The Daily Beacon

Page 1

Follow us: @DailyBeacon

Bonnaroo lineup eclectic, balanced

Courtside Preview: Tennessee - Arkansas

PAGE 6

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Issue 25

T H E

E D I T O R I A L L Y

Partly Cloudy 20% chance of rain HIGH LOW 61 39

http://utdailybeacon.com

Vol. 119

I N D E P E N D E N T

S T U D E N T

PAGE 5

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906

N E W S P A P E R

O F

T H E

U N I V E R S I T Y

O F

T E N N E S S E E

UT engages in national recycling competition Justin Joo Staff Writer RecycleMania, an eight-week recycling competition between universities, has already begun in full swing at the UT campus. Over 500 schools across the country are competing in four categories, which include per capita recycling, overall recycling rate as a percentage of total waste, minimization of trash and recycling generated. The event helps benchmark where UT stands on recycling, both in comparison to its past endeavors and also to other universities. Last year, UT placed third in the Southeastern Conference for per capita recycling. UT Recycling environmental coordinator Jay Price joked that he wants to win first prize this year. “There is a competitive side to it,” Price said, “and I don’t know what motivates different people, but if it’s competition, we’re in it for the win. I really want to beat all the other SEC schools in the per capita recycling category.” The first week of RecycleMania featured the Spotted Being Sustainable event. From Feb. 2-10, UT Recycling staff and volunteers were on the lookout for students who were exhibiting sustainable behavior. This included students putting something in a recycling bin or using a reusable water bottle or mug. If spotted, the student received a coupon for a free medium Java City coffee from any of the UT convenience stores. See Recyclemania on Page 3

Group raises food money for alternative break Wesley Mills Staff Writer Spring Break is just around the corner, and TeamVOLS is preparing for its annual alternative trip. Each year TeamVOLS breaks up into teams of around 25 and travels to different cities to perform community service. As it is thought, college students have to find other means of support besides scrounging around their couch looking for spare change. That is why each year, TeamVOLS hosts its Spaghetti for Service fundraiser. This fundraiser has two separate times: Feb. 20 from 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., and Feb. 23 from 5:30-8 p.m. in the Black Cultural Center. Mark Moore, senior in special education, is one of the team leaders for the trip, and said that the success of this trip is linked with the money raised at Spaghetti for Service. “We use this money to help fundraise the food we eat and the transportation, and it is one way to keeping our costs low compared to other schools,” Moore said. Last year TeamVOLS took two teams to Biloxi, Miss. and Chicago. Program advisor Kate Humphrey went to Biloxi, Miss. where they helped build a nature center for middle school and high school students. “They were wanting to build that in an area that had been completely flooded by Hurricane Katrina,” Humphrey said. In the past, teams have also helped with local YMCAs or food banks around the particular area. “Normally we try and focus on a centralized goal in one of the cities,” Humphrey said. Moore went on the other

trip to Chicago where they visited alternative school groups where the social standing of the students greatly affected their lives. “We go to various cities depending on their needs, and we do our research and we figure out what their city is known for,” Moore said. “We go out there and we try to make some social changes and expose our group of students to those changes so they can hopefully bring those back to Knoxville.” Moore said these trips really give students the opportunity to see what life is like outside the walls of Knoxville in regards to social change and interaction within the community. As for the fundraiser itself, spaghetti’s versatility makes it the main course of choice. “It’s definitely easy to serve the masses, but it’s also a lot of fun to make,” Humphrey said. “One of our graduate assistants used to work in the restaurant business and he loves to cook in general. So that’s one thing you can cook in bulk, it’s fun to cook and it’s delicious.” A wide range of people usually attend this event because of the diverse group of students that is involved in TeamVOLS. “We choose such a wide variety of students for our teams; we reach almost every aspect of UT’s campus,” Humphrey said. “We’re not just getting students but we’re getting staff members and faculty and people’s family. It’s not just limited to people who are interested in volunteering.” And yet, though the spaghetti may be “delicious,” it’s the pudding that gets all the publicity. “It’s really good — a cohesive and delicious dessert,” Humphrey said.

Discoveries give families closure hope The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — The childhood friends killed for the first time less than three months after their high school graduation in 1984. Then they seemingly killed with impunity for the next 15 years, with one man making barroom boasts about their ability to make people disappear. By the time the hunting buddies were finally arrested in 1999, investigators say the notorious “Speed Freak Killers” killed as many as 20 people during a 15-year spree that terrorized California’s rural Central Valley. Some of their victims were left at the scene. Most were never seen again, especially their female victims. Even after their convictions in 2001, Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog steadfastly refused to divulge any burial sites. Now, motivated by a bounty hunter’s promise to pay $33,000 for the location of the missing, Shermantine is breaking a long silence. Family members of the missing hope the new details will lead to the discovery of their loved ones’ remains and closure after years of torment. Two victims have already been identified and hundreds of human remains have been recovered over the last several days. More are expected to be found as the

search resumed Tuesday after a daylong postponement due to rain. “It is a happy occasion,” said Paula Wheeler, mother of 16-year-old Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler, who disappeared in 1985 and whose remains were tentatively identified Friday. Chevy’s portrait hangs in the living room of the Wheelers’ Crossville, Tenn., home. The Wheelers intend to have Chevy’s remains cremated and displayed at their home. Shermantine told Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla that he plans to use the $33,000 to pay $15,000 in court-ordered restitution to victims’ families. The rest will buy headstones for his deceased parents and small luxuries in prison like candy bars and a private television set he can’t buy because every penny he receives now is used to pay down the restitution debt. Padilla hopes to claim rewards offered by the state of California for information about missing persons thought to be the victims of Shermantine and Herzog. Using crude maps Shermantine hand-drew in his Death Row cell, investigators have dug up three sites since Thursday that have yielded human remains. The site of the biggest find is an abandoned well outside the city of Stockton, near the town of Linden, that produced hundreds of

human bones, purses, shoes, jewelry and other evidence over the weekend. That raised Joan Shelley’s hopes that her 16-year-old daughter JoAnn Hobson will be found. “I feel they are going to find her,” a tearful Shelley told The Associated Press in a phone interview from her Manteca home. JoAnn disappeared in 1985, and investigators have long suspected Shermantine and Herzog in the girl's abduction and murder. But they never had enough evidence to charge them. Padilla said Shermantine calls the well “Herzog’s boneyard,” and pins all the bodies that will be found there on Herzog. That’s nothing new. Beyond steadfastly refusing to disclose the location of bodies, the childhood friends have also maintained that the other single-handedly did all the killing. Herzog hanged himself on Jan. 16 outside the Susanville trailer he was paroled to after an appeals court tossed out his confession as illegally coerced. He committed suicide hours after Padilla told him Shermantine was prepared to tell authorities about the missing. “I could hear him catch his breath when I mentioned the well,” Padilla said of his conversation with Herzog on Jan. 16. “He thanked me, and didn't say anything more, but I could hear him catch his breath.”

Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon

Lillian Schaeffer, junior in biological sciences, Kasey Carter, senior in management, and Dede Blackwell, junior in psychology, perform during a dress rehearsal for the Vagina Monologues on Sunday. The show was open to the public on Monday and Tuesday.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
The Daily Beacon by UT Media Center - Issuu