● tuesday,
april 22, 2014
● serving
texas a&m since 1893
● first paper free – additional copies $1 ● © 2014 student media
thebattalion
12,000 congregated in Reed Arena Monday night for Muster to honor fallen Aggies.
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TICKETS, PLEASE
Honorary roll call remembers fallen Aggies Lindsey Gawlik The Battalion
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ith a mood of solidarity and solemnness, Aggie Muster reminded the 12,000 Aggies in attendance Monday what it means to be a part of the Aggie family. Peter Rozanski, Muster Committee member and junior civil engineering major, said this year’s event went smoothly. “I think [Muster] was a phenomenal combination of celebration and mourning,” Rozanski said. “I think Bill Youngkin’s speech reminded us of the camaraderie that we have as Aggies. I think that the roll call is powerful and it was nice getting to see the families’ different reactions while knowing they were loved by the Aggies surrounding them.” Kayla Taylor, sophomore human resources major, said she attended to call “here” for her friend Christy Crow, Class of
Muster
Photos by Matt Wong — THE BATTALION
Softly call
2016, who died Wednesday. “Muster was really hard knowing somebody whose name was called but it was a closing experience for me,” Taylor said. “She would have been here if she could. She was the definition of an Aggie.” Muster speaker Bill Youngkin, Class of 1969, was head yell leader at A&M and is now an attorney in Bryan. Youngkin said many universities offer high-quality educations similar to A&M’s, but none have the unity and the spirit he saw in Aggies after the Bonfire collapse or during each Silver Taps. Youngkin said Muster embodied that spirit, showing how much of a family Texas A&M really is. “Our traditions are what makes us a family and being a family is what makes us different from all the rest,” Youngkin said.
Jessica Smarr: Limited graduation seating is cramping everyone’s style
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epending which way you slice it, I’ve got approximately two parents, three brothers, four grandparents, one great-grandparent, 10 aunts and uncles, 12 cousins, one boyfriend and at least 10 friends that I am relatively sure like me at least a little bit. And I’ve got six tickets for graduation. This would really be a non-issue if my graduation was about me. I just wouldn’t show up to the thing. Graduation requires me to wake up at some unholy hour, put on makeup and junk, wear a big floppy robe and sit still for 16 billion hours. I’ve already been through my high school graduation, where I at least got to break up the tedious affair by giving some pretentious speech I wrote. But graduation is like those birthday parties they throw for one-year-old kids. Those things obviously aren’t for the children. It’s about adults watching little pudgy babies
smoosh cake in their adorable, misshapen faces. Graduation isn’t about me getting a diploma. It’s about my grandma trying to figure out how to work her digital camera so she can take a picture of me in a cardboard hat. Which is why this whole six-ticket affair is such a scandalous disaster. I realize “there just aren’t enough seats” seems like a reasonable explanation to some people, but my family doesn’t exactly buy into “reasonable explanations.” They think I am precious and they want to see me walk across a stage in heels and get a diploma. Maybe it’s because they’re proud of me. Maybe it’s because they want to be there to see if I fall down. Either way, this limited seating thing isn’t quite cutting it. I know it’s too late to get anything fixed for this graduation. It’s fine. I’ll just tell my sweet Great Grandma Glenz, who is recovering nicely from a broken knee, that no, she can’t come to the graduation of her oldest great-grandchild, essentially ripping her little heart from her petite little chest. It’s no big deal. I enjoy upsetting little old ladies. But to avoid crushing the dreams of other 90-year-old women, I’ve decided to set up an easy system for the administration of Texas A&M as See Graduation on page 4
William Guerra — THE BATTALION
baseball
environment
Earth Day a chance No. 21 for conservation Rice Owls Infograph places in context the conditions endured by a 16-year-old boy who snuck aboard a plane. William Guerra — THE BATTALION
Prof: ‘Amazing’ that plane stowaway lived Jennifer Reiley The Battalion
