april 23, 2009
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volume65number28TRANSCRIPT
In a very important decision for the area, The Texas Senate has ap-proved a bill that would establish the University of Texas Health Science Center-South Texas, creating a medi-cal school in Cameron County.
The bill was unanimously OK’d by the Senate April 8, and was pre-
ceded by unanimous approval by the Senate Higher Education Commit-tee. The legislation was delivered to the House and is now in the House Higher Education Committee where it will either be approved or denied.
If the bill can make it through the committee it will then go to a vote by the full House, and then be sent to the governor, who will either sign it into law or issue the veto.
The bill establishes the main cam-pus and administrative facilities to be located in Cameron County, but allows for satellite campuses and facilities in other areas of the Valley region.
The author of the push to get South Texas a medical school is Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, with help from co-authors Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-Mission, and Judith Zaf-
fi rini, D-Laredo.“I am elated, especially after the
many years of hard work that we have put into making the dream of a full-fl edged medical school a real-ity,” said Sen. Lucio in a statement about the bill’s passage. “Senate Bill 98 spells great success in terms of medical education and expanded health care for the people of South Texas.”
Lucio expressed his apprecia-tion for the assistance of UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa in the effort to get the bill through. Cigar-roa is the former president of the UT Health Science Center-San Antonio, and a medical doctor who specializes in pediatric neurosurgery.
During the Senate Higher Educa-tion Committee hearing on the plan,
April 13 marked the first day of duty for new Police Chief Roger Stearns, who recently moved down from Nashville, Tenn., to head up The University of Texas-Pan Ameri-can’s department.
As police chief at UTPA he plans to implement those same programs. Giving priority to the law enforce-
ment explorer program, which helps students who are interested in pursu-ing a career in that field.
The program provides students with training scenarios where they learn how to deal with and handle incidents. Students will also have the opportunity to ride along with officers. Training scenarios include misdemeanor and felony traffic stops, burglaries in progress, crime scene investigation, bomb threat
response, crisis negotiation, among others.
“When a student leaves UTPA… not only do they leave here with a degree,” Stearns explained. “But they leave here with the campus po-lice department having done what we can to help them get a foot in the door for their career.”
He also wants to keep a close relationship with neighboring agen-
Stephanie Dumareille spoke con-fi dently at a national Tea Party in Ar-cher Park. Dressed in a sharp black suit and red pumps, the University of Texas-Pan American business man-agement major and public relations offi cer for the Republicans at UTPA have a speech that resonated with the crowd. She spoke about political bias at schools and encouraged people and especially students to take the reins in the decision-making of the country.
After her speech, the 22-year-old aspiring Texas senator was met with words of encouragement from older Winter Texans to an 11-year-old boy who was going through an ideologi-cal crisis.
Meanwhile in the back of the crowd, G.D. Poulton arrived. Con-cerned for his country, the U.S. Army veteran donned an American fl ag bandana and brought his big-gest worries to the McAllen park. He observed as “like-minded individu-als” voiced their anger for the fi nan-cial and ideological direction of the country.
Though Poulton agreed with the crowd and speakers, his biggest wor-ry stood next to him in the form of his 11-year-old daughter, Dylan.
“I’m here because I’m worried about what her life is going to be like when all of these payments are going to start being due,” said the educa-tor for a disciplinary alternative pro-gram in Weslaco. “I’m going to have to pay for some (of the taxes), she’s
THE PAN AMERICANVolume 65, No. 28 April 23, 2009
Valley medical school nears fi nal approval � ACADEMIC
By Brian SilvaThe Pan American
The University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio, in con-junction with the Edinburg Regional Academic Health Center, has been conducting a Rio Grande Valley ge-netic research study over the past
two years involving various mental disorders and correlations with other physical diseases like obesity and diabetes.
Proponents of the study are look-ing for Valleyites ages 18 to 90 who will be health screened to see if they qualify for the study, for which par-
Valley protestors rally to teabag taxes
By Ana VillaurrutiaThe Pan American
See GENETIC || Page 5
� HEALTH
Police chief shares insight about UTPA
By J.R. OrtegaThe Pan American
See TEA || Page 5
� ADMINISTRATION
By Alejandra MartinezThe Pan American
TEA’D OFF - Signs of distress and concerns about how the government is handling the American peoples tax money could be found in the hands more than 700 activists who rallied at Archer Park, April 15.
INDEX OPINION PG. 2 NEWS PG. 3 ARTS & LIFE PG. 11 SPORTS PG. 13
COMING SOON: www.panamericanonline.comCOMING SOON: www.panamericanonline.com
Genetic study targets Hispanic population
Ben Briones/The Pan American
� COMMUNITY
See MEDICAL || Page 5
See CHIEF || Page 5
In my year as Editor in Chief, I have seen the fi rst female president of UTPA retire, several distinguished speakers, and the effects the economic downturn has had on the university.
In juxtaposition, The Pan Ameri-can too, has seen changes of its own, including new staff additions, more in-depth campus coverage, and our big-gest pride and joy, The Pan American’s year-and-a-half long effort at preparing for the launch of its new and improved Web site.
After balancing school work, the newspaper and life, I would like the student body and administration to know, that The Pan American staffers are hard at work, staying odd hours of the night just to provide our university with its dose of weekly campus news.
The work has challenged the staff at The Pan American to test and expand their journalistic skills.
This year, The Pan American has changed several things throughout the paper, including page layouts and a revamped Opinion/Editorial page. It has attempted to use its 16 pages to the
fullest extent, by providing adequate enough content with a balanced num-ber of photos as well as info graphics.
I am privileged to have not only served as editor, but having learned and grown, realizing the potentials of my-self, The Pan American staff and our university.
This year the staff attended the Tex-as Intercollegiate Press Association’s centennial conference. For the second year in a row, I am proud to say The Pan American has taken home the Best in Show award.
It’s a chance to look back at the year and realize that some of those late nights have paid off.
Also this year, The Pan American has been lauded for its hard work by the Society of Professional Journalists. In late March, early April the student newspaper took home the Best All-Around-Non-Daily newspaper in Re-gion 8.
Most of all, The Pan American has been a great place to learn and grow. It’s a place to realize your potential and to not only work on strengths and weaknesses, but put those into perspec-tive and work on them to better your-self for whichever future you will take.
Through stringent deadlines and keen communication skills, staffers at The Pan American will learn to utilize traits that can follow them at whichever job they pursue.
It is under the direction of The Pan American adviser Dr. Gregory Selber, that I have learned how to instill my-self with several leadership qualities. It is also through him that I have learned how to enhance my overall journalistic skill and ethic.
With that guidance, I have grounded a full-time job right after graduation at the Victoria Advocate, a daily newspa-per three hours north of the Valley.
Serving as editor-in-chief of this 65-year-old paper has been one of the greatest accomplishments in my bac-calaureate career. However, I am just one of a long line of editors before and after me.
I can only hope that during this past year we have provided the university with adequate and accurate informa-tion. I am certain that in the future, The Pan American will continue to pro-vide the university with campus news through both a print and soon online medium.
Thank you for reading.
It just seems fl at out illogical to al-low guns on campus.
This ridiculous thought has actual-ly been transcribed onto a bill, which making its way through the Texas House of Representatives. A few days ago the bill made it out of a commit-tee, and soon the House will vote on it.
To my surprise, there are quite a few legislators who have signed on their support, including a majority from the Valley. That would include State Representatives Pena, Lucio III, Rios Ybarra, and State Senators Lucio and Hinojosa.
In a wise decision, State Rep. Ve-ronica Gonzales is actually against the bill.
I’ll admit the bill only allows peo-ple with concealed handgun permits to carry guns on campus. The purpose for it is that students are “sitting ducks” as described by the authors of the bill, and a student with a gun can take out another student shooting a gun.
Fight fi re with fi re, in essence, is what I think they’re getting at.
I see it this way; if you light two matches and put them together they just make a bigger fl ame.
Any number of problems can result from having a student act as a police offi cer during an emergency situation. He/she simply isn’t trained to handle it. What if a gunbattle erupts? Students caught in the middle?
The goal of the bill is to extermi-nate the problem immediately. How-ever, the probability of a student with a gun taking out the shooter before any harm is done is low.
