SPORTS • PAGE 7
LIFE & ARTS • PAGE 5
All-Big 12 awards include 8 Sooners
Austin band to perform today
Senior defensive end Jeremy Beal and freshman defensive back Tony Jefferson honored as conference ddefensive players of the year by Big 12 coaches.
The Octopus Project brings its penchant for crazy costumes (shown right) to campus tonight. Read a Q&A with one of the members.
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OU could offer advanced law degree Million-dollar gift intended to fund degree specializations at OU College of Law HILLARY MCLAIN The Oklahoma Daily
OU may have the nation’s first Master of Law program with a focus on energy, natural resources and indigenous peoples if the State Board of Regents votes for
it Thursday, according to a press release. On Tuesday, the Stuart Family Foundation gave a $1.5 million gift for the program. The OU Board of Regents passed a resolution at its Tuesday meeting, naming it as an official program, OU President David Boren said. Because the top law schools offer Master of Law programs, this will establish OU’s place among the
top, Boren said. The news was met with a positive response from students. Courtney Griffin, third-year law student, said she is proud of the opportunities it will provide students. A Master of Law is an expansion on the graduate program pursued after a Juris Doctorate that allows students to focus on a more specific law degree. “A [Master of Law] is a vital part
of a lawyers education, it will help all of us become better lawyers,” said John B. Turner, Tulsa lawyer and the program’s namesake. The program, if approved, will be called the John B. Turner Master of Laws Program. A portion of $1 million of the gift from OU Regent James Stuart and his wife Dee Dee will create the program chair, attracting a specialist to head the program, according
Freshmen share dorm room, name Lifelong friends’ compatibility extends to first, last names JOSEPH TRUESDELL The Oklahoma Daily
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f one is walking down the third floor of Tarman Tower in Adams Center and looks into one of the dorm rooms, one may see two friends: One playing the guitar, the other playing on the computer. Just normal best friends who also happen to share the same first and last names. University College freshmen Joshua “Josh” Henderson and Joshua “Dillon” Henderson have known each other since childhood. After 13 years of attending school together, they both came to OU and decided to room together. “We’ve known each other since day care when we were probably 5 years old. When we met, I knew him as Dillon. We found out we had the same name later on,” Josh Henderson said. The similarities between the two don’t end with sharing a name and a room; both grew up in Talala, Okla., attended the same day care and after becoming friends at day care, realized how close they lived to one another. “We lived about three miles from each other,” Dillon Henderson said. Both rode four-wheelers and played soccer while at high school in the Oologah-Talala public schools. They graduated from high school together in 2010. Now in college, the two are finished with their soccer days and have new hobbies. Josh plays in a band named “Third Not All” and Dillon uploads the band’s videos to YouTube. Even though they answer to
to a press release. Another $500,000 will create the Stuart Family Foundation LL.M Scholar Fund to bring in guest speakers and allow students to attend national and international conferences. The Stuart family has also donated gifts to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and for the reforestation of the campus after ice storms.
UOSA to reopen dead week discussion Faculty Senate tabled issue until 2014; Student Congress pushes for earlier date DANNY HATCH The Oklahoma Daily
JALL COWASJI/ THE DAILY
University College freshmen Joshua “Dillon” Henderson and Joshua “Josh” Henderson stand Tuesday in an elevator inside Adams Tower. The students went to the same day care center and have been best friends since they were 5 years old. different names, growing up there were mishaps involving their legal names including one receiving the other’s report card in the mail, said Shane Hubert, one of their boyhood friends. “We used to always get mixed up if one of us got an award at school,” Josh said. “If they called ‘Josh Henderson’ and Dillon went up there, everyone would have been confused because
that’s what everyone knew him by.” School wasn’t the only time that the two were mistaken for each other. The confusion has spilled over into their social lives. “When people try to creep on your boyfriend they look up the wrong one since their name is the same on Facebook ... it gets really confusing sometimes,” said Lauren Meissner, University
College freshman and Josh’s girlfriend. Josh was first in choosing OU and Dillon followed after Josh’s decision. “We have been friends forever and so we just decided to room together,” Dillon said. Dillon said he would like to study mechanical engineering while Josh said he would like to study sociology or criminology.
Undergraduate Student Congress representatives passed a bill at Tuesday’s meeting to initiate discussion with the Faculty Senate in hopes of making prefinals week easier for students. Congress plans to challenge the Faculty Senate’s March 9, 2009 rejection of pre-finals week policy changes that tabled the discussion. The proposed changes would have prohibited professors from assigning coursework due during pre-finals week worth more than 5 percent of a student’s grade without department chair approval, according to Daily archives. Tuesday’s bill, which passed 23-0-0, is a response to the 2009 Senate’s decision that rejected the presented changes as well as to table any further discussion of the project until 2014. The bill was co-authored by Ways and Means Chair Sean Bender and social sciences district representative Joseph Ahrabizad, who expressed their displeasure with the Senate’s decision. “Essentially, University of Oklahoma students complained SEE UOSA PAGE 2
Retired botany professor protects tree farm’s future Botanist preserves land for about 900 trees, prevents future development in Noble CHASE COOK The Oklahoma Daily
A retired botany professor and science librarian shudders at the thought of cutting down a tree for nothing. “It’s about the worst thing you can do to a tree,” T.H. Milby said. His love for trees and nature spurred him to get a Ph.D in botany from OU. He continued to work for the university for 31 years as the science librarian and part-time botany professor. He has been retired for 18 years, but he continues to operate a tree farm on his personal property. To protect the nature he loves, he decided with his wife to place
a conservation easement on the 75 acre property in Noble. Now, the estimated 900 black walnut, oak, chestnut, live oak, maple, sycamore, cedar and a myriad of other trees are protected from future developments. The easement prevents anyone else from building on the property, Kathleen Milby, T.H. Milby’s wife, said. ”My husband always wanted to preserve the land,” Kathleen Milby said. Originally, T.H. Milby used his land to plant landscape trees and to farm trees for expensive wood used in furniture. Now that they have placed the easement on the land, T.H. Milby said they will let nature take its course. He won’t be planting or selling anymore trees. The only work done to the land
A LOOK AT WHAT’S NEW AT Visit the multimedia section to watch coach Bob Stoops’ comments on OU’s win over Oklahoma State and the upcoming Big 12 Championship during Tuesday’s press conference
is an occasional mowing and bailing of the grass, Kathleen Milby said. While there are benefits to owning land with a conservation easement, such as a tax write off, the Milbys said their goal was to save the land, not profit off of it. “The easement made the land less valuable because you can’t build on it,” T.H. Milby said. “But, we think it’s more valuable now.” Lyntha Wesner, Norman Area Land Conservancy chair and member of the Norman City Council Greenbelt Commission, helped the Milbys procure the easement for their land. Normally, the organization approaches land owners with significant acreage and discusses PHOTO PROVIDED
T.H. Milby and Kathleen Milby share a laugh on their 75-acre tree farm in Noble. SEE TREES PAGE 2 The pair placed a conservation easement on the land to maintain its natural state.
THE OKLAHOMA DAILY VOL. 96, NO. 71 © 2010 OU Publications Board www.facebook.com/OUDaily www.twitter.com/OUDaily
INDEX Campus .............. 2 Classifieds .......... 6 Life & Arts ........... 5 Opinion .............. 4 Sports ................ 7
TODAY’S WEATHER 61°| 34° Thursday: Sunny, high of 63 degree Visit the Oklahoma Weather Lab at owl.ou.edu