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he FBI confirmed Monday that a 16-year-old boy traveled from San Jose, Calif., to Honolulu, Hawaii, sitting in a not-so-typical airline seat — the wheel well of the plane. Sunday morning, a boy ran away from home, climbed into the undercarriage area of a Boeing 767 and hid away for more than five hours until the plane landed in Honolulu, FBI spokesman Tom Simon said to the Associated Press. The boy was discovered on the tarmac upon arrival and taken into custody. Kenneth Bowman, Texas A&M professor of meteorology, said given the conditions at an altitude of 38,000 feet, it was amazing the teen survived the flight. “The pressure is about 20 percent of what it is at sea level, so there’s only about 20 percent as much oxygen available,” Bowman said. “The summit of Mt. Everest is about 29,000 feet and this is almost 10,000 feet higher than that,
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almost two miles higher. People can barely make it the summit of Mt. Everest, and if you stay up there very long, you die.” Along with the high altitude, Bowman said temperatures at that height could be well below zero, sitting around minus 70 or minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Bowman said this is not the first time this has happened. Multiple news outlets have sourced the Federal Aviation Agency, which reports “105 stowaways have sneaked aboard 94 flights worldwide since 1947, and about one out of four survived.” “It must be like drowning in cold water, where they can revive people after a long period under really cold water because their metabolism and everything has just slowed almost to a stop,” Bowman said. Leighton James, junior agribusiness major, said she was surprised the boy was able to get onto the plane without See Stowaway on page 3
Holiday began in 1970 with student schedules in mind
Conservation tips
Cassidy Tyrone The Battalion
Parker Ray expected to start on mound
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eople around the world are making efforts to respect and replenish the Earth. Earth Day will be celebrated Tuesday in all 50 states of the U.S. and in 192 countries, said John Maleri, associate director of Earth Day Network. The Environmental Issues Committee and Texas A&M Information Technology are recognizing the 44th annual Earth Day by holding an ewaste recycling campaign, to properly dispose of electronic devices. Lacey Baze, Class of 2006 and communications coordinator for Texas A&M IT, said disposing of e-waste improperly could have serious effects on the environment. “If you throw away things like computers, cellphones, any kind of electronic device, batteries, ink cartridges, toxic materials from them leak into the land and end up in the water supply,” Baze said. The repercussions of improper disposal of e-waste not only have the potential to harm animals, Baze said, but also to harm people. “All the freshwater fish, all the animals that drink from the rivers and lakes we have here in Texas and across the
on deck for Aggies
Brandon Wheeland The Battalion
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United States — we don’t want them drinking toxic water,” Baze said. “This is in addition to us. A lot of our water supply comes from those sources as well.” Victoria Benson, director of programming for the Environmental Issues Committee and junior psychology major,
exas A&M will travel south to Reckling Park in Houston to take on the Rice Owls Tuesday night. Rice boasts a 16-5 record in Conference-USA and is No. 21 in the nation. The Owls claimed a 5-3 victory Sunday behind the arm of freshman Jon Duplantier against UAB. A&M freshman Nick Banks is up to a .315 average for the year, good for second highest average on the team behind Cole Lankford at .319, after a 3-for-5 Sunday performance with 2 RBIs and a home run. Five Aggies are hitting above .300. Joining Lankford and Banks above the .300 mark are Patrick McLendon (.310), Jonathan Moroney (.308) and Ryne Birk (.303). A&M (24-17, 8-10 SEC) has a .284 overall batting average with opponents hitting .259 against them. Birk had a 3-for-6 outing in the Kentucky series including a 2-for-4 Sunday that featured five RBIs. Rice is led by John Clay Reeves, who has started all 38 games for the Owls this year and has 52 hits, 27 RBIs and a .351 average in 148 at bats. Shane Hoelscher and Skyler Ewing
See Earth Day on page 3
See Baseball on page 2
Remington May — THE BATTALION
4/21/14 10:09 PM