I believe resources might be bet-ter spent fi guring out ways to spot the shooter before he even picks up a gun. Preventative action is less costly than reactionary action, in terms of both money and lives.
We should use the U.S. Consti-tution wisely. We need the Second Amendment to protect our homes. Law enforcement members need it to protect us from crime. We also need it for some good old- fashioned quail hunting.
But as Dick Cheney taught us, sometimes even the more intelligent of us can’t exactly handle guns that well. Even if we’re permitted.
THE PAN AMERICANPage 2 April 23, 2009
EDITOR IN CHIEF
J.R. Ortega / [email protected]
MANAGING EDITOR
Brian Silva / [email protected]
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Ana Villaurrutia / [email protected]
A&L EDITOR
Laura Garcia / [email protected]
ASSISTANT A&L EDITOR
Isaac Garcia / [email protected]
SPORTS EDITORS
Gregorio Garza / [email protected] Perez IV/ [email protected]
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Ben Briones / [email protected] DESIGN EDITOR
Roy Bazan / [email protected]
ADVISER
Dr. Greg Selber / [email protected]
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSOCIATE
Anita Reyes / [email protected]
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Samantha Quintana / [email protected]
The Pan American accepts letters of 300 words or less from students, staff and faculty regarding recent newspaper content, campus concerns or current events. The Pan American reserves the right to edit submissions for grammar and length. The Pan Americancannot publish anonymous letters or submissions containing hate speech or gratuitous personal attacks. Please send all story ideas to [email protected].
Individuals with disabilities wishing to acquire this publication in an alternative format or needing assistance to attend any event listed can contact The Pan American for more details.
The Pan American is the offi cial student newspaper of The University of Texas-Pan American. Views presented are those of the writers and do not necessarily refl ect those of the paper or university.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
**Delivery**Thursday at noon
1201 West University, CAS 170 Edinburg, Texas 78539Phone: (956) 381-2541
Fax: (956) 316-7122
April 23, 2009 Vol 65, No. 28 J.R. OrtegaEditor in Chief
Illustration by Anthony Salinas
Brian SilvaManaging Editor
Illustrated Opinion
Letter from the Editor
Guns on campus ridiculousOpinion
Newspaper a great place to learn, grow
CorrectionLast week we printed the awards Stu-
dent Publications received at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association confer-ence. However, we left out the on-site
contest winners. They are as follows:2nd Place - Critical ReviewLaura Garcia2nd Place - Radio NewswritingNaxiely Lopez
HM - TV SportswritingEsmeralda MaldonadoHM - TV NewswritingAngelica Guajardo
From genetic sequencing to intel-ligent poker bots, the Engineering Department was fi lled with the inno-vative projects of UTPA students last Monday.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and department of computer science organized and sponsored the 4th Annual Computer Science Student Research Day to dis-play the college’s current computer science projects.
Zhixiang Chen is the chairman of the department of computer science and part of the ACM advisory com-mittee. He commended the students on their ability to organize the event.
“They proposed, initialized, or-ganized and fi nanced the event,” he said. “This is something they can be proud of and it really shows the dedication of our computer science students.”
ACM Event Coordinator Moises Carillo, a 22-year old computer sci-ence engineer from Mission, is proud of his group’s accomplishments this year and thinks the event can spur in-
terest in the fi eld.“It gives computer science majors
a chance to show what they can do and get interested in doing real proj-ects and work,” he said. “We want people to see what we do in the en-gineering building and see why our work is important.”
Anyone was able to apply and present a project at the event. But the steering committee, consisting of three professors, screened the propos-als to ensure only serious presenta-tions appear.
The senior projects are required for them to graduate. Through this
event, students get to showcase their projects and show what they learned. Some of the seniors, like fi rst prize-winner, Eric Gonzales, took a whole year to fi nish their project.
The resulting project developed into new software that the department can now use to obtain genetic se-quences and conduct further experi-ments in that area of study.
This year the fi rst place prize went to Eric Gonzalez and his S2ST proj-ect, a ‘Next-Generation Relational RDF Storage Project’ that allows for more advanced database systems.
“It takes at least one semester for
the seniors to complete the project. They all worked really hard,” said Andres Figueroa Lozano, CS Assis-tant Professor and one of the organiz-ers for the event.
Many of the presentations were also senior projects, and some inter-esting designs at the event were an A.I. Chess Game, an Intelligent Poker Bot, and a fi rst-person shooter game, all developed by students at UTPA.
Seniors Joe Flores, Gloria Cabal-lero and Alfredo Ramos came up with the poker bot that can bluff and has better strategic skills than the existing
With the U.S.-Mexico border only 10 miles away, relations between both countries have often been testy. In order to strengthen ties between nations, The University of Texas-Pan American and the Southwest Border Nonprofi t Resource Center on campus will host the Bi-National Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Council for the fi rst time,
Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Field House.
The purpose of the council is to increase contact between NGOs from the United States and Mexico along the border to explore joint projects, share best practices, and strengthen U.S.-Mexico relations.
And what exactly is an NGO? A NGO such as the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley and the Pharr Literacy Project Inc., Is created by natural or legal persons with no par-
ticipation or representation of any government.
They are funded totally or partial-ly by governments, but they maintain non-governmental status by keeping all government representatives from being members of the organization.
Attending groups will consist of organizations such as UTPA, UTPA-Southwest Border Nonprofi t Re-source Center (SBNRC), U.S and Mexican Consulate, Consejo Nacio-nal de Alianzas Educativas (NCEEP)
and Mexican and U.S. non-govern-mental organizations in the border regions, UTPA Provost, Congress-man Ruben Hinojosa and Congress-man Henry Cuellar. Reps from all of them will attend the conference Saturday and express their reasons to become members of the organiza-tion.
“There hasn’t been an actual council formed yet, it will form after the council on Saturday,” said Edin-burg native Jovana Ocanas, division
of community engagement event manager. “These organizations are looking into becoming part of the council that will form.”
According to the NGO Council, this is a project involving Americans and Mexicans, because increasing people-to-people contacts between the two has a value of itself: improv-ing mutual understanding and reduce prejudice between both countries.
To help serve the community on
It may have not have received the attention it deserved, but students, fac-ulty and staff are proud of their partici-pation in a day that can be described as “selfl ess.”
Early Saturday morning, an es-timated 48 students and members of faculty and staff gathered at the Chapel Lawn for United to Serve, a UT System-wide service project that is coordinated mainly by the Student Leadership Academy among other UTPA departments. Some of them include the Offi ce of the Dean of Stu-dents, Offi ce of Student Development, Physical Plant, and the Student Union.
Students from all majors and clas-sifi cations were welcome to partici-pate in the service effort’s fi fth year at the university. While painting homes
and cleaning the yards of the disabled and elderly in McAllen last year was rewarding in its contribution, the lat-est project took a different turn and decided to stay on campus.
Vania Barrera, intern for the Stu-dent Leadership Academy, helped organize the event that concludes Stu-dent Leadership Week every spring at UTPA.
“The one thing I’ve learned by par-ticipating in a project like this is that it helps to unify the campus,” said Bar-rera, who also participated last year as a student. “It unifi es us as a team.”
Together students walked into the communication building on the west side of campus and started their way to the mathematics building, cleaning the social sciences and business edifi c-es along the way. Some of the chores included sanitizing tables and chairs,
Page 3THE PAN AMERICANApril 23, 2009
Dates to Know:
UTPA hosts U.S.-Mexico Border organization � COMMUNITY
STICKY SITUATION - Pre-pharmacy major Pete Galvan scrapes off old gum wads from the bottom of desks in the Math and General Classroom building this past weekend as part of United to Serve.
Hector J. Garcia/ The Pan American
Students, university join for United to Serve
By Abby FloresThe Pan American
See UNITED || Page 6
� ACADEMICS
Spring commencement 2009Saturday, May 9McAllen Convention CenterVarious timeswww.utpa.edu/graduation
HACU Scholarship Program deadlineFriday, May 22www.hacu.net
See RESEARCH || Page 6
Students display senior computer research projects By John Gallagher & Sarahi HernandezThe Pan American
See NGO || Page 6
� STUDENT ACTIVIIES
By Minerva MoratoThe Pan American
ADVERTISEMENTS April 23, 2009Page 4
Sports CommentaryTHE PAN AMERICANPage 16 April 23, 2009
� WOMEN’S TENNIS
Look no further; Give Gill a go By Kevin StichThe Pan American
If there is one theme that has been commonplace in the University of Texas-Pan American athletic department, it’s instability at coaching positions.
