board of education

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A short while ago I got the word from her daughter that Nell Rose, one of the most enthused and energetic and especially dynamic people who I have ever had the great pleasure of knowing, passed away yesterday.

Nell was the embodiment of model leadership.  She would see things that could have been better and she threw herself into it, no questions asked.  This was especially noted in her myriad of activities involving education.  She spearheaded a number of initiatives when she and her family moved to Charlotte.  And then some years later when they moved back to the Reidsville area, she brought that same vision to bear.  The woman was nigh unstoppable.

I knew Nell from a variety of situations.  The first time we met, it was during our high school swim team’s weekly meets.  Her two daughters were on the team and Nell often came to ...

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At last night’s monthly work meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education, the proposal was put forth that the board should begin each session with prayer.  It’s been a longstanding custom to have a moment of silence.  If the board approves of it at the May 13th meeting, that would be replaced with a public prayer before an official function of government.

Here’s the story from today’s News & Record…

Board members spent nearly an hour talking
through the finer points of whether they should open meetings with
prayer. It was discussion that at times became tense but never
contentious.

The school board currently opens its
meetings with a moment of silence. Board member Ron Price asked the
board to consider adding prayers during the last meeting.

The members will vote on the issue May 13

The possibility of a lawsuit was brought
up Monday night by

...
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How does one begin to describe Reida Drum?

Nothing I could possibly write would ever come close to encapsulating her feisty nature, her high-minded priciples… and her personality resplendent with color and charm.

(Reida once told me that she liked how I described her as “resplendent” in a blog post. She said that was one of her favorite words.)

Reida was many things: an educator, an actress, an investigator, an administrator, and always ever a woman of raucous style and a spirit to match.

Reida was a woman of many hats… literally! To say nothing of the plethora of feather boas that she was often seen wearing. Many times over the years she would don hat and boa and come to the libraries of elementary schools throughout Rockingham County and read to the children, who knew her as “the Feather Lady”.

She taught English at the old Bethany High ...

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…it’s… me!

That was almost six years ago. I really am never gonna live this down, am I?

Well, it was a lot of fun running for school board. The entire experience, I mean! One that I would never trade for anything. I learned a great deal more about election laws and running for office than I had ever known before. I didn’t win a seat but that’s okay: it was a great run, I campaigned my own way and kept it positive, upbeat, and I wanted to present my beliefs in an enlightening and entertaining fashion. I wanted just ten people to vote for me, and wound up getting nearly forty-seven hundred.

But I didn’t for once believe that this commercial was going to grab any attention beyond Rockingham County… and much less still be going strong more than half a decade later!

Well anyhoo, Cracked.com has my Star ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Dear Ron,

Five years ago last week, on the night before the election that included the names of you, me and fourteen other individuals on the ballot for Board of Education, you were involved in an incident that continued to make headlines long after the polls had closed.

In the many months following that incident, there were individuals who attempted to extract a measure of accountability from someone who was by that time a duly elected public official. I was one of those, as you well know. It is not only a matter of public record what I did with this blog regarding the events of November 6th, 2006, but a legal one also, as I was subpoenaed during your lawsuit against another party.

I am not writing this to reiterate what it is that you may have done, or to again press claim for what I sincerely believed was ...

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Some legislative representatives of neighboring Forsyth County are seeking to re-introduce partisan elections for that county’s school board. Two years ago the General Assembly passed a bill that made elections to the board a matter of no regard to party affiliation.

The measure is being spearheaded by Dale Folwell, one of Forsyth’s representatives in the North Carolina House. And his rationale for partisan school board elections?

…lawmaker Dale Folwell said party affiliations noted on the ballot helps voters make their decisions.

Folwell said nonpartisan races attracted fewer votes in the last election in part because those races are at the bottom of the ballot and because candidates had no party affiliation to help voters choose.

“People, when they go to the ballot box, need as much info as they can get,” Folwell said Friday.

Knowing what party a candidate belongs to is supposed to be vital information?

sigh…...

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Chris Knight's avatar

This community has lost a respected and admired leader… and a friend to many.

The sad word came late last night that Tim Scales, Vice-Chairman of the Rockingham County Schools system here in North Carolina, passed away yesterday morning. He had served on the board since 2000, and had been representing District 6 in the western part of the county.

Can’t express how torn up I’m feeling since yesterday.

Tim was… well, whenever I’ve thought of him, I’ve most especially remembered his exuberant smile and hearty disposition the very first time that we met. It was in August of 2006: the early days of that wacky school board election. I went to a meeting of the school board – figuring that if I was going to run for a seat on it that I’d better get watch and observe as much as I could.

Tim and I met after ...

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Niall Doran, a regular reader of this blog from Down Under, e-mailed to inform me a short while ago that I was seen on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s hit show Gruen Nation last night!

Here’s Niall’s report…

As a regular browser of your blog, I was surprised to see you make an appearance on Australian television earlier tonight!

A regular part-humorous, part-analytical & highly popular program on our national broadcaster (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC) is normally called the “Gruen Transfer”, and unveils and discusses the techniques behind commercial advertising. However, we are in the final throes of a federal election, for which the “Gruen Transfer” has become the “Gruen Nation”, with a series of specials focusing on the techniques of political advertising in particular. Tonight they showed your infamous Star Wars ad, although in the comments afterwards they unfortunately didn’t raise the copyright issue that you fought

...
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Okay, YouTube didn’t really call me, but you know…

Last month I reported that Comcast was giving me grief about how I posted a clip from E!’s show The Soup where they used MY commercial from the school board campaign in 2006… without asking me, but I was fine with that. I just expected the same courtesy from E! and its ownership that I have given them. That’s not too much to ask, in my mind.

And of course, this whole thing is too much like that crazy situation with Viacom a little over two years ago. And just as I did with Viacom then I filed a counterclaim with YouTube, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

A short while ago I received the following e-mail from YouTube:

Re: [#561937480] YouTube Support

Copyright Service to me

Hi there,
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we’ve completed
processing

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Chris Knight's avatar

Well, it was just “that Star Wars school board campaign commercial”… but at least I can now honestly brag about having made Jay Leno and a studio audience laugh on national television! 🙂

I put the clip of The Jay Leno Show featuring my commercial (along with a few others from around the country) during this past Thursday night’s broadcast on YouTube.  Click here to behold Yours Truly’s visual effects and Melody Hallman Daniel’s awesome voice-over entertaining the entire country in prime-time!

However I don’t know how long it’ll be up on YouTube, ‘cuz as soon as I posted it the system told me that NBC Universal had already flagged it for possible infringement… which I’m thinking is just an automated response to the keywords I attached to the video.  But even so, after EVERYTHING that I’ve gone through in the past few years pertaining to copyright law (yeah I’m ...

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