University of Texas Austin - Cactus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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Appc Goa Two onlookers view the process as Robert E. Lee Hall crashes and crumbles to the ground in January to make room for a new teaching center. With a little ingenuity, Bill Leissner of Austin transforms himself into the abominable snowman on Jan. 12. J M3? ' % . T - v . . . , rv ' , . f t . 5 r . .; .- vi -. ' ' ' ' ,. ' .-SJbi ' . ' . ' ..-.; ily I '

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ut in Cold November Beth Katchum, member of an international Christian mime troupe, performs in Toymaker and Son on the East Ma vhile a couple jog around Town Lake, a fisherman takes a more passive approach to recreation on a lazy November day. For the first time in Daily Texan iie editor and managing editor resign. A major staff walk- out leaves editor Don Puffer with to step down. In a controversy that threatened to split the newspaper into factions, some staffers accused Puffer of violating several TSP handbook rules, in- cluding allowing c opy to undergo revision after approval by the news editor. 12 Space Shuttle Columbia blasts off. taking a UT dad, Richard Ttuly, and his commander, Joe Engel. on a two-day trip around and around the world. 28 The Crimson Tide rushes over Auburn, giving Alabama head coach Paul Bear Bryant his 315th victory and the title of the winn- ingest college coach. December 8 U.S. Supreme Coun. rules religious groups have the right to hold services on the campuses of state universities. UT is forced to review its policy of allowing religious groups to use University- facilities only if they limit their discussion to the academic aspects of theology. November December 25

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Robert E. Lee Hall Faces Appomattox, Watkins Says Goodbye, Lemons Recalled Students returning a little early from winter break got to frolic in Austin ' s only snowfall of the spring semester. The University closed on Jan. 12 at noon, but reopened the next day at 1 p.m. While the two-inch snow shower immobilized Austin, Northern states faced record sub- zero temperatures that dipped into the dou- ble digits with wind-chill factors. Passersby stopped to gawk, and sometimes even cheer, near 21st and Univer- sity as a crane crashed a wrecking ball into Robert E. Lee Hall. The destruction of the old building was to make room for a new Teaching Center. Reported by Runner magazine to be the fifth largest 10,000 meter race in the nation, the Capitol 10,000 let 11,823 official entrants loose in the streets of Austin on March 22. Eddie Espinosa, a 23-year-old mechanical engineering major confined to a wheelchair, was the first to cross the finish line. As usual, some students kept involved in politics. Ten percent of the student body turned out on March 10 to reinstate student government, absent from the campus since 1978, with a 64 percent margin. Also, Univer- sity students registered to vote in Austin helped 5-1 to defeat a proposed amendment to the fair housing act that would have made it legal for landlords to deny housing on the basis of sexual orientation. Outraged students held a rally when President Peter Flawn denied tenure for the second con- secutive year to Al Watkins, an assistant pro- fessor of government. As 1981-82 was Watkins ' seventh and up-or-out year, the denial left him 18 months to leave UT. The next firing, which shocked UT and Longhorn fans even more, was that of Abe Lemons, head basketball coach for six years. The action by the Athletics Council came nine days after the end of an unfruitful season which had gone up like a rocket and taken a nosedive the second half. Concerned citizens banded together to protect the Austin oasis of Barton Springs from possible pollution. Two UT-based groups, Students to Save Barton Springs and Students for Environmental Defense, feared the proposed southern extension of MoPac Boulevard, which included a bridge to cross Barton Creek, would threaten the natural spring. The United States Geological Survey found very real evidence of pollution when they measured the count of fecal coliform bacteria at a record high, signaling the seepage of human waste into the water. This scare prompted the Parks and Recreation Department to instigate a new policy in February requiring the spring to be closed for at least a day after each rain. March end- ed with city officials still trying to locate the source of the contamination. January 28 Italian authorities storm Red Brigade hideout freeing Brigadier General James L. Dozier, kidnap- ped 42 days earlier from his Verona apartment. Just as police broke in, one of the members of the terrorist organization had a gun poised at Dozier ' s head, ready to kill him. February Jorge Luis Broges, renowned Spanish-language writer, fills Lyn- don Baines Johnson Auditorium when he delivers the University ' s annual Hakett Memorial Lecture. The Globetrotters, basketball team with the madcap antics, make their annual trek to the Frank Erwin Special Events Center. fTlarch 1O 22 Doomsday. All nine planets in the solar system are aligned on the same side of the sun. In a 1974 publication, The Jupiter Effect, two British astrophysicists predicted that the combined gravitational pull would knock the earth out of orbit, setting off violent earth- quakes that would destroy the earth. Commander Jack Lousma and pilot C. Gordon Fullerton blast off in the space shuttle Columbia on an eight-day mission the craft ' s third orbit. January February March 27