Daily Toreador The
TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2013 VOLUME 87 ■ ISSUE 158
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Serving the Texas Tech University community since 1925
Texas Dem attends voting meeting at White House AUSTIN (AP) — A Texas Democratic lawmaker is scheduled to attend a conference at the White House on voting rights. Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer was the only Texan invited to Monday’s meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama. Last week the Justice Department announced it would support a lawsuit asking a federal judge to require Texas to pre-clear all new election laws in the state. Attorney General Eric Holder said because Texas had a recent history of intentional discrimination against minorities, it needed special attention. Martinez Fischer is one of the plaintiffs in a voting rights lawsuit in San Antonio that challenges new election maps. A three-judge panel is considering whether it needs to draw new maps to make sure minorities are fairly represented. Texas primary elections are scheduled for March 4.
Texan charged after his wife, her brother slain WALL (AP) — A West Texas man has been arrested after his estranged wife and her brother were fatally shot and his sister-in-law was wounded. Tom Green County Sheriff David Jones says Brian Jones Berry of Wall was being held Monday on a murder charge with bond set at $500,000. Berry was arrested late Sunday during a traffic stop in Andrews, about 170 miles away, with his 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son. An Amber Alert was issued for the youngsters, who were unharmed. Jones says deputies Sunday night responded to a domestic disturbance at Berry’s former home. Jones says 36-year-old Keri Berry of Wall, who lives at the residence, and 31-year-old Brandon Block of San Angelo were shot to death. Jones says Block’s wife, 26-yearold Susan Block, was hospitalized Monday in critical condition.
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Silva: Stricter gun laws will not cure violence
City Council votes on LP&L rates By CATHERINE MCKEE editor-in-Chief
The Lubbock City Council will meet at 6 p.m. today to discuss the 9.7 percent rate increase that took effect in June and had many Lubbock Power & Light customers upset in July. Mayor Glen Robertson called the meeting, he said, because the Electric Utility Board and the Council made a mistake – one that has cost some Lubbock residents about $70 to $100 extra on their utility bills. “Any time that we approve a rate increase that’s gonna effect every citizen in Lubbock, we need to make sure we’ve
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When these customers saw their July bills, which were billed at the correct summer rates, the bills seemed unusually high. On the agenda for the specially called meeting is the consideration to rescind or adjust the previously-agreed upon 9.7 percent rate increase. Although Robertson said he is one vote in seven, and four are needed, he hopes the Council will decide to take action against the increase for the people of Lubbock. Since the increase took effect and Lubbock residents opened their unusually high July LP&L bills, Robertson said he has received an influx of emails from people who rely on fixed incomes, such as the elderly, widows and students.
These emails, he said, have been heartbreaking. “The thing that bothers me is the emails and calls I’ve received from people that cannot absolutely afford this, and they don’t know what to do,” Robertson said. For now, Robertson said Lubbock residents should begin conserving electricity and checking into payment options with LP&L, such as averaging utility bills and choosing payment plans. “We’ve got to turn our thermostats up,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re turning lights off if we don’t need them. We have to conserve every ounce that we can.” RATES continued on Page 2 ➤➤
Clinic profits go to Jennie Bailey Fund, benefit cancer treatment By PAIGE SKINNER Staff Writer
Texas Tech’s football training facility wasn’t occupied with the usual Tech football team Thursday evening. Instead, hundreds of women dressed in athletic gear were lunging, catching footballs and running drills on the practice field. Football coach Kliff Kingsbury hosted his first women’s clinic Thursday with 320 women in attendance — a number that was supposed to stop at 300, but the overwhelming response led to 20 more tickets. The registration fee was $50 and the profits went to the Jennie Bailey fund. Bailey, administrative assistant for recruiting, was diagnosed with brain cancer and will go through chemotherapy for the next two years. “Going through chemo has been a little rough,” Bailey said. “I had my MRI and it showed hopefully that the tumor is not there and I’ll have to stay on chemo for at least two years now, and so a little rough when you go through it, but I’m a strong person and everything else I’ve done really well on and I hope I continue to do well on this.” Bailey, or Ms. Bailey, as many of the football players and Kingsbury himself referred to her as, was sporting a cap over her bald head, as she walked around the training facility, visiting with attendees, players and members of the media.
