asuherald.com Monday, Jan. 30, 2012

What we asked you last week on asuherald.com: Hear something funny or interesting on campus? Tweet

it to @OverheardAtASU and you could see it printed in The Herald!

SPORTS, PAGE 4OPINIONS, PAGE 2NEWS, PAGE 3

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Vol. 90 Issue 28

Of interest online

Should students be allowed to have guns on

campus?

THE HERALDTHE HERALDInforming Arkansas State University since 1921

No 65%

Yes 32%I'm not sure 3%

TAKING THE PLUNGETAKING THE PLUNGEBianca Garcia/Herald Photographer

Students, faculty and alumni participated in the ASU Polar Bear Plunge on Saturday, raising $825 for the Special Olympics. There were 17 plungers overall at the event. A group representing Volunteer ASU (pictured above) raised the most money as a team, "Frozen Assetts" raised the most money as a pair, and the Black Student Association's Perry Jackson won best costume. The event took place at The Grove swimming pool.

Pictured above: Nicole Orlicek, ASU alumna, Jodie Cherry, director of student services and ASU alumna, Michelle Stafford, sophomore social work major of North Little Rock, Kelsey Cherry, senior photojournalism major of Manila, Stevie Overby, sophomore pre-vet major of Little Rock, Megan Mitchell, ASU alumna.

UPD to makenew hires,increasecampus safety

Tricia MullenStaff Writer

Since the Safety Task-force was instated in the spring of 2010, the Univer-sity Police Department has added two new offi cers.

To fi nish the recommen-dations of the task force, UPD is looking to hire one new offi cer in July.

According to a news re-lease by the University communications offi ce, The Task Force on Campus Se-curity was appointed in April 2010 to examine campus safety and secu-rity practices on the Ar-kansas State University-Jonesboro campus.

Jarrod Long, Lieuten-ant of the University Po-lice Department said, “Any extra bodies we get work-ing here, we are proud to have.”

Rest assured that not just anyone with a high school degree can become part of the service that protects ASU.

In addition to a clean record and solid interview, each applicant is subject to an extensive background check, usually lasting at least two months per ap-plicant.

Offi cers also undergo fi rearms training and drills several times a year, just to stay on their toes.

“Over the past couple of years, I can tell we’ve had a decrease in serious criminal activity,” said the Lieutenant.

Long has been a member of UPD since 1997, start-ing at parking patrol as a student and working full-time with the department as a dispatcher in 2000.

“I feel it’s safe,” said Long about ASU.

Since the Safety Task Force was issued in 2010, UPD has made changes geared toward making students feel safer on cam-pus.

The idea to hire addi-tional offi cers may have come from the task force, but the department agrees it is necessary.

With an infl ux in stu-dents since the task force was issued in 2010, sup-plementary offi cers may be needed soon.

However, funding for more offi cers comes from the Student Affairs divi-sion. Until further bud-geting and funding is com-pleted after the hire in July, no new offi cers will be employed.

“It’s always good to know that there will be someone extra looking out for us,” Sarah Knight, a senior so-cial work major from Bar-tlett, Tenn., said. “I just hope he doesn’t write me a ticket.”

See UPD, page 3

Crawford delivers speech on campusKayla PaineStaff Writer

A balding man is wear-ing overalls and holding a pitchfork with his wife to his right. They aren’t smil-ing, despite the blue skies and green leaved trees.

The famous Grant Wood painting “American Gothic” is what Rep. Rick Crawford said is not an accurate por-trayal of a farming family today, but he is convinced that some Americans think it is.

Crawford spoke on Thursday during the lun-cheon of the Arkansas Soil and Water Education conference put on by the

College of Agriculture and Technology.

The record enrollment of 225 attendees for the con-ference listened to Craw-ford put forth an update of what Congress is doing concerning agriculture and how it will affect District 1.

A new farm bill is being introduced in 2012. The bill will affect local rice, cotton and soy bean farmers.

The biggest concern to Crawford in the new bill is the talk of cutting down the direct payment, which is governmental subsidy to farmers to help supple-ment their income to set a price fl oor. Almost half of

America’s rice comes from District 1, and he believes the direct payment is im-perative for farmers in the Delta.

“They consider the di-rect payment to be a very low hanging fruit, but it’s very important to rice and cotton farmers,” Crawford said.

