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Exploring irradiated

Boston one location at a

time.Several months after the release of Fallout 4, the game still hasn’t left Editor Andrew Burnes’ Playsta-tion. Here’s why there’s no end in sight to his incessant exploring, scavving, chatting, salvaging and VATS-aided gunning.

PAGE 6

Alone in this Together

With every Valentine’s Day comes the opportunity for love and romance, but also seclusion and heartbreak. Senior Reporter Kerry Wilson makes the case that a solo Valentine’s Day isn’t neces-sarily something to be dreading.

PAGE 2

A&M-Commerce

!nancial aid o"ers assistance

to students a"ected by

tornadosAfter a violent December, several A&M-Commerce students found themselves on the unforgiving end of Mother Nature’s wrath. Now the A&M-Commerce 9nancial aid of-9ce o:ers help to those displaced.

PAGE 5

Feb. 20 Fill the Fieldhouse: Free Basketball Game

Follicle FallacyKerry WilsonTravis Hairgrove;e East Texan

Texas A&M University-Commerce’s Serv-ing Engaged, Empowered and Diverse Students (S.E.E.D.S.) o<ce will be hosting two major events this month, one titled “Courageous Conversation: Good or Bad Hair: Does it exist?” on Feb. 16 to highlight the issue of hair in the African-American community, and a closing program that will be held Feb. 29 featuring Dr. Lloren Foster, renowned African-American Studies Professor hailing from Western Kentucky University, as keynote speaker.

;e great hair debate goes back decades and is a sensitive topic within the African American com-munity. Pop culture has highlighted the issue over years ,ranging from Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair” in 2009 to “;e Talk” co-host Sheryl Underwood’s comments about African-American hair in 2013.

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, Dr. Zachary Shirley, said he is looking forward to the event.

“I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Shirley said. “Because I think that hair conversations, along with colorism within the African-American community is extremely pervasive, and in that it dimin-ishes people’s relation-ships with one anoth-er. I mean, of course other racial and ethnic backgrounds have col-orism issues. However, in the African-Amer-ican community it is extremely pervasive with the light skinned versus dark skinned. Good hair versus bad hair is also one of those issues that occur, and that tends to separate us as a community.”

Joshua Moore, the Associate Director for S.E.E.D.S. explained,

further, how the Good or Bad Hair dialogue came to be.

“Good Hair versus Bad Hair is part of our Cou-rageous Conversations series,” Moore said. “Our

CONT. ON PAGE 5

S.E.E.D.S. highlights conversation surrounding racial hair stereotypes

SHORT-HAIRCUT.COM

All Falls DownWhite university undergraduate enrollment falls below 50 percent for 9rst time in historyTravis HairgroveManaging Editor

As of 2016, a reported 48.46 percent of people living in the State of Texas who are between the ages of 15 and 19 are Hispanic, and over the course of a 15 year period, the Hispanic undergraduate population here at Texas A&M University-Com-merce increased from 387 students in the Fall of 2000 to a headcount of 1,816 in the Fall of 2015.

;at’s a meteoric rise of 369 percent!Meanwhile, this semester saw another milestone

in that white students now, for the 9rst time in the history of A&M-Commerce, make up less than 50 percent of the university’s total undergraduate population.

And with black students, while their percentage of the total undergraduate student body has only risen by 2.29 percent over the last 9ve years, they’ve been the most improved group when it comes to persisting with their education into their sopho-more year. As of now, 76.18 percent of the black students who enroll at A&M-Commerce return after their freshman year, compared to 69.52 per-cent of the Hispanic students in their same co-hort, and a 68.38 percent retention rate among white students.

Dina Sosa, the Dean of Enrollment Manage-ment and Retention and Dr. Fred Fuentes, the As-sistant Dean of Enrollment Management for His-panic Outreach and Retention both attribute this dramatic change in demographics at the university

to a warm and personal, yet clear and practical ap-proach that the o<ces of Student Access and Suc-cess and Hispanic Outreach and Retention take when reaching out to high school students, living in the surrounding, 10-county area.

“We get invited in, by either a counselor or a teacher, and we go out as an army, along with Maria

Ramos and the 9nancial aid and scholarship sta: to these locations,” Sosa said. “We’ll go to Sulphur Springs ISD, and then we might go out to Honey Grove. We can hold workshops anywhere where we can get laptops going, so we can help them get

CONT. ON PAGE 3

Universities around the country have been moving in a more diverse demographic direction over the course of the last few years through initiatives such as a!rmative action. A&M-Commerce is no exception; this semester marks the "rst time in the college’s history that white undergraduate enrollment has fallen below 50 percent.

“When you think about the counseling center, most people bene"t from therapy if it’s in their primary language. It’s the same thing when you’re talking about "nancial aid and scholarships.”

- Fred Fuentes, Assistant Dean of Enrollment

Management for Hispanic Outreach and Retention

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Editor Andrew BurnesManaging Editor Travis HairgroveNews/Social Media Editor Joseph AldermanSports Editor Carter LacyOpinion Editor Hunter KimbleStudent Life Editor Alissa SilvaProduction Editor Patricia DillonPhotographer Kristen TaylorPhotographer Aaron HwangCopy Editor Kyria AhoDistribution Manager Sean BatesDistribution Assistant Michelle WhiteheadFaculty Adviser Fred StewartPhone 903-886-5985E-mail theeasttexan@gmail.comEast Texan Website tamuceasttexan.comEast Texan Print Issue Online issuu.com/tamuc.easttexan

Kerry WilsonSta) Writer

Now that Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, I am reminded of the fact that I do not have a signi*cant other to share the day with. I know what you may be thinking, “+is sounds like another sob story about a guy wanting a girlfriend.” Well, to clarify your assumption, you are absolutely wrong. I am not saying that I never want to share the day with someone, but rather, I have discovered over the years that Valentine’s Day without a girlfriend or boyfriend can still be enjoyable and downright fun. Want to know why? Keep reading the article.

For one, if I choose to go out to eat on the big V-Day, which I probably will, I can be as cheap as I want to be. My drink will not come from the *nest wine section or even from the typical soft drinks list. Instead, I will save money by ordering water with a lemon. Along with keeping my wallet’s belly full, it will enable me to slowly become a sexier individual with fresh breath, therefore increasing my chances of not o)ending women with horrible mouth odor.

“But, Kerry,” some people tell me. “I would rather go to a restaurant with someone else instead of by myself.” You know what I say to comments like that? Get over it! +e *rst step in being loved by someone else loves you *rst, and that means having one-on-one time alone, without anyone else around. So, yes. I will be treating myself out to eat, happy and free.

Spending Valentine’s Day alone also allows me to eat as much candy as I want without the burden of having to share it with someone else. +is will be particularly true for me this year because I have recently discovered the amazing sweet and sour juicy taste of Sour Patch Kids! Yes! I can go to Wal-Mart and purchase an entire bag of those sour, yet friendly, kids and eat them all day long. Depressing? Absolutely not! Just picture it: you are comfortably positioned on your La-Z Boy recliner with your Martha Stewart Collection brand sheet over you. As you pull the blue raspberry Sour Patch Kid out of the bag, your mouth begins to water as you imagine biting down and feeling the tangy sensation around your cheeks, which quickly begins to fade away as you escape into rush of raspberry sweetness. Meanwhile, your favorite television show heightens the moment even more as you realize that you do not have to share your candy, your comforter, or your television show with anyone. Does that sound great or what?

