Thumbs up to a young heroine

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11:20 AM Thursday, July 2, 2009

Here are this week’s “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” selections:

Congratulations and good luck to Jeff Centers, who was recently named the permanent director of Butler County Children Services last week. Centers has been the agency’s finance director since 2006 and has twice served as its interim director, and was chosen for the director’s job over 56 other applicants after Michael Fox retired in March. The agency is one of the county government’s most important, working to ensure the welfare of Butler County’s abused and neglected children. Centers has big shoes to fill because Fox, a former state representative and county commissioner, was one of the county’s most influential and vigorous officeholders. We wish Centers well in this challenging job and hope he continues efforts to make Children Services as open and transparent as possible to taxpayers.

Another major personnel change in Butler County came this week with the retirement of longtime agricultural extension service agent Steve Bartels. He will be missed by area farmers and by other readers of this newspaper, who learned much through his regular columns on agricultural issues, dating back to his early days in the OSU Extension Office in the 1970s. We offer a thumbs up to Bartels for his long service to Butler Countians. You can offer your own good wishes at a reception July 12 — from 2 to 5 p.m. — at the extension office at 1802 Princeton Road, Hamilton.

Thumbs up to 8-year-old Hailey Ingram, one of the youngest heroines about whom we’ve ever reported. If you missed staff writer Chelsey Levingston’s news story earlier this week, Hailey rescued 3-year-old Dakota Smith from drowning in the Ingram family pool on July 16. Amazingly, it wasn’t the first time Dakota needed Hailey’s help. Hailey had rescued Dakota earlier from a hot tub in a hotel. In addition to saluting Hailey’s quick work, we have to commend the instructors at the Atrium Family YMCA who, after eight months of swim lessons, graduated Hailey in May with honors. They must be proud of their student — as we all are.

We wouldn’t exactly call them TV stars yet, but we can’t complain about the Middletown Middies making occasional appearances on televised Cincinnati broadcasts. If you’ll recall, the highly anticipated matchup between the Middies and Princeton basketball teams convinced Fox 19 WXIX to carry the game live in February. Now, Fox 19 wants to carry the October football game between Middletown and Colerain — you know, the matchup that ended in a Middie upset last season. We can only take the new attention to be an indication that Middletown High sports is again being recognized as a powerhouse in the Greater Miami Conference. We’re already looking forward to the broadcast.

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