Former track and fi eld coaches Dennis Darling and Hugo Cervantes, and former tennis coach Rob Hubbard all made their way out of their respective programs, leaving positions to be fi lled. In a no less controversial affair, former basketball coach Tom Schuberth’s contract was not renewed, only adding to the growing list of coaching positions needing appointments.
So, after watching this weekend’s NIT tournament and having the chance to talk with interim head coach Chris Gill, I say this, “Give him a chance.” Let him have a full season to prove himself.
There is no measure of the importance of teamwork, and just as intangible is the importance of coaching consistency.
Good routine breeds success, and the tennis program may just be on the upswing. It would be disappointing to see another coaching change when the teams are starting to experience some positive repetition in the form of winning.
It’s been a rocky road there, sure. But I would suggest that it’s growing pains -- they’re to be expected. He came in to a job that didn’t exactly scream “winning season.”
Despite all that, the women managed to place second at this past weekend’s NIT tournament winning more matches in one weekend than they had all year, while the men defeated Lamar University earlier this month, earning them a second seed in the Southland Conference Tournament (April 24-26).
The men even earned a victory against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in March, a team that was ranked 39th in the country at the time.
Gill still has things to learn, as do his players, but in the matches that I have covered it appears that both the players and coaches have decent camaraderie going.
I’m not here to cheerlead for the guy, if the program doesn’t succeed, then change what doesn’t work.
No, I’m simply saying that both the men and women’s squads have the potential to compete and win, and that they are fi nally coming to a point where they seem to be able to do that. To change coaches now may disrupt momentum they’ve gathered.
It remains to be seen what Gill’s recruiting methods are and if he will be able to attract talent to the university. However, with all of the players from the men’s and women’s team returning for next season, winning will attract prospects on its own.
I’m not trying to anoint him as the key to success; it’s too early to tell. He still has a way to go before I give him that title.
Perhaps I am way off base, and maybe I’m wrong about the team being on the good end of a bad season. But there’s really only one way to fi nd out.
Drenched in a glaze of sweat and contending with sweltering temperatures, players’ competitive attitudes took center stage at last weekend’s Na-tional Independent Tournament at the Orville Cox Tennis Center. The University of Texas-Pan Ameri-can women’s tennis team earned second place in the tourney, as it won three of four matches.
In their third match the women met trouble against Chicago State University, the eventual tour-nament champions, dropping a 4-2 decision. The grief started when the duo of junior Luisa Cantu and junior Megan Bedeau lost its doubles match 8-6.
After having received warnings during the match, Cantu slammed her racquet into a chair, in-curring a penalty and defaulting her match in sin-gles versus CSU’s Dian Mayasari. The team could not recover, as Badeau and freshman Malin Ander-sen were the only Broncs to win singles matches.
“We expect our players here to act in a manner that refl ects well on the school and unfortunately our team didn’t do that,” interim head coach Chris Gill said. “It hurt us, and Luisa is the one that ended up having to default her match, and the kind of person she is, she plays with a lot of emotion and a lot of heart.
“Sometimes if you don’t keep those things under control they tend to hurt you. Unfortunately, in a really tough situation she let those emotions go.”
Aside from the incident, the Lady Broncs strut-ted some of their best stuff, racking up two wins
Friday by defeating both Longwood University (4-0) and New Jersey Institute of Technology (4-1). They had totaled only two wins going into the NIT, and added three more gave them a 5-14 record on the season.
“I’m very, very proud of the team,” Bedeau said. “Everyone just went out and gave 110 percent every single match.”
In their fourth match of the event, a rain delay did nothing to deter UTPA from closing out Seattle University Sunday morning 4-2. Team No. 1 junior Stephanie Willerding had a strong showing, includ-ing a dominating performance against Seattle’s Au-dree Jenks, defeating her 6-2 in two straight sets.
“Individually I’m very pleased with my per-formance,” Willerding said. “Overall I think we could’ve done a little bit better… Our expectations were to win it, and we didn’t know much about the other teams, but it was still our goal.”
The event was certainly one of the more posi-tive marks in a season that has seen its fair share of troubles. A bright spot was Andersen, who master-fully won all of her singles matches in straight sets.
“The girls played really well and (there’s) cer-tainly nothing to complain about,” Gill said. “Com-ing in second place this weekend obviously we are a little disappointed that we came up short of our goal of winning – we wanted to win, especially having the tournament here.”
With former coach Rob Hubbard’s exit in De-cember – one of many coaching positions left unre-solved in the athletic department – the UTPA tennis program has waned both on the men and women’s side. It is still uncertain who will be the coach for next year’s campaign, but Gill said that he would defi nitely like a shot at it.
“I’ve been told that I will be given consider-ation,” he said. “For someone that’s always tried to help, even when I was a volunteer coach and an as-sistant coach before, what I want to do is to help the program any way I can.
“I feel like I’ve done a really good job this year. I feel like both teams have really helped me out in that respect.
Gill continued, discussing the opening.“I feel like if I have the opportunity to do the
job, I think I could do the job well,” he said. “In the meantime I know that Ricky (Vaughn, interim athletic director) is going to do everything he pos-sibly can to fi nd the best person for the job, and I hope that is me.”
Gill said that he would probably hear from Vaughn before the start of next season, but until then the program will continue to work over the summer to improve.
By Kevin StichThe Pan American
SERVES UP - Junior Stephanie Willerding hits a mean serve during Friday’s doubles match against NJIT.
THE RIGHT MOMENT - In her doubles match against NJIT, junior Sarah Burton takes a brief moment before unleashing a serve.
Photos by Ben Briones
As Lady Broncs move to the Great West Conference, they ended their fi nal National Independent Tournament in second
If walls could talk, what would they say? Tonight through Sunday, drama fans can fi nd out what the walls of Room 719 have witnessed in the Plaza Hotel when the University Theatre presents the tale of three tenant tales in the Neil Simon play “Plaza Suite” at The Univer-sity of Texas-Pan American.
Stage manager and theater-TV/fi lm student Daisy Alvarez recommends ev-eryone see it.
“We follow these three different situ-ations ranging from very serious and dramatic to lustful to complete comedy,” the Edinburg resident said. “Act Three is all fun and games and it’s not as serious as the others.”
Veronica Navarro, a master’s stu-dent in theater, portrays Norma Hubley in the third act. Her character attempts to persuade her daughter to leave the re-stroom and walk down the aisle to her wedding.
“She’s like everybody else’s mother,” said the 28-year-old Pharr native. “I would say she’s a bit self-centered. It’s not about her daughter’s wedding, it’s about her. She’s very fun, she’s sweet, self-centered, and a little bit ditzy.”
Navarro, who has been involved in
theater since she was 7, performed in “Brighton Beach Memoirs” last year, also written by Simon. Trey Mikolasky, a lecturer in communication at UTPA, was attached to both productions as di-rector as well.
“What I really like about Neil Simon is that he’s very different from other writers and he really writes from the heart. His plays are so wholesome,” she said. “What I really enjoy about him is that he’s actor-friendly.”
Navarro added that the script is writ-ten in a way that one word in her line triggers another actor to say his line be-cause he has to repeat the same word in the next line.
“It’s very easy to memorize and it feeds you your next line,” she ex-plained. “It has been a pleasure work-ing on both Neil Simon plays and both with the same director and same [stage] husband.”
Jonathan Torres, a 23-year-old from Mission, plays Hollywood producer Jes-se Kiplinger, who has had a string of bad luck with women. He calls his old high school fl ame to try and get back with her even though she’s married and has three kids.
“I love doing Neil Simon’s plays. It has a lot to do with the actors,” the junior theater design major said. “A lot of other
plays are really technical or artistic in that you’re not really sure what’s going on, but a Neil Simon play is real cut and dry. The lights go up, the actors do their acting, and the lights go down.”
Alvarez mentioned audiences should expect a lighter play with more comedy
than what has been offered this spring so far.
“What we’ve had this last semester has been pretty dramatic I would have to say. We started off with ‘Hedda Ga-bler,’” she explained. “It’s a great show, it’s a powerful show and it’s very intense
and there are bits and pieces that are comical, but it’s all drama.”
