Statue of former president loses head in Ohio

[May 18, 2009]  HIRAM, Ohio (AP) -- Someone has beheaded a statue of President James Garfield that was installed last week at an Ohio college.

Hiram College spokesman Shawn Brown says the vandalism was discovered Friday morning, just a day after the sandstone statue was dedicated on the campus in Hiram, 30 miles southeast of Cleveland.

Brown says the college is hoping the head will be recovered so the 95-year-old statue can be restored, but police have no leads in their investigation.

In the mid-1800s, Ohio native Garfield was a student and later the principal at the school that later became Hiram College. He was elected the nation's 20th president in 1880.

The statue was acquired for Hiram by a college trustee who found it recently on an eastern Ohio farm.

[Associated Press]

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