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Living in a college town is an experience unlike any other. Really. It's hard to describe unless you experience it.
I've spent a good bit of time in Clemson, SC where everyone eats and drinks and breathes orange & purple. Where every other word out of someone's mouth is about Clemson University or how the Tigers are doing in whatever sports season it might be.
I spent a wonderful six years in Gainesville, Florida where folks felt exactly that way about the Gators and the University of Florida.
I've been to Athens, Georgia. I have a teen daughter who spent three years saying she wanted to attend the University of Georgia. Though she changed her mind about that, she does occasionally mention transferring to UGA. One little visit to Athens, when she was 12, left a big impression upon her. Part of her wants to be a Dawg.
When I checked my email after a brief attempt at a nap and saw email from BlogHer Contributing Editor, Mir Kamin, about a shooting in Athens - my heart stopped. Mir's husband is a professor at UGA. She lives in Athens, a truly excellent college town.
CNN reports that the shooting occurred off campus, which is good news but in a college town... it doesn't matter. Off campus, at a community theater is pretty much like on campus, particularly when a University of Georgia professor has been identified as the shooter.
Information about the shooting was disseminated through a campus-wide alert, which identified Prof. George Zinkhan as a shooting suspect. Zinkhan is a professor in the department of marketing and distribution at the Terry College of Business, according to the university Web site.
Names of the victims have not yet been released but there have been unofficial tweets that include the victims names. (And how disconcerting is it to see tweets about the draft and UGA's success there alongside tweets about the deaths of people in that community? It's a little too Twilight Zone-y for me.)
This update from Red and Black also provides the victims names, which include Maria Bruce, wife of the alleged shooter.
Athens and UGA are hosting the Twilight Criterium, a sports, music, and cycle fest that's brought thousands of people to town. It will be a more subdued Twilight than the organizers originally planned and my thoughts will be with them this evening and in the days ahead.
~~Denise
Flamingo House Happenings
