When we kicked off our Stressed Out series, we thought of everything. We had some fantastic, educational books, an increasingly interactive Web site with conWhen we kicked off our Stressed Out series, we thought of everything. We had some fantastic, educational books, an increasingly interactive Web site with contests, polls, and stories, a MySpace page, and a cute, little mascot to go with it all. And we named that mascot . . . Oops! That’s what we forgot! So, we asked for your help. You responded with a variety of witty (sometimes even funny) names for our cartoon nurse. And the winner (drum roll, please) is Sara Leikam of LaGrange College in Georgia. Her choice: Fran (short for Frantic).

We caught up with Leikam, 21, a senior at LaGrange, late last week and got inside her creative mind for a few minutes.

The first thing we wanted to know was where she came up with the name. “Well,” Leikam says, “I was just trying to think of some words that could be synonymous with stressed out and could be shortened into a name.” And frantic? “When the contest was up [on the Web site], I was in my hardest semester so I was kind of frantic at the time,” Leikam says. “And, she/he/it looks kind of frantic.”

Then there was the tougher question concerning Fran’s gender. Leikam was quick to make a final decision: “It’s a girl’s name,” she says of Fran with a chuckle. “It just kind of looks like a girl to me for some reason.”

For more of this story (plus a whole lot more!), please click here.tests, polls, and stories, a MySpace page, and a cute, little mascot to go with it all. And we named that mascot . . . Oops! That’s what we forgot! So, we asked for your help. You responded with a variety of witty (sometimes even funny) names for our cartoon nurse. And the winner (drum roll, please) is Sara Leikam of LaGrange College in Georgia. Her choice: Fran (short for Frantic).

We caught up with Leikam, 21, a senior at LaGrange, late last week and got inside her creative mind for a few minutes.

The first thing we wanted to know was where she came up with the name. “Well,” Leikam says, “I was just trying to think of some words that could be synonymous with stressed out and could be shortened into a name.” And frantic? “When the contest was up [on the Web site], I was in my hardest semester so I was kind of frantic at the time,” Leikam says. “And, she/he/it looks kind of frantic.”

Then there was the tougher question concerning Fran’s gender. Leikam was quick to make a final decision: “It’s a girl’s name,” she says of Fran with a chuckle. “It just kind of looks like a girl to me for some reason.”

For more of this story (plus a whole lot more!), please click here.