Well, I actually don’t know all that much about Oreste D’Arconte other than the fact that he is the publisher of The Sun Chronicle.  But I’ll get back to him after some background.

With all the interest in Sarah Palin’s selection for VP, I couldn’t help but notice Susan’s entry over on Corn and Oil.  It would appear that her husband, Todd Palin is not only considering “homeschooling” daughter Bristol through Alaska’s IDEA program but may have been homeschooled himself.  She noticed an interesting little comment in his column “The little things about Ms. Palin.”

They were high school sweethearts, but not at the same school. Why? Answer: Because he was home schooled.

With all our interest in “celebrity homeschooling,” who wouldn’t be interested in a little tidbit like that?

But of course, questions immediately arose.  I searched for more details, as did Susan who updated her post upon discovering that perhaps he was not homeschooled.  There is of course his high school yearbook picture from Wasilla High School.  Which doesn’t preclude homeschooling, but then there is this, from the LA Times.

Todd and Sarah Palin are a classic small-town couple. They met at Wasilla High School shortly after he moved here. As the story goes, the then-Sarah Heath was smitten with the basketball star, as he was with her.  Todd Palin, husband of Sarah Palin

Which still doesn’t mean he wasn’t homeschooled earlier, but that would still contradict the other statement that “they were high school sweethearts, but not at the same school.”  They apparently met at Wasilla High School, fell in love and lived happily ever after.

So I spent more time searching to see what else I could uncover.  Not much is written on the education of the spouses of “First Dudes,” apparently.  Then I had the bright idea of just emailing Mr. D’Arconte to see if he had any further information.  Once I realized he was the publisher, I didn’t have much hope, but you never know.  Email makes it so easy to ask a question.

To my surprise, I did get an answer.

Although I spent some time going back over sites I visited for stuff on Sarah Palin, I cannot find a reference to Todd’s home schooling which I read, or it seems, mis-read somewhere. It’s pretty clear they both graduated from Wasilla High (his picture is on the school website), which doesn’t rule out earlier home schooling, but I am unable to confirm it. I will correct it in my column Sunday.

Thank you very much, Mr. D’Arconte.  Not only did he contact me, but he spent some time double checking his story.  And he is correcting it.  Not in that little box reserved for corrections where most papers bury their mistakes but right in his column for next Sunday.

What more can you ask of a journalist?