University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 43, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 27, 2005 Page: 1 of 32
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Beatles, beaches and more.^.
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N-TIME ASSOCIATED PRESS MANAGING EDITORS AWARD WINNER
shy Press
Wtednesday April 27,2005
The Newspaper of Lamar University and Lamar Institute of Technology
\
Vol. 81. No. 43
Gilligan named Newsmaker of the Year
Lamar coach praises finalists, credits local media situation for success
UPMike Tobias
UP staffers gamer awards at media banquet
By CODY PASTORELLA
UP Sports Editor
In typical show-like fashion, the big win-
ner of the Press Club of Southeast Texas 14th
Annual Excellence in the Media Banquet and
Newsmaker of the Year Award was unable to
show on Friday evening at Edison Plaza in
Beaumont. No! The 2004 newsmaker of the
year recipient and Lamar baseball coach Jim
Gilligan was busy doing just what he has done
for the last 30 years to win the award —
coaching.
Doubtless Gilligan must have been disap-
pointed that he could not be present to hear
the adulations piled upon him, but he did have
time to make a prior acceptance speech that
was played at the event, and his wife, brother
and sister-in-law were there to accept for him.
But Gilligan had a second highlight of the
evening when Michael Ambort hit a grand
slam in the bottom of the ninth to tie
Northwestern State at eight. I\vo innings later,
Ambort struck again with a two-run walk-off
shot to win the game.
With two thrills like that, Gilligan proba-
bly is still rehearsing every scene in his mind.
On Monday, he said that he is proud and
honored to have been considered and then
chosen for the award.
“It has been a great year,” he said. “And
this is not just a reflection of my year but of
this baseball program.
“When you talk about a baseball pro-
gram, there are so many people involved with
it. So in that perspective, I have an easier time
accepting this award.”
Gilligan said it was an honor just to be
considered with the company he was in, talk-
ing about the other people who were nomi-
nated for the award.
“It’s quite an honor when you consider
the other finalists,” he said (Eddie Arnold, Ted
Poe, Allan Ritter and Willis Mackey). Just to
be mentioned in the same breath with those
guys, he said, is an honor — let alone winning
the award.
“It was kind of embarrassing from the
respect that these guys are more of what I
would consider to be newsmakers. They have
so much of an important effect on all of our
lives representing Southeast Texas like they
do.
“I’m just out here coaching baseball —
having fun. The scope of what I do is not quite
as large as what they do.
“It’s not an attempt to seem modest. I
don’t look at this as a personal award but an
award for my team. Any of these types of
awards, what they are awarding you for, is
your teams and what they have done.
“In that way I feel a little better about it
because with this past year and all that was
accomplished — winning the Southland sea-
son outright, the tournament, going to region-
als and then the Texas Hall of Fame selec-
tion— all that is a reflection of the people that
have played for this program.”
Gilligan has guided Lamar to 11 confer-
ence championships, 11 NCAA Regional
appearances and four conference titles. He
started the 2005 season with a mark of 962-
601, which is 17th best among active coaches.
This year’s club is currently holding a second-
place spot in the Southland Conference under
Northwestern State and the Cards’ own a
See GILLIGAN, page 2
University Press staffers won five awards
Friday at the Press Club of Southeast Texas 14th
Annual Excellence in Media Awards banquet held
at Edison Plaza.
UP features editor Kathryn Eakens won first-
place for Non-Daily News Photo for her coverage
of the Adopt-A-Beach event.
Sports editor Cody Pastorella tied for a third-
place award in the Sports Feature category for his
story on Lamar coach John Payton. Pastorella also
won third place for Sports Column for
“Confessions of a Poker Addict.”
UP editor Mark Show won third place in the
Non-Daily Newspaper design category.,
Upbeat magazine, published each semester in
the University Press, won third place for Magazine
General Excellence.
“I think we did really well,” Show said. “It is an
See MEDIA, page 2
Oil magnate’s
film captures
old Beaumont
Lamar announces
historic gift from
Yount grandchildren
By CHRIS CASTILLO
Special to the UP
Certain course evaluations now available online
By MARK SHOW
UP Editor
With the end of the semester
in sight, Lamar students will be
completing final projects, term
papers, final exams and, last,
course evaluations.
This spring, the university is
implementing a pilot procedure
that offers students the chance to
complete their course evalua-
tions online, Donald Price, direc-
tor of the office of institutional
research and reporting, said.
Price said the online course
evaluations are available for
courses in the colleges of busi-
ness, engineering and nursing.
