Happy Tuesday- 10/14/2008

That's it for this Tuesday we are heading toward a Wednesday full of winning and fun with Carolina Country Cruizin' with Matt and Dee! Join us tomorrow and keep it rolling with Wheelz 100.5!

A miniature, 65-pound horse named KBuck has been given a prosthetic eye after losing its eye a few days after its June 1st birth at Lil Chums Miniature Horse Farm in Lawton, Oklahoma. KBuck’s 12- year-old owner, Kelsey Chumbley, says she thinks her horse lost its eye after getting a swift kick from its mother. KBuck’s prosthetic eye was handcrafted by designers at La Fuente Ocular Prosthetics in Oklahoma City. The eye cost about $3,000.

A new Colorado principal isn't making friends with the animal lovers at her school.  The "Rocky Mountain News" reports Patty Geffre has ordered teachers at Montbello High School to remove all animals from their classrooms, unless they pertain to a specific academic purpose.  Geffre noted, quote, "We are here to educate children, not house animals."  Students started a petition to keep the animals, and have already acquired 200 signatures.  Geffre said she's not against creatures, adding that she grew up on a farm.  Her concern involves injury liabilities and students with allergies.  One teacher whose pets are risk is Earth Sciences instructor Pattyanne Corsentino.  Her class is home to Roxanne the corn snake, Fifi the tarantula and Joey the bearded dragon.  Corsentino believes the animals help the kids "connect."

Jewel's new single "Till It Feels Like Cheating" marks a first for the accomplished singer-songwriter -- it's the first song she's ever recorded that she didn't write. She says, "The concept of the song is unique. It's about having an affair with your own husband. The writers did an amazing job with this tune. I'm thrilled to have it on my record." Jewel was in Austin, Texas Friday to shoot the video for the new tune. 

Jimmy Wayne felt a fond memory resurface when he heard the demo of his new single, "I Will." He says, "Lyrically this is a song that reminds me of a girlfriend I had once. She simply wanted to go her own way and I felt like saying, 'You know I care about you enough that I'm willing to let go and let you sail away and do your thing. You won't be coming back, but I love you enough to let you go.'" A video has been shot for "I Will," which will debut in coming weeks. 

Randy Travis will get in the holiday spirit with the DVD “Christmas on the Pecos,” due out November 4th. The set includes live performances shot at Carlsbad Caverns in Carlsbad, New Mexico, as well as homespun stories and a look at Carlsbad’s “River of Lights” Christmas tradition. This is Randy’s first Christmas video.

Billy Currington's new CD is arriving in stores.  The singer says "Little Bit of Everything" is an appropriate title for the disc, because it features a good mix of material. Currington co-wrote five of the songs on the CD.  He says the tunes reflect all his influences, including R&B, pop, country, and rock.  "Little Bit of Everything" features Currington's most recent single, "Don't."

The musical “Conway Twitty: The Man, the Music, the Legend” opened in Nashville on Sunday at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Among those attending the premiere were Bill Anderson, Crystal Gayle, Jeff Bates, Helen Cornelius, Jeannie Seely, Sam Moore, Mandy Barnett, Jason Meadows and Sharon and Buck White. Twitty’s story is told through the eyes of daughters Joni and Kathy. The show heads to Branson, Missouri, for a four-day run beginning on October 22nd.

Bloody Battle on Board After Fisherman Hooks Reef Shark, Shark Hooks Man Back

An Australian fisherman says he lost “liters” of blood from a gash in his leg after an encounter with a shark off Darwin Harbour.

Geoff Johnson, 50, needed 30 stitches in his right leg after his run-in with a nearly six-foot reef shark he hooked while out fishing with his partner Jacky Lamb.Johnson, of Wanguri, reeled in the fish and tried to grab it by the tail so he could free the hook from its mouth.

But the shark fought back, biting Johnson on his right knee, the Northern Territory News reports.