“Plaza Suite” opens tonight in the Albert Jeffers Theatre at 8 p.m. and runs through Saturday at 8 p.m. each night. There is a Sunday matinee showing at 2 p.m.
Page 11THE PAN AMERICANApril 23, 2009
� COMMUNITY
Dates to Know:Escaparate Dance ConcertMay 1, 7:30 p.m.Fine Arts Auditorium
“Dream Sailors”April 30, 7 p.m. Albert L. Jeff ers Th eatre
Their fate was uncertain. Unemploy-
ment was rampant, and the banking in-
dustry was sinking fast. Homes were lost
as America’s sons and daughters could
not pay mortgages. Ironically, this bleak
state of the union is not America in 2009.
It is the America of the 1930s, an era for-
ever ingrained in the psyche of a nation.
Now, with the help of a national
grant, the Soul of a People will soon
head to the heart of the Valley.
The UTPA Library is one of only 30
libraries across the nation to have been
awarded the Soul of a People grant
sponsored by the American Library As-
sociation and supported by a major assist
from the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH).
The purpose of the grant is to fund
programs in support of the release of a
major television documentary called
“Soul of a People: Writing America’s
Story” produced by Spark Media, a
Washington, D.C.-based production and
outreach company specializing in is-
sues of social change. The program will
chronicle the Federal Writers Project that
was part of Franklin Roosevelt’s Works
Progress Administration, a New Deal
program during the Depression. The
documentary, fi ve years in the making,
will air in the fall of 2009 on the Smith-
sonian HD channel.
“We attended a conference in Wash-
ington DC in February, with 80 scholars
and librarians working on this project,”
said Rob Johnson, assistant professor in
the English department and local schol-
ar on the project. “Many commented on
the eerie timeliness of the fi lm, in terms
of the current economic crisis at hand.
The fi lmmakers had no way of knowing
that by the time they fi nished the fi lm
that our own times would mirror the
Depression era in key ways.”
Roosevelt’s Federal Writers Project
(FWP) employed 6,600 unemployed
actors, writers, historians, archeologists
and photographers to work across the na-
tion to write America’s story. The collec-
tive effort penned a guide for each state
known as the American Guide Series.
All 48 books included detailed histories
of each state with descriptions of cities
and towns, interviews on state history
and culture, local stories and narratives,
automobile tours of important attrac-
tions, and a portfolio of photographs.
“The fi rst Texas guide came out in
1940, and then in 1986 the book was re-
released by Texas Monthly Press with an
introduction from Dr. Don Graham who
holds the J. Frank Dobie Regents Profes-
sorship of American and English Litera-
ture at UT Austin,” said Virginia Haynie
Gause, UTPA web and marketing librar-
ian. “He teaches the
course made famous
by Dobie, which is
fi tting because Do-
bie wrote the chap-
ter on literature in
the Texas Guide of
1940 and also taught
at UT Austin.”
Graham, an ex-
pert on Texas literature and English pro-
fessor at UT Austin, had previously been
scheduled to kick off the Soul of a People
program series by speaking at UTPA
April 16, but the event was cancelled
when he fell ill. Graham’s presentation
on Texas writers of the Great Depression
has been tentatively rescheduled for the
fall 2009 semester.
As part of the grant agreement to
host fi ve special presentations, Gause
now looks ahead to the second sched-
uled presentation set for June 15 and 7
p.m. in the Student Union Theatre which
will coincide with Juneteenth, the anni-
versary of African-American emancipa-
tion from slavery.
“Our second program is going to be on
the slave narratives,” Gause said. “There
were fi ve or six slaves from this area that
were involved in the cotton industry in the
Brownsville area. We
will be calling on the
local African-Amer-
ican community to
help us with this pro-
gram presentation.”
Scheduled key-
note speaker for
the slave narratives
program, is Albert
Rodriguez, who earned his B.A. and
M.A. in history at UTPA and is cur-
rently working on his dissertation at the
University of Houston. Rodriguez will
discuss the identities and narratives of
the slaves whom he fi rst wrote of in his
master’s thesis.
With startling similarities between
modern-day America and the Great De-
pression, one can’t help but wonder if
the generations of the future can really
learn from the lessons of the past.
“No one is talking about funding
writers and artists as part of the new
stimulus, yet they did during the Depres-
sion,” Johnson said. “It was very con-
troversial, and proponents of the FWP
were accused of being communists and
socialists, but the program was a success
beyond anyone’s expectations. We are
still learning from their research, even
today.” Farzaneh Razzaghi, University
Library dean, says she is excited the
grant will afford the library the oppor-
tunity to offer a wonderfully educational
program for students who are poised to
have a hand in shaping America’s future.
“The new generation especially
needs to be aware of where they came
from, how this country’s history was
shaped, and why certain issues that they
are faced with today can be dealt with
and resolved,” Razzaghi said. “More
knowledge and better understanding of
historical events and personalities may
help the new generation to make more
informed decisions, once they are in a
position to decide on the country’s direc-
tion in the future.”
For more information on the UTPA
Library programs supporting the “Soul of a People” documentary and on the documentary itself, contact Virginia Haynie Gause at 381-2303 or [email protected].
‘Soul of a People’ doc chronicles Federal Writers Project
Neil Simon classic off ers UTPA drama, lust, comedy
BEHIND THE SCENES - Freshman psychology major Edy Escamilla prepares for his part in the play ‘Plaza Suite’ which will be running from Thursday to Sunday in the Jeffers Theatre.
Ben Briones/THE PAN AMERICAN
“Th e new generation espe-cially needs to be aware of where they came from.”
Farzaneh RazzaghiUniversity Library dean
By Marco CarbajalThe Pan American
By Victor ItuarteThe Pan American
� CAMPUS
With a year of soccer eligibility left at Hidalgo High School, junior and member of the 4A state championship team Jesus Mireles relinquished his senior year to join the inaugural cam-paign of the Rio Grande Valley Bravos Football Club.
“It’s an awesome feeling for me and I feel really proud,” Mireles said. “There are a lot of people who sup-ported me in this (decision).”
Mireles, dominant on the high school level for three seasons, knows that it’s going to be a different style of soccer in the USL Premier Develop-ment League. But the Pirate All-star is up for the challenge.
And the area’s latest pro franchise will be well represented by locals. Along with Mireles, nine other players were announced at a press conference Thursday at Poncho’s Mexican Restau-rant in Pharr. Some are from the Valley, others not. Some are from both.
From Orange County, Calif., Eric Chapa will be the goalkeeper for the Bravos FC. He was a member of the Brownsville Por-ter 2006 team that like this year’s Hidalgo group brought home a state title, in Class 5A. Enrique Quin-tero takes a spot as a defender for the new team. The Mexican national played for Mis-sion High School and just recently Juventus in Liga MASA, which is an amateur soccer league based in McAl-len. Pablo Degollado joins the squad
as a defender as well. The Harlingen native made a name for himself as a kicker for Los Fresnos High School on the football fi eld and last played at UT-Brownsville where in 2007 they captured the NAIA Red River Athletic Conference Championship.
Four other Rio Grande Valley na-tives introduced were defenders Ed-gar Coria of Pharr, Oscar Aguirre of San Juan, Reynol Fuentes of Mis-sion, and midfi elder Kendor Vasquez of Brownsville. Coria’s last club was Texas College in Tyler while Aguirre was a member of the Liga MASA 2008 Premier Division Champion-ship club Deportivo Alvarez. There he shared the fi eld in battle with Fuentes, also a member of Deportivo Alvarez. Vasquez was a member of the 2008 Class 5A Region IV Area Champion-ship campaign for Brownsville Lopez High School and his last club was San Antonio Elite.
Although Edgar Acuna wasn’t born in the Valley, the Chicago native made a name for himself as midfi elder at Brownsville Porter and Brownsville Lopez. Acuna was on the 2006 cham-pionship Porter squad and last played
for the Barracudas of the BISL league.
Samuel Shipp comes to the Val-ley from BYU-Idaho. The defend-er is a native of Pocatello, Idaho.
First-year head coach Ismael “Moreira” Braga was excited about
the players that were announced and is ready for opening day against the Laredo Heat, May 2.
