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TRANSCRIPT
By Gina Gallucci-White
A s the president of Mon-rovia’s Residents Against Landsdale Expansion,
Steve McKay drives past several of the group’s signs on his way to work.
On a recent August morning, he noticed multiple yard signs were missing and several four-by-eight-foot banner signs had been cut off their plywood backing and their posts had been ripped out of the ground.
“Nobody has the right to go into someone’s yard and take away their freedom of speech,” he said.
A number of the sign thefts occurred along much of Tran-quility Court in Monrovia. The vandalized banners were along Md. 80 and Bartholows
Road, at Md. 80 and Tranquili-ty Court, and elsewhere.
“Whenever this happens, we advise [residents] to file a police report,” said McKay.
Sgt. Jennifer Bailey, spokes-woman for the Frederick County Sheriff ’s Office, said they are investigating several destruction of property cases in the Urbana area where signs were damaged or destroyed.
Besides the ones described by McKay, there are additional cases deputies are investigat-ing. They include an incident on July 19 at the 9300 block of Penrose Street in the Villag-es of Urbana, where suspect(s) removed stakes and signs and threw them on the ground. Three of four signs were also
Photo | Tracey McCabe
Urbana School Year BeginsAll Urbana area schools opened their classrooms on schedule on Monday, Aug. 19 for the first day of school. Pictured here, parents and students cross the intersection of Carriage Hill Drive and Sugarloaf Parkway in Centerville, bringing students to their classrooms at Centerville Elementary School.
Vol. 9, No. 9 September 2013
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Urbana’s Hometown Newspaper | Serving Urbana, Villages of Urbana, Urbana Highlands, Ijamsville and More
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Urbana Student Wins Second Place on Jeopardy! Kids Week
By Sally Alt
Z oe Assasie, a 6th grader at Urbana Middle School, won second place in her
appearance on Jeopardy! Kids Week, which aired in July.
“I’m pretty satisfied with my performance,” said Assasie, add-ing, “It was a blessing to even be on the show.”
Assasie, who competed against two other contestants, earned a whopping $6,200 during the game, but the game show’s rules state she could only leave with $2,000. Assasie said she plans to save the money she earned on the show.
On Jeopardy! Kids Week, con-testants answered questions on a wide variety of topics in cate-
Community Expresses Concern About Portables
By Sally Alt
A lthough the Frederick County Public County Schools (FCPS) system is
working hard to ensure the health and safety of classrooms, commu-nity members believe that more should be done to safeguard the health of students and teachers in portable classrooms at Urbana El-ementary School (UES).
Jeff Esko, who taught for 23 years in the Gifted and Talented Magnet Program at UES, filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleging that his health issues were caused by working in a portable classroom. The fifth grade teacher spent seven years teaching in por-table buildings used as classrooms at UES, and has been treated for ocular migraines and vision loss.
Health issues in some porta-ble classrooms may be linked to indoor air quality problems, which can be caused by poor-ly functioning HVAC systems, chemical off-gassing from pressed wood and other high-emission materials, water entry and mold
growth, and improper or infre-quent cleaning, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Outdoor air should be supplied continuously when a portable classroom is occupied by students and teachers, the EPA said.
Urbana Elementary School currently has 14 portables pri-marily used by the fourth and fifth grades, said Ray Barnes, the Director of Facilities Services for Frederick County Public Schools. FCPS adheres to the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Act standards to keep classrooms safe and healthy for students and teachers, he said.