He noted that he has been making a national security argument that, if “we become a net food im-porter,” the U.S. has lost food security just as it has energy security.

There were other com-ponents to the conference other than the update giv-en by Crawford, and over-

all it had great feedback Steve Green, assistant

professor of soil and water conservation, was excited about everyone learning to use water more effi ciently.

“We’ve seen more coop-eration among agencies and local producers in the Delta,” he said. “That has been something we’ve been able to see lately.”

Andrea Cox/Herald Photographer

Creators of parody Twitter accounts speak outLindsey Blakely

News Editor

In their fi rst interview ever, four of ASU and Jonesboro’s par-ody twitter accounts have decided to speak out about their humorous and witty tweets that have caught the eyes — and retweets — of many ASU students.

All, of course, have decided against revealing their real names and did the interviews by email to insure secrecy.

Astateprobs, ASUSorostitute and TheGreatMalzahn have all revealed, however, that they are ASU students and JboroProb-lems a high school senior in the Jonesboro area, all upping the ante to fi nd their true identities.

All four accounts wrote they mostly created the accounts for a humorous effect.

“I’m a Red Wolves football fan

living deep in Hog territory,” TheGreatMalzahn wrote. “Gus Malzahn’s hire created a platform that interested both ASU and U of A fans. Suddenly, ASU had some-thing meaningful to talk about! Gus Malzahn is one subject that links both schools. I wanted to give that unique situation a voice.”

AstateProbs and JboroProb-lems both wrote they created the accounts because of a lack of one.

“I just realized that no one had done it yet and I was shocked, so I thought, ‘why not? This will be fun,’” JboroProblems wrote.

“Everyone always complains about problems with the campus,”

Astateprobs wrote. “This was a fun way to let everyone vent about what was pissing them off the most.”

ASUSorostitute wrote the idea came to them while hanging out with friends.

While most of the responses to the accounts have been positive, there have been some negative re-actions to the parody accounts and their tweets.

“Most responses are positive,” JboroProblems wrote. “I have a few people who have called me stu-pid, but it doesn’t really bother me. Four or fi ve haters out of nearly 900 aren’t bad.”

TheGreatMalzahn wrote that most of his comes from people who feel threatened.

“Some (but not many) people feel threatened by any exposure ASU football receives,” TheGreat-Malzahn wrote. “So I sometimes fi nd condescending or even nasty tweets from those guys. I usually just retweet them and let the Twit-terverse judge. Poor grammar and misspellings are funny!”

Astateprobs wrote the only neg-ative they have gotten come from people who don’t attend ASU.

“I’ve gotten nothing but posi-tive remarks from ASU students,” Astateprobs wrote. “The only bad tweets that I’ve gotten came from U of A students telling us we suck. I smell jealousy.”

ASUSorostitue, however, seems to have gotten the most negative feedback from the community,

See TWITTER, page 3

Screenshot from Twitter.com

Chinese Student Organization puts on New Year's festival

ASU places fi rst in seven events Iran poses threat to Israel

The Herald is a public forum. Its content is written by students, for students, faculty and staff of Arkansas State University. Student editors of The Herald have the authority to make all content decisions without censorship or advance approval.OPINION

The Herald is located in Room 224 of the Communications Building.

The Herald is published twice weekly during the fall and spring semesters and is distributed around the Jonesboro campus. Its content is normally written by students. “Our View” represents the opinions of the editorial staff. Columns, letters to the editor, cartoons and other content on the opinion page are the views of the author.

Content does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Herald.Editorial Number Advertising Number(870) 972-3076 (870) 972-2961 www.asuherald.com

— Our View —

Choosing a new chancellor

Here at the ASUJ campus, we are in the process of choosing a new chancellor to head up the administration.

While we are all excited to see fresh leadership, choosing among the three candidates is no easy job.

The three candidates represent a diverse set of talents and work experience from various universities across the U.S.

Dr. John Beehler at University of North Texas at Dallas; Dr. Soraya Coley at California State University -- Bakersfield; and Dr. Tim Hudson at Texas Tech University System all hold important administrative positions at their respective schools.

Each candidate is well-qualified for the task of being chancellor at the ASUJ campus, and each would bring a valuable set of ideas to the table.

However, while the three candidates each have stellar work experience from their respective positions, they must go through an extensive evaluation process.

