VOLUME 107 ISSUE 24 WWW.ALLIGATOR.ORG TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

Today

We Inform. You Decide.Not officially associated with the University of Florida Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville Youth Baseball’s parent-run board faces setbackThe youth league is now a nonprofi t league, pg 3. UF International Center to host Study Abroad FairThe fair will be held on the Reitz Union Colonnade, pg 8.

Offense Carrying Defense for Florida:Sophomore libero Taylor Unroe has been the bright spot for UF’s defense, which ranks near the bottom of the SEC in most categories, pg. 15.

Santa Fe College student fi nds, turns in missing

$2,655 she found in a park-ing lot. Read the story on

page 5.

CHRIS ALCANTARA and MICHAEL SCOTT DAVIDSONAlligator Writers

A small kitchen fi re on a stove led to students living in Beaty Towers being evacuated late Monday night.

Gainesville Fire Rescue De-partment, University Police and Alachua County Fire Rescue re-sponded to a call at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, said 19-year-old journalism junior Kaitlyn Pear-son.

Gainesville Fire Rescue Dis-trict Chief James Lovvorn said a stove fi re in Room 602, on the sixth fl oor of Beaty East, caused thick smoke to fi ll up the room.

Students in Beaty East and West towers were evacuated and waited outside on the dorm’s parking lot as fi refi ghters used electric fans to blow the smoke out of the building.

Lovvorn said the fl oor had about 100 parts per million of carbon monoxide, which is con-sidered dangerous in high levels.

Beaty residents were allowed back into the building at about

midnight, but sixth-fl oor residents had to wait for another 20 minutes to be allowed back onto the fl oor. One resident said when she opened her door inside Beaty East, she saw smoke in the hallway.

According to UF Housing and Residence Education’s website, up to 787 students live in Beaty Towers.

Jamillah Khan was about half a page into an essay when she heard the beeping of room 602’s smoke detector.

The 18-year-old health educa-tion and behavior major opened her door, only to be greeted by the sight of a solid basketball-sized fl ame above her stove.

It wasn’t the fi rst time the stove had turned on by itself.

On Sept. 17, the stove myste-riously turned on by itself and burnt a dishrag.

This time, she called to her roommate to get out of the dorm, and tried beating back the fl ames with a dishrag.

Her efforts were in vain, and a fl ame leapt back at her, singeing a

Late-night fi re in Beaty Towers leads to student evacuation

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CAMPUS

SEE FIRE, PAGE 4

CHRIS ALCANTARAAlligator Writer

Diego Aguilar led a small group of volunteers through a wooded area off Southwest 62nd Boulevard.

Sweat dripped down his face as he sliced through the undergrowth with a machete, calling out into the wilderness for his missing nephew.

Shouts of “Chris” and “Christian” echoed through the forest as volun-teers walked several yards apart, fi ghting their way through thick brush.

Diego Aguilar, 43, and the volun-teers were part of dozens of friends and family who searched the woods near Cabana Beach Apartments and

State Road 121 on Monday for Chris-tian Aguilar.

Christian Aguilar, an 18-year-old biomedical engineering freshman at UF, was reported missing Thursday night after he was dropped off in the 4900 block of Northwest 13th Street, police said.

Police identifi ed Pedro A. Bravo as a person of interest in the case and put him under medical examination as part of Florida’s Baker Act after he told offi cers Friday that he would hurt himself.

Gainesville Police spokesman Of-fi cer Ben Tobias said that during an interview with offi cers, Bravo, an

Search for missing UFstudent continues

� THE EVENT IS FROM NOON TO 5 P.M.

KORRIE FRANCISAlligator Contributing Writer

Registering to vote is not always a top priority for busy students balancing extracurriculars with classes and work.

“The process just takes so long that people give up,” said Hazal Ebinc, a 21-year-old criminology and law, and political science senior. She is the communications director of the Bob Graham Cen-ter Public Service Council. “Once you have that bad taste in your mouth, you can feel kind of hope-less.”

The Bob Graham Center for Public Service, with the help of other civic-minded students, is attempt-ing to change that today, National Voter Registra-tion Day. The center will host its Swing the State: Voter Registration Roundup event from noon to 5 p.m. at the Pugh Hall Ocora.

With the Oct. 9 registration deadline approach-ing, the event aims both to register students and to promote political awareness. A marathon of “The West Wing” will be shown on a big screen, and re-freshments will be provided.

TurboVote, an online voter registration service UF adopted this summer, will be available to get students registered quickly and easily.

Shelby Taylor, digital/communications direc-tor for the Graham Center, said TurboVote’s digital platform will make the voting process easier for students to understand.

According to TurboVote’s website, the service’s goal is to streamline the voting process by regis-tering people to vote or updating their voter regis-tration, getting absentee ballots and helping them vote by mail. It also sends reminders so people do not forget to vote.

“TurboVote kind of gets through all the red tape and does the hard work for you,” Taylor said.

She said she believes that strong partisanship has made many students disinterested in political participation.

“Young people are really turned off at the di-

Mass voter registration event today

SEE VOTE, PAGE 4

SEE ARREST, PAGE 4

“TurboVote kind of gets through all the red tape and does the hard work

for you.”Shelby Taylor

digital/communications director for the Graham Center