Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Father Tim becomes reluctant hero USCpriest helps woman escape shooting nearby \ BY GINNYTHORNTON THE GAMECOCK Rev. Tim Lijewski is reluctant to be called a hero. “This embarasses me a little bit,” he said, when asked about the attention he has received since saving a woman from a shooting last Friday. Lijewski, known to his parish ioners as “Father Tim,” was pick ing up a prescription from the dri ve-through window at the Taylor Street CVS Pharmacy when a woman ap proached his car. “I didn’t know if she was just a crazy woman or what was going on,” said Lijewski Lijewski, the priest at the St. Thomas More Center on Greene Street. He soon realized the woman, 32 year old CVS employee Wendy Knox, was trying to leave the store to escape a shooting. “She got in my car and I asked if it was OK if we drove to my church,” Lijewski said. Knox asked Lijewski to call the police. When he did, he was told the gunman had already been captured. Police had ar rested Kenneth C. Gratzick of Columbia. Lijewski said he was on his way home from a visit to his parents’ house in Charleston and stopped at CVS to pick up a prescription for his sinus infection. Lijewski took a particularly long time to drive back because of intestinal flu. “Had I not been sick, I might have been shot,” he said. Knox’s husband came to pick her up shortly after the incident. “Our parting was nice,” “I didn’t know if she was just a crazy woman or what was going on.” REV. TIM UJEWSKI PRIEST, ST. THOMAS MORE CENTER Lijewski said, although the two have not spoken since. “I don’t feel like I did anything extraordinary,” he said. “I think the fact that I wasn’t in there may have been a small miracle. If I was there to help her at all, God may have put me there for a reason.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com STUDENT GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS PHOTO BY CANDI HAUGLUM Senjbrook Bristow files for president Monday morning in the Student Government office. Bristow was the first candidate to file. SG campaign kicks off as first candidates file BY ADAM BEAM frilE GAMECOCK * As Brook Bristow handed grad uate assistant Ed Bianchi his pa perwork and $25 filing fee for the office of student body president, Bianchi looked down at the money and said, “Can you get it back if you don’t win?” Bristow, his light-brown hair standing at attention, just stared at Bianchi. “Hahaha... no.” | And with that, Bristow became the first to officially declare his candidacy for student body presi dent in 2002. “It’s amazing. I never ever would have thought that I would have been filing for president,” □ said Bristow, a fourth-year adver tising student. “I just want to show that I’m the most passionate about this. I want this Bornemann job and j.m w^ing to get up at 8:30 in the morning to prove that.” Also filing on Monday was third-year business school sena tor David Bornemann, who offi cially filed at 11 a.m., shortly after his second class of the day. “I really just want to give a new direction to Student Government,” he said. “The way we are looking at it is, we’re not running against Brook Bristow or any other candidates, we are run ning for the office, and I think that is a very positive stance to take.” While the Bornemann/Bristow matchup will leave students trip ping over their tongues, elections commissioner Adam Bourne ex pects it to be “a very interesting election.” While Bourne plans to take a passive role in increasing voter turnout, he did increase the per son-to-person campaign time from two days to four. “We serve as a judicial body, and because of that, we should re ally try to avoid affecting voter turnout, because turnout can af fect the outcome of the election,” said Bourne. ♦ RUNG, SEE PAGE 4 Candidates Filing Candidates who had filed for office as of Tuesday afternoon: PRESIDENT Brook Bristow David Bornemann MCE PRESIDENT Katie Dreiling Shereef El-lbiary SENATE Science and Mathematics (Five seats available) Michael Yehl Amy Buchanan-Feinbert Tricia Daniels Marie Connelly Moore School of Business (Seven seats available) Damian Wingate Liberal Arts (Eight seats available) Amanda Bowen ‘Our goal is to serve’ ROW president to speak at USC ^ about aid agency by abey coker the gamecock Not many people would risk their life by chartering a plane from Rwanda into the middle of a war zone in the Congo to create a hospital for 200,000 people. Dr. Ben Mathes is an exception. Mathes, president of Rivers of the World, will speak Jan. 31 at 7 p.m. in the Gressette Room at Harper College. Mathes will speak on how ROW works on a day-to-day basis as well as how USC students