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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 2004)
IrX-i -w^ Thursday, April 8,2004 The Battalion ei coya fsixa ■Hirst I was :;1 olume 110 • Issue 125 • 12 pages A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 Aggielife: Expressing yourself with style Page 3A vvvvw.thebatt.com PACE DESIGN BY: APRIL WAREHAM fiends reminisce about fallen Aggie soldier By Aerin Toussaint THE BATTALION On March 28, Lt. Doyle Hufstedler III called hs parents from Iraq to tell them a story about h iw he and other soldiers had met Iraqi Christians while on patrol. A young boy walked up to him and said in English, “Jesus loves you.” Hufstedler knew his parents would be in Imday school and called them to request that ileir church, St. Paul United Methodist, send s hool supplies to the Iraqi children. Hufstedler was killed March 31 near Fallujah if Iraq, where he was stationed with the 1st '°rp:J Engineer Battalion of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division. “Doyle was a really gen erous person. He was always willing to help others out,” said Kevin Singleton, a Texas A&M graduate stu dent in visualization sci ences and a friend of Hufstedler. Hufstedler, 25, was a 2002 A&M graduate and industrial distribution major from Abilene, Texas. “Doyle was very mature for his age,” said Royce Curtis, principal of Abilene High School, where Hufstedler attended high school. “Since his HUFSTEDLER freshman year of high school, he wanted to go to A&M and be in the Corps and pursue a career in the military.” Hufstedler was commander of his junior ROTC unit during his high school years. While attending A&M, he hosted high school students from the Abilene JROTC when they vis ited A&M for the Corps Aggie Day, said A1 Dunlap, the JROTC colonel at Abilene High School. Friends said Hufstedler’s determination and grit were part of what made him special. “At the end of his first semester, an adviser told him to go somewhere easier,” said Bill Libby, retired military chaplain and family friend. “He was deter mined to show her (his mom) that he could graduate.” Curtis said Hufstedler would set his mind on something and would always get it done. “He was a junior when he tried out for swim team, which was unheard of,” Curtis said. “The coach said it was too late for him to make the team, but he was determined to do it and ended up making the relay team.” Dunlap said Hufstedler was a true Aggie with maroon running through his veins. “Doyle was extremely patriotic and embodied Aggie pride,” Dunlap said “(He) always wore his Aggie boots. He ate, drank and slept Aggie.” See Soldier on page 2A Egg hunt Mam Elementary second graders Karina Garcia Three hundred-twelve dozen eggs were purchased for from left), Michael Ramirez and Edwardo Areanas the hunt, and it was jointly sponsored by A&M and luntfor Easter eggs around their school playground. two greek organizations. A&M chosen as one of seven to test for mad cow disease By Natalie Younts THE BATTALION Texas A&M will begin testing cattle for mad cow disease June 1 to help increase the amount of testing done in the United States. Increased testing for mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), is important although only one case has been report ed in the United States, said Lelve Gayle, director of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory. “It’s important that we establish beyond a doubt the status of this country relative to BSE for consumer confidence, as well as trade,” Gayle said. A&M was one of seven schools picked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to do the testing because of its geographic location and its capaci ty to process large numbers of samples, said Andrea McNally, USDA spokeswoman. “The strategic location allows us to have a more rapid turnaround in how quickly we analyze the samples,” she said. “One of the criteria to be chosen is the ability to do at least 1,000 samples per month.” Gayle said Japan and the European Union have pressured the United States to perform more BSE tests. “They claim testing 20 to 40,000 a year is not adequate unless there has been a surveillance peri od where more than that were tested,” he said. “They probably are justified in requesting it.” BSE is a degenerative brain disease that caus es a wobbly gait, or way of walking, excessive salivation, hyper-excitability, trembling, inability to stand and, ultimately, death, Gayle said. People who eat BSE-infected brain tissue could develop variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a fatal degenerative brain disease in humans, Gayle said. A total of 153 cases of vCJD were reported by Dec. 1, 2003, including 143 from the United MOO! Texas A&M was one of seven schools chosen to test for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, also known as Mad Cow Disease.Testing will begin June 1 Symptoms of B.S.E. in cows include: -wobbly gait -excessive salivation -hyper activity -inability to stand -death Only 153 human cases were reported by December 2003, including 143 in the United Kingdom and one in the United States. Andrew Burleson • THE BATTALION Sources : CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL, TEXAS VETERINARY MEDICAL DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY Kingdom and one from the United States, said Lori Nuce, spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One BSE-infected cow, which had been imponed from Canada, was reported in Washington state in December 2003. Cows can contract the disease by eating meat and bone meal that contain meat from BSE- infected