Photo taken by Johnny Story/CourteSy of WtaMu athletiCS

April 2, 2013 • Vol. 95, No. 23www.theprairienews.com

Today’s WeaTher

sTormy490/360

feature

Phi Delta Theta is hosting a Chili-Fest on April 6 at noon at

the Buffalo’s Cafe in Canyon.

@The_Prairiefacebook.com/theprairiewt

Alyssa Lemos (left) and Mercedes Garcia pose in front of the scoreboard.

loVe,losson PAGe 6

International Expo exposes cultures on campus.

PaGe 4

neWS

Published authors attend WTAMU as students.

PaGe 10

oPinion

Citizens on welfare forced to take drug tests, finally.

PaGe 11

Buff baseball wins two, loses two over weekend.

PaGe 7

SPortS

buff briefsSpring Fling 2013 will commence on

Saturday, April 13, at the JBK Pedestri-an Mall from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The event

will feature The Well Reds band.

A Health Careers Fair will be held on Thursday, April 4 in the JBK

Legacy Hall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Love, loss and softball: part 7

One Sessions at WT is hosting Zac Wilkerson in the AT&T HD Studio in

the FAC on Thursday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m.

WednesdayWeekly ForecasT

Saturday

490/340

780/470

Keltin Wiens

KWts sports director

Thursday Friday

Sunday

650/410 770/490

840/51

Monday

830/490

To go back to WT or not to go back to WT? That was the question that Mercedes

was facing in the summer of 2012. From Texas, Alyssa would talk to Mercedes just when she was think-ing about her and she would always keep up with the anniversaries of Marchelle’s passing. Mercedes had more bad days over the summer than good days. She felt she was largely on her own, fighting to keep her head above water.

“I was living trying to forget about it,” Mercedes said. “So I was living in so much anger that I wouldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think it was real to me. It was like I was living an entirely different life. I have my life of pain.Then I had this life that I was trying to convince myself that nothing was wrong, that nothing happened.”

Mercedes had gone from be-ing a “momma’s girl” to not hav-ing a mother at all. She lived in the house for about two weeks after her mom’s passing before she moved in with her brother and her nephew. She had to do things alone; she had to figure out how to get on her dad’s health insurance, how she was go-

ing to pay rent or how was she go-ing to pay for her cell phone. When Marchelle passed, Mercedes feels she lost her home and she hasn’t found it again.

It was too soon to return to school. Her life had changed so quickly that she was nervous. She was terrified of failing at school or on the softball field. Fear kept her in Tucson for the summer. She didn’t

think she was strong enough to come back and handle school while grieving.

“I tried to talk her into coming back as much as possible,” said Alys-sa. “I was like, ‘come back to school, come back to softball. Finish what you started. You know this is what your mom wanted you to do.’ You can’t sit at home and waste away your life because once you get in

that stage, you’re not gonna be able to get out of it.”

Mercedes did, eventually, decide to return to WT for her senior soft-ball season. The dream of graduat-ing and playing softball was a dream

2 NEWS April 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

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Editor-in-ChiEfAshley Hendrick

ASSiStAnt EditorSRebekah St. Clair

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dESiGn EditorKati Watson

CoPY EditorSBrooke Self

SPortS Editor Matt Watkins

Photo EditorAlex Montoya

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rEPortErSTyler AndersonBrittany CastilloHunter FithenAlex Gonzalez

John LeeLaci McGee

Megan MooreTori Nicholls

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Cale Bloskas

A Town Hall Meeting was held on Thursday, March 28, in which the budgets for the

years 2014-2015 were discussed. Dr. J. Patrick O’Brien, president of WTAMU, spoke at the meeting, which was open to all faculty, staff and students. Some key topics were brought up during the meeting that will have an effect on the entire campus.

One point that Dr. O’Brien spoke on was the loss of budget money coming from the state in the next couple years. If the current markup of the budget bill is passed in the State Senate, the school will lose $1.3 million per year over the next two years. Dr. O’Brien attributes this to the lack of growth in the school.

“We need to grow faster,” Dr. O’Brien said during the meeting. “We only have a 62 percent retention rate in students going from freshmen to sophomores. We also lost 18 percent of our students going from fall to spring. We have to change this by intervening with our at-risk students.”

The campus Math and Writing Labs were also discussed during last week’s meeting. Demand for these labs has grown dramatically over the past year, but they are currently not adequately budgeted. Dr. O’Brien made it clear that these

labs will be budgeted for in the coming years.

“I think we should figure out a way to fund it because those are some of the most crucial skills we will learn for our college careers,” Oliver Holmes, a sophomore Spanish major, said.

Dr. O’Brien also announced that there will be four new faculty positions added. The Math, Business, Communication and Communications Disorders Departments will be adding a new faculty member in the future. Many of the basic classes in Math, Business and Communication have recently been taught by part-time staff rather that full-time faculty. Dr. O’Brien hopes to change this by adding these new positions.