All of the classroom spaces, including portables, are “highly regulated,” said Michael Doer-rer, director of communication, communication engagement and marketing for FCPS. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are consistently moni-tored by staff to ensure that they are functioning properly. Most of the classroom portables at UES
Photo | Submitted
Zoe Assasie won second place in her appear-ance on Jeopardy! Kids Week, which aired in July.n JEoPArDy! Continued on page 12
n ClASSrooM SAfEty Continued on page 10
Group’s Signs Stolen, Vandalized
Page 2 The Town Courier September 2013
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September 2013 The Town Courier Page 3
Young Writers Seek to Publish BookBy Bethany E. Starin
T his summer, a group of female Urbana students banded togeth-er to make productive use of
their extra summer hours. The result: a collaborative work of fiction they
are now seeking to publish.The five Urbana girls dubbed their
group “The Urbana Young Writers Club.” They originally got their start when David Nellis, who teaches at the Frederick Chinese School, brain-stormed with local parent Mindy Wan
and her daughter, Xy-lina Wan, about how he could help Xylina foster more creativi-ty in her writing over the summer. Nellis sent out an email to a few of Xylina’s fellow students to see if they would be interested in joining. Each had taken his SAT class at the Frederick Chinese School, which meets at Urbana High School every Sunday.
Soon, five girls from the Villages of Urbana were meeting with Nel-lis, brainstorming a coffee-table book project. Club members include April Nellis, Megan Nellis, Kellen Liu, Elyza Ortaga and Xylina Wan.
“Mr. Nellis said that he wanted us to create a coffee table book where the cover catches your eye and each story is really unique for each writer and they have their own ideas,” said Liu, who just started her sophomore year at Urbana High School. “It was supposed to be short stories and each of us had two characters and so a total of 10 characters.”
To start the project, the girls cre-ated a map with distinct landmarks such as a river, an abandoned house and a tree. From there, each girl cre-ated her own, unique story with two characters each — but the stories
Behind the Swim Coach: Shannon VetterBy Emily Feliz
Swimming has been a part of Shannon Vetter’s routine for more than half her life, first as
a competitor and now as a coach. And she aims to bring the joy she feels for the sport to the young swimmers in the Villages of Urbana.
Vetter just finished her third year as the head swimming coach at the Villages of Urbana Seahawks team, coaching nearly 200 kids ages 5 to 18. Vetter has been around swim-ming and coaching for about 20 years, having swum as a child and coached teams and taught swimming lessons in Prince George’s County and Fred-erick, before taking the top spot with the Seahawks.
“I liked swim team growing up so much, it was such a big part of our summer and a big part of our identity in summer, I wanted that to be the experience here,” she said. Four years ago, Vetter, along with an assistant, launched a pre-swim team program, which allows younger swimmers who didn’t make the team to still partici-pate in the program.
Coaching wasn’t something Vetter, a mother of three, necessarily aspired to do as a young person. “I didn’t ac-tually think about it until I was doing it,” she said.
During the school year, Vetter, a College Park native, is a substitute teacher at Centerville and Urbana El-ementary Schools.
“At school I am Mrs. Vetter, Miss
S h a n n o n , Coach Shan-non,” she said, with a laugh. “There are many times when I’m in the classroom when the kids will call me all three of those names.”
Prev ious ly Vetter was a h i gh- s chool teacher in Montgomery County, but resigned after her second child was
By Kristy Crawford
Swim School Opens in Frederick
With area pools closed for the season, a Frederick indoor swim school now gives Urbana area swimmers the ability to keep up their swim skills in the chilly months. KIDS FIRST Swim School recently opened a new location inside the Frances Scott Key Mall, near Macy’s and across the hall from the Miyako’s restau-rant and Shadow Land Laser Tag.
This is KIDS FIRST’s 17th location, making it the largest swim school in the world. Begun in 2001 in Perry Hall, Md., KIDS FIRST now operates 13 schools throughout Maryland, three in Virginia, one each in Pennsylvania, Delaware and South Carolina, and plans are now underway for a similar swim pro-gram in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Owner Gary Roth has been swimming his entire life and teaching and coaching for more than 40 years. Roth patented the Kick First Learn to Swim System, which first teaches fast leg and foot muscle move-ments.
“By isolating and training the feet and legs first,” Roth said, “we can ingrain the proper movement be-fore establishing the arms in the stroke. It’s much eas-ier for children this way. The training is occurring at the subconscious level.”
