reads, “(The Fires of Kuwait)
was the direct result of sabotage
b Y Saddam Hussein and the
Iraqi army.”
The exhibit holds a collection
of images depicting oil well
firefighters who spent seven
months after the Persian Gulf
War in 1991 regaining control of
over 732 burning oil wells and
cleaning up the environmental
oil disasters.
According to information
provided at the exhibit, three oil
well firefighting teams from
Texas and one from Canada
were responsible for 70 percent
of all capped wells and clean up.
The teams pictured at the
exhibit are Boots and Coots,
Inc., The Red Adair Company,
Inc. and Wild Well Control, all
from Houston, and Safety Boss
LTD of Canada.
Brian Blake, the library’s
public relations specialist, said
the photos are part of a perma
nent collection at the Bush
Museum, but they chose to dis
play it in July during A&M’s
annual fire school training.
See Kuwait on page 2
JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION
Ana Mendoza and her mother, Yvonne Mendoza, of Lubbock examine the Fires of Kuwait exhib
it at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum. The exhibit will be on display until July 31.
Display compares presidents
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
The George Bush Presidential Library and
Museum’s exhibit “Fathers and Sons: Two
Families, Four Presidents,” will be available for
viewing until the end of the month.
The exhibit explores the relationship between
the only sets of fathers and sons to serve as
United States presidents. The exhibit features
George Bush and his son, George W. Bush, as
well as John Adams and son John Quincy
Adams.
“It was natural to do this exhibit when George
W. Bush was elected as president, then we
thought to extend it to include the Adams,” said
Brian Blake, public relations specialist for the
Bush Library. “There are so many similarities
and differences between them.”
Former Presidents George Bush and John
Adams both worked as vice presidents under
very popular presidents, Ronald Reagan and
George Washington. Former President John
Quincy Adams and current President George W.
Bush both did not receive the majority of the
popular vote, rather they were elected by the
electoral college, Blake said.
The idea for the exhibit came from the museum
curator. Dr. Douglas Menarchik, and took almost
10 months to complete.
“We hope people get a tremendous sense of
history here,” Blake said. “ We have so many
incredible documents on display such as the
original copy of the Treaty of Paris, which
declared peace between Great Britain and the
United States and the Treaty of Ghent, which
ended the War of 1812.”
Blake said there are certain things people did
not know about the presidents that they can learn
by seeing the exhibit.
Many people are unaware that John Quincy
t
See Exhibit on page 2
A&M-Galveston student battles leukemia
By Courtney McDonald
THE BATTALION
Wes Bright, a member of the
Class of 2003, has found him
self facing a difficult battle
against cancer for the second
time in his life.
Bright is enrolled at Texas
A&M-Galveston as an ocean
and coastal resources major
since A&M-Galveston is the
only directly linked campus of
the A&M system and is set aside
for maritime studies.
In May 1992, at the age of
11, after weeks of continuous
illness and fatigue, doctors dis
covered that Bright’s bone mar
row was failing to regenerate.
After further testing, he was
diagnosed with leukemia.
After the first chemotherapy
treatment on his spinal area,
Bright’s health improved and
ho began walking again. He
was at a statistically low risk
for a leukemia relapse in
November 1993 and finished
his last chemotherapy treat
ment in February 1996.
“His doctors nicknamed him
Wesley ‘T’ for trouble,” said
Beverly Bright, Wesley’s mother.
“He never did anything the way
that the doc
tors expected
him to.”
Things
improved for
Bright after he
completed his
treatments, and
his main goal
in college had bright
been focused
on earning his Aggie ring until
last February.
“I had been having
headaches for a couple of
months, and one day when I was
leaving campus, I forgot how to
get home,” Bright said. “My arm
also became numb, so I called
my mom and we went to the
hospital for an MRI.”
Two days later, on
Valentine’s Day, Bright was in a
hospital bed at Texas Children’s
Hospital in Houston scheduled
for brain surgery.
“Wesley had surgery exactly
six years to the day [after] he
finished his last chemotherapy
treatment,” Bright’s mother said.
Bright has glioblastoma
brain cancer. After the surgery
and six weeks of radiation, the
tumor continued to grow.
According to the Brain
Cancer Society, glioblastoma
multiformed tumors grow rapid
ly, invade nearby tissue and con
tain cells that are very malig
nant. It is among the most com
mon and devastating primary
brain tumors that strike adults.
Bright is currently undergo
ing two different types of
chemotherapy that appear to
have stabilized the tumor.
“Prognosis is not good, but
we have hope that he’ll beat it or
that a new way to fight [his can
cer] will be found,” Beverly
said. “Besides, we don’t believe
in statistics anyway.”
