Author donates $1,500 speaking fee to teacher

SAN FRANCISCO -- Best-selling author Dave Eggers wanted to donate his $1,500 speaking fee to a high school teacher who attended a lecture he gave last week. But first, he had to find her.

Eggers made the offer to Eryn Osterhaus, who teaches 11th grade at Terra Nova High School in Pacifica. Osterhaus identified herself as a teacher before asking a question after his talk in San Francisco.

"I asked him how he overcame the confines of writing that high school teachers often put on people -- the boxes that teachers often put their students in," Osterhaus said Wednesday. "He said teachers put him in many boxes and that probably was what's wrong with him."

Osterhaus says she plans to take her kids book shopping with the money, hoping a jaunt to the bookstore will build their interest in reading. She also plans to use the money to fly to Denver for Christmas.

Schwarzenegger touts after-school programs

LOS ANGELES -- Instead of promoting his new action movie "Collateral Damage," the release of which has been postponed, Arnold Schwarzenegger is talking about the importance of after-school programs.

Schwarzenegger plays a firefighter seeking revenge against terrorists who killed his family in the Warner Bros. film, which was scheduled to come out Oct. 5.

The release date has been pushed back out of concern that the film's plot would be too disturbing.

"I think that they are talking about having the movie come out sometime in February. I think there will be an appropriate time to see it," the 54-year-old actor said during a KTLA-TV interview Wednesday.

Schwarzenegger, the father of four children, said he wants to help the estimated 15 million children without after-school programs.

Publisher purchases Jesse James' ranch

PASO ROBLES, Calif. -- Publisher Robert Petersen was so enchanted with Old West outlaw Jesse James' hide-out in Central California that he decided to buy the 17,880-acre ranch and grow wine grapes.

He even bought a $1 million helicopter to quickly cover the 130 miles between his Beverly Hills estate and La Panza Ranch, one of the largest ranches in California.

But since buying the ranch in 1993, Petersen has been able to visit only rarely.

So the former publisher of Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Guns & Ammo magazines is selling it for $27.5 million.

'Survivor' Wesson tries to escape from fame

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Fame isn't fleeting enough for Tina Wesson, winner of "Survivor: The Australian Outback."

"Knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel helps," she told her hometown newspaper, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, last week.

Since winning the $1 million prize last May, Wesson has made several personal appearances and speeches. She expects that will wind down after "Survivor: Africa," the CBS reality show's third installment, wraps up in February.

Are fame and fortune what she believed they would be?

"No," she said. "The fortune is not really a fortune. It allows you a bit."

--From wire reports