The Mary Easley job and its ensuing fallout is following former N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger across the country.

Oblinger resigned his post amid shifting stories about the severance package given to former provost Larry Nielsen. Both Oblinger and Nielsen are key figures in unravelling how Mary Easley, wife of former Gov. Mike Easley, got a $170,000 job at the university.

Oblinger is one of five finalists for the job of president of New Mexico State University. Another finalist is former University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman, who admitted to arranging admissions to the university for under-qualified family members of politicians and their donors, according to a report in the Round Up, a student newspaper at at New Mexico State.

At least one NMSU faculty member seems less than optimistic about the announcement of Herman and Oblinger.

"I think it is completely ridiculous that the search committee would even entertain the thought of recommending [Herman and Oblinger]," said Kevin McNelis, associate professor of accounting. "I am disgusted the search committee would even think of such candidates."

Administrators who selected the finalists defended the picks to Las Cruces Sun-News.

Del Archuleta, chairman of the committee, said the panel knew of the allegations against the two, and did its due diligence in considering the candidates.

"Even with the situation, the committee felt these two should be considered," Archuleta said. "Why? Because they are outstanding. All five of the candidates are really stellar."

BOWLED OVER: UNC system President Erskine Bowles says the system's top board members first supported, then flip-flopped on a deal to pay a healthy severance to outgoing N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger. Bowles made that revelation in a visit to The News & Observer’s editorial board. Bowles also said former Gov. Mike Easley wasn’t bothered by the newspaper "picking on" him, but had a real problem with the paper picking on his wife. What really got Dome’s attention was that apparently, the most powerful man in state higher education, eats Chick-Fil-A twice a day. No word on whether he prefers Barbecue or Polynesian sauce.

IN A PERFECT WORLD: The state School Board did some dreaming at its retreat this week. Dome expects an army of four-foot high protesters, armed with spitballs, to protest the board's pipe dream of lengthening the school year.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: Gov. Beverly Perdue is headed to China and Japan to drum up business for the state. Let’s all give a collective cross of the fingers that a mis-translated malaprop won’t accidentally lead to an international incident. Sure would love to see some video of the governor performing at a Karaoke bar, though.

IN OTHER NEWS: Bill Hefner, the one-time dean of the state’s Congressional delegation, died this week. U.S. Sens. John McCain and Mitch McConnell joined Sen. Richard Burr for a health care forum at an invitation-only event. District Attorney Rex Gore has recused himself from deciding whether to prosecute state Sen. R.C. Soles in an incident in which Soles shot a would-be intruder.

UNC board leaders originally agreed to a lucrative exit package for departing N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger.

Then, they flip-flopped.

During the weekend that he accepted Oblinger's resignation, UNC system President Erskine Bowles cut a deal that would have allowed the former chancellor to keep his $420,000 salary for six months before he settled back into a faculty salary and teaching position.

But last month, the UNC Board of Governors rewrote the terms, cutting Oblinger to a $173,000 salary immediately. Bowles said that the board chairwoman, Hannah Gage, and vice-chairman, Peter Hans, were consulted on the original deal, reports Steve Riley.

"Peter and Hannah did change their minds," Bowles said. "They had their own rationale for doing that. They did what they thought was right. I gave my word, and that's it for me. I did what I felt was right."

At the board's meeting last month, Gage said that the board "acknowledged [Oblinger's] enormous contributions but felt there needed to be consequences for some things that went terribly wrong."

When the UNC Board of Governors was vetting the details of Mary Easley's new job and big raise at N.C. State last year, UNC system President Erskine Bowles had conversations with both the first lady and her husband.

Bowles, who met Wednesday with News & Observer editors and reporters, said he had been skeptical of the new job, which has since become entangled in a federal investigation into Mike Easley, the former governor, reports Steve Riley. Bowles said he told James Oblinger, then the N.C. State chancellor, that he would have to "justify every single dollar or we would not approve it."

At one point during the process, Bowles said that Oblinger had given up trying to persuade Bowles and the board to approve the deal. But the chancellor later made another run at it, only to have Mrs. Easley balk at one of Bowles' conditions: That all the documents supporting the $170,000 salary be made public.

"I called her and told her that," Bowles said. "She said she'd get back to me." She did, and the board approved the deal with Bowles' blessing.

Bowles said he had also talked to the former governor at the time. "I told Governor Easley the same thing I just told you: That we were going to treat Mary Easley the same way we would treat everybody else."

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N.C. State University Provost Larry Nielsen and former Chancellor James Oblinger had a discussion on May 13 about Nielsen's imminent departure as provost. The talk that day covered legal issues.

Both men have recently appeared before a federal grand jury that has sought records about the hiring of former first lady Mary Easley, J. Andrew Curliss reports. Both were involved in that hiring decision, records have shown.