“In my opinion, if you’re teaching something part-time, it’s not necessarily your number one priority,” Alison Mercer, a freshman Sociology major, said. “The part-time teachers have other time commitments, whether it be another job or family or even continuing their education which all probably comes first. These are core classes at WT. Everyone has to have them, yet we have teachers that may not be completely dedicated to these students learning, which just hurts the students.”

Many Communications Disorders students who wanted

to go to Graduate School were met with disappointment when they applied to continue their education. Currently, there are not enough faculty teaching in that department to allow many students into the graduate program, which is why the new position is being added.

The school has also been pressured by the Texas A&M System to offer a $10,000 degree to its students. The $10,000 refers to how much the school charges the students for that degree, not the amount it costs the school to provide that degree.

“If we do a $10,000 degree, then it will be a real $10,000 degree,” Dr. O’Brien said Thursday. “Some schools are already doing this, but they say if you take dual credit and AP classes in high school, then go to a junior college for three years, then come to us we can give you a degree for $10,000. I’m not going to do that.”

The school has also been asked to provide the students with a Four-Year Tuition Guarantee. That is, they will pay a certain amount for four years, but with how the budget changes from the state and the TAMU System, this is hard for the school to be able to do. If they anticipate the budget change and raise the tuition rate they tell students by just a little, they would be able to give the students this

guarantee.Privatization was also an

important point during the Town Hall Meeting. TAMUS would like to outsource some University departments, such as the Information Technology Department. This is not a certainty as of yet, however Dr. O’Brien did inform those at the meeting that it is a possibility.

“If it does happen, I don’t want it changing the culture of WT,” Dr. O’Brien said.

The budget process still has quite a few steps to go through before anything is decided for certain. Internal WTAMU Budget Hearings will be April 15-17, and then

shortly after that on May 1-2, the TAMUS Board of Regents will meet to discuss tuition and fee changes. On May 27, the current legislative session will end, and the University will know how much money the state will provide. After that, the school will submit a budget to the TAMUS in June. Then in August the TAMUS Board of Regents will meet again to consider the budgets.

With so many more steps to go through before a final budget is approved, Dr. O’Brien made it clear in the Town Hall Meeting that nothing is set in stone, but all the information he provided was the best estimate as to what will happen.

B.J. Brittain

reporter

Dr. O’Brien discusses school growth and budget cuts at the town hall meeting.B.J. BrittAin/thE PrAiriE

Budget cuts due to lack of school growth 3NEWSApril 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Engineering program to offer online classes

Starting in the fall semester of 2013, the Engineering and Technical Science

Department will be offering online courses in two of the required classes for any engineering degree, dynamics and statics.

The courses are pilot courses with the intent of offering more online classes in the future. Faculty members have been working on gaining online classes for the past year. There will be as little difference between an online class and an on campus class as possible.

“Part of what we want to do is still keep the learning environment unique and small like it is at WT,” Dr. Emily Hunt, associate professor of Mechanical

Engineering, said. “We don’t want to lose the strong things about our engineering program which is that you get a lot of one on one time with your faculty. We don’t want to lose that just because we are going online. ”

These two courses will be the first online engineering classes offered at WTAMU. They are unique to the campus because no other university across the country offers these specific classes online.

“Most of them are upper level classes or graduate classes. They also do some specialty topics but it’s just not common to have such general core engineering classes taught online,” Hunt said. “Engineering is such a hands on field and problem solving is really what you are learning to do and that’s difficult to teach when you

are not face to face, but we are going to be using new technology that allows us to be face to face with the students if we need to be and actually show them how to solve problems in an online format.”

Professors of the classes are expecting off campus interest to be high and to increase student enrollment in the engineering program.

“We anticipate offering this online at least once a year. We anticipate the off campus interest to be high such that the demand will drive the need for the classes,” Matt Jackson, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, said. “Most other institutions to date are putting their information based classes online but the problems based classes are starting to become available.”

The engineering program also offers a summer camp open to youth ages 12-18. The camp involves hands on projects like robot building and will also have guest speakers.

“What we are trying to do with that camp is just get them introduced to the discipline of engineering,” Matthew Whigham, instructor of Mechanical Engineering, said. “We are going to have different sessions where the students will go and learn about different topics. We are also going to have a design project where the students will design little robots. We want to give them a hands on project.”

The camp will take place June 9-14. Housing will be available to students who do not live close enough to commute daily. Meals will be provided and the students

will get to experience eating in the cafeteria on campus. WT students will be assisting in the camp and Upward Bound students will also be in attendance.

“We like to keep them pretty busy. We like to introduce those kids to engineering because a lot of them don’t even know what an engineer does,” Whigham said. “There’s a lot of help that goes into these camps. We’ll recruit WT students to help us out.”