Valentine’s Day will be a time for me to enjoy people who genuinely care for my company and myself. I would not have it any other way. I do not know what future Valentine’s Day might hold, but I can tell you one thing: Whether I am alone or not, I will get my bag of Sour Patch Kids regardless of what anyone thinks.

I Love Myself

Hunter MicheSta) Writer

If you are like many of the students on campus that were here last semester (or just followed the story on the internet or news in general), it’s likely that you heard at least something about the controversy over at the University of Missouri, where protests were sparked after a black student was called a racial slur by someone. +is spiraled out of control into a national media circus as black students claimed “Racism Lives Here” and that the university was doing nothing to address the complaints.

+is situation ended with Mizzou’s president, Tim Wolfe, and the university’s chancellor R. Bowen Loftin resigning in the face of a hunger strike by one student and a large protest by others. While racism on a college campus is never something to laugh at or ignore, especially in universities with large minority populations, the Mizzou protests gave way to a cavalcade of idiocy and hypocrisy throughout many other universities as other students attempted (that’s an important part, there) to emulate Mizzou and have their own “issues” be addressed. It was here that the protests went from having a good point to being petty and

spiteful.One of the most notable incidents across

this whole farce was the protest at Yale University, in Connecticut. +e irony in this particular incident was palpable when minority students there began to complain about how oppressed they were. Yale is a member of the Ivy League, and is one of the best colleges in the United States. Its dorms have pianos, plush furniture, and its students are able to get the *nest education that money can buy. And the minorities there, who were most likely there on their own merit, claimed they were oppressed.

Dartmouth, another Ivy League school in New Hampshire, experienced a similar incident in November of last year. +ere, a mob (I say that because their conduct was like that of a mob, just without property damage and no torches or pitchforks) of black students stormed the college’s library and its study halls, disrupting students and in general acting belligerent. +ey screamed at students that were trying to learn for not standing up to join them in their “protest,” for not wearing black, or wearing “symbols of oppression” like Beats headphones. You know, Beats by Dre? Dr. Dre? +e BLACK RAPPER? Not only did they act immature in this regard, they also allowed their own

hypocrisy to come to life by screaming racial slurs at people, including the phrase “*lthy white f***s” and “*lthy white b****” to one unfortunate girl that they pinned against a wall and screamed in her face.

Yeah. Racial equality. +at’s what you’re protesting for, right? Unfortunately, in cases like these, situations like this are nothing new. +ese “social justice warriors,” as they’re known on the Internet, have gained a great deal of reputation over the past few years, and none of it’s good. +ey claim to stand for a variety of things that would ordinarily be worthy causes: anti-racism, anti-sexism, acceptance for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer) people. Unfortunately, their ways of addressing these wrongs not only ruin their arguments; they actually make the situation worse. Using such logical fallacies as “You can’t be racist against white people” and telling straight people to die, or claiming that obesity is not a health issue and that they’re being shamed for being fat, are merely a few of the ways that they ruin their arguments.

+eir hypocrisy also extends to those that are sympathetic to them. One of these incidents happened recently, at Claremont McKenna College in California. One

CONT. ON PAGE 3

!e Fine Line Between Activism and Hypocrisy

EDITORIAL CARTOON BY JOSEPH ALDERMAN

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Agnes GonzalezSpecial Contributor

You might think that there is just no time to sleep while in college. When the semes-ter starts, there is just so much to do – with friends, for organizations, and at campus activities. Then before you know it, classes are getting more serious and there is just so much to do again – assignments, tests, and cramming. There is no time for break; there is no time to rest. And why would you? I mean this is college, the time of your life and you want to make the best out of it – in all fronts possible. But just how far can you stretch yourself before you start falling apart. It’s something to think about.

You might notice that you feel tired all the time. Or that concentrating on home-work is just way harder than usual. Or you might catch yourself sounding irritable and impatient when something minor but less than fun happens to you. Friends are fun and school is important for your future but tiredness and irritability might not be the way to take full advantage of them.

To get back on track, show yourself some care. Sleep is a big part of the solu-tion and with some intentionality; you can still make it happen. First off, if you want to have a restful and refreshing sleep start by getting into the mood. An hour or 30 minutes before you want to go to sleep, start doing something relaxing and not stimulat-ing just like listening to music, reading for fun, a warm bath or shower. Once ready for bed, set the tone; adjust the atmosphere. You know what feels comfortable to you – a slightly warm or a cold room, having some white noise or complete silence.

But what if you have done all these, and you are already in bed but still feel so far away from actual sleeping. Your thoughts might be racing, things keep popping into your head, and there is an invisible to do list getting longer and longer by the minute. Just for this case, keep a notepad next to your bed so that you can record those thoughts and let them also rest until the next day.

If you still feel anxious or restless, don’t give up. You can work through all that by using some relaxation techniques. For example, in a comfortable position, take slow, deep, regular breaths. Pay attention to your breathing, and what it feels like in your body. Then while still slowly breath-ing, start relaxing your whole body one part at a time. Do not worry if you miss a body part or if you do not complete the process. Let yourself drift into sleep when-ever you feel ready.

Keep experimenting with these ideas and give yourself some time. If you have been depriving yourself of sleep, you may not become energetic overnight. It may take you a while to let your worries go. Start now and treat yourself to a lovely night of energizing sleep.

Counseling Corner

Sweet, Sweet Sleep

C!"#. $%!& P'() 1

their FASFA completed on time as well as understand the documents that need to come in for full admission.”

While “mobilizing” the One Stop Shop and going to the students is a

big part of the university’s outreach efforts, Dr. Fuentes also stressed the importance of making accommoda-tions for the schedules of the families of prospective students and striving to make the whole process as enjoyable

and non-intimidating as possible for them

“Usually, it’s in the evening,” Fuent-es said. “We’re talking about working class families, so a lot of them aren’t free until after 6 or 7 p.m.”

“Sulphur Springs has been creative

in working with us,” he continues. “They’ll do a salsa [picante sauce] con-test, so the women can compete against each other just to be able to brag that their salsa is the best…or an enchilada contest…something like that. It’s a

fun way of getting families involved, they don’t have to worry about child care, and we conduct these FASFA and TASFA bilingually. When you think about the counseling center, most peo-ple benef it more from therapy if it’s in their primary language. It’s the same thing when you’re talking about f i-nancial aid and scholarships, which is likely your largest investment of time and money. It really helps to have that done in your primary language and the audience appreciates it.”

Predictive Modeling Analyst, Car-los Rivers, who analyzes student data to make actionable recommendations for the university, noted that while the demographics at A&M-Commerce may be shifting at a rapid pace, the overall student population is continu-ing to skyrocket, even past last year’s record enrollment.

