Published September 30, 2004, in issue 0339 of The Hook

Worst hurricane: Jeanne really is the worst, at least as far as Florida, still recovering from Frances, and Haiti, with thousands of dead or missing, are concerned.

Biggest Cav Daily dustup: The paper feels the heat for taking two weeks to report an alleged September 8 incident when a racial epithet defaced fourth year Lawn resident Amey Adkins' car.

Biggest brouhaha: MADD president Andrew Torget's September 21 letter to the Daily Progress warning motorists to stay off the roads around Foxfield during the September 26 race spurs Foxfield president Benjamin Dick to fire off a letter to MADD's national president asking the local chapter's charter be revoked.

Shortest brouhaha: By September 22, Dick and Torget pledge to work together to prevent drunk driving.

Biggest disparity: The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service puts Charlottesville in Virginia's top five locales of richest and poorest in 2002. The same report shows married couples losing ground because of inflation with a median $57,924 income.

Most controversial use of 911: Republican City Council candidate Ann Reinicke draws heat for using the emergency telephone system's database to invite residents to hearings on the ward system, John Yellig reports in the Progress.

Less than life sentencing: Robert Paul Davis, who pleaded guilty to the February 19, 2003, murder of his neighbor, Nola Charles, and her three-year-old son in their Cling Lane home, gets 23 years in a plea bargain, Liesel Nowak reports in the Progress. Still to be tried: Rocky Fugett and his sister, Jessica Fugett, who was 15 at the time of the murders and attended school with Charles' daughters.

Most delayed sentencing: Fugitive FUMA spanker Gregory Moyer, who jumped bond and fled to Mexico three years ago, is extradited to Fluvanna and sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

Least like Mayberry: Gordonsville fires its police chief, Terry Duty, September 21. Orange police Chief Mark Tharp is asked to resign September 11. And Louisa hires its number-two cop, Stan Batten, as chief, following the conviction for assault and battery of its last chief, John Wilson.

Most optimistic study: UVA prof Robert Abbott finds that elderly men who walk more than two miles a day have a lower incidence of dementia and Alzheimer's.

Biggest checks: Daniel M. Meyers donates $22 million to UVA's Curry School of Education, and Microsoft pledges $3 million to a Curry/Darden partnership to help struggling schools.

Best climb: Darden pulls ahead of Duke, Berkeley, and Harvard to take 12th place in the Wall Street Journal's ranking of business schools.

Somber sign: The UVA carillon tolls to announce the September 21 death of former UVA president Frank Hereford, 81, who served from 1974 to 1985-- and was a member of the Seven Society.

Tragic month for college drinkers: A Virginia Tech engineering student, Thomas Ryan Hauser, 23, is found dead early September 19. Samantha Spady dies in a Colorado State fraternity house September 5 with a blood-alcohol level of 0.43 percent, five times the legal driving limit.

Worst dis to a "Peace Train" singer: U.S. authorities divert the Washington-bound flight of singer Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) to Bangor, Maine, September 21, and send him back to Europe the next day because he's on a no-fly list.

Worst loss of a sexploitation icon: Russ Meyer, director of Vixen, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, dies September 18 at age 82.

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