OPINION: Social activism should be about more than Facebook likes, p. 13
GYMNASTICS: Coaches work for success, p. 5
Reveille The Daily
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 89
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Deanna Narveson Staff Writer
midnight to fetch their flamingos. When they got to the lakes, they were frightened at the sight of a police car, but scored their carnival tokens without harm. Some birds can be seen year-round in bars, restaurants
Joel Baines, associate dean for research and graduate education at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, was announced Tuesday as the new dean for the University School of Veterinary Medicine. Baines was selected from three candidates to take the place of the current dean, Peter Haynes, who has served as dean of the college since 2007. The other candidates were Martin Furr, professor at Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center and David Baker, director of the Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine at the University, said Thomas Klei, search committee chair and interim vice chancellor of research and economic development. Baines will begin Sept. 1 pending approval from the Board of
FLAMINGOS, see page 15
DEAN, see page 15
Spanish Town flamingos make annual appearance on University Lakes
ANGELA MAJOR / The Daily Reveille
Plywood pink flamingos pop up on the University Lakes each year to mark the week leading up to the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Ball. Senior Reporter
Early February mornings in Baton Rouge mean dew, chilly weather and pink flamingos to celebrate Mardi Gras. The Spanish Town parade krewe annually decorates
plywood flamingos and places them in the University Lakes to announce the Spanish Town parade ball, which will be held on Saturday. Though the birds themselves are a tradition, taking them from the lakes has become more commonplace each year.
University alumna and Baton Rouge resident Chelsea Bennett grew up in Baton Rouge and said the pink wooden birds have always been a part of her life. Bennett said her favorite memory of the flamingos was in high school, when she and her friends went to the lake at
VET SCHOOL
Baines named as new dean Tuesday
Bird Hunting Fernanda Zamudio-Suarez
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
STUDENT LIFE
University concrete canoe team to compete against rivals Panya Kroun Contributing Writer
Most people think all rocks sink, but civil engineering senior Sean Moore says otherwise. “With the right mixture, things like concrete can actually float really well,” Moore said. Moore captains the University’s concrete canoe team, a subdivision of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Every year, the team designs and builds
a canoe made of concrete and trains to race it against other concrete canoes in national competitions. Heavy materials often sink in water, but there are reasons why the canoe competition involves concrete. According to Moore and co-captain Brendan Coploy, civil engineering sophomore, several aspects of their canoe design take advantage of concrete’s physical properties without sacrificing the boat’s speed or buoyancy. “The boat is reinforced by tar,
wood and steel mesh, so even though the outside is made of pure concrete, the area the concrete actually covers doesn’t make it less buoyant,” Moore said. The concrete mixture is a custom recipe with reduced density that lends itself to flotation. To demonstrate this point, Coploy dropped a solid cylinder of it into a bucket of water, and it floated. “We spent a lot of time CANOES, see page 15
RICHARD REDMANN / The Daily Reveille
A cross-section shows the layers of a concrete canoe for the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Deep South Regional Student Conference in Memphis, Tenn., in March.