Knoll

Perhaps the NJSIAA should consider calling its girls' lacrosse state playoffs the Moorestown Invitational. That's because the championship hardware routinely ends up in the Quakers' trophy case. This season wasn't any different as Moorestown defeated Oak Knoll, 9-8, in yesterday's state title game at Rutgers' Yurcak Field. The victory was the Quakers' sixth consecutive state championship. It also extended Moorestown's winning streak against in-state opponents to 128 games.

Shares in Knoll Inc., a Montgomery County manufacturer of office furniture, gained $2.10 to close at $17.10 yesterday, its first day of trading in an initial public offering. Knoll's New York Stock Exchange offering at $15 a share marked its third debut as an IPO and a second chance for Warburg Pincus Private Ventures, its major shareholder, to cash out. The net proceeds of $154.1 million, for 24 percent of the company, went largely to Warburg Pincus investors, who held 91 percent of the company before the IPO. David Bright, a spokesman for Knoll, would not comment, citing securities rules.

How do you reinvent a classic? That was the challenge posed recently to design students from several area colleges in a competition sponsored by Collab, a local group of design professionals. The competition, in which students were asked to reconsider some of the classic modern chairs of the 20th century, is part of Collab's annual event at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Each year, the collaborative gives a lifetime-achievement award to an influential designer, and asks students to design an object related to the work of the honoree.

The U.S. office-furniture industry has been battered by a severe downturn since the glory days of the dot-com era. Last year's domestic production was valued at $8.5 billion, 36 percent below the $13.3 billion recorded in 2000, according to an industry trade group. Spurred by signs of a rebound this year, Warburg Pincus L.L.C. filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week to sell some of its stake in Knoll Inc., a major commercial-furniture manufacturer based in Montgomery County.

Knoll Inc., a major office-furniture manufacturer based in Montgomery County, said yesterday that it had filed a prospectus for a public stock offering. The East Greenville company, which reported net income of $35 million on sales of $688 million for the 12 months ended June 30, said it would apply for a New York Stock Exchange listing under the symbol KNL. In calculating its fee for registering shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Knoll estimated that the offering would raise a maximum of $230 million.

Ashley Knoll and Mallory Underwood are, as the saying goes, "bestest buddies. " They live 20 minutes apart in the suburbs of Houston. They hang out together. They shop together. One suggested that Oklahoma State would be a fine college choice and the other agreed, and now both are going there. So when Knoll and Underwood looked at each other on the first tee yesterday, opponents in a second-round match of the U.S. Women's Amateur at Philadelphia Country Club, they couldn't help but laugh.

At first blush, Tim Bartley could be just another conscientious homeowner. Sitting on a plastic chair in the shade behind his residence, Bartley, 44, extols the abode's virtues - the grass, the trees, the nighttime quiet. And woe betide the poor soul who raises a ruckus or throws trash anywhere near Bartley's patch of ground. "That's a no-no," he said. Bartley's vigilance isn't tied to property values. It comes from a more immediate worry: "If they see a bunch of trash around here, they'll kick us out," Bartley said.

There's a Teflon quality to Democrat Catherine Baker Knoll, a Pennsylvania political veteran running for lieutenant governor. Like Ronald Reagan and, some would say, Bill Clinton, she's untouchable. Consider her history. When Knoll left Harrisburg after her second term as state treasurer was up in 1997, her top campaign aide was under investigation for illegally profiting from state bond sales. Although Knoll was never implicated, critics have dogged her for years, saying she never fully accepted responsibility for the scandal.

The lieutenant governor candidates' debate yesterday was a cordial, question-and-answer-style forum - until the cameras stopped rolling. During the forum, Democrat Ed Rendell's running mate, Catherine Baker Knoll, fended off a panelist's question about a 1994 scandal involving a campaign aide during her tenure as state treasurer. Knoll said she saw no reason for her to accept responsibility for a scandal involving someone who was not a state employee. "I'm not going to let you rewrite history on my back," Knoll told the panelist.

Catherine Baker Knoll ran a quiet campaign without support of a party, a candidate or the unions. Still, in the end, the former state treasurer overcame eight challengers to take the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in a history-making contest. After a neck-and-neck battle with State Sen. Jack Wagner that lasted past midnight on Election Day, the 71-year-old Pittsburgh native with four decades in public service eked out a narrow victory on name recognition, one-on-one campaigning and grandmotherly charm.