Familiar names and faces were officially returned to the Moore County Board of Elections Tuesday.

The occasion was a swearing-in ceremony at the elections office in Carthage.

Laura Williams, clerk to the county commissioners, administered the oath of office to Ansol E. Graham and Susan T. Adams. The third member, Carolyn M. McDermott, was out of town and will take the oath of office later.

All three members were reappointed by their respective parties, Graham and McDermott by the Democrats and Adams by the Republicans. State law requires that the majority membership come from the party of the governor, the third member from the other party.

The organizational meeting will be held in August when the board meets to make precinct appointments. At present, Graham is board chairman, and Adams is secretary.

RULING - As expected, a ruling last week by Superior Court Judge Howard Manning regarding pre-kindergarten services drew sharply differing views from Republican and Democratic legislators.

House Minority Leader Joe Hackney strongly supported the ruling, while Senate president pro tempore Phil Berger was just as adamant in opposition. Hackney is an Orange County Democrat whose district includes one and a half precincts in Moore County. Berger is a Rockingham County Republican.

Manning's ruling takes issue with the recently adopted state budget that curtails pre-kindergarten services to at-risk children.

"Those of us in the minority who voted against this budget and stood up for education applaud this decision," Hackney said in a statement released Monday. "We warned the majority loudly and often that their plan would take North Carolina backward. We are seeing that now with thousands of children losing opportunities for education."

Hackney said the GOP-supported budget eliminated thousands of teaching jobs and cut financial aid to 6,000 eligible college students.

BERGER - But Berger said the More at Four program for pre-kindergarten children caps at 20 percent the number of students deemed at-risk for reasons other than financial hardship, such as children of active duty military families, who have limited English proficiency, an identified disability, chronic health condition or developmental or education need.

"We disagree with Judge Manning's interpretation, and we are confident his opinion does not throw the state budget out of balance," Berger said in a statement released Monday. "The budget does not cap the number of low income students eligible for the program. In fact, the 20 percent cap exists, and has for several years, specifically to ensure at least 80 percent of the children enrolled are financially disadvantaged."

FRACKING - Save Our Sandhills will be the sole host of a July 28 panel discussion on Senate Bill 709, the Energy Jobs Bill, which includes a provision pertaining to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) as a method of extracting natural gas from areas within Moore, Lee and Chatham counties.

An item in a previous Pilot Light erroneously reported that the Southern Pines Civic Club would be a co-host. The location of the meeting is the clubhouse at the corner of Ashe Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, but the club is not a sponsor. SOS, an environmental nonprofit serving Moore County, simply rents the building for meetings, according to SOS secretary Ruth Stolting.

SB 709 calls for additional studies of fracking but does not require an assessment of the environmental impact such a method could have.

State Sen. Harris Blake and state Rep. Jamie Boles have been invited to participate, and SOS has also asked other experts to provide insight into related issues about drilling and the leasing of mineral rights. Expected to attend are an attorney from the Southern Environmental Law Center and a mineral rights coordinator from Rural Advancement Foundation International.

The July 28 event will begin at 7 p.m. and is open to the public.

Contact Florence Gilkeson at florence@thepilot.com.