In July came the headline, "Museum of the Year 2012 Troubles Continue." Alice Armour Armstrong reported on "Personnel problems brewing at the museum, this time between curator Neil Wright and Technology Implementation Coordinator Louisa Pynchon. Last week Wright took a whack at 'bad news' museum trustees, taking issue with the fact that one had called him a liar. He chastised the Board for 'brow-beatings, strong-armings and endless harangues.' In concluding, the curator said, 'I would be a stupid man if I continued to act as if nothing fundamental was terribly wrong here'."

"In an unrelated matter," Armstrong wrote, "Wright refuted charges that he had kicked a one-year old girl, waiting for her father, off museum property in September. The father charged Neil with frightening the child so badly, she left. The father searched frantically for forty minutes before finding the girl at a friend's house -- crying." Armstrong closed: "Wright told the Camperdene Daily Journal he did not remember the incident, and further stated he does not raise his voice at anyone."

The next Camperdene Daily Journal headline was: "Trustees to Consider Dismissal of Supervisor": "Museum Curator Neil Wright has accused Library Technology Implementation Coordinator Louisa Pynchon of three instances of 'improper language and gestures," Alice Armour Armstrong reported, divulging the name of Pynchon's lawyer, Kevin Harper.

"Under grilling by Museum of the Year 2012 Trustee Wallace Barrow," Armstrong reported in the following week, "Wright admitted he had not documented the incidents in the supervisor's file. 'It's your word against hers,' Barrow told him. Neil took a swat at what he termed the museum's 'fundamental problem' -- 'Trustee micromanagment of the museum.' Local attorney Kevin Harper, representing Louisa Pynchon, said today that he will file a civil suit in County Superior Court against Wright and three of the six Trustees, who seem to be supporting Wright while scorning Pynchon. 'Who is next?' Trustee Wallace Barrow commented."

Then came the headline: "Open Hearing Set," Trustee Barrow volunteering the news that he was "disappointed in Neil Wright as a professional museum curator." At the hearing, however, Louisa Pynchon decided it would be in her best interest to resign her post. "If you have a loser for a case," commented Trustee Veronica Pillsbury to reporters, "you fold your tent and go away."

Attorney Kevin Harper went on cable television to tell area viewers that Museum of the Year 2012 staff members had signed a document calling on Trustee Chair Ben Mulvane to share with his fellow Trustees information that had been compiled at the curator's request. The next day, the Daily Journal ran the headline: "Eight Museum of the Year 2012 Staffers Petitioning for 'Wright Action'. There was no mention in the article of Neil's having himself brought the "petition," so called, into existence.

Mark came home from school the next day and asked his father if he'd again been in the newspaper; all the kids were saying their parents were reading about Neil and that Neil was a bad man.

In August, this carefully crafted cartoon was even further exaggerated when a "wrap-up" issue of the Daily Journal¸ stated, "Eight Museum of the Year 2012 staffers petitioned for action against museum curator Neil Wright." It was put out there for consumption, just as if it were the truth.

Neil worked hard, trying to get new candidates for the again vacant post, Technology Implementation Coordinator, but this seemed jinxed. People had got the word about this job. Nobody wanted it.

Now Alice Armour Armstrong was reporting, in the Camperdene Daily Journal, "Museum of the Year 2012 Issue Brings Threat from Union.

"The Camperdene Association of Paraprofessional Employees (MAPE) has asked the Board of Museum of the Year 2012 Trustees to halt the alleged harassment of Curatorial Assistant Lizzie Cunningham by museum curator Neil Wright. In a strongly worded letter to the Trustees, MAPE President Fran Micheline called Wright 'a publicity seeker'."

This was proved when, at their September meeting, representatives of the member museums of the Massachusetts Museum Coalition voted a new slate of officers, naming Neil chairman of the Coalition. "It's a real honor, and a privilege," Alice Armour Armstrong quoted Neil. "It's good to be recognized and appreciated'."

"You never know what's going to be in the papers," Armstrong had said in the course of interviewing Neil for that article.

Neil's being so much in the news prompted him to wonder why he had heard nothing disparaging or ridiculous from Carla Spagnoli for many moons. Spagnoli had often traveled, and everyone said simply she was probably off traveling again. Nobody knew where or when she'd last been seen. It was taken for granted she'd re-emerge soon enough -- steaming, raging, neighing. But it didn't happen. There was no sign of her when the October campaigns for public office got underway. There were Museum of the Year 2012 trustee placards all over the place -- signs all over town: VOTE for Ben Mulvane; VOTE for Veronica Pillsbury; VOTE for Michael Bonaventure; VOTE for Wallace Barrow; VOTE for Roland Henselmeier; VOTE for Richard Cunningham.

Shirtly before Thanksgiving, this headline appeared: "Silence Broken at Museum of the Year 2012 in Expolsion of Complaints and Accusations -- Mulvane and Barrow Tangle On Issue of Harassment."

In her story, Alice Armour Armstrong wrote of Veronica Pillsbury's "plan that would provide a 'safe and harassment-free environment' for Museum of the Year 2012 staff and visitors" which "exploded into a volley of accusations last night between Museum of the Year 2012 Trustees Ben Mulvane and Wallace Barrow. The outburst by Mulvane was prompted by an anti-harassment proposal, submitted by Museum of the Year 2012 Trustee Veronica Pillsbury to her fellow board members," Armstrong reported, "written to promote 'a high level of morale and mutual respect.' The proposal was defeated on a three to three vote," Armstrong reported, "with Wallace Barrow, Richard Cunningham, and Roland Henselmeier voting in the negative."

On Christmas morning, the Camperdene Daily Journal reported "A New Grievance" had been "booked by a paraprofessional Museum Aid. Museum curator Neil Wright has been hit with yet another grievance," Alice Armour Armstrong reported. "A letter of grievance came from Fran Micheline, President of the Camperdene Association of Paraprofessional Employees, filed on behalf of Lizzie Cunningham."

Bad news on bad news piled up through the winter, right into springtime. If Neil knew anything by now, he knew this: there would never have been any degraded feuding or disgrace or furor to report in the local paper had not a certain trustee compulsively fueled the fires and fed the papers with it all, leading everyone nowhere but astray. Neil suddenly could see that, with the help of Powderkeg Cunningham, Wheel Barrow had been writing all the news articles all along -- not Alice Armour Armstrong.