If it weren’t for basketball, Atlantic Records wouldn’t have signed him. His group’s album “Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz” wouldn’t have gone multi-platinum as the biggest-selling hip-hop album of 2002. He wouldn’t have played a rally for the first black presidential nominee so that he could later laugh that Barack Obama warned him, “Don’t go out and do something to make me regret this.”

Scales sauntered into Utley’s with a clear plastic cup of Patron. He and Nappy Roots’ in-house producer Joel Hop were the first of the good ole’ boys of rap to arrive at Utley’s Sept. 4 to interview a few of the new faces to Bowling Green music. “I don’t know about the other guys, but me and Joel are excited about this,” said Scales before passing the Patron around the table to Tony Smith and Justin Wilson of the local rock ensemble Sleeper Agent.

Western is assembling a task force to review general education requirements over the summer. Larry Snyder, associate dean of the Potter College, will lead the task force. He said that a task force is assembled occasionally to review general education requirements, evaluate if requirements are fulfilling Western’s intentions and review any recommendations.

Western is heading into the summer with five pending lawsuits. The university will have to defend itself in four cases against alleged civil rights violations, wrongful death, injury and discrimination. It will be defending its use of eminent domain condemnation in the fifth lawsuit.

The Board of Regents approved a 99-year lease with Friends of the Lost River Cave Inc. for the Lost River Cave property on Thursday. The board also approved selling the property adjacent to the cave, where the visitor center is located, to the nonprofit organization for $1.

Nathan Hayes is protesting the gun-free campus policy this week by wearing a silk-screened handgun on his T-shirt and hanging an empty gun holster from his belt. Hayes, a Louisville senior, is Western’s chapter leader for the national right-to-carry group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

It’s been nearly five years since a student was raped, sodomized and set on fire after returning to her dorm from a Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity party. While the family of Melissa “Katie” Autry is preparing for the anniversary, Western continues to address security issues that arose out of the murder.

Students will pay about $280 more for tuition a semester beginning this fall, President Gary Ransdell said at the faculty and staff forum on April 17. Last semester, officials planned to stabilize the tuition increase at 6 percent beginning in the next academic year until the 2011-12 academic year, the Herald previously reported.

Empty gun holsters symbolize students being made defenseless by gun-free campus policies, according to a group which is now nearly 27,000 strong nationwide. The school shootings of the last year have had a student reaction that some say is shocking and illogical.

A date has been set for Western to defend itself against in a wrongful death lawsuit regarding a student who was murdered on campus. The Board of Claims will hear testimony on Aug. 13 and 14 in the wrongful death claim of the estate of Pellville freshman Melissa “Katie” Autry.