“We’re 99.9 percent ready,” Bra-
ga said. “We’re ready to go in two weeks, we’ve prepared, and everyone knows we started this team without anything and now we have a team, stadium, and we’re just waiting for May 2.”
Braga also said he expects for the Bravos FC to put on a great show be-cause he knows the rivalry between the Valley and Laredo isn’t for the weak at heart.
“We can lose to anybody but not Laredo,” Braga said he told his team. “They’re going to have to die on the fi eld before they lose to Laredo.”
On hand at for opening day will be the Bravos FC new mascot Pequin.
Ed Salas, VP of Operations described Pequin as having several connotations (he’s a chili pepper), especially here in the Valley.
“The culture identifi es with it,” said Salas, a UTPA grad who was editor of the sports section of The Pan Ameri-can during his tenure at the university. “It’s something that can become very animated so there are a lot of ideas that we can play with as far as the fans are concerned.”
Salas also said there had been one or two jalapenos used as mascots in the sport before so fans relate soccer to a similar type of fi gure like Pequin.
Salas also commented that soccer is
a sport that many Valley residents can relate to and that a professional team is what they needed.
Actually it’s long overdue,” Salas said of the Bravos FC in the Valley. “In the ‘70s the Liga MASA started and Pan Am had a soccer team. The soccer team disappeared and 40 years after the Liga MASA arrived with over fi ve divisions and over 2000 players. And that’s just the adult league in the McAllen area.”
The Bravos FC opens its inaugural season against the Laredo Heat May 2 at 7:30 p.m. at Valley View Tiger Sta-dium. Tickets are available at www.rgvbravos.com.
Since joining the program in 2007, women’s volleyball coach Angela Hubbard hasn’t had to work so hard in the recruiting phase.
That’s because two years ago, Hub-bard inherited a program that had a majority of its roster returning for the following year. But at the conclusion of last season, the team lost four key starting seniors in Chelsea Blakely, Kellie Phillips, Deanna Schneyer and Ytszel Trinidad, all of whom were key contributors.
Hubbard turned to recruiting to help fi ll those voids for the upcom-ing season, when the team will begin Great West Conference play. Last week, the volleyball program released the 2009 recruiting class list, with fi ve new Lady Broncs joining Ijanae Hol-man, the team’s fi rst newcomer, who signed in November.
“It’s going to add some depth on to our team that we’ve needed in the past,” Hubbard said. “Not only are we
bringing in new faces, but we’re also bringing in several players that have some experience. We’re going to be seeing a lot of new faces on the court next year.”
Hubbard said her goal when re-cruiting was trying to fi nd players that would make an immediate impact. The team was 8-18 last year, after go-ing 15-18 in Hubbard’s initial season.
“I was looking for true athletes that know what it takes to win and know what they need to put in to understand what it takes to play Division I volley-ball at a competitive level,” she added.
Setters Rita Gonzalez and Ariana Bermea are two players who Hubbard will try to engage in the Lady Broncs’ lineup this season.
Out of Phoenix College, Gonzalez fi nished with a school record in assists with 1,360 during her sophomore year, the most in a single season in Phoenix College history. She was named to the All-ACCAC fi rst team and All-Region Division II fi rst team. Gonzalez ranked fi rst in the region and in the top fi ve na-tionwide in assists in Division II.
She averaged 11.33 assists and 2.85 digs per game with a .168 hitting percentage. Gonzalez was also named the Gatorade Player of the Year out of high school in Phoenix, Ariz.
Bermea, from Laredo Community College, is an early signee, commit-ting to the program in November, and has begun to workout with the team in its spring practices, which began in January 14 and concluded Friday.
Sarah Davis, a middle hitter from Calvary Murrieta High School in California, lettered three years and was named Most Valuable Player, co-captain, All-League fi rst team, and All-Tournament team at the Pasadena Poly-technic Tournament. In addition, Davis was named the California Interscholas-tic Federation Player of the Year.
Meghan Fichtel from Corpus Christi comes from Hill College in Hillsboro as an outside hitter and middle blocker. Fichtel was named to the All-Conference fi rst team and All-Region fi rst team for the North Texas Junior College Athletic Conference.
Kristi Garcia stands as the only Val-
ley product to join the Lady Broncs’ unit this year. Garcia, an outside hitter and libero, played at McAllen Rowe High School, where she was recog-nized as one of the Valley’s elite. She was named to the All-Valley and All-District fi rst teams, and was the Most Outstanding Player during the ’06-’07 and ’07-’08 seasons.
Hubbard says a seventh player has committed to the program, but she cannot release the name at this time.
NOTES: The 2009 schedule was completed but remains unoffi cial. The season will feature seven home games, eight on the road and seven at a neutral site. The Lady Broncs open the latest campaign at the Sam Hous-ton Tournament Aug. 28 and will host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the season home opener Sept. 1. Great West Conference play begins Sept. 17 at the University of South Dakota with the fi rst GWC home matchup Oct. 8 against the University of North Dakota. The GWC tournament will run Nov. 19-21 at Houston Baptist University.
Page 15SPORTSApril 23, 2009
� LOCAL SPORTS
Hector J. Garcia/The Pan AmericanFOOTBALLERS - Rio Grande Valley Bravos FC unveil their new uniforms by Umbro along with a few major sponsors for their club, at Poncho’s Mexican Restaurant in Pharr.
Bravos FC announces 10 players, Pequin the mascot By Pedro Perez IVThe Pan American
National letters of intent announced for Lady Broncs By Ramiro PaezThe Pan American
� VOLLEYBALL
“We can lose to anybody but not Laredo. Th ey’re going to have to die on the fi eld before they lose to Laredo.”
Ismael “Moreira” BragaHead coach
� BRONC BRIEFS
BASEBALLAfter the double-header against
Stephen F. Austin last Thursday, the Broncs followed with another double-header against Texas Southern Satur-day. The double-header was reminis-cent of the previous one, resulting in a win for the Broncs with a score of 13-5 during game one and a win for Texas Southern 6-5 in game two.
The University of Texas-Pan Amer-ican’s baseball program faced Texas Southern again the next day. Follow-ing a tough beginning, the Broncs were down 5-1 in the eight inning. However, they were able to rally in the bottom of the ninth to pull out a 6-5 win, improving their record to 9-32.
UTPA faced The University of Texas-San Antonio Tuesday at the Ed-inburg Baseball Stadium. The Road-runners proved to be too much for the Broncs in the 39-minute sixth inning, with UTSA scoring 13 runs, and hit-ting a grand slam. UTSA walked away with the 16-5 win.
The Broncs faced fellow Valley rival University of Texas-Brownsille Wednesday night. The Broncs beat the Scorpions once again, with a score of 8-1.
ADVERTISEMENTS April 23, 2009Page 10
ADVERTISEMENTS April 23, 2009Page 14
THE PAN AMERICANTHE PAN AMERICAN April 23, 2009 April 23, 2009 Page 9Page 8
LEFT TO RIGHT - 1. Emmanuel Jones 2. Alex Tapia;3. Armen Kirakossian; 4. Abraham Garcia; 5. Beau Bern-stein (LEFT) Niruick Mohinta
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As another year comes to an end we here at The Pan American’s Sports Section take a look at all the different campaigns the UTPA ath-letic programs competed in, and in some cases dominated.
For most of the teams this was the inaugural year in the Great West
Conference and UTPA set the tone for future years to come winning two conference championships and crowning fi ve individual champions in golf and cross-country.
For the Broncs winning campaigns came from the men’s Cross country and men’s tennis. Men’s basketball
fi nished the year with a 10-17 record and baseball is struggling in the slums with a 10-33 record. Men’s track and fi eld qualifi ed one member to the NCAA Regional Championships.
The Lady Broncs tied a record in basketball by collecting 14 single sea-son wins ending the season at 14-16.
The women’s tennis team fi nished the season at 5-14 after 2008’s record-breaking campaign with 16-wins. The volleyball team fi nished the season at 8-18 and has already added six NLI’s for the 2009 campaign. The women’s track and fi eld qualifi ed two mem-bers for Regionals.