This is the first mall location for KIDS FIRST, ac-cording Roth.
“Our schools are typically built in strip shopping centers,” said Roth, “but we thought the novelty and convenience of a mall location would be good for ev-eryone.” Malls in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have now inquired about opening swim schools there.
Swim programs are available year round, from 9 a.m. – 8 p.m. for infants through adults, and classes include basics skills in private or small group formats, stroke mechanics and opportunities for adults to exer-cise and learn to swim. Birthday parties can be sched-uled on weekends.
“As long as the earth remains two thirds covered by water and as long as the human race keeps making babies, someone is going to have to teach them how to swim,” Roth said, “and we want to lead the way!”
For more information, contact KIDS FIRST at 301.682.SWIM (7946), or visit their website at www.kidsfirstswimschools.com.
Acupuncture Clinic Coming to UrbanaTan’s TCM Center will open soon in the business
townhome complex across from Giant shopping cen-ter. Tan’s replaces the now closed Suzan’s Goodies, next to Nate’s Barber Shop. Tan’s TCM Center spe-cializes in traditional Chinese medicine practices such as acupuncture and acupressure, under the direction of Jiang Tan L.Ac. CMD.
For more information, contact the center at 301.874.5658
shoPTalk
n yoUng WritErS Continued on page 12
n CrEAtivE oUtlEtS Continued on page 14 CommuniTysPoTlighT
n SHoP tAlK Continued on page 17n CoMMUnity SPotligHt Continued on page 14
Photo | Submitted
villages of Urbana residents joined forces this summer and launched the Urbana young Writers Club. Here (pictured left to right) Elyza ortaga, Xy-lina Wan, Kellen liu, April nellis and Megan nellis brainstorm their book project at one of their summer meetings.
Photo | Submitted
KiDS firSt Swim School recently opened in the frances Scott Key Mall in frederick, near Macy’s. facilities will be similar to the KiDS firSt school located in germantown, as pictured here.
Photo | Submitted
Urbana resident Shannon vetter is a mom, local swim coach and substi-tute teacher.
A Dream Job Come TrueBy Madelyne Xiao
F or most, Disney World may be the destination for a brief summer vacation, a
quick Christmas getaway or re-spite from the stresses of work. But for Urbana High School (UHS) graduate Sally Stephens, 19, the most magical place on earth has been home for the past three months — and will be un-til next January.
Stephens is currently a junior majoring in business marketing at Liberty University in Virginia. She’s also in the Disney College Program, a paid internship op-portunity sponsored by Disney theme parks.
“I’m a lover of all things Disney,” said Stephens. “I want to go into event
planning, and my dream job would be planning fairy tale weddings at the Grand Floridian Resort.”
Earlier this year, Stephens complet-
ed a rigorous application process that included a written portion, an online questionnaire and a telephone interview. Once admit-ted, Stephens made the trip down to Orlando in early June.
She’s currently working as a “QuestKeeper” in Downtown Disney’s DisneyQuest, an inter-active indoor theme park. As an intern, Stephens maintains the grounds and oversees the smooth operation of all eight Quest at-tractions.
“It’s been a great experience,” said Stephens. “I think I’ll benefit in the long run — I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet people from
all over the world.”Stephens also cites the unique
Photo | Submitted
Urbana High School graduate Sally Stephens, 19, interns for Disney theme parks through January 2014.
n DrEAM Job Continued on page 12
Page 4 The Town Courier September 2013
We’re moving to better serve the needs of our patients in Southern Frederick &
Northern Montgomery County
Coming October 14, 2013 a new location for
MMI UrbanaKnowledge Farms Office Complex
3280 Urbana Pike, Suite 105, Ijamsville, MD 21754301-694-8311 • 800-349-9386
www.mmidocs.com
Our new location will offer a full range of services 5 days a week
• General orthopaedics
• Sports medicine
• Spine care
• Pediatric orthopaedics
• Foot and ankle care
• Rheumatology
• Pain management
• Physical therapy
A Bar for JuiceJ uicing is the new
thing. Or at least one of the new things.
