I am not sure if this done or not.
On the left column of Forum.asp, we have topic icons, which indicate whether the topic is new, old, or hot. The idea is to add another column to right of it to indicate the topic type. It can be text or icons. Examples will be: News, Urgent, Featured, Welcome, Condolence, Debate, etc. The choice is to be made from post.asp when the person is posting a new topic. <