Paul E. Richardson Jr., who manages staff counsel offices for Allstate Insurance; Deborah W. Post, a law school professor; and Jack Hardy, a senior meeting production specialist for Colgate-Palmolive returned to be honored.

In addition, several area students were recognized for their achievements.

We commend these students and hope that those adults who were honored Friday night will serve as an inspiration.

Who knows?

Perhaps some or all of these students will grow up to become future honorees of the local NAACP.

HIT: The Locke Community Development volunteers spent Saturday morning sprucing up gardens surrounding the town's monuments.

Recruiting help through a newsletter, fliers and word-of-mouth, the small but dedicated group is making a difference.

We've said it before: People who wait for others to make things happen will most often do nothing but wait.

Locke's volunteers are to be commended for giving their time to make the town a better place.

MISS: In what seems like a never-ending stream of similar crimes in this area - and across the country - two people pleaded guilty in Cayuga County Court Monday to sex-related crimes.

In one instance, a teenage boy forcibly restrained and groped a girl as she was walking home from school. The other case involves an adult who abused a 12-year-old boy.

We're tired of hearing the excuses made by the perpetrators: bad childhoods, drug addictions, an inexplicable inability to distinguish right from wrong ...

We hope the abusers get all the psychological counseling they need - and we hope the counseling takes place while they are locked safely away from the rest of us.