For December 4th
Tonight will bring the official kickoff for the holiday season as Santa rolls into downtown Bowling Green for the lighting of the square. Mayor Elaine Walker will flip the ceremonial switch for the lights at about 5:35 p.m. Until about 7:30 p.m., there will be music provided by WesternKentuckyUniversity’s Bella Voce, WKU’s Treble Makers and WKU’s Red Shirts and Bobby Baldwin on acoustic guitar. Free cookies, brownies and hot chocolate will be available to the first 500 people, thanks to the city.
Western KentuckyUniversity will host a vigil Friday for those affected by the recent violence in Mumbai, India. The vigil will be at 5 p.m. at the GuthrieTower on WKU’s main campus. A remembrance wall will be available inside MMTH for attendees to write comments and share thoughts.
The Bowling Green Purples put seven players on the SKY Conference first team when the awards were announced recently. The Greenwood Gators put a pair of players on the first team, while Warren East and Warren Central had one apiece on the first squad. Franklin-Simpson’s Courtney Dalcourt took the top spot among area quarterbacks, while MonroeCounty’s John Petett - who has led the Falcon’s into Friday’s Class 2A state semifinals - was named coach of the year.
Charlie Harris, a student in Western Kentucky University’s Nonprofit Administration (American Humanics) minor program, has been selected to receive a national “Next Generation” nonprofit internship award of $4,500. A panel of national nonprofit leaders selected Harris from among students at American Humanics affiliated colleges and universities nationwide.
An administrator with the Monroe County School District has been named interim superintendent. Liz Willett, director of assessment and instructional supervisor, was recently appointed by the Monroe County Board of Education to the post. She will begin her new duties on Dec. 20.
Online holiday spending was up 15 percent this year on Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving, compared to e-commerce shopping on that day last year. Tracking firm comScore says while shoppers racked up 846-million-dollars in online gift purchases on Cyber Monday, that type of spending so far this holiday season is down by two-percent as consumers wait for deals. The firm's chairman said "consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers' aggressive online discounts." He added that for the sake of retailers, "we hope their aggressive discounting has still left room for profits." According to comScore, Cyber Monday 2008 ranked as the second biggest online spending day on record, second only to the 881-million spent on Green Monday 2007. That's the retail world's designation for the second Monday in December.
The list of nominees for the 51st Annual Grammy Awards has been announced. Lil Wayne leads this years roster of contenders with eight Grammy nods including Album of the Year for "Tha Carter III." Coldplay has seven nominations including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for their hit single "Viva La Vida." The Grammy Awards show will air February 8th on CBS.
A California-based ethics group surveyed around 30-thousand high school students and found more than half cheat on tests. Sixty-four-percent admitted to cheating on tests, 42-percent lied to save money, 36-percent plagiarized and a whopping 93-percent still maintained they were satisfied with their personal ethics.
