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Q: What ever happened to the Rev. John H. Cross, who was pastor of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. when a bomb exploded and killed four little girls?
A: The Rev. John H. Cross Jr. died last November at the age of 82. Cross had been a Decatur, Ga. resident since 1972 and had been in failing health after suffering a series of strokes.
Cross was pastor at the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1962 when a bomb went off minutes before the Sunday service, killing four young girls. In 1968, Cross became director of the Baptist Student Center at Alabama State University.
He moved to Decatur in 1972 to become associate pastor of Oakhurst Baptist Church. In 1977, he was named the black church relations director for the Atlanta Baptist Association, a post he held until he retired in 1989.
Q: How and when was the bulldog chosen as the mascot of the University of Georgia?
A: One theory cites the university's strong ties with Yale, whose nickname is also the Bulldogs. Georgia's first president, Abraham Baldwin, was a Yale man and the early buildings on campus were designed from blueprints of Yale's buildings.
In the first press mention of UGA bulldogs, in 1901, The Atlanta Constitution reported that Georgia rooters at an Auburn game wore "Eat 'em Georgia" badges with a bulldog chewing an orange and blue cloth. In 1938, a bulldog was crowned during homecoming to become UGA's official mascot.
Q: With news of Lance Armstrong coming out of retirement, have there ever been independent racers in the Armstrong specialty, the Tour de France, or must he race as a team member?
A: It's been a team race from the start when Maurice Garin of team La Française won in 1903. In fact Armstrong had trouble finding a team for his first comeback from cancer, in 1999. Armstrong's agent, Bill Stapleton, was turned down by 25 teams before the future Tour superstar signed with the one sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service.
Q: How did they get the blimp over to Beijing for the Olympics?
A: They didn't. The air space over Beijing during the Olympics was restricted, grounding the blimp. As an official sponsor of NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., had its familiar blimp logo appear on TV screens during aerial shots. But the aerial images were provided not by Goodyear's blimp, but by Chinese crews in locally based aircraft
Q: News reports said that former Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick makes 12 cents an hour working in prison. What is his job?
A: The Feds can't disclose what specific job assignment Vick or any other inmate may have. All sentenced inmates are required to work, with exceptions, and are assigned to a work detail based on institution need. Typical jobs include food service worker, orderly, plumber, painter, warehouse worker and groundskeeper.
On average, a workday is 7.5 hours, and inmates earn 12 to 40 cents per hour, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Vick pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges and is serving a 23-month sentence in Leavenworth, Kan. His scheduled release date is July 20, 2009.
Q: How did the college Wake Forest get its name?
A: Wake Forest University was founded after the North Carolina Baptist State Convention purchased a 600-acre plantation from Calvin Jones. Called the "Forest of Wake," the land was north of Raleigh in Wake County. The county was founded in 1771 and named for Margaret Wake, wife of William Tryon, royal governor of the British colony of North Carolina.
The school, designed to teach both Baptist ministers and laymen, opened in February 1834 as the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute in Wake Forest, N.C. Students and staff had to work half of each day on the plantation. In 1839, the school was renamed Wake Forest College, and the manual labor system was abandoned.
In 1956, the school moved to its present location in Winston-Salem, N.C. and became Wake Forest University in 1967.
Q: How many millionaires are there in Congress? Who are the top five?
A: Fifty-eight percent of the Senate and forty-four percent of the House of Representatives were millionaires in 2006, according to an analysis of the most recent year for which complete financial data are available by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. This compares with about one percent of all American adults. Senators had a median net worth of about $1.7 million. In the House of Representatives, the median net worth was about $675,000.
The top five are Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Vernon Buchanan (R-Fla.); and Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.). Financial statements for 2007 can be viewed as they're submitted at www.opensecrets.org/pfds/index.php.