Bright had to withdraw from
his spring semester of classes.
His goal is to be back in school
by Spring 2003.
“It’s important for Wesley to
have goals, and right now he
wants his Aggie ring more than
anything else,” Beverly said. “It
has given him a purpose
because he knows what it
means to earn it.”
Bright keeps busy around his
chemotherapy schedule. He par
ticipated in trips with the
Sunshine Kids, an organization
for children with cancer. He was
also personally invited by Lance
Armstrong, a cancer patient sur
vivor and Tour de France win
ner, to the annual Ride for the
Roses race in Austin.
Personal meetings with Pat
Green and Robin Williams have
brightened Bright’s travels as
well.
Bright has been a S.A.L.T.
Camp counselor, the equivalent
of FISH Camp, member of the
Bonfire crew, and active in
intramurals.
“Wes is a very selfless person
who’s never been big on materi
al things or cared what other
people thought of him,” said Ty
Ta, a senior ocean and coastal
See Bright on page 2
Professor given
fellowship for
deep-sea biology
By Diane Xavier
THE BATTALION
Kim Larsen, a post doctoral
member with the Department
of Oceanography at Texas
A&M University, will spend
the next three years as part of
the deep-sea biology group led
by oceanography professor
Gilbert T. Rowe.
Larsen was awarded a
research fellowship in deep-
sea biodiversity from the
department.
In the depths of the Gulf of
Mexico, the group will study
the systematic and comparative
biodiversity of tiny crustaceans
called tanaids, which are inver
tebrate sea creatures with
exoskeletons that resemble
shrimp.
“Compared with the situa
tion in more familiar water —
shallower water depths, very
little is known about biodiver
sity and physical and ecologi
cal controlling processes in
these deep water environ
ments,” Larsen said. “These
creatures are important in the
food web of the ocean and
there is an urgent need to
improve the scientific knowl
edge base in order to provide
confidence in our ability to
predict and measure environ
mental impact.
“A better understanding of
deep-sea species will improve
our ability to assess the poten
tial impact of man’s activities
and to devise effective man
agement plans for the explo
ration and development of
deep-sea resources.”
Larsen’s fellowship is one
of two funded by the British
Petroleum (BP) oil company,
which is sponsoring two deep-
sea biodiversity research fel
lowships as part of its commit
ment to improving knowledge
of biodiversity.
The second fellowship was
awarded to Tammy Horton at
the Southampton Oceanography
Center in the United Kingdom.
The research group will work
closely together to improve
knowledge of the seabed fauna
in the deep Atlantic Ocean and
Gulf of Mexico.
Larsen said recent work
suggests the oceans may be
more diverse than other envi
ronments.
“The total number of
species in the oceans probably
exceeds ten million, and to put
this in perspective, only around
See Larsen on page 2
Gap in religious
attitudes growing
in Northern Ireland
BELFAST, Northern Ireland
(AP) — Roman Catholics and
Protestants in Northern Ireland
are increasingly divided in
their outlook and less willing to
live and work together, a sur
vey published Tuesday found.
The Northern Ireland Life
and Times Survey, based on
interviews with 1,800 adults
conducted in October-
December 2001, documented
substantial Protestant antago
nism to the 1998 peace deal.
The study, which has a mar
gin of error of around 1 percent,
found strong majorities on both
sides of the community did
share one key belief — that the
distinction of British Protestant
and Irish Catholic would split
their society forever.
Among Catholics surveyed,
54 percent said they were
happy with the peace process,
while just 26 percent of
Protestants shared that opti
mism. Many more Protestants
registered their feelings as
either “mixed,” “unhappy,”
“disappointed” or “betrayed.”
While two-thirds of
Catholics said they felt confi
dent or optimistic about the
future, as high a proportion of
Protestants said they had
mixed feelings or fears. And
while 65 percent of Catholics
said they believed both sides of
the community had benefited
equally from the peace
process, 63 percent of
Protestants countered that
Catholics had benefited more.
Perhaps most surprisingly
— given that the core of the
peace deal involves a joint
Catholic-Protestant govern
ment formed in 1999 —- both
sides of the community
increasingly say they would
prefer to live, work and send
their children to schools exclu
sively among their own.
While majorities still prefer
to mix, the survey found that
32 percent of Protestants and
22 percent of Catholics favor
single-religion neighborhoods.
Northern Ireland’s
sad legacy
More than 3,300 people have
been killed in Northern Ireland
since conflict over the British-
linked province erupted in 1969.
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SOURCE: Police Service of Northern Ireland AP