Nothing funny about vandals

Those news stories about someone stealing ducks, roosters and rabbits from Brown Feed and Seed and turning them loose in an Augusta Christian Schools classroom sure were funny, huh?

Nothing like waking up in the morning and getting a chuckle out of barnyard animals pooping all over an English class, eh?

That's the way the week started over at Augusta Christian, and while everyone yukked it up, the classroom was downright yucky. Lost in the laughter is that someone stole private property and then committed criminal trespass.

The sort of illegality is hitting home for five Evans High School students, arrested this past week for vandalizing Lakeside High School before the Sept. 15 football game at Lakeside.

The ringleader of the student vandals did what such knuckleheads often do: He bragged about it. That led to the tip that nabbed him and his four co-conspirators. It helped, investigators said, that when he was brought in for questioning, the school-defacing punk was wearing the same clothes as the vandal in surveillance video.

This sort of thing may be good for a few chuckles on the playground, but it's serious stuff. The Evans ringleader is now facing an adult felony charge for spray-painting "EHS" on the side of LHS, and his cohorts are facing misdemeanors for spreading salt on the school lawn to also spell out their school's initials.

If the Augusta Christian criminal(s) also are caught, the judge ought to require them and all of the Evans vandals to meticulously clean up their messes - and everything else on the campuses. There shouldn't be so much as a gum wrapper under a bush when the juvenile janitors are finished.

Let them laugh about that.

By the way: All these incidents happened in the middle of the night, on a school night. Where the heck were the parents while their children were rambling around Evans breaking the law?

Too much time

Columbia County officials are seeking ideas and donations for a time capsule that they plan to bury on the grounds of the government complex.

The idea has started and stopped a couple of times, but with Probate Judge and historian Pat Hardaway and Tax Commissioner Kay Allen leading the way, it looks like it will happen. One suggestion I would make: Dig it up sooner.

The current plan is to dig it up in 100 years. I see two problems with this idea:

First, it is unlikely that anyone who contributes to the capsule will be alive in 100 years. The donated items will thus be little more than old curiosities.

Second, lots of things can happen in 100 years, including historical forgetfulness. For example, there is supposed to be a time capsule buried at the old Evans Middle School property - but no one can remember where.

Instead, open the capsule in 25 years. Those of us who are still around will get a kick out of recalling what it was like way back in 2006. Just 25 years can bring tremendous changes to a county like ours.

Remember: The land on which the government complex now sits was just a hay field 25 years ago. Also 25 years ago:

Columbia County did not yet have a library;

Ronald Reagan was president, but all Columbia County's offices were held by Democrats;

The county had just two high schools, with all the schools run by an elected superintendent;

Harlem's Oliver Hardy Festival did not yet exist;

The country's top single was "Somebody's Knockin,'" by Grovetown resident Terri Gibbs; and,

Pat Hardaway was sworn in to her first term as probate judge.

Some things never change. But time capsules are to remind us that most of it does.

Barry L. Paschal is publisher of The Columbia County News-Times. E-mail comments to barry.paschal@newstimesonline.com, or call 706-863-6165, extension 106.