Laurels  to Brent Parks and Norma Honeycutt. A lot of us make resolutions for the new year, but very few make them as public as they have. As David Freeze explained in a Tuesday column, Parks, an accountant, and Honeycutt, executive director of Partners in Learning, want to lose weight and improve the quality of their lives. And they’ve agreed to let Freeze document their efforts and the results for the newspaper. Freeze — a well-known local running coach and all-around fitness enthusiast — is also their guide on this journey of self-improvement and has assembled others to help them along the way. Not everyone will have the same level of expertise available to help them keep their resolutions, but everyone knows someone who can encourage them. And thanks to Parks and Honeycutt — who we will be watching over the next several months — we all have inspiration.

Dart to gambling joints that continue to skirt or even break the law. The Salisbury Police Department raided three establishments this week that Police Chief Rory Collins said fit that description. The so-called “sweepstakes cafes” continued operating after Collins sent them letters saying they were violating state law and would be shut down if they didn’t voluntarily close. Several did close, but the three raided this week remained open. North Carolina has banned sweepstakes cafes — as it did video poker machines — but since these games are Internet-based, owners keep tweaking the software trying to stay ahead of the statutes. It’s a gamble they take to squeeze a few more dollars out of patrons, and it’s one several lost this week.

Laurels  to Pastor Russell Smyre for his efforts to promote better interactions between local young people and police. In conjunction with the Salisbury Police Department, Smyre’s church will host an event Jan. 17 aimed at teens and young adults. The meeting will include an anti-gang aspect, but it will also focus on an everyday occurrence that sometimes escalates, though it doesn’t need to: the traffic stop. “A lack of education in those areas sometimes causes us to react in the wrong way,” Smyre said. Certainly, police officers have a responsibility to be professional in carrying out their duties, but citizens should also be respectful to those officers, who never know what to expect on the job. A failure on either end — or both — can cause unnecessary friction, or worse. An event to educate young people about how to approach traffic stops won’t solve all those problems, but it’s a start. The event starts at 2 p.m. at The Father’s House of Glory, 2218 Statesville Blvd.