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By PAMELA DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 14, 2000
The boxers have been chosen.
Bubba the Love Sponge from rock station WXTB-FM 97.9 will take on Dave McKay from country station WQYK-FM 99.5 in a charity match called Boxing for Books.
Last month, the host of the Bubba the Love Sponge Show issued a challenge to local radio and TV personalities to meet him in the ring.
The first to accept the challenge was WSSR-FM 95.7 (Star) morning personality Carmen Connors who said she wanted to "step in the ring for every woman he has degraded and treated like s---," she said.
Event promoters HCG 5-Star Promotions declined Connors' offer and instead chose a male competitor closer to Bubba's size.
The three-round exhibition fight between radio personalities takes place at 9 p.m. on July 21 in the downtown Tampa Hyatt. It's followed by a match between real boxers David Santos and "Boom Boom" Johnson.
General admission tickets are $20 at Ticketmaster and on-site the night of the match. All proceeds benefit the Tampa Bay Buccaneer Chidi Ahanoutu Sponsorship Fund.
Community radio station WMNF-FM 88.5 was honored recently with a Unity Award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation for White Protest Nation, which aired in December.
The show was part of a segment called When Terrorism Won in America, part of the series Listening Between the Lines: Races With History, created by Alan Lipke, an independent public radio producer in Tampa.
The series documents America's history of racial conflict and current efforts at reconciliation. It was followed by a live, in-studio expert panel discussion with caller participation.
Produced by Tampa-based Reality Works, the series grew out of Rosewood Reborn, a radio documentary Lipke wrote and directed that aired in 1997 and won, among other prizes, the Edward R. Murrow Award.
According to the RTNDA, the Unity Award is given to news organizations that show an ongoing commitment to covering the cultural diversity of the communities they serve.
Don Imus returned to the air Monday after being thrown from a horse last month. The 59-year-old syndicated radio host suffered five broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken collar bone and a shoulder separation.
USA Today reported that on his first day back, Imus had oxygen tubes in his nose and was unable to move his left side. The Imus in the Morning show is heard locally on WTAN-AM 1340.