NEWS

Student Deals with Parking Tickets, Decals
Paige Dickerson | News Editor

Angry students are a regular part of her job.
Junior accounting major Kameka Stephens, student assistant at the police station, has to deal with people angry about parking tickets every day.
“They say so many things,” she said. “Most say they didn’t know or say someone else parked in the same place and didn’t get a ticket.”
In addition to calming down angry students, taking care of decals and directing students to talk to officers when necessary, Stephens directs students to extra parking lots to help prevent future tickets
Although many students are upset about the parking situation, Stephens said many of the people ticketed parked illegally because they drive from class to class instead of walking.
“It surprises me that people actually want to drive from class to class at this small of a school,” Stephens said. “I’ve been to bigger campuses with fewer parking spots and it wasn’t ever mentioned.”
In addition to handling the flow of students who come into pay tickets, she also inputs decals and sometimes dispatches to the officers.
Taking care of decals and tickets drive the busiest times of year, the beginning, when everyone needs a new sticker, and the end, when students need to pay off tickets before registration and graduation.
“I’m already busy because I’m in school, but it usually gets really busy around the end of the year when people need to pay tickets in order to graduate,” she said.
Her favorite part of the job is dealing with the students who come in.
“I like to hear their excuses. Some of them have valid excuses,” she said. “People who come in and are angry don’t realize that it doesn’t help them at all. There are some things we can give warnings for but we don’t have to. It won’t help them to get upset.”
Recently a student came in and began yelling at a co-worker so Stephens had to calm him down.
“He did calm down, but then some of his friends came in and he started yelling again,” she said.
Many parking tickets can be avoided by using the extra lots and taking the shuttle instead, Stephens said.
She also helps out with the lost and found. Most items in the lost and found are located by employees or by officers.
“We get calls from people who have lost stuff off campus,” she said. “If they lost something in a building usually it is turned in somewhere in the building and not to us.”
If something is found in a building or if something is lost many times it is reported to the police station just to let them know in case the item or owner is located, Stephens said.
“We don’t get a lot of stuff in our lost and found. If we get anything it is usually from someone who works here,” Stephens said.


Man Offers Apologies to all for Offensive Comments
Jason Kimbro | Staff Reporter

My mother is a lovely, wonderful, nice little lady. She plays the piano for my dad, who is a Pentecostal preacher in a quaint little church in Graham. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “That explains a lot! He’s a preacher’s kid!”
Well, I am not as bad as any of you think. As a matter of fact, I have come to the realization that a lot of my past columns have been insulting and rude to many of you, therefore, I would like to offer up this column as a sort of apology for all the horrid mistakes I have done and all the nasty little items I have written about.
I know, most of you are probably telling yourself “I thought this was going to be about his mother.” No, that first sentence was just to throw ya off for a little bit and to make it appear that I am a nice fellow with a loving mother. This brings us to my first apology.
To all of those whom I have lead astray and made you think I was a really, really, really, really, nice guy when I am really only a really, really, really nice guy, I apologize.
To all the people of different races I may have offended, I apologize.
To all the people of different races I happened to have left out in past columns, I apologize.
To the family member who I told my friends was gay in order to save myself from embarrassment, I apologize. Especially you, Cousin Francis. That is really just a play on your name.
I have dipped my ladle into many a bowls and have tasted many a soups and many a brews. For this, I apologize to the well-meaning, higher-ordered, morally-sophisticated realm of our society for being such a horny bastard.
I apologize for using the letter “a” far too much in the previous apology.
I wud aslo like to apulagise four my misteaks in speling and grammmmmmmmarr ,(#)! that is sometime intentional, just to tick off whoever happens to bea idetin my colim this weak.
I want to apologize to my mother for using her to throw you off, as if it really threw any of you incredibly intelligent people off.
Next, I want to apologize for patronizing my readers. I know that some of you truly are intelligent and bright, even!
For all the days I spent most of my afternoons in the bathroom over in the OD section of Liberal Arts with the lock on the door, just so I could beef up on my ventriloquism skills, I apologize. Especially to the sociology department. That stain in the floor was not caused by me!
I apologize for lying; the stain in the floor was caused by me.
I apologize for the stain in the floor.
I would like to apologize to any of the balls who were insulted in my last column. I know it is hard to come to the realization of what you truly are, but you must now accept your ball-ness. Just let your self hang!
To those of you who thought I was talking intentionally about you, I apologize. Now that you know for sure I am talking about you in this particular apology, I apologize. And now that I have, yet again, intentionally talked about you, I apologize. And again, now that I have intentionally… ahh, the hell with it.
To my roommate, I apologize for the loss of your hair. I know you were wanting everybody to think you cut it off for charity, but you need to know there is nothing wrong with listening to your mother’s demands at your age. She was right, though. You did look like Jim Caviezel’s stuntman for “The Passion of the Christ.”
To all of those out there who wanted me to do a review of “The Passion of the Christ” last year, I apologize for putting the blame on The Wichitan for my reasoning behind not reviewing it. My real reason is this: I’m afraid of Peter.
To the football team, I apologize for the awful letter I sent you. You are a wonderful team and you do deserve free ice cream from Golden Chick, just like everybody else! Oh, wait.  I never sent that letter. Nevermind.
And finally, to every single person at MSU, I would like to apologize for my lack of originality in creating yet another list of things off the top of my head that only sounds funny to me, but is in actuality, insulting to everybody else.
Wait! I lied! One more apology. To Camron, our beloved editor, I apologize for this: I LOVE YOU AMBER!
Thank you and good night, or morning, or whatever.


