Don’t ask why, but I wound up watching three hours of biographies of Triple Crown-winning horses on ESPN this past weekend.

What stands out the most from the shows? The range of emotion these horses apparently have, particularly the fact that 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew was apparently a real jerk.

“A typical schoolyard bully” was the general assessment of poor Slew, who was not given an opportunity to respond, though he has been dead since 2002.

I’m good with the concept that horses have personalities. I’m not sure I’m convinced they have unpleasant ones — unless humans get in the way.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the other horses (1948 Triple Crown winner Citation and 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat) featured on those shows had regal owners and therefore were regal horses, and that Slew’s owners weren’t so regal, and their horse was described as not-so-regal by the experts interviewed for the show.

Am I right? Am I wrong? Horse owners and/or racing fans, feel free to chime in.

It’s a nice problem to have, really.

In some ways, there is too much going on in the Crestview area over the next few weeks.

The Crestview Relay For Life is this weekend at Old Spanish Trail Park.

And then on May 23, the May Day (ceremony at Allen Park) and Military Appreciation (ceremony at Old Spanish Trail Park) formal ceremonies are scheduled for within the same hour.

The Military Appreciation folks would like to move their event back to the third weekend of May to coincide with Armed Forces Day. I’m sure the Relay For Life folks and the May Day folks have equally good reasons for picking the dates they do.

What would be the best way to arrange these events on the community calendar in 2010? I’d be interested in hearing from organizers for all three events.

Richbourg Middle School will host a “farewell celebration” on May 7 starting at 5 p.m.

Many people in Crestview have some connection to the school, either as a former student, a teacher, or as the parent of a student.

My favorite Richbourg memory actually happened at Jack Foster Stadium, but involved Richbourg kids.

This was fall of 2006. The Roadrunners were beating someone by about 30 points in middle school football action. I was on the RMS sidelines covering the game. One of the Roadrunner starters was wondering why coach Chris Sweatt wasn’t going for more points. A teammate — one of the team’s best players — calmly explained to the player that the game was safely in hand and it was time to give the younger players a chance to play.

The reaction by that young man — a sincere desire to want to give teammates a chance to participate — was more impressive than the 30-point win.

What are your favorite Richbourg memories? Share your thoughts below.

The panhandle’s rural public schools recently held a meeting in Graceville with the FHSAA executive director to voice their concerns about the difficulty they have competing at the state level in FHSAA-sponsored sports.

Our sports editor, Randy Dickson, has thorough coverage of the meeting in the April 29 edition of the Crestview News Bulletin.

Randy also wrote a column concluding, “In the long run Baker, Laurel Hill and their small school partners across the panhandle need to feel they have a real opportunity to compete” and “It’s past time to make it happen.”

Randy writes that the rural public schools are not on a level playing field with small private schools, that the private schools have all kinds of advantages, maybe even unfair advantages.

Randy is absolutely correct.

Here’s my response: So what?

Life is not a level playing field. Life is not always fair.

What better place to learn those realities — and more importantly, how to respond to those realities — than through athletics?

For those thinking, ‘Oh, you must have graduated from a private high school’ … think again. My high school was very public and very rural. About the size of Baker, actually. The only difference is my school was surrounded by the corn and soybean fields of Indiana instead of the strawberry and cotton fields of northwest Florida. Also, when I played high school sports, Indiana had just one enrollment class. Our Baker-size school had to play Crestview-sized schools to win postseason championships at any level.

So I understand what it is like to have the odds seemingly stacked against you in an athletic competition.

A big reason this country has gone off track is we have created a generation of Americans who think the proper response to adversity is to fight — not to get better, but to get the rules changed.

Call me crazy, but I believe when you get your tail kicked in a sport, the proper response is not to complain that playing field isn’t level, but to work that much harder to get that much better.

Does that mean you’ll catch up? Maybe not. In fact, probably not. There’s a reason state championships are called “once in a lifetime” experiences.

The real lesson is in learning to compete when the odds seem stacked against you. That lesson is more infinitely more valuable than a state championship medal.

A few facts about the News Bulletin’s stance on local pageants:

1) Yes, we are happy to run photos from the pageants in the newspaper. We also post them as quickly as we can on our Web site, www.crestviewbulletin.com. The participants seem to enjoy seeing their photos, and we seem to sell more papers. It’s a win-win for everyone.

2) Yes, the local pageant organizers are helpful and pleasant to work with

3) Yes, we run the photos in the paper as soon as we can. If there seems to be a delay, it’s either because we’re missing some key information or we’re waiting for a better space in the paper. For example, there have been times we’ve delayed publishing pageant photos by a few days so we could print them in color instead of black and white.