The summer camp is serving as the department’s outreach program as of now.

“I do think it is a good way to get kids going in that direction. I think that there is a decrease in students entering the engineering program because they see it as a more difficult degree to get,” Jesi Warrick, senior Engineering Technology major, said.

Megan Moore

reporter

4 NEWS April 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Alex GonzAlez

RepoRteR

John lee

RepoRteR

A WTAMU International Expo will be making the rounds at WT starting on Monday,

April 8 through Friday, April 12. For several years the Interna-

tional Expo has been held in the JBK and hosted by the International Student Office. In recent years, the CORE Center has taken over the event and, due to the success of the event, is extending it to a weeklong event for the first time.

“This is the first year we have opened up the whole week,” Skip Chisum, the Director of Student Ac-tivities, said. “It puts the focus on international students, to give them a voice on campus, to let them show themselves to the rest of the cam-pus, and also to give them time to have fun.”

The International Student Office helps guide international students through the application process

and admission process at WT. But it does not stop at the admission pro-cess as many international students can refer to the website or office for help with their visas, housing, em-ployment and changing their major.

“I like that it is so diverse,” Ro-chelle Parchment, a senior Psy-chology major from Jamaica, said. “Students from all over just coming together as one and you get to learn about different cultures. I think that is so cool and interesting because I learned about stuff that I never knew and I learned to like a lot of stuff.”

The Director of the International Student Office, Kristine Combs, ran the event from 1995 until a few years ago when the CORE center volunteered to take over so she could focus more on recruiting in-ternational students to WT. Combs said that when Chisum expressed the idea of a weeklong event, she mentioned doing a flag parade as part of the event.

“I always wanted to do a flag parade, but I was already over-whelmed with just the cooking and the cleaning,” Combs said. “The pur-pose in [the flag parade] is because it is very colorful and very beautiful but I think it also makes everyone on this campus aware that we have all these nationalities and all these cultures represented on this cam-pus.”

The CORE office has a full slate of events ready for International Week. The International Parade of Flags kicks off the week Monday, April 8, at 12:15 p.m. at the Pedes-trian Mall. The International Expo will be on Tuesday, April 9, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the JBK Legacy Hall. The first of two new events is the International Talent Show on

Thursday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in the JBK Legacy Hall. Then, the week is capped off by an event for the in-ternational students to relax with an International Dance Party in the Wesley Center on Friday, April 12, from 8-11 p.m., where Mr. and Mrs. WT International will be crowned.

“I personally have never gone to one of these so what I am look-ing forward to is the talent show,” Parchment said. “It is always fun to see people do crazy stuff, and I am also looking forward to the parade of flags because it is really cool to see all the different countries where people are from.”

Chisum encourages all students, whether international or domestic, to come out to any of the events.

“All of these events are open to

domestic students,” Chisum said. “The cool thing about the dance party is we will play nothing but international music. So all the stu-dents will have a chance to bring pop music from Korea, pop music from Japan, dance music from India. And they like to show off their cul-tures, so it’s fun.

With all these events planned, Chisum still wants to showcase the International Expo as the star event.

“I think the [International] Expo is the crowned jewel of the week,” Chisum said. “If I could only do one event that week I would come to the expo. It’s because there in one fell swoop you get to sample so much about so many different cultures all in one sitting, and that’s pretty cool.”

International Expo becomes week long

Since 1995, the President’s Student Ambassadors have hosted and catered to the outside world of

WTAMU. The purpose of a President’s Ambassador is to represent WT and the Office of the President by hosting spe-cial events throughout the year.

“Every year in March, we send out e-mails regarding positions,” Linda Wash-ington, the executive secretary of the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, said. “They help the president of the University by hosting foundation meetings and other events. They greet and visit with the people, park cars and answer questions about the University.”

The criteria and requirements are extensive but are also met with a great position and experience, according to Edward Akinwemi, senior Biology ma-jor and former President’s Ambassador.

“It’s a really distinguished position to have. It’s a great resume builder,” Akinwemi said.

Students must be full-time with a minimum of 45 hours completed, have a maintained GPA of 2.75 and have two letters of reference. They then go into an interview process with the Vice Pres-ident of Student Affairs, while an outgo-ing current Ambassador assists.

“They pick the best of the best,” Washington said, “Students who will represent WT the most effectively.”

With year round events and a wide range of guests coming to WT, a Presi-dent’s Ambassador hosts many of the events, especially if they are surround-ing President O’Brien.

“I like that I get to meet a lot of cool people that one wouldn’t get to normal-ly meet,” Nick Geottsche, the student body president, said. He is in his second, and last, year of being a President’s Am-bassador. “Face time with the O’Brien’s and the leftover food is also a plus.”

Akinwemi said his favorite event was the freshmen cookout where he was able to meet the incoming freshmen, while Geottsche said his was the foot-ball game receptions.