Commentary: 'Save our City' from what? Reasons for recall not Clear
Richard Carter | For the Wichitan

The other day I was driving through the nice part of town when I saw the first of many campaign signs dotting the expansive yards of the larger houses.
Why are so many of the homes in the rich section of town tract housing? It kind of makes you wonder why urban–renewal advocates didn’t dig up H.L. Mencken’s 1917 essay, "The Sahara of the Bozart” before they gutted our downtown area.
The least they could have done was read some Robert Venturi first.
Back to the (hopefully) biodegradable signs littering those lawns. Each of the signs had the same three equal horizontal red, white and blue stripes, with a message advocating voting against the recall of the town’s mayor. 
Had the designer made the stripes vertical, as opposed to horizontal, the sign would have been the French flag. But I can’t believe that the sign makers were playing off the Tricoleur for the colorful foundation of their message.
Anywho, the red part of these yard signs has a date on it, February 5; the message on the white part says “vote against recall.” And on the bottom, the blue part, it says “save our city.”
          The “save our city” part of the message is a bit baffling.
A)Save our city from what?
B)Is our city in peril? And from who or what? (go back to point A)
C)Shouldn’t the people advocating the recall also be employing the “Save our city” mantra or something similar?
D)Finally, and likely most important: is the mayor of Wichita Falls, without power much more significant than the average city counsel member, worth the time and expense of a recall?
 The signs are unfortunately unable to answer any of those questions.
Historically, signs have usually said nothing more significant, quite literally, than “buy Burma Shave” or maybe “Get us out of the U.N.” Still, we’re inundated with them on a daily basis and we rarely give them or their words a second conscious thought.
But they can be important, because with a little phrase or a catchy image, sponsors think they can wheedle their way into our minds in an unguarded moment and maybe change the way we think or do something.
Plain and simple, for those of us doing more than simply sleepwalking through our days, we’d like some more information about this recall, please, other than some crummy signs littering the fair lawns of our lovely country club area.
Could the phrase, “Save Our City,” with respect to the simple recall of a mayor, actually be a red herring?
Could the real Godzilla problem facing this city be boredom? 
Can’t we find more interesting ways to “save our city” than offering up a mayor?
Couldn’t we bring in bigger bands to the KY coliseum? Bring in more locally–owned commerce so the profits don’t leave the city so quickly? Develop more interesting things to do on a Friday or Saturday night for people under the age of old?
Maybe the city could help itself by fostering some worthwhile jobs locally so that we don’t lose the college graduates who are forced to move off to larger cities to find real opportunities.
I dunno. Maybe by voting against the recall, a group of voters can save “their” city. Or maybe if certain voters voted the mayor out, they can find someone else who might save “their” city.
Still, it sure kind of sounds like both sides have painted a city-in-crisis scenario in order to divert attention from the real problems. You know: ennui, no jobs, and Cher.
I’d like to think we could at least do better than Cher, anyways. Ennui I can live with.