“What’s great about it is that the forecasted growth, not only for the Hispanic population for Fall 2016, but for the entire undergraduate popu-lation, is that the freshman admitted are [projected to be] up by 40 per-cent,” Rivers said. “It’s a huge growth in comparison to last year…and that’s because of the holistic approach that Dean Sosa and Dr. Fuentes are talking about.”

A&M-Commerce demographics shi! as enrollment skyrockets

CONT. FROM PAGE 2

Editors note: this is a continuation of the col-umn from Page 2.

of the demands of the protestors involve the creation of “safe spaces” where racial minorities can air grievances without having to worry about what other people think of them. It then surfaced that, while other people outside the safe space might not hear you, those inside will happily *ll the role. An Asian girl attempted to air her grievances by saying that black people could also be racist, only to be shouted down by the other black students in the circle, who even asked “how is this rele-vant to the university failing to provide for people of color?” +e rabid protestors that make up most of these groups don’t want equality, they want a reversal of the status quo, where racial minorities are given all of the preferences so that they can talk down to whites and other races while running on their platform of “black people can’t be racist because they’ve never been in a posi-tion of privilege.”

+is is unfortunately nothing new. Protestors in the now-infamous group

“Black Lives Matter” have continuously gotten ,ak for overly-narrow goals or even outright racism of their own. While they claim that black lives matter, and attempt to shout down or silence anyone that dis-agrees with them, they seem to be even more dedicated to making sure that they shoulder none of the blame for their situa-tion, instead blaming it all on white people, even in cases where blacks are in positions of authority, instead of also addressing that black-on-black crime deaths far outstrip white-on-black deaths or black-on-white deaths. +e University of Connecticut has even recently announced that the school will open a dorm solely for black students. +at sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Equality, I’ve heard it said, is a two-way street. You can’t reverse the status quo and then claim everything to be equal now; when all that’s happened is that you’ve merely placed yourself in the positions of power so that you can discriminate against others. You can’t be black and claim you want equality while screaming racial slurs at white people, or denying that your own race has ,aws as well. You can’t claim that the minority you hate is responsible for all of your problems, and there are going to

be times when life isn’t fair, not out of any sort of racist feelings, but because you’ve made mistakes, or aren’t good enough, or the fact that you’re a psycho that will rant about how oppressed you are at every opportunity. You cannot expect someone to take you seriously while you’re yelling about “microaggressions” that extend to something as petty as using “he” in general when referring to people.

It’s at times like this that I thank you, students of A&M Commerce. I thank you for how good this community is. I thank you for how inclusive it is, how you can look at any corkboard and see events open to all or for a speci*c group that neverthe-less invites many people of other colors and creeds. I thank the East Texan that even in the aftermath of the Paris attacks and San Bernadino, our *rst issue of the paper for the semester was about the on-campus mosque where the Muslim students gath-ered to worship. I thank you for sanity and maturity in the face of the thousands of college students nationwide that think that acting like kindergartners is the acceptable way to a-ect change. And I hope that al-ways continues over the course of this uni-versity’s existence.

A di"erent look at ‘Black Lives Ma#er

“What’s great about the forecasted growth for the entire undergraduate population is that the freshman admitted are projected to be up by 40 percent. It’s a huge growth in comarison to last year.”

- Carlos Rivers, Predictive Modeling Analyist

FEB. 11, 2015PAGE 4 C!"#$%

Hunter KimbleOpinion Editor

Lending support to those affected by

the tornadoes in Garland and Rowlett, the financial aid department sat up WeCare Financial Assistance Program for spring 2016.

The program was intended to give financial aid for tuition and fees to stu-dent affected by the tornadoes that hit Garland and Rowlett last year on Dec. 26. The Division of Student Access and Suc-cess wanted their students to have all the support they needed to insure the students remain enrolled in the university.

“We want to do our part to address f i-nancial need for our students,” Dina Sosa, Dean of Enrollment Management & Reten-tion, said. “We want to focus on those we can’t come back, that was the need we want to address.”

The idea for the program was developed when faculty informed student access and success of the students in need in January. According to Sosa, Dr. Mary Hendrix, vice president for student access and success, had consulted the state agency for help but assistance was not available at the time.

However, the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships had taken the lead in develop-ing WeCare Financial Assistance Program.

In an email, Maria Ramos, Director for Financial Aid and Scholarships, stated that our university is poised to do everything we can to assist those impacted by the natural disaster.

According to Ramos, about a dozen of students applied for assistance. In order to get aid, the applicants must have been directly affected by the tornadoes, prove they are a Texas resident, have their 2015-2016 FAFSA/TASFA on file in the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships and dem-onstrate financial aid need through their FAFSA/TASFA application and be enrolled in no less than six credit hours. Their ap-plications had to be submitted by Jan 29 and were reviewed by Feb. 3. The money was posted to the students’ university bill-ing account on or after Feb. 4.

“We are the university that cares,” Sosa said. “We work with our students as best as we can so they can have all that they need to succeed. I want them to do well and complete on time and have that moment where they walk across the stage.”

PHOTO COURTESY/BARRY LENARD

Hunter KimbleOpinion Editor

The university has purchased a new farm for the agriculture department’s plant sci-ence research courses.

The new farm will be located on 1569 Farm to Market Road, west of U.S. 69, which in northwest of Greenville. The farm will be approximately 165 acres and will incorporate field crops such as wheat, oats, grain, corn and cotton and an area for horticulture plants like f lowers. It will have two soil types: two-thirds leson clay and one-third Houston Black clay, which is the state soil of Texas.

According to assistant professor of agron-omy, Curtis Jones, the crop production practicum course, PLS 410, will be taught at the farm. The farm will have five to ten students working there and will occasion-ally hold lad their. Agriculture students and

faculty members from Texas A&M College Station will also come to the farm.

“I can very easily envision my introduc-tion to soil science lab going over there and looking at different soil types,” Jones said. “We’ll partner a lot with A&M College Sta-tion AgriLife research and AgriLife Exten-sion.”

The area has already been farmed, but the department still needs certain equip-ment like tractors and tillage equipment. There are also plans on hiring student workers to help maintain the farm, since there is a need for a lot of manpower be-cause it is a large area.

“Hopefully, we will have student work-ers to help us maintain the property. We’re talking about a huge piece of land,” Jones said.

Besides the fact that the farm still needs some work, Jones is very thrilled about the farm.

PHOTO COURTESY/ROSANA PR ADA

WeCare Financial As-sistance Program lends a helping hand to students

affected by tornadoes

New ag farm serves as soil

science laboratoryAlyssa SanchezCampus Editor

Standing in front of a vending ma-chine in the McDowell Administration, a girl was in the middle of contemplat-ing whether or not she wanted a candy bar or to save the money for next week’s Thanksgiving. As she was pondering her decision, the president of Texas A&M University- Commerce Dr. Dan Jones made his way to the snack machine hold-ing a coffee cup. They exchanged hellos, and she complimented him on his A&M- Commerce cup at which he offered to bring her a similar one from a box in his office.

Dr. Jones was surprised after receiving an email about his random act of kindness from the same girl f ive years later. She told him how she was a first generation student and wanted to give up after her grandmother had passed but had been inspired to keep going after the gesture.