Ambassadors are the “best of the best”

5NEWSApril 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Brooke Self

reporter

Student Government survey questionedThe topic of gun control has

been a controversial issue this year. Not only is this top-

ic popping up time and time again on national and statewide levels, the effects of the controversy are now being experienced at WTAMU.

Two weeks ago, Student Govern-ment voted in favor of concealed carry at WT. This means if the other steps are taken on the state level and the state passes a law permit-ting concealed carry, they would already know how students at WT feel about it.

Before the vote took place, there were several other methods used to attempt to figure out how students at WT felt about the issue. Three Town Hall meetings took place, but the student turnout at all three meetings was not very high.

“At the time, we figured a topic like this would be different than others,” Nune Perez, Student Affairs Committee Chairman, said. “[We thought] students would want to get their voice out and it didn’t turn out that way at the Town Hall meet-ings.”

Student Government also did paper balloting and sent out a poll through students’ emails. The poll consisted of one question, “Are you for concealed handgun licensing

on campus?” Possible answers in-cluded yes, no, maybe and not de-termined.

“When we came with the Senate vote, we were trying to use as much consideration of what all of our con-stituents wanted,” Perez said.

More than 1200 responses were received from the poll that was sent out. However, these results could be skewed because people were al-lowed to take the survey multiple times if they chose to, according to Dr. Kristina Drumheller, Associate Professor of Communication Stud-ies and the departments’ Director of Graduate Studies.

“Probably the biggest problem with that survey in terms of show-ing its validity was that it could be taken multiple times, so you can’t guarantee that only one person took that survey and so your responses could be skewed,” Drumheller said. “Because of that, you can’t really rely on those results for making any really good decisions.”

According to Drumheller, there is a setting on Qualtrics, the soft-ware used to create the poll, that defaults to where you can take the survey multiple times, but it can be set so that the survey can only be taken one time per I.P. address.

“That too is a little tricky be-cause students are taking it on the same computers in the HELC and things like that,” Drumheller said.

“So when you’re talking about a student population, sometimes if you’ve got a lengthier survey, odds of somebody going back in and spending another 15 minutes to take the survey are pretty limited, so I think you can take those risks.”

Although there were some glitches, Perez said the Student Af-fairs Committee had a pretty good idea about how the stu-dents felt about the sub-ject. When they make a vote, especially one as controversial as conceal carry, they try to do ev-erything they can to get the students’ opinions.

“My personal stance is that I do not believe that [guns] belong in schools,” Perez said. “We have a University Police Department for a reason, which is to pro-vide security and look out for the general wel-fare of the students, but when it came to the Sen-ate vote, I voted for it because that is what my constituents wanted.”

Many students, how-ever, said they never even knew about the survey.

“I didn’t hear any-thing really about the

topic of concealed carry on campus until the story came out in The Prai-rie,” Jenna Mize, senior Advertising and Public Relations major, said. “As far as the survey, I think they could have done a better job letting stu-dents know about it.”

Mize also said her feelings about concealed carry on campus are mixed.

“I think it could be a good thing in some ways,” Mize said. “But then again, if everyone on campus was carrying a handgun, well that would just be crazy.”

As far as the topic of concealed carry on campuses, the issue awaits further action at the state level.

6 SportS April 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

LOVE, LOSS from page 1of her mother’s and if she didn’t ful-fill that dream, she was going to be letting her mother down. For Alys-sa saw the decision as a big step in the right direction. Alyssa knew that everything at WT reminded Mercedes of losing her mother, the same way that everything in Grape-vine reminds Alyssa of losing Roni. Mercedes decided to go back to WT and look the remnants of her hell in the eye.

When school started, she found it hard to focus. Mercedes would go to class and often cry, walk-ing out because of her tears. The fall semester was the first time she picked up a softball since that loss in the conference tournament several months earlier. Mercedes wants desperately to have the best softball season she’s ever had.

“I’ve never experienced being so scared of failure until now,” Mer-cedes said. “I’m scared that people are going to look at my story and judge me on my season. I don’t want people to think I’m weak and if I have a bad season to blame it on the passing of my mom.”

Her focus this season is to use her strength, through her mom, to get a championship for her team.

“Softball’s everything I have,” Mercedes said. “I only have a se-mester left so everything I have is everything I’m going to give to softball, because, without it, who knows where I’d be.”

“She’s different this year,” Coach Kevin Blaskowski said. “She’s a

leader, she’s vocal. There’s still that emo-

tional side of her, but I see the smile more than I’ve seen it when she’s on the field. I’m really, really pulling for her to have that special senior year. My faith says she will, I have to believe that.”

But walking off the field for Mer-cedes, and even Alyssa, won’t end their struggles to adapt to life with-out their moms. Their challenge will turn into letting their moms live through them.

