news-record.com

Oak Ridge Military Academy has found a highly qualified new leader and didn't have to look far. Cuyler McKnight, 61, a retired Army major and GTCC executive vice president, has been chosen to get the 157-year-old school back in step.

He faces a rugged trail. The financially strapped school was on the verge of closing last spring as staff members went without paychecks. Enrollment is down to about 62 students.

However, the school's fortunes are turning around under interim President Reginald Ponder and a new board of trustees.

It's important that the school continue providing an educational alternative for Guilford County and the Southeast.

Leave it to beavers

Pesky beavers are wreaking havoc in Latham Park.

Do something! we say to the city. Just don't hurt 'em.

So city workers removed their dam and protected a stand of trees with wire mesh (chew this!).

In other words, the city is trying to annoy the beavers.

To some of us, beavers are just rats with water wings and engineering degrees. But many of us apparently are seduced by their industriousness, and well, cutes.

If the beavers don't back away it'll be interesting to see who prevails: the hardliners or the bleeding hearts.

Stay tuned.

A new weapon against H1N1

A Durham company, BioCryst, has made a major breakthrough with the development of its antiviral drug Peramivir. It was recently approved for emergency use against the H1N1 flu by the Food and Drug Administration.

The drug has "the potential to save the lives of thousands of Americans stricken with H1N1," Sen. Kay Hagan said in a news release. Her office worked with the company through the FDA approval process.

The impact may take some time to assess, however. For now, the use of Peramivir will be tightly restricted by the Centers for Disease Control, which will allow distribution only through the Strategic National Stockpile and must give specific permission for each patient treated. Only individuals not responding to other treatments and who are under the care or consultation of a licensed clinician will be approved.

Peramivir hasn't completed the normal clinical trials, and risks and benefits aren't fully known. But the FDA declared it's "reasonable to believe" that the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks, given the public health emergency and lack of alternative treatments.

Physicians who have patients with severe H1N1 distress at least have a new avenue of treatment to explore. Hagan said she's "incredibly proud that North Carolina companies like BioCryst and our research universities are on the cutting edge of new medicines ... ." She ought to be. We could add that a school of pharmacy at UNCG, with an emphasis on both teaching and research, could further sharpen the cutting edge.

Learning more online

Thanks to the increasingly popular N.C. Virtual Public School, students in small, rural school districts are getting the same opportunities as their big-city counterparts for challenging classes.

Providing online instruction becomes even more important as budget cuts force the elimination of expendable niche courses. But success comes at a price: The State Board of Education is scrambling to fund the program, which could swell to 20,000 enrollees by the spring.

One idea: to ask local school districts to charge tuition to take online courses. However, that could have a chilling effect.

For now, the legislature mandates the state to pick up the costs -- about $12 million, no small amount. But the return on the investment would be considerable. Extending the online option also can benefit local school districts that won't have to fund limited-interest and often costly courses.

To today's tech-savvy generation, learning via computer in school or at home is no different from sitting at a desk in the classroom.