Names and faces
Country music legend Willie Nelson helped unveil a statue honoring him in downtown Austin, Texas, by singing his new song “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” on Friday, a date long reserved to celebrate marijuana use. The faint smell of marijuana smoke wafted through a crowd of about 2,000 people as Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell accepted the privately funded statue as a gift from a private arts group. Organizers said they didn’t intentionally choose April 20 for the event, but once they found out, they scheduled the unveiling at 4:20 p.m. as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Nelson’s openness about his marijuana use and advocacy for its legalization. April 20 — or 4/20, which is slang for smoking marijuana — is a day pro-marijuana legalization forces have used for annual gatherings to demonstrate in support of the cause. The Willie Monument was put up by Capital Area Statues Inc., a group of prominent Texas writers, film producers and musicians. Lawrence Wright, one of the group’s founders, said April 20 was chosen because Nelson was scheduled to perform at a tribute to Johnny Cash in Austin that night, not because of the counterculture significance. “We didn’t know anything about it; it seems everyone else knew the story on this,” Wright said, laughing.
Rocker and wildlife hunter Ted Nugent has agreed to plead guilty to transporting a black bear he illegally killed in southeast Alaska. Nugent made the admission in signing a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that was filed Friday in U.S. District Court. The plea agreement says Nugent illegally shot and killed the bear in May 2009 on Sukkwan Island days after wounding a bear in a bow hunt, which counted toward a state seasonal limit of one bear. According to the agreement, first reported by the Anchorage Daily News, the six-day hunt was filmed for his Outdoor Channel television show, Spirit of the Wild. In the hunt, Nugent used a number of bear-baiting sites on U.S. Forest Service property, according to the agreement. Nugent agreed to pay a $10,000 fine, according to the agreement, which says he also agreed with a two-year probation, including a special condition that he not hunt or fish in Alaska or Forest Service properties for one year. Nugent also agreed to pay the state $600 for the bear that was taken illegally, according to the agreement.