“By the way I live my life, I think it can reflect on her [Roni] and how she raised me,” Alyssa said. “I live my life trying to keep her proud and I think, with becoming a doctor, and having gone through that, I can share that story with my patients and make sure that every patient that I see doesn’t become a statis-tic.”

“I want people to understand that things people complain about in life, the little things, [are] the things you shouldn’t even care about,” reflects Mercedes. “I want girls to know, especially girls that don’t get along with their moms, to fix it. To fix it, because when it’s gone, you don’t have that anymore. You don’t have that mom anymore [and] you’re going to have so many regrets. I want somebody to look at our story and love life more, to see what they have in their life that they should be grateful for because it could be taken in a matter of days.”

You only need to look for the pain hidden behind her blue eyes to figure out what drives her: her

mother and her mother’s dreams.“I think that when you look into

Mercedes’ eyes, you can see the de-termination that she has to be suc-cessful,” Kevin said. “I see it in her. I can see that there’s a passion there for what she’s doing.”

But, in the grand scheme of things, softball and careers matter little. Both of these women want to have a family someday. Alyssa laments her future children miss-ing out on Roni spoiling them with cookies and milkshakes. For Mer-cedes, she wants to get her life to-gether before she thinks about it.

“I just want to care about my child as much as my mom cared about us; to devote my entire world to making them happy before I’m even close to being happy,” Mer-cedes said. “The fact of getting mar-ried and having a child without my mom being there breaks my heart more than anything.”

As she continues to look to-ward the future, Mercedes knows that life without her mother will be tough and the regrets are many. But, when softball’s a distant mem-ory for Mercedes, there is one thing that she wants to remember about her challenge: she got through it.

“From this, I see life differently,” she said. “So out of something so negative, I finally want to get my positive out of it, even if there is a positive. My positive out of this is gonna be making a difference in someone else’s life, maybe open somebody else’s eyes to see that they need to change and that they can push themselves to find the

strength within them to better their relationship with their parents so they don’t have any regrets.”

For a softball player, like any other athlete in any sport, she is measured on things she does on the field. Is she tall enough? Is she fast enough? Can she hit .300 for the team on a regular basis? All of those skills allow for coaches and scouts to differentiate between a skilled player and a player whose time on the diamond may be limited. It can also lead to coaches believing that player is just that, a player.

Like each individual batter, each athlete is inherently differ-ent. She’s got her own baggage, good and bad, that defines her as a person. She will always bring intan-gibles to the table, things that can’t be measured. She may have a very high softball I.Q. or she may read the game very well. Her shoulder could be on fire and all signs of her body tell her to stop, but she keeps throwing strikes. Each player is dif-ferent, but combining all of those players and putting the best nine athletes and people on the field is when you have success.

Kevin feels he is lucky to have his job. He gets to walk around the meeting room in the clubhouse and look at all the pictures that are hanging on the cinder block walls. He can tell stories of each one, what the situation in the game was, the year it was from, who the team was playing, but he can also give the hidden intangibles of each player.

There is one picture in that room that he is particularly fond

of: she’s wearing a black, gray and white camouflage jersey with her long brown hair tied back with a ribbon and she is ready to field a ground ball that is hit her way. He almost looks up to this picture of Mercedes.

“That’s a tough kid,” he said, starting to choke up. “She’s quiet, she’s soft-spoken at times, but she’s a tough kid. She’s determined. She made it through last year. I don’t know if I could have done that. But, when she steps out on that field, she plays for her mom. She doesn’t play for herself, she’s not selfish.

“I think that if her teammates take the time to look at her and re-alize that she has to be a model of strength for them,” he continues. “What’s a slump? What’s going three or four games without get-ting a hit, when you’ve got a team-mate who battled through the loss of her mother ten hours away from home to be here and play softball, to be a part of this program? Re-ally? What’s the sacrifice? Coming out and putting some extra time in to take bp [batting practice] or take ground balls? She did that. She still does that. She’s a role model.

“A lot of times, I think we think of girls being soft and lady-like and we have to protect them and pro-tect their emotions. She’s a lady. She’s a beautiful lady, going to be a beautiful lady when she leaves here, but she’s tough. I don’t know how to describe those intangibles other than that’s Mercedes.”

The Equestrian Team at WTAMU this year has just re-turned from Pomona, Calif.,

where they competed in the West-ern Semi-Finals Championship. There, they managed to become a high point team and will advance to Nationals which will be held in Har-risburg, Pa., in May. They also beat the University of Findlay, a school that has been undefeated in semi-finals.

“As the western captain, this se-

mester has been absolutely amaz-ing,” Addie Davis, senior Agriculture Media and Communications major, said. “I am so proud of the team and have been fortunate to watch every-one succeed as both individuals and as a team.”

The team has been competing in places such as Ohio, North Carolina and most recently California, where they won the semi-finals was, a change of scenery for the eques-trian team.