Thankfully, Charles Welch, the ASU System president, has created a committee of faculty and students to help with the process. This committee is outside of the Board of Trustees, and it represents a major step forward in the application process.

We believe it is imperative that our administration receive good input from this committee, since it will largely represent us as a student body and faculty. Working with this committee will also give each applicant a glimpse into the workings of ASU as a whole.

As chancellor, one must be prepared to interact with students, faculty and other administrators on a daily basis, and this committee gives our candidates a chance to do this.

However, to enhance the process even further, we believe that all students and faculty should have the chance to interact with the three candidates. Perhaps a town hall-like session, in which audience members are allowed to ask questions to the candidates would allow the process to run even smoother.

As for the rest of the process, we hope Welch continues to remain diligent in his decision-making process. Choosing the right candidate will be difficult and will require much thought and evaluation.

As students, we need to make our voices heard on this matter. Researching the candidates ourselves and looking at their life accomplishments will allow there to be greater accountability in this process.

In the end, however, we must be willing to trust the judgment of our administrators once the decision is made.

“Our View” is written by the editorial staff. The opinions are not necessarily reflective of the student body, faculty or administration of Arkansas State University.

PAGE 2 Monday, Jan. 30 The Herald

- Sara Krimm, editorsara.krimm@smail.astate.edu- Lindsey Blakely, news editorlindsey.blakely@smail.astate.edu- Abdullah Raslan, photo editorabdullah.raslan@smail.astate.edu

- Jeffrey Davidson, opinion editorjeffrey.davidson@smail.astate.edu- Haley Johnson, campus corner editorhaley.johnson@smail.astate.edu- Daniel McFadin, sports editordaniel.mcfadin@smail.astate.edu

- Rachel Carner, online editor rachel.carner@smail.astate.edu- Rachel Meredith, ad managerrachel.meredith@smail.astate.edu- Bonnie Thrasher, adviserbthrasher@astate.edu

Student claims fulfillment in Christ

College is one of the most lucrative times in our lives.

It is where we acquire the education for our fu-ture job, meet life-long friends and become adults.

College is also the place we build habits that will continue for most of our lives.

Granted some habits like staying up until three o’clock doing homework will fade away with school, but others, such as how we spend our free time, will most likely continue.

In light of this, I think it is important to understand what we are living for.

Are we living for the

weekend? Are we living for that perfect relationship with the opposite sex we have always desired? Or is it movies, games, sports, money or something else entirely?

The reason this ques-tion is so important is that our joy, love and hope are directly tied to the thing for which we live.

Why? Because our ca-pacity to be joyful, loving and hopeful is anchored in the magnitude of the thing for which we live.

If we are living for some-thing too small, we will soon find that our will to press on is diminished. If we are living for a thing too finite, it will not be able to fulfill the deepest desires of our heart.

We will soon become a dull and acrid people, wea-

ry and tired with life. Or, we will run to some-

thing else and hope it fixes our malady.

Now, my argument is that anything you find in this world will be far too small to fulfill you.

No amount of money, love, prestige, or power will bring you the fulfill-ment of all your wants and needs.

If you don’t believe me, let me know, and I will provide you with plenty of examples who have tried to find meaning this way.

I am not saying all this to make you feel de-pressed.

Indeed, some of you are probably reading this and not even understanding I am talking about you.

In reality, you may not understand the truth of this

until you experience such bitterness for yourself.

Still, I wanted to bring this fact to your attention and offer you something that does satisfy.

Jesus Christ of the Bible is the only one who will satisfy and fulfill your life to the deepest degree.

I am a product of His grace and mercy, and I don’t have any idea where I would be without the meaning He gives to my life.

If you don’t know Him, find those who do and have them tell you about Him.

If they are truly a recipi-ent of Jesus’ loving sacri-fice, I know they would be happy to do so.

Kurtz is a sophomore education major of Little Rock.

“If we are living for a thing too finite, it will not be able to fulfill the deepest desires of our

heart.”

Aaron Kurtz

Iran poses threat to Israel

Last Thursday, I at-tended a meeting of a recently formed campus chapter of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), a group of individuals from across the U.S. who have pledged to do their best to make politicians in Washington stand behind Israel, one of our greatest allies.

The evening was an eye-opener, in many re-spects.

The guest speaker was retired Colonel John Somerville, a 30-year Ma-rine veteran who made over 60 trips to the Middle East during his career.

