This week I will continue the &8220;Whatever happened to?&8221; series with Howard Kisner. In the interest of journalistic honesty, I now state that Howard&8217;s mother, Jen, and my mother were sisters.

Kisner, a 1957 Natchez High graduate, was All-Big Eight, All-South and High School All-American in football and lettering four years in basketball, baseball and track. He was also an Academic All-American. He was recruited hard by LSU, Ole Miss, State, Georgia Tech and Tulane. He had been accepted at Dartmouth before deciding to attend Tulane for academic reasons.

Most fans remember that freshmen were not eligible for varsity play in those years, but Howard&8217;s Tulane freshman team beat Florida, Alabama and LSU to lay claim to the unofficial SEC freshmen championship.

Kisner went on to letter both as a sophomore and junior before missing his senior season because of injury. After graduating from Tulane (interestingly, only five of the original 40 players who started out in 1957 graduated), Howard went into medical school at Tulane. He then interned at the University of Kansas Hospital and followed that with a surgical residency in Salt Lake City before fulfilling his two-year Air Force obligation, mostly at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska.

Then came two years of surgical residency at The Oschner Clinic in New Orleans, a year of plastic surgical study at University Medical Center in Jackson and a year in plastic surgery at the University of Tennessee Hospital in Memphis.

The Kisners then spent two years in practice in Salem, Ore., before fellow physician and Tulane teammate Ed McCool suggested Kisner &8220;had too much Mississippi mud between his toes&8221; and needed to return to the South.

Howard settled in Baton Rouge and was in private practice until his recent retirement from an active surgical schedule. He now is medical administrator and supervisor of the Wound Clinic at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge.

Kisner and his wife, high school classmate Jane Johnsey, have four grown children. Oldest son Wendell holds a Ph.D. and is a college professor in Canada. Son Aaron lives and works in Nashville, while daughter Meg lives in Ohio. She has a 14-year old son who is an up-and-coming 800-meter runner. Third son Walter lives in Dallas and has two children.

Meg has three children, while Wendell and Aaron each have a single child. Howard followed his fafafather, the late well-known Natchez surgeon Howard Kisner Sr. in his love for hunting and fishing. He took up golf at the age of 52, and his only comment was that it has been downhill since.

He remains a member of the Tulane &8220;T&8221; Club but only follows college football &8220;at a distance.&8221;

It will be a few more weeks before the final college and high school football rules for 2006 are finalized, but the only noticeable change I&8217;ve heard is that the clock will be started on the &8220;ready&8221; instead of the &8220;snap&8221; after a change of possession.

The rules-makers, I guess, are trying to make up for the time lost to instant replay. I also heard the clock will start when the ball is kicked on a kick off at all times, even in the final two minutes of game time. That makes sense to me.

And that&8217;s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com

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