Amarillo College Ranger

Issue date: 4/15/05 Section: Opinion

Rachel Nelson/The Ranger [Click to enlarge]

A busted sink that now leaks into a classroom below. A broken coat rack that was pulled from the wall, leaving big holes where the concrete gave way. The list goes on.

Those are rewards some area high schools gave Amarillo College and its students for letting them use our campus free for University Interscholastic League contests.

We at The Ranger believe such activities are irresponsible and just plain disrespectful behavior, showing a lack of respect toward AC and its students.

In an e-mail from Katie Ahlbom, an administrative assistant, to Bruce Cot-greave, AC physical plant director, it was reported that numerous calls were made to the physical plant complaining about the Parcells Hall/business building elevators not being usable. Later it was discovered that students were stuck in the elevator. It took so long that they evacuated the students by having them crawl up a ladder to the top of the elevator.

That did little to help the woman who was on crutches or the senior citizen instructor who had to go down three flights of stairs. All this was caused by the UIL students' irresponsibility. It was reported in the e-mail that the reasons for the elevator shutting down were that UIL students kept riding the elevator and not getting off while pushing buttons and turning keys they shouldn't be touching.

Another reason was that three boys were seen putting gravel in the tracks of the elevator, and a custodian had to dig it out. It amazes us that AC students use the elevator all the time and it works just fine, but let the UIL students visit, and you can't even get on it.

Not only did they monopolize our elevator, they also trashed our restrooms and ran around wild in our halls. At least five toilets in Parcells Hall and the business building had paper towels stuck down in them. That is just out and out vandalism; it was no accident. And more than once, the AC police were called to a campus building to deal with out-of-control students.

That is behavior we at The Ranger believe is unacceptable and should not go unpunished.

Parcells Hall and the business building are some of the oldest non-renovated buildings on campus, having been built in the 1960s.

We want to keep them in top shape for the nest generation of students who follow us.

We think the chaperones need to keep a more watchful eye on their students.

That is what they bring you along for: to make sure incidents like the ones AC has experienced do not happen.

If a student is a troublemaker at school, please leave him or her there; we like our campus.

If schools intend to keep using our campus, they should become more respectful. And if they find that hard to do, then they should just stay at their own schools.

We at The Ranger want to know how the high schools would react if we came to their schools and had the same respect they showed for our campus.

We are sure they would not appreciate, just like we didn't appreciate it.

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