cows. There has been a ban in America against feeding cow meat to cows since 1997. “That presumably will break the cycle,” Gayle said. However, he said, testing is still important because of the long incubation period of the disease. The USDA is going to test about 260,000 cat tle’ during the surveillance period, which is seven times more than the average of 40,000 per year, Gayle said. Gayle said the TVMDL expects to test 24,000 See Mad cow on page 2A Lippincott: We want victims to talk to us By Rhiannon Meyers THE BATTALION One in five women and one in 20 men in Texas have been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, said Chris Lippincott, pub lic affairs director for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA). “It’s an issue that affects a lot of people, and not many peo ple talk about it,” Lippincott said. “We have to let people know it’s okay to talk about this issue.” Lippincott said that because sexual assault is the most under reported violent crime in the state, organizations such as TAASA designated April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Lippincott said Sexual Assault Awareness Month is impor tant because it not only lets victims and their friends and fami lies know that helpful services are out there, it also lets people- talk about it. “It may surprise you, but everyone in Texas knows someone affected by sexual assault,” Lippincott said. “We want victims to know it’s OK to talk, and we want to encourage people who know them to listen and be supportive.” Lippincott said it is especially important for college students, to to be aware of the issue because they are at the greatest risk for sexual assault. Sarah Fisher, a volunteer advocate for the Brazos Valley Rape Crisis Center, said college students are vulnerable to sexual assaults because of the parties, alcohol abuse and new relation ships encountered in a college environment. Fisher encouraged students to not be afraid to say “no.” “If someone says ‘no’, and anything proceeds after that, it is considered a sexual assault,” Fisher said. Sgt. Allan Baron, a supervisor for the University Police Department crime prevention unit, said that although only seven sexual assaults have been reported to UPD since 2000, on aver age 80 percent to 95 percent of campus rapes occur with some one the victim knows. “So many people think a rapist is a stranger in the bushes, and that’s not true,” Baron said. “If you have a date who does not listen, ignores limits, gets angry at limits and repeatedly breaks limits, these could be danger signals of date rape.” See Victims on page 7A Shack-A-Thon raises money for Aggie Habitat By Carrie Pierce THE BATTALION Waking up Tuesday morning to the sounds of the Corps of Cadets 1 early morning run, Tori Wright, a freshman business major, crawled out of the 10 feet by 12 feet shack she stayed the night in and noticed a mass of bubbles in Rudder Fountain. “Someone put bubbles in Rudder Fountain and mainte nance was out here cleaning them out,” Wright said. “I’ve never seen so many bubbles in my life.” Wright, who helped build the Memorial Student Center Hospitality shack as part of Shack-A-Thon, said they did not have a set plan of how Hospitality was going to build the shack. “I got to hammer a few nails,” Wright said. “As well as my finger a few times.” MSC Hospitality’s shack was constructed with cardboard, two by fours, nails, staples, duct tape and trash bags, Wright said Events such as these are typ ical this week for the members of 11 student organizations who have built shacks at Rudder Fountain as part of Aggie Habitat for Humanity’s annual Shack-A-Thon. For five years, Aggie Habitat for Humanity has been holding Shack-A-Thon to pro mote awareness of poverty housing on campus, said Heather Amos, a senior out door education major. Aggie Habitat for Humanity See Habitat on page 2A JP Beato III • THE BATTALION Senior history major and Habitat for Humanity Vice President of finance Josh Houston, along with other students, raise the roof for their "shack" at Rudder Fountain Monday evening. Organizations stayed in houses or tents this week to raise money for Habitat for Humanity to construct houses. Organ donation makes world of difference By Elizabeth Knapp THE BATTALION In 1999, Mike Stephenson’s brother-in- law died of bacterial meningitis. Stephenson said that if his brother-in-law had received a kidney donation, he might have lived longer. In September, a campaign was started on campus aiming to get 1,000 A&M stu dents, faculty and staff to sign organ donor cards. “Over 1,400 Aggies have signed an organ donor card since we started the campaign last September,” said Stephenson, an assis tant professor in the Department of Communication. The campaign is still running in hopes that more Aggies will consider signing an organ donor card to help those waiting for a transplant, Stephenson said. A survey taken by students, faculty and staff that was conducted on the Texas A&M campus in September revealed that 59 per cent of those surveyed did not know that families do not have to pay extra medical bills if they donate someone’s organs and that racial discrimination does not prevent anyone from receiving a transplant. When a person receives a transplant, his insurance company covers all of the costs said Jacklyn Habib, project manager of The University Worksite Organ Donation Campaign. Habib said the national organ waiting list gives priority to those with the most severe illness, those with matching blood types and those who have been waiting the longest. Habib said there are currently 84,408 See Organ on page 7A