I’m always willing to give these new things a try, but I haven’t been able to adapt to this juic-ing fad. My first intro-duction came when a photography chum of mine offered me a glass of her breakfast brew. It was a seaweed-colored drink she’d made from a heap of fresh vegetables and fruit. Star-ing at my creamy cup of coffee and back at the deep-green beverage, I thought my-self a tad brave to give it a whirl. It tasted both very green and very healthy. While every sip was incredibly good for me, I just couldn’t get hooked on the strong taste of nutrients and vitamins squeezed from veg-
etables as an inviting breakfast brew.But I can handle a good smoothie. My
favorite local spot for a smoothie is Fred-erick’s Common Market, an organic, fair-trade grocery and cafe that’s tucked in the Evergreen Square Shopping Center. Re-cently, when picking up a smoothie for lunch at the Common Market (my usual is the Georgia Peach sweetened with honey and raspberries), they gave me a sample of their Green Monster — a kelly-green juice made from cucumber, celery, spinach and kale. All Common Market’s juices are 100 percent organic, and customers have the option to build their own juice.
This sample sip combined with some lo-cal news made me willing to give juicing another try. Last week during a conver-sation with Pattee Brown, the managing editor of the Frederick Gorilla publication, I learned she’s opening a juice bar in Fred-
erick this month. The juice bar, dubbed Juice Plate, will be located in what she calls “The North End,” of Frederick, in the old Moxie Bakery and Cafe spot at 629 North Market Street.
What’s interesting about Juice Plate is that it’s a “social enterprise,” Brown said. It’s a nonprofit restaurant serving fresh juice, wraps, paninis and more with a New-York deli flair.
“The intention is to make food afford-able for locals and to appeal to the North End,” Brown said, adding that it will have a “grab and go” vibe. “All proceeds go to the Seed of Life.”
In addition, the goal is for Fresh Juice to offer social programs in coming months, offering cooking classes to at-risk youth and more. For more of the scoop on Fresh
n ASK tHE EDitor Continued on page 25
askThe ediTor
©2013 Courier CommunicationsThe Town Courier is an independent monthly newspa-per providing news and information for the commu-nities of Kentlands, Lakelands and Quince Orchard Park in Gaithersburg, Md. The paper is published by Courier Communications, which is responsible for the form, content and policies of the newspaper. The Town Courier does not espouse any political belief or endorse any product or service in its news coverage. Articles and letters submitted for publication must be signed and may be edited for length or content. The Town Courier is not responsible for any claims made by advertisers. Letters to the Editor and Commentary do not necessarily ref lect the views of the staff, manage-ment or advertisers of The Town Courier.
Editorial: 240.409.6734Advertising: 301.606.8833
www.towncourier.com/urbana
Bethany E. Starin Managing Editor 240.409.6734
Claire Fleischer Copy Editor
Patsy Beckman Advertising Manager
301.606.8833 [email protected]
Sally AltNews Editor
Kristy CrawfordNews Writer
Student WriterMadelyne Xiao
Staff WritersNora Caplan Betty HafnerEmily Feliz
Sheilah KaufmanTeresa Bell-StockmanGina Gallucci-White
Staff Photographers Tracey McCabe
Shannon Wagner
Diane Dorney Publisher
Matt Danielson President
By Bethany E. Starin
Double Standard No. 2Something I recently read contained
a comment attributed to BoCC Presi-dent Blaine Young that he has heard that Maryland Department of the Environ-ment (MDE) will approve the permits for the planned garbage incinerator this month (August), and it occurred to me
that there has been no public announce-ment by MDE to that effect. So how is it that this state agency is apparently willing to provide this info privately to an elect-ed official in advance of telling we the people, who have much at stake in this issue — including the fact that our tax-es will pay out approximately $3 billion throughout the next 30 years, while the
output from it will further poison the air and water we are tasked by the governor to spend additional billions to clean up? I emailed my concerns and questions to Secretary Summers on the 13th of Au-gust but he has yet to respond as of the 23rd — yet another double standard at work in this state.
