Free Republic

For a few unforgettable days in 1941, it seemed fate had plans for Larry Munson that had nothing to do with the Georgia Bulldogs. After all, once you’ve shared the stage with Frank Sinatra, it’s hard to dream of night games in Starkville, Miss. As a high school senior in Minneapolis, Munson was, by his own account, a “decent” piano player who loved jazz. He was in class when the phone call came. The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, in town and scheduled to play 28 shows over the next week, had lost its regular piano player to illness. “I had no...

Cynthia Tucker, one of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s highest-profile columnists for more than 20 years, is leaving the AJC to become a visiting professor at the University of Georgia’s journalism school. Tucker, who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007, assumes her new role Aug. 12, the AJC and UGA announced Wednesday. They said her position at UGA will be part of a partnership between the AJC and the university’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Tucker, 56, was editorial page editor of AJC from 2001 to 2009, when she moved to Washington as a political columnist in a...

UGA 5-star football recruit Ray Drew and The Charlie Daniels Band 6:00 am April 25, 2011, by Michael Carvell UGA-bound football recruit Ray Drew (yellow shirt) and his younger brother with county music Charlie Daniels (Photo courtesy of Drew family) UGA-bound football recruit Ray Drew (far right, yellow shirt) and his younger brother with country music legend Charlie Daniels (Photo courtesy of Drew family) Ray Drew, UGA’s 5-star football recruit, recently had the opportunity to meet one of his all-time favorite country music singers. The 6-foot-5, 260-pound defensive end from Thomas County Central and his younger brother went to go...

ATLANTA — The University of Georgia won a national title this year — top party school. The Princeton Review announced Monday that Georgia is the No. 1 party school on its now infamous annual ranking. The school of about 30,000 students has been on the list 10 times since the ranking was created in 1992, but this is the first time the university has taken the top spot. For the campus — surrounded by nearly 100 bars in tiny downtown Athens — parties are just part of life from August to May each year. Many students gear up for the...

Damon Evans is out as athletic director at the University of Georgia, WSB-TV Sports Director Zach Klein is reporting. The official announcement will come Monday, according to the report. Klein, citing a source close to UGA's athletic department, reports that UGA President Michael Adams asked for and received Evans' resignation. Evans, 40, was arrested on a DUI charge after a traffic stop late Wednesday night in Atlanta. Evans refused a breathalyzer test and spent the night in the city jail. Courtney Fuhrmann, 28, who was in the car with Evans, was arrested for disorderly conduct. A married father of two,...

The sudden death of beloved Georgia mascot Uga VII to an apparent heart attack last week opened the floodgates to an outpouring of goodwill for one of the shorter-lived (and least successful, frankly, in terms of the team's on-field performance) reigns in Uga history, including a private memorial service and burial in Sanford Stadium before last Saturday's sobering loss to Kentucky. It also opened up a window for the capable opportunists at PETA, who suggested the Bulldogs forego the eighth in a line of mascots from a family of English bulldogs and turn instead to our old friend, technology, in...

ATHENS -- To the Bulldog Nation, the Uga mascot is royalty, the lineage anointed to represent the University of Georgia. But to the Seiler family, the English bulldogs are family pets. That is sadly evident at times such as these. In only his second season as Georgia's mascot, Uga VII has passed away. Uga VII passed away suddenly Thursday morning at his home in Savannah. At 4 years old, he was practically a pup and had served as Georgia's mascot for not even two full football seasons when he unexpectedly succumbed to heart problems.

A professor wanted for killing his wife and two other people at a community theater two weeks ago was found dead in the north Georgia woods Saturday, his body covered in brush and dirt, officials said. Two guns were found with the body of marketing professor George Zinkhan, who vanished after the April 25 shootings near the University of Georgia, said Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Joseph Lumpkin. The guns matched those described by witnesses to the shootings, though police did not say how they believe Zinkhan died. Authorities hoped to have a cause of death by the end of Saturday....

Fugitive murder suspect George Martin Zinkhan III dug his own grave and covered himself with debris before firing a single bullet into his head, investigators said Saturday. “A person not accustomed to the woods would not have found it,” Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Jack Lumpkin said. “The body was beneath the earth… The body was purposely concealed in a manner not to be discovered.” Searchers found two handguns in the grave. Zinkhan’s well-hidden body was discovered Saturday by cadaver dogs — an Australian shepherd and a German shepherd — at 9:50 a.m. Saturday. The civilian Alpha Search and Rescue Team...

Officials Believe George Zinkhan Is Carrying Multiple Weapons University of Georgia George M. Zinkhan III was being sought by police on April 25, 2009, in connection with the fatal shooting of 3 people in at a theater in Athens, Ga. Three people were killed Saturday at a community theater near the University of Georgia, and authorities were searching for a marketing professor in the shooting deaths, reports CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta. Athens-Clarke County Police Maj. Mike Shockley said authorities were called to the theater about a couple of miles from campus about 12:30 p.m. and found three adults slain...