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LEFT TO RIGHT - 1. M.J. Camey; 2. Amanda Ferris; 3. Rachel Hester; 4. Danielle Reed; 5. Megan Bedeau
1 2 3
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Page 13THE PAN AMERICANApril 23, 2009
Dates to Know:Men’s TennisSouthland Conference TourneyApril 24Corpus Christi
Track and FieldGreat West Championships May 15Houston
� GOLF
Program takes crowns at Great West Championships
� TRACK AND FIELD
UT Twilight ends with NCAA Regionals qualifi cation for Hernandez, Perez
It was a sunny clear spring Satur-day; the atmosphere was tense but relaxed as athletes shuffl ed on and off the track to compete in their events.
That was the scene at the Texas Twi-light track and fi eld meet in Austin last weekend where the UTPA Broncs man-aged to earn more spots for the upcom-ing NCAA regional championships.
“It was a great event to see where we are stacking up against some of the best competition in Texas,” head coach Dave Hartman said. “Overall I think it was a great meet for our track and fi eld team.”
Senior J.J. Hernandez qualifi ed for regionals after posting a qualifying time of 9:03.92 passing the NCAA regional mark of 9:07.00 and winning his event in the 3,000-meter steeple-chase. Hernandez showed his poise at the Saturday meet, giving one of his best performances of the season.
“I was actually pretty surprised I didn’t feel good heading into the meet,” he said. “I felt real heavy and fl at and I just wanted to do the best I could on a day that I felt bad, when I do feel good I can run a lot better so I was kind of surprised the last 100 meters I didn’t think I was going to make it, it was kind of close but I came out alright.”
Hartman echoed his runner’s thoughts on how he performed on a day that could have ended on a dif-ferent note.
“There was a lot of pressure on him to get it done and I think he performed admirably as far as knowing the pres-
sure is on, knowing this is the perfect night and getting it done with, now we can focus on the rest of the season,” Hartman said. “A nice way to cap his career here would be to qualify for the national championships.”
Sophomore James Strachan set a new school record in the outdoor 400 meters with a time of 47.28, ousting the previous mark of 47.42 set by Ja-mie Guzman in 1997. Along with a 10th-place fi nish in the 200 meters and a fi fth place overall fi nish, Strachan and his teammates held their own in a tough pool of competition.
Wally Gonzalez and Omar Doria helped the team along in the 800 me-ters with sixth and ninth place overall fi nishes, respectively, with times of 1:52.17 and 1:54.27.
Gilroy Martinez earned a seventh-place fi nish in the 1,500 fast section with a time of 3:57.72 and Oscar Bar-rera fi nished fi fth in the hammer toss with a distance of 45.06 meters.
“I think the team performed pretty
well, everybody came out and did what they were supposed to do, improve,” Gonzalez said of the Bronc efforts.
On the woman’s side, senior Aman-da Ferris threw her to way to a fi rst -lace fi nish and a re-gional qual-ifying per-formance in the hammer toss with a throw of 54.32, sur-passing the top regional mark of 54.15. Fer-ris summed up her per-formance with a relaxed demeanor.
“You just need one throw to get there and that’s all you need,” Ferris said of her win.
Her coach was pleased.“Amanda did an awesome job, it
was right at her personal best and she continues to be consistently right there in that range, which I think is going to set her up potentially to win the Great West Conference Championships and then go on to the regional champion-ships with a shot to qualify for the na-tionals,” Hartman said.
Fellow thrower Michelle Elizondo earned fourth place in the hammer toss with a distance of 49.08 and Stephanie Perez also placed fourth in the discus with a 47.19 throw.
Assistant coach Jennifer Leather-man assessed the school’s perfor-mance with optimism for the future.
“I’m very pleased with how they competed against really good compe-tition and in the next few weeks ev-eryone should start peeking into top form,” she said.
The men’s next event is the Ohio Val-ley Conference championships on May 1-2 in Richmond, Ky., while the women are set to compete at the Great West Championships May 15-16 in Houston.
By Jose BetancourtThe Pan American
As the Broncs and Lady Broncs saw the 2008-09 season come to an end, the golf crews stepped up to win fi rst and sec-ond place in the Great West Champion-ships Monday and Tuesday, respectively.
The University of Texas-Pan Ameri-can women’s golf team brought home the conference title with a score of 961, jumping up one spot and 14 strokes from day one, after Houston Baptist had the lead with 634 in the fi rst 36 holes as op-posed to 648 of the Lady Broncs.
“They played and fought hard, gave everything they had,” head coach Ofelia Lopez said. “They wanted to win and they ended up winning.”
Haley Hocott found personal glory at the Sienna Plantation Golf Course in Houston. The sophomore had two con-sistent beginning rounds, hitting 81-81 on the fi rst day and a 73 during the sec-ond, which brought her from sixth to fi rst place with a score of 235.
“I’m still a little bit shocked, I’ve never won a tournament until now,” the San Antonio native said. “It’s exciting, it’s something that everyone dreams and hopes for.”
Senior Mariale Camey tied in sec-ond with 240 strokes obtaining 81, 79, and 80 in three rounds, while classmate Bronwyn Sandberg placed two notches behind with a score of 243.
Freshmen Maria Jose Camey and
Sarah Kothny fi nished tied in seventh and 16th with 246 and 254 strokes, re-spectively. The individual efforts added up to a fi ne team performance.
“Fourteen strokes behind, it seemed there was no way they’d come back to win the tournament,” Lopez said. “I’m very proud of them; all the hard work and dedication has paid off.”
Hocott said that although the fi rst day’s participation wasn’t bad, the Lady Broncs knew they could improve in the third round to attain the confer-ence championship.
“The team had the mindset that we could win it and after the fi rst day we thought we could still come back and that’s what we did,” she said. “We are happy, we knew we could do it, and we fi nally accomplished it.”
On the men’s side, Armen Kirakos-sian led UTPA to a second place in the championship, where the team recorded 933 strokes behind Houston Baptist, which took the title with 900.
The Portland native hit 219 (72, 74, 73) to fi nish tied in fi rst place with HBU’s Jordan Jeffers.
“It was a good performance, I liked the way I played and am happy for the result,” the junior said. “As a team, we’re making progress towards where we want to be.”
Only one stroke behind came senior Shane Pearce, who took third with 73, 74, 73, which placed him in third.
In 16th and 17th, junior High Wongchindawest and sophomore Or-
lando Moreno stroked 248 and 249 times, respectively. A.J. Gonzalez, also a sophomore, fi nished in 21st with 356 strokes, scoring 82, 84, and 90.
However, men’s head coach San-tiago de Larrea said he is not satisfi ed with the performance of the Broncs, who in his opinion could have done more to strive for the conference cham-pionship, since only Kirakossian and Pearce placed in the top 10.
“We are disappointed that we didn’t win, but I know we didn’t play to the best of our abilities,” he said. “HBU played very well individually and played pretty good as a team.”
The Broncs and Lady Broncs will have more than a week to prepare for the last event of the season. They will head to Port St. Lucie, Fla., to participate in the PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championship May 8-10.
“We will go to the tournament play-ing at courses we have never seen be-fore,” De Larrea said. “Hopefully we’ll perform much better.”
Hocott assured that with this week’s experience, the team goes into the last tournament of the season with renewed confi dence.
“This tournament was just proof to ourselves that we can do it, we’re a good team, we can come back and win, and for Minority we just need to start well,” she said. “If we start well I think everything will be okay, and we’re per-fectly capable of doing it.”
By Sara HernandezThe Pan American
Roxy Solis/The Pan AmericanQUEEN OF THE HILL - Sophomore Haley Hocott won the title of Great West Champion with an overall score of 235 (81-81-73).
J.J. HERNANDEZQUALIFYING TIME:
9:03.92
AMANDA FERRISQUALIFYING DISTANCE:
54.32
ARTS AND LIFEPage 12 April 23, 2009
� ENTERTAINMENT
OK Go off ers exclusive,discusses new album
For those who don’t know, Dash-board Confessional is not the only band that will be performing at the Edinburg Baseball Stadium April 25. Grammy Award-winning OK Go will also be rocking out and their energetic stage presence is sure to please the crowd.
Mostly known for their unique fashion sense and innovative music videos, Ok Go has been cranking out tunes since 1998 and has released two full-length records, “Ok Go” and “Oh no.” Recently the band has been locked away recording their new and untitled record, which is expected in stores some time in September. During a break bassist Tim Nordwind spoke exclusively with The Pan American.
Q: What has Ok Go been up to since 2007?
