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Monday, September 13, 2004
;the Battalion
olume lit* Issue
12 pages
A Texas \&M Tradition Since 1893
OPINION:
Deadly drink
page 11
www.thehaU.cojn
PACE DESIGN BY: LAUREN ROUSE
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By Emily Guevara
THE BATTALION
In a statement released Friday, the State
ire Marshal’s Office said a natural gas leak
aused the explosion and resulting tire at
nied com University Apartments of Texas A&M
m July 31, 2004.
The statement said the
dor service line serv in:
“We cannot co
on the coil if the fire at this t
videnedto [etermined that tl
lature,” said Jerr
he Texas Dcpartn
The gas from tl
■he building thro
Into the pipe chast
|j-l J, according ti
I Hagins declined
Ixplosion was the i
ifirm
me.
teaK w
the U
the ii
lat we i
is from an ex-
1 building,
jiition source
ver, it has been
s accidental in
spokesman for
leak came into
dilation screen
into Apartment
nent on whether the
poor maintenance.
“These are the preliminary results, and
the final report will answer questions such
as that,” Hagins said.
Graduate student Saquib Ejaz’s 4-year-old
daughter, Lamiya Zahin, and Ejaz’s mother,
Rabeya Chaudhury, died as a result of inju
ries sustained in the explosion and fire.
Ejaz said he has seen this preliminary re
port but he is waiting for the final report.
“Even if the whole report is out, 1 do not
want to relive that nightmare,” Ejaz said.
“Maybe someday, but reading the whole re
port is very painful for me.”
He said his wife is making daily visits to
the hospital.
“Her physical therapy may last for six
months, and the whole recovery process
may last for two years,” Ejaz said.
Ejaz’s wife Lufthansa Kama was pregnant
See Fire on page 2
‘Tri
ite in Light’
major, sail!
far and that
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ban they
The "Tribute in Light” illuminates the sky on
Fifth Avenue in New York City Saturday night.
The tribute marks the third anniversary of the
attacks on the World Trade Center that killed
,2,973 people. The lights are composed of two
JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION
banks of 44 lights each that shone between
Murray and Vesey streets in Battery Park
near Ground Zero. The lights on the Empire
State Building were extinguished for a minute
of silence at 9:11 p.m.
Suspected bomb found
on Northgate Sunday
By Jibran Najmi
THE BATTALION
A suspicious package, suspect
ed to be a “pipe-shaped bomb”
was found in front of Shadow
Canyon on Northgate Sunday
morning, prompting the College
Station Police Department’s
(CSPD) bomb technicians to be
called to the scene, said CSPD
Police Chief Ed Feldman.
The bomb technicians later
determined the package con
tained no explosive materials
and posed no threat.
”1 sent one of my employees
to clean out the trash from the
planter’s boxes outside, and as
he was cleaning them out, he
found a device,” said Cory Cas-
sel, owner of Zapatos on North-
gate. “1 told him to put it back,
and because it looked suspicious
we called the cops.”
Cassel called the CSPD
around 10:30 a.m., and officers
arrived shortly before 11 a.m.
CSPD diverted traffic from Uni
versity Drive heading toward
Wellborn and called in members
of the CSPD Special Weapons
and Tactics (SWAT) team.
“We found a de
vice that had several
plastic tubes, and as
a precautionary mea
sure we diverted traf
fic and evacuated the
area,” Feldman said.
There were no re
ported injuries, and
the device did not
explode. Feldman
told The Battalion
that the device is
now in the custody
of CSPD and has
been placed in a special contain
ment vessel and moved to a re
mote location.
Feldman said no threats had been
reported to the CSPD in regards to the
incident and that he did not believe it
was linked to terrorism.
Double Daves’ Northgate
Manager Joe Adair declined to
comment, but he did confirm
that no specific threats had been
made at that establishment.
“We were just passing by,
and suddenly a cop comes up to
us and says ‘You
can’t go this way,’
and so we had to
backtrack in order
to get home,” said
David Jarrard, a
junior accounting
major and a resi
dent of Tradition
at Northgate. “It
was just cops ev
erywhere, and traf
fic was an absolute
mess.”
Cassel said he
felt the incident af
fected his business severely.
“We had about five customers
in the restaurant at the time, and
so we locked the front door, and
we had them leave out the back,”
Cassel said. “We just lost a
whole bunch of business, I mean
we were shut down from 11 a.m.
to 2 (p.m.), and that’s the entire
lunch crowd.”
It was just cops
everywhere, and
traffic was an
absolute mess.
— David Jarrard
resident of
Tradition on Northgate
Gates ‘mingles’ with student leaders
By Lacy Ledford
THE BATTALION
A&M President Robert Gates shared his person
al tips for success with student leaders Thursday at
Melrose Apartments in the first-time event “Mingling
with the President.”
The event, organized by Andrei Duta, assistant
lecturer in group communications and Melrose man
agement gave students the opportunity to dine with
the president while gaining insight from his personal
and professional experience. The idea for the program
“Mingling with the President” was conceived more
than a year ago, after Duta briefly crossed paths with
Gates at faculty convocation.
“He fit my description of success: service to
many,” Duta said.
Duta said he would like to continue this program in
the future with other speakers.
In his address to the students, Gates stressed the im
portance of hard work, saying that simply working 9-
to-5 won’t cut it.
