What do a stilt walker, a business school dean, a tightly held alligator, a spirit of free enterprise award, a dancing Shamu and a 7-man marching band playing James Brown's "I Got You" (I Feel Good) have in common? They were all present at USF Tampa's College of Business campus at noon today. As USF students stopped to gawk (and take cell-phone photos), the business school anointed Busch Entertainment Corp., a unit of Anheuser-Busch and parent of the Busch Gardens and Sea World theme parks, with its 25th "Celebration of Free Enterprise Award." Both Busch Entertainment chief Jim Atchison (who was absent) and Tampa's Busch Gardens chief Donnie Mills (who attended with his entertainment back-up) are USF College of Business graduates.

Afterward, a group of USF's business advisory committee met and listened (last night was the third and final presidential debate) to USF political science professor Susan MacManus dish about the election. She said, to nodding heads of approval from bankers and others area business managers in the audience, that she urges her poli-sci students to take plenty of business courses -- if they really want to understand what's going on these days.

-- Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist