Together even more

Last Wednesday, June 2, I wrote a column on how much twins Patrick and Austin Hodges have mirrored each other as they graduated with a 4.0 GPA from Texas A&M.

I made an off-hand remark in jest that got a couple of responses: "Backtracking slightly, Patrick graduated from Tascosa in 2006 with a 99.9 average and No. 3 in his class. Austin was No. 5, at 99.7, while some interloper squeezed in between."

The interloper crack was that how dare someone get between those two? Well, that "interloper" is Katie Zallar, who is graduating summa cum laude on Aug. 7 from Texas Tech. I heard from a proud grandfather and mother.

"As a mother of the 'interloper,' I do feel you could have selected a more appropriate word with less of a negative connotation," wrote Mary Jo Zallar. "... I realize the gist of what you were trying to convey and the humorous undertone. I even called my daughter to tease her yesterday that she was now an 'interloper.'"

Mary Jo went on to say at the end of that 2006 school year, Katie's GPA edged out Patrick Hodges for third place, so the twins actually did end up side by side, ranking No. 4 and No. 5 at Tascosa.