Residents spared repeat of Katrina devastation
Christena Dowsett and Kyle Phillips
LAFAYETTE, La. – With echoes of Hurricane Katrina still in the air, Hurricane Gustav gave a struggled but lacking performance.
By the time the storm touched down on the Louisiana coast, it was reduced to a Category 2 storm, unlike the 3rd- to 4th-level that was predicted.
Many inland Louisiana residents found that, for the most part, their homes, cars and valuables were still intact.
Jeanerette, La., resident Trui Coughlin said he has evacuated several times in the past but decided that the crowded re-entry to the area and looting were enough to make him stay put.
“I really didn’t want to wait it out, the last three I left, but this time I stayed to protect my property,” Coughlin said.
Despite winds topping 100 miles per hour during the heart of the storm, less physical damage occurred than expected.
“I got a couple of shingles knocked off and some tree branches,” Coughlin said, “but as far as my property right here, me and my mother’s house, we’re fine.”
While Coughlin and many other Jeanerette residents strolled the streets to survey what damage Gustav had left, damage on the coast was all too evident.
Katrina’s presence was felt momentarily as news of levees weakening against the wind and rain spread. However, Sgt. Markus of the Louisiana State Police was quick to reassure that all precautions had been taken and the levees were holding their own against Gustav.
“There is no indication at this time that the levees are going to break, but of course the danger is always there,” Markus said. “They are holding right now and that is what we have heard from the from Army Corps of Engineers.”
Although Gustav forced the largest evacuation in the state’s history, Katrina still proved to be the most detrimental. Markus said there are some unconfirmed fatalities but only four official deaths.
“The death toll of the storm is significantly lower than that of Katrina, with only a handful of victims in its path,” Markus said.
Jessica Williams, a New Orleans high school student, evacuated days before Gustav hit her area.
After seeing the effects of Katrina, she doesn’t feel they prepared the levees as well as they could have. However, with excitement on her face, she proudly said the evacuation plan has improved immensely.
“Last time, so many people were left in New Orleans,” she said. “This time, they did the best they could to get everyone out of there.”
Engineering students build would-be amphibious vehicle
Group to compete next summer
Kyle Phillips
Drive. Splash. Drive again.
That’s how a project by students from the department of engineering and technology building a giant amphibious vehicle could sound soon.
The group is building the large go-cart style vehicle for a contest next year against other students from engineering schools around the country.
The project, which is handled entirely by students, is overseen by Phillip Foster of the engineering faculty, who said he feels the project is a true test of the students’ expertise.
“This is a study that most of the good engineering schools are involved in,” Foster said, “and it presents a true opportunity for our students to show off their knowledge and skills.”
The competition is not easy though. There is a list of rigid safety specifications that must be met before the students’ vehicle can compete.
“There are over 200 pages of rules and regulations about construction constrictions for the vehicle,” Foster said, “and it has to be an off-road vehicle, so things such as lighting are not a part of the construction.”
The main event the amphibious vehicle will be competing in is a flotation event, where it will be required to pull itself out of a mud pit and around a track.
Student team leader Justin Cruse said the students are hoping the vehicle will reach a decent speed and be able to make it quickly out of the mud pit and around the track.
“From our math, it should go 55 mph, hopefully,” Cruse said. “That is from our math though. We haven’t actually been able to drive it yet.”
The project, which cost about $6,000, is sponsored by the dean’s office and Peterbilt Motors Company. The students also receive discounts from companies that provide the construction materials.
Bigger universities in the competition have larger budgets for the project, but while the smaller budget puts a strain on the students, it also forces them to use their ingenuity to catch the eyes of local businesses.
“If you go to schools like UTA, they give you $25,000 to build one, but we have around $6,000 and we built a car on that budget,” Cruse said. “We had some guys from Peterbilt in here today, one of our sponsors, and they came in and really liked what they saw, because when they need something built now, but they have a budget, they like to see what can you build with the budget you have and keep it in the specs.”
While the amphibious vehicle will not be ready for this year’s competition, the students working on the project feel it will be ready to make its debut next summer.
“We started it up yesterday, and it started on the first pull, so we were all pretty excited about that,” Cruse said.
UNT Gets a Taste of North Texas
Kyle Phillips
Food fans from all around North Texas lined up at the University of North Texas Coliseum Thursday night as the 19th annual Taste of North Texas served up tasty treats from local restaurants around the Denton area to help raise money for a charitable cause.
The food festival is sponsored by the Denton Kiwanis and helps raise money to fund their children’s clinic for the underprivileged youth of Denton said executive secretary Robin Olson.
“We use the money to help fund our children’s clinic, which is a free clinic to low income kids,” Olsen said. “We provide free medical, dental and prescription drug coverage to children for these families.”
There were a total of 36 restaurants represented at the coliseum, ranging from local businesses to national chains, which all donate their time and food for the cause.
