A ghostly candidate and kindergarten capers.

Phantom of the Boardroom

Randy Logan Hale was known as the phantom school board candidate in the Romoland, Calif., School District. He didn't attend board meetings or voter forums. Phone calls to him weren't returned. Letters inviting him to candidate workshops were sent back by the Postal Service.

Finally, school officials learned why Hale had been so hard to reach. He's in prison on a parole violation and had been for more than a month leading up to Election Day.

Even so, the 40-year-old attracted 831 votes, enough to place third and win one of three seats on the school board.

And how did this make the 4th place finisher feel? Christina Wilking-Gervais, who received 598 votes, naturally was frustrated. "It's like he was a ghost," she told the news website www.PE.com. "I don't mind being beat by someone if they were there."

Good Work Ethic 

Kindergarten teacher Cherie Sweatland of Milford Elementary School in Syracuse, Ind., was giving directions to her pupils for the day's first activity. When they were set, she said, "Let's get to work."

One boy said, "I'm on it.... My grandpa says if you don't work, you don't eat!"

(Source: Mark J. Stock, superintendent, Syracuse, Ind.)

An Irresistible Kindergarten Class

Jerri Crouse, a kindergarten teacher, came into Principal Gail Smartt's office at Mark Twain Elementary School in Colorado Springs, Colo., following recess with two cute little boys in tow. She had a distressed expression on her face.

"I have no idea who these boys are or where they came from," the teacher reported. "I just found them in my class. I have never seen them before in my life!"

At that point, Smartt's secretary Barb Coughlin and 1st-grade teacher Joni Hale took over trying to identify the boys, luckily finding a phone number in a small backpack one of the boys was wearing.

They managed to get the boys to tell them their names and ages (Christopher and James, 3 and 4). Coughlin called the phone number and reached a man who had obviously been sleeping. She asked whether he knew two boys named Christopher and James, and he replied they were his sons. She asked whether he knew where they were, and he said they were in their room taking a nap.

"I definitely don't think so," Smartt's secretary replied. "I'm looking at them here in the office at Twain!"

When the dad came to the school to retrieve his sons, Smartt learned he thought they were asleep so he took a nap himself. "The boys," Smartt says, "had decided they weren't sleepy, had sneaked out of their bedroom, climbed up to the key cabinet, gotten the key to the deadbolt, unlocked it, and gone on an adventure. When they sau, Jerri's kindergarten class on the playground, they decided to join in.

When her class came inside, they came in, too. "Over the years, I have had countless incidents of having to track down missing children," Smartt says. "This is the first time I've ever encountered coming up with extras!"

That Naked Feeling

Mitchell, S.D., Superintendent Joe Graves is a man of his word, even if it means losing more than a little off the top.

Graves, along with his middle school principal and five teachers, agreed to shave his head if students could raise at least $8,000 for hurricane relief. When they came up a bit short, an anonymous donor filled the gap.

Then a pair of hair stylists went to work, leaving the superintendent feeling a little naked. "The last time I had this little hair according to my mother was a few weeks after birth."

(Source: The Associated Press)

More Important Duties

The incoming phone calls seem endless some days to Robert Holster, superintendent in Passaic, N.J. Some are completely ridiculous, he says, especially those from staff members calling in with unusual excuses for an absence from work.

One morning a school nurse called Holster to ask whether she could be excused from attending a state meeting that day so she could pick up her teeth.

"I approved her request," mused Holster, "knowing that if she went to the meeting toothless, she would only spend most of her time smiling."