A Wake County judge said Thursday that he will make the state give up as much as $768 million.

Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. said that the state should give to schools most of the money collected from civil fines for almost a decade leading up to 2005.

That year, the state Supreme Court ruled that the money wasn't being given to public schools as required by state law and sent the case back to Manning to decide how much should be distributed.

Manning rejected most arguments aimed at limiting the payout.

Under stte law, the money must be used to pay for new technology. (N&O) 

Retired educator Raymond Stone swears the catfish joke came from Rep. Wayland Spruill.

Stone, who worked for the N.C. Association of Educators in the 1950s, said he recalls the Bertie County Democrat telling the joke frequently.

"He was a great big bald-headed potbellied man who could stand on the floor and wax poetic about the rippling waters of the Chowan River," Stone told Dome. "That was always the thing — 'Hold still, little catfish.' I can hear him right now saying that."

Stone said he could not recall Rep. Cutlar Moore making the joke, as previously reported in Dome.

But he said that regardless, Spruill was a "bigger character" than Moore.