Columbus, GA - Columbus State men's basketball player Ron Robinson and women's player Cherwonna Walker have been named to the 2007 Peach Belt Conference All-Conference teams. The teams were released Tuesday, the eve of the annual PBC Basketball Tournament to be played this year at Lander University in Greenwood, SC.

Robinson earns his second-straight All-PBC nod after leading the Cougars in scoring this season. The senior from Mobile, AL, averages 15.9 points per outing heading into tournament play after scoring 430 points this season. He also averages 3.2 rebounds and just over three assists per game. He leads the Cougars with 67 three-point field goals made (the top total in the league) and is third in the PBC in three-pointers made per game. His scoring total is tied for fifth-best in the conference.

Augusta State swept all three top awards with Tyrekus Bowman earning Player of the Year honors, Ben Madgen Freshman of the Year honors, and Dip Metress Coach of the Year honors. The Jaguars placed a league-high three players on the All-PBC squad.

Walker, also a senior, has been a constant in the post for CSU this season. She has scored 401 points heading into tournament play and averages 14.9 points per game. She has 241 rebounds (8.9 average) and shoots almost 47 percent from the floor. Her biggest improvement this season has been at the free-throw line where she has made over 71 percent of her tosses this season. She is currently sixth all-time at CSU in scoring with 1,051 points, and is second on the all-time rebounding list with 799. She needs just eight points to move into fifth on the all-time scoring list.

Lander's Tiara Good was named Player of the Year in the PBC, while North Georgia's Porsha White took Freshman of the Year honors. Clayton

State's Dennis Cox was named Coach of the Year.
 

Over one year ago, Sept. 8, 2005, to be exact, the editorial headline read, "New ASU chief has work to do." The Albany Herald editorial was commenting on a recently published audit report awaiting action by ASU. The subsequent Board of Regents' report, giving the University a Code 5 rating, was the lowest rating an institution could receive. The situation was not pleasant.

The editorial did not stop there. It listed setbacks the University was supposedly facing including what it called "enrollment snafus which created havoc and financial crises for students," difficulty in reaching employees on the phone, difficulty in vendors getting paid, and out-of-state schools with established degree programs here were attracting more students than ASU because the University was not meeting the regional needs.

Saying that "ASU's struggle with finances is longstanding," the paper also reported that the University's records were in such disarray that some situations were never rectified. It said without "a broad vision and high expectations" backed with the insistence for every part of the school operation to meet them, "ASU will continue to fall way short of its potential."

While the editorial may have focused unduly on a few longstanding problems, the challenge remained for Albany State University to turn matters around. In less than two years, the University has put in place an effective enrollment management system, and streamlined the University's registration, financial aid and admission processes. The result of this effort is evident in improvements of the University's enrollment, retention and graduation numbers.

Spring enrollment stands at ASU 3,809 students. That is 8.1 percent higher than enrollment in spring 2006. The University now has the fourth highest retention rate among the 35 institutions of the University System of Georgia, and only trails the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and North Georgia College and State University. ASU also has a graduation rate to be proud of with the percentage of students graduating now the second highest among USG state universities.

ASU has adopted a new strategic plan (2006-2011) that embraces strengthening the University's mission; advancing Southwest Georgia; building a stronger university community; and providing state-of-the-art technology. Nationally, the University is recognized as one of the top 50 degree producers for African American students in the United States, and it now has the only fully accredited Bachelor of Forensic Science program in the Southeastern United State, and one of only 12 in the entire nation.

Clearly, there is more work do and we will do it. Indeed, we will not rest until ASU is the preeminent USG institution of higher education in the Southeastern United States. To achieve this goal, ASU will need to continue to meet the expectations of the larger community and remain true to our goal of educating those who have the drive and determination to make something of themselves. We also must continue to attract faculty and staff who take seriously the proposition that educational excellence and superior customer service trump race every time.

We made fiscal responsibility our major priority. We assembled a new financial team and challenged them to "get the books straight." This we are doing. A few days ago, we learned that the University has an improved audit rating from a Code 5 to a Code 3. About this turnaround, USG Chancellor Erroll Davis sent a special commendation to me in which he noted ASU's "tremendous improvement" on the fiscal front. Chancellor Davis does not offer unearned praise. By dramatically improving our fiscal affairs, ASU will be able, as USG Associate Vice Chancellor for Internal Audit Ronald Stark said, to avoid a continuing cycle of administrative oversight from central office. As Stark put it, "Achieving this milestone shows additional confidence in the president and his Chief Financial Officer in managing the resources of the institution. They are certainly on the right track in moving to a Code 1."

We plan to continue making good on our promise to effectively managing the resources we have while making the case for the additional instructional space we need including a fine arts facility. All that we ask is that you join us in building the ASU southwest Georgia and its friends want and deserve. If we collectively work toward this goal, we all can rejoin in the sure certainty that ASU represents promises made and kept and, more importantly, potential realized!
 

The Brian Nichols case will stand still for almost six more months.

That's six months the victims' families also will stand still, waiting for justice and for answers. March 11, 2005, was most likely the worst day of their lives — three women lost husbands, a daughter lost a mother and scores of others saw their lives changed forever.
But the six-month reprieve also gives Brian Nichols' parents time for hope — hope that their son will be allowed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence for one of the state's most horrifying killing sprees.

Last week, the judge in the death penalty case against Nichols delayed jury selection — for a second time because of a lack of funding for the defense — until Sept. 10.