A: Since October of this past year, we have been in upstate New York working with producer David Fried-man, who produced the last MGMT record. He has a converted Amish barn that he turned into a studio and we have been living there under 15 feet of snow recording for the past six months. That’s kind of what we’ve been up to. Hopefully we put a single
out this summer and release the record in early September.
Q: Rolling Stone recently reported that the title to your new record would be “Help is On the Way.” Can you confi rm or deny that report?
A: “Help is On the Way” is a work-ing title, I’m not sure that it will actually be the title, but Rolling Stone wanted us to give them something to work with. It may still end up being the title. It just depends on what we feel at the end of the recording process.
Q: Since you mentioned David Friedman, does that offer any insight as to what your sound will be like?
A: Our sound is more expansive. We have been listening to a lot of “Purple Rain” over the winter and I feel that this will be the most soulful and honest record we’ve ever made. With our fi rst record we made it feel like a party, our second record we wanted to focus on what we do live, and with our third record we’ve sort of come to testify, more or less.
Q: Are you at all apprehensive about taking your sound in a new direction?
A: No, I feel like it’s about time. Between each of our records there has been a span of three to four years. In my mind each record is pretty sig-nifi cant from the one before. But this
album feels like us now and not us four years ago. I think that when you let so much time go by, you’re four years older…listen to four more years of music, watch four more years of movies, read four more years worth of books and had four more years of relationships. We are all at very different places than when we made the last record and I think this record sort of echoes where we are as a band and as people; it’s a correct docu-ment of who we are right now.
Q: How did you guys end up in the end credits to “I Love You Man?”
A: A good friend of ours and sort of a rock hero, Craig Wedren, asked us to do that. He went to college with a lot of the guys who were in “I Love You Man,” and they asked him to be the wedding singer in the fi lm. So then he asked us if we wanted to be part of the wedding band. It was a fun thing to do and the shoot took two days.
Q: How friendly was the cast?
A : Paul Rudd and Jason Sie-gel were ex-tremely nice. It’s funny be-cause when you do something like this you fi nd out that there is a sort of mutual admiration between musi-cians and actors. At some point one of them said to us, “What you guys do is what we wish we could do.” And we were like, “Why? You guys are actors; we wish we could be you.” It’s funny to get into a conversation like that with Paul Rudd, who is fucking hilarious. He came up to us and told us that what we do is so cool.
Q: Whose idea was it to use wallpa-
per Outfi ts to the Grammy’s?A: I can’t remember whose idea it
was to use those outfi ts. I remember getting fi tted for them and at that point we had been invited to the Grammy’s already, so we fi gured that we’d put them to use. I remember that we con-fused the media because our faces were covered. One reporter thought we were Buckcherry and did the en-tire interview without knowing who we were.
By Isaac GarciaThe Pan American
Jeremy and Claire Weiss
Page 7ADVERTISEMENTSApril 23, 2009
scraping gum from under desks, and wiping down blackboards. Other stu-dents walked the UTPA grounds pick-ing up trash and taking down outdated posters along the walkway.
Various fraternities, sororities, stu-dent organizations and honor societies all took part in this project, with sev-eral members registered to represent them at United to Serve.
Josué Galvan, a 20-year-old junior biology major from Palmview, arrived on campus on that cloudy and humid Saturday morning.
“Community service is really im-portant because it really allows you to get really involved, not only in campus life but in serving others and in serving your community,” Gal-van said.
Galvan has some experience in this sort of ef-fort. As commu-nity service direc-tor for Golden Key Honor Society, an honor society for students within the top 15 percent of their class, he ex-plained that students should do more for their campus, a place where they live in the present and learn for their future. It was the honor society’s fi rst time to be involved with the project and plans are to do it again next year.
“Not only does it make you feel good to know that you’ve made a dif-
ference, but it makes you stand out. It teaches you to be selfl ess instead of selfi sh,” Galvan said about student participation in this year’s project. “I’ll be able to come in and say, ‘That building is clean because I helped clean it.’”
Though it was a successful event, the project received less attention this year. It also got a late start due to the fact that the previous coordinator for the SLA, Amy Martin, left UTPA in December. Planning began in Febru-ary, giving the involved organizations approximately two months to prepare, short of the usual fi ve or six, for the yearly routine.
Barrera, now a graduate student working toward a master’s degree in sociology, explained that only about 75 students registered to volunteer on Sat-urday, compared to the estimated 150 that have participat-ed annually in the
past. Nevertheless, students are eager to help any way they can.
“It’s pretty easy to have students participate, especially in community projects,” Barrera said. “They get very excited and they’re very willing.”
Even if the number of participants was not as high as expected, and while some of those registered did not show, the contribution from those who came
to dedicate their time to the commu-nity was appreciated.
As a reward for their hard work, students, faculty and staff received a voucher for a free meal at the UTPA home baseball game that followed the tiresome yet fulfi lling service project that ended on a hot mid-afternoon. Despite struggling to discard bags full of dried gum from underneath desks, project evaluations handed out by the SLA during lunch indicated that 100 percent of the volunteers would do it again.
“I’ve learned so much here, been involved in so many things and had so many opportunities,” Galvan said. “It’s the very least I could do to give back to my university.”
NEWSPage 6 April 23, 2009
UNITED continued from Page 3 NGO continued from Page 3both sides of the border, topics such as economic development and health services will be issued.
“Many concerns are to pro-mote economic development, al-leviate poverty, improve education and health services, provide other social services and elevate living standards-in collaborations with the independent of both government and business,” Ocanas said.
Seven organizations from both
countries will be chosen to become a part of the council, according to Ocanas.
UTPA-SBNRC provides technical assistance for individuals who are interested in starting a non-profi t or expand on an existing one by provid-ing grant writing classes; help fi ling for a 501(c3) and/or help search for grants through the Foundation Cen-ter Cooperating Collective.
“It teaches you to be
selfl ess...I’ll be able to come in
and say, ‘That building is clean
because I helped clean it.’”
Josue GalvanJunior biology major
RESEARCH continued from Page 3poker games do. The game has artifi -cial intelligence, which can make the average poker player sweat in order to win.
“I felt a huge relief when I fi n-ished. We all worked really hard,” Flores said. “ It feels good to ac-complish some-thing.”
Another project that might inter-est students is a Youtube style Web site that would let UTPA students upload and watch UTPA related vid-eos. Esteban Tristan, ACM president and Senior Raul De Leon created the Web site. The purpose of the project is to promote interest in campus ac-tivities to students.
“I found the presentations really
interesting,” Lizeth Cantu, a UTPA business major attending the research day said. “They give you an insight on what technology is and what’s coming next,”
David Egle, a professor of en-gineering who is also on the advi-sory committee, is amazed at the resources some of the students used to develop successful projects, some of which have ben-efi ted other depart-ments in the col-lege.
“The chemistry department at UTPA needed to update its genetic sequence aligner software, which gave our students the opportunity to make a project which would help the university,” he said.
“I felt a huge relief when I fi n-
ished. We all worked really
hard...It feels good to accom-
plish something.”
Joe FloresSenior, poker bot team
DID YOU KNOW?
Several other UT System schools also participating in the United to Serve project.
-UT Arlington
-UT Brownsville
-UT Dallas
-UT Permian Basin
-UT San Antonio
-UT Tyler
Cigarroa testifi ed in favor it.“We have overcome numerous
challenges and obstacles that culmi-nated in this monumental feat - our own medical school serving the fast-growing and medically underserved South Texas border region,” he said, when the bill passed April 8.
According to the bill, the medi-cal school may emanate from the Regional Academ-ic Health Center in Harlingen. The fa-cility would be the most logical start-ing place for the school, according to the bill, because the infrastructure is already there.
The school, however, would not come with immediate funding. Ap-propriations would have to be set by the Legislature in order for construc-
tion to begin. This component has not yet been built into the legislation.
Still, a clause in the bill says that if it passes both the House and Senate with a two-thirds majority vote, it au-tomatically becomes eligible for UT System funds. With the Senate en-
abling unanimous approval, all that’s left is the House to be able to meet the requirement.
“Although we now await action on the House side, it certainly isn’t too early to con-sider the enormous impact that this bill will have on South
Texas,” Lucio said in the statement. “From this point forward, we can begin to count on a school that will eventually train our own doctors and health care professionals right in our own backyard.”
cies like the Edinburg Police De-partment. He maintains that commu-nication between both departments is key.
