Roses to Allison Eaton, a science teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough. When she’s not introducing students to the wonders of science, she practices and competes in, of all things, archery.

Last weekend, shooting a recurve bow, Eaton won the North Carolina Field Archery Association state championship in the adult female division. Despite a strong field, she won by a wide margin.

Bull’s-eye!

Raspberries to those individuals who insist on defacing other people’s property.

Local officials, residents and business people have noticed a sharp uptick in the incidence of graffiti in recent months, especially in Carrboro. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, because many property owners and tenants don’t report graffiti.

But Carrboro Police Chief Carolyn Hutchison said she has no doubt the problem is getting worse. Others who work downtown agree, and if you have doubts, a leisurely stroll around town will probably put them to rest.

The graffiti around here isn’t the creative and sometimes beautiful street art that occasionally appears in urban spaces worldwide. Ours tends to be crudely scrawled words or symbols.

The spray-painted stuff is an eyesore and can be expensive and laborious to paint over, but maybe even worse are the posters, usually bearing anti-capitalism or anti-police hyperbole, that get plastered to surfaces with a fiercely stubborn adhesive that can do permanent damage to reflective surfaces such as street signs.

The taggers evidently think everything belongs to them, to do with whatever they wish. They’re wrong, and it’s important for the community to keep graffiti at bay. We agree with local photographer Jesse Kalisher: “If you let the small things go, it sends the wrong message, and you end up with bigger problems on your hands.”

Roses to Sherry Norris, who has coached the Chapel Hill High School volleyball and girls’ basketball teams for more than three decades, and coached them extraordinarily well.

The N.C. High School Athletic Association this year named Norris the 2012 women’s Toby Welch Coach of the Year.

And with good reason. This year, Norris led Tigers volleyball to a 24-5 record and took the CHHS basketball team to 27-3. Both squads reached the state regional championships.

Those records are hardly a fluke. Norris’ volleyball teams won state titles in 1994 and 2003, and her basketball team brought home the big trophy in 1981.

The NCHSAA award isn’t just about wins and losses, though. It also emphasizes a coach’s effectiveness in instilling academic achievement, sportsmanship, self-confidence and other qualities that tend to have longer-lasting positive effects than a good crossover dribble.

Well earned, coach.