“We do not charge the vendor anything,” Olsen said. “Our take on that is because they are out so much money with employees and products that they are serving, so we do not charge them anything at all.(sic)”
The festival is expected to raise up to $15,000 for the children’s clinic, Olsen said.
Some in attendance were not strangers to the event and came for one reason, and one reason only. Denton Graduate student, Jennifer Englebrecht lined up outside of the doors 30 minutes before they opened to make sure she got to get the food that she wanted.
“We came for the food”, said Englebrecht. “This is my third time here, its fun to go taste everything and see if there are any new restaurants or if any of the restaurants that are my favorites are here.”
Vendors at the tasting ranged from fast food to steak houses, enough to satisfy event the pickiest of eaters.
All of the vendors at the event were serving food free of charge; they were using the opportunity to gain new customers. Jim Murray, co-owner of Prairie House Steakhouse, said that he was more than happy to donate his time and product to the festival.
“Any time that you do something that supports the community like the Kiwanis that’s a positive, that’s what it’s all about” said Murrey,”But, yes I definitely make some businesses here, but it is not abut me making money as much as it is about helping the Kiwanis.”
Local tattoo artist discusses big dreams
Kyle Phillips
The buzz of a needle and the smell of burning ink are normal occurrences for Wes Brown as he sits at work and creates his art on people’s skin.
In a society where skin art has become a norm in the last 15 years, Brown makes his living helping people express who they are by needling pictures on their bodies. Brown looks at his art as a way to express himself and his imagination.
When Brown picked up his first pen and began to draw, he never thought it would eventually turn into a flourishing career as a tattoo artist.
“I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a pen,” he said. “I was like six years old and had just picked up a comic book. When I was in high school, I started picking up tattoo magazines and really getting into the style of tattooing back then.”
Brown had high hopes for landing a job in the comic book industry, even going so far as to enroll in a college for graphic design. However, he soon abandoned the idea and decided to apply his talents toward tattooing.
“The only problem with comic book illustration is they divide up the responsibilities; there is an inker, a penciler and then there is a color artist, and I didn’t want to split it up. I wanted to do it all.” Brown said, “I actually went to school to be a graphic designer and got out of that and immediately got into tattooing.
Looking back, he realized the career he chose was the only one that could help him push his art and make his days at work enjoyable.
“Honestly, I think about that a lot. If I were to lose my hands or lose my eyes, I would really be screwed,” he said. “Because this is all I can really do. This is what I have trained myself to do for years.”
Now a tattoo artist at Smiling Ricks Tattoo Studio, at 231A W. University Dr., Brown has seen his artwork and style progress over the years as he continues to learn and expand on his technique.
“When you get into tattooing, your style tend to change because you see that there is more styles than one – there is like a billion of them – so gradually my styles started to change,” Brown said
According to his boss, Clay Terronez, Brown’s art has progressed since he has been working at Smiling Ricks.
“I hired Wes because he has heart, and he is a good kid,” Terronex said. “In general he has really developed more as an artist since he has been here.”
While Brown is content with his job, he still has dreams of opening his own shop someday.
“I think it’s a lot of artists’ dream to open up their own shop, maybe not a big huge shop with a lot of people, but maybe like a tiny little custom shop where it is just me working on custom pieces all day,” Brown said.
Two-man band gets experimental behind closed doors
Kyle Phillips
Denton band Florene combines computer and keyboard instruments with a lone guitar and sporadic vocals. The two NT students who make up the group describe their music as “eccentric, unorthodox and compositionally experimental.”
“This will be a concert that involves a range of types of pieces, from a video piece with computer music audio and then there will be pieces that we call traditional computer music, which is just music coming through loudspeakers,” May said. “In most cases this is the traditional way that people hear music, but our music is composed to be listened to this way.”
The music is produced by integrating computer music, video, dance and theater but is composed with non-traditional techniques that allow the composer to input music into the system and cause a reaction based solely on the computers’ intelligence, May said.
“With certain pieces, the composer is going to input the music into the computer, and it is going to be making quasi-intelligent decisions based on what it hears,” he said.
Other music for the show is composed through a combination of acoustic instruments that are recorded and fed through a computer or synthesizer that generates new musical materials from the live instrument, said Greg Dixon, a graduate student and center employee.
“What a lot of composers like to do is send something like a two channel mix through a computer and diffuse the sound through the 16-speaker system that we have set up in Hall,” Dixon said. “In essence the stereo audio becomes a performance upon itself.”
Although the compositions can vary from one piece to the next, the composition technique may be as unique as the individual composing it.
“Some people start out with a scheme and they stick to it no matter what, and some people come in improvising and just see what happens,” May said. “A good composer always has a vision, has a goal, has something in their mind’s ear that they are trying to capture.”
The show will be performed Feb. 28 in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater and is open to the public.
