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NEWSWATCH

 
Published Nov. 7, 1997|Updated Oct. 2, 2005

Who better to do a little serving?

The Clarke (Iowa) College volleyball team recently was staying in a hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., when a storm dumped 22 inches of snow on the area. The hotel said it wouldn't be able to open its restaurant because workers weren't able to make it through the storm. So the team took over as cooks, waitresses, cashiers and front desk staff. Coach Lon Boike was the busboy. The 21-player team, already finished with its games against Colorado College, received a free night's stay for its work.

At least he wasn't fired from the cafeteria.

The Western Michigan University campus in Kalamazoo was a little less flowery than usual this year -- and the former school grounds supervisor has been arrested. Richard DeRoo, 52, has pleaded innocent to poisoning flower beds across the campus, as well as at the university president's home. About one-third of the school's beds were poisoned with a herbicide, causing damage estimated at $14,000.

Hey, kid, what are you trying to pull?

A wedgie is causing a bunch of problems at a Waukesha, Wis., middle school. Five boys accused of yanking and tearing another boy's underwear are scheduled to appear in juvenile court Wednesday. Although they have apologized, the boys, 12 and 13, could be fined $140 each.

To Ana: Stay sweet! Keep in touch!

Eighty-six years after quitting school to take a job in a silent-movie theater, Ana Molina Osorio of San Juan, Puerto Rico, became a high school graduate last month at the age of 102. The great-great-grandmother, who hid in a shack a century ago when the United States invaded her homeland, said she wanted her diploma so she could work at a local preschool.

Dihydrogen monoxide on the brain.

Dihydrogen monoxide causes thousands of drownings each year, leads to excessive sweating and vomiting and contributes to land erosion. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Fifteen-year-old Nathan Zohner of Idaho Falls, Idaho, made people aware of that fact by proving in his science project on critical thinking skills just how vulnerable people are.

Newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, universities, even members of Idaho's Congressional delegation have been calling Nathan in recent weeks to talk about the project that won the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair.

The project asked 50 ninth-graders whether the compound called dihydrogen monoxide should be banned. Forty-three said yes; six were undecided. Only one person was able to tell Nathan what dihydrogen monoxide is.

Water.

It was his bail bondsman calling.

Three men took a maintenance worker and a bystander hostage last week while trying to rob a Los Angeles restaurant. When police arrived, one alleged robber was arrested, but the other two were gone. While searching the restaurant, officers found a passageway to a flower shop next door. As they peered inside, the pager of one of the suspects went off. Police followed the sound and arrested the men, who were hiding in a crawl space.

In the sequel, she fights Godzilla.

If an animated film about medieval Japan's struggle between the environment and industry sounds a little dull to you, that's not the way the people in Japan see it. Last week, the film became the highest-grossing movie in Japan. The Princess Mononoke, the story of a young girl brought up by wolves and their fight against man's encroachment on nature, has grossed $80-million since its release July 12, overtaking the record previously held by Steven Spielberg's E.T.

_ Compiled from wire reports