A few more notables from the Order of the Long Leaf Pine:

* Dennis Rogers, former longtime N&O columnist

* Jim Pendergraph, former Mecklenburg County sheriff

* Monsignor Tim O'Connor, gave invocation at second inauguration

* Carmen Hooker Odom, former Health and Human Services secretary

* Benny Parsons, Nascar driver and announcer

* Mack Pearsall, lawyer and civic volunteer

* Dan Blue, former House speaker, current state legislator

Previously: Former Gov. Mike Easley appointed 4,000.

Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue has stressed she will break from Gov. Mike Easley.

Still, the newly elected Democrat hasn't entirely escaped the shadow of her two-term predecessor. Several of her appointees so far have ties to Easley.

In order of most closely tied to least:

Britt Cobb: Perdue's secretary of Administration held the same job under Easley, who also appointed him commissioner of agriculture. 

Linda Wheeler Hayes: Perdue's secretary of Juvenile Justice chaired the Governor's Crime Commission for Easley and was one of his fundraisers in 2000.

Eddie Speas: Perdue's general counsel worked for Easley during the eight years he was attorney general. Easley later appointed him lottery commissioner.

Reuben Young: Perdue's secretary of Crime Control served as deputy legal counsel and chief legal counsel for Easley's two terms as governor.

Lanier Cansler: Perdue's secretary of Health and Human Services served as deputy secretary under Easley, although he was directly hired by Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom.

Gene Conti: Perdue's secretary of Transportation served as chief deputy secretary under Easley, who asked him to leave because of a conflict of interest.

In addition, Perdue transition team had ties to Easley: Don Hobart worked as legal counsel to Easley when he was attorney general, Norris Tolson was Easley's Revenue secretary, Hilda Pinnix-Ragland was appointed to the state community college board by Easley, and Howard Lee served as Easley's budget and education adviser and was appointed to two boards by Easley.

Still, many of Perdue's key appointees have no ties to Easley, including at least half her Cabinet.

Where will women serve in Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue's Cabinet?

Since the modern Cabinet came into being in the 1970s, it's not been unusual for women to be appointed, but there remains a glass ceiling in five of the 10 jobs.

There have been no female secretaries of Environment and Natural Resources, Transportation, Crime Control, Correction or Juvenile Justice (in fairness, that last post was created in 2000).

Is that evidence of sexism? Environment, Correction and Transportation tend to have the biggest staffs and largest budgets among Cabinet posts, while Crime Control, Correction and Juvenile Justice all deal with public safety.

Women have held two other important posts, however.

There have been two female Health and Human Services secretaries: Dr. Sarah Morrow in the 1970s and Carmen Hooker Buell (later Odom) in the 2000s.

And there's been one female Commerce secretary: Estell Lee, who served from 1989 to 1991.

Still, women have fared better in posts that don't have as much power or visibility, although they are important in keeping the state running.

Jane S. Patterson was appointed the first female secretary of Administration in 1979. In 1993, Katie Dorsett became the first black woman to hold any Cabinet post, and in 2000, Gwynn Swinson became the second.

And Betsy Justus, Janice Faulkner and Muriel Offerman served as Revenue secretaries in the 1990s.

But the most female-friendly Cabinet post also has the least power. Since the job was created in 1971, five of the six secretaries of Cultural Resources have been women, but the department has the smallest budget and staff.

How diverse will Beverly Perdue's Cabinet be?

As the governor-elect makes her decisions about the top 10 appointments to her administration, many observers will be looking at its diversity.

Gov. Mike Easley's original Cabinet from 2001 was described at the time by an N&O reporter as "perhaps the most diverse Cabinet in North Carolina history."

That group of 10 included three women (Administration Secretary Gwynn Swinson, Cultural Resources Secretary Libba Evans and Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Buell) and three black appointees (Swinson, Correction Secretary Theodis Beck and Crime Control Secretary Bryan Beatty).

Only five appointees were white men.

After a handful of personnel changes, Easley's Cabinet became a little less diverse by the end of his second term. It now has one woman (Evans) and three black appointees (Beck, Beatty and Revenue Secretary Reginald Hinton).

Six appointees are now white men.

As the first female governor, Perdue may face higher expectations for the number of female appointees, although her campaign team had fewer women than primary rival Richard Moore's. After criticism of the lack of diversity on her transition team, she added new members.

Are most North Carolinians spammer?  

Among the more interesting statistics mentioned at Friday's meeting of Gov. Mike Easley's e-mail retention panel was the fact that the state's firewall blocks about 95 percent of all messages addressed to state workers as spam, Michael Biesecker reports.

A skeptic could wonder if that's why some administration employees seem so difficult to get in touch with. But George Bakolia, the state's chief information officer, assured the group that the blocked messages were the usual solicitations to participate in get-rich-quick schemes in Africa or ads for erectile dysfunction pills.