“I’d like to think giving her a coffee cup changed the course of her life, but clearly it was that compounded by many different random acts of kindness, by her instructors, fellow students, by her friends that led her to success,” Jones said. “And when she crosses the stage with commencement, I gave her a big hug.”

After Dr. Jones told this story in a speech at the spring assembly, the counseling center was inspired to initiate the national movement, Random Acts of Kindness, at A&M Commerce.

In order to encourage students to practice random acts of kindness, the counseling center held an event where students could initial cards committed to participating in random acts of kindness in the Student Center on February 8,9, and 10.

“This is a start to raise aware-ness to do a random acts of kindness each day,” Counselor Agnes Gonzalez said.

By setting up scenarios around campus, the counseling center was able to record the participation and include it in their random acts of kindness online video. Some scenarios included someone carrying an overload of boxes or people walking out of the restroom with toilet paper on their shoe.

“This project has the potential to help campus live up to the motto, “the university that cares,’” Dr. Jones said. “We’re celebrating how human engage-ment interaction supports the mission of the university.”

Examples of random acts of kind-ness include talking to a shy person who’s sitting by themselves at a party, write something nice on someone’s Facebook wall that write sad posts a lot, listen intently, try to make sure everyone in the conversation feels included, sending dessert to another table, or even saying thank you to a janitor.

“It really is an opportunity to allow people, and maybe train people, without having to go to the pharmacy to get med-ication to feel better; it’s a natural way to feel better. And that is to do something for someone else,” assistant director of counseling center Nick Patras said.

The counseling center hopes random acts of kindness will continue anonymously on and outside of campus.

“The kindness goes both directions, it benefits both the giver and the recipient,” Dr. Jones said. “This university is all about success, helping people be the very best they can be, that’s what education is about, what higher learning about. And that takes place best in atmosphere in which human kindness is evident. People learn best when they feel recognized, sup-ported, engaged.”

Random Acts of

Kindness

FEB. 11, 2016PAGE 5 F!"#$%!&Local Scholar Gets Internship

Opportunity Through St. JudeDiana VasquezReporter

Rachael Hildebrandt, a senior at Texas A&M University - Commerce majoring in business management and minoring in international business, is packing up and heading to Memphis, Tennessee this spring for an internship with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Hildebrandt, who’s scheduled to graduate December 2016, is embarking on a new stage in her life. She has been named the volunteer services department intern for St. Jude. !e interview was an intense two-part process that consisted of a phone interview and an in-person interview, speaking with many coordinators of departments throughout the hospital.

Her list of responsibilities for the position in-cludes coordinating and implementing programs and events for volunteers, writing for newsletters and other print pieces, and supervising volun-teers, along with many other tasks in this full time position.

“When I talk about the internship and de-scribe it to friends and family, the best way I can describe it is as a perfect internship that com-bines everything I love and all my work experi-ence into one job,” Hildebrandt said.

Hildebrandt, a member of the Regents’ Schol-ar Program, Alpha Phi, Sophomore Year Expe-rience and other university programs, said she owes a lot to the advisers she has worked with at A&M - Commerce and the leadership roles she has enjoyed in her organizations. Hildebrandt has also traveled to Mexico, England, France, Italy, Belize, Switzerland, Czech Republic and

India, and has found a true passion in those ex-periences.

“Traveling has shown me the world of pos-sibilities and removed a lot of fears I would have had before in not only applying for an intern-ship, but the logistics behind actually picking up and moving my life to Memphis,” Hildebrandt said.

While Hildebrandt will be working full time, she will also be taking a full load of online classes in order to stay on track for graduation. Hildeb-randt feels that leaving her college town where everything feels comfortable is going to give her the opportunity for growth.

“I think I am most anxious about balancing everything. I love planning and scheduling, but I know it will be an adjustment taking classes and working full time. I also know I will miss all of the friends I have made in Commerce. !eir support has eased a lot of the pressure in all of the logistics that come after getting the intern-ship,” Hildebrandt said.

While it will be hard to decide what will be in store for her after this journey, looking back at her start at the university brings back pleasant memories.

“It is strange to think all the way back to freshman year, and what my goals were then, but I would say I have always known that I wanted to do something big in my life,” Hildebrandt said. “My ultimate goal in life is to do something that I know positively impacts other people. St. Jude is built around helping patients and their families going through di"cult times, I feel so blessed to now be playing a role in helping fami-lies at St. Jude.”

Saintly Duties Hildbrandt will be working with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which was founded in 1962 and has recieved numerous awards, including best children’s cancer hospital in the U.S.

Continued from Page 1

“Courageous Conversations will be just a time where we just open up our o"ce as a safe space where students can come and have a dialogue about something that’s going on in the national news, something on campus or something they’re just interested in.”

“Good Hair versus Bad Hair kind of goes back to Spike Lee’s movie, ‘School Daze,’” Moore recalled. “!ere’s part of the mov-ie where there’s like a cool, dance-o# sort of $ght between two groups of women; one with very straight hair against a group of darker skinned women with natural, curly hair. Within the Afri-can American community, there are individuals or just people in society in general who look at the texture of a woman’s hair, and that’s how they judge her. It’s just having a conversations, because it’s much deeper than just the hair, itself.”

Shirley cited personal experience as he went on to say that there’s a tendency for people to believe that one in the African-American community must be mixed to have a certain type of hair.

“Every time I grow my hair out or I have waves when my hair is short, people are like, ‘Oh, you must be mixed with Indian or Mexican or something, because you have good hair.’ Nope. I’m black. 100 percent.”

Nathan Hogan, vice president of recruitment for the Interfra-ternity Council (IFC), said that the hair conversation has prompt-ed him to learn more about African-American culture.

“I didn’t actually realize that that was such a major thing…that it was an assumption that unless you were mixed you weren’t go-ing to have good hair,” Hogan said. “!at’s actually a big surprise to me. !at makes me want to be more informed, because I didn’t realize that was a stereotype that existed. !e fact that I didn’t

even realize that I understood the title of one of the events right kind of makes me more inclined to go to a lot more of the events in general.”

Shirley hopes the event enables students to let go of the stereo-types of good and bad hair.

“I hope that students take away a better awareness of the fact that there is no such thing as good and bad hair,” he said. “I also hope students take away education regarding the fact that these silos in which we place ourselves in to separate ourselves from peo-ple are really a detriment really than it is a positive.”

Later in the month, for the Feb. 29th closing program, Moore gave a glimpse of some of guest speaker Dr. Foster’s frequent talk-ing points.

“At my last institution, he was the keynote speaker for our Black History Month program there, and his whole message kind of cen-tered around, ‘You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve come from…knowing your history, really,” Moore said. “And not just knowing national Black history, but also your institution’s black history, so you can see what change still need to happen. !at’s really his message…to be the change you want to see. He’ll open up the %oor for at the end for a Q&A, to give them a chance to ask him questions about his research, just to give them an opportunity to have a dialogue with him.”

In closing, Shirley said that he hopes more students make an e#ort to attend school programs.