The fishing hook then became stuck in his leg, and as the shark thrashed around, the hook ripped a huge gash in his leg.

"I just pulled it on board and it thrashed around a little bit and the hook sliced my leg," he said. “The hook did more damage than the shark. There was blood going everywhere. I reckon I would have lost liters. I had to lay down and Jacky had to drive the boat back in."

It took the pair about 45 minutes to make it back to shore, where Ken O'Brien and Chris Young, who had just come in from their own fishing trip, ran to help.

A female employee from the Darwin Trailer Boat Club also gave first aid.

Click here to read more on this story from News.com.au.

Money Sought for Tombstone of World's Tallest Woman

The Shelbyville grave site of Sandy Allen is marked only by a few flowers. But friends hope a fundraiser will help cover the costs of a grave stone for Allen, the 7-foot-7 woman recognized as the world's tallest female until her death in August.

Family friends are organizing an Oct. 18 fundraiser featuring softball and cornhole tournaments and a community cookout.

Click here for photos.

Allen's friends also want to raise money for a proposed statue of Allen. But that idea has not yet been approved by the city of Shelbyville.

Friends remember Allen as a kind and generous woman who developed a sense of humor about her height.

"She embraced it," family friend Rita Rose said. "She used it as a tool to educate people."

Allen said a tumor caused her pituitary gland to produce too much growth hormone. She underwent an operation in 1977 to stop further growth.

She appeared on television shows and spoke to church and school groups to bring youngsters her message that it was all right to be different.

Allen weighed 6-1/2 pounds when she was born in June 1955. By the age of 10 she had grown to be 6-foot-3, and by age 16 she was 7-1.

She wrote to Guinness World Records in 1974, saying she would like to get to know someone her own height.

"It is needless to say my social life is practically nil and perhaps the publicity from your book may brighten my life," she wrote.

The recognition as the world's tallest woman helped Allen accept her height and become less shy, Rose said.

"It kind of brought her out of her shell," Rose said. "She got to the point where she could joke about it."

In the 1980s, she appeared for several years at the Guinness Museum of World Records in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

"I'll never forget the old Japanese man who couldn't speak English, so he decided to feel for himself if I was real," Allen recalled with a chuckle when she moved back to Indiana in 1987.

"At Guinness there were days when I felt like I was doing a freak show," she said. "When that feeling came too often, I knew I had to come back home."

Difficulty with mobility had forced Allen to curtail her public speaking in recent years, Rose said. She had suffered from diabetes and other ailments and used a wheelchair to get around.

Jennifer Thornburg wanted to do something real to protest animal dissections in schools – so she changed her name to CutoutDissection.com. The 19-year-old’s new name is also the Web address for an anti-dissection page of the site for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where she is interning. The Asheville, North Carolina, grad said she began opposing dissections in middle school after a class assignment to cut up a chicken wing made her uncomfortable. She eventually help create a policy at her school that allows students who object to dissections to complete an alternative assignment.

Two friends from New Hampshire have won the ninth annual North American Wife-Carrying Championship. Even though they’re not married, they returned to Maine this year for a second try. Ri Fahnestock and Sarah Silverberg were awarded Silverberg’s weight in beer, which comes to five cases. They also won five times her weight in cash, or $610. Additionally, they are also qualified for the World Wife-Carrying Championship in Finland. Forty-three teams signed up to run the 278-yard course, which featured a 39-inch-high wooden hurdle, a long pit of waist-deep water, and a mound of dirt.

A highly unusual domestic disturbance call over a barbecue fork this past weekend sent police in Alabama scrambling.  Birmingham authorities arrived on the scene Sunday afternoon and say they found a man stabbing another with a barbecue fork.  The violent situation escalated and an officer shot the suspect.  The victim was taken to an area hospital.  The officer involved in the shooting has been placed on paid administrative leave while an investigation is being carried out. 

Bigfoot Hoax 'Body' Up for Sale on eBay

Remember that Bigfoot hoax back in August? Now you can own the fake "body."

