The Rashkis Elementary School Math Olympiads Team has been named to the National Math Olympiad Honor Roll.

Teams must be in the top 10 percent of all national and international elementary school teams to be named to the honor roll. More than 4,000 teams and 100,000 students nationally and about 1,800 teams and 35,000 students in 32 other countries compete in the program.
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Our good old dog Corncake died a year and a half ago. Corncake had been, to put it politely, of a mixed variety. That was fine with us. We loved her and mourned her passing. After a while, we began to hanker for a dog again. One day I got a call at work from my mother. There was a man with a box of puppies in front of Weaver Street Market; my 11-year-old daughter had fallen in love; should they bring a puppy home? I said yes and it’s a good thing I did, for later Charlotte confided the following: “When I saw another kid pick up the puppy I wanted, I felt faint.”
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Escuche a música, vea al grupo de danza, haga unas artesanías y camine por las calles mirando el arte. El viernes, el 30 de mayo, 6-9pm. El centro de Hillsborough (Churton Street).

De Florida a Coahuila (2002) Dirigido por Rafael Rebollar, esta película es un documental sobre la historia de los Mascogo en la comunidad del Nacimiento de los Negroes en México. Los Mascogo son un grupo de nativo americanos negros quienes viven en México, cerca de la frontera con Texas. El domingo, 1 de junio, 5pm. CHI-CLE, 101 E. Weaver Street, Suite G1 (3er piso). 933-0398

That cracking sound you may have heard just before the Memorial Day weekend was gas prices around here breaking the $4 mark.

Right on the heels of that is news via Forbes that Raleigh commuters (we presume that means those of us who commute to and fro) face the second-worst commute in the country among small cities. To make matters worse, it compares things here to Atlanta and Dallas.
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Forget repealing the gas tax. This state has a much simpler way to put millions of dollars back into the hands of North Carolinians. At the same time, the move will help streamline state government, eliminate unnecessary government bureaucracy and prevent the siphoning off of millions to out-of-state enterprises. Furthermore, the result of this innovation will be a much more progressive distribution of the cost of paying for local school construction.

So what’s the big innovation? Eliminate the lottery.
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IA very salient point was made at the recent public hearing on the town budget. The discussion was over whether or not to fully fund the Orange County Land Trust’s request. To the town, the difference was more symbolic in terms of impact, for it was meant to reflect what other governments likewise encumbered by a flagging economy were doing.

The point brought up has been often repeated at such times: The Land Trust is unique to other nonprofits in that it is an entity set up to administer public policy. It is backed, to paraphrase one official, by all of the governments and, by extension, the people.
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By Chris Fitzsimon

It’s too bad that every single member of the General Assembly who stands in front of television cameras clamoring for the state to resume executions wasn’t in the press room at the Legislative Building Tuesday afternoon.

Three men recently freed from North Carolina’s death row after spending a combined 36 years awaiting their executions for crimes they did not commit appeared with Darryl Hunt, who spent 19 years behind bars until he was finally declared innocent and freed from his life sentence just a few years ago.
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By Elaine Mejia

Those pesky researchers at business-friendly Ernst & Young and the Council on State Taxation have done it again. They simply refuse to develop a methodology for ranking state business tax burdens in such a way that North Carolina’s ranking will come out where the anti-tax zealots like to claim that they are.
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Water and gasoline don’t mix, but the conservation of each merged over the winter as both liquids got scarce. Like a lot of people, I found myself more and more measuring myself by the gallon. A shorter shower saved this. A trip by bike or on foot saved that.

Thanks to recent rains, the worries about water have eased a bit. It’s part supply and part demand. Water-conservation rules may no longer be as strict, but conservation is still all the rage as evidenced by OWASA’s rate increase due to an expected long-range drop in water use. The same thing happened after the drought of 2002.
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Chancellor-elect Holden Thorp checked in the other day via email. I’d inquired how he felt about having to pack up the family and move from Carrboro to the chancellor’s quarters on Raleigh Road. (Nice place, by the way, with a swell pool.)

The chancellor said he had mixed feelings about the move, especially since his band is a regular on the Weaver Street Lawn and his son loves Little League here.
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• You’d think we’d at least get the name of the mascot of Carrboro High School right. Most times, we do. Last week, we didn’t. Go, Jaguars.
• The fellow helping Scotty Mclean in a front-page photo of the capture of the Century Center bees is Leo Gaev.
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Ayrshire Farm will be the site of a party and potluck on Sunday, June 29. “Potluck in a Pasture,” organized by ChathamArts, will bring visitors and their favorite dishes, made with all local ingredients, to the oldest certified organic farm in the state for dining, music and community. Call 219-9840 for details or directions.

The Pittsboro General Store Café will host a Burrito Bash from 6 to 9 p.m. on Monday, June 9 to benefit ChathamArts and the Chatham Artists Guild. The Shelbys provide live music for dancing. A live auction includes works by local artists. Tickets are $15 at the door or $12 if bought early from the ChathamArts Gallery or at Bluebirds and Hollyhocks in Fearrington Village. For more information, call 542-0394.

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Ruby Merritt got 16 telephone calls on Saturday.

With 39 family members already in town to celebrate her 100th birthday, that’s quite a few, she said.

Merritt is the matriarch of a large family, with four children, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. On Sunday, her family threw her 100th birthday party at Captain John’s Dockside Restaurant, and family members came from as far away as California, Pennsylvania and Germany to celebrate. More »