He made a very strong case for the need to sup-port Israel.

Somerville spoke at length about the threats to Israel, using historic precedent and current events to validate his claims.

One of the most strik-ing pieces of evidence was the fact that Iran was not

called Iran until the year 1935. This was the period of time when Adolf Hitler was making his meteoric rise to power in Germany, as well as laying his plans of Aryan supremacy and Jewish extermination.

The real surprise lay in the name “Iran,” which means “land of the Ary-ans.”

Understanding this history is important for those watching the news recently, for it is becom-ing clear that Iran seeks uranium enrichment.

Iran’s president, Mah-moud Ahmadinejad, has also made incendiary vows to exterminate the Israelis.

These aspects of Iran bear a frightening re-semblance to the saber-rattling and inflamma-tory rhetoric coming out of Germany during the 1930s.

So, with all this histor-ical precedent seemingly being repeated, one would think that our leaders in Washington, who are sup-posed to be some of the smartest men and women

in America, would be try-ing to stop this, right? Wrong.

President Obama has refused to state in any conclusive manner how he is going to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and obliterating Israel, even though he has said he will not allow Iran to go nuclear.

The strongest state-ment against Iran came from Obama’s defense secretary, Leon Panetta, who said, “I think they need to know that — that if they take that step — that they’re going to get stopped.”

It took two years for anyone in the Obama administration to say anything that decisive about the Iranian nuclear threat.

So what can we as col-lege students do about major world events like this if our leaders can’t even seem to handle it?

Should we even worry at all, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about al-ready?

The answer to this

question is yes; we ab-solutely need to be con-cerned about it.

College is only tempo-rary. Eventually we will be living in the “outside” world, and we need to do our part to influence it for the better.

While individually, we may be hardly noticeable, banding together into or-ganizations like CUFI will make us much more noticeable.

This will send a mes-sage to our leaders to stand with our allies, which will in turn tell Iran (and other enemies) to avoid making serious threats.

George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

It is time to look back at WWII and recall the lessons of that war, or we may soon find ourselves in another deadly conflict with a far more merciless enemy.

Kazyak is a freshman music major of Manila.

“These aspects of Iran bear a frightening resemblance to the saber-rattling and inflammatory rhetoric coming out of Germany

during the 1930s.”William Kazyak

Having a senior moment

- Letters to the Editor -

The Herald welcomes letters to the editor in electronic form and under 300 words. We reserve the right to edit for space.

Please e-mail letters to:

jeffrey.davidson@smail.astate.edu sara.krimm@smail.astate.edu

Name: Edie Maver

Hometown: Heber Springs

Major: English Education

Favorite College Memory: Going to the carnival in front of the Union and watching Harry Potter afterwards.

Plans after Graduation: Work first as a

substitute teacher, while tutoring and working a weekend job, and then applying for full-time teaching next fall.

NEWSPAGE 3 Monday, Jan. 30 The Herald

TWITTER, CONTINUED

UPD, CONTINUEDUPD officers work dili-

gently to make students feel comfortable and care-free on campus.

At night, the officers are placed on randomized patrol by a supervisor on duty, so as not to be pinned down by pattern.

“I feel safer knowing there will be another offi-cer on duty,” Jordan Har-vey, a mid-level education major from Des Arc said.

“Honestly, I think we need as many officers as we can get.”

What many people don’t understand is the extent UPD officers go to in order to protect and serve the students.

For a greater under-standing of safety mea-sures and more informa-tion about the University Police, visit http://www.as-tate.edu/police/ and watch

the information video on the homepage.

UPD wants to make campus even safer by add-ing another officer to the university grounds.

The hiring process for the new officer will begin in July, but the officer won’t become active until August or September of this year.

To apply, visit http://www.astate.edu/a/student-affairs/police/employment.

Ari YukiStaff Writer

The Chinese Student Organization (CSO) held a Chinese New Year’s event Friday in the Student Union, and shared their culture with American stu-dents as well as other in-ternational students.

President of CSO, We-nyi Li, a sophomore math-ematics major of Jiangsu, China, said the Chinese New Year is the most im-portant national holiday for Chinese people because it signifies the beginning of a new year.

According to chinatrav-el.com, the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, starts on the first day of the first lu-nar month and is usually in late January or early February, and ends on the 15th day of the first lunar month with the Lantern Festival.

