* Winners: Any time someone uncovers a piece of history, it deserves special attention. This week, employees at the Wells Fargo Bank found a box full of old financial papers in the basement of the Sugar House branch. How old? They contained stock certificates and other papers dating to the turn of the century. Nobody seems to know whether the certificates ever were redeemed.
Such a find tends to put life in perspective. Today's valued material treasures eventually become tomorrow's curiosities in an old box.But you have to wonder if that lesson will be lost on future generations. After all, finding a lost computer directory from a late 20th-century data base probably won't have the same effect.
* Winners: The kids at Sharon Elementary School in Orem barely averted disaster this week when snow blocked an air vent, causing carbon monoxide to fill the school. Give credit to a first-grade teacher who alerted the principal that three of her students had passed out. Because of this, and a quick evacuation, no one was seriously hurt.
Anyone who has taught knows it sometimes can be difficult to distinguish between a student who falls asleep and one who passes out. Good work.
Losers: Anyone with an e-mail address ought to pay attention to a lawsuit filed this week by Bert J. VanderHeiden, an employee at a high-tech firm in Utah. He alleges someone sent messages in his name asking people to join him in a crime. The suit doesn't specify what the crime was, but clearly the Internet is not as safe and reliable as many people think.
Just to be safe, everyone ought to change their passwords first thing Monday morning.
* Winner: A state representative has written a bill that would allow people to obtain or renew their driver licenses at small kiosks located in public places around the state. It would be a way to avoid long lines and the crowded tension that prevails at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Here's a suggestion: Make the kiosks even more convenient. Then someday Utah teenagers will be asking, "Would you like fries and a license with that?"