“There’s going to be situations where their officers may be back-ing our officers up on calls and vice versa,” Stearns said. “Many times, the criminals don’t limit themselves to our community boundaries, so we need to make sure as a law enforce-ment agency that we’re exchanging our share of information. So we can better serve our community as well as assist our surrounding agencies.”
He says he wishes to facilitate communication between commu-nity members and police officers to make sure every issue or concern gets addressed.
“I don’t want there to be an ‘us vs. them’ mentality between the community and the police depart-ment,” he explained. “I think that we can better serve the community if we view ourselves as a participat-
ing member of the community.” To build a more user-friendly ap-
proach, he plans to develop a sys-tem that brings campus community and the police department closer together.
Stearns plans to implement a pro-gram that will allow students, fac-ulty and staff to attend orientation meetings and training sessions to learn more about the department’s role in the university and encourage everyone to contribute toward mak-ing the campus a safer place.
“I consider these programs to be foundation programs for the partner-ship effort we want to create with the community,” he added.
The new chief, who recently served at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, joins UTPA with a vision for the campus precinct.
Stearns replaces Chief Howard Miller, who was removed from of-fice in October 2008 after an un-specified investigation conducted
by UT System officials. Stearns received a law enforce-
ment degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1997 and served as security coordinator for residence life while he was still a student.
Shortly after graduating, he be-came employed with the University of Texas at Dallas police department where he served as an advisor for various student groups on campus.
There he established the law en-forcement explorer program, the community liaison officer program and the student patrol programs.
He was also honored by the uni-versity’s student government with an Outstanding Service Award, Stu-dent Life recognized him as Advisor of the Year, the Division of Business Affairs gave him an Outstanding Employee Award and the police de-partment honored him with awards for Officer of the Year and Supervi-sor of the Year.
ticipants are compensated $50. Par-ticipants may be asked to participate in follow-up interviews and ques-tionnaires for which they will also be fi nancially compensated.
The screening interview is 15 minutes long. If they qualify, partici-pants will complete an interview and questionnaire which takes anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours. Patient health information is semi-confi dential, as it is only seen by those involved in the research.
According to Andres Figueroa, an assistant professor of computer sci-ence who is involved with the study, researchers are seeking a control
group of healthy individuals to con-duct the study. As of now, Figueroa said there are more than 300 subjects.
The study, according to Figueroa, aims at providing new information for the medical world including treatment options for both mental and physical disorders.
He added that the study is sched-uled to end in August but the ERAHC and HSCSA have hopes of renewing the study once again.
“It was very hard this past year,” Figueroa said about funding for the study. “With Obama, new funding opportunities have come across.”
Figueroa said some of their fi nd-
ings about citizens of the Valley over the past three years have been published in online journals. He said they have found
Dr. Michael A. Escamilla, a psy-chiatrist at HSCSA Genetic Center and researcher at ERAHC, is leading the epidemiologic study. Several of Escamilla’s studies have been pub-lished, including a schizophrenic study in the American Journal of Medical Genetics in spring 2007.
Escamilla’s led-study found that chromosomes 1, 5 and 18 were very likely to contribute to schizophre-nia in those of Mexican and Central American descent.
Escamilla was out of town and unreachable for comment about the past study or current Valley study.
With Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.’s fi ling of a bill for a medical school in the Rio Grande Valley, Figueroa said the possibility of getting such a facility would be benefi cial in multiple ways for the Valley.
“There will be lots of benefi ts if we get a medical school,” he said. “It brings employment opportunities and it will attract people to the Val-ley.”
The study is funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health and HSCSA. The NIMH wants to
help scientists learn more about how genes affect the development of mental disorders.
Page 5NEWSApril 23, 2009
CHIEF continued from Page 1
TEA continued from Page 1
“We have overcome numer-
ous challenges and obstacles
that culminated in this monu-
mental feat...”
Eddie LucioSenator
MEDICAL continued from Page 1
going to be paying a lot of them for someone else’s spending.”
The event was part of a nation-wide grass-roots effort responding the planned economic direction of the Barack Obama administration. Hun-dreds of thousands of people gath-ered across the country on Tax Day to demonstrate.
The Tea Parties, part of whose ac-ronym stands for “taxed enough al-ready,” takes its cue from the Ameri-can revolutionaries who dumped tea into the Boston Harbor in 1773 as a protest of British King George III’s taxes. Last week it was celebrated on a day many Americans would spend scrambling to fi nish their taxes. The national event took place in over 800 locations and arose from collective fears of over-taxing, careless stimu-lus spending and what many felt was a largely interfering and socialist government.
Though news sources estimated that only several hundred showed up to the McAllen event, the RGV Tea Party Web site reported about 1,200 and the party in Harlingen drew in about 200 - most other tea parties
around the country varied from a handful to several thousands - plenty of passion for the cause was heard loud and clear as four speakers ad-dressed the crowd in front of the park’s gazebo, and patriotic songs were sung between each speech.
PROS AND CONSThe crowd was armed with signs
reinforcing fears of the country’s supposed turn to socialism, includ-ing one that read “Karl Marx wants his teleprompter back.” President of the RGV Tea party chapter Glenn Hagenbach spoke to the crowd about his frustrations with the current eco-nomic plans.
“We will and we must bring our country back to the past,” yelled Hagenbach before audience members chanted “USA” in support. “I don’t know about you, but if these guys can’t put the breaks on spending, then I don’t want them touching my trans-mission.”
Hagenbach, who also owns Hagen-bak Deli in McAllen, later explained that the government had no right to give bailouts to corporations like AIG
and demanded the government stick to its constitutional limits.
“We are entitled to from the fed-eral government proper management of the currency…not to tell us what doctor to go to or what kind of mort-gage the market should make,” said Hagenbach mentioning the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2007 and propos-al for what he termed nationalized health insurance. “The Constitution does not permit socialism.”
Though many protesters disagreed with the recent administration’s han-dling of the economic crisis, such as creating a lofty $3.5 trillion spending plan to help alleviate a dominating recession and a rolling defi cit, many others also blamed the previous ad-ministration for the fi scal state of the country.
“In the Bush years we had an un-fortunate increase in the budget that was unjustifi ed” said former Republi-cans for UTPA President Adrian Tor-ralbo, a UTPA political science grad-uate in 2007. “George Bush had the war, and I was in favor of it, but he spent so much on the war that he nev-er put into consideration that maybe
we need to scale it back.”About $860 billion has been spent
on the wars in Iraq and Afhghanistan.Political science professor William
Turk did not attend the TEA party but explained the protesters’ fears.
“People are concerned about the defi cit. We are going to increase the national debt by $2 trillion this years,” Turk noted. “They are con-cerned about the spending and also the spending of money that is not there.”
However Turk disagreed with their fears about creeping socialism.
“Whether it’s (stimulus spend-ing) too much or not enough, I don’t know, even the economists are mixed,” he said. “But I don’t want the government to be on the sidelines, during a time of economic crisis the government has to take a more direct approach, but historically the govern-ment withdraws after.”
Turk added that government in-tervention helped the country during the Great Depression of the 1930s, through the creation of social pro-grams such as Social Security and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corpora-
tion (FDIC), which insured banks. He also explained that though these were socialist-type programs, a socialist government would have to have com-plete ownership and control over the country’s capital.
English Professor Philip Zwerling, who was a Students for a Democratic Society organizer during the ‘60s and protested against the Vietnam War, believed the tea parties were more “fl ash in the pan” from a politically disenfranchised group.
“The people that are organizing these parties are politically lost,” Zwerling said. “They haven’t gotten over the election; Obama is making a lot of decisions that are different…and they want to hang onto the piece of the pie.”
Though many remain skeptical of the protest group’s ability to wield power and its future effects on the country, Turk believes the grass-roots party movement could still be the sign of something new.
“Right now it’s a fairly small num-ber, but that’s how most social groups start, with a small number and then they grow in importance,” Turk said.
GENETIC continued from Page 1
QUALIFICATIONS
* You are between the ages of
18 and 90
* You live in the Rio Grande
Valley.
Contact Nelda Ybarra at
(956) 393-6423 or Michael
Freeman at (956) 393-6417.