Bakolia admitted that on occasion, however, the firewall had barred legitimate attempts at communication. Specifically, he said he used to get complaints from former Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom.

It seems the spam-blocking software took exception to her middle name.

Debbie Crane took issue today with Gov. Mike Easley's characterization of her actions as the chief spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Crane, who was fired from the post, said she didn't withhold any records of Carmen Hooker Odom's purported opposition as DHHS secretary to the 2001 reforms. Among other things, she said, the governor's office had asked her to find a copy of a speech that Hooker Odom never gave, reports Matthew Eisley.

"There were no documents because the woman didn't oppose mental-health reform," Crane said. "They don't exist. You can't create something if it doesn't exist."

Crane, who has been job-hunting, said she's considering showing up for work tomorrow at her old office.

"If they can't agree on who fired me," she said, "maybe I still have a job."

Who fired Debbie Crane?

In a meeting with newspaper editors Wednesday at the Executive Mansion, Gov. Mike Easley offered a new take on the recent firing of Crane, a former spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, reports Matthew Eisley.

Easley said Crane’s firing wasn’t his idea, which contradicts the accounts of others involved.

“It wasn’t me,” he insisted.

Crane, 48, was fired March 4 amid the political fallout of a News & Observer investigation into failures of the state’s mental-health system. Her dismissal revolved around the Easley administration’s attempts to persuade Carmen Hooker Odom, the former health and human services secretary, to talk with The News & Observer about what the administration says was her opposition to 2001 mental-health reforms.

Easley on Wednesday said DHHS fired Crane at the urging of the governor’s chief of staff because she had inappropriately talked Hooker Odom out of being interviewed and she failed to produce agency documents.

Read more after the jump.

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Gov. Mike Easley has said repeatedly that Carmen Hooker Odom, former secretary of Health and Human Services, "vigorously" opposed mental health reform legislation when it was adopted in October 2001.

But that's not what Hooker Odom, who works for a nonprofit in New York City, said in an e-mail to The News & Observer in late February, reports Pat Stith.

Hooker Odom sent The N&O an e-mail message about her legislative "concerns" on Feb. 21 after talking with Debbie Crane, then the top public information office for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The newspaper didn't include the e-mail in its initial stories about mental health reform because it didn't show that Hooker Odom had opposed the reform bill.

Hooker Odom said in the e-mail that she had four concerns about the mental health reform legislation when it was being considered. But she said legislators amended the bill to eliminate two of those concerns, and she ignored a third directive.

Read more after the jump.

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Much has been made of the hand-delivered letter Mike Easley "chunked" from his former Department of Health and Human Services secretary Carmen Hooker Odom.

But a thus far unanswered question has been who exactly it was that went to the executive mansion last week to put the letter into Easley's hand, Michael Biesecker reports.

In the interview where he first disclosed the letter's existence Sunday, Easley said he couldn't recall who the delivery person was.

"This was hand-delivered by someone she knew down here, and I don't know who," he said.

On several occasions this week, spokespeople for the governor either said they couldn't answer or didn't respond when asked for clarification about precisely who brought Easley the letter and on what date it was delivered.

One of those mysteries has now been solved.

Former Sen. Fountain Odom, Hooker Odom's husband, confirmed Tuesday he was the delivery man. But he, too, said he couldn't remember exactly what date he saw Easley.

"I've been in Raleigh two or three times lately," he said.

Asked if he knew what his wife wrote in the note, Odom said: "I don't read my wife's mail. Do you?"

Gov. Mike Easley said today that he did not violate public records law when he threw away a letter to him from Carmen Hooker Odom, former head of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

"Carmen sent me a handwritten personal note," he said. "It didn't have anything to do with public policy. It's not a public record, not something that I'm required to log and maintain. I read it and disposed of it."

Easley made his comments at a news conference devoted largely to the drought. In a 180-degree turn from the contentious news conference had held a week ago on mental health, Easley took follow up questions, responded to all questions and didn't try to run away, reports Lynn Bonner.

His administration has been under scrutiny for how it has responded to the failures of the state mental health system. Hooker Odom was in charge when problems related to a 2001 mental health reform plan mounted. She resigned her state job last year and in recent months has declined to be interviewed.

Easley said in an interview Sunday that Hooker Odom told him in her note why she didn't want to talk. But Easley said Tuesday her note did not "discuss anything of public consequence."

"It was never intended to be public," Easley said.

John Bussian, a lawyer for the N.C. Press Association, said Hooker Odom's note was indisputably a public record.

"The legal status does not turn on whether somebody intended it to be public," he said. "If it did, then anybody could use that as a license to steal from the public what it is entitled to know."