UPDATE: According to Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, Higgins won't run for mayor despite several groups encouraging her to do so. Too bad indeed.

No, not the feisty, shoot from the lip, former alderwoman Sue Higgins — Barb Higgins.

The longtime CTV Calgary news co-anchor and, according to Fast Forward Weekly readers this year's third sexiest woman in Calgary, is rumoured to be eyeing a run for the mayor's chair this October.

I first heard Higgins's name whispered at Ald. Ric McIver's well-heeled, 'I wanna be mayor' gala in late April. (I've since heard it dropped several times from different mouths, otherwise I wouldn't bother floating this.)

Considered by many to be the front-runner in the race McIver would have the most to lose if Higgins ran and, according to my original source, "She'd send a rocket right through his campaign."

A rocket? Maybe. Maybe not. At the very least, Higgins would surely throw a wrench into the three-term alderman's well-funded, pro-business, developer-friendly mayoral crusade — or any of the current cast of candidates' campaigns for that matter.

With 20 years in the public eye, Higgins has the name and face recognition. She's active in the community, volunteering with social agencies like the United Way of Calgary and the Canadian Mental Health Association. She's not tied to an ideologically-splintered council that's knee-deep in petty one-upmanship and neck-deep in allegations of potentially masssive administrative fraud —  arguably a positve.

And, she would also be the only female candidate in what, so far, looks more like a dude ranch sign-up sheet than a field of mayoral candidates in a supposedly forward-thinking city.

Until now, the only other woman mentioned as a viable contender has been Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart. However, the Ward 13 alderwoman, who, for what it's worth, recently reappeared on Twitter, has been very coy about her corner office ambitions as of late. (Update: Colley-Urquhart later confirmed she won't seek the mayor's chair, but will run again in her ward.)

So, will Higgins follow in the footsteps of a certain former news personality-turned-mayor-turned-premier-turned-fourth-rate-gameshow-punchline, ditch the television prompter, and give these Dockers-wearing, rhetoric-spewing, wanna-be mayors a run for their money? Only time will tell.

Back to you Barb.