VOLUME 112, ISSUE 149
STUDENT
ZUUO ELECTIONS
OFFICIALS EXPECT
CLEAN END TO CONTEST
* ■ BHp' '?|
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DTH FILE PHOTO/JUSTIN smith
Seth Dearmin (left) and Seke Ballard shake hands Feb. 8 after the announcement that a runoff election would be held between the two student body president candidates.
BY BRIAN HUDSON
SENIOR WRITER
After weeks of campaigning, dozens of stump
speeches and countless handshakes, student body
president candidates Seke Ballard and Seth Dearmin
are ready for the election to come to a close tonight.
Today, students will determine which of the two
candidates will represent their interests next year.
Ballard seeks to revitalize academics on campus by
introducing an endowed distinguished speaker series,
reopening many campus computer labs and allowing
students to access their professors’ evaluations.
Dearmin promises to add convenience to students’
lives by providing a farmers’ market on campus, distrib
uting condoms in every residence hall and expanding
wireless Internet connections to Franklin Street.
Both candidates are ready to hear the students’ deci
sion. “It’s been an exciting experience,” Ballard said. “I’m
ready to see what the student body thinks.”
And elections officials are confident that a win
ner will emerge tonight unlike on the night of last
year’s runoff, when a two-week-long scandal emerged
and delayed results.
Until the 11th hour of the 2004 runoff election,
student leaders also had anticipated a smooth pro
cess. But last-minute allegations of campaign viola
tions delayed the announcement of the new student
body president.
The allegations became even more contentious
after the announcement that candidate Lily West
led Matt Calabria by a mere seven votes out of the
total 6,120 cast in the race.
After several days of uncertainty, the Board of
Elections held a hearing on the charges against both
candidates. They ruled that the allegations against
SEE SBP, PAGE 5
Theaters aided desegregation movement
BY MEREDITH LEE MILLER
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
Local businesses were the focal
point of social change during the tur
bulent decades that surrounded the
civil rights movement.
Protesters black and white
staged sit-ins and picketed segregated
businesses along Franklin Street and
in surrounding areas during the 1960s
in an effort to give black community
members equal opportunities.
After months of protests, the
Varsity Theatre and Carolina Theatre
became some of the first integrated
ONLINE
Check out the DTH's Web site for up-to-the-minute
election results and coverage of the candidates.
Find more of today's stories at www.dthonline.com.
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
Slip Bailu oar MM
movie theaters in the Southeast.
The Chapel Hill Weekly reported
that the protests emerged after manag
er E. Carrington
Smith refused a
request from a
local ministerial
association to
allow one deseg
regated show
ing of the movie
LOCAL
BLACK
HISTORY
Today:
Business
“Porgy and Bess,” a film version of the
Broadway show with an all-black cast.
An executive committee called
Citizens for “Open” Movies organized
www.dthonline.com
In race for final votes,
teams tout differences
Madison Perry and Whit Walker
are emphasizing their iPit proposal
to create an online information hub.
1
m
Bobby Whisnant Jr. and Jenny
Peddycord are looking to expand
traditional senior class activities.
the protests.
Walter Dellinger, who was a UNC
sophomore at the time, was the only
Southern undergraduate on the com
mittee. And the experience in the
group led him to pursue a career of
advocating for civil rights, he said.
“I agreed to do it on the spur of
the moment,” Dellinger said. “It had
a profound effect on my life.”
He said it was quite a shock to
him and his parents to see his pic
ture in the paper with the leader
of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
VOTE TODAY
Make your runoff choices between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. at http://studentcentral.unc.edu.
BY STEPHANIE NEWTON
STAFF WRITER
In a final push to close the loop on
the election season, the two campaigns
for senior class office are stressing the
core values that set them apart.
Both sets of candidates have
pledged to connect the senior class
through events and service opportu
nities so that the class of 2006 will
leave UNC without any regrets.