In response to a public records request, the university has produced two different severance deal letters that Nielsen and Oblinger both signed. Both are dated May 13. And both would have allowed for Nielsen to receive an elevated salary for three years.

The letters, both written by Oblinger, are addressed to Nielsen and serve as the chancellor's "acceptance of your resignation" on May 13. They outline the terms of a deal that, once it was disclosed publicly last month as being for three years, generated controversy and played a part in Oblinger's own resignation. The university has since said that neither letter holds any value; Nielsen's severance was reduced to a six-month exit plan payout that he was offered originally in 2005 upon taking the job.

There is only one difference between the two severance letters: In one of them, a six-line paragraph is added that addresses potential legal action. "This also will confirm our discussion," Oblinger wrote in the inserted section, that if Nielsen requests defense in "any civil or criminal action or proceeding brought against you in your official or individual capacity" then that request will be sent to the proper person in the state Attorney General's office.

Officials have said the state is not paying for lawyers for either man.

Nielsen actually wrote a resignation letter that was released to the public and it is dated May 14, the day after Oblinger had already accepted Nielsen's resignation, according to the severance letters. On May 14, Nielsen wrote to his colleagues, "Today I submitted my resignation..." and he writes that Oblinger has accepted.

At a news conference on May 14, Oblinger said that Nielsen had come to him to resign and that he had tried at one point to convince him to stay on.

It appears that the influence of state Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, helped keep secret an audit dealing with former first lady Mary Easley's salary at N.C. State University.

The salary audit has never been released by new state auditor Beth Wood, a Democrat. In an interview, she said the investigative audit raised questions about whether the first lady's $170,000 per year salary at NCSU was justified — but said NCSU officials made detailed counter arguments that would have led to a "he said/she said" audit.

But it turns out that Rand's involvement in an earlier audit — one that dealt with questionable overseas travel by Mary Easley — also played a role, J. Andrew Curliss reports. The Easleys had hired Rand, who is a lawyer and the powerful majority leader in the state Senate, to represent them. The move generated lots of talk because, for one, Rand has power over the state auditor's budget.

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N.C. State University has provided a new batch of records to federal investigators, including a report from a technology consultant that indicates e-mail messages from the early days of Chancellor James Oblinger's tenure likely cannot be recovered.

The consultant, Risk Management Associates of Raleigh, concluded in a report that the e-mails on an account Oblinger used in early 2005 had been deleted by Sept. 2005, the earliest date for which there is a back-up tape, J. Andrew Curliss reports.

The consultant also said there is no way to determine who deleted the e-mail messages.

Investigators have been interested in Oblinger's account from that time period because it is when former first lady Mary Easley was hired at NCSU. She was fired last month amid turmoil over her job.

E-mail messages from the hard drive of former board of trustees member and Easley friend McQueen Campbell have provided details on the job creation, including that the governor was involved in forming a job at the university for his wife. Campbell's emails included messages to Oblinger, who resigned last month.

But the university has not been able to produce those — or potentially others — from Oblinger's account.

The consultant said that the desk top computer used by Oblinger in that time period had been "scrubbed" of all data and reissued to someone else. A laptop used by Oblinger then was also located but contained no information.

The consultant said the university has done all it can to try and find the information.

A new subpoena issued to N.C. State University seeks more documents about Mary Easley's jobs at N.C. State and shows that investigators wants to know more about deleted e-mail messages from former Chancellor James Oblinger's high priority account.

The subpoena was received this week, according to N.C. State Chancellor James Woodward.

They show that investigators want to know how the former first lady was using her time, reports Andy Curliss. The request demands "all documents relating to vacation days accrued by Mary P. Easley in connection with her employment ... including, without limitation, documents reflecting the days on which she used a vacation day and any compensation she received in lieu of using her accrued vacation days."

The new subpoena also requests all documents relating to the decision in 2008 to offer Mary Easley a new position with a higher salary.

Easley worked at N.C. State fulltime since 2005, first leading a speakers series, and then in an expanded role since 2008 that paid her $170,000 per year. She was fired amid controversy last month.

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Lawyers for N.C. State University told federal authorities today that they cannot find six months of e-mails from an account that former Chancellor James Oblinger used for high priority correspondence.

The missing six months, from January 2005 to June 11, 2005, covers the period when Oblinger helped create a job for former First Lady Mary Easley, Joeseph Neff reports.

"We knew this account was in use from its opening and have been unable to determine how and why the e-mails sent from and received from this e-mail account during this time period were deleted," Stephen Smith, a lawyer representing N.C. State, wrote to federal prosecutors.

After the lawyers discovered that six months worth of e-mail was missing, they instructed the university's technological staff to do everything possible to reconstruct the missing e-mails. A substantial number of e-mails were recovered, Smith wrote, but periods of time remain where the staff has been unable to recover anything.

The letter accompanied a new batch of documents released by N.C. State today after officials delivered them to the federal courthouse in Raleigh in response to a subpoena from a federal grand jury.