— Gary J. Thuro, Urbana resident
yourviews
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 5
UHS Graduate Releases New AlbumBy Sally Alt
U rbana High School graduate Jenny Leigh released her new album, Tip-ping Point, to iTunes at the end of
July. The country music singer has been working on the album since December last year.
Leigh, who lives in Baltimore, recorded the album in Nashville. “It was extreme-ly exciting,” she said. Recording music in Nashville is “a whole different world.”
Leigh raised funds to record in Nashville through Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects. She raised $10,000, exceeding her goal of $8,000.
Although Leigh focuses on country mu-sic, she also dabbles in other genres, includ-ing hip hop, R & B and pop. Among her musical influences are Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, LeAnn Rimes, Grace Potter, Martina McBride and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Leigh and her band members wrote all of the songs on the new album, mining their own personal experiences — in-cluding falling in love and breaking up. She enjoys collaborating with other musi-cians, she said, and frequently works with her boyfriend and band member Adam Scott-Wakefield, who has his own band, Old Man Brown. Leigh also writes songs with Ryan Sorstad, a Canadian musician, with whom she has worked for a couple of years.
She’s also performed as the opening band for many well-known country music sing-ers performing in Baltimore, including Randy Houser, the Eli Young Band and Dierks Bentley. And, she sings the Nation-al Anthem at Baltimore Orioles games at Camden Yards, a local landmark.
Although the market is “tough” for
country music singers in Baltimore, Leigh said she’s done well. People are re-ceptive to her music, and the city “feels like a com-munity,” she said. Before she landed in Baltimore, Leigh lived in Urbana from age five until she graduated from Urbana High School in 2002. She moved to Bal-timore after finishing col-lege.
Singing has come natu-rally to Leigh from the be-ginning. “I’ve been singing my whole life,” she said. She took music lessons while growing up, performed in musicals in school, and sang and performed in an a cap-pella group called Twisted Measure at Elon University in North Carolina. During college, Leigh realized that singing was “more than just a passion” for her and decided to start a career as a professional singer. Af-ter graduating, she learned how to play the guitar and started performing in local bars and music venues in 2008.
All along, she said, “My parents have been very encouraging,” and family mem-bers also contributed to her fundraising drive. That sort of networking is some-thing she recommends for anyone who wants to become a professional singer. She has found that getting out in the commu-nity and creating relationships can help build a music career.
Besides her straight-up music Leigh has filmed one music video, “Crossroads,” and plans to make a second in September, with
Artist Opens Window on Civil WarBy Pam Schipper
I n the Delaplaine satellite art gallery on the first floor of the Urbana Re-gional Library, new
windows have been put in — metaphysical ones that transport you back 150-odd years to Spot-slvania County, Va., and the American Civil War. The mixed-media art/journal exhibit of Da-mascus-based artist Mi-chael Douglas Jones col-lects the artifacts of time — captured cartridge cases, mislaid metal and wood — and transmutes images, newspaper sto-ries and illustrations into what convinces as mid-19th century authentic.
It is an inspiring sort of artistic alchemy.
Jones started this body of work with a journal, an envisioned 20-entry fictional account based on the Civil War experience of his ancestor, 9th Virginia Cavalry Cou-
rier Isaac Jones. His impetus, explained Di-ane Sibbison, Delaplaine exhibition man-ager, was an invitation from the arts center to participate in a 2011 exhibition com-
memorating the Civil War sesquicentennial.