A North Carolina man claims to be selling the original rubber Halloween costume on eBay, complete with the basement freezer it was kept in.

• Click here to see the eBay auction page.

Paranormal entrepreneur Joshua P. Warren says he's working with Rick Dyer and Matt Whitton, the Georgia hunters who claimed, for a while at least, to have shot and/or found the "corpse" in the forest.

To refresh your memory, Dyer and Whitton went on TV with notorious Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi on Aug. 15 to announce the "discovery" to the world.

• Click here to see more photos of Bigfoot and the press conference.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

The next day, someone working for Biscardi thawed out the frozen specimen, only to find it was a rubber suit stuffed with animal entrails.

Accusations and counter-accusations flew, Whitton lost his job as a police officer and an Indiana man who'd fronted Biscardi the $50,000 used to buy the body was left holding the bag.

Warren, who e-mailed FoxNews.com directly with news of the auction, claims on the eBay page that the costume's being sold to "settle financial problems created by the hoax."

An e-mailed reply to Warren and a phone call to a number listed on one of his Web sites were not immediately returned.

For your money — bids are currently around $55,000 — you'll get the rubber costume with "non-organic" parts replacing the roadkill guts, the freezer, "legal paperwork to prove its authenticity" and a "personal visit" from Dyer and Whitton.

It's not the first time someone's made money from an eBay auction related to the hoax. Someone in California sold a duplicate head for $600 in late August.

Of course, for $450, you could simply buy the same costume Dyer and Whitton used, minus the entrails, paperwork, freezer and personal appearance. 

Current bid:

US $101,099.99  as of 7:31am

Six Quick Tips For The Super Busy

No matter how much we wish there were more than 24 hours in a day, the fact remains that there are just 24 hours in a day. Subtract 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and 1 hour of driving and you have a mere 7 hours a day of so-called “free” time – which is never free. Here are six time-saving tips from RealSimple.com that may help.

1. Set your DVR. Tape the shows and watch them on the weekends.

2. Hire professionals. Professionals – whether it’s a maid or a gardener – dedicate their lives to their craft, so they’re likely to be able to do the work quicker, saving you money in the long run.

3. Plan meals. A weekly meal plan streamlines shopping and food preparation.

4. Establish routines. If you set aside 15-30 minutes a day to do chores, it keeps you from becoming overwhelmed. When your 30 minutes are up, you’re done.

5. Set limits. Remember, you don’t have to serve on every committee and your child doesn’t have to be involved in every sport. Decide what is important and get rid of the rest.

6. Let some things slide. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is realizing that you will likely never have enough time to do all of the things you want to do. Life becomes a whole lot easier once you give in and accept it.

At least one British man will have his eye on the sky today.  According to Ananova.com, Lawrence Trout has a nearly two-thousand-dollar bet with UK bookies William Hill about the possibility of a UFO sighting.  With the odds at one-thousand-to-one, Trout could walk away with close to two-million dollars.  The bet is based on a prediction by Australian psychic Blossom Goodchild who asserts that a massive UFO will appear in the skies for 72 hours, starting today.  Goodchild said she received the message from an alien species calling themselves the "Federation of Light," and that their goal is to end skepticism about the existence of extra-terrestrials.  The craft will reportedly park itself over the skies of Alabama.

Alan Jackson, Taylor Swift and Brooks and Dunn have signed on to headline at next year's BamaJam Music Festival, according to Alabama's Dothan Eagle. The three-day event in Enterprise, Alabama will feature at least 35 acts including country, bluegrass, rock and alternative artists. Scheduled for June 4th through 6th, Montgomery Gentry, 38 Special, Charlie Daniels, Jamey Johnson andHeidi Newfield are also scheduled to appear. Additional artists will be announced as they are confirmed.

Patty Loveless is promoting a new album, her first since 2005. Patty’s mother-in-law died that year and her brother suffered a stroke. To top it off, her album was pulled by her record company because it had copy-protection technology that could damage computers. The new project is titled “Sleepless Nights.”