Summitt Hogue, a Tech football player, said Bailey is like a second mother to him. “If you have anything going on or whatever, you can go sit down with her and she’ll talk with you about it,” he said. “She’s like a second mom and when I heard that she got what she had, it was terrible to hear that, so it’s awesome to see all these ladies come out and support her, so we can give her some support.” Kingsbury delivered the same well wishes toward Bailey. “She keeps us in line,” the coach said. “So we couldn’t think of a better way to give back to her and help her out a little bit and do this.” And as for the 320 women donating to the fund — Kingsbury smiled and said it was intense having that many women in the training facility. “It beats having dudes out here, though,” he said. “I’d rather have a bunch of women than a bunch of guys, so no, it’s all good.” “Blurred Lines,” “Senorita” and “We Can’t Stop” were some of the songs played on the loud speakers as Kingsbury acted as a sort of supervisor during the clinic — watching the women practice their drills, while occasionally stopping to pose for pictures. Along with the workouts, the women drank wine, ate salad, toured the facility and asked the football players any questions they had.
PHOTO BY ASHLYN TUBBS/The Daily Toreador
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KLIFF KINGSBURY INTERACTS with participants during his first women’s clinic Thursday. The proceeds were donated to the Jennie Bailey Fund.
Engineering students win Educational Design contest 7th time Photo editor
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done our homework and we know what the impact’s gonna be,” he said. The mistake, he said, was made when the Electric Utility Board and City Council were told the rate increase would only raise bills $7 to $10 a month. However, Robertson said he has heard from citizens who say their bills have doubled and sometimes tripled. Adding to the concerns of Lubbock citizens is the artificially low bill about 44,000 citizens received in the first 10 cycles of June billing. According to a statement released by LP&L, these customers were billed for the winter rates rather than the higher summer rates, causing their bills to be significantly lower than usual.
Kingsbury’s first women’s clinic draws in 320
By ASHLYN TUBBS
Hoop Hype — Page 2
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Texas Tech electrical and mechanical engineering students know how to compete. For the seventh time in nine years, a team of these students won the Educational Design Contest of the Sandia MEMS University Alliance Design Competition for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). “We’ve participated in this contest since it’s beginning,” said Tim Dallas, an associate professor in the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering. “We have a sequence of MEMS classes and those students are the ones making designs and competing in this design competition.” The competition was hosted by Southwest Center for Microsystems Education at the University of New Mexico and is sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories and the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). The Tech team members were among 30 colleges
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participating in the alliance. The deadline to submit designs was April 1, followed by a conference in June. The purpose of the competition is for universities to utilize fabrications process, which Dallas said is used to make MEMS devices. “They’re micro-fabricated using tools that are similar to how computer chips are made,” he said, “but these devices frequently have components that actually move, so you have mechanical structures and the whole device is usually one millimeter or smaller in size.” The team members included Bryan Kahler, Courtney Pinnell, Steve Mani and Philip Henry. Kahler, a senior electrical engineering major from Austin, was the lead designer. He developed the award winning idea, which will be fabricated in five to six months by Sandia National Laboratories. His creation is titled the Semaphore Man, which is a micro-scale base 25, onebit discrete time-variant analog signaling device that is used as an interactive educational tool teaching subjects including
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PHOTO BY ASHLYN TUBBS/The Daily Toreador
TIM DALLAS, AN associate professor in the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering, displays a chip used in MEMS technology, which is located in the center of the yellow box.
science, technology, engineering and mathematics to students of all ages. This idea won the educational rather
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than the novel category of the competition.
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CONTEST continued on Page 2 ➤➤
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