oddly enough

oddly enough

Iowa hospital chaplain loses beard for food drive

MASON CITY, Iowa

The chaplain at an Iowa hospital has lost his beard of 32 years after hospital staffers surpassed their food-drive goal.

The Rev. Ken Gehling good-naturedly sacrificed his long, white beard last week in the main lobby at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa in Mason City.

He had promised to have the beard shaved if Mercy staffers collected more than 750 pounds of food for the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank. The Globe Gazette reported their total exceeded 800 pounds.

Mason City hair stylist Sue Wyborny cut off the Rev. Mr. Gehling’s beard and his mustache.

Sitting down for his shave, Mr. Gehling quipped, “It’s like the electric chair.”

But he was quick to add, “I just feel happy that we got all that food.”

After joking with a colleague not to cry, Mr. Gehling said it wasn’t too big of a loss.

“It will come back,” he said.

Woman wants daughter’s middle name to be Awesome

JUNEAU, Alaska

A Juneau, Alaska, woman wants to give her daughter an awesome middle name. Literally.

Lisa Flores is seeking court approval to legally change her daughter’s middle name to Awesome.

The Juneau Empire reports Awesome would replace the given middle name of Contea for 21/2-year-old Viviana Flores.

Mom allowed her 11-year-old son to initially pick out his sister’s name. Dominic wanted her first name to be Danger, something Mom vetoed. He came back with Awesome for a middle name, but Lisa picked “Contea” at the last minute.

She now wants the name changed to honor her son’s wishes and to thank Dominic for all he has done to help her.

He says the “cool” name will allow her to tell people all her life that she has an “Awesome” middle name.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s an Internet flap

BANGKOK

A Thai AirAsia plane hit a bird last Tuesday during a flight in Thailand, where the word for bird is “nok,” sparking social-media confusion over whether the aircraft had collided with a plane from budget carrier Nok Air.

Within hours of the collision, Nok Air went to Twitter to set the story straight: “We would like to clarify that Nok Air did not clip another aircraft today.” The tweet added that the other aircraft had hit a real bird.

The Airbus A320-200, carrying 151 passengers from Bangkok to southern Nakhon Si Thammarat, landed safely Wednesday morning, but the impact left “a scratch” on the edge of the left wing, Thai AirAsia said.

The airline’s chief engineer, Banyat Hansakul, described the damage as a small hole in the wing.

Associated Press