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RGIII Vincit Omnia (RGIII Conquers All)

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Five stories that have North Texas talking: RGIII has ancient inclinations, executives in DFW are taking applications, UTA discovers an influential piece of literature and more.

RGIII’s halo just keeps getting shinier. Baylor Heisman trophy winner and Redskins QB Robert Griffin III was honored by the Texas Legislature yesterday, and lawmakers were as star-struck as any sports fan. As well known for his intelligence and character as his prowess on the gridiron, RGIII is apparently also something of a Latin scholar.

According to Texas Monthly, Griffin was enrolled in an intensive summer Latin course taught by Tommye Lou Davis, where the QB mastered a semester's worth of the language in a single month and never earned lower than a 93 on any assignment.

  • It might not be a bad month to job search in DFW. Staffing firm Robert Half International just released a report showing 81 percent of executives in the D-FW area plan to hire in the next three months. Seventy percent plan to fill open positions, but 11 percent will add new jobs. DFW’s unemployment rate continues to be more than a full percentage point below the national rate. [Dallas Morning News]
  •  A student at UT Arlington found an undiscovered poetic gem as part of a recent assignment. Associate professor Cedrick May asked his doctoral students to track down known works of Jupiter Hammon, the first published African-American poet. But one student found a previously unpublished piece that delves deeply into slavery and religion. [NPR]
  • The entire SXSW community is buzzing about advances in 3D printing, but a tiny North Texas library says why go to Austin when you can just drive to Tarrant County? The Saginaw Public Library is the first in the state to have its own 3D printer, thanks to a Best Buy community grant. The library will unveil its Solidoodle Generation2 3D printer in a special event next weekend that’s open to the public. Here’s a glimpse at the monstrously cool 3D innovations KERA’s Lauren Silverman discovered in Austin.
  • "What’s going to happen to our Twinkies?" wasn’t the million-dollar question; it was worth $410 million. Bankrupt Hostess Brands Inc., based in Irving, said it will sell its snack cake brands, including the Twinkie, to Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management. According to the Dallas Business Journal, M&C CEO Dean Metropoulos says the new owners plan to have "America's favorite snacks back on the shelf by this summer." [DBJ]
Courtney Collins has been working as a broadcast journalist since graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2004. Before coming to KERA in 2011, Courtney worked as a reporter for NPR member station WAMU in Washington D.C. While there she covered daily news and reported for the station’s weekly news magazine, Metro Connection.