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NOVEMBER 14,1996
N. Graham Street gunman
at large after police chase
BY ANGELA MOORE
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
Two people suspected of threatening
bar patrons with a gun led police on a
chase from outside aNorth Graham Street
bar to Royal Park Apartments in Carrboro
on Tuesday night.
The suspects eluded police after their
1988 Acura Legend went off an embank
ment and struck an apartment building
and they ran away.
The incident began at The Village
Connection, a bar at 107 N. Graham St.
in Chapel Hill.
“We got a call around 11:50 last night
that someone at The Village Connection
was threatening to shoot someone,” said
Former UNC chancellor to fill in
as Alabama university president
■ Paul Hardin will take
over at the University of
Alabama at Birmingham.
BY JAMIE GRISWOLD
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Paul Hardin, chancellor emeritus of
the University and a current professor in
the School of Law, was named acting
president of the University ofAlabama at
Birmingham on Wednesday at a press
conference in Birmingham.
“This request to serve as interim presi-
Critics claim
hog farming
simply stinks
■ Hog farmers hope to
adapt to tougher standards
for environmental impact.
This is the second of a three-part series.
BY ANDREW PARK
SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR
EastemNorth Carolina stinks. At least,
that’s what critics of the state’s burgeon
ing hog industry will tell you.
Most of the 13
million hogs mar
keted this year by
North Carolina
farmers were raised
in the flat rural coun-
4irfP
ties down east on farms where thousands
of pigs crowd into a few bams, produce a
lot of waste and create an odor that can
overpower their neighbors.
Whitley Stephenson, a Smithfield hog
farmer, jokes that he doesn’t think the
odor on his farm is any worse than the
rest room in the Smith Center during a
basketball game.
But other complaints about the envi
ronmental impact of hogs have taken a
more serious toll on farmers.
First, environmentalists targeted the
industry for polluting streams and rivers
with hog waste. Then, state regulators
put more restrictions on farmers to try to
stanch that pollution. Then, to add insult
to injury, Hurricane Fran came along,
knocking out power supplies and turning
hog bams into what Stephenson called
“little hell holes.”
Add volatile feed prices and diseases
that can kill young pigs suddenly, and
you have a high-risk, but profitable busi
ness.
“The people in the pig business in
North Carolina went into it for one rea
son: profit,” said Stephenson, who raises
80,000 hogs a year on farms in Johnston,
Wayne and Cumberland Counties. “It’s
Pay up to throw out
The Carrboro Aldermen
voted to raise the costs of
large-scale landfill dumping.
Page 2
Jane Cousins, Chapel Hill police spokes
woman.
Cousins said the officer in the Chapel
Hill police substation on North Graham
Street responded to the call and arrived in
time to observe a man and a woman run
out and drive off in an Acura Legend
toward Carrboro.
The officer followed the car to Royal
Park Apartments, where it slid off an
embankment, hitting an apartment build
ing, Cousins said. No one in the building
was injured.
The suspects got out of the car and ran.
When police searched the car, Cousins
said they found a .25-caliber semi-auto
matic handgun and numerous rounds of
ammunition lying on the seat.
dent caught me by
surprise,” Hardin
stated in a press re
lease. “It’s a won
derful strong insti
tution with a world
of potential for
even greater excel
lence, and I’m hon
ored to have an
opportunity to
serve as acting
president for what
will be probably a
fairly short pe
riod.”
Chancellor Emeritus
PAUL HARDIN said
his move would be a
'sentimental
homecoming.'
pt Jam
DTH/GRAHAM BRINK
Farmer Whitley Stephenson inspects the barns where his hogs are 'finished' before they are taken to market.
Stephenson grew up on a farm east of Raleigh, where his father raised pigs for 30 years.
a business just the same as a business in
Raleigh or Chapel Hill.”
The hog farmers got to be enemy No.
1 of environmental groups in 1995, when
a lagoon collapsed in Onslow County,
spilling millions of gallons of hog waste,
much of which eventually drained into
tributaries of the Neuse River. The spill
prompted state inspections of hog farms
and the discovery of numerous viola
tions of safe farming practices.
Later that summer, millions of dead
fish floated to the top of the Neuse, and
the finger pointing began. Scientists from
UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State University
and the state Division of Water Quality
determined that excessive nitrogen levels
had fed massive growths of algae that
eventually suffocated the river.
One source of the nitrogen was the
animal waste from the lagoon and washed
into the water. Runoff from farms that
Raising awareness
Student Health Service is
coordinating a week of
events to increase students'
awareness of AIDS. Page 4
1
Police blocked the entrance to Royal
Park Apartments while they searched for
the suspects and turned people away who
tried to enter the complex.
“We have some information as to who
the suspects are,” Cousins said. She added
that the police were still working on
making an arrest, but they expected to do
so soon.
The suspects are wanted for delay and
obstruction and for disturbance by threat
ening people with a handgun.
Tuesday night’s incident is not the
first time The Village Connection has
been the scene of altercations involving
handguns. In September, a shooting in
front of the bar took the life of Chadrick
Alfred Morrow of Chapel Hill.
Kellee Reinhart, director of university
relations for the University of Alabama
system, said Hardin would begin his term
as interim president Jan. 1. Hardin will
fill that position until a permanent suc
cessor is named.
From 1988 until June 1995, Hardin
served as UNC’s seventh chancellor. He
was president of Drew University in
Madison, N.J., from 1975 to 1988; South
ern Methodist University in Dallas from
1972 to 1974; and Wofford College in
Spartanburg, S.C., from 1968 to 1972.
Reinhart said UAB chose Hardin as
See HARDIN, Page 2
were using hog waste as fertilizer added
to the high levels. Both sources indicated
problems with the state’s large hog popu
lation.
