QB ENTERS INNOCENT PLEA

Gary Russell Brashears Jr., a freshman quarterback at the University
of Arkansas, pleaded innocent Friday to charges of alcohol possession.

Brashears, 18, entered the plea through his attorney by phone, but two
other students charged in the same incident pleaded guilty Friday
morning and received fines and probation.

Fayetteville Officer Jeremy Grammer stopped the black Dodge pickup
Brashears was driving about 1 a.m. Jan. 15 near Timberline Avenue in
west Fayetteville. A case of beer was found in the bed of the truck,
and Grammer reported finding three open cans of Keystone Light in the
cab. No one admitted to owning the beer, so all four students in the
truck were arrested for illegal possession of alcohol.

Brashears has maintained the beer was not his, and that he was simply
ac ting as a designated driver for the other students.

Two other students in the car, Tatum Blain Owenby, a 19-year-old
freshman cornerback from Greenwood, and a female passenger pleaded
guilty Friday in front of Municipal Judge Rudy Moore. Moore took the
convictions under advisement, as he does with all first-time alcohol
offenders, but did order them to pay a $75 fine and remain on
probation for a year. Matthew Scott Summers, 19, a linebacker from
Bryant, had not yet entered a plea Friday afternoon.