“I feel like we oftentimes talk to our African American stu-dents about the importance of showing up, showing out, coming to programs, and things like that,” he said. “To me it’s pervasive in the fact of we talk about black history month and we talk about the importance of the month and we get little to no showings at a lot of the programs from our African-American students at all. But when it’s a social event, people come up and they come out. Or, when it’s homecoming step show, or when it’s a yard show or a probate or anything like that, people come out for the social events, which is great. But, you’re also here in college as a member of the university community to expand your mind, expand your horizons. You do that by feeding your social life, but feeding your intellectual life as well. !rough a lot of these programs, students are able to feed their intellectual lives. So, I would encourage our students, especially those who want to know more and want to learn more, to come out to these programs.”

FROM HAIR TO HISTORY:BLACK HISTORY MONTH

IMAGE COURTESY / UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE - CHATANOOGA

“Within the African American community, there are individuals or just people in society in general who look at the texture of a wom-an’s hair, and that’s how they judge her.”

Soundtrack

Burnes’ Turns

FEB. 11, 2016PAGE 6 E!"#$"%&!'#!"

PHOTO COURTESY/YOUTUBE.COM

!e typical radio station featuring !e Ink Spots and Billie Holiday from Fallout 4 is certainly fantastic, but I "nd myself constantly drawn instead to the classical mu-sic radio station. With lovely piano melody after lovely piano melody, the station is a treasure-trove of some of the most beautiful pieces ever recorded. !is sonata in particular featuring nothing more than the ivories and a cello (played by the world-famous Yo Yo Ma) stands out as the best, an unbelievably stirring tune that contrasts like white against black in the Commonwealth’s irradi-ated swamplands.

PHOTO COURTESY/YOUTUBE.COM

Upon visiting a 30-song box set from !e Supremes for the "rst time, there was a lot to love. While songs like “Baby Love” that everyone knows were far too overplayed and overrated for their own good, others like “Someday We’ll Be Together” are still showstoppers that stand near the top of the mountain of the greatest songs of all time. But their "rst track on their very "rst collection from 1962, stands out. I’ve always been a sucker for calypso, but Diana Ross’ lyrics change the tone of lovestruck housewives back around on the man (“If a pretty girl should pass you by/I won’t mind if the you give her the eye”) as the backups sigh with approval.

1. Guns n’ Roses“Mr. Brownstone”

Appetite for Destruction is so chock-full of the greatest Hard Rock songs ever recorded that it’s di#cult to single out just one as being a cut above the others. Paradise City made the headlines. Welcome to the Jungle made the fame. Sweet Child o’ Mine made the charts. But from the "rst swaggering smack of Slash’s toneless ri#ng up against Adler’s hits on Track Five, it manages to stand out as something di$erent. !e gang that was Guns N’ Roses is in full form here as Slash, Izzy and Du$ rail against one another with respective ri$s, grooves and solos as Adler’s fantastic drumming (his best on record) keeps the nightrain rolling. Axl’s lyrics about joyful addiction takes all that to the next level. “I get up around seven/Get out of bed around nine/And I don’t worry about nothin/Cause worry’s a waste of my time.”

PHOTO COURTESY/ROLLINGSTONE.COM

2. The Supremes“Your Heart Belongs to Me”

3. Camille Saint-Saens“The Swan (From “Carnival of the Animals)”

PHOTO COURTESY/FANART.TV

Andrew BurnesEditor

Unlike the majority of the albums com-ing out during the decade, 1987 was one hell of a year for music. Michael Jackson was dominating the charts like he had nev-er done before with Bad, his followup to the greatest selling album of all time. Bruce Springsteen released some of the greatest mature love music of his legendary catalog with Tunnel of Love. U2 had become the biggest band in the world with their release of !e Joshua Tree, consistently ranked as one of the greatest albums of not only the ‘80s but of all time. Pink Floyd stunned with A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Prince swaggered with Sign o !e Times. Even the annoying hairsprayed “metalheads” of the age had a banner year with both Whitesnake and Def Leppard delivering their career signature LPs. But beneath the undercurrent, something was brewing that would prove to be untameable for years to come, a debut that would change the musi-cal landscape of all time, forever.

!e production of Appetite for De-struction was "lled with frustrating work. Finding a producer from a group of "ve long-haired freaks with no name value in a world that was "lled with long-haired freaks proved challenging. Paul Stanley’s KISS wanted to change Adler’s drumming. So he was out. Rober John Lange, one of the decades premier producers for guitar-heavy acts like AC/DC, Def Leppard and !e Cars was too expensive. So he was out. !e band went through producer after pro-ducer until they found Triumph producer Mike Clink. He was perfect, because he let the band sound exactly like they wanted.

Clink began working 18-hour days us-ing a razor blade to piece together the best parts of the best takes of each song. Adler’s drumming only took a week to lay down, but the other band members took a bit longer to "nd their sound. Slash strug-

gled to "nd a voice in a world "lled with ultra-shredding with minimal feel until he plugged up his Les Paul to a Marshall amp. And Axl’s perfectionism was already running rampant; he recorded the vocals to each song line by line until he felt it was ready to go.

Upon release, the band’s e$orts were rewarded with... absolutely nothing. !ey failed to stand out against Whitesnake and Def Leppard with Hair Metal fans and the critics were far more interested in Prince, U2, Michael Jackson and Bruce Spring-steen. !e critics that did hear the LP com-plained that it accomplished nothing short of pandering to stereotypical fans who were interested in nothing more than sex, drugs and Rock and Roll in the same vein as AC/DC and Aerosmith. Legendary reviewer for !e Village Voice Robert Christgau gave the album a mere B-. Rolling Stone failed to review the album at all. It was $370,000 down the drain, an utter failure. Until it wasn’t.

!anks to the breakthrough success of “Sweet Child o Mine” (which was famously penned when Slash was messing around on a scale warmup), Appetite for Destruction reached No. 1 a year later in August 1988, "nally receiving the acclaim it so richly

deserved as the No. 1 debut album of all time. Suddenly “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” were topping year-end lists for best singles, the band was prepping a next-year cash-in to supplement their success, and Guns N’ Roses had be-come the hottest band in the world.

Understanding the historical signi"-cance only helps to bolster the importance of Appetite for Destruction, though. Stand-ing alone, it would still be one of the great-est Rock and Roll albums of all time. From the "rst echoing notes signaling the begin-ning of Welcome to the Jungle to the "nal destination at the aural climax of “Rocket Queen” the album is a wall-to-wall testa-ment for how great those three chords can sound if done just right.

With each track complimenting the next, Appetite for Destruction is awesomely co-hesive. With each song attributed simply to Guns N’ Roses, the band wrote and played like a gang which as one of their forebears and inspirations Joe Perry later said “is ex-actly what you want.” !ey appealed to ev-eryone from anti-authority Punk-Rockers letting their freak %ag wave high to Hair Metal head thrashers to Rock purists to angst-ridden teens and it’s not hard to see why: each song tackles a di$erent subject matter in a di$erent way from crazed para-noia (“Out ta Get Me”) to sexual vice (“It’s So Easy”) to addiction (“Mr. Brownstone”) to anger and regret (“My Michelle,” which was written about a girl that served as the focus of Slash’s high school lust). With so much covered in a relatively short amount of time, it’s a wonder that the LP %ows like it does, but like many great works of art, it maintains its underlying theme: joy. With each of Adler’s hits, each of McKagan’s grooves, each of Slash and Stradlin’s duel-ri#ng guitar battles, each of Axl’s paint-peeling squeals, it’s quite evident that the band was enjoying every second of their as-cension to the top of the Rock world. !ree decades later, we still share the sentiment.