He said to be successful, one should be a problem
solver, rather than a problem maker or giver.
“What will set you apart from others is when you go
to your boss and say, ‘I have a problem, but I think I
have a solution,’” he said.
Gates reminded students that they will sometimes
fail, but success depends on how that failure is handled.
“Leaders are people (who) stand up, dust themselves
off, and say, well, that wasn’t very much damn fun — I
don’t think I’ll do that again,” he said.
Gates also revealed the heart of his personal vi
sion for A&M.
“1 believe (A&M) is a unique American institution
that can and should be one of the handful at the very top
of the universities of the United States,” Gates said.
Gates said what makes A&M special is that it will
be the only university on the top rung of among Ameri
can universities that has a heart as well as a brain.
“It places importance on values, family, loyalty.
©
A&M President Robert M. Gates
recommends these tips to
students who wish to become C
successful leaders. (7
:: Be good at what you do
Work hard
Take risks
Be a problem solver, not a problem maker
Be respectful to everyone
Tell people what they need to hear, not
what they want to hear
Be loyal and if you can't be - leave
Be willing to admit you've made a mistake
Have a vision
You will fail - whether you succeed
depends on how you handle failure
BRANDI DUNN • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : PRESIDENT ROBERT M. GATES
patriotism, character, a sense of tradition and spirit,”
Gates said. “If A&M did not have the unique tradi
tion of spirit and culture, we would just be another big
education factory. There are a bunch of them in the
country, including over in Austin.”
Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, concluded by saying A&M and the CIA had
more in common than either would like to admit.
He said both believe they are not understood by any
body else, have a strong sense of their contribution to
this country and possess a high sense of pride in their
See Gates on page 2
'A&U EMS calls decreasing
ft
t
F
By Matthew Wilkins
THE BATTALION
exas A&M may be on track
ibr a third subsequent year of
wireases in emergency medi-
|| assistance calls, according to
|W data released Friday by the
llident Health Services.
“The University has been
ffiively involved in trying to
Buce risk campus-wide,” said
Assistant Director Scott Draper.
••Whether the decrease can be
ittnbated to those efforts re-
nains unclear, Draper said.
(Draper said students are
ware of the 9-911 emergency
:elephone number. The Student
alth Service made presenta-
iilns this year at orientations for
H^pPuidereraduate. graduate and in-
HKnatinnal students, and earlier
this month the Vice President for
^^^ident Affairs Dean Bresciani
■ J\
y
Its
.vtv,
- -I
iriit
e-tnailed a memo to all students
Hjnforcing the information.
tHVc’vc become more inten
tional about our marketing efforts
for the Student Health Service and
EMS in particular,” Draper said.
EMS transportation is pro
vided at no cost to students other
than the mandatory $55 per se
mester Health Center Fee. The
fee has not been increased since
2002, when the unelected Stu
dent Service Fee Advisory Board
pushed a $5 hike, despite objec
tions by the Student Senate.
Mark McCaig, a senior market
ing major and president of the stu
dent advocacy organization Aggie
Watch, said the fee represents a
good value at its current level.
“The Student Health Service
is a prime example of an orga
nization that provides quality
services without needing a fee
increase,” McCaig said.
If it were not covered by
the Health Center Fee, EMS
would cost students more than
$500 per incident, according
to EMS Coordinator James
Gibson. The fee covered
$257,394 in EMS transporta
tion for students last year.
Cowboys shut out in Aggie home opener
By Ryan Irby
THE BATTALION
You only needed to look to the skies on Saturday to notice it
was going to be a dismal day for somebody. Just before kickoff,
dark clouds loomed over Kyle Field in an ominous fashion, and
for the Wyoming Cowboys (1-1), those clouds never lifted.
The Texas A&M Aggies (1-1) blanked the Cowboys 31-0 in
a game that saw the re-emergence of the Aggie defense, which
scored 10 points off turnovers, grabbed three interceptions and
had a blitzing scheme that destroyed a potent Cowboy offense that
put up 53 points last week.
Maybe it was the return to Kyle Field, maybe it was the new
pre-game entrance that included a solemn “battle-cry” drum ca
dence from the Aggie Band, or perhaps it was the inspiration from
the Junction Boys who made a halftime appearance that sparked a
victory. Whatever it was, the Aggies should find more of it.
A&M looked like a completely different team than the one
that suffered an embarrassing 41-21 loss to No. 14 Utah just
11 days ago.
“This came at the right time,” said A&M head coach Dennis
Franchione. “It’s very tough to get a shutout in college football.”
A&M held the Cowboys to only 181 yards of total offense
on 62 plays, including -3 yards rushing, a historical number
that conjures up images of Wrecking Crew defenses past. In
total, the Aggies held the Cowboys to 2.9 yards per play, and
-0.1 yards per rush.
“Give (A&M) a lot of credit. They were tough,” said Wyoming
head coach Joe Glenn. “We didn’t execute mentally or physically.
EVAN O’CONNELL • THE BATTALION
Aggie freshman Kerry Franks beats junior Wyoming cornerback
Brandon Bell on a long pass late in the fourth quarter to move the
Aggies ahead 31-0.
We felt going into the game that we had some stuff that would
work. But we had a couple of penalties that took away momen
tum. We just have to execute better, throw the ball sharper and
See Home on page 2