“It definitely wasn’t like Texas,” Louisa Bowen, the equestrian as-sistant coach, said. “There was the

ocean, palm trees. It was beautiful.”In equestrian, the competi-

tions are divided into classes. In each class there are riders who are placed from first to sixth. The point riders earn points, but there can only be one person in each class whose points actually count.

“Even though only the point rid-ers’ points are counted toward the team, the other riders are also im-portant in how well the team does,” Anna Copple, senior Animal Science major and team rider, said.

Although equestrian may not be thought of as the typical team

college sport such as basketball or football, it is still a team sport as well as an individual sport.

“When we compete, a rider’s performance is dictated by herself,” Copple said. “However, the outcome of each ride influences the entire team.”

This is Louisa Bowen’s first year as assistant coach and with already such a high bar set on her first sea-son, she has even bigger expecta-tions for next year.

“Hopefully we can get both the English and Western teams to go to Nationals [next year],” Bowen said.

Being part of a team is motiva-tion for the members of the eques-trian team.

“We are a very competitive team, not only to other schools but against each other too,” Davis said. “We push each other to be better competitors in the practice pen and in the show arena. When one of us succeeds, we all feel proud because it is like we all succeeded.”

April 6 will be the next competi-tion for the team, which will be the Hunt Seat Zone Championships at the WT Horse Center.

Alex GonzAles

RepoRteR

WT Equestrian Team advancing to nationals

Matt watkins

sports editor

7SPORTSApril 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Buff baseball earns split with no. 22 Rams

Senior Ryan Houston pitches against the Thunderwolves. Cale Bloskas/ The Prairie

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The WTAMU Buffalo baseball team traveled to San Angelo to play an important four

game series with the No. 22 ranked Angelo State Rams from March 28-30. The Buffs lost the first two games of the series before bounc-ing back and winning the last two in somewhat dominant fashion.

ASU started game one on March 28 with a two-run first, but WT answered with a three-run second before scoring another in the third for a 4-2 lead. However, the Rams answered with two in their half of the third to tie it up. Despite plating two runs in the seventh, the Buffs were unable to hold off the ASU bats in a 9-6 loss.

Junior Scott Cone (2-1) got the loss pitching 1.1 innings and giv-ing up three runs on two hits. Se-nior Justin Henderson went two for four at the dish with a homerun and four RBIs, while junior Matt Red-fearn was two for five with two runs scored.

In game one of a doubleheader on March 29, the Rams scored one in the second and two in third, but WT plated two in the third and one in the fourth to maintain a 3-3 tie after four innings. ASU took advan-tage of timely hitting and a couple Buff errors to go on to a 7-3 win.

Junior starter Joshua Weyker (2-3) took the loss throwing 4.1 in-nings and giving up six hits and four runs, three of which were earned. Senior Jarvis Smith was one for

three with a double and an RBI and sophomore Robert Padgett was two for three with a double, an RBI and a run scored.

WT started the nightcap with a solo shot by Smith but an RBI sin-gle by the Rams’ Andrew LaCombe would keep the game 1-1 after the first. The Buffs retook the lead on an RBI single by senior catcher Chad Miles in the second. Senior Parker Wood scored on an error by the ASU third baseman in the sixth to seal the 3-1 victory.

“Dylan James was outstand-ing once again,” Head Coach Matt Vanderburg said. “Our backs were against the wall and it was a must win game and he dominated. It’s good to see that fire from him and the rest of our guys when we had

to.”James, a junior starter, (1-1) got

the win going the full seven innings and giving up one run on two hits with 14 strikeouts. Smith was one for three with a homer and Miles was one for three with an RBI.

WT took advantage of seven Ram errors in the finale on March 30 to pick up a 14-3 run-rule win. The Buffs had a 5-3 lead in the sixth when WT scored eight runs in the inning to break the game wide open, 13-3. Senior Paul Pulley and senior closer Carlos Maese did not allow an ASU run after the first inning.

Pulley (2-1) got the win pitching 6.1 innings and giving up three runs, two earned, on eight hits. Wood led the Buffs offense going two for five with a homer and three RBIs and

Redfearn went two for four with two RBIs and a run scored. Junior David Hebert also went two for four with two RBIs and two runs scored.

“Hopefully, we will take some confidence from this series and start playing a little more relaxed and be the team we are capable of being,” said Vanderburg. “We still haven’t played our best baseball and when we do we are going to be a tough team to beat late.”

The Buffs now stand at 18-13 overall this season, with a 5-7 mark in Lone Star Conference action. WT’s next action will come at home as they host LSC rival Abilene Chris-tian for the final LSC series between the two. The four game series will begin on April 5 with first pitch set for 7 p.m. from Wilder Park.

8 ENTERTAINMENT April 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Tech Club hosts a gaming tournamentPhoebe Sinclair

rePorter

Watch out! Humans vs Zombies is back at WTPreSton thomaS

rePorter

Pregnant?

