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Word's just in that the Little Rock Central High School team has repeated as national champion in the Federal Reserve Bank's Fed Challenge, in which teams of high school students handle tough questions on economcs and monetary policy.

It ain't football, I know.

But it's worth a $10,000 scholarship for the school and $6,000 for each of the team members.

You may recall that earlier this spring the Pulaski County School District superintendent called for bids from private companies to take over the district's transportation services. Today the low-bidding company's representatives are in town meeting with some school board members individually at the district's administration building. That set-up circumvents FOI laws that treat most gatherings of two or more board members as public meetings.

Superintendent James Sharpe is out on medical leave, and the district's chief financial officer, Larry O'Brien, who's attending the meetings, hasn't returned our phone call yet. But board member Danny Gililland said the district administration set up the meetings so board members could ask questions and receive information privately.

Whether such meetings violate the letter of the state FOI law isn't clear.  The Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled it's illegal to poll board members one-by-one in individual conversations even if the board later takes a public vote on the issue, but that decision didn't address meetings that were supposed to be strictly informational.

Gililland said he hadn't thought about such meetings having the effect of shutting the public out, but he understands the concerns. Still, he said, he appreciated having the chance to ask what might be stupid questions "without making an idiot of myself."

We get that, but can't agree that a public official's desire to not look stupid trumps the public's right to know that official's decision-making process.

The flat, matter-of-a-fact recitation of a police report takes none of the chill out of this description of the robbery of a Shell station at 721 E. 9th Street about 3 a.m. this morning.

On 05-19-08, at 0310 hours, officers responded to a Robbery Just Occurred call at the Shell located at 721 E. 9th Street.  Upon arrival officers made contact with the clerk Gladies Polk who advised that two black males entered the store armed with rifles and demanded money from the cash register.  Ms. Polk refused to give them the money and then one of the suspects fired several rounds in her direction.  Ms. Polk ran to the storage room and locked the door.  One of the suspects jumped the counter, searched the cabinet under the register, and then walked to the storage room.  This suspect then pointed his rifle at Ms. Polk and fired.  The subject then jumped the counter and both subjects left the business.  Ms. Polk received non-life threatening injuries to the back of her right calf and thigh from shrapnel after the bullet fired at her in the storage room hit the tile floor right next to her.  She was transported by MEMS to UAMS.   The suspects were described as black males; the first suspect was approximately 20 yoa, 5’10”, medium build, light complexion wearing a black t-shirt over a large white t-shirt with baggy dark jeans and white tennis shoes.  The second suspect was described as approximately 20 yoa, 5’5”, stocky built with dark complexion, wearing a dark shirt, tan shorts, white tennis shoes and armed with a shotgun (black).  Both suspects had bandannas over their faces.  The subjects fled the business on foot. No video at this time.

 NY Times covers a "purity ball," a father-daughter dinner and dance dedicated to the daughter's retention of her virginity until marriage. (Photo is from one in Colorado.) Odd to me. What do you think?

But after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.”

The gesture signaled that the fathers would guard their daughters from what evangelicals consider a profoundly corrosive “hook-up culture.” The evening, which alternated between homemade Christian rituals and giddy dancing, was a joyous public affirmation of the girls’ sexual abstinence until they wed.

Yet the graying men in the shadow of their glittering daughters were the true focus of the night. To ensure their daughters’ purity, they were asked to set an example and to hew to evangelical ideals in a society they say tempts them as much as it does their daughters.

“It’s also good for me,” said Terry Lee, 54, who attended the ball for a second year, this time with his youngest daughter, Rachel, 16. “It inspires me to be spiritual and moral in turn. If I’m holding them to such high standards, you can be sure I won’t be cheating on their mother.”

Democrats make big gains in Congress. That's Brummett's prediction for now, anyway.

Meanwhile, post mortems have begun even as the campaign continues. Was gender a factor in the expected Democratic nomination outcome?