by Professor Ken Hansen
For you lovers of good writing, these are the 10 winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton contest --AKA Dark and Stormy Night Contest-- (run by the English Dept. Of San Jose State University), wherein one writes only the first line of a bad novel:

10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it."

8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."

7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.'"

6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."

5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eking out a living at a local pet store."

3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."

2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies."

1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!"

With 36 MB in the can, we are still nowhere near full as far as G-mail is concerned. When the Holabird Advocate started saving G-mail on April 20 of last year, we has 1 GB of storage space to fill up. Since April 1 of this year, the storage space has steadily increased. It is now up to 2.096 GB. At first, we thought it was an April Fools joke. The joke, it appears, is on us.

Hanson County was listed fourth among the ten fast-growing growing counties in the nation. Their population is 7.9% higher than last year. Hanson County is home to a business that caters to people who live in recreational vehicles and who need a permanent address. Why can't Holabird do this? We have all kinds of permanent addresses here. A lot of empty space is going to waste. As I understand it these people don't even have to show up here in Holabird to be a resident. So much the better.

I propose that the Holabird Chamber of Commerce double their efforts to cater to the trailer trash trade. The fact that they don't have to come around could be just the angle we have been looking for. The motto could be, "move to Holabird, and get outta town".

For those who'd like to visit, there is our annual Emorymas celebration. And this year, July 22 falls on a Friday. Anyone who travels around the country looking for something to see could stop buy the Ponderosa and look at the oldest living Hinkle. He'll be 103 on this years Emorymas. It will be lots of fun. We'll even have a petting zoo for the kids. We might even have a "Come to Jesus" meeting if the spirit moves me. Hope to see you there!