!ree decades later, ‘Appetite for Destruction’ is as thrilling as ever

PHOTO COURTESY/GAMERANT.COM

Fallout 4: The First 100 Hours

Andrew BurnesEditor

It’s a new day. Diamond City, carved out of the ruins of what was once Fenway Park, is just beginning to come alive. Talk of “swatters” breaks out through the foggy atmosphere as I sell my hard-earned loot to Arturo the arms dealer.

“Don’t forget to stock up on ammo,” he says. I never do.

As Strong the super mutant complains about the look of my red power armor (“Hu-man look too much like robot,” he says with disapproval), it’s on to the next dilapidated ruin the Commonwealth has to o$er. Upon arrival I’ll shoot a few things, mine some secrets of the old world before China and the U.S. destroyed the planet with nuclear weaponry, loot some old tech and arma-ments, maybe make a harrowing escape or two, and be on my way, weighted down with yet another 300 pounds of salvage. Tomor-row I’ll do it all again. And well over 100

hours later, I’m still looking forward to it.Like all Fallout titles before it, Fallout 4

has an unbelievable amount of content to explore. It’s the kind of title that keeps on giving, hour-to-hour, day-to-day unlike any other non-Bethesda series can. But what sets the newest forrway into post-apocalyptic scavenging apart from its precursors is the idea that there’s always something left to do.

Fallout 3, the "rst under Bethesda’s own-ership after series originators Black Isle Stu-dios bit the irradiated dust, was a landmark experience. Exploring the D.C. ruins armed with a laser ri%e and %anked by Dogmeat and Fawkes tearing down hordes of twisted creatures never seemed to get old, but it did seem to have an end. With a level cap of 30 (and that’s AFTER the DLC), once you got to the top of Fallout 3, there wasn’t a whole lot of incentive to keep going without start-ing a new character.

Fallout 4 has plenty of reasons to begin again, too. Certainly the twists and turns of

the main story beg to experienced at least four times over. But due to the never-ending level system and plethora of perks (there are 70 base ones, almost all of which have dif-ferent levels and rankings), there’s always something to do when straying from the Kellogg-beaten path. And while key areas like the vaults in Fallout 3 were exciting to explore, with the horrifying Dunwich Bor-ers, mystifying Massachusetts State House, and more towering skyskapers than you can shake a Super Sledge at, Fallout 4 seems that much bigger.

Even after starting multiple characters from his pre-war beginnings and making it to the "nal explosion twice, Fallout 4 has still yet to leave my Playstation 4 since its November release date. With DLC expan-sions sure to come in the near future, there’s little doubt that it will remain "rmly lodged there for months to come. And unlike the series’ forebears, with all of those perk trees staring me in the face, there’s no end in sight.

Texas A&M- University- Commerce junior guard Shomari Harris earned offensive player of the week. Angelo State

University’s junior forward Jasmine Prophet was named

defensive player of the week.

hotshotTexas A&M University- Commerce senior forward Bryant

Crowder earned men’s offensive player of the week.

TAMUC’S senior guard Anthony Adams was named

men’s defensive player of the week.

hotshots

Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016

men’shoopsTeam LSC Overall

West Texas A&M 7-3 19-7Cameron 7-3 14-8Angelo State 5-4 17-4Midwestern State 5-4 16-5Tarelton State 5-4 16-6A&M- Commerce 5-4 16-6Eastern New Mexico 2-7 6-15A&M- Kingsville 1-8 9-11

Individual LeadersPoints

Player Avg./G

David Chavlovich, WT .................... 20.0EJ Reed, TSU ................................ 17.9Tre Bennett, ASU ........................... 16.9Stedman Allen, ASU ...................... 16.5Bryant Crowder, A&M-C ................ 16.5

Rebounds

Player Avg./G

Khapri Alston, MSU ..........................9.9Lawrence Domingo, ENMU ..............8.1EJ Reed, TSU ...................................7.9Omari Gudul, ASU ............................7.9Troy Jones, A&M- K ..........................7.8

Assists

Player Avg./G

Michael Hardge, TSU ........................4.7Tre Bennett, ASU ..............................4.5Jeremy Jones, A&M-C .....................4.3JV Long, CAM ..................................3.9Anthony Adams, A&M- C ..................3.8

Steals

Player Avg./G

Bretson McNeal, MSU ..................... 2.0JV Long, ASU .................................. 1.7Michael Hardge, TSU ....................... 1.7Shelton Boykin, ASU ....................... 1.5Anthony Adams, A&M-C .................. 1.5

women’shoopsTeam LSC Overall

West Texas A&M 9-2 20-2Angelo State 8-2 15-5Texas Woman’s 7-4 17-6Cameron 6-5 12-8Tarleton State 6-5 12-9A&M Commerce 6-5 13-10East. New Mexico 3-7 8-12Midwestern State 3-8 4-17A&M- Kingsville 0-10 5-15

Individual LeadersPoints

Player Avg./G

Taylor Dorsey, ASU ........................ 17.3Bailey Wipff, TSU ........................... 14.0Dayla Threatt, CAM ....................... 13.5Kassandra Harris, ENMU ............... 13.0Michaela Neuhaus, WT .................. 12.6

Rebounds

Player Avg./G

Erin Maxwell, TWU............................8.4Amari Jones, A&M-C ........................8.2Ikpeaku Iwobi, TSU...........................8.0Maddison Wild, WT ..........................7.0Taylor Dorsey, ASU ...........................6.1

Assists

Player Avg./G

Sasha Watson, WT ...........................5.0Taylor Dorsey, ASU ...........................4.1Shomari Harris, A&M- C ...................3.5Morgan Ashmore, TSU .....................3.4Michael Neuhaus, WT .......................3.4

Steals

Player Avg./G

Madison McLain, WT ....................... 2.3Sarah Stinnett, ENM ........................ 1.9Sasha Watson, WT .......................... 1.9Taylor Dorsey, ASU .......................... 1.7Michaela Neauhars, WT ................... 1.7

ScheduleFebruary 11

Eastern New Mexico vs. Cameron

February 13

Midwestern State vs. Eastern New MexicoAngelo State vs. A&M-Commerce A&M- Kingsville vs. Eastern New Mexico

February 17

Midwestern State vs. A&M- Kingsville A&M-Commerce vs. West Texas A&MCameron vs. Angelo State Tarleton State vs. Eastern New Mexico

February 20

Eastern New Mexixo vs. A&M-CommerceA&M- Kingsville vs. CameronAngelo State vs. Midwestern StateWest Texas A&M vs. Tarelton State

ScheduleFebruary 11

Eastern New Mexico vs. Cameron

February 13

Angelo State vs. A&M- CommerceTexas Woman’s vs. West Texas A&MMidwestern State vs. Eastern New MexicoA&M- Kingsville vs. Tarelton State

February 17

A&M- Commerce vs. West Texas A&MMidwestern State vs. A&M- KingsvilleCameron vs. Angelo StateTarleton State vs. Eastern New Mexico

LSC Basketball: Four Earn Weekly Honors

WT tops

2016 LSC

softball

preseason

poll

MEN’S & WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

TRACK

SOFTBALL

West Texas A&M and Cam-eron are tied atop the Lone Star Conference men's stand-ings with identical 7-3 LSC records. !e Bu"s have won seven straight games.