may get in volved in the program by volun teering. ROW is a developmental agency that targets remote river areas and the problems of the peo ple who live in them. “Our goal is to serve, realizing that it is their country, their people, their village, but our problem. We will never do for others what they can do Mathes for themselves, but will work in a part nership based upon mutual love, grace, and respect,” Mathes said. Second-year student Lara Bratcher was instrumental in at tracting Mathes to speak at USC. She had the opportunity to volun teer with Mathes on one of his ex peditions. “It is an amazing experience to meet new people. He is an incredi ble speaker with a wonderful phi losophy, and I would encourage everyone to come hear him speak,” Bratcher said. “His personal expe riences with individuals around the world captivates every audience.” ♦ ROW, SEE PAGE 3 New group pushes for diversity in BGLA BY JOHN VAN VLEET THE GAMECOCK A new organization plans to form alongside the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance in an effort to promote racial diversity within the university BGLA community and the outside com munity as a whole. The League for Alternative Minorities consists of 15 mem bers already and includes sev eral former BGLA members, but the group is not affiliated with use. Five members in LAM over see the planning and adminis trative aspects of the group. The league plans to grow and be come influential so that at the start of the next school year, it will be able to begin its work more publicly. Rod Scott-Padilla, one of the leaders, explained the circum stances that he said necessitat ed this action. He said the crux of the problem is that the non whites within the BGLA feel ne glected already. “I felt a little concerned, me being African-American/' he said of his joining the BGLA. Scott-Padilla, a third-year International Studies student, said he was still trying to find out who he was when he joined the BGLA diming his sophomore year. “You’relalready having to deal with your race — a minori ty within a minority.” According to Scott-Padilla, only 1 percent to 2 percent of the BGLA members are nonwhite. “You’re already having to deal with your race - a minority within a minority. These issues need to be expressed.” ROD SCOTT-PADILLA ONE LEADER OF THE LEAGUE FOR ALTERNATIVE MINORITIES “These issues need to be ex pressed,” he said. Scott-Padilla said the BGLA does not appeal to some in the non-heterosexual minority be cause they already have a fear of rejection. “They’re not just not white; they’re gay,” he said. He thinks this new organization, in coordination with the BGLA, will help non whites feel more at ease joining the BGLA. Scott-Padilla does not want anyone to think that the new or ganization will create a split within the non-heterosexual community. He describes it as very “tight-knit,” saying that the league will work with the BGLA to improve racial diversity with in the association. BGLA President Jeff Crews agreesthat the community is very close, and said the BGLA will embrace the new group, but he doesn’t think the BGLA de ters any minorities. “Before me, the president for two years was an African-American woman,” he said. “This semester, three new African-Americans have been attending meetings.” He added that all the meetings ♦ GROUP, SEE PAGE 4 PHOTO COURTESY KRT CAMPUS The president spoke about the economy and security. Bush delivers first State of the Union We will prevail in war/ Bush tells Congress BY RON FOURNIER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday night that tens of thousands of terrorists still threaten America — “tick ing time bombs, set to go off” — and unveiled his plans to hunt them across the globe. He pledged a battle of equal vigor to revive the nation’s ailing econ omy. “We will prevail in war, and we will defeat this recession,” Bush said. In his first State of the Union address to Congress and the nation, the president fleshed out his vision for the war on ter rorism beyond Afghanistan — to a dozen countries that he said harbor terrorists and “an axis of evil” of three more that seek weapons of mass destruction. He urged Congress to pass his tax-cutting economic package and challenged Americans to commit two years or 4,000 hours to community service in an ef fort to tap the surge in patrio tism since the Sept. 11 attacks. “We can overcome evil with greater good,” the president said. Democrats, responding to Bush, sought to show unity on ♦ BUSH, SEE PAGE 3 TODAY’S WEATHER: Partly cloudy, no chance of rain. Low UV index. High 82, Low 56. TOMORROW’S WEATHER: Partly cloudy, 10 percent chance of rain. High 78, Low 55.