http://espn.go.com/espn/print?id=9065999&type=story

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Steve Davis, Oklahoma’s starting quarterback when it won back-to-back national championships in the 1970s, was one of two people killed when a small aircraft smashed into three homes in northern Indiana, officials said Monday. …

“We lost a great Sooner,” Tinker Owens, a receiver who played with Davis, said in a text to The Oklahoman. “Sad news.” …

Davis went 32-1-1 as the Sooners’ starter from 1973 to 1975, starting every game of Barry Switzer’s first three seasons as head coach. Oklahoma tied Southern Cal in the second game of the 1973 season, then ran off 28 straight victories with Davis under center. The Sooners went 11-0 in 1974, then won the national title again the following year after going 11-1.

Davis’ school records for consecutive starts (34) and career victories (32) were surpassed only last season by Landry Jones, who started every game the past three seasons plus most of 2009. …

Trotter: Steve Davis Beat The Odds Steve Davis almost never played for Oklahoma. After another player switched his commitment to Colorado, Davis was given OU’s last scholarship. The rest is national championship history, writes Jake Trotter. Story

Steve Davis’ Career at a Glance

Steve Davis ran the wishbone to perfection, leading the Big 8 in rushing touchdowns as a sophomore in 1973 with 18 and in combined rushing-passing TDs in 1973 and ’74 with a combined 47. His career stats from 1973-75:

"North Korean soldiers with weapons attend military training in an undisclosed location in this picture released by the North’s official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang March 11, 2013. South Korea and U.S. forces are conducting large-scale military drills until the end of April, while the North is also gearing up for a massive state-wide military exercise. North Korea has accused the U.S. of using the military drills in South Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and has threatened to scrap the armistice with Washington that ended the 1950-53 Korean War."
REUTERS/KCNA

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/education/scholarly-poor-often-overlook-better-colleges.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print

“Top low-income students in the nation’s 15 largest metropolitan areas do often apply to selective colleges, according to the study, which was based on test scores, self-reported data, and census and other data for the high school class of 2008. But such students from smaller metropolitan areas — like Bridgeport; Memphis; Sacramento; Toledo, Ohio; and Tulsa, Okla. — and rural areas typically do not. …

“Elite colleges may soon face more pressure to recruit poor and middle-class students, if the Supreme Court restricts race-based affirmative action. A ruling in the case, involving the University of Texas, is expected sometime before late June.

“Colleges currently give little or no advantage in the admissions process to low-income students, compared with more affluent students of the same race, other research has found. A broad ruling against the University of Texas affirmative action program could cause colleges to take into account various socioeconomic measures, including income, neighborhood and family composition. Such a step would require an increase in these colleges’ financial aid spending but would help them enroll significant numbers of minority students.

“Among high-achieving, low-income students, 6 percent were black, 8 percent Latino, 15 percent Asian-American and 69 percent white, the study found.”

Interesting. Are we entering an age where a disadvantaged white or Asian student may be given preference over middle class blacks or Latinos?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/us/17ethanol.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0&pagewanted=print

Days of Promise Fade for Ethanol

“Nearly 10 percent of the nation’s ethanol plants have stopped production over the past year, in part because the drought that has ravaged much of the nation’s crops pushed commodity prices so high that ethanol has become too expensive to produce. …

“Thousands of barrels of ethanol now sit in storage because there is not enough gasoline in the market to blend it with — and blends calling for a higher percentage of ethanol have yet to catch on widely in the marketplace. Advanced biofuels from waste like corn stalks and wood chips have also yet to reach commercial-level production as some had predicted they would by now. …

“Congress set out to create an ethanol industry that would produce enough to make up 10 percent of every gallon of gas pumped into a car, but the lawmakers assumed that demand for fuel would grow. Instead, it has shrunk to 8.7 million barrels a day from 9.7 million in 2007, said Larry Goldstein, an economist and a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation. And with corporate average fuel economy rules now in place to double the number of miles that the average car gets per gallon by 2025, “you know we’re on a trend,” he added.

“As the gasoline market got smaller, so did the amount of ethanol it could absorb, because most service stations are set up to sell fuel with an ethanol content of only up to 10 percent. Owners’ manuals of most cars call for fuel blends of no more than 10 percent ethanol. The industry calls this the “blend wall,” and it has won Environmental Protection Agency approval for some cars to run on blends of up to 15 percent, but thus far that fuel has not caught on with consumers.”

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/03/12/kelly-mcparland-times-editorial-demonstrates-weakness-of-anti-keystone-argument/

“The [New York] Times seems to accept the argument that fossil fuel consumption can be reduced by restricting production and availability. The same logic was behind New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to ban soft drinks in large containers, as a means of containing obesity. A Manhattan judge dismissed that argument Monday as ‘arbitrary and capricious,’ terms that might as easily apply to a country that complains about oilsands emissions while producing 42% of its electricity from coal, which is responsible for 27% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. That figure is expected to grow by a third by 2025.

“ ‘Given its carbon content, tar sands oil should be among the first fossil fuels we decide to leave alone,’ insists the Times, even though getting the country off its dependency on coal would have a far greater impact.

“But perhaps the Times is right in one respect. If the U.S. rejects the pipeline, Canada may simply ship the oil to the east coast and export it from there. The jobs will be kept in the country, as will the greater economic benefit. The U.S. will get no benefit. Seems an odd way to boost a struggling workforce, but perhaps the U.S. economy, like Canada, is something the Times has trouble understanding.”

Craft & Hawkins is the classic text of reservoir engineering.

For some reason, my reservoir prof at OU (in his first year)  required us to buy a different text, but 100% of the assigned homework was from Craft & Hawkins. The table of contents practically served as the course syllabus. I had to borrow a copy of C&H to make it through his class.

I think I’ve bought two copies over the years (one for home and one for the office), and still refer to them on occasion.

His life-long career and dedication to higher education began when he joined the LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering in 1946. He was a professor of petroleum engineering and director of the LSU Geology Camp in Colorado for many years. He served as head of the Petroleum Engineering Department from 1964 until he retired in 1977 as Professor Emeritus. During his more than 30 years at the university, he had a deep and lasting influence on generations of students and professors who have served important roles in the petroleum industry throughout the world. He also played a significant role in developing the LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering into one of the leading departments in the world. In 1998, alumni were instrumental in having the department that he helped to develop named the “Craft and Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering.”

Professor Hawkins was a member of a number of professional and honorary organizations and the author of numerous technical publications. His best known work is the world-renowned textbook Applied Petroleum Reservoir Engineering that he co-authored with his friend and mentor B.C. Craft, Sr. This text has been continuously in print and widely used for over 50 years. It has been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Russian and Chinese, to serve the petroleum industry. The publisher, Prentice-Hall Inc., noted that “such a record of success is exceedingly rare in the publishing business.”

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