WTAMU’s Tech Club will host its first spring gam-ing tournament on April

6 in room 209 of the Classroom Center.

“We were pretty well known for the fall tournament, but we decided to extend them to spring,” David Lister, sophomore CIS major and treasurer of the Tech Club, said.

In the tournament, students will have the chance to compete against each other on a number of different console games including Black Ops 2 on Xbox, Gears of War: Judgment also on Xbox, Mortal Combat 9 on PS3 and Super Smash Brothers on Wii.

The tournament will be double elimination style with six people competing at a time. The top three will advance, except for Super

Smash Brothers, which will have the top two advancing.

“This semester we have a new tournament layout,” James Schmidt, senior CIS major and president of the Tech Club, said. “Last tourna-ment there was stress, but this time we are doing things differently. There was a lot of waiting before, but now there will be more playing and less waiting.”

The Department of Computer

Information and Decision Manage-ment and Hastings Entertainment will be sponsoring the tournament this year.

“They are providing prizes for winners,” Schmidt said. “I can’t say the exact amount of the prize, but I’ve seen the goody bag and it is quite good.”

Prizes and bragging rights are all up for grabs during the tournament and already have students getting

into the competitive spirit, includ-ing junior CIS major Miles Prugle, who has his sight set on smashing the competition.

“I plan to smash at Super Smash Brothers,” Prugle said.

The cost of the tournament will be $5 per player and food will be provided for the participants. The first game will start at 12 p.m.

For more information on the tournament, students can text “Fol-

“I don’t know how many of them are out there,” a cryptic voice said. “They can’t be stopped.”

These words rolled over a crowd of students in Legacy Hall armed to the teeth with Nerf blasters. These students had gathered with one thing in mind, zombies.

Since it was started two years ago, WT students have spent a few days of their spring semester flee-ing the undead. Once again stu-dents prepare for the upcoming

apocalypse in another game of Hu-mans vs. Zombies.

The game of HVZ is played on many college campuses across the nation and is essentially a game of tag with a little embellishment. The aim of the game is for either the humans to survive until Sunday or for the zombies to infect every last human. The zombies do so simply by tagging the humans. Humans are not defenseless; armed with Nerf blasters and balled up socks, they can freeze zombies in place and es-cape to live another day. The game will start Wednesday and continue

through Sunday, April 7. Through-out the game, players on both sides will participate in various missions both during the day and at night.

Last week students gathered in Legacy Hall for the mandatory meetings. Release waivers were signed, T-shirts were purchased and students lined up at laptops to sign into the HVZsource.com sys-tem. Residence Hall Association (RHA) President Brianna Moore went through all the rules of play, always coming back to one recur-ring phrase.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said.

After the presentation, RHA members and two police officers took participants outside to inspect their Nerf armories, approving some and spray painting those that weren’t proper colors.

“Not a lot has changed,” Moore said. “[There are] more distinct rules and more clarification.”

Moore and her team of mod-erators will be dedicated to mak-ing sure all players have fun while staying safe. The biggest focus of the meetings was explaining all the rules and to answer any questions the prospective zombie hunters

had. A focus was also placed on the safety of everyone involved.

“We have more people than the past two years [so] we expect more participating in the missions,” Moore said.

Of the missions, Moore teased little details. Missions could cover objectives like defending a base, escorting a VIP or gathering items.

“It’s going to be awesome. I’m excited,” Stephen Enriquez, fresh-man Computer Science major, said.

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9GAMESApril 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

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10 FEATURE April 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Two WTAMU students publish booksDaniela Fierroreporter

Two WTAMU students have gone beyond the academic walls of WT to venture out

into the world of published books. Hunter Fithen, a sophomore Mass Communication major, and Alex Gonzales, a sophomore English Education major, have researched, written and published their own books, which are both out on the market to buy.

Fithen’s book 102 Memorable and Manly Ways to Ask a Lady to Prom, takes the reader on a comedic quest to discover the most creative and manly ways to ask a girl to the big dance.

“One of the first things I told my-self was that while I knew the book was going to have a really goofy,

lighthearted tone to it, I wanted to make sure that most of the ideas could actually be used,” Fithen said.

Fithen said there are a few un-realistic ways that made it through, but the majority of the book can re-ally be used to ask a lady to prom.

“The inspiration came to me when I was working on my senior project in high school,” Fithen said. “You basically have to research a type of career field, and by the end…you have to have made a final prod-uct [and] present to some judges.”

After the project was done, Fithen said he decided to send it out to some publishers.

“I didn’t really think much of it, but long story short, the book ended up being published by Ama-zon on their fancy Kindle device,” he said. “It took a little more work to get it all officially edited for the

Kindle but ... the time and the effort was worth it.”

Fithen said the whole concept of “prom” can be swapped with “col-lege formal” or other school social functions.

