Daily Toreador The
TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2014 VOLUME 88 ■ ISSUE 157
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Christmas in July
Texas agencies to crack down on illegal water use AUSTIN (AP) — Increased enforcement efforts will soon begin to prevent people from illegally drawing water from Central Texas lakes and the lower Colorado River. Law enforcement officers for the Lower Colorado River Authority and other agencies will increase patrols beginning Friday. They’ll look for property owners along the chain of lakes that include Buchanan and Travis who are illegally drawing water for domestic uses such as watering lawns. LCRA spokeswoman Clara Tuma said Monday the authority has spent the last few years reminding lakeside property owners that they must have a contract to pump lake water for their use. There were fewer than 60 contracts with the authority in 2009 and now there’s more than 3,700. Increased patrols also will be conducted along the Colorado River between Lake Travis and Matagorda Bay.
Austin still charging residents drainage fee AUSTIN (AP) — Austin residents are still being charged a drainage fee that a judge ruled invalid a month ago, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Judge Amy Clark Meachum said the fee was invalid in June, after a 2009 lawsuit argued the city was unfairly charging residents in apartment and condominiums the same amount as those living in larger, single-family homes. The plaintiffs’ attorney Robby Alden said he is considering filing another lawsuit. He said he wants Austin officials to remove the fee until it is changed to make it fairer to customers. “The way the statute is written, the city doesn’t have the right to keep charging this fee unless they adopt a valid one that satisfies (legal) requirements,” Alden said. The fee is levied on more than 300,000 customers and raises about $71 million for Austin, which uses the funds to pay for several programs, including flood warning systems and maintaining storm sewers. The drainage fee is $9.20 for most residential customers and is $4.60 per unit for residents of condo or apartment buildings that have seven or more stories. The dispute is over how the fee is set up. Other large Texas cities charge a drainage fee based on how many paved surfaces buildings occupy, but Austin charges the same flat fee to most residential customers, which means someone with a large house pays the same amount as a resident in a small apartment.
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Texas Tech physicians raise money, gather food during CanPaign By KAITLIN BAIN staff writer
Christmas does not only come in December at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. Tech physicians, faculty and staff and others from the community gathered Friday to celebrate July 25, Christmas in July, to conclude the physicians’ CanPaign to raise money and food for the South Plains Food Bank. Matt Driskill, Tech physicians eye clinic administrator, said the idea for the CanPaign came after speaking with those from the food bank to find a way to benefit the community more than they had been doing in the past. “We’ve found from talking to the folks at the food bank that they’re just busting at the seams with the food during the holidays and they really struggle even storing it but in the summer they can’t even get through the summer,” he said. “Some of the kiddos who are home for the summer usually get a good meal during the school year at lunch, but they really don’t in the summer. So we decided to have Christmas in July.” David Weaver, chief executive officer for the food bank, said each department within Tech physicians was challenged to raise the most food per person in the group. The dermatologists raised the most food out of all the groups, he said. The collection lasted for three weeks, Driskill said, and the group raised more than 3,500 pounds of food and more than $2,000. “We use the money to bring in a lot of donated food,” Weaver said, “so we can leverage food that way. Sometimes
we will purchase food that we specifically need, but a lot of that money will help us with gas and warehouse costs.” The food bank receives food nationally and locally, and the money helps bring the food to the food bank, he said. “When we’re getting dollars, we can use that for about one or two meals,” he said, “which is a pretty good return on your investment.” In addition to the food donated and money raised, the event Friday served as a celebration to thank those who participated and award the donations to the food bank, Driskill said. There were games such as the beanbag toss and volleyball, he said, several Tech volleyball and basketball athletes were present, the Masked Rider was also there to take pictures and support the physicians and the group also provided Bahama Bucks snow cones to those in attendance. “This is our first annual,” Driskill said, “and we’re anticipating doing it every year for Christmas in July to really help our friends.” Weaver said in addition to donating food and money, there are two other things citizens can do to help out the food bank and the hungry. Giving time and advocating for those who are hungry is just as important as donating food and money, he said. “So many people are affected by hunger and it’s just reminding your neighbor that there are hungry in the community,” he said. “It might be someone you go to church with, someone you go to school with, even someone you work with.”
PHOTO BY JACOB SNOW/The Daily Toreador
CHRISTMAS continued on Page 2 ➤➤
MATT DRISKILL SHOWS the amount of money raised after a internal food drive for the South Pains Food Bank on Friday at the Health Sciences Center.
Texas Tech faculty members Tickets for women’s clinic set for Wednesday sold out receive Fulbright Grants Three Texas Tech faculty members were awarded Fulbright Grants Friday to fund research in agribusiness, student exchange and meteor scenarios. Sankar Chatterjee, horn professor of paleontology and curator at the Museum of Tech; Rich Rice, associate professor of English; and Conrad Lyford, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics; were the Tech faculty members to receive the grant this year, according to a Tech news release. Grants were also awarded to about
800 other U.S. faculty members, according to the release, and are conducting their research in 140 countries. Chatterjee received the FulbrightNehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award, according to the release. He will travel Spring 2015 to India to continue his research about the Shiva crater, which has been linked to the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. FULBRIGHT continued on Page 2 ➤➤
The Texas Tech Athletic Department announced tickets for coach K l i f f K i n g s b u r y ’s s e c o n d a n n u a l women’s clinic have been sold out. The clinic is scheduled for Wednesday, according to the Tech Athletics website, four days before the football teams open for fall training camp. The event is hosted exclusively for women who are at least 21 years or older, according to the website. Proceeds from this year’s clinic will go to the Jennie Bailey Fund, according to the website.
The event is to provide and a look into the Tech football program in a “casual and festive atmosphere,” according to the release. The clinic will be hosted in at 5 p.m. in the Frazier Alumni Pavilion. The registration fee was $60. According to a previous The Daily Toredor article, the clinic raised $10,000 for the fund last year. The clinic also had 320 women in last year’s attendence, according to the article. ➤➤editor@dailytoreador.com
Tech Twirlers earn national title at Championship competition
Magic Match — Page 2
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PHOTO COURTESY OF BETHANY TOLLEY
MEMBERS OF THE Texas Tech Twilers team poses after winning the National Col-
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After five years of competing, the Texas Tech Twirlers earned the National Collegiate Small Dance Twirl Championship during the National Collegiate Twirling Championships on Saturday at Notre Dame University in Notre Dame, Indiana. The team’s coach Bethany Tolley said this is the first national championship the team has earned at a collegiate level. The twirlers began practicing for the competition in January. The week before competition, three practices a week became seven. “This is something they wanted,”Tolley said, “and they worked hard for it.” Last year, the team won a national title, but the competition was not at the collegiate level. Twirler Claudia Hernandez, a sophomore biology major from Lubbock, said the experience strengthened the bond of
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the team members. “We went everywhere together,” she said. “We basically spent the entire eight days with each other. We had a lot of experiences that brought us closer together.” The team’s feature twirler, Sydney Webster, won sixth place overall for her solo routine. This was Webster’s first year competing. Tolley said she believes Webster can take home a championship next year. “She’s an extremely hard worker,” she said. “She’s a showy twirler on the field, and that’s what they look for.” Tolley said since the team has reached its goals, the next step is to return stronger and meet high expectations. “Now they’ve got to defend that title,” she said. “People know who we are now. They understand we’re a threat.” ➤➤editor@dailytoreador.com
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