Zac is Dead (Not really)

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Relax — our three little cherubs are alive and well.

A rumor is making the rounds that Zac Hanson, the youngest of
the Tulsa-native hit trio Hanson, was killed in a bus accident in
Europe. It's not true.

Of course, he is the barefoot one on the album cover, and
“MMMBop'' played backwards does sound like, “Zac is dead.'' (It's
a joke, kids. Ask your parents.)

Sources at Hanson's record label and management group confirmed
on Friday that the rumor was just that — and not a very funny one,
either.

“You must be a star when rumors like this start floating around
about you, even if it is kind of sick,'' said Jolynn Matsamura,
publicist at Mercury Records.

Students at Jenks East Middle School were crying in the halls on
Friday morning when the rumor reached the Tulsa circuit. A Jenks
counselor said the rumor created “quite a stir'' and that students
were “all in a twit'' upon arriving at school.

“Everyone was freaking out,'' said Jenks seventh-grader Mary
Ellerbach. “We were all crying.''

Most students said they had been told that someone else had
heard the report broadcast on KHTT, K-HITS 106.9 FM. However, the
station denies reporting the rumor.

“We never announced it. After a lot of calls about the news,
though, we called Hanson's agent in Los Angeles, found out it
wasn't true, and reported that,'' said KHTT operations manager Sean
Phillips.

A Jenks student's mother who knows the Hanson family verified
the rumor as false and relayed the information to the school.

“Then all the kids chilled,'' a counselor said.

The rumor apparently originated in Europe and came ashore via
the Internet. It was in Oklahoma by mid-week; callers to a Thursday
night radio show on KSPI in Stillwater (which featured the Tulsa
band Fanzine) already were asking, “Is it true?''