Kenny Chesney has a new album out – and he’s still singing about his short marriage to Renée Zellweger. Chesney says that his 2005 split from the actress was a major inspiration behind “Lucky Old Sun.” “It’s no secret – there are about four or five songs that are about Renée,” Chesney tells USA Today, adding that he began penning the disc just weeks after his annulment. “It’s a pretty emotional record for me… A very honest record. There are some songs on this record that needed to be written,” Chesney said.

Lisa Marie Presley's twin daughters are no longer nameless.  A rep for the singer tells People.com that Presley, the daughter of the "King Of Rock 'n Roll," Elvis Presley, has named her newborns Finley and Harper.  The twins were born on October 7th via C-section.  They are Presley's first children with husband Michael Lockwood.  The singer also has a 19-year-old daughter, Riley, and a son Benjamin with ex-husband Danny Keough.

Lindsay Lohan’s father has met his match in the boxing ring. His charity challenger will be announced at a New York City press conference today. One unnamed man has paid “big bucks” to knock out Michael Lohan in an upcoming boxing match after he offered himself up as a contender for the annual three-round Fight For Charity. The fight will take place next month.

Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart are reuniting for an 11-date “No Hats Tour” starting November 1st in Temecula, California, and ending three weeks later in Delaware. The duo will do acoustic renditions of the hits they enjoyed together, such as “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’,” “This One’s Gonna Hurt You (For A Long, Long Time)” and “Honky-Tonkin’s What I Do Best.”

A big gorilla is back home in Pennsylvania.  It's actually a 150-pound King Kong lawn ornament that was swiped over the weekend from a yard in the Pittsburgh area.  The big glass statue went missing but was discovered Sunday afternoon in a field by a group of teens and they returned it to Shirley Clifford.  Clifford got King Kong more than two and a half decades ago from a former miniature golf course and she says she's glad to have the big guy back.  Police have no leads in the case. 

Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Big Brown was retired after suffering an injury during a workout, his handlers said yesterday. The top three-year-old in the U.S. injured his right front hoof in a six-furlong gallop on the turn at the Aqueduct track in New York. Big Brown was due to take on Horse of the Year Curlin in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park on October 25th. The Kentucky-bred Big Brown, winner of seven out of eight career races and $3.6 million in prize money, hurt his hoof while working out with stablemate and Breeders’ cup Mile winner Kip Deville. Big Brown will now go to stud at Three Chimneys farm in Kentucky.

Maureen McCormick has opened up about her drug addiction while playing Marcia Brady on “The Brady Bunch.” McCormick’s new memoir, “Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice,” is in stores today. She began her role as Marcia when she was 14. Despite her role as a wholesome, perfect teenager, McCormick says she struggled with depression, drug addiction and anxiety. The book also details McCormick’s romance with “Brady” sibling Barry Williams, her relationships with Michael Jackson and Steve Martin, drug binges, parties at the Playboy mansion, and an unwanted pregnancy

Thad Starr’s pumpkin really started putting on the weight in August. In fact, it gained about 30 pounds a day before winning the 35th annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-off in Half Moon Bay, California. Starr’s pumpkin weighed in at 1,528 pounds, beating the record he set last year by four pounds at yesterday’s competition. Starr, who lives in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, beat out dozens of other growers from Washington, Oregon and California. Thad’s pumpkin was four feet, four inches tall with a circumference of about 15 feet. At $6 a pound for the winning pumpkin, Starr is taking home more than $9,000. Seven pumpkins came in at more than 1,000 pounds in yesterday’s competition.

Tuesday has come and gone for Carolina Country Cruizin' with Matt and Dee. Join us for your Hump Day tomorrow for more winning and fun! Keep it rolling on Wheelz 100.5!

*Information from Premiere, Dail Global Prep, Fox News, and Metro Networks*