Wenyi said in 2012 the Spring Festival began Jan. 23 and will end Feb. 6.

He also said during the holidays all Chinese people come back to their home

and eat dinner with their families.

Chinese people celebrate this holiday with fireworks and dancing. Traditionally, many northern Chinese people eat dumplings.

“For the Chinese stu-dents, we don’t have the time to be with our family (on the holidays) so we’re here to put all the Chinese students together and have a very good New Year’s event,” Wenyi said.

“ASU Chinese students are excited about this event. I appreciate the leadership of CSO that has worked tirelessly and many students who have been in-volved to make this event a success,” said Jie Miao, an advisor of CSO.

“The celebration and performance organized by CSO will bring the holiday spirit to all ASU Chinese students and increase the cultural vibrancy on our campus.”

The Chinese New Year is not meant to be just for Chinese students to cel-ebrate. It is also for Ameri-can students and other na-tionalities to experience an

important part of Chinese culture.

“It’s like a cultural ex-change for the foreign stu-dents, but especially for the American students,” Wenyi said.

CSO featured many dif-ferent types of shows to cel-ebrate the New Year.

There was a fashion show in which boys and girls wore traditional Chi-nese clothes.

There was also a hip-hop dance show and a mu-sic show featuring Chinese songs, and an American woman performed a Chi-nese song wearing a tradi-tional Chinese dress.

CSO also had a dating show named “A Chance to Love.”

In this show, the boys showed up on stage one by one and the girls tried to decide which of boys they wanted. In the end, a girl who was acting like a boy and a boy who was acting like a girl became a couple.

One of members of CSO, Pei Yang Li, a junior inter-national business major of Chengdu, China, said he enjoyed the dating show

the best among all the shows CSO performed.

Pei Yang said this show originated from a popular Chinese television show.

“I really like to organize a show that makes many people happy and it makes me satisfied and happy,” Pei Yang said.

American students en-joyed the event equally as much as the Chinese stu-dents did.

“The Chinese New Year event was very entertain-ing. I felt that everyone from any background could enjoy it.

The Chinese student or-ganization did a great job at presenting many forms of entertainment,” said Jenny Veal, a junior inter-national business major of Bono.

Veal said she recently came back from a study abroad in China, so while she was at the event she felt like she was back in China.

Veal also said she en-joyed that the program was presented in Chinese as well as English.

“This event really gave

students the opportunity to experience another culture as well as the language,” she said.

Wenyi said the Chinese

Student Organization might be putting on anoth-er festival on Feb.6, to cel-ebrate the end of the Chi-nese New Year holiday.

Chinese Student Organization puts on New Year’s festival

Shan Huang/Herald Photographer

Freshman graphic design major Feng Junjie of China perfromed a hip-hip routine at the CSO New Year’s festival.

ASU Relay for Life to hold registration kickoff partyCasey RinaldiStaff Writer

There will be a Relay for Life kickoff party on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in-side the St. Francis River room. Anyone interested in forming a team invited to attend.

This will serve as a briefing to all participants and fundraising ideas will be provided.

Arkansas State Univer-sity will hold Relay For Life at the track located be-hind the Baseball Complex on April 13. It will be a 12-hour event, lasting from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m.

The event chair, Aaron Moore, a senior marketing management major of Lit-tle Rock, spoke of current

plans for the event and the impact he hopes it will have on the students of ASU.

“This is my first year participating as the event chair. Last year I was merely a participant and we I saw the opportunity to become the event chair, I decided to take it,” he said.

“We have a community representative and she looked for and event chair, and being in marketing, I felt I would be the perfect person, so I just applied and received the position.”

Moore said participants will sign up in teams and will camp out in front of the track located behind the baseball field where they will be running in shifts for the entire event period, with the goal of having at

least one member of every team on the track at all times.

While they would like to keep the teams between five and 15 members, there is no overall limit to the amount of groups that can participate in the relay.

Each team is also re-sponsible for raising money that will be donated, along with all other proceeds col-lected, to the American Cancer Society (AMC). While teams are allowed to conduct their own fund-raisers, they are asked to raise at least $100 each. Entry fees are currently set at $40. After Feb. 15, they will be increased to $50.

“All the funds go to re-search for possible cures for cancer, it goes to other pro-

grams that the AMC has set up, such as donating wigs to patients who don’t have hair or hotlines that people can call to find other outlets and opportunities in their battle against can-cer,” Moore said.