A manhunt is on in Athens for a University of Georgia professor accused of shooting and killing three people. Police are looking for George M. Zinkhan III, a professor in the Department of Marketing and Distribution. George M. Zinkhan Two blocks were secured in Athens after the shootings.He is a 57-year-old white male, last seen wearing a polo shirt and blue shorts, according to the UGA web site. He may be traveling in a red car. The shooting happened late this morning at or near the Athens Community Theatre off Prince Avenue near downtown. Clarke County coroner Sonny Wilson confirmed...

Police hunt University of Georgia professor in shooting deaths (CNN) -- Police are looking for a University of Georgia professor in the shooting deaths of three people on Saturday, authorities tell CNN. An alert on the UGA Web site says professor George Zinkhan is a suspect in an off-campus shooting. Sonny Wilson, Athens-Clarke County coroner, confirmed three people were dead, but couldn't provide identities. UGA is in Athens, but university spokesman Pete Konenkamp said the shootings did not happen on campus. Information about the shooting was disseminated through a campus-wide alert, which identified professor George Zinkhan as a shooting suspect....

Enlarge ImageDouble duty. This protozoan encodes two amino acids with one codon.Credit: Lawrence Klobutcher Call it the genetic version of a double-entendre. Scientific dogma dictates that various three-letter combinations of our genetic sequence each "mean" exactly one thing--each codes for a particular amino acid, the building block of proteins. But a protozoan named Euplotes crassus appears to be more versatile: One of its three-letter combinations has two meanings, coding for two different amino acids. Although the find may seem trivial, it poses a major challenge to more than 4 decades of scientific thinking. It's a long road from gene...

<p>ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - High expectations for Georgia were overshadowed by off-field troubles as the Bulldogs held their first practice Monday.</p> <p>Coach Mark Richt fielded questions from reporters for about 45 minutes, most of them about players being arrested, dismissed or suspended since Georgia finished last season with a dominant victory over Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl.</p>

Controversies Crop Up Around Commencement Speaker Selections by Jamal Watson May 5, 2008, 22:24 Earlier this year, NAACP chairman Julian Bond journeyed to the U.S. Supreme Court to interview Justice Clarence Thomas. The event was somewhat historic, in part because Bond — a staunch supporter of affirmative action and other social programs — has long been a critic of the policies and positions espoused by Thomas. But now, both of these historic figures in Black history are the subjects of much scrutiny as they prepare to deliver commencement speeches this month at two East Coast universities. A group of conservative...

BCS' snub of Dogs spurs House to call for playoffs Lawmakers take handoff from Adams ATLANTA - Georgia lawmakers briefly turned aside from issues like the drought, gun control and transportation Friday to voice their displeasure with college football's Bowl Championship Series system. The state House - a known hangout of some prominent football fans - voted 151-9 Friday to urge the NCAA to create a playoff system for college football, adopting a resolution that calls the current system "dysfunctional." There was no debate. "The only major sporting event without a playoff system to identify its true champion that I...

ATHENS, Ga. -- The president of the University of Georgia proposed an eight-team playoff system to determine the NCAA's national football champion. Michael Adams, chairman of the NCAA executive committee, has opposed a playoff for 20 years but said Tuesday the current BCS system is "undercutting the sportsmanship and integrity of the game." Adams wants the NCAA to seed eight teams into the four bowls. If one of the major bowls declines to participate, then another bowl could fill the void. "I believe the season is already too long and demands too much of athletes and the universities that serve...

Syndicated talk radio host Neal Boortz is backing Mike Huckabee and Bill Richardson in the 2008 presidential race, he told fans Monday at the University of Georgia. Although Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is more conservative than the self-described libertarian Boortz, he said Huckabee is the only candidate who supports replacing income and other taxes with a national sales tax. Boortz didn't say why he likes former New Mexico governor Richardson among Democrats. The Atlanta pundit broke little new ground speaking to a crowd of more than 500 at the Tate Student Center, riffing on a variety of favorite...

Vote (Freep) your picks of Virtual College Football Play-off!Click to Go Vote

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Fans who have had their fill of beer at the University of Georgia's homecoming football game on Saturday be warned — no flushing allowed. Earlier this week, crews put up signs in bathrooms asking people not to flush "if it's yellow" and to leave the handle-pulling to attendants, who will do the job for the estimated 93,000 people at Saturday's game. It's part of the university's "Every Drop Counts" water conservation effort in the drought that's struck Georgia and much of the Southeast. The university is considering replacing all of the stadium's old toilets, which use...