IrX-i -w^ Thursday, April 8,2004
The Battalion
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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
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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