There will also be en-tertainment provided at the event for attendees of all ages, ranging from an all-night DJ, to live bands and carnival games for the children. Food will also be provided.

“It’s just going to be a fun event and will be a time to remember and cel-ebrate those who have lost the battle with cancer and hopefully try to prevent others from losing the fight against cancer,” Moore said.

Moore said he hopes to surpass the previous years, but believes the event will be a success either way.

“Last year wasn’t as successful as it could have been, so we’re hoping to get at least 20 teams, with our goal being to raise $30,000,” he said.

Moore noted the commit-tee is also looking for more sponsorship opportunities for the relay and encour-aged anyone interested to contact him.

Further advertisements for the event will appear in the student union and the online Daily Digest in the coming weeks and months leading up to the event.

“I think it’s going to be a really good event and hope that a lot of people attend

to support a great cause,” said the committee’s logis-tics chair, Evan Clower, a junior journalism major of Fayetteville.

“All of our chairs are working hard on it and ev-eryone on the committee are hard workers and are really willing to put in the time and the effort to make this race successful.”

Clower said the com-mittee is searching for en-tertainment acts for the event, and could not yet provide specific names of talent appearing at this year’s event.

For further informa-tion on this event, contact Moore at aaron.moore@smail.astate.edu, or Clow-er at evan.clower@smail.astate.edu.

mostly from sororities on campus who have told their members to unfol-low and block the account. ASUSorostitute wrote that it hasn’t fazed them.

“One girl wants to pray for me! Over all, most have taken me as I am meant to be: a joke,” ASUSorostitute wrote.

“It’s okay if they don’t follow me; I know they are looking at my tweets any-way. I can’t believe I got so noticed, so quickly.”

Each account wrote they have a favorite tweet sent to them.

“I receive good barbs from my cross-state rival, @fakebobpetrino. We’re becoming mortal enemies!” TheGreatMalzahn wrote.

Jboroproblems wrote that their favorite tweet came from @mckenziecatt: That moment when you see a cab drive by. We have a cab business in this town?!

While each twitter ac-count is clearly directed at ASU students or Jonesboro

residents, they each bring their own flare to the table with their almost too true remarks.

TheGreatMalzahn has been known to not only tweet about ASU’s sports, but Coach Malzahn’s eat-ing habits as well.

“Jonesboro is abundant in three resources: church-es, banks and chain restau-rants,” TheGreatMalzahn wrote.

“I figured robust appe-tizer menus and bottom-less bread baskets must have played a role in luring Malzahn to ASU.”

ASUSorostitute wrote that they mostly tweet about stereotypical soror-ity and fraternity life at ASU.

“Only three or four of my tweets were meant to actually hurt any feelings. I think everyone should laugh at themselves, and I am having a ball being Sally Sorority,” ASUSoros-titute wrote.

Since the accounts have

chosen not to reveal who they are, they all offer words of advice to anyone who has a secret account, or is thinking of starting one.

“Stay in character, keep your identity secret,” TheGreatMalzahn wrote. “Don’t get into Twitter ar-guments (no one wins).”

ASUSorostitute covered the more legal boundar-ies of having a parody ac-count.

“Don’t talk about it with a lot of people,” ASUSoros-titute wrote. “Keep your head down, and keep it le-gal. No slander, no libel, no threats.”

Astateprobs and Jboro-problems both kept it light hearted when it comes to having a secret account.

“Go for it, but make sure it’s something that a large enough group can relate to,” Jboroproblems wrote.

“Try not to laugh too hard when someone men-tions your account,” As-tateprobs wrote.

SPORTSPAGE 4 Monday, Jan. 30 The Herald

ASU Tennis defeats UT-Martin in Spring opener

ASU Press Release

The Arkansas State men’s basketball team fell 76-64 at North Texas Sat-urday in Sun Belt Confer-ence action at the Super Pit.

ASU fell to 9-14 on the season with a 3-6 Sun Belt mark. The Mean Green im-proved to 13-9 on the year with a 6-3 league mark.

Junior forward Bran-don Peterson recorded his third double-double of the season and seventh of his career leading Arkansas State with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Peterson is just one rebound away from breaking the 500 career re-bound barrier.

Senior forward Malcoln Kirkland was the only oth-er ASU player in double-digit scoring with 11.

“From an effort point and an execution stand-point I have no criticism,” said ASU head coach John Brady. “When you don’t

score for a while it can af-fect you on the other end de-fensively, you feel like you are spinning your wheels and that can work on you. They made some big plays and some big shots on us and when we had our op-portunities to keep the game workable at times we didn’t convert.”

In the first half, North Texas built a 10 point lead going up 23-13 on a pair of Brandan Walton free throws.

ASU then went on a 10-0 run to tie the game at 23 when sophomore guard Kinley Ogbonnaya-Branch hit back-to-back three-pointers with 7:57 remain-ing in the half.

It was mostly a one-pos-session game through the rest of the half before a couple of quick baskets in the last minute gave the Mean Green a 36-30 lead at the half.

Peterson had 10 first half points to lead the Red

Wolves and eight first half rebounds.

In the second half, North Texas stretched its lead to 21 at one point, but the Red Wolves went on a 9-0 run in the final minutes to close that gap to 12.

ASU shot 37.7 percent (23-61) from the floor and connected on 6-16 from three point range.

The Mean Green were 50 percent (27-54) from the field and hit 7-13 from three. Tony Mitchell led North Texas with 21 points and 15 rebounds.

The Mean Green out-scored ASU in the paint 34-28 and edged them out in the rebounding battle 35-34.

The Red Wolves re-turn to action on Thursday when they host ULM at 8 p.m. at the ASU Convoca-tion Center.

The game will be fea-tured as a Sun Belt game of the week and will be car-ried live on CSS and CST.

Benton BajorekStaff Writer

The Red Wolf Indoor track and field team par-ticipated in the ASU Invi-tational this weekend at the Convocation Center.

Sophomore William Oli-ver broke the school record for the heptathlon with a score of 5423.

The heptathlon consists of seven separate events: the pole vault, the 55-me-ter dash, 55-meter hur-dle, long jump,1,000 meter run, shot put and the half jump.

The old record of 5,193 was set in 2007 by current ASU assistant coach Matt Vining.

“I feel great about my performance, it’s very sel-dom that a multieventer can set a personal best in all seven of the heptathlo-nevent,” Oliver said.

“Now I’m ready to get back to work so I can im-prove even more, because although I’m pleased with my performance, I’m not satisfied. I want to be the best.”

Oliver won four of the seven events in route to claiming the new record.

“What Will did was sim-ply amazing,” ASU track and field coach Jim Patch-ell said.

While Patchell was proud of Oliver, he was equally impressed with the performance of his team as a whole.

“We had some bright spots,” Patchell said. “Overall, I’m satisfied.”

Junior Ethan Turpen

placed second in the hep-tathlon and etched his name in the school record book with a score of 5,180, the third best score in ASU Indoor track and field his-tory.

Solomon Williams fin-ished first in the men’s 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.57 and leaped to second in the men’s triple jump with a 14.69 meter jump.

Sharika Nelvis finished first in the Women’s 55- Meter hurtles with a time of 7.81 and placed second in the Women’s 55-Meter Dash with a time of 7.00.

Stephanie Foreman soared in the women’s pole vault to a second place with a height of 4.05 me-ters.

In the men’s weight throw, Richard Chavez took first place with a throw of 17.55 meters while ASU team mate, Chris Nicasio, took second (16.91).

Julia Agawu took first place in the women’s weight throw with a whop-ping 17.88 meters.

Lakeitha Minter leaped into first place in the wom-en’s high jump with a height of 1.64 meters.

Kristina Aubert, Kelsey Bean, Samantha Sali-nas, and Chelsea Weav-er clenched first place for ASU in the women’s dis-tance medley with a time of 12:88.88.

Kristina Aubert clenched first place in the women’s mile run in 5:09.37, while team mate, Rexi Parcells, finished third (5:19.13).

Samantha Salinas fin-ished the women’s 5,000 -meter run in 17:46.80, placing second and was followed by Weaver, who placed third (18.16.73).

ASU hits the track next weekend in Champaign, Ill. for the Illinois Blue and Gold Invite at the Univer-sity of Illinois.

Chelsea Weaver/Herald PhotographerWilliam Oliver competes in the heptathlon at the Convocation

Center, where he finished first in four of the seven events and earned his personal best in all seven.

Red Wolves fall at North Texas 76-64Peterson earns third double-double of season

Oliver shatters ASU heptathlon recordASU places first in seven events during weekend meet

Daniel McFadinSports Editor

The accomplishments of the 2011 football season are continuing to pay off for Red Wolves of the future.

With National Signing Day just two days away, Gus Malzahn is set to sign at least 25 new players for the 2012 recruiting class.

Covering eight states, ASU will be signing re-cruits from both high school and junior colleges, result-ing in Arkansas State’s best recruitnig class in re-cent memory.

As of Sunday night, ASU’s recruiting class ranks No. 79 in the nation, ahead of Big 12 schools Kansas State (86) and Kansas (97) and in front of Northern Illinois (95), Lou-isiana Tech (99) and long-time rival Memphis (83).

ASU has the best class in the Sun Belt Conference,

which ranks No. 11 among the 12 Football Bowl Sub-division conferences with the WAC conference plac-ing dead last.

Before this year, ASU had never signed more than three 3-star athaletes in any season. Now, accord-ing to Scout.com, Arkansas State will sign at least six on Wednesday.

Among them is run-ning back Kendrick Dan-iels (Sulphur Springs,TX), who committed to ASU while Hugh Freeze was still head coach, and decid-ed to keep his commitment when running backs coach David Gunn was retained by Malzahn.

Also on offense is quar-terback Jalen Whitlow (Prattville, Ala.) and two star QB Fredi Knighten (Pulaski Academy), who was named the 2011-12 Gatorade Arkansas Foot-ball Player of the Year.

The remaining three-star recruits are defen-sive tackle Dexter Black-mon (Coffeyville, Kan.), of-fensive tackle Jemar Clark (McCrory High School), cornerback Marquis Walk-er (Rison High School) and Middle Linebacker Eddie Porter, who is one of three recruits coming from Blinn College in Brenham, Tex-as.

These recruits and more constitute ASU’s best re-cruiting class since the school ranked No. 82 in 2007.

The class will be intro-duced Wednesday night during a recruiting round up in Riceland Hall at the Fowler Center.

Doors open for the event at 4:30 p.m., with food be-ing served at 5:15 and cere-monies scheduled to 5:30.

Tickets are priced at $10 in advance and $15 at the door.

NEW MEMBERS OF THE PACK

Zach LottStaff Writer

The Arkansas State women’s tennis team de-feated Tennessee-Mar-tin 6-1 in a strong start to their 2012 campaign Sun-day afternoon..

ASU captured two of three doubles matches, with only Janie Nowland and Tamara Slijepcevic faltering as they lost to UTM’s Jodie Tiley and Jo-hanie Van Zyl 8-2.

Mahuiyang Rong and Ioana Teu combined to de-feat Alice Laing and Anna Marie Herbold 9-7, while Ceara Howey and Bilja-na Miloshevska won 8-6 to edge out Ivon Simic and Katie McCall.

In singles play, the Red Wolves were victorious in all but one match, when Van Zyl dropped her first set to Miloshevska 4-6, be-fore springing back with a 6-1 win during the subse-quent set and a 10-7 victo-ry in the tiebreaker.

Rong defeated Tiley 6-3, 6-1, while Slijepcevic dis-patched Simic 6-1, 6-1, Nowland beat Herbold 6-1, 6-4, Howey subdued Mc-Call 6-2, 6-1, and Teu best-ed Silva 7-6, 3-6, (10-7).

“We played great sin-gles. I think that was real-ly good,” said ASU tennis coach Marina Engelbrecht.

“I mean, it’s always kind of nerve-wracking when you play your first match, to get out there and put things that you’ve prac-

ticed in a match. So, it was good to see that working… it was good to get a win.”

When asked about her expectations for this spring, Engelbrecht laid out specif-ic objectives for the team.

“Our goal is that we’d like to be in the top four of

the conference. We’d love to get in the top 75 in the country,” she said.

With that in mind, the Red Wolves will head west this weekend for a Feb. 4 date with Colorado State followed by a match versus Denver the following day.

Chelsea Weaver/Herald PhotographerIoana Teu prepares to return a volley during a match Sunday at Allen

Park. Teu won a doubles match with Mahuiyang Rong against Anna Marie Herbold and Alice Laing of Tennessee Martin 9-7.

Abdullah Raslan/Herald Photo Editor