Sunday’s crowd at the Ramapo PBA benefit for Officer Chris Hudak’s family was beyond what anyone might have expected.

Organizers had said they sold 1,000 advance tickets and it would appear most all of them got used. Crowds filled just about every space in the Montebello Holiday Inn’s events space on Sunday. They easily topped the 1,400 they thought might turn out.

It was an event people wish they never had to attend, but they came and spent and donated, all to help the family left behind when Michelle Hudak died in giving birth to their fifth child in January.

It’s hard to imagine that there have been so many Rockland police officers in one place since the funerals for Nyack Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly Brown in October, 1981.

It was a testimony to the brotherhood law enforcement officers share and to the regard with which they are viewed here. It’s also a bribute to Rockland’s giving nature.

In trying economic times, police officers and residents alike came out to help a family facing enormous obstacles and enormous expenses.

The county can be proud to have done the right thing.

By now, most everyone who knows anything about NBC’s Today Show knows that pretty boy Matt Lauer got hurt last weekend when he had an encounter with a deer while riding his bike.

He’s back at work now, his arm in a sling for the next six weeks or so and he’s soon going to need treatment for all the poking his ribs are taking about flying over the handlebars when the deer jumped in his path.

This morning, he got a good going over from everyone on the show and even the crowd on Rockefeller Plaza outside the studio was given fake deer antlers to wear on camera.

His co-hosts even had Lauer responding to some cracks Tony Kornheiser made on his Pardon the Interruption show last night on ESPN. Seems Kornheiser said the incident sounded made up, that he’s never heard of a deer attacking anyone on a bike before.

He might want to check in with Guy Gebbia of Nyack, who had a close encourter of the worst kind with a deer in California in 2005.

Gebbia was riding along on a two-land road near Susanville, in northern California, when a deer vaulted from a drainage ditch at the right side of the road and smashed into Gebbia and his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which was far heavier and a lot louder than Lauer’s two-wheeler.

Gebbia’s cousin, Art Thatcher from Dutchess County, was riding along about 120 feet back when he saw the the deer take flight, landing almost in Gebbia’s lap.

Gebbia  was thrown into the oncoming lane of traffic and a car stopped just about 15 feet short of hitting him. He had already suffered a broken shoulder blade, eight broken ribs, a ruptured spleen and broken bones in his right foot.

Luckily, he and Thatcher had decided to wear their helmets and leather garments that day. The helmet, which wasn’t required, saved his life and the leather jacket, which was shredded, saved his skin. Later, he had surgery to repair his spleen and have his ankle repaired with four screws.

The deer, which police estimated at weighing about 180 to 200 pounds, was dead in the roadway.

Lauer’s deer made out better, bolting away, seemingly unhurt and unapologetic — a fact that may have fueled Kornheiser’s skepticism.

This morning, they jousted playfully, Kornheiser saying Lauer looked pretty good for a guy who had been attached by a deer. Lauer allowed that he hadn’t said he’d been stabbed, just that he fell from his bike.

Kornheiser joked that the sling was good cover for his story.

But if Kornheiser has any doubts that it went down the way Lauer says, he can get a second opinion from Gebbia, who knows he’s lucky to be alive.

Made an appearance today at James I. O’Neill High School in Highland Falls, not far from the United States Military Academy and just north of Rockland.

I spoke about my career and journalism in general to Peggy Hartog ’s Journalism class. Assistant Principal Robin Haberman, who used to teach the class, sat in. Both are from Rockland and Hartog sent me an e-mail about a month ago asking if I would make a visit.

I’m always happy to do that, in fact, I’ll be speaking to a journalism seminar at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill next week. At times, I’ve also been a hot ticket on the senior citizen club circuit while visiting with service clubs like Rotary from time to time, too.

It’s always a refreshing exercise — thinking about what we do, why we do it and how.

The O’Neill class had questions touching on use of anonymous sources, what influences story choices and whether it’s hard to be as journalist.

I tried to give them the answers they needed while sharing vignettes from a career spanning 40 years in journalism and more than 36 years with the Gannett Company, which publishes The Journal News.

They were interested to find that I was a physical education major in college, but that I became interested in newspapers because there were seven New York City newspapers in my home every day when I was a young boy. My family had been in the newspaper business in a small town in Indiana from 1865 to 1902 and my grandfather was a printer at The World, owned at the time by Joseph Pulitzer.

My daughter Kelly is studying broadcast journalism at West Virginia University and despite the rapidly changing media landscape and economic pressures on daily newspapers the past few years, I still think it’s been a great career choice for me and for her.

Whether we do our job in print, on line, in Internet pod casts, on Twitter or social networking sites, there will always be a need for information and for those who know how to deliver it with skill, integrity and passion.

If your organization or your class in journalism, writing or some related subject would like to hear from a professional who has spent more than 30 years observing Rockland as an editor and columnist, you can e-mail me at Rbaird@Lohud.com.

I’ll be happy to try to find a time that works for both of us.

It’s been a couple of decades since CBS  took over showing all of the rounds of the annual NCAA basketball tournament and they still can’t get from one game to another without tripping over production glitches, a few extra commercials and missed action.

Time was ESPN televised the early rounds and back then, they moved seamlessly from game to game, shifting from blowouts to close games and sliding quickly back and forth between games if two or more were close in their final minutes.

CBS didn’t do badly today when it came to abandoning blowouts to shift to more competitive match-ups.  But they still have trouble when several games at the same time are all winding down to the final buzzer.

The early games this evening weren’t all that close, but CBS still fumbled getting from one to another. At one point they showed at least two commercials twice in the same break. They have just left one game to check another only to find it heading into a timeout and when they shifted again, there was no voice, just a picture of an American University fan disappointed to see her team fall behind Villanova after leading much of the game.

It was hardly “One Shining Moment.”

Basketball fans need CBS to kidnap someone who knows how to do this from ESPN. Quickly, please.

Glad to see the Piermont Village Board rethinking, or at least thinking longer, about charging the Rockland County Emerald Society about $2,400 to have a benefit event in the village.

The fees were designed to cover the village costs for police during the event, a clean-up afterwards and a few other expenses associated with such events.

I’ve made the point here previously that  those services are part of being a destination village – a place people think of for such events because there are also restaurants, shops and great views. Simply put, it’s a good place to go to.

And when the events end (and sometimes before)  both participants and spectators spend their money in the village.

The event that’s fostered the controversy is a run to benefit the family of  Ramapo Police Officer Christopher Hudak, whose wife died giving birth to their fifth child.

As hard as we’re all doing in this struggling economy, few families will face the kind of emotional and financial hurdles the police officer’s family will experience.

Charging the Emerald Society $2,400—the first time in a decade any fee would have been imposed on the group—would have been like skimming  $2,400 off the money raised for that family.

Thinking longer and harder before doing that this time or to other charities is a good decision, but it’s only a step in the right direction.

This year’s Emerald Society benefit 5K Race will be on May 3 at 9 a.m.  Here’s hoping it’s a beautiful day for running, raising money and for eating and shopping in on of Rockland’s special places.

The hard work and blood and sweat of Rockland native Brian Bordainick has paid off with the announcement that the 9th Ward Field of Dreams Project, which he’s promoted as athletics director at Katrina-ravaged Carver High School in New Orleans, has  been awarded a $200,000 grant to rebuild fields that were an anchor to one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

The grant is part of the National Football League’s Grassroots Program, which this year is allocating $2.5 million in grants to community groups in areas within the NFL’s 32 franchise markets.

The grant, which inspired  Bordainick to undertake a  massive application and fundraising effort,  has pushed the  pledges  for Carver’s new fields past the $1 million  mark on the way to a goal of  $1.85 million.

At first, raising the minimum of $200,000 to qualify for a matching grant seemed impossible, but in the days just before the application deadline Nike, the New Orleans Recovery School District and even a New Orleans City Council member made pledges that topped that original goal. When local architects, engineers and contractors committed close to $500,000 in in-kind services, it became clear the project would require substantially more money than initially thought.

A second commitment  from the Recovery School District,  a $10,000 donation from a local Kiwanis group and more than $31,000 in small, individual contributions — including many from Carver athletes and their hard-pressed families — set the stage for the NFL announcement.

The project’s Web site www.9thwardfieldofdreams.com today lists the total raised to date as $1,057,729.

Bordainick, who became athletic director in November 2007 at 22, is the youngest person in that role in Louisiana.

For an overview of how the project has unfolded under his leadership, check out this column on the 9th Ward Field of Dreams.

It was probably about a year ago that I did a video report on what was then being touted as the Bigger, Better Bottle Bill, which would extend the state’s 5-cent deposit to include non-carbonated beverages like water, iced tea, juices and sports drinks.

If my memory serves me, when I sorted through my recycling bin, there were actually more bottles that were exempt from the deposit than there were bottles subject to the existing law.

They were mixed together then, and still are, because getting back the 5-cent deposit got to be more trouble and more time consuming than it was worth.  It’s easier to just put all the bottles, deposit and not, out for recycling.

Time was, I’d take my bottles back to the store, but when I fell behind, shopkeepers would hate to see me coming. Even beverage distribution centers were reluctant to deal with large numbers of bottles and cans.

Putting 40 or 50 bottles and cans out to the curb for recycling — although good from an environmental standpoint — is like putting out a recycling bin full of nickels.

Under new legislation that might actually have a chance of passage, nickels for unreturned bottles would go to a state environmental fund, rather than beverage companies. That way, even if I don’t redeem my bottles, the deposit goes to help the environment even as I recycle.

The trade-off is that retailers and redemption centers would get a higher fee for the bottles they handle. Maybe that will make them a little happier about having to handle returns and pay out the deposits.

Most of the time when we think about how government had abdicated its responsibility to safeguard us, we think about looking the other way so corporations and the fat cats who run them can get richer by cutting corners at the expense of the little guy.

But not this time around, not in the new wave of frauds that have empties the pockets of the comfortable, the rich and the super rich.

That’s because hedge funds, we’re learning, aren’t subjected to the same level of scrutiny as more traditional investments. And hedge fund operators don’t even have to register with federal regulatory agencies and are treated as just another member of a tight little group who have an investment relationship the goes on beneath the government’s radar.

The thinking there is that hedge funds are the playground of the wealthy, those who have money to burn and shouldn’t need to turn to the government for solace if their investments go bad.

The old caution to gamblers applies: Don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose.

Understanding that, investors I guess, are prepared to get burned. This time they got incinerated.

Just like gamblers, serious investors also lose perspective and go for the big kill, the sure thing and the quick buck.

In the case first of Bernard Madoff and now James Nicholson, authorities charge, investors found what they though was all of those things.

It’s bad enough that their activities weren’t subject to regulation, but in both cases, we’re now learning, either individuals or, in the case of Nicholson, authorities from another country tried to alert the appropriate agencies here that something was very wrong.

It seems more every day that all federal authorities did was either fumble or outright ignore those warnings.

It’s the ironic case of a lack of oversight, which often helps the rich get richer, leading to the rich getting fleeced.

No one is having it easy these days, what with the economy in the tank and people either out of work or fearful that they might get tapped the next time the boss is handing out pink slips.

So, in some ways, it’s understandable that Piermont is looking to save every buck it can for its taxpayers.

The manifestation of that is the possibility that the Rockland County Emerald Society will be charged $2,500 to hold a race to raise money for a public servant — Ramapo Police Officer Christopher Hudak, whose wife, Michelle, died giving birth to their fifth child, was born prematurely and fighting for life since January.

The pain, trauma and hardships — both economic and financial — in such a situation are enormous. Naturally enough, police and other groups around the county are trying in any way they can to help the family cope in a tragic circumstance.

It’s in that spirit that the Emerald Society opted to host another race to raise money for someone in need, another race in Piermont, a destination village in Rockland chosen because it’s sure to draw both participants and spectators.

Now, this time around, the village wants to impose $2,500 in fees for use of the village gazebo, police costs, the cleanup by the Department of Public Works and a refundable security deposit.

The Emerald Society, which says it can’t afford the fees or find another venue on short notice, is asking for understanding, calling on the village to postpone imposing the fees.

At a Tuesday public hearing, village residents spoke in favor of the fees.

“There’s no value in these events for me,” one resident said, explaining that the crowds block the roads and he can’t get out of his house. Others said the business and tourism such events generate aren’t worth the inconvenience or expense to taxpayers.

Maybe, maybe not.

You know, police are a funny lot. They tend to stick together.

Here this group is trying to help one of their own and if they can’t get the village to reconsider or can’t switch to another location, that $2,500 bill could cut directly into the money they raise for the Hudak family, although it’s hard to imagine them allowing that to happen.

But what might happen down the road.

Groups like the Emerald Society may stay away, taking their events, the crowds and the after-race business with them.

And I’d be surprised to find members of the Emerald Society or their families, friends and colleagues eating in Piermont restaurants or shopping in village stores any time soon. I could imagine other police, from other departments, staying away, too.

Catering facilities might find it hard to lure police groups’ dinners and other events. And when Officer Joe Smith’s daughter is getting married, she’ll likely be doing it somewhere else.

It’s not like anyone is trying to orchestrate something like that. But it’s the kind of thing that could just happen on its own because police stand shoulder to shoulder when an officer needs help.

It will be easy to get out of driveways in the village then, and easy to get a table at the restaurants that survive.

It’s not like the Emerald Society is holding this race to raise money to buy new kilts for the band.

They are raising money to ease pain that won’t soon go away for a family that’s going to have it a lot harder than most any of us will, employed or not.

It may cost the village a little, but this is one of those cases when true enlightened leadership finds room for compassion.

Bernie Madoff seems to have a bottomless supply of gall.

After bilking investors of billions, he now wants to see his wife hold on to a penthouse apartment and millions in cash and municipal bonds.

According to a court filing, they are all owned by his wife and not part of the scheme that left some investors penniless.

Why Madoff is free on bail defies me, and how he thinks any assets he has could be spared for him or his wife.

In a perfect world, they’d go out to dinner and return to find the penthouse empty and after sleeping on the floor that night, awake to find their bank, brokerage, and any other accounts swept clean.

No doubt, others who have betrayed the trust of investors will expect the same treatment Madoff is now getting — unless prosecutors take the same heartless approach as the new-age robber-barons.