(AP, 11/4/08, HERO!)

Man, 73, scores 2 points in

college hoops game

 

In a photo provided by Roane State Community College, Ken Mink, 73, prepares to AP – In a photo provided by Roane State Community College, Ken Mink, 73, prepares to shoot a free throw for …
 
HARRIMAN, Tenn. – Ken Mink, a 73-year-old full-time student, scored two points Monday night in Roane State Community College’s 93-42 victory over King College’s junior varsity. Mink entered the game with about 16 minutes left in the second half and attempted one shot in about three minutes. Seven minutes later, he went back in the game, was fouled and made two free throws.
 
“I found myself on the free-throw line 52 years after my last college game,” Mink said. “I said, ‘Just relax and shoot it like you know how to all day long.’ I just floated the shots in there. I’m in the books now. I can relax a little bit.”
 
Mink, of Knoxville, last played college basketball 52 years ago at Lees College in Jackson, Ky. After someone soaped the basketball coach’s office, he lost his spot on the team and was expelled. Mink still says he didn’t do it.
 
Last year, after shooting baskets at a neighbor’s house, he wrote to several area colleges, and Roane State coach Randy Nesbit agreed to give him a chance. Mink has practiced regularly with the team since school began in August.

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(AP, 11/4/08, HEROINE!)

DETERMINED TEXAS WOMAN, 92, VOTES IN AMBULANCE

SAN ANTONIO, Texas  –  Betty Owen is 92 and after a stroke four years ago, needs a feeding tube and can’t walk.  But she was determined not to miss Tuesday’s election.   She arrive at her polling place on a gurney in an ambulance, where an election judge and support worker climbed aboard with an electronic voting machine and let her cast her ballot.

“And you have voted,” precinct judge Sam Green said after Owen pushed the red button finalizing her choices.  “You know, you look so pretty in that red dress.”

Owen grinned, the San Antonio Express-News reported in Tuesday’s online edition.

Her daughter arranged for the ambulance ride at the last minute after Owen failed to get an absentee ballot.

Owen, a Marine Corps verteran who served in World War II, cast her first ballot for Wendell Willkie, a Republican running against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.  She became a Democrat after voting for John Kennedy in 1960. 

She cast a straight Democratic ballot Tuesday.

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(AP, 11/4/08, ZERO!)

ARK. WOMAN ARRESTED FOR HUFFING ASKS FOR CAN BACK

FORREST CITY, Arkansas  –  Police arrested a woman for public intoxication after she reportedly demanded an officer return the can of compressed air she was inhaling “so she could finish getting high.”

Officers arrested the 46-year-old woman on Monday after oficers received a call about a woman “huffing a can of air” inside a car parked at a Wal-Mart store.  Police say the woman was slow to react to questions from officers.

When the officer again asked her what she was doing, he said “she wouldn’t say anything except that she wanted her can back so she could finsh getting hig,” according to police.

The woman was booked on the charge and later released.

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(AP, 11/4/08, HERO!)

TEXAS CASHIER TELLS THIEF:  SHOOT ME OR LEAVE

FORT WORTH,  Texas  –  Fort Worth police are looking for a suspect after a holdup man ran up against an uncooperative convenience store clerk in an overnight robbery try.  Police spokesman Lt. Paul Henderson said the man walked into a 7-Eleven in west Fort Worth about 3.20 a.m. Monday and demanded the case from the clerk’s register.

According to Henderson, the clerk answered, “No.  Either shoot me or leave my store.”

Henderson said the man cursed at the 30-year-old clerk and left on foot.  Detectives are checking the store’s security cameras for images of the suspect.

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(AP,  11/6/08, ZERO!)

Car impounded after dog drives

away from car wash

PRYOR, Okla. – A dog waiting in a car while at a car wash slipped the vehicle into gear and drove in a loop before the car came to a stop. Pryor police officer Brent Crittenden said the dog’s owner was washing the vehicle when the 70-pound pit bull jumped on the dash and somehow shifted the car into reverse.

The car backed out of the car wash bay, continued onto a highway and then looped around before coming to a stop at an automated car wash lane.

Crittenden said the vehicle was impounded because its owner was unable to provide proof of insurance.

Because the dog was registered with the city, Crittenden said the owner was allowed to walk the pooch home.