ROSE (roz) n. One of the most beautiful of all flowers, a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. Often given as a sign of appreciation.

RASPBERRY (raz'ber'e) n. A sharp, scornful comment, criticism or rebuke; a derisive, splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer.

We hereby deliver:

• ROSES to Oregon State University students who took part in the United Way Day of Caring last week for the first time.

More than 600 OSU students and staff members participated in the annual United Way event, and their participation more than doubled the turnout and the results: In all, nearly 1,000 volunteers tackled nearly 100 community service projects across Benton County.

In years past, the Day of Caring took place the second or third week of September, before most OSU students hit town. This year, though, Jennifer Moore, the executive director of the United Way of Benton and Lincoln Counties, teamed up with United Way board member Kris Winter, who works at OSU, and they found a way to push the event back to broaden OSU's participation.

• • •

• ROSES to one of our favorite Corvallis traditions, the Fall Festival, which celebrated its 37th edition in fine fashion last weekend. The weather was perfect, the music was great, and we always see some artwork that we absolutely have to own. (The only downside, of course, is that we can't possibly afford all of it.)

The relaxed groove of the Fall Festival always seems to us to be the perfect way to top off another Corvallis summer - and, as if to emphasize the point, Monday dawned cloudy, cooler and rainy.

As an added bonus, we loved Mark Allison's painting "It Was a Sunny Day," which was featured on this year's festival poster. It can take its rightful place among the best festival images.

• • •

• ROSES to Milt Sedlacek, the owner of the Corvallis Dental Lab, for celebrating his 50th anniversary at the lab. These days, Sedlacek owns the lab, but he's still tackling the same work he's been doing for a half-century, still enjoying it and still, by all accounts, doing a great job. In an era when career counselors advise people to be ready to change careers as often as they change haircuts, there is something comforting - and, yes, inspiring - about Sedlacek's story.

• • •

• RASPBERRIES to the Gazette-Times, which should have been a little more careful about an editorial this week, and the Oregon University System, for dragging its feet on fixing a scheduling conflict.

Monday, the first day of classes at Oregon State University, fell on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day, creating some tough choices for devout Jews, who typically stay away from work and school on that day so they can pray and reflect.

In an editorial Monday, we had praise for the calm and rational words that OSU officials and Jewish community leaders used in addressing the scheduling conflict - and we still have praise for the restraint and maturity those men used as they discussed the issue with the G-T.

However, after Monday's editorial appeared, an alert reader sent us a copy of minutes from an August 2004 meeting of the Oregon University System's Provosts' Council. One of the topics discussed at that meeting more than five years ago was the fact that in 2009, university system classes would start on the same day as Yom Kippur; in fact, the council considered a proposal at that meeting to start classes a week earlier, on Sept. 21.

You would think that five years should have been enough time to avoid the conflict that occurred this week at all the units of the university system, save the University of Oregon. OSU is doing the right thing by taking steps now to be sure the scheduling conflict doesn't happen again - but it certainly seems as if it didn't have to happen this year. And our story and editorial about this issue should have included this additional background.

• • •

• RASPBERRIES, again, to the G-T, for not thinking seriously enough about a photograph that illustrated a story about some nasty vandalism in Roseburg.

The story, which ran in Thursday's G-T, was about someone splattering feces on a window in front of a life-size cutout of President Barack Obama. We ran a particularly unpleasant photo from the Associated Press to illustrate the story.

Now, sometimes a newspaper will choose to run an unpleasant photo because it says something essential about a story that's hard to get across with just words. That's the power of photojournalism.

In this case, though, the photo we published doesn't live up to that standard. We made a mistake in judgment in running the photo, and we offer apologies to readers who were offended.