The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 13, 2004, Page 4, Image 4
Blatt P.E. center hosts
high school swim meets
By TAYLOR SMITH
THE GAMECOCK
The Blatt Physical Education
Center, home of student
swimmers trying to stay in shape
as well as the USC. swim teams, is
becoming the epicenter for
statewide high school swimming.
This weekend the Blatt hosted
690 students at two invitational
swimming meets for high schools
and private schools across the
state.
The South Carolina
Independent School Association
meet, sponsored by Newberry
Academy, was held Saturday,
featured 250 swimmers and 18
schools.
The center hosted 440
swimmers Sunday at the eighth
annual Dreher High School
Invitational, an 11-event meet
designed to help the school raise
money for its swim team.
USC geology professor Robert
Thunell, a parent coordinator for
Dreher swimming, said he thinks
the event was good for both
Dreher and the university.
“This is the best facility in the
state and we are glad that we can
host at a place like this,” Thunell
said.
Thunell, a parent of two
Dreher High School swimmers,
said he is accustomed to the smell
of chlorine and wet teenagers that
bombards the senses of spectators
at these events.
“I have had one (child who
swam for Dreher) who has already
graduated,” Thunell said. “And
two that are still at Dreher.”
Thunell said, that, to the best
of his knowledge, the first high
school meet held at the Blatt was
the 1997 Dreher Invitational.
“High School swimming is
relatively new,” Thunell said. “But
since the inception of swimming
in the state, they have had the
state championships here.”
And like those years past, the
Center will host the State
Championship and Lower State
Championship this year. The state
contest will be held Oct. 9, and
lower state contest will precede it
on Oct. 2, with the times to be
announced.
“There aren’t many high
schools in the state of South
Carolina that have pools,”
Thunell said. “So we have to use a
community pool and the (Blatt) is
the place to have it.”
This weekend’s events were
free, but the state contests, which
will start next month, charge
admission.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu
Families honor victims
By SARA KUGLER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Their voices
breaking, parents and
grandparents of those lost on
Sept. 11 stood at the World Trade
Center site Saturday and marked
the third anniversary of the
attacks by reciting the names of
the 2,749 people who died there.
The list took more than three
hours, punctuated by tearful
dedications when the readers
reached the names of their own
lost loved ones.
“We miss you very much, we
love you very much, and we’ll
never forget you because you’re in
our hearts forever,” said Stewart D.
Wotton, looking skyward and
remembering his son, Rodney
James Wotton.
Four moments of silence were
observed at 8:46, 9:03, 9:59 and
10:29 a.m. _ the precise times that
the two planes slammed into the
buildings and when they collapsed
I-1—-£--*-«-»-1
YALONDA M. JAMES/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jay Walker, the state director of Buglers Across America,
performs "Taps" at Patriot’s Point in Mt. Pleasant.
on Sept. 11,2001. For those at ground zero, the
Bells tolled at the moment pain remained fresh. Pat Hawley,
hijacked Flight 93 crashed near 44, said he comes to the ceremony
Shanksville, Pa. A moment of every year to remember his older
silence was observed at the sister, Karen Sue Juday.
Pentagon for the 184 victims there. “It seems like it gets harder
And President Bush stood in silence every year, because it’s that much
on the White House lawn to mark more time since I’ve been able to
the third anniversary of the worst talk to my sister and be with her,”
terrorist attack on U.S. soil. said Hawley, of Charlotte, N.C.
■ WEB SITE
Continued from page 1
idea that they were that specific.”
Simmonds said content for
the Web site was never an issue.
“I was told by the former GSA
president and the G.A. for the
organization that we had carte
blanche for the Web site, and we
would not have people looking
over our shoulders,” he said.
The association has had
some controversial issues to
discuss in recent weeks. The
former Web site had a link to
Simmonds’ column in the Aug.
25 issue of the Gamecock, in
which Simmonds discussed the
decision by the School of
Pharmacy to cut graduate
supplements in half. The
decision was later reversed.
Zahid said that the Web site
also included Simmonds’
comments on mandatory health
care for graduate students. Some
students had complained that
Simmonds’ comments weren’t
representing the whole graduate
student body.
“Obviously it raises issues on
both sides, but we wanted to get
students to comment on it,”
Zahid said.
Simmonds said the biggest
concern about the Web site’s
removal was timing.
“We had information on the
Web site that was essential for
graduate students, such as
information on assistantships
and fellowships, which is
particularly important • for
international students. This was
a bad time as far as students
getting refunds, and we had
done much more than previous
administrations to get
information to the students,”
said Simmonds.
Simmonds and Zahid hope the
new Web site will be a forum for
discussion and a pulpit for change
within the school.
“We’ve taken down all the
commentary on the health
insurance and are working on a
forum for grad students to voice
their concerns,” Zahid said. “I
think we are aware that what we
post affects graduate students.
We are still going to push issues,
because that’s the way to get
things done.”
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu
I
Students
lounge
outside the
dormant
food court at
the student
union at
USC Sumter.
ERIC
MCKNIGHT/THE
GAMECOCK
■ FAST FOOD
Continued from page 1
management student Thomas
Geddings said that “right now it’s a
wasted space,” of the area where the
old Chick-Fil-A stood. “If the funds
and motivation are not there to
proceed with the food court, make
the space into something useful.”
Second-year early education
student Ace Cooper agreed. 4
“We need food,” he said. ^
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockneus@gwm.sc. edu
■ DEAN
. Continued from page 1
techniques to take back to their
family farms. He was wrong, he
said.
“They saw a university as a way
out, a way to a better life.”
