Aggielife: Fear factor: Vampires • Page 3
Opinion: Save the whales - for oil • Page 9
THE BATTALION
Volume 110 • Issue 43 • 10 pages
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
www.thebattaIion.net
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Crash kills one A&M student, injures three
By Erin Price
THE BATTALION
Sudeep Jain, a Texas A&M manage
ment information systems graduate stu
dent, said he can’t remember many
details from the automobile accident
that occurred Saturday afternoon, leav
ing two College Station students dead.
“I don’t know why it all happened,”
Jain said. “I did not see anything. I just
heard someone yell, “Watch out!”’
Civil engineering graduate student
Cheng-Hsien Chiang died Saturday at
Scott & White Hospital in Temple of
injuries sustained in
the accident. 16-year-
old Edward Franklin
Sullivan IV, a junior
at St. Joseph Catholic
School was also
killed in the wreck.
Chiang, originally
from Taiwan, was
riding in a Mercury
with four other A&M students on their
way back from a church-sponsored
event when an oncoming Chevrolet
Camaro slammed into them. College
Station police said.
Sullivan was driving the Camaro
CHIANG
north on Harvey Mitchell Parkway
when he swerved into the southbound
lane to miss a Blazer pulling out of a
driveway and hit the left side of the
Mercury, police said.
Chiang, 28, was riding with civil
engineering graduate students
Prithviraj Chavan, 24, Prashant Jadhav,
23, junior agricultural engineering stu
dent Timothy Mulvahill and Jain, who
were all hospitalized after the accident.
Jain was released from the hospital
Sunday afternoon.
He said the Camaro hit their car on
the left side where Chiang was sleeping
in the back seat. Jain was on the right
side and received only minor abrasions
and a few stitches.
“I had just met Chiang on Friday,”
Jain said. “He was very soft-spoken
and shy. It’s very tragic for him.”
Chiang was taken by helicopter to
Scott and White Hospital in Temple
where he died during surgery. Chavan
was also airlifted to Scott and White
where he remains in intensive care,
hospital officials said.
Mulvahill, the driver of the Mercury,
was taken to College Station Medical
Center, and Jadhav was taken to St.
Joseph Hospital in Bryan where both
are still in critical condition, hospital
personnel said Monday evening.
Chiang had just entered A&M this
fall to pursue his master’s in engineer
ing and received his B.S. degree from
the National Taiwan University in
Taiwan in 1997. Lois Peters, staff assis
tant in the civil engineering depart
ment, said Chiang’s family is flying in
from Taiwan Wednesday to make
funeral arrangements.
Chiang was a member of the
Taiwanese Student Association and
will be remembered at the next Silver
Taps to be held Nov. 4.
Bonfire Memorial
construction begins
By Jacquelyn Spruce
THE BATTALION
Fields are being cleared and
construction is set to begin for
the Bonfire Memorial that will
honor the 12 Aggies who died
and the 27 who were injured in
the 1999 Aggie Bonfire
Collapse, said Wynn Rosser,
Texas A&M vice president for
student affairs.
He said the memorial, to be
located on the Polo Fields, should
be completed in time for the fifth
anniversary of the Bonfire col
lapse on Nov. 18, 2004.
The memorial will consist of
two rings, one inside the other,
with 12 portals within the rings:
One for each of the 12 Aggies
who died. Each portal will con
tain a portrait of the individual,
their signature and some words
written by them or said about
them. Rosser said.
“People know you by your
face, your signature, by the
words you say, or the words that
are said about you,” Rosser said.
Each portal will face the indi-
Bonfire Memorial
Construction will begin soon on
the memorial honoring the 12
Aggies who died and 27 who
were injured in the 1999 Aggie
Bonfire Collapse.
O - Located at the Polo Field
O - Completion scheduled
for Nov. 18, 2004
O - Will include 12 portals for
each student who died
© - Cost is estimated at $5
million
ANDREW BURLESON • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : HTTP://BONFIREMEMORI-
AL/.TAMU.EDU
vidual’s hometown.
A&M Student Body
President Matt Josefy, said the
memorial will be a reminder of
See Memorial on page 2
The mummy returns
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
Dr. Bruce Dickson, professor of anthropology and archaeology,
explains Egyptian mummification before Cepheid Variable's showing
of the 1932 classic movie, "The Mummy," starring Boris Karloff.
Cepheid Variable has begun promoting monster themed events all
month leading up to a karaoke costume contest this Friday on
Halloween during MSC Aggie Nights.
California wildfires threaten 30,000 more homes
By Seth Hettena
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN DIEGO — Ash fell on the beach like
snow and drivers turned on their headlights in
the smoky daytime streets Monday as wildfires
that have reduced entire neighborhoods to
moonscapes skipped through the hills of
Southern California and threatened 30,000
more homes.
California’s deadliest outbreak of fires in
more than a decade has destroyed at least
1,100 homes, killed at least 13 people and con
sumed more than 400,000 acres stretching
from the Mexican border to the suburbs north
east of Los Angeles.
