Good, bad and ugly in print

Ok this isn’t necessarily sports related today.

But it does concern an area school North Baltimore. I have been going over and doing stories on North Baltimore’s athletes for more than a decade.

They have their panties in a bunch because of a story the Courier ran this week about drug and alcohol use at the schools. If you haven’t read it here is a link to it here.

According to the survey results, a whopping 92.3 percent of North Baltimore high school seniors (the class level most likely to use drugs and alcohol) said they had consumed alcohol this year, which is one of the highest rates in the county. The rate for Wood County as a whole was 65 percent.

Cigarette use is also prevalent. Numbers showed that this year alone, 52.2 percent of North Baltimore seniors smoke, an increase from 23.8 percent in 2004.

Marijuana is the third most popular drug of choice for teens in the county (behind alcohol and tobacco), and that trend is also reflected in North Baltimore.

In Wood County, 35 percent admitted to smoking it within the past year, while 39 percent in the village indicated they had.

Everyone loves the good stories and they hate it when we write about something less than positive that’s going on. I guess that’s just human nature. By all means call us and complain, but realize we are doing our jobs as a newspaper.

Sometimes if the media doesn’t bring an issue to light no one would ever know there’s a problem. Then, there’s no one trying to find a solution.

NOTEWORTHY: FORE: Liberty-Benton, Van Buren, Ottoville and Bluffton are the only area teams that survived yesterday’s Division III sectional golf tournament. A handful of individuals did advance too. I think Liberty-Benton has to be one of the favorites to qualify while the Pirates, Knights and Big Green will have to put together their best rounds of the season to advance next week at Sugar Creek.

WHAT I’M WORKING ON: McComb’s Sarah Schroeder, who has already committed to play volleyball at UF next season, got her 1,000th career kill yesterday. I’m meeting with her Monday on a prep page feature. I’ll also be talking to people from Vanlue about their dilemma of finding a girls basketball coach. I’m also going to hit a few area bowling alleys for a feature on all the small-town alleys in the Courier coverage area.

STORY IDEAS: Do you have any? Share them with me and we’ll see what we can do. Anything unusual or interesting sports or news wise I’d love to hear your ideas.

NEWSWORTHY:
Police find meth in prosthetic leg
Final NCC Golf Standings, Leaders
Defiance High School under Title IX scrutiny
Findlay Courier Friday’s Local Sports
Friday’s Review Times sports section
Fremont News Messenger Friday’s Sports Section
Mansfield News Journal prep sports roundup
Tiffin Columbian-Fostoria preview from the Tiffin A-T
Fostoria man convicted in ticket scam
Roles reversed for NWOAL clash