Cougs win Space Needle challenge

It's official. The top of Seattle's beloved Space Needle will be crimson-and-gray — as in Washington State University's crimson-and-gray — for Apple Cup weekend.

The University of Washington Huskies came up short in a 14-day challenge to see which school could raise the most money to help Habitat for Humanity rebuild homes damaged by the hurricane in the Gulf Coast states.

The schools had been locked in the daily competition called "Tackling Hurricane Relief."

Contest results were released today. WSU's total was $97,947; the UW's was $66,346. All totaled, $164,293.62 was raised.Contest coordinators said the contest attracted 2,764 donors.

For the past two weeks, the Needle's flag pole has sported for a day the colors of the daily winner from the day before. WSU dominated, and its school colors flew 11 days. The Huskies' purple-and-gold flag waved two days. Last Friday, the American flag flew in honor of Veterans' Day.

As a result, the Space Needle roof will be crimson-and-gray and sport WSU's logo plus the message "Go Cougars!" throughout this weekend, the annual Apple Cup match between the two schools on opposite sides of the state. The roof painting is already underway.

"Although we'll probably get more than a few phone calls about the roof being crimson-and-gray this week, we're very proud of this program and what the Huskies and the Cougars accomplished together," said Dean Nelson, the Space Needle's head man.

In its building program, Habitat plans to pre-build parts of houses across the country, then ship those parts to devastated areas to be assembled as complete homes.

Here at home, the Apple Cup football game between the Dawgs and the Cougs is scheduled for a 12:15 p.m. kick-off Saturday at Husky Stadium.