An Anchorage, Alaska middle school is getting its own wind turbine by participating in the federal Department of Energy's Wind for Schools program. Alaska is one of 11 states in the project, which is aimed at introducing wind power to rural communities, and introducing young people to the science and technology of wind turbines. Read more about it here.

Don't take it personally, N.C. Central University: U.S. Rep. Don Young has nothing against you.

It's just that he doesn't think Congress should waste its time on resolutions for this and that, so he tends to vote against them.

Like last Thursday, when House Resolution 1361, noting that NCCU is celebrating its centennial this year, came to a vote. The Ayes were overwhelming: 408. The Noes, just one: Young, a Republican from Alaska now serving his 19th term as that state's only House member.

The resolution, sponsored by North Carolina representatives David Price and G.K. Butterfield, is a 24-paragraph explanation of the university's accomplishments. 

Spokespersons for Price and Butterfield said they'd noticed the one dissenting vote but hadn't thought anything of it and had not spoken to Young's office about it.

Then I heard from Meredith Kenny, Young's spokeswoman.

"Rep. Young voted against the resolution (as he has done on many previous resolutions) to make the point that Members’ time is better spent voting on legislation not resolutions," she wrote in an email to me. "He agrees that such anniversaries and similar occasions should be honored, but they should be discussed, debated, and done by voice vote, and not take up time better spent on legislation affecting all Americans."

NCCU is not alone. One busy day late last year, Young cast the lone dissenting vote on a resolution recognizing the 70th anniversary of the retirement of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, according to a news report in Alaska.