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Survivor describes horror of seeing tornado tear mother from his grasp James Beltran and Amy Lorentzen THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STRATFORD, Iowa — Ron Runyan couldn’t hear the sirens. The winds were deafening. n a matter of moments, the quiet weekend he had planned with his mother and sister turned into a nightmare. Runyan, a 47-year-old truck driver from Fargo, N.D., looked outside his mother’s window Saturday night and saw a howling tornado headed for the house. He rushed his family into the basement as the disaster struck. “My sister fell down right below the stairs, and my mom, with the wind, kind of took her away from me,” he said. “It was so dirty, I couldn’t see her, and that was it.” His mother, Lucille Runyan, 84, was the only person killed in storms that produced at least nine tornadoes on Saturday. His sister, Nancy Runyan, 53, remained hospitalized Sunday night with a broken hip. As crews removed debris from what remained of his mothers home Sunday, Ron Runyan stood across the street in the small town of about 745 residents remembering the terror. “Everything happened so fast,” he said. “We were down below the stairs and the roof was coming off. Everything was folding. The house was crackling.” Morris L Manning!Iowa State Daily A tornado roars through an Ames, Iowa, neighborhood after leveling one home, damaging several others and downing trees and power lines on Saturday. uiELiness • conunuEO proidi time to quit.” Many students put off quitting because they fear gaining weight. Cigarettes function as an appetite suppressant, and some college women “substitute a cigarette for food,” Lewis said. Students who turn in their cigarettes to Campus Wellness during this week’s events will be eligible for a free appointment with a dietician, who can help them make healthy food choices to avoid weight gain. The cost of quitting can also be a concern to college students on a tight budget. Campus Wellness offers free smoking cessation classes with help from Palmetto Health Richland. The six class program also includes free medications such as Zyban and nicotine patches. According to the Wellness Center, more than 80 percent of people who enroll in the program succeed in staying smoke-free. For information on smoking cessation programs, students can call Campus Wellness at 576-9393. To register for the program, they can call 296-CARE. Students can pick up educational materials about smoking cessation at the Campus Wellness Open Door Drop-in Center, located in room 112 on the bottom floor of the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center. The center will continue to accept cigarettes and smokeless tobacco from students until the end of the semester. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@givm.se. edu rbcrlc • conunuED FROm I April 2004 they returned to America and Aberle was waiting to be reassigned. In mid-May she was offered a choice between her “dream job,” working with the department of Homeland Security, or graduate school. Aberle chose to come to USC because of its integrated communications program, something she already had quite a bit of experience with from working as a PAO. She was surprised to find that Tim Frisby was playing as a wide receiver for USC — she had been his commanding officer several years earlier when she was working in Italy. “It’s a very small world,” she said. Now, instead of planning battle tactics, Aberle is studying for her classes. In the middle of speaking about her preparations for Iraq, she stopped to go check on the results from the comprehensive exams she had taken in the past couple of weeks. She’s excited and nervous, just like her classmates. She is applying for a practicum to work on Condoleezza Rice’s public relations staff in the spring and after that, she’s not sure where she’ll go. “The Army owns me, from my beret to my boots,” she said, noting that there was a possibility she would return to Iraq but that she could travel anywhere. Since graduating from Montana State University in 1989, she has traveled to 40 countries and every state but Rhode Island. She’s played a part in some of the most well-known military operations in the past couple decades. From Kosovo to the Republic of Congo and Rwanda to Bosnia, Aberle has seen some of the worlds populations at their most desolate. When she worked in Italy, she was a member of the tactical operations team, where she helped put together batde plans. In Iraq, she was also a part of that team, but there, she worked from a public relations perspective. “I love what I do, and I love the soldiers — they are amazing and some of the best people in the world,” Aberle said. “There’s never a dull moment in my job. Every time I thought about (leaving the Army), they offered me something better.” Asked if she ever plans to return to a civilian life, Aberle said, “oh, I’ll retire one of these years,” but it’s clear that she loves what she does too much for “one of those years” to come any time soon. • Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm. sc. edu $13 XL-SM $13-XXL $15-XXL 100% 100% Heavy-Duty Heavy-Duty Cotton Cotton Available ONLY on-line: BOOK EARLY for biggest savings!!! 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