Sometimes from the last places you expect, you find an insight. This time it came from The Lone Ranger — the 99-cent, DVD version. Here's how.

If we use last year as a guide, 2007 will be a year in which "collaboration" will be key. Consider these local developments:

n Pitt County has a new board of commissioners, but with many of the same problems — tight funds, heavy expenses. More discussion needed there.

n The Pitt Board of Education has a new chairperson and that new board of commissioners to work with and — tight funds, heavy expenses, especially where school construction funding is concerned.

n A new legislative session gets under way next month — with those same issues before it and local input critical.

n And at the Greenville City Council? This year the city will lose Mayor Don Parrott, someone who has helped keep the conversation moving among council members during some tumultuous times at City Hall.

(I might add that ECU's Pirates and J.H. Rose's Rampants are losing quarterbacks this year.)

Across the board — and across these boards — the last thing the county and its governing officials need is to be The Lone Ranger about anything. Teamwork will be paramount. To follow this somewhat dusty trail, we consult the Ranger himself.

For Christmas this year, my sons presented me with the first four episodes of The Lone Ranger television show. I laughed. Hey, this will be fun.

In the first three shows, The Lone Ranger takes down the hardened and elusive Butch Cavendish gang. It quickly became clear that he could not have done this alone — hardly. He needed Tonto, his trusty Indian friend.

It was Tonto who found and nursed the former Texas Ranger back to health after he was wounded in a Cavendish gang ambush that left his brother and four other Texas Rangers dead.

And while the Ranger then had the idea of dedicating his life to fighting criminals of the old West, it was Tonto who told him: "But you are alone, you are a 'Lone Ranger.'"

"Yes, Tonto," the Ranger said. He now had a name.

When the Ranger said he did not want his former identity known, it was Tonto who suggested a mask, and he proceeded to make one for his friend from the Ranger's deceased brother's vest.

Later when Tonto and the now "Lone Ranger" were out trying to find a new horse for the Ranger, it was Tonto who said the white one they saved from an angry buffalo looked like "mountain snow, silver white" — (as in, "Hi yo ...."). Yes, he named the horse, too.

We learn soon after that it also was Tonto who suggested that The Lone Ranger use silver bullets from the Ranger's secret silver mine (I always wondered where those bullets came from) in order to send a message to evil hombres on brown horses that The Lone Ranger didn't shoot unless he really needed to — nobody had that much silver.

So as it turns out, The Lone Ranger was not really lonely at all. The Kemosabe's identity, mission, horse and success were integrally associated with, dependent upon and in collaboration with Tonto. No Tonto, no Lone Ranger. (Kemosabe means "trusty scout," Tonto explained.)

Now, if The Lone Ranger couldn't go it alone, you know we shouldn't be trying to. So for commissioners, board members, legislators and the rest of us, for that matter, the insight and advice for 2007 coming straight from the 99-cent DVD rack is :

Hey, don't be The Lone Ranger — he sure wasn't. Just ask Tonto.

Al Clark is executive editor of The Daily Reflector. Tell him what you think at 252-329-9560 or at aclark@coxnc.com.