“I’d like to add that while the book focuses on how to ask girls to prom, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the only event you can use it for,” Fithen said.

Fithen said his book has been met with some decent success and has been working with Amazon to be able to sell a print edition of the book.

“My fellow college gentlemen should know that I’ve got to pay for school too, and I think that we could both benefit if they bought them-selves a copy,” he said.

Gonzalez’s book, Wild Prep: Crazy Beautiful Life, is the story

of young teens and their journey through the wild world of broken hearts, ugly truths and everything that is the Miami social life.

“I started Wild Prep: Crazy Beau-tiful Life my sophomore year and finished it that summer,” Gonzalez said. “It took around eight months to revise, edit and find a publisher … and by December it was published.”

Gonzalez said he has always loved writing, and he will probably be writing for the rest of his life.

“The inspiration of writing comes from just making new worlds, and building characters and watching them grow,” he said.

However, Gonzalez said that one of the most difficult challenges for him had to be the criticism for his book.

“When you write something you’ve worked so hard for, it’s really

difficult to put it all out there for people to love or hate,” he said.

Both students gave credit to ev-eryone who supported them the entire time they worked on their books.

“Their support was really why I ended up working so hard on the book, and I believe that the time and effort I spent was well worth it,” Fithen said.

“My parents have always put a lot into what I wanted,” Gonzalez said. “They invested a lot into my book regardless if it was a best sell-er or not.”

102 Memorable and Manly Ways to Ask a Lady to Prom and Wild Prep: Crazy Beautiful Life, can both be found on Amazon.com

Drug testing for welfare recipients a must 11opinionApril 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

SA

VE A BUFFALO

In Texas, a bill that would require drug testing of some welfare re-cipients is now being passed on

to the Senate. According to The Dal-las Morning News, the bill, which won unanimous approval from a Senate panel Tuesday March 26, would require new and renewing applicants for temporary cash pay-ments, known as Temporary Assis-tance for Needy Families, to take a written test that seeks to determine if they are at high risk of drug abuse. If their answers raise suspicions that they could be abusing drugs, the Health and Human Services Commission would require a drug

test. The agency also would have to administer a drug test to people convicted of a drug felony and ap-plicants who previously have tested positive.

It’s about time. People who re-ceive assistance from the state should not be allowed to spend what they are receiving on illegal or unnecessary items such as alcohol, tobacco and lottery tickets. Those of us who work hard to pay our taxes should not have to continue en-abling those who can’t seem to get their lives together, which is what has been happening for years. If this new bill were to be passed, it would

mean those people who are not able to pass a drug test would no longer receive assistance. Admittedly, this could pose a problem for the chil-dren of those particular families. That is why, according to The Dallas Morning News, the bill now states that the commission would respond to the parent’s second failed drug test by designating a “protective payee” who would receive the cash benefits for the children.

This seems like a great way to ensure that children do not suffer because of their parents’ decisions. Good parents, however, should feel the need to provide for their chil-

dren before worrying about selfish wants and feel obligated to spend their welfare, or any other kind of assistance, in such a way that would ensure their children have every-thing they need.

If this new bill passes through the Senate, it would mean those who are drug abusers will no longer be able to rely on those who are liv-ing responsible lives to provide for them. Granted, many people who receive assistance from the state are trying to make things right by getting jobs so that they will no longer have the need to rely on the state. For those people, the new

bill should not be a problem be-cause they are already doing what they should. However, those who have been lazily dependent upon the state without making any ef-fort to improve their lives will now be forced to either get their act to-gether or suffer the consequences. This is the simple and logical truth. If employees have to be drug tested before getting paid, citzens on wel-fare must be drug tested before get-ting paid. Parents should prove the same thing. This isn’t a matter of being fair or treating everyone the same. It’s simply a matter of com-mon sense.

The Prairie will be asking a Question of the Week every Tuesday through Facebook and Twitter. Reply to our

Question of the Week post on Facebook or use the hashtag #ThePrairieAsks on

Twitter to respond. Student responses will be printed in the

next edition of The Prairie.

“Should all welfare recipients

be drug tested in order to get

benefits?”

QuesTion of The Week

12 PHOTOS April 2, 2013 | theprairienews.com

Junior Seph Stiles and Senior Travis Lubbe broadcast live at Canyon High School Wednesday morning

Weekly Photos: Cookout and promos

@The_Prairiefacebook.com/theprairiewt

Debate students Bella Barnett and Lindsey Greer giving information to their peers about the End It Movement.

The Department of Mass Communication Advising Party had a great turnout last Tuesday.

Senior Travis Lubbe and Broadcast Engineer Johnny Story cook out for the Department of Communication advising party.

Canyon High School and WT students promote the End It Movement.

Alex MontoyA Photo editor

KWTS staff promoting their station at Canyon High School.