Shooting Story

Headlines: " 'I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO IT' YOUTH TELLS OFFICERS AFTER FATAL SHOOTING."

Byline: "By Edgar Allen Poe."

Story: "A Birmingham-Southern College student was shot and fatally wounded shortly after 9 o'clock Wednesday night in an altercation at the Highland Pharmacy, located at 1000 South Twenty-Sixth Street.

"The student died en route to St. Vincent's hospital. . . .

"The dead man is Montress Freeman, of Gadsden.

"O. H. Westbrook, a junior at Howard College, called police after the shooting and surrendered. . . ."

Thus wrote Rewrite Man Edgar Allen Poe in the Birmingham Age-Herald last week. His name, startling, aroused no curiosity in habitual readers of the Age-Herald who know that Newsman Poe spells his middle name with an "e" where Poet Poe spelled it with an "a," and that Newsman Poe is no relative of Poet Poe.

The shooting followed several weeks of reciprocal hazing by students of Birmingham-Southern College and Howard College,* football rivals. The Howard killer was working in a drugstore when in strode his friend from Birmingham-Southern with threats of head-shaving. Nervous, terrified, the student drug clerk picked up a revolver, fired. Days later the drug clerk fainted at his friend's funeral, which was attended by students of both colleges prior to their big football game. Howard won, 13--12.

* Many ignorant Northerners reading the story in their local papers confused Howard College with Howard University, Negro college of Washington, D. C.