Jennings rejected for FSU presidency
Former Ohio State president Edward Jennings was passed over for the presidency of Florida State University last month in favor of an FSU alumnus.
The vacancy left by current FSU president Talbot H. D’Alemberte will be filled by T.K. Wetherell, former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and president of Tallahassee Community College.
Jennings, who served as OSU’s president from 1981 to 1990 and as interim president before Karen A. Holbrook’s inauguration in October, was one of five candidates for the top spot at FSU, a Tallahassee school with 35,000 students.
VP crosses border to Michigan for job
Jerry May, Ohio State’s vice president for development, has accepted the top development job at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor beginning Feb. 1.
May has been the vice president for development since 1992. He was head of the Buckeyes’ record-breaking “Affirm Thy Friendship” campaign, the most ambitious campaign in the university’s history.
The campaign began in 1995 with a goal of $850 million, which was later increased to $1 billion. The campaign ended in 2000 with a total of $1.23 billion, making OSU one of only a handful of public universities to raise $1 billion or more during a single campaign.
May is originally from Michigan, where he spent 13 years before arriving in Columbus.
Another brush with the law for Cooper
Former Ohio State linebacker Marco Cooper is in trouble with the law … again.
Cooper, 20, was charged with cocaine possession on Dec. 16. Cocaine was found inside the car he was driving, which was stopped for a traffic violation.
Just a month earlier, Cooper was sentenced to five years’ probation, 100 hours of community service and a six-month driver’s license suspension for an April 27 arrest for drug possession and carrying a concealed weapon.
Cooper was suspended from the football team, but in a statement to The Lantern in November, Cooper’s attorney, Bill Meeks, said the former Iinebacker planned to return to school at Ohio State this spring.
Cooper’s probation hearing will be Wednesday.
Young fan dies before Fiesta Bowl
A 14-year-old Dublin boy died in a plane crash in Arizona Wednesday.
Bryan Antonick, an eighth-grader at Karrer Middle School, was killed when a twin-engine Beechcraft plane piloted by his second cousin, Leland Oliver, crashed at Ryan Airfield in Tuscon, Ariz., minutes after takeoff. The plane ride was intended to be a short sightseeing trip.
Oliver was taken to Tuscon Medical Center, and two other passengers were taken to University Medical Center. All three remain in critical condition.
Antonick and his family were visiting relatives in Tuscon before driving to Tempe to see the Buckeyes play in the Fiesta Bowl.
Big foam banana proves expensive
Ohio State has settled a lawsuit filed by a former University of Iowa mascot against the school for injuries she suffered when she was hit by an OSU band member with a foam banana in October 1999.
In the settlement, OSU agreed to pay $25,000 and court costs to former Herky the Hawkeye mascot Angela Anderson for being struck in the back of the head with a 3-foot foam banana.
The tentative agreement still must be approved by the Ohio Court of Claims.
