The paranoid store official singled out photographer Wayne Hinshaw only because he had a camera around his neck.

When Hinshaw refused to leave, the employee summoned Fire Chief Sam Brady and informed the chief that Hinshaw should be forced to stay back for his own safety.

That rang hollow, and Brady knew it. Numerous other employees stood immediately outside the store’s entrance and customers routinely got closer than Hinshaw before being told the store was closed.

Thankfully, Brady came to Hinshaw’s defense, explaining that the photographer probably has been to as many emergency calls as himself through the years and knew how to handle himself at a fire scene.

A laurel to Brady.

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A dart for the tough choices a new city policy is forcing married couples on their payroll to make, and a laurel to the improved way City Manager David Treme handled the most recent case.

The city manager is moving ahead with his policy of no married couples in the same department, a policy that in itself makes a lot of sense. But imposing it now, years after some married couples have been working in those departments, is causing difficult adjustments for some families.

At least when Treme decided to deliver the bad news at the fire department, he talked to both partners in the couples. When he addressed the issue in the police department awhile back, for some reason he called in only the wives. Practice makes perfect, one guesses. Wonder who’s next?

Laurel to the continued success of the “Ketner Awards,” the $10,000 in prizes that Food Lion co-founder Ralph Ketner gives to government employees who come up with the 10 best ways to save money.

A recent edition of “County Lines,” a publication of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, featured this year’s winners, which included a Rowan program. That would be RITA, the Rowan Individual Transportation Assistance program. You’ve seen ads for the program in the Post: “Take a Ride with RITA.” It provides non-emergency ambulance rides for people checking in or out of the hospital, going to the doctor, moving from one facility to another and so on.

“Now in its eighth year, the Ketner award program has identified $62 million in savings to North Carolina counties,” the County Lines article said.