FRONT PAGE

High Gas Prices wallop MSU community
Nicole Ford | Editor-In-Chief

The cost of gasoline is hitting the Midwestern State community hard.
The steep prices are having a chilling affect on the university. President Jesse Rogers said even though the utilities budget was increased by $600,000 to deal with the rising natural gas costs, he’s afraid it might not be enough.
“(The cost of gas) is frightening me,” Rogers said. “The cost of natural gas is affecting utility costs and the cost of our gas contracts will go up. I’m very concerned about the budget impact.”
The university is coping with the cost of gas by making upgrades around campus to save on the utility bills. Rogers said measures to save on power are a “huge part of the budget.”
The university has replaced an old chiller with a new, more efficient chiller and replaced an old boiler, upgrades that will save the university both power and money, Rogers said.
All the light bulbs on campus will be changed from 40 watt bulbs to 32 watt bulbs.
“They’ll put out the same amount of light but will save on power,” Rogers said.
The lower-watt bulbs could save the university $150,000, according to Rogers.
The central plant can now monitor classrooms, offices and building for heating and cooling more efficiently, Rogers said.
“In the past, the system was antiquated and we were air conditioning a building or office that was closed,” Rogers said.
Rogers said he is also encouraging the staff and students to be aware of the way they use power. Simple things such as turning off the light when leaving the room could save university power and money.
Rogers is also worried about the increased cost of gasoline to students.
“There are many students who still commute to campus or students who drive off campus to eat or shop, and they all have to pay more for gas,” Rogers said. “It increases the cost of going to college even more.”
Junior social work major Kaycee Hall, who is taking 14 hours of classes this semester – with at least one class everyday, lives in Vernon with her husband. Because of high gas prices, Hall has to spend three nights of the week with her parents in Wichita Falls.
“I’m married and I can’t even stay with my husband during the week because gas is too expensive to drive back and forth every day to class,” Hall said.
Hall said the cost of gas added to tuition makes it difficult for some students, especially commuters, to afford to go to college.
“It makes it very hard to want to go to school when it costs so much money,” Hall said.


Banned Books Week celebrates Freedom
Nicole Ford | Editor-In-Chief

A lonely podium and a simple banner in Sunwatcher Plaza show that MSU is in the middle of celebrating the First Amendment.
Banned Book Week, sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union club on campus, started five years ago to celebrate free speech.
From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day this week students can step up to the podium and read from any banned book.
“People can show up and read as long as they want. There are chairs set out, but generally no one will sit down, which is okay,” Dr. Millie Gore said. “We’re celebrating our right to read and taking pleasure in the fact that the government can’t tell us what to read.”
Students have been apathetic about their First Amendment rights because they have “never lived in a world where reading has been challenged,” Gore said.
“Once they have their own rights violated, they will pay attention,” Gore said.
Gore herself became involved with the ACLU after the city of Wichita Falls passed the Altman Amendment, which stated that if 300 citizens objected to a book, it could be removed from the children’s library, Gore said.
“I have the responsibility to oversee what my kids read, and no one else has the right to determine what they can read,” Gore said.
The amendment was overturned five years ago Monday.
Censorship, Gore said, is a part of human nature.
“As long as we have human beings, we’ll have censorship,” Gore said, and it is the responsibility of a person to be aware of his rights.
Students and faculty also marked MSU’s Constitution Day by reading passages of the U.S. Constitution under shade trees near the student center, Gore said.
Gore is also chairing a committee this year to determine what involvement the university will have with the American Democracy Project, which is an initiative with the mission of creating “intellectual and experiential understanding of civic engagement for undergraduates” and producing “graduates who understand and are committed to engaging in meaningful actions as citizens in a democracy.”


Skull Returned to MSU after nearly two Decades
Ashley Miller | Managing Editor

When the Montague County Sheriff’s Department found a human skull in a barn, all they could determine was that it was very old.
A medical examiner concluded that it was a skull used in a lab environment because of wires keeping it together.
Following a trail, the sheriff’s department placed the skull as one originally belonging to Midwestern State University.
“As I understand, it was taken by a student who then gave it to someone else. That person sold it to a third party,” Dr. Norman Horner, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, said. He does not remember when the skull went missing or the circumstances surrounding it, but the police put it somewhere between 16 and 18 years ago. But why would anyone steal a human skull?
“I could make an educated guess,” Horner said. “One, maybe as a gag. It could have been around Halloween – every year we have people wanting to borrow skeletons. Or two, it could have been taken to study for a practical exam – maybe someone wanted a real skull to look at.”
He said the missing skull may have gone completely unnoticed, because the first thing the professors think of when something is missing is that another professor moved it to a different lab.
Human bones are almost impossible to get anymore, and most of the labs use plastic casts.
“Plastic is very effective, but you can never really describe suturing or how pieces fit together unless you have a real one,” Horner said.
Dr. Frederick Stangl Jr., professor of biology, picked the skull up in Montague County last week. He said the story behind it wasn’t totally satisfying.
“It doesn’t match anything we’ve got,” he said.
The skull itself was dirty but in pretty good condition. Mud daubers, a type of wasp, had built nests inside it, one in the eye socket. Several teeth were missing, and Stangl thought the person probably had bad teeth in real life.
“I don’t want to clean it up,” Stangl said. “It makes a good story like this.”
Security measures have been put in place to prevent thefts, mainly because of students stealing glassware, balances and other items that can be used to manufacture drugs. Several microscopes have also been stolen.
Students who need into a lab now have to have a professor unlock the door and lock it again when they leave.
Horner said he didn’t know what penalty the university would have for such crimes, but the professors in his department would “probably ask them not to bother coming back to class.”
As for the mystery of where the skull came from, Horner couldn’t begin to come up with a theory.
“I can’t recall that skull, but it is a skull that has been used for some type of study. Did it come from this department? I couldn’t say.”
One thing he can say, though, is that the skull does not represent any foul play.
“We haven’t lost any professors, and it’s too old to be a student,” he joked.