Like archaeologists digging up bones from an earlier civilization, small communities in Central Texas are opening up the earth and confronting ghosts from their past. Street by street, workers in Troy, Holland and Bartlett are excavating from narrow graves 4-foot sections of clay sewer pipe, relics from an aging infrastructure that sorely needs modernization.

Federal officials have been underestimating the number of new AIDS infections in the United States by 40 percent every year for more than a decade, researchers said Saturday. Using sophisticated testing to identify new infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that there are about 56,300 new infections each year - not the 40,000 that has been gospel for so long.

Think the cost of gas is high? Try buying a college textbook. “I think the most I´ve spent on a book was $250,” said Rashod Holmes, 22, a business major at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. “It was for a music book. Honestly, I don´t know why it was so much.”

CAMERON - If Kyndra Reed imagined that the pinnacle of her long-running alliance in Democratic Party politics was introducing former President Bill Clinton to a packed house of cheering Aggies last spring, she now stands corrected. To borrow a cliché, the best is yet to be for this energetic Texas A&M University junior.

Since the inception of the Craig Bukosky Junior Golf Open in 1996, Temple resident and tournament founder Mike Bukosky has pitched the annual event as “the best deal in town.” From the first year through last year, boys and girls ages 7-18 played Wildflower Country Club (the permanent host since 2001) or then-Sammons Park Golf Course and received an embroidered hat, towel, bag tag, balls, tees, lunch and bottled water - all for $10.

OXNARD, Calif. - Tony Romo was still an obscure backup quarterback who had never thrown a pass in a real game. He didn´t have a celebrity girlfriend. An undrafted player from a small school, he could walk around the Dallas Cowboys´ training camp complex and run onto the field wearing his No. 9 jersey without being noticed by the fans clamoring for autographs - or even team owner Jerry Jones.

CANTON, Ohio - The Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony turned Hog wild Saturday. Darrell Green and Art Monk walked across the stage waving and urged thousands of Washington Redskins fans to give them one more salute. Emmitt Thomas, the former Kansas City Chiefs cornerback and Redskins coach, simply waved back.

Ever since scrapping match play as its format 50 years ago, the PGA Championship has suffered an identity crisis. The Masters is the youngest of the four majors, yet perhaps the most familiar because it´s always at Augusta National. The U.S. Open bills itself as golf´s toughest test. The British Open is the only major played on links courses.

So what is it really like having your identity forever tied to being a Texas Longhorn? Furthermore, what is it like to have that moniker for more than 60 years?