Once Jones started work on the project, words flowed and he dis-covered a strong kinship with his great-great-great grandfather’s neph-ew. Known facts were few — Isaac’s regiment and position — but the connection was strong. Jones spent his childhood in Spotsylvania County, where the family farm is today part of the Civil War Wilderness Battle-field; served in the mili-tary during Vietnam; and has his farmer forebears’
reverence for the land.In the introduction to UNION: The
Courier Journals ~ 1861−1865, a story that surprised its author when it wound up span-
Launch of the LionsBy Bethany E. Starin
T he world’s largest service orga-nization is coming to the Urba-na area this fall with the launch
of a local chapter of Lions Clubs Inter-national.
“We feel that with the growth of the Urbana area there is a need for a ser-vice group that will address the needs of the community,” said Bob Johnson, who lives in Jefferson, Md., and has been a member of Lions for 14 years.
The goal of local Lions clubs is to fill unmet need in the local communi-ty. Club projects range from assisting with the local food bank and volun-teering in local schools to the Lions’ signature program, sight conserva-tion — working with the Lions Vision Research Foundation, which partners with The Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins.
“We are making a difference and helping people’s lives and fulfilling a need that would not otherwise be ad-dressed,” Johnson said of Lions.
Lions Clubs International currently has 1.35 million members around the world, Johnson said, with 59 clubs in western Maryland alone. The Urbana club will be treated as the other chap-
n lEigH Continued on page 17
n lionS ClUb lAUnCH Continued on page 19
n JonES Continued on page 19
Mom/Dad and Me Program
Mondays & Wednesdays9:30 - 11:00 am
Beth Sholom Community Center1011 N. Market Street, Frederick
Meet other parents and children, ages 1-3, in a safe, friendlyatmosphere. Learn about Jewish holidays, arts and crafts,
movement, circle time, story time, free play and more!
Call 301-663-3437 for more information$50 for synagogue members $100 for non-members
$25 non-refundable registration fee
www.bethsholomfrederick.org
Photo | Jonathan Hanson
Jenny leigh, an Urbana High School graduate, released her new album, tipping Point, to itunes in July.
Photo | Submitted
"back to Soil" is a mixed-media piece in Michael Douglas Jones' exhibition at the Urbana regional library's Delaplaine satellite art gallery. the exhibit runs through october.
Page 6 The Town Courier September 2013
Athletic boosters Help UHS Prepare For Fall Season
On Saturday, Aug. 17, dozens of Urba-na High School (UHS) students and their families carried building, painting and gar-dening tools to the UHS sports stadium for the annual Stadium and Facilities Clean-up Day, organized and run by the UHS Ath-letic Boosters Club. Close to 150 people cleaned, weeded, trimmed and painted all around the fields, concession stand and sur-rounding areas, and then hung banners and signs to prepare for the upcoming UHS sports season.
UHS Athletic president, Tim Mel-lott, was impressed with the turnout and pleased with the results. “Our community rocks!” he said. “Volunteerism is alive and well, and I met so many new friends that were strangers before the day started.”
Since UHS opened, the athletic boost-ers have provided much needed materials to UHS sports teams, including a sound system for the gymnasium, equipment for training and competition, plus much of the food preparation and serving equipment at the concession stand. At the end of each school year, the boosters award a $1,500 scholarship each to one female and one male athlete, toward the college of their choice.
The fee for an annual boosters member-ship is $25 per family, and proceeds from the concession stands also raise money for the teams. To join or for more informa-tion, visit the booster page on the school website, www.uhsmd.org.
Goddard School Earns MSDE Accreditation
The Goddard School, a private ear-ly childhood educational institution on Carriage Hill Drive in Urbana, recently earned accreditation from the Maryland
State Department of Education (MSDE).MSDE accreditation is a voluntary pro-
cess of program assessment that examines all aspects of quality in educational envi-ronments for young children including curriculum, interactions between teachers and children, health and safety, family en-gagement and professional preparation and development of faculty.