On the women's side, WT and Angelo State lead the league at 9-2 and 8-2, respec-tively. !e Lady Bu"s are 20-2 overall and have won 20 or more games in a season for the 26th time since 1980-81 and for the fourth-straight year. !e Rambelles have won their last #ve contests.

LSC play includes seven men's games and nine women's games this week.

!e LSC champion will be the regular season winner determined by league games,

while the postseason tourna-ment winner is designated as LSC Tournament Champion and earns the conference's automatic quali#cation.

!e LSC men have a 113-62 overall record so far this sea-son. In the NCAA South Cen-tral Region, the men's teams are currently 13-9 combined versus Heartland Conference teams and 12-8 against the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

!e LSC women are 106-84 overall. !e women's squads are currently 20-14 combined against the Heartland, and 8-6 versus RMAC teams, which are the other conferences in the NCAA South Central Region.

West Texas A&M was selected to repeat as Lone Star Conference softball champions according to the preseason poll announced by league officials on Wednesday.

WT received 17 of the 25 first-place votes for a total of 211 points in the poll decided by LSC coaches, sports information directors and various media representatives. The Lady Buffs finished the 2015 season 45-11 overall with a 22-6 league mark to earn their second straight LSC championship and the tourna-ment title.

Angelo State finished second in the poll with five first-place nods for 173 points. Tarleton State was third with 161 points and three top votes just in front of Texas Woman’s, who was tabbed fourth with 159 points.

Cameron was fifth with 142

points, while Texas A&M-Com-merce (101), Midwestern State (87), Texas A&M-Kingsville (54), and Eastern New Mexico (37) rounded out the poll.

WT’s Lacey Taylor was named LSC Preseason Player of the Year, while ASU’s Brandy Marlett earned LSC Preseason Pitcher of the Year honors.

Taylor, a senior catcher from By-ers, Texas, recorded a LSC-best .458 batting average with 11 doubles, two triples and 12 home runs to drive in 63 RBI for a slugging percentage of .813 while tallying 40 walks for an on-base clip of .584. She totaled 271 putouts with 22 assists and just two errors behind the dish for the Lady

Buffs for a fielding percentage of .993, and threw out eight base run-ners trying to steal. Taylor earned first-team All-American recogni-tion from the NFCA and Daktron-ics along with first-team All-LSC, Daktronics All-Region and NFCA honors.

Marlett, a sophomore pitcher from Rancho, Texas, was 18-6 last season with six shutouts includ-ing a no-hitter. She led the LSC in opposing batting average (.231) and was second in earned run average (2.52), strikeouts (164) and strike-outs looking (37). Marlett claimed LSC Pitcher of the Year, first-team All-LSC and all-region NFCA and Daktronics honors.

The 2016 season starts January 29 with nine LSC teams playing a single round-robin schedule with a four games against each league opponent. The four-game series shall consist of a doubleheader Friday and a double-header Saturday.

The overall LSC Champion will be the team(s) with the best win-ning percentage in regular-season conference games, while the winner of the postseason championship will be recognized as LSC Tournament Champion and receive the league’s automatic qualification into NCAA postseason. The single-elimination championship will be played April 29-30, at the No. 1 seed.

PHOTO COURTESY/LONESTARCONFERENCE.ORG

Lone Star Conference Indoor Track & Field athletes have recorded two men’s NCAA Division II Automatic qualifying mark and 57 provisional e"orts (26 men, 31 women).

!e 2016 Lone Star Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships will be held at the Adams State Indoor Bubble and Fieldhouse in Alamosa, Colo. on February 20-21.

!e meet was scheduled to take place at the Texas Tech Athletic Training Center in Lubbock, Texas, but on December 31 the roof of the ATC de$ated due to Winter Storm Goliath canceling all events.

!e Adams State facility has a 200-meter track with six lanes on the oval and eight sprint lanes. !e entire facility is a Beynon surface. !e Indoor Bubble hosts several regular season meets and has been home to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Confer-ence (RMAC) Championships in previous years.

ATHLETES OF THE WEEKJavier Lopez, Texas A&M University-Kingsville,

JR, Cóodoba, Spain, Dionisio OrtizLopez set another qualifying time in the 60-meter

hurdles on Friday at the Pittsburg State Invitational at the Robert W. Plaster Center. Lopez’s 7.79 in the 60m hurdles preliminaries broke the facility record with the second best mark in school history, break-ing Justice Burks’ previous record of 8.11 on Dec. 5,

2015. It is the second consecutive automatic qualify-ing time for the Spaniard, and the mark is the fastest in NCAA Division II this season.

Jordan Yamoah, Texas A&M University-Kings-ville, SR, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Arlington

Yamoah quali#ed for nationals in the pole vault on Friday at the Pittsburg State Invitational at the Robert W. Plaster Center. Yamoah’s vault of 16-11.5 (5.17m) tied for #rst (second overall) and gave the former national champion an automatic quali#er as the senior registered the #fth best mark in school his-tory. He leads the LSC and ranks second in NCAA Division II.

Kaina Martinez, Texas A&M University-Kings-ville, SR, Seine Bight, Stann Creek, Belize, Indepen-dena

Martinez shattered Texas A&M-Kingsville’s indoor track mark in the 200-meter dash on Friday at the Pittsburg State Invitational at the Robert W. Plaster Center. Martinez’s 24.36 in the 200m dash was an NCAA Division II provisional mark and the best in Javelina history. Martinez also placed third in the 400m dash with a time of 56.01, a provisional

qualifying time and the eighth best mark in school history. Both marks are the best in the LSC this year, and her e"orts rank fourth and 11th in the NCAA, respectively.

Kami Norton, Angelo State University, SO, Al-bany, Texas, Albany HS

Norton recorded three NCAA Division II provi-sional-qualifying marks at the Pittsburg State Invita-tional including the No. 5 long jump in the Divi-sion II. !e sophomore recorded a jump of 19-2.75 (5.86m) for second place in the event. It is the No. 5 jump in Division II currently. Norton also cleared 5-5.75 (1.67m) in the high jump and sits at No. 23 nationally and ran 8.73 in the 60-meter hurdles, a personal best time.

