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YEAR IN REVIEW Breakaway director Timothy Ateek reflects on first year By Matthew Jacobs @MattJacobs3413

PG .2

ith the last Breakaway of the academic year set for May 2, Timothy Ateek will be closing the book on his first complete year as Breakaway director. Breakaway is an on-campus, non-denominational Christian Bible study which began in 1989 and draws thousands of students to Reed Arena every Tuesday night. Last year saw the departure of the organization’s second director, Ben Stuart, who served for 11 years before he welcomed his successor Ateek, Class of 2003, at the end of spring 2016. Ateek said the opportunity to come back home to Aggieland to lead a Bible study that he attended as a student has been a joyous experience. “Honestly it has been packed full of joy,” Ateek said. “It’s been a dream opportunity for me to come home to A&M, which was where I went, and I don’t think many people have the opportunity to come back and lead an organization that was so meaningful to them when they were in college. So it’s been a dream opportunity and it’s really been a supernaturally smooth transition.” Throughout the year Breakaway has covered many topics, and Ateek said his favorites include subject matter that heavily impacts students. Additionally, Ateek said the Shalom Project — an annual fundraiser, this year focused on raising money to assist Syrian refugees — was one of the year’s biggest successes. “My favorite series has been the two week series on pornography that I just did a few weeks ago,” Ateek said. “I just felt like we were meeting a need, and I really enjoyed getting to share my story. The Shalom Project this spring was just a huge joy, to see college students rally together and crush our goal of $119,000 — we raised $157,000, which was just amazing. And then … back in the fall I did a talk on just dealing with guilt, shame, and regret from past failures. And we had a night where students just got to write down something from their past … And they threw it in a basket just as a first Timothy Ateek, Class of step to2003, is an Aggie leading ward

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The Battalion staff sends our condolences to those affected by the attack at UT Monday afternoon in Austin.

other Aggies through his sermons. After this May he will have completed his first full year as Breakaway Director.

Jenny Hollowell — THE BATTALION

Aggie-owned Emporium sells unique type of roses By Mariah Colón @MariahColon18 Nestled in the small town of Independence, the garden center of Mike Shoup’s business, the Antique Rose Emporium, brings more than just roses to the surrounding communities. The shop features a variety of rose that’s easier to grow than newer, hybrid roses and will mail the seeds to gardeners around the country. Shoup graduated from Texas A&M in 1975 with a master’s degree in horticulture and has been cultivating his business ever since. After facing competition in the landscape industry, Shoup began focusing his attention to roses and found a niche unique to the plants he grows. “It was really more born out of a struggle … It started out of a need to create a niche in the industry and I was fortunate

enough to start a product called Old Garden Roses that fit into a program that we were growing for landscape plants in the industry,” Shoup said. “Being able to find another product allowed me to be successful and that product ended up being the roses that we found growing in essentially the backroads of Texas. [The roses] were still surviving for many years and we reintroduced those roses into the industry again.” Shoup said the roses differ from the average rose, and through this distinction he has been able to grow his company to offer mail-order roses, rose availability to landscapers and a garden center for the community in Independence. “Roses are beautiful but they are also associated with being very difficult to grow and needing sprays and pruning and stuff like that, the variety of roses that I grow — these older varieties — are more of a garden plant and

SECRET GARDEN The Antique Rose Emporium is located about 30 minutes from College Station in Independence, Texas.

ROSE EMPORIUM ON PG. 2

Mariah Colón — THE BATTALION

Synthetic schooling

A&M purchases synthetic canines for vet students By Rachel Knight @Reknight18 Veterinary students at Texas A&M now have the opportunity to practice surgical veterinary procedures — not on live animals, but on synthetic ones. Texas A&M’s vet school was the first to purchase 15 of SynDaver Lab’s breathing and bleeding live animal replacement surgical trainers to be used in the 2017 to 2018 school year. SynDaver Labs manufactures synthetic human and animal trainers made from water, fiber and salt. The company’s synthetic humans have been featured on shows like MythBusters, Grey’s Anatomy, CSI and Cross Bones. The synthetic canines will now be used to train future veterinarians before graduation. This weekend, more than 360 professionals in the veterinary industry from across the globe gathered in College Station for the

The SynDaver Lab is a synthetic canine created for training purposes so veterinary students can practice. Rachel Knight — THE BATTALION

inaugural Veterinary Innovation Summit hosted by Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and the North American Veterinary Community. During the summit, participants were able to learn more about innovative teaching methods, such as synthetic canines. Christopher Sakezles, SynDaver CEO, said the synthetic animals became commercially available in January and when Texas A&M’s vet school purchased the models it prompted other universities to do the same. ”It’s a great seal of approval,” Sakezles said. “When you have a top-10 university like TAMU pick it up it really helps get the word out to other schools. Then the other schools take it more seriously, not that they weren’t already; but when you see a major school pick it up and integrate it into the curriculum, people notice.” Karen Cornell, associate dean for professional programs at A&M, said the synthetic canines will offer SYNTHETIC CANINES ON PG. 2