Published: February 02, 2008 09:14 pm         

School board must share blame

If a buyout of Allegany County school superintendent Bill AuMiller’s contract takes place — and it certainly appears likely — the county school board will hardly have clean hands in what went wrong.

Why the buyout is being pursued is shrouded in secrecy because the board is meeting in closed-door sessions over the matter. But all signs point to the lawsuit brought against school officials by radio station WCBC as the primary reason.

Stung by criticism, school leaders apparently tried to punish the radio station by barring it from the Greenway Avenue Stadium pressbox, pulling a scholarship program from the air, and other arbitrary actions.

But didn’t the school board know in advance that these steps were being taken? Of course it did. And therein lies the reason why the board should receive just as much blame as AuMiller for a situation that was badly mishandled.

Meanwhile a buyout may end up taking $200,000 to $300,000 from badly-needed school funds.

Shame on everyone involved....

Amy Shuman finished up 25 years of writing columns for the Times-News earlier this month. In her final piece, she estimated that she may have written 2,000 columns over the years.

A number of other columnists have approached that figure. Jim Goldsworthy, for example, began writing a column in 1977 and has probably exceeded the 1,600 mark since then. Frostburg State University professor Bob Doyle began writing “Under Cumberland Skies” at the request of the late C. Arthur “Soupy” Lancaster, longtime Cumberland Evening and Sunday Times editor, in 1976. Doyle believes he has penned 1,645 columns since then.

But the record for most columns must be held by the late J. Suter Kegg. When Kegg, retired sports editor of the Cumberland Evening Times and Cumberland Sunday Times, was inducted into the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association in 2002, it was estimated that he wrote more than 8,000 sports columns from 1946 until 1981. He continued writing more columns and byline stories long after retirement....

Monsignor James V. Hobbs, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, retired Saturday, after more than half-century as a priest.

Hobbs was ordained in 1957 and his first assignment was at St. Mary’s Church in Cumberland, where he served as an associate pastor for 15 years. He plans to move into the Thurmont house in which he was born 76 years ago to assist pastors in the area parishes like Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Thurmont, and Shrine of St. Anthony, Emmitsburg....

Our reporter Michael Sawyers has tried numerous times this past year to determine the fate of the Rawlings Athletic Complex that was purchased at auction by Vincent Groh of Hagerstown, but Groh won’t return any of his calls. If we find out something, we’ll let you know.

Counting fees, Groh shelled out $748,000 for the building in September 2006. County officials say property tax payments are up to date....

Kevin Hagerich, former director of public works for the city of Cumberland, is the new public works director in Iberia (La.) Parish. A native of Portage, Pa., Hagerich had been transit manager for Lake Charles in Louisiana prior to coming to Cumberland....

You know those annoying cell phone ring tones? They promise to get worse.

The National Zoo is now offering 25 different animal grunts and bellows for you to download for $2.99 each. Choices range from the bark of a giant panda Tai Shan, a howl from a gray wolf, bald-eagle screeches or the roar of an African Lion, according to Scripps Howard News Service....

Seen on the Internet— Mostly useless facts:

• On average, Americans’ favorite smell is banana.

• If one spells out numbers, they would have to count to One Thousand before coming across the letter “A:.

• 3.9 percent of all women do not wear underwear.

• Only six people in the world have died from moshing.

• Four-hundred quarter pounders can be made from one cow.

• The thumbnail grows the slowest, the middle nail the fastest, nearly four times faster than toenails.

Jan Alderton is managing editor of the Cumberland Times-News. His email address is jpalderton@times-news.com.