Jayray Fiene pointed to a picture with yellow adhesive stains and smiled wide. A child with quick blue eyes gawked gleefully back through the years on the decomposing page.

The source of the child’s amusement appeared shining on the floor-a toy car.

“This is a kid who likes this toy,” Fiene said, raising his eyebrows matter-of-factly.

Jordan Jones, an Academy of Math and Science junior from Fort Wright, has two pieces of advice for the new class of academy students accepted last week.

“Study,” she said. “Also, learn to do your laundry.”

The class of 60 high school sophomores will come to the academy next year from 34 counties, Academy Director Tim Gott said.

The scent of egg rolls and samosas filled the third-floor lobby of Grise Hall Tuesday.

Flags from countries around the world hung in the windows, tinting the sunlight red, blue and green as students took advantage of their first official chance to ask questions about a new major.

A neon-green and black tour bus sat boisterously in Circus Square Park Friday. Two men in matching uniforms paced in front, pleading for members of the passing crowd to enter to win free tickets to a Louisville Bats baseball game.

Jessica Cleveland, a junior from Cross Plains, Tenn., noticed something unusual about her linguistics textbook at the beginning of the semester. Her professor’s name appeared on the cover.

In 2002, 112 black Kentucky residents began college at Western.

By 2008, 39 had graduated, Provost Barbara Burch said.

The six-year graduation rate contributed to Western failing to achieve two of Kentucky’s equal opportunity goals this year, she said.

“It’s a cause for concern,” Burch said.

Dalton Hubble spent his summer wearing safety goggles instead of sunglasses while researching techniques to create molds of human tissue, and he didn’t think twice about it.

“That is a normal summer,” the Academy of Math and Science senior from Rineyville said.

The Navigator entered the water smoothly as if it were made of silk instead of concrete. Resting easily atop the lake at Basil Griffin Park, the black canoe proved the statement on the side of the Western’s Engineering Department’s trailer- “Yes, it floats.”

People rarely mention Barney Fife and Tupac in the same breath, but Saundra Ardrey doesn’t hesitate.

The political science department head will encourage the connection between rural and urban cultures during her new seminar, When Mayberry Meets the Hood, in the fall.

Jessica Gad traded her sorority letters and pearls for a waitress apron and a bow-tie last week. Her free time transformed into a time card and she took on a title her dad lost in January-employee.

“Both my parents were really secure in their jobs,” the freshman from Hendersonville, Tenn., said. “At least, we thought they were.”