“They’re not keeping an eye on the
cumulative impact ofhow many hogs are
in the river basin,” said Joe Rudek, a
scientist at the Environmental Defense
Fund in Raleigh.
Scientists call hog farms “nonpoint”
sources of nitrogen, because the nitrogen
comes from spills and runoff.
Environmentalists would like to see
the same scrutiny given to nonpoint
sources ofnitrogen that is given to “point”
sources, such as municipal wastewater
treatment plants.
“It’s easy to pu k on a sewage treat
ment plant,” said Linda Gintoli, who
studies the Black River for the Nature
Conservancy in Wilmington. “Whenyou
have a specific point, you can monitor it
We are all bom mad. Some remain so.
Samuel Beckett
Movie madness
This week's Diversions
looks at the silver screen's
role in North Carolina.
Page 5
rite
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DTH/KRISTIN ROHAN
Campus Y HYPE and Shakti for Children volunteers visited the South Estes Community Center on Wednesday. Their
program presented the children with interactive games and a chance to 'create your own country' art project.
Students envision their perfect world
■ A Campus Y program
allows kids to express their
vision for a better society.
BY LESLIE QUIGLESS
STAFF WRITER
Imagine the luxury of creating Xanadu,
your own perfect world where anything
or anybody you want is in, and anything
or anybody you don’t want is out.
You’ll have to settle for the snooze
button today.
But children at the South Estes Com
munity Center were able to think about it
for a while Wednesday when Shakti for
Children, a nonprofit organization in
Durham, and Helping Youths by Provid
and you can control it. When you have a
nonpoint source, it becomes very diffi
cult to evaluate it.”
Despite the distinction, point source
contribution will likely have to be re
duced as well, Gintoli said. But farmers
still see a double standard at work when
regulators compare their runoffwith what
is deposited by huge point sources.
“Raleigh’s allowed to dump (gallons
of) what I get fined for spiffing a few
dropsof," Stephenson said. “Ifanybody’s
really sincere about cleaning up the river,
they can’t go around pointing fingers.”
The hog industry has taken much of
the heat because of how quickly it has
grown into North Carolina’s second-big
gest farm product. The state ranks be
hind only lowa in pork production na
tionwide. And much of the $1.5 billion
See HOG FARMERS, Page 2
Today's
Weather
Cloudy, chance of
rain; mid 40s.
Friday: Cloudy: mid 40s.
ing Enrichment (HYPE), a subgroup of
the Campus Y, collaborated to bring
Xanadu to them.
“Xanadu gives children an opportu
nity to express their vision for a better
world and society,” said Teju Omolodon,
the community outreach coordinator for
Shakti (“empowerment” in Hindi) for
Children. “We feel that when children
are empowered, it makes them better
connect with the world and the people in
it.”
Children who participated in the pro
gram viewed slides of children from vari
ous countries, including Brazil, Africa
and India. Omolodon said the slide show
showed the children the positive side of
other cultures.
“There are a lot of negative images on
TV, and kids don’t often see positive
Academic advising at UNC
ranks lowest across system
BY HOLLY HART
STAFF WRITER
When UNC-Chapel Hill freshman
Lindsay Rader arrived on campus this
fall, her academic adviser did not offer
her the support and guidance she had
hoped for.
“I was kind of disappointed with I first
came here, ” said Rader, a biology major.
“My adviser didn’t tell me I need to take
Chem 11, so I’m already behind and may
have to take summer school.”
Across North Carolina at UNC-Pem
broke, junior Hattie Hammonds offered
a different advising experience. “My ad
viser is very knowledgeable,” she said.
“We go over my grades, my progress and
my future.”
In a Board of Governors’ report re
leased Friday, UNC-CH ranked last
among all UNC-system schools for satis
faction with academic advising of gradu
ating seniors.
The report, which summarized the
results of graduating senior surveys con
ducted in 1995 and 1996, described steps
UNC-system universities had taken to
improve their advising systems during
the last year.
Over the last year, UNC-CH increased
its satisfaction rate by almost 3 percent to
47.4 percent but remained more than 36
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images of children from around the
world,” she said. “We begin with the
idea that the world is a big place, but
either way, their culture and their way of
living is just as valid as our culture and
our way of living."
Russell Hendrix, co-chairman of
HYPE, said programs like Xanadu and
HYPE gave children self-esteem and in
creased their awareness of the world
around them by stressing culture.
“The kids we deal with have wonder
ful potential, but the self-esteem is not
there, ” he said. “Once they come to real
ize how wonderful they are, they begin to
blossom.”
Laura Harrison, resident council as
sistant for the community center, said
See XANADU, Page 2
percent behind top-ranking UNC-P.
Associate Dean of the General Col
lege Donald Jicha denied the accuracy of
the report. “We do a survey every spring
of freshmen, and the results are nowhere
near those numbers,” Jicha said. “We
have a 93 percent satisfaction rating from
freshmen over the last two years.”
Lynn Sizemore, a freshman business
major, had a better advising experience
than Rader. “My adviser has been really
helpful getting me my classes, ” Sizemore
said. But she added, “She couldn’t tell
me a whole lot about the individual
classes.”
Heather Knorr, a junior communica
tions major from Gastonia, echoed
Sizemore. “My first two years, I usually
knew what I wanted to take, so it was
fine. But when I got into my major and
got an adviser in that department, he
didn’t know anything.”
Jicha said the statistics from the BOG
report didn’t reflect the advising situa
tion at UNC-CH. “The graduation rate
here is the highest in the system, and
there’s something responsible for that,”
he said. “I think advising has a lot to do
with it.”
The University is trying to improve
its program through a computerized au-
See ADVISING, Page 11