While a supporter of the notion
of a combined College, Pitt said he
disagreed with at least one aspect
of the plan outlined by the USC
merger report, specifically the plan
to subdivide the two schools.
“I think it just creates fiefdoms”
he said. “It would just create
another layer of bureaucracy.”
“If we see ourselves as the 800
pound gorilla we’re not going to get
anywhere,” said Pitt, who used
using the metaphor for a large and
mismanaged college throughout his
address.
He described his ideal plan as
focused on “functionality,”
pointing out that the fewer
administrators a college employs,
the more money it can afford to
spend on professors and subsidies
for graduate assistants.
Pitt told the assembled
professors and graduate students
tRat the most important task he
could face as dean would be
dealing with their tenure and
promotion, but he traced that
importance to the students they
taught. He said he wasn’t
interested in professors who were
focused only on research.
“Faculty is key to students’ self
image,” he said. “You’re teachers.
Now you can be all ‘Oh, I’m a
researcher ... ‘ Go away.”
Pitt said that he would continue
to teach classes if chosen as dean.
Geology professor Christopher
Kendall said he was pleased with
Pitt’s presentation. “What I like
about him is he’s not a
micromanager,” Kendall said.
“He’s interested in delegating
responsibility to people, and that
was his strategy. ‘It’s not my
problem; it’s your problem. We
have to solve this together.’”
Philosophy professor Jerry
Wallulis found himself unable to
characterize his response to the .
session in a single word. Q
“It’s an odd, sort of complicated
reaction,” he said, “I asked a specific
question about trying to increase
graduate stipends, because I think
that’s a huge concern. I think it’s an
important issue. I was very happy
that he also takes it very
importantly.”
Wallulis said he was also pleased
by the attention Pitt gave to the
allocation of resources.
“I also liked the idea that he would
be expensive, not in terms of salary,
but in needing these resources in
order to come ... which raises to me
the issue, also, of how capable this
university will be to provide
resources, no matter who the
candidate is.” .
Pitt said he was pleased with the |
way the session went.
“I think I was able to express, to
convey my ideas pretty well,” he
said, “They laughed at my jokes, so
that was good.”
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocknems@givm.sc. edu
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For the 2004
Volunteer
Fair
on
September 15
from
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
AND FIND WAYS TO SERVE THE CAROLINA
COMMUNITY, Meet New People and have FUN!
The University of South Carolina
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Rain location: Russell House Ballroom
Sponsored by the Office of Conmunity Service Program, University of South Carolina
■ IVAN
Continued from page 1
over Cuba’s western end by
Monday afternoon or evening. The
U.S. National Hurricane Center in
Miami said the storm surge could
reach 25 feet with dangerous,
battering waves.
The Cayman Islands were better
prepared for the punishment than
Grenada and Jamaica, which were
slammed by Ivan in the past week _
though Jamaica was spared a direct
hit Saturday.
The Caymans have strict
building codes and none of the
shantytowns and tin shacks
common elsewhere in the
Caribbean.
The Hurricane Center said ham
radio operators on Grand Cayman
reported that people were standing
on the roofs of homes because of
storm surges up to 8 feet above
normal tide levels.
While it was nearly a direct hit
on Grand Cayman, the eye of the
storm did not make landfall,
passing instead over water just
south of the island, said Rafael
Mojica, a Hurricane Center
meteorologist.
Still, emergency officials said
residents from all parts of the
island were reporting blown-off
roofs and flooded homes as Ivan’s
shrieking winds and driving rain
approached Grand Cayman, the
largest of three islands that
comprise the British territory of
45,000 people.
The airport runway was flooded
and trees were wrenched from their
roots, including a giant Cayman
mahogany next to the government
headquarters in downtown George
Town. Radio Cayman went off the
air temporarily.
Though there were no
immediate reports of injuries in the
Caymans, the death toll elsewhere
rose as hospital officials in Jamaica
reported four more deaths, for a
total of 15. Police in Grenada
reported five more deaths for a
total of 39.
Ivan also killed five people in
Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in
Barbados, and four children in the
Dominican Republic.
A tropical storm watch was
posted Sunday morning for the
portion of the 120-mile Florida
Keys stretching from the Seven
Mile Bridge west through Key West
and into the Dry Tortugas. A
mandatory evacuation was ordered
for tourists and the island chain’s
79,000 residents.
In Cuba, the threatened area
includes densely populated
Havana, where traffic was light
Sunday morning as most took
shelter. About 1.3 million people
across the island of 11.2 million
were evacuated, with most seeking
refuge with relatives.
“This country is prepared to face
this hurricane,” President Fidel
Castro said Saturday night. The
storm is the most powerful to
threaten this island nation since
Castro came to power in 1959.
In western Cuba, dozens of
families in the coastal town of La
Coloma bundled up clothes,
medicine, furniture and television
sets before boarding buses to
shelters.
“I feel sad leaving my house on
its own,” said Ricardo Hernandez,
a 44-year-old fisherman on his way
to the inland capital of Pinar del
Rio province. “But I have to
protect myself and save the lives of
my family.”
Iberia Cruz, 50, who lost her
home in a hurricane two years ago,
moved her valuables to a nearby
building.
“We’ve lived through others,
and that is why we are afraid,”
Cruz said. “The ocean could pierce
the town.” I
The U.S. National Hurricane
Center said Ivan could regain
Category 5 intensity. The last
Category 5 storm to make landfall
in the Caribbean was Hurricane
David, which devastated the
Dominican Republic in 1979,
Mojica said.
Only three Category 5 storms
are known to have hit the United
States. The last was Hurricane
Andrew, which hit South Florida in
1992, killing 43 people and
causing more than $30 billion in
damage.
■-~~ ]-i-1
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