The chief of the local teacher’s union flanked by several colleagues stood in front of the Baker County School Board this month pleading for higher pay to make up for what their steeper share of health insurance premiums is doing to take-home pay.

It’s cutting into household budgets and if they don’t get some relief, well, they just might have to leave the profession they love and seek other employment.

Is that so?

When I read Mike Anderson’s account of the meeting, I got the impression the speakers believed the general public urgently needs to know public school teachers are being squeezed.

A few eyebrows arched upward last week when Macclenny’s assistant city manager recommended Mark Bryant, a veteran of the city’s volunteer zoning board, to fill the seat on the commission left vacant by the departure of Phil Rhoden to take over the job of city manager.

“We have found him knowledgeable, consistent in his decision making and eager to learn more,” reads an April 30 memo to city commissioners from Assistant City Manager Roger Yarborough. “He has been an outstanding leader to the zoning board. We have been impressed with his knowledge, fairness, grasp of city policy and the ability to solve problems.”

Mr. Yarborough used the plural “we” in that statement, and unless he meant it in the traditional “we” used by English royalty when the queen really means “I,” the reader would assume it as a collective decision by Macclenny’s employees.

The reader might also assume correctly it was “inside baseball,” and that few, if any, other candidates were sought out.

By week’s end, Mr. Yarborough walked it back a bit and indicated the city is now seeking résumés from others who might be interested in a seat on the city board. If he gets any responses, it’s assumed all of them will be presented to the commissioners before the appointment is made in an open meeting.

Our leaders in Tallahassee are wrapping up their annual session on schedule this year, a departure from recent sessions during which squabbles over budget-cutting or redistricting or other issues inevitably pushed their deliberations past the 60-day window prescribed in state law.

Many legislators, lobbyists and state officials are likely pretty happy this year given how smooth the session has been. The biggest fights have been over issues most Floridians have little stake in, like whether to accept $50 billion from the federal government to expand health insurance to the poor.

The senate’s plan would cover about a million more people with the federal funding while the house’s plan rejects federal money and use some $237 million in state money to cover about 115,000 more people.

While that has serious implications for hospitals and low-income folks, two-thirds of adults in Florida have health insurance already.

Baker County lost one of its icons this week. Coach Tom Covington passed away and he will be missed. Coach was one of a kind and he influenced the lives of hundreds of young men, not just by teaching them to play football but by showing them how a man should act.

He could be a field general during a game. Like any coach he was intense and passionate about what was happening in the trenches. To many of those players, Tom Covington was more than Coach. He was a father figure. He would discipline them when they needed it, he would praise them when they deserved it. He would laugh with them and comfort them when they were injured.

Through it all, he would inspire a whole generation of young men to be the best they could be. To strive to be like Coach. To be the professional, the family man, the person that Tom Covington represented.

Three of his teams went to bowl games (there were no conference championships in the 1960s). In 1958 his team went 9-1 and Gerald Dopson and Gary Dopson were standout players. In 1961 he had what he called his “best team” with Larry Dupree and Marcus Rhoden. Six of his players received scholarships and he played Fletcher, the best team in Jacksonville, to a standstill in a bowl game. The Senators scored at the end of the game to win, but Coach Covington was so proud of how his team had played in the loss.