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The Lady Wildcats basketball team won their way into the finals of the Bishop Snyder Christmas tournament last week before losing to rival Baldwin 54-42. The Cats beat Bishop Snyder in the first round and Ed White in the semi-final game.

Chelsey Ruise had 20 points in the 48-40 win over the White Commanders to lead all scorers. Ruise had 9 points in the final period as BCHS outscored White 16-6 to secure the win. 

The boys basketball team lost a heartbreaker to Interlachen in the first round of the Florida First Coast Classic 49-48 December 27. Interlachen broke open a tie game with 2 seconds to go on a three-pointer to win the game.

The Cats had come back from a 25-17 halftime deficit.

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Do you know the difference between a recession and a depression … the tenants of spherical geometry … the region of Russia that lies within the Arctic Circle … or the various battles of the Korean War?

There’s a small group of Baker High students whose wealth of knowledge extends to all of the above and much more.

Meet the Wildcat Hi-Q teams.

Eleven players in all — six upperclassmen on the varsity squad and five sophomores and freshmen on the junior varsity team — have been matching wits with academic teams from Bradford, Union and Columbia counties in recent weeks.

See them in action here.

The varsity team of Dillon Burnsed, Zachory Spencer, Allejandro Guerra, Reagan McKendree, Sarah Harrell and Chelsea Moore have gone undefeated in their first three contests, winning two matches by overwhelming margins.

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We should feel left out.

Nobody around here is talking about an “Occupy Baker County” movement. They’ve sprouted up everywhere else, drawing legions of the “dispossessed” from the ranks of college kids with degrees in transgender colonialism who can’t get jobs and have left their parents’ basements long enough to allow a thorough cleaning, organized labor (mostly public employees I suspect), aging hippies from the 1960s who’ve been waiting around for something like this for a half-century, anarchists, communists, socialists and — similar to the late 1960s when yours truly was in college — hangers-on pretty much there for the sex and rock ‘n roll.

Whew!

In fairness, there are others with legitimate grievances — people with underwater mortgages or foreclosed mortgages, society’s “contributors” who find themselves in the ranks of the unemployed, etc.

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Sue End of Macclenny really loves Halloween, and she’s delighted it will be a one-night affair this year.

Last fall, when Halloween fell on a Sunday, the Baker County Commission asked that trick or treaters venture out on Saturday instead, so that trick or treating coincided with the other Halloween-themed events in the community, some at local churches.

Commissioners designated by formal proclamation that the night of October 30, 2010 would be “the official trick or treat night.”

For the last decade, Ms. End and her husband John have prepared for the holiday by hoarding copious amounts of candy, dispensing the sweets to eager trick or treaters. They host a Halloween party at their Miltondale Dr. home for friends as well.

And last year was no different.

“We got kids on both nights,” she said of Halloween weekend 2010. “Unfortunately, on Sunday, I didn’t have any candy to give out.”

This year, with Halloween safely on a Monday, there should be no confusion about when trick or treating will take place. For Ms. End, however, it’s never been a question.

“Halloween is always October 31. Are you going to change Christmas because it falls on a weekday and messes up your work week?” she asked rhetorically. “[Halloween] is not about evil. It’s just a fun holiday for kids to dress up and go out and celebrate.”

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