He said that if students have
any of these courses, they would
be able to evaluate only those
courses online. The other cours-
es, he said, will have to be evalu-
ated the old way, with pen and
paper.
“It’s a convenience thing for
students,” Price said. “It gives
students a time frame where they
can go in and do it anytime.”
Price said online course eval-
uations have already begun and
the deadline to complete online
course evaluations is May 2,
which is the last day of class.
Price said students can either
check their campus email, which
will notify them of which course
can be evaluated online, or go to
the website to complete their
evaluations.
The effort benefits the pro-
fessors as well, Price said. He
said professors could check the
status, throughout the evaluation
process, of how many students
have filled out the evaluation
online.
He added that once the eval-
uations are compiled, the profes-
sors would get the results of not
only what percent of the class
evaluated them online, but also
how they answered in their eval-
uations.
Price also said the company
conducting the online course
evaluation, Online Course
Evaluations.com, will randomly
select a student to receive a
DVD player in exchange for fill-
ing out the evaluations online.
For more information, con-
tact Price at 880-8096.
Fred McKinley and Greg Riley were
doing research for a book about the Yount
family last summer. When they finished
interviewing Kathryn Manion Haider, a
granddaughter of Pansy and Frank Yount
and a daughter of their only child, Mildred
Frank Yount Manion, and perusing scores of
historic family keepsakes, she asked the
magic question:
“Do you want to see the film? There is
no longer a projector, but I still have all of
our film and it goes back to the ’20s.”
The duo didn’t know what was on the
Yount family film, which was housed in
Haider’s basement, but they knew it proba-
bly had historical significance. The 16mm and
- 8mm film captures glimpses of Beaumont in
the 1920s and life with the Yount family from
the ’20s to the 1960s.
* The film includes images of the
Beaumont skyline in the 1920s, the Calder
Avenue street cars, the opening of the Mil-
dred Building in 1930, aerial shots of the
Yount-Lee tank farm at Spindletop after the
. second oil boom, the port of Beaumont, the
South Texas State Fair, and the Beaumont
ship channel, just to mention a few. In fact,
there are 5,500 linear feet of film that runs
almost 10 hours in length.
The writers, whose book focuses on the
Yount-Lee Oil Company of Beaumont and
the legacy of Frank and Pansy Yount, wasted
no time in calling Howard Perkins, director
of student publications at Lamar University.
Perkins, who was helping them with their
book, “Black Gold to Bluegrass,” moved
quickly to secure the film for Lamar, where it
could be preserved.
See YOUNT, page 4
*
A Goldwater First
Lamar’s Young hopes
to be trendsetter for
other African-Americans
By JUSTIN SANCHEZ
UP Staff Writer
For the first time in Lamar
University history, a Lamar student
has won the Goldwater Scholarship
— a 17-year-old national honor con-
sidered to be the premiere under-
graduate award of its type in mathe-
matics, natural sciences and engineer-
ing.
Winner Joseph Young, a Beau-
monter, is an electrical engineer dou-
ble-majoring in physics.
“I’m honored,” the 26-year-old
senior in physics and junior in electri-
cal engineering, Young said. “I
believe I set an example as far as you
can do anything and you can achieve
anything as long as you put your
mind to it.”
Each year, schools that have a
four-year math, science and engineer-
ing program can nominate four can-
didates, Harley Myler, chair of elec-
trical engineering, said.
“Every school can only put in
four candidates,” he said. “So to be
nominated is significant,” he said.
Lamar now joins company with
every first-tier and Carnegie I
research university in the country, he
said.
To be nominated, students must
have a 4.0 grade point average and an
interest in a career in research.
While making small sacrifices is a
must, reading is the most important
factor in his success, Young said.
“I’ll just read the material, and if
I don’t understand something I’ll take
the opportunity to go to the profes-
sor’s office and have him explain it to
me,” he said.
Along with winning the award,
Young also hopes to serve as an
example to his peers.
“For other people, especially
African-Americans (Young is an
African-American), I want them to
see me, not necessarily my face or my
name — just to see what I’ve accom-
plished academically to see that there
are other avenues other than the
stereotypes,” he said.
While studying is a major part of
Young’s daily agenda, he does find
time to relax and have fun.
“I like to play a game called 42,”
he said. “It’s a domino game. Some of
See GOLDWATER, page 2
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Show, Mark. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 43, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 27, 2005, newspaper, April 27, 2005; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth500814/m1/1/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.