LSC indoor track & field: Four tabbed

PHOTO COURTESY/LONESTARCONFERENCE.ORG

PHOTO COURTESY/LONESTARCONFERENCE.ORG

PAGE 7

S!"#$% FEB. 11, 2016PAGE 8

Track team tallies up somemore marks in Missouri

Evan LueckeSta! writer

Joplin, Missouri - "e Lion Track team traveled early morn-ing on Friday to go and compete at the Missouri Southern State University track meet. "is was a two-day meet and began with the Heptathlon. After day one of the heptathlon, Seth Pear-son was in second place with 2,897 points, Louis Simon sat 3rd with 2,557 points and Tyler Anthony is 5th with 2,472 points. Matt Rich was sitting 7th but hit provisional marks in pole vault and 60 meter hurdles. Maggie Waites vaulted a new school record of 10’6”. Ashley Basett set a school record

in the 60 meter hurdles with 9.04. "e men’s DMR team won and hit a NCAA provisional mark with 10:13. "ey are sitting 11th in the Division 2 nation. "e next day was the bigger day though.

Devontae Steele won the men’s triple jump with a distance of 50-07.25. "at mark currently makes him number one in the nation. He also hits a provisional mark in long jump, #n-ishing 4th with a mark of 7.03 meters. Jamal Curtis won the men’s high jump with a height of 6-06.75. Tyler Rambo hits a NCAA Provisional mark with a distance of 56-03.75 for the shot put. "at puts him at 11th best in D2. Matt Rich wins the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 8.44. Senior, Ricky Romero

hit an NCAA provisional mark with a 4:15.09 and he ended up winning the mile. Seth Pearson #nished 2nd overall in the heptathlon with a NCAA provisional of 5,053 points that moves him into the top 10 in D2. Louis Simon placed 3rd, Matt Rich #nished 4th and Tyler Anthony placed 7th. Alex Vansickle #nished 2nd in the weight throw hitting an NCAA provisional mark. She currently is ranked #24 in d2. Markie Abbott cleared 5’5”.25 to #nish 2nd and hitting a NCAA pro-visional mark.

Everybody performed great at this meet. Next week, the Li-ons will head back to Pittsburg State, to hopefully get some more records and more provisional marks.

Angel Simon Sta! writer

"e Lions recorded a 3-game sweep recently, knocking o! 4th rank Cameron, followed by Texas Woman’s Uni-versity and Midwestern.

A&M-Commerce downed Cameron 53-47 behind the $oor leadership of Gabrielle Scott with 13 points; Krystal Pickron with 10 rebounds; and Princess Davis with 3 as-sists. "e Lions held "e Pioneers to 30 percent from the #eld and three-point-line.

After the game Lions head coach Jason Burton said, “ "is was a huge win not just for con#dence but it also plays a key role into tie breakers later in the conference standings considering they defeated everyone in round one except us and WT.”

Burton also said, “Defense was the game plan. We had to guard to beat them and everyone bought into it. "is is a great scoring team and for us to hold them under 50 points, our ladies had to do an incredible job.”

"e Lions had back-to-back home games that improved their home record to 8-2. A&M- Commerce outscored TWU in the paint (48-32), in fast break points (22-4), second chance points (14-11), and shot 77.8 percent from the line in the second half. Shomari Harris lead the Lions with 21 points and 3 assists, and Audrisa Harrison teased a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Princess Davis #nishes with 14 points in the second half. Five Li-ons #nished the game in double digits scoring while nine of 10 Lions scored.

Burton said, “We need to build on this momentum we have going and get two wins on the road, starting this Saturday at Midwestern. We are playing well right now but we need to play like this on the road. I’m very proud of our team the last 24 hours.”

"e Lions won three consecutive games for the #rst time this season with the last time coming in December 2008.

"e Lions outscored Midwestern 32-26 in the paint as Krystal Pickron set a new career-single game high with 15 points. Pickron has had back-to-back career scoring high games against Lone Star Conference opponents. Harris was two shy of a double-double with 11 points and 8 as-sists.

Burton said, “It was a tough win, especially after three games in four days. Our legs were tired, we were mentally tired, and we ended the week on the road. However our ladies pulled it o! and I am very proud of them. Our en-ergy and drive to #nish the week strong is what ignited us and in the end, we #nished the week 3-0.”

Saturday Feb. 13. at 4 p.m., the Lions host Angelo State.

EAST TEXAN PHOTOS/ EVAN LUECKER

Kourtlynd Buggs-TorresSports wrtier

"e Lions Men’s basketball team headed to Stephenville last Sunday to play the #22 ranked Tarleton State Texans. "e Li-ons came fresh o! of last games win against Arlington Baptist trying to keep steam going. "e Lions started o! on #re with a 14-6 run quickly setting the tone for the #rst half. Jeremy Jones came out hot with a pair of 3’s to start o! what would be good shooting night for him. "e Lions continued to separate themselves from the Texans securing a 10 point lead following Jones’ third three-pointer. "e Lions closed out #nal moments of the #rst half with an 11-6 run that left the with a 12 point lead going into halftime.

"e Lions scored the #rst points of the second half following pair of free throws from Ronnie White. "e Lions continued to hold the lead thanks to Jones’ performance from beyond the arc, but went cold immediately after for #ve and a half minutes. "e sudden cold streak gave the Texans a chance to mount a comeback. "e Texans scored 9 unanswered points trimming the Lions lead to two points. "e Lions shook out of their cold spell with a mid-range shot by White. Tarleton was able to take the lead shortly after White’s bucket with a three-pointer. "e Lions and Texans went on a shoot-out in the #nal minutes of the game that left the Lions on top in the end.

"e Lions won the game (67-65). "e two notable perfor-mances were by Anthony Adams and Jeremy Jones. While Ad-ams only scored 7 points, the story was what he did on the defensive, holding Michael Hardge, who averages 11.5 ppg, to a 0-5 performance from the #eld. Adams’ performance earned

him the LSC defensive player of the week. Jones shined on the o!ensive end scoring 24 points.

On Saturday night, the Lions faced a conference rival Midwestern State University Mustangs. "e last time the two teams met the Lion su!ered the worst loss in the season, so far. "e Lions took a trip to Wichita Falls to redeem them from the last game.

"e Lions started the game o! hot from the #eld and secured an 8 point lead with 8:15 left on the clock. "e Lion managed to maintain this lead for three minutes until the Mustangs seemed to awake from their playing slump. "e Mustangs continued to chip away at the Lion for the remainder of the #rst half going on a 16-0 scoring run. "e Mustangs took the lead into halftime with a score of 36-28.

In the second half, the Lions couldn’t seem to break out of their cold spell early into the half. "e #rst points scored for the Lions in the half came from a free throw from Everett Pleasant. "e Lions managed to overcome their o!ensive struggles after a 3 point play from Pleasant that sparked a 24-8 scoring that saw the Lions earn back their lead. "e scoring run didn’t end until De’Andre Carson nailed a three pointer with 8:11 left to play. "e Mustangs returned #r bringing the game to within two points leaving the scoring at 52-50 with 6:42 left in the half. "e Lions continued to #ght and answered the Mustang comeback by constantly shutting down the Mustang e!orts until the game’s closing. "e Lions earned their #fth victory in the Lone Star Conference and their 16th win of the season beating MSU by four points (70-66).

Lions basketball lets offsome steam in Stephenville

Lady Lions whip Texas

woman’s

PHOTO COURTESY/ TARLETON SPORTS.COM