Here's to the winners

If everyone likes a winner, there's a lot to like about Amherst lately. A quick perusal of our pages shows win after win, from the high school boys basketball team to city finances, from the junior high Science Olympiad team to the junior high school choir.

The basketball team, with only two players returning from last year's varsity team, suffered through a disappointing regular season. But in the playoffs, the underclassmen appear to have finally bought into what coach John Srnis has been saying all year, and as a result they knocked two highly favored teams out of the playoffs.

The Science Olympiad team took third place in a regional contest at Lorain County Community College on Saturday, and they will travel to the state finals next month. We attribute this fine result to the hard work of the students, as well as the dedicated science teachers these students have had throughout their educational careers.

The city finance department earned an award from state auditor Mary Taylor for the outstanding job city auditor Dave Kukucka and his staff do in accounting for tax dollars. Less than 5 percent of municipalities around the state earn this award.

Certainly in the current economy, the city's financial picture is not as pretty as we would like it to be. But we can be sure Kukucka and his staff have painted it accurately, and have kept inside the lines, following mandated procedures to the letter.

Instrumental music teacher Jeff Meyers was recently named the Ohio Lottery's Lorain County Teacher of the Month. He teaches instrumental music to students in Nord Middle School and Amherst Junior High School, so we have to believe he shares in the success the high school band has seen over the years in state competition.

And while we're on the topic of music, eight AJHS students earned excellent or superior ratings at the Lorain County Solo & Ensemble Contest at Midview High School. We applaud director Simone Gall for preparing these students so well.

After the choir concert, the singers and audience members might want to try some award-winning pizza at Jilliano's Pizza. David Zinn and his daughter, Jill's signature seafood pizza won third place in the 2010 Pizza Pizzazz competition in Columbus, where 58 pizza shops from around the country vied for the top pizza pie.

Each of these wins includes a small number of people, but taken together they touch every corner of our community. Of course we can't win every time, but it sure is fun when we get so many at one time.