4) Yes, we make an active effort to help put together the information that is needed.

5) No, our receptionists don’t have control of how quickly we get all the information we need, nor do they have control of when we are able to publish the photos in the paper. If you are one of the people who called in the last few days to berate our receptionists for not having control of those things, I urge you to call back to apologize.

The Okaloosa County school board is considering a proposal that would do away with corporal punishment in county schools.

I do think parents need to allow schools to enforce more disciplinary measures, but I don’t think the paddle should be one of them.

Two quick related stories:

Story 1:

When we walked into our seventh grade industrial arts class, we saw what appeared to be a paddle hanging above the chalkboard.

When most of us flunked the first assignment — understanding how to measure using a ruler — the teacher said he really ought to use that paddle on us.

At that point, two kids volunteered to take a paddling. (Still not sure what to make of that. Maybe they were planning to sue).

The teacher acted like he was going to take a swing — and then turned the paddle over to reveal an oversized ruler.

“It would be better if I used this on you this way,” he said.

The teacher proceeded to review how to measure using a ruler, using the giant ruler for illustration.

Story 2:

My parents did not use spankings as a punishment.

It wasn’t because they were early 1980s liberals.

Rather, I’m told that after I got my first spanking at age 3, I was asked if I understood the reason for the spanking.

Supposedly, I replied, “Yes. It’s because you’re a wicked witch.”

There were no more spankings after that.

Should there be corporal punishment in schools? Post your thoughts below.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the Mosaic Church of Crestview’s idea to use the slogan “No More Christians” to promote a series of discussions at the church, you have to admit it was a success as an attention-getter.

We got two calls at our office asking what the signs meant.

When we posted the story, it was the most-read story on our site over a two-day period.

And now Fox News has picked up the story on its Web site.

Was the idea a good one? I don’t know. You won’t see us promoting the News Bulletin with the slogan, “No More Newspapers.”

Then again, you can’t argue with the attention the campaign has received.

I’m to the point where I spend more time yelling at the commentators on sports broadcasts for their less-than-thought-out thoughts than I do yelling for (or at) my team of choice.

One thing that annoyed me during the latter part of the just-completed NCAA men’s basketball tournament was the announcers’ insistence that Michigan State’s run to the championship game somehow was a tangible boost to the spirits of a state battered by the economic recession.

Now, the MSU wins probably didn’t hurt. But seriously, did anyone in Detroit come home one night and say, ‘Honey, I just got laid off from my job at the plant, but my spirits are lifted because the Spartans are one win from the title.’

Furthermore, if MSU’s wins were such a lift to Michiganders’ spirits, then why did none of the commentators during the Spartans’ crushing loss against North Carolina have the nerve to say something along the lines of, “Combine this with the economic recession and most people in Michigan are probably more depressed now than ever before.”

If the latter thought sounds ridiculous, that’s a good sign the former thought is equally ridiculous.

More thoughts from March Madness:

• This was probably the worst NCAA tournaments in the last decade. Very few memorable moments, and the teams that produced memorable moments generally got blitzed in the following round. As the AP put it, North Carolina’s win “was about as heartwarming as watching a demolition derby.”

• For those who follow women’s basketball, what do you think of Oklahoma star Courtney Paris’ pledge to return to OU a donation equal to her four-year scholarship because she failed to lead the Sooners to the national title? Some are saying it’s all for show. Some are saying it’s no big loss to her because her dad was an NFL star. Some say it will just be a drop in the bucket of her WNBA millions.

I say give her some credit. I don’t see any other players lining up to match Paris’ pledge.

A simple question:

An Okaloosa County press release issued after the weekend rains declared the event “the worst flooding in 20 years.”

For those who have been here 20 or more years … was it?

If not, tell us about floods that were worse.

One thing was clear at Monday’s Crestview city council meeting: The council members are really sick of referring to the city’s recently purchased building at the Old Spanish Trail Park as “the former CitiChurch building.”

The debate over what to call the building resulted in the most emotional discussion of the evening.

Charles Baugh suggested naming the building after former mayor George Whitehurst, and naming the auditorium space after Preston Medley, a Baker graduate who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008.

Bob Allen and Chip Wells seemed to like the idea, but also noted Mr. Whitehurst is a modest man and probably would not wish to be honored in such a manner.

The topic eventually was tabled.

Other ideas were to call the building the “Crestview City Hall Annex” and the “Crestview Police Department Complex.”

What should the council name the building? Post your ideas below.