o ... To the four Cooperstown High School students who were finalists and special-award winners at the National History Day competition.

Dieter Ulken, Yale Weiss, Katie Anania and Kim Leon were among 46 students from New York who attended the annual competition last month.

Cooperstown 10th-graders Ulken and Weiss won the George C. Marshall 20th Century History Award for their senior group exhibit, "Airlift Saves a City."

Ulken and Weiss’ exhibit was also one of the two New York state entries chosen by National History Day to display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum during the national competition.

Anania and Leon were finalists in the category of senior group exhibit for their project, "Tibet and the Dalai Lama: Triumph and Tragedy in the Himalayas." The exhibit was first-place winner at the New York State History Day competition held in April in Cooperstown.

We echo New York State History Day Coordinator Tobi Voigt’s reaction to the students’ success:

"Kudos to our students who spent months conducting research, drawing conclusions, and creating their final projects. ... They have developed amazing skills that will serve them well in college and in life."

o ... To The Walton Reporter for returning to Delaware Street a year after being forced out of its offices by the flood of 2006.

Since that time, The Reporter, a weekly newspaper founded in 1881 and based in Walton, has being doing business out of the Grange Hall on Stockton Avenue.

Last week, the paper announced its planned move into one of its previous homes, 132 Delaware St. Staff will work out of the second-floor offices above The Country Emporium.

Click to visit their website

Downtown Walton is still recovering from the flood, with many storefronts still empty. But seeing the newspaper return to Walton’s main street is a sign that things are improving.

To The Walton Reporter, we say, "welcome home."

o ... To the judge who ruled in favor of the dry cleaners in the infamous lost-pants lawsuit.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled last week that Custom Cleaners was not liable for $54 million in damages because of a mix-up over a pair of pants belonging to Judge Roy Pearson. Pearson claimed the dry cleaners lost his pants and tried to replace them with a different pair, but he was not able to prove that in court.

That anyone should make such a claim is ludicrous. That the plaintiff in this case is an administrative law judge makes it even more ridiculous.

The case, which began in 2005 and has racked up thousands of dollars in legal fees for the defendants, is a particularly deplorable example of our society’s penchant for litigation. Bartnoff set a strong example in her decision to make Pearson pay court costs and the defendants’ trial expenses, too.

Maybe the next time someone gets an idea of filing a silly lawsuit like that, he’ll think twice.