“We are so proud to have earned this top honor and be recognized for our com-mitment to reach the highest professional standards,” said Urbana residents and God-dard School owners, Jill and John Pelicano. “This demonstrates that children in our program receive the best possible care and early learning experiences. Our manage-ment and faculty have earned this achieve-ment by performing their very best every day.”
Opened since 2009, The Goddard School accommodates 165 children, ages 6 weeks through 8 years. Parents can drop in for a tour or call Jill Pelicano directly at 240.699.0006 to arrange a personal ap-pointment. More information is available at www. goddardschool.com.
Sports, Exercise and a Worthy Cause
From now through Sept. 30, Urbana resident Mitch Berger is selling raffle tick-ets for the chance to win an autographed 2012-2013 team Washington Capitals Away Jersey. Tickets are $10 each or $25 for three. Anyone can purchase as many as they would like, and all proceeds will be donated to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The drawing will take place on Oct. 1.
Since being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and undergoing six months of intensive chemotherapy, Berger has be-come an active supporter of LLS, and has dedicated substantial time to help raise
money for research toward treatment and a cure. “I have been in remission for two and a half years now,” Berger said. “I feel it is important for me to help and give back for those who are less fortunate and lose their battle with cancer.” He is giving back in a big way.
For the past three years, Berger has held a golf tournament to raise money for LLS. The Relentless Golf Tournament is on Fri-day, Sept. 13 at The Links at Challedon in Mt. Airy, and includes 18 holes, golf cart, breakfast, lunch and prizes. (Registration may be closed at this time. Contact Berger at the address or number below if interest-ed.) “Instead of holding the auction at the golf tournament this year,” Berger said, “I decided to allow more people a chance to win the jersey, and hopefully more money
will go to LLS.”In addition, on Oct. 12, Berger and his
team of family and friends will participate in the annual LLS Light the Night Walk at Baker Park. Budro and Berger’s Blood Blasters Team hopes to raise $10,000 for LLS, in honor of Berger and family friend, Matt David, a 19-year-old man who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leu-kemia in January and is now undergoing treatment. For more information, visit the team’s page at www.lightthenight.org.
To buy your raffle tickets send checks, payable to LLS, and with “raffle” in memo line, to Mitch Berger, 9139 Belvedere Drive, Frederick, Md. 21704. The jer-sey comes with a Certificate of Authen-ticity. Contact Berger with questions, at 301.922.3343 or [email protected].
Kids Villa Carnival Benefits Urbana Food BankThe Kids Villa Learning Center held a children’s carnival on Aug. 17 to help
raise funds for the Urbana Food Bank. Kids Villa Director, Ada Morders, said the event was conceived and planned by the children and staff at the center.
“We finished a weekly theme on giving back,” Morders said, “and they want-ed to find a way to give back to their own community.”
The carnival was held at the center on Rte. 80, adjacent to Centerville Ele-mentary, and included moon bounces, games, snacks and a dunk tank staffed by brave teachers.
“Each classroom made a game like a duck pond, ring toss and balloon pop,” Morders said. “The kids did all the work to set it up and then got to go out and enjoy it with their families and friends.”
The event raised almost $400 for the food bank, for which food bank direc-tor, Jo Ostby expressed great appreciation. “We can buy gift cards for gas and groceries for a lot of needy families in the area,” Ostby said. The Urbana Food Bank currently serves about 140 local families who are struggling to feed their families.
For more information on the Greater Urbana Food Bank, visit its Face-Book page, and to learn more about Kids Villa, call 301.874.9100, or see www.urbanadaycare.com.
aroundTown By Kristy Crawford
Photo | Submitted
Members of the Urbana High School Athletic boosters take a break from an all-day cleanup and refresh of the UHS sta-dium facilities on Aug. 17. tired but proud of their efforts are (from left) John thomas, Doug Day, booster president, tim Mellott, Dan and gigi Schrider, Colyn and Paulie Hynes, Julie Allen and terri Hayes.
Photo | Submitted
the Kids villa learning Center, on rte. 80 