Madison Perry and Whit Walker’s
approach includes efforts that would
create an online information portal,
promote recycling in the community
and give seniors an opportunity to
reflect on their years at UNC.
Candidates Bobby Whisnant and
Jenny Peddycord’s vision includes
expanding Commencement activities,
establishing routine service projects
and soliciting input for class gift and
Commencement speaker options.
Perry and Walker received 915
votes last week, inching past the
914 total garnered by Whisnant and
Peddycord. But 16 write-in votes left
SEE SENIOR, PAGE 5
Both theaters became partially
desegregated in 1961, allowing black
UNC students to enter, according to
The Chapel Hill Weekly.
“I feel the eventual hope is that this
trial period will open the way for the
whole public to attend movies,” Ann
Douglass, one of the first two blacks to
enter the Carolina Theatre, on Aug. 17,
1961, said in The Chapel Hill Weekly.
“I feel that just having Negro stu
dents to participate is still not deseg
regation.”
SEE BUSINESS, PAGE 5
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2005
2004 ELECTION
REVISITED
Last year's SBP runoff
election was marred by
11th hour allegations:
■ FEB. 17, 2004
Candidates separated
by 7 votes as rumors of
violations surface for
both campaign teams.
■ FEB. 22, 2004
Board of Elections
* formally hears charges
against Matt Calabria
and Lily West.
■ FEB. 24, 2004
Board rules for a second
runoff, allotting West
1 cent for final efforts.
• MARCH 2, 2004
Calabria wins out with
58 percent of the vote.
West takes 42 percent.
* APRIL 6, 2004
Calabria is sworn in.
■ SUMMER 2004
Student leaders take on
ambiguities related to
campus election rules
in the Student Code.
\ uj
■ Wti.-Bi 9H
COURTESY OF THE CHAPEL HILL TOWN HALL
Demonstrators protest in 1960 outside the Carolina Theatre,
which later became one of the first theaters to desegregate.
WEATHER
TODAY Partly cloudy, H 71, L 46
WEDNESDAY P.M. showers, H 71, L 35
THURSDAY Mostly sunny, H 50, L 24
Death
sparks
request
Legislature to eye
‘Stephens Law’
BY EREN TATARAGASI
STAFF WRITER
RALEIGH Four months after
a jury acquitted a local man in the
death of a UNC alumnus, a Guilford
County legislator has filed a bill that
would change the way similar cases
are taken up in the fiiture.
At Tuesday’s session of the
N.C. General
Assembly,
Rep. Mary
Price Taylor
Harrison filed a
bill nicknamed
“Stephen’s
Law” in honor
of University
alumnus
and Tar Heel
Sports Network
reporter
Stephen Gates.
Gates was
UNC alumnus
Stephen Gates
was killed last
year in a
hit-and-run.
killed last year in a hit-and-run
accident near the split of interstates
40 and 85. In November, a jury
found Rabah Samara not guilty of
all charges related to the incident.
“We feel that there is a need to
change the law,” said Pat Gates,
Stephen Gates’ mother. “Especially
now that people are aware they can
get away with this, we’re worried
that it might happen more often.”
The state’s hit-and-run stat
ute now requires that a person
charged must have driven a vehicle
SEE GATES, PAGE 5
Mayor fills
space on
downtown
committee
BY JAKE POTTER
STAFF WRITER
On the same night it brought a
petition to the Chapel Hill Town
Council requesting the condemna
tion of a vacant Franklin Street res
taurant, the Downtown Economic
Development
Corporation
added Mayor
Kevin Foy to
its ranks.
Foy’s addi
tion will fill
the corpora
tion’s seventh
seat, empty for
the last four
months after
a November
controversy
over a closed
meeting ses-
19
i3i
Mayor
Kevin Foy
will fill the
vacant space
on the DEDC.
sion led to former Chairman Bob
Epting’s resignation.
Foy recommended himself as
Epting’s replacement Monday.
The council approved the
SEE DEDC, PAGE 5
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