The CORRAL Riding Academy raised more than $20,000 at its inaugural Gala Fundraiser held Feb. 19 at the Angus Barn Pavilion in Raleigh, the nonprofit organization announced this past week.

The money, which included more than $3,000 raised in the night’s silent auction, will be used in the treatment of at-risk and adjudicated teenage girls who are paired with rescued horses in the nonprofit organization’s riding and mentoring program.

Even if you don’t play baseball, know anybody who plays baseball or
even like baseball, there’s still a good reason to turn out at the
Durham Athletic Park on Wednesday night:

To support the 120 teenage boys who will be playing ball this summer
because parents, businesses and organizations banded together to make
sure there’s a season.

Postponed two days because of Monday’s rain, the season-opening game
of The Long Ball Program will is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. today.

Cary was a busy place for runners on Saturday.  Despite the Cary Road Race being held a few miles down the road, a
record field of more than 350 runners and walkers turned out for the
Kay Brewer Memorial 5K at WakeMed Soccer Park.

James Lavin, 24, of Raleigh, an member of The Athlete’s Foot team,
covered the 5K cross-county route in 18:42.

Raleigh's Meghan Hegarty, 26, another The Athlete's Foot runner, won
the women’s title and was fifth overall in 20:23.

Triangle swimmers swept individual high-point honors and took four of the top eight places in the team competition at the N.C. Swimming Senior Short-Course Championships held Jan. 28-31 in Huntersville.

Victoria Mitchell, 17, of the Marlins of Raleigh-Wolfpack Aquatics won
the women's MVP award with 127 individual points, and Dominick Glavich,
16, of the YMCA of the Triangle Area Swim Team won the men's award with
137 points.

Mitchell, winner of the 500, 1,000, 1,650 freestyles, became the third
MOR swimmer to win the senior championships high-point award, coach
Paul Silver said.

The Bull City Braves won all three of their games in winning the Durham
All-City League Tournament for players age 13-15 played Saturday at
Hillside Park in Durham.

In the title game, the Braves defeated the Yankees 14-0. (Complete scores are below.)

The tournament was the finale of a season that nearly did not begin because of city budget cuts.

Ryan Nagy of Raleigh shot a 6-under-par 64 to win the 20th annual Jack Ratz Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament played Aug. 3 at the Wildwood Green Golf Club in North Raleigh.

Seventy-five junior golfers turned out for the annual privately
sponsored tournament, which is conducted by the Ratz family to promote
teenage-driver safety. Proceeds from the event are used to fund the
Cardinal Gibbons High School Scholarship Fund in the memory of Jack
Ratz Jr., who was a Wildwood Green member and a 15-year-old Cardinal
Gibbons freshman when he died in a car accident in 1988.

In the girls 16-18 Division, Katie Yelle of Raleigh and Jeda Borek of
Raleigh each shot a 77, and Yelle won the playoff. (A list of top
finishers in each division is below.)

Many Americans admit that they are spending less time with members of their households. A brief in the June 16 paper linked the dwindling togetherness with the increasing use of the Internet and the popularity of social networking sites. What the story didn't say was whether it counts as togetherness when your teen is sitting at the computer updating her Facebook page while you're sitting 3 feet away on the couch watching Jeopardy.

On today's certain-to-divide installment of the Condition, I talk to Steven Boone, East Coast freelance critic, blogger and friend of Armond. And we get into it on the subject of classical filmmaking, something that Boone feels is sorely lacking in our contemporary film culture, and whether the most acclaimed movie and the most ghettofabulous waste of time aren't that different from one another these days. (Hence the titular question.)

We also discuss how one particular, Oscar-winning summer blockbuster from way back can soothe that savage beast known as — the American teenager. You can also download it here.

NEXT WEEK: A two-parter that still has my head buzzing.