Obama State College?

Probably not. But it is one of the suggested name changes for Palm Beach Community College, which seeks to take advantage of the Florida law allowing community colleges to change their names along with their missions when they begin offering four-year baccalaureate degrees.

"I kind of lament the loss of the community college moniker but we just have to work real hard so that the community knows that the community college mission won't change," said PBCC board of trustees member Ken Kirby.

The trustees are scheduled to review the survey results at a meeting Tuesday.

The survey had four suggested names for people to vote. The title Palm Beach State College was preferred by a majority - 40 percent - of respondents. But people were also given the opportunity to suggest their own names.

Those include[:]

• Alligator Community College
• Treasure Coast State College (of course, it's in the Gold Coast.)
• Juan Ponce De leon State College
• Mike is Awesome State College
• Colbert University
• The School of Intellagince (sic) and Performance
• The "Other" State College

The survey was open for about a month beginning in early April and was available on the school's Web site.

"Colbert University?" I love it ...

Lest anyone question PBCC trustee Kirby's allegiances, though, he chimed in with his own idea:

Kirby hadn't seen all of the proposed names on Thursday. He favors Palm Beach State College, but wasn't as partial to one respondent's suggestion of John F. Kennedy College.

"That's nice, but what about Ronald Reagan State College," he joked.

Yeah, great idea there, Ken. I mean, if you're going to name it for someone who, like you, hates public education (not to mention minorities, alternative lifestyles, and sanity), why not go all the way and name it for the man who originally appointed you to the Board (before Gov. Crist reappointed you): "Jeb! Bush State College?" You could even call it "B.S. College" for short, which would be apt indeed ...

Obama is coming to town ... again

Wow. Good thing I got to see Barack Obama in person and meet him when he was in the area in May ... because I'm out of luck for this go-round.

I was out of town last night and didn't return until nearly noon today, so I didn't even know until early this afternoon that Obama would be visiting Palm Beach Community College tomorrow ... and by that time, tickets were long gone.

Hundreds got in line this morning in Boynton Beach and at Lake Lytal Park in suburban West Palm Beach after the Barack Obama campaign made tickets available for the U.S. senator and presidential candidate's rally tomorrow at Palm Beach Community College's main campus.

Organizers didn't want to just hand out tickets; they had each person sign in and get a pitch about voting early or volunteering.

That slowed things down and the crowd swelled. Tickets at both locations ran out in 20 minutes.

I'd received a Twitter message from the Palm Beach Post at 12:17 pm today saying that tickets for the Obama appearance still were available in downtown Boynton Beach. I raced to my car and was at the Civic Center just 13 minutes later, only to find signs posted stating that all Obama tickets were gone.

The good thing is, of course, that there is such great demand to hear Sen. Obama speak. After all, it's not often that you get to hear directly from the next president of the United States.