"It would really be our prayers and hopes and desires that all of this could be resolved without having to go through the pain of a trial," Claritha Nichols, Brian Nichols' mother, said in a recent interview.

Claritha and Gene Nichols say they have always opposed the death penalty. Anything that guarantees that won't happen, even if it means their son is sentenced to life without parole, they can live with.

But Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard reiterated recently he would make no such deal. In a written statement, the prosecutor said "any defendant, including Mr. Nichols, can enter a guilty plea at any time. The state [prosecutors] has no control over the decision of a defendant to plead guilty." But, Howard said, a jury "and not the defense should decide the appropriate punishment in this case."

The parents, however, hope that jury will see the Brian Nichols they know and not the Brian Nichols of March 11, 2005 — an angry man accused of coldly killing four people.

Since that ignominious day, they say, he has converted to Islam and prays six times a day. He reads voraciously, consuming the Bible, the Quran, Nelson Mandela's autobiography and the novels of James Patterson and Tom Clancy. He is teaching himself Arabic and calculus and boning up on his high school Spanish. He has become a long-distance math tutor for his 15-year-old daughter, finally building a relationship with the child he never got to know until after the shootings.

Contrasting portrayals

No doubt his more than two years in jail on murder charges have changed Nichols in some ways. Yet the picture of him that his parents paint — of a reformed and remorseful man — is out of sync with some of his actions since his arrest.

Jail officials contend he remains a conniving and dangerous man. Eight months after Nichols' arrest, they found letters suggesting he was plotting another escape, again by overpowering a deputy. This time, the plan centered on getting out of the jail instead of the courthouse and included releasing other inmates. Authorities responded by intensifying jail security around Nichols.

Then last fall, Nichols tried to make a collect call to the woman he was on trial for raping when he made his deadly escape. Prosecutors said Nichols intended "to terrorize or intimidate" witnesses in his death penalty trial, while his supporters suggested he wanted to make amends, as required of Muslims.

And last month it was learned Nichols asked a female friend to describe the parking lot and the outside of the jail, causing officials to fear he was again looking for a way to freedom.

'That is not our Brian'

Claritha and Gene Nichols say they don't know "the Brian of March 11." They believe "something happened" — like the "demon" Brian has said possessed him. They say it caused him to escape custody that day and kill Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau and deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley at the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta and U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm in Buckhead.

"That is not our Brian," the mother says.

They say their son "realizes what's ahead" — a possible murder conviction that could mean a death sentence. They insist he feels grateful he lived long enough to seek forgiveness.

Except for their visits, periodic meetings with his lawyers and phone calls he makes from jail, their 35-year-old son enjoys no human interaction, the Nicholses say.

He is isolated from other inmates at the DeKalb County Jail, where he is held pending trial. "Even the guards don't talk to him," his mother says.

They say he's lonely and trying to make amends with those he has wronged.

"He misses the feel of the wind on his face. The smell of rain. Seeing trees," his mother said.

She stops and catches herself, thinking of the victims. "It's really sad, but at least he still has his life, and that's something the victims don't have," the mother says. "I think about their lives and graduations and weddings [the victims will miss] and just how much their [survivors'] lives have been affected by this."

Nichols faces 54 charges for the deaths of four people and the assault of several others. Prospective jurors have completed a multiple-page questionnaire but a jury will not be seated until at least next fall.

The couple realizes the legal process may not end with the Fulton trial. If the state fails to get a conviction and a death sentence, federal authorities could bring charges and also seek the death penalty for the shooting of the federal officer, Wilhelm.

In the hours after police arrested Nichols the morning of March 12, 2005, at a Duluth apartment complex where he had allegedly held a woman hostage for several hours, he reportedly told interrogators he felt like "a soldier on a mission," standing up against a criminal justice system that is unfair to African-Americans, when he began his rampage.

Apparently he still believes that. Gene Nichols said sometimes his son talks of "how the laws are slanted to entrap the black man [and] how some people put those laws into effect."

Details too painful to hear

The Nicholses plan their week around visits with their son, whom they see for 90 minutes every Thursday. Before he is brought into the visiting room, deputies search under the tables and chairs and inside ceiling tiles.

Then Nichols shuffles in. Leg irons restrict his gait; five deputies surround him. He is left alone in the room while he visits with his parents.

Gene Nichols is retired from insurance sales. Claritha retired from the IRS but continues to work as a consultant. They raised two boys — Brian and his older brother, Mark, who is a barber.

They are a middle-aged, middle-class couple in the middle of one of the state's most infamous murder cases — and baffled by it all.
Glass separates them from their son, so they use a telephone-type intercom system to communicate. Nichols contorts his body to hold the telephone receiver to his ear because his hands are chained to his waist.

For the most part, the family talks about everyday things: what's happening in the world, friends, memories. Certain their visits are monitored, the Nicholses keep the conversations light.

"It's painful to see him in that situation," Claritha Nichols says. "He's concerned about what he's put us through, as well as the other families."
Little by little, his parents are learning of the "Brian of March 11." The day of the shootings, the couple was in Africa, where Claritha was doing consulting work with the Tanzanian Revenue Authority.

"We've never heard the complete story," Gene Nichols says.

They don't know if they are ready to hear it either.

"It would be absolutely devastating to hear and see that our son did these things," Claritha Nichols says.

Though she is willing to see him plead guilty, the mother clings to her image of the son she knew before March 11: "The son who was so good and caring about other people. It's just unbelievable."