“This will be the most expensive fire in
California history, both in loss of property and the
cost of fighting it,” Dallas Jones, director of the
state Office of Emergency Services, said Monday.
Several people suffered burns and smoke
inhalation, including eight hospitalized at the
University of California, San Diego, Medical
Center. Two had burns over more than 55 per
cent of their bodies, spokeswoman Eileen
Callahan said.
Managers of California’s power grid estimat
ed that 70,000 to 85,000 Southern California
customers were without electricity because fires
had damaged transmission lines.
The dry, hot Santa Ana winds that have
fanned the flames began to ease Monday, raising
hopes that overwhelmed firefighters could make
progress with the help of reinforcements on their
way from other Western states. But the danger
was still high.
President George W. Bush designated the
fire-stricken region a major disaster area, open
ing the door to grants, loans and other aid to res
idents and businesses in Los Angeles, San
Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.
“This is a devastating fire and it’s a danger
ous fire. And we’re prepared to help in any way
we can,” Bush said at the White House.
Gov. Gray Davis moved to activate the
National Guard and summon help from neigh
boring states. He predicted the cost of the fires
would be in the billions.
He toured the fire area in San Bernardino and
saw “just homes reduced to rubble, charred
belongings still sending off smoke.”
He was followed later by Gov.-elect
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had a fire brief
ing in Ventura County and praised work by
firefighters.
He thanked Bush for swiftly declaring an
emergency and said he would go to Washington
on Tuesday to meet with federal officials “to
make sure that the federal money will come
through.”
“I want to thank them for their hard work.
See Wildfires on page 2
Overcoming an inferno
When a wildfire is too big to quell by dumping water or digging
a path around it, firefighters must starve it by destroying the fuel
in the fires path in what is known as a “burnout."
Set downhill and downwind
of the fire, the burnout moves
uphill while the wildfire moves
with the wind until j I
the two meet.
Control line
Crew and
machinery
maintain the
control line.
Smaller fires are set
using flammable
helicopter drops to draw
the burnout up hill.
As much fuel as
’ possible is moved
IpP frorn the burnout
area to behind the
control line.
SOURCE: National Park Service, Rural Fire Service
Roads will be temporarily
closed Thursday from 9:30 a.m
to 11:30 a.m. due to an aerial
demonstration by the U.S. Air
Force Thunderbirds
1 Harvey-Mitchell Parkway (2818) will be closed
from Wellborn to F&B
• Raymond Stotzer Parkway (University Drive) will
be closed from Discovery Drive to Turkey Creek
• George Bush Drive will be closed from Penberthy
Boulevard to Easterwood Airport
University Dr.
•
>—3
CD
X
>
■<
CD
Areas where
roads will be
blocked off
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY; MAP COURTESY OF TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
McKeon proposes bill limiting tuition increases
By Bart Shirley
THE BATTALION
U.S. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-
Calif., has introduced a bill that would
limit public university tuition increases.
McKeon sponsored the Affordability in
Higher Education Act to provide relief to
lower and middle income households from
the rising cost of higher education.
“The congressman is convinced that the
higher education systems are in crisis,” said
Vartan Djihanian, press secretary for McKeon.
“He believes that anyone who desires an edu
cation should be able to get one.”
The bill would establish a College
Affordability Index, which would measure
how college tuition increases relate to the
rate of inflation. The index would then be
made available to the public online.
In Texas, for instance, tuition has
increased at four-year institutions by 63 per
cent in the past decade, compared to only a
slight median family income increase of 8
percent in the same period, according to a
September report from the House Education
and the Workforce Committee.
Djihanian said that,
according to a study by the Department of
Education, 42 percent of qualified students
from lower-income households do not
attend college. He said the
study predicted two million
qualified individuals will
not go to college by the end
of the decade, due largely to
the cost of education.
Rep. John Carter, the
Texas representative for
District 31 which includes
the Bryan-College Station
area, is on the committee
with McKeon.
“The tuition increases
have caused a crisis for
parents and students alike,”
Carter said. “The goal of
public education is to offer
affordable and quality edu
cation to anyone wishing to
go to college. Now we are running the
risk of public education not meeting its
goal.”
Ray Conley, a Texas A&M senior jour
nalism major, pays his own tuition each
semester and said he is in support of the
bill.
“I don’t know if the quality of educa
tion has gone up (since the tuition deregu
lation and increase),”
Conley said. “I don’t think
they’ve (University offi
cials) given us a concrete,
good reason for it.”
He cited an incident in
which fees were added to
his statement after the
semester began, and he was
blocked from registration
because of the outstanding
amount.
“The government pro
vides a way for more
affordable education, while
it seems like the University
is always looking for ways
to draw in more money,”
Conley said.
The bill itself is still in its infancy
stages, having been unveiled Oct. 16.
Djihinian said it has yet to be brought up
in the House Education Committee.
“It’s still got a long way to go,”
The goal of public
education is to offer
affordable and quality
education to anyone
wishing to go to college.
Notv ive are running the
risk of public education
J r , yy
not meeting its goat.
— Rep. John Carter
Texas District 31