Still going

Texas A&M baseball team to play for Big 12 title today. Sports, C1

A Census first
Married couples no longer the majority of U.S. households. Nation, A3

Special playground
San Antonio caters to disabled children. Brazos Life, D1

WEATHER
High 97, Low 75
Partly cloudy

theeagle.com/weather

The Eagle
Bryan-College Station, Texas theeagle.com

May 29, 2011

$1.25

SUNDAY

IN BRIEF
Doctor charged for suicide assists
From his cluttered apartment office, Dr. Lawrence Egbert says he has helped direct the deaths of nearly 300 people across the country. A decade after Jack Kevorkian went to prison for helping a man with Lou Gehrigs disease commit suicide, Egbert, 83, has been dubbed The New Doctor Death by Newsweek after being criminally charged in two states for his role as medical director for the Final Exit Network. Nation, A11

2 die in plane crash

Regent gaffe fuels distrust

A&M faculty perturbed by Adams remark
By VIMAL PATEL vimal.patel@theeagle.com

Egypt reopens Gaza Strip border

Egypt lifted a 4-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, greatly easing travel restrictions on the 1.5 million residents of the Palestinian territory in a move that bolstered the Hamas government while dealing a setback to Israels attempts to isolate the militant group. People traveled abroad for overdue medical appointments, business dealings and family affairs. World, B1 Stuart Villanueva Eagle photo by Stuar Firefighters work at the scene of a fatal plane crash at the Waves Z Islander Apartment Complex on Wellborn in Bryan ry on Saturday. ryan

Craft reportedly out of gas, landed at apartments

More photos from the scene online
By MICHELLE CASADY and JONATHAN RESENDEZ michelle.casady@theeagle.com jonathan.resendez@theeagle.com

Taliban attack kills 6 in nA Afghanistan

An explosion inside a heaveav eavily guarded compound Saturday that killed six is the latest in an insurgent spring offensive and comes just weeks before a planned drawdown of U.S. troops begins this summer. World, B1

theeagle

com

A placid, balmy Saturday evening at the Waves Z Islander was shattered when a small aircraft crashed into the parking lot of the south Bryan apartment complex, killing the two people aboard. The plane, which was headed from the Dallas area to Galveston, apparently had begun leaking fuel and was attempting to land at Easterwood Airport, according to a pilot who overheard emergency calls at Easterwood. It crashed into a

parked car in the Z Islander lot. Bryan Fire Chief Mike Donoho said crews were dispatched to the apartment complex on Wellborn Road just before 9 p.m. Saturday. The names of the dead were not available late Saturday night, but witnesses said they appeared to be a man and a woman. According to flightaware.com, a website that tracks flight plans and makes aircraft registration information available, the plane was a 1973 Aero Commander owned by Alma Poarch, a resident of Cedar Hill near Dallas. The flight plan listed for the plane indicates it left from the Dallas-Fort Worth International

Airport at 7:23 p.m. en route to Scholes International Airport in Galveston. Its estimated time of arrival was 9:42 p.m. Pilot Scott Stallings was at Easterwood inquiring about renting hangar space when he heard the sirens and radio chatter. I heard that there was a leak in the fuel line and they were going to land at runway 1-6, he said. Then I heard it went down about 212 miles northeast of the airport. Stallings decided to go look kf for the plane, and attempt to help its pilot if possible.

What does Texas A&M board member Phil Adams have in common with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Ronald Reagan? They all learned the hard way to be careful around microphones. Adams, vice chair of the Board of Regents, didnt express his desire ADAMS to slice off a part of President Barack Obamas anatomy, call an Obama policy a big [expletive] deal, or joke about bombing the Russians. But to some, Adams gaffe caught on tape Thursday during a regents meeting in College Station revealed an us-vs.-them board mentality toward faculty. However, it also signaled a willingness to end or at least refine the controversial and unpopular awards program formerly known as SLATE, or Student Led Awards for Teaching Excellence, which gives teachers cash based on

See CRASH, Page A5

See REGENT, Page A5

IM SMILING BECAUSE...

On to the next phase of their lives

Inaugural Rudder grads reminisce
By MICHELLE CASADY michelle.casady@theeagle.com

I love my job.
MONICA AREGULLIN College Station

INDEX
Annies Mailbox Brazos Life Business Classified Comics Crossword Horoscopes Lottery Movies Obituaries Opinions Television D2 D1 B2 E1 Inside E3 E4 A2 D2 A9-10 A8 D10

Vol. 137, No. 149, 6 sections

12624 00125

he more than 200 members of Rudder High Schools first senior class notched one more first as they walked across the stage Saturday inaugural graduates of the new school. About an hour before the ceremony began, Principal Hugh Piatt II was giving the soon-to-be graduates a f few last-minute instructions on where to sit, when to stand and how to negotiate the task of simultaneously receiving the diploma with one hand, while shaking his with the other and smiling for the camera. Ive never said this to a class before, but this is the most fun Ive had in 23 years of education, starting this school and watching you guys grow, he told the green-robed graduates. Dubois Barnes was among the seniors graduating and came to Rudder last year, after being home schooled and then attending Allen Academy for a year. Shell be leaving Bryan for Waco in the ef fall, where shell attend Baylor University and participate as a member of its

igh School Bryan High graduates Alyssa Salinas (from left), Amber Rodriguez and Vivian Sanchez Vi use their phones to take a group self-portrait while waiting to wa participate in the schools 2011 commencement ceremony on Saturday. Eagle photo by Stuart Villanueva

Eagle photo by Stuar Stuart Villanueva Rudder graduate Iiesha Thomas laughs with classmates before the schools commencement ceremony at Central Baptist Church on Saturday.

A reason to celebrate
A full f list of graduates and congratulatory messages from loved ones are included in a special section of The Eagle./F1 More photos from the ceremonies online at theeagle.com. equestrian team. Its in the back of my mind that I probably wont see many

Class of 11 leaves Bryan High ready for life

By CASSIE SMITH cassie.smith@theeagle.com

See GRADS, Page A4

athryn Jeanelle Lys, freshly graduated from Bryan High School, already knows what she wants to do with her life. Shell be headed to Texas A&M University for interdisciplinary studies in hopes of becoming a middle school teacher. Basically this whole year I just kind of thought about all the teachers who had influenced my life and thought it would be

really cool to have that kind of influence on people, Lys said. Its unlikely that all of the 460 members of Bryans Class of 2011 have such definitive plans, but, ready or not, they all took a giant step out into the bigger world Saturday after receiving their degrees during ceremonies at Reed Arena. Senior class secretary Uriah Zakur Rhodes advised her fellow graduates to live each day with hope, faith and convic-

See BRYAN, Page A4

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