Published May 1, 2003, in issue #0217 of The Hook

Best addition to UVA coffers: Carl and Hunter Smith donate $23.5 million to UVA for a new performing arts center and marching band.

Worst casualty of the Smiths' largesse: The UVA Pep Band, which is not invited back to play at football games ever.

Best indication UVA really is a conservative place: It opts for the traditional (yawn) marching band in place of a hip scramble band.

Worst insult to injury: UVA's athletic department clandestinely changes the locks on the Pep Band's instrument room.

Worst reminder a serial rapist is still on the loose: A woman is attacked early April 26 at her home on Jefferson Park Avenue.

Worst case of putrid: Charlottesville housing authorities board up a house at 311 12th St. NE filled with rotting animal carcasses and feces.

Worst case of Trent Lott foot in the mouth: Number 3 Senate Republican Rick Santorum compares gay sex to bigamy, polygamy, or incest. [See Essay, page 79.]

Best candidate for General Assembly minority Dems: Senator Creigh Deeds announces he's running for reelection for the seat he won in a special election two years ago after the death of Emily Couric, and so far, no Republican challengers have come forward.

Best plea in a grisly murder: Guilty, which is offered by Jamie Poindexter for the 2001 stabbing murder of a UVA grad student, his neighbor Alison Meloy.

Worst time of year for Albemarle General District Court: Après Foxfield, when the docket is jammed with the misdemeanor cases, deputy commonwealth's attorney Steven Buck tells the Progress. This year, 200 summons were issued for alcohol-related violations.

Best question to ask Bob Woodward: Who was Deep Throat? Recently, a University of Illinois journalism professor and his class cap their four-year investigation by naming Fred Fielding, deputy counsel to former President Richard Nixon. For his part, Carl Bernstein, the other half of the famous team of Washington Post Watergate reporters, angrily denounces the search. Woodward speaks at the Miller Center Thursday, May 1.

Worst question to ask on Thursday: Hey Bob, what will you do with your share of the $5 million for selling your Watergate papers to the University of Texas at Austin? The dynamic duo had separately saved almost all notebooks, memos, and other papers-- enough to fill about 75 file-drawer-sized boxes.

Best investigative journalism in the Daily Progress: "Luxury getaway on the taxpayers' tab" about the annual meeting of county officials across the state at the posh Homestead comes courtesy of reporters at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is also owned by Media General.

Worst Toy Soldiers legacy: The 1991 movie filmed at the Miller School appears to be the inspiration for the spray-painting of "Rejects" on the school's welcome sign, surmises headmaster Lindsay Barnes in a Daily Progress article by Reed Williams.

Worst case of jogger rage: An angry runner, claiming he was nearly hit by a ball belonging to a golfer practicing his swing at Henley Middle School April 27, breaks all the golfer's clubs. Police are looking for the 40ish vandal, according to the Progress.

Best employment opportunities for horses and dogs: Sheriff Ed Robb spearheads the formation of a mounted patrol, and Albemarle County's two-dog canine unit is back from training camp and ready to sniff out reefer.

Worst news for first time buyers: Of the 377 new houses built in Charlottesville and Albemarle County in 2002, only seven were priced less than $175,000, according to the Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population.

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