LEWISTON — When national diversity speaker Dr. Eddie Moore Jr. spoke to Lewiston High School students Wednesday about prejudice, he paused to give a history lesson.

When talking about the Civil War and United States history, he encouraged his audience not to call blacks “slaves.”

“They didn’t bring slaves to America,” he said. “They brought Africans to America, who were enslaved! There’s a difference. You with me?”

That kind of conversation is especially important when teaching history to young people, Moore said, who added there was civilization in Africa.

“The first university in the world was built in Africa. It’s still standing today,” he said.

— Bonnie Washuk

Lewiston’s first late start

Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster called a two-hour delayed start to school Tuesday, due to snow from Monday’s storm, and most of that was on sidewalks.

It was Lewiston’s first late start since the change was authorized by the School Committee.

Webster said the late start “had a few glitches that we need to work out, but all and all, it went very smoothly.”

Part of the problem was it was the first time, he said, and the process will get better with experience. “We are putting together some attendance data to figure out what the impact was on attendance.”

— Bonnie Washuk

The Holy Grail of crazy hair

As I walked into Kristi Holmquist’s fourth-grade class at Dirigo Elementary School in Peru to attend a science fair her students and Erin Duprey’s students were hosting, the first thing I noticed was a student standing in the back of the room with her hair in several small ponytails. They looked like tiny trees growing from her head.

I walked around the room, looking at different exhibits and speaking with students, and started noticing some students with dyed hair, some with their bangs spiked up, and others adorning colorful bows and ribbons in their hair.

What in the world am I missing here, I thought to myself. Am I the only person who doesn’t have colored hair or a gigantic ponytail? Did I miss the memo?”

I mentioned this to Holmquist, who laughed and said, “Don’t you know? It’s Crazy Hair Day today. It’s part of our Spirit Week.”

She added, “You should see one of the fifth-grade students.”

She told me to wait while she left the classroom. A few moments later, she reappeared with the Holy Grail of crazy hair: fifth-grader Marissa Lapointe, who had placed three plastic cups on top of her head, wrapped hair around each one, dyed the hair around the cup purple and red, and tied ribbons at the top of each pillar of hair.

I was taken aback when I saw it, but a girl standing next to me gave a perfect summarization of my thoughts when she whispered to her friend: “That’s the craziest hair I’ve ever seen!”

— Matthew Daigle