[UPDATED with Weekly Role in Discovery:] George P. Shultz's Head is Found in Trash, But Ronald Reagan's is Still Missing

​UPDATE, DEC. 13, 12:22 P.M.: The recyclables searcher who found the head of George P. Shultz in a Huntington Beach garbage bin told his son in Oregon about the find, which led junior to search the Internet and find the OC Weekly Navel Gazing blog post on the former secretary of state's missing noggin, according to Chapman University officials. "We theorize that your story, plus our Public Safety officers contacting all local metal recycling facilities, might have made the busts too 'hot' to sell or recycle, so perhaps the thief or thieves finally just trashed them," relates university spokeswoman Mary Platt in an email.

As we reported this morning, the bronze bust of Ronald Reagan that was snatched off a podium on campus the same day as Shultz's remains missing, and a new one has been commissioned. However, we misreported that a new Shultz bust was essentially in limbo. According to Platt, busts of both GOP warhorses were commissioned, and with the return of Shultz's, Chapman now has two.

"The elderly gentleman who found the bust is on disability and collects recycling to add to his income," Platt reports.

Public Safety officials, who went to pick the Shultz head up from the fellow in Huntington Beach, have not yet released his name, pending his permission. But Chapman will present him his $250 reward in person Friday, Platt said.

Meanwhile, would-be bronze-natchers would be wise to know that, since the head-nappings, the university has stepped up security on the remaining busts and other artwork displayed on campus, "with comprehensive camera coverage, more patrols, and security devices on each piece (can't go into detail, obviously)," the spokeswoman notes.

Others depicted in Chapman's "gallery of busts," which is the way the university honors funders of endowed chairs annually--by letting that individual, family, organization or foundation select a renowned figure representing the field of study supported by their gift--include everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Martin Luther King Jr. to Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.  

Chapman currently has 33 endowed chairs and 22 endowed professorships. A list of the year, 20 bust subjects and endowed chairs follow after the jump . . .