Brown and White Vol. 113 No. 8

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 113 no 8 friday september 30 2005 all the lehigh news first 1 ranger challenge competitors selected by emily schulman news writer ten rotc students were selected on saturday at lehigh's best ranger competi tion to represent lehigh in the rotc ranger challenge com petition to be held oct 22 and 23 at fort indiantown gap in annville pa teams from rotc pro grams at more than 20 univer sities in pennsylvania new jersey and new york will com pete at the fort indiantown gap ranger challenge in nine different events schools with teams competing include bucknell university princeton university pennsylvania state university and university of pittsburgh lehigh has placed first sec ond or third at this ranger challenge competition every year for the past 16 years major robert haldeman explained the importance of the ranger challenge and best ranger competition to rotc members this is their super bowl haldeman said the 10 team members were selected from 16 students in the rotc program who com peted in saturday's best ranger competition at stabler arena according to the challenge rules at least one of the team members must be a female the students who made the team are ryan karasow 06 luke james 06 drew gomer 06 dan nigro 07 mike berdela 07 chris heinen 08 clint robins 09 alex nickles 09 peter hutchinson 09 and christine hannon 09 nigro is the team sergeant sofiya nukalo and mike tier were selected as alternates james was the overall win ner of the competition heinen placed second and berdela placed third gomer said winning first place would be a major accomplishment for the team if we win this year it would be huge because we haven't won in four years he said gomer said he thinks the lehigh team has a good chance of winning this year we have the most team cohesion we have ever had and it could make the differ ence gomer said master sergeant luis pino said there is pressure to win because of lehigh's legacy at the competition it means a lot to lehigh if we win because it is expected pino said rotc members competed in five of the nine challenge events at the best ranger competition the competition began with the army physical fitness test which includes two min utes of push-ups two minutes of sit-ups and a two-mile run the rotc members also participated in a hand grenade assault course judged by time and accuracy and a weapons competition that involves assembling and disas sembling a weapon best ranger competitors also completed a 30-question written patrolling exam which was followed by the ruck march this march was three miles long for the best ranger competition but will be six miles long at the actual ranger challenge the four additional events at the ranger challenge are the rope bridge orienteering and navigation challenge mil itary operations on urbanized terrain and an obstacle course team members train from 5:30 to 7 a.m monday through friday for the physi cal fitness test and ruck walk they also do technical train ing for two to three hours on thursday afternoons b&w photo courtesy of rotc ryan karasow competes in the physical fitness test at lehigh's best ranger competition on saturday he was one of 10 rotc members selected to represent lehigh at the ranger challenge competition ader aids in new orleans b&w photo courtesy of mike ader mike ader 07 left and a fellow firefighter assess the damage to a house that was transported by the hurricane see story page 5 dry frats worry greeks by devon giddon news writer alpha sigma phi's removal from campus and the presence of three dry fraternities on the hill have caused concern among greeks that the hill's social scene and recruitment could suffer in the future as a result of a hearing last semester alpha sig was the only dry house sanctioned by lehigh assistant dean of students christopher mulvihill said with recent action by alpha sig's national office to put the lehigh chapter on administrative suspension there are currently no dry houses by lehigh's mandate there are other entities however that can force a fraternity to go dry theta chi phi gamma delta and kappa sigma fraternities have been made dry by their national offices not by lehigh it is a strong sanction and usually only imposed when a chapter has had a significant his tory of conduct violations or has one particularly bad violation mulvihill said nationals can issue an alcohol waiver to a chapter and fiji had an alcohol waiver in the past fiji's alcohol waiver was revoked for failure to meet gpa requirements last year as a result the fraternity is focusing on improving grades this semester theta chi national established a requirement for alcohol-free chapter houses in 2003 because a dry chapter is not permitted to have alcohol any where in the house some fraterni ty members say being dry can be extremely detrimental to a chap ter's social life recruitment and morale mark trainor 07 was a mem ber of alpha sig and said being dry severely affected the brothers see dry on hill page 2 sports 10-12 news 1-4 golf 12 management women's soccer 12 training 3 football 12