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Ernest Bentley is a Christiansburg businessman with a great story to share.

But often he can't get anyone to listen. He's got a tantalizing offer that should be hard to refuse, but many do.

What Bentley is selling doesn't cost anything, but it pays off in huge returns of personal enrichment, enlightenment and a sense of adventure.

Bentley is a Rotary Club member. As chairman of Western Virginia's Rotary Group Study Exchange, he's always looking for people to send on trips abroad. These are monthlong excursions to such places as Brazil, the Philippines, Mexico, Japan, the Bahamas, New Zealand ... and the list goes on.

Rotary sponsors the trips -- read, they're free.

Now is anybody listening?

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I can't sit by quietly as the Roanoke School Board fiddles while Rome burns.

The board's inertia in closing schools and revisiting school boundaries is stalling the system's effort to move forward.

The longer the board sits on its hands because it fears angry parents at raucous meetings, the longer scarce school dollars will continue to prop up underused buildings -- and the longer before that money will be available for programs to help students graduate.

And that, after all, should be the system's mission and priority.

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Did Bill Clinton's unrelenting attacks against Barack Obama in recent weeks help lead to Hillary's huge loss in South Carolina? Given the ugly primary results, should Bill pack it in and go back Harlem? If Hillary wins the White House, will this be a two-for-one presidency? I'm just askin.' You answer. (And folks, this isn't math; there is no right or wrong response on this one.)

(See what Colbert King at the Washington Post had to say about the ex-prez's conduct on the campaign trail.)

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Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport?

That's what this is all about? That's why Advanced Auto is turning its roving eye from its founding hometown headquarters in Roanoke toward Minneapolis as its seat of power?

Some New York analyst let slip last week that he could see the advantages of Advance's new leadership team hunkering down in Minneapolis.

The first thing to pop out of his mouth? "The Minneapolis airport is a hub for Northwest Airlines."

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...maybe the caller was.

OK, let me go back to the beginning. I published a piece Tuesday morning about Allen Iverson maturing, right? I say good things about A.I. I chronicled his evolution from cocky kid to overall good NBA citizen.

I got this message at 10:28 a.m. on voicemail:

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Virginians do love their guns.

Roanoke-area gun rights advocate Bobby Woolwine copied me on an e-mail he sent this week to one of my colleagues. Among the things that had Woolwine a little steamed under the collar was that friends and kin of Virginia Tech shooting victims sought to close a loophole in the state's gun laws that allows unlicensed sellers at gun shows to skip background checks on buyers.

Even with Wednesday's defeat of a state Senate bill on the issue, we haven't heard the last in the long-running debate on gun shows.

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Virginia, our little Allen Iverson is growing up.

The NBA star and Hampton Roads native donated $100,000 last week to the Newport News Police Department's "Gun Buy Back" program. Used in many urban areas, the program offers money to residents to turn in guns to police with no questions asked.

I'm fully mindful of Iverson's run-ins with the law and his less-than-stellar history with guns. And his act of generosity undoubtedly is not solely rooted in altruism. Iverson is mindful of the tax benefit of his philanthropy as well as the good press.

But I'm willing to give The Answer the benefit of the doubt, to hope that his philanthropy also is a sign of someone growing into a law-abiding husband and father.

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Dear. Sen. Phillip Puckett:

Stay strong, brother.

You're probably being elbowed out of the way up there in Richmond as your colleagues in the General Assembly trip over one another to take credit for reversing last session's "abusive driver" fee debacle.

You know how it is. Everybody wants to be a hero -- undoing the fiscal fiasco is the easy part.

The hard part is staying a step ahead of the pack. You're there, Senator.

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As the top cop at the Roanoke sheriff department, George McMillan was straight out of central casting.

Large and imposing. Gregarious and effusive.

Whether the next election was a month or two years away, McMillan spent his off hours campaigning for the job. He was an enthusiastic and accessible fixture at community functions -- a minority job fair, a Little League baseball game, a parade. Friendly, hand-shaking, confident.

In an elected position, McMillan was the consummate politician.

But this week, the testimony of woman after woman in a sexual harassment case made him out to be a predator -- a serial groper who preyed upon women who worked for him or who wanted to.

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A few months ago, the folks at Calvin Jones' after-school program dispatched the Patrick Henry High School ninth-grader onto the streets of Roanoke with a digital point-and-shoot camera.

His only instructions were to come back with pictures that reflected the theme "All Can Achieve the Dream." The pictures would be part of a youth photo exhibit celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s life. It opens next week at the O. Winston Link Museum.

Armed with his own imagination and the rich subject of King's dream, Calvin shot ... a house?

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