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132nd YEAR ISSUE 20

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2017

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1884

Rice Hall water issues, MSU slow to respond MEGAN TERRY

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“I feel that as students at MSU, we should be able to wash our faces and shower from our dorm room without wondering if the water is safe for us to use,” said Amber Grubb, a freshman music education major from Marshall, Texas. On Sep. 26, Rice Hall Resident Advisers notified all residents to not use the water from the sinks located in each room for drinking, washing faces or brushing teeth, due to contaminates reported in the plumbing. Since this incident, residents are complaining about the color and odor of the water in Rice Hall. Rice Hall was constructed in 1968, and is located in the South Zone at Mississippi State University. Rice Hall houses 511 female students and is one of the oldest dormitory on campus. International graduate student Luisa Lang said establishing a home with all the issues accompanied with living in Rice Hall is a challenge. “Apart from the southern hospitality that I am experiencing from the people in Mississippi, it is hard to build a ‘home away from home’ when I am constantly facing issues in my residence hall,” Lang said. The ladies living in Rice

Hall have been advised three times this semester to not use the laundry machines in the building, due to water contamination and clothing being potentially ruined by the old plumbing. Grubb said she does not trust the washing machines to wash her important band clothing. “I am a band student, and with the constant cleanliness problems of mold in our showers and rust in the water, I cannot afford leaving campus to go to a friend’s house to shower, I cannot afford to wash my clothes in the washing machines that will damage them,” Grubb said. The laundry problem was the first sign of a water contamination in Rice Hall. This quickly spread to other water utilities. These basic housing features being called into question add further stress to the students. “Every time I attempt to do laundry, it feels like I am playing the lottery to see if I am able to wash my clothes,” Lang said. “Every other week the residents at Rice Hall cannot use the shower nor the sinks due to safety concerns.” Regarding the continuous water problems in the 49-year-old building, Fred Mock, associate director of maintenance and facilities for the housing department, spoke on a specific problem from Sept. 29 because the

Megan Terry | The Reflector

The residents of Rice Hall have experienced discolored water this semester. The discoloration is attributed to iron and manganese in the water.

Students save lives in Avalon fire MEGAN TERRY

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Two roommates were dubbed ‘heroes’ after the recent fire at the Avalon apartment complex for their quick thinking and brave instincts on Oct. 26. Colby Carpenter and Kyle McCullouch, both students at Mississippi State University, lived in apartment building O before the fire ravished their apartment and 12 others’. Kyle McCullouch, a senior finance major from Madison, recounted the first moments when he realized their apartment building was engulfed in flames. “My brother was coming to stay with me, and we had just started going to sleep,” McCullouch said. “I don’t think he was fully asleep yet, but he saw a light flickering out behind the window so he got up and opened the door, he saw a little chair on fire. When he was running back he tried to put it out, he looked up and saw the balcony above us engulfed in flames.” McCullouch’s roommate, Colby Carpenter a senior agronomy major from Greenwood, Mississippi, said they quickly tried to raise the alarm as they ran outside to safety. “When Kyle realized how out of control it already was, he came and got me up and

TUESDAY

MSU band ‘Banding Together’ for a cause

OLIVIA ZERINGUE

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Olivia Zeringue | The Reflector

Roommates Colby Carpenter and Kyle McCullouch, seniors at Mississippi State University, were integral in the rescue of many residents from apartment building O during the Oct. 26 Avalon apartment fire. The roommates stand in front of their burnt apartment building.

we just took off and ran outside,” Carpenter said. “We just started running around the building beating on windows and doors because we knew we were some of the first ones out.” McCullouch said the roommates’ teamwork was a big part in ensuring everyone could make it out of the apartment safely. The roommates’ biggest test came when they were saving a disabled mother from her

WEDNESDAY

HI: 76 LO: 54 SKY: T-Storms

HI: 59 LO: 46 SKY: Rainy

POP: 50%

POP: 70%

apartment. “We beat on one door and a family came out, she said her mom was disabled and still inside so me and my roommate ran in there and she had an electric wheelchair, so we had to pull it up next to her bed, pick her up, put her on the wheelchair and then it wasn’t working so we just had to drag her out as fast as we could before it got too bad,” McCullouch said. Starkville Fire Department

Chief Charles Yarbrough was quick to thank several members of the community, including McCullouch and Carpenter, SPD and a volunteer firefighter who played a big role ensuring people’s safety. “They saved people’s lives by beating on their doors and getting them out,” Yarbrough said. “Without the help of those people, I think we would have had a large loss of life.” HEROES, 3

FORECAST: Grab your umbrellas, Starkville! We have Readerʼs Guide: a chance for rain Tuesday and Wednesday continuing into the overnight hours. Skies will begin to clear early Bad Dawgs HI: 63 Thursday morning. Temperatures will start to cool on LO: 40 Wednesday, as cooler air starts to filter in. Highs will only Bulletin Board SKY: Mostly Cloudy reach the low 60s on Wednesday and Thursday. Lows will Opinion dip into the low 40s as fall weather returns.

resident director of Rice Hall was unauthorized to comment on this issue. “A technician was working in the basement (of Rice Hall) and turned some valves off and on,” Mock said. “There is sediment in pipes, usually iron or manganese, that’s why it has the orange color, and if we turn a valve and change the flow of water, it stirs up that sediment in pipes. He saw something on the computer system that he wanted to go and check out, so that’s why he went down to the basement to work on it.” Virtual Construction Specialist and Journeyman Plumber Bradley Phillips said the combination of color and odor of the water could possibly be attributed to iron and manganese in the water in the old building. Phillips, who has 38 years of experience, said the smell coming from the water comes from the iron and chlorine combining when the sediment mixes in the pipes. “That sediment didn’t come from Rice (Hall), it came from the big water lines that feed Rice. Discolored water happens on campus several times a year, I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s not an uncommon occurrence,” Mock said. “It usually happens if they’re working on something outside of the building, but it can happen when they are working inside of the building too.” RICE HALL, 2

If you knew the opportunity to save someone’s life would be as simple as swabbing your mouth, would you do it? Be The Match Registry, a nonprofit worldwide leader in bone marrow transplantation, provides this opportunity through its “Banding Together” initiative with the Mississippi State University Famous Maroon Band, and other college bands around the nation. For the past three years, the Famous Maroon Band has been a part of this campaign to increase the number of donors on the National Bone Marrow Registry. The drive is held each fall to give new band members a chance to register with Be The Match. Tucker Haney, a senior business economics

major from Forrest City, Arkansas, recently matched with someone in need of a donation. Haney, who has played the tuba in the band for four years, did not hesitate to go through the process of having his stem cells, or blood-making organs, donated. Haney said the process of signing up was easy for him to do. He said all he had to do was fill out some paperwork and have his mouth swabbed to check his DNA for a potential match. After a year of being on the registry, Haney received a call asking him if he would be willing to donate. “Last fall semester, I got a call saying that I was a match and they wanted to do further testing to see if I was a closer match,” Haney said. “I went in for blood work and stuff like that, and they came back and said that I was the best match.” BAND, 2

THURSDAY

POP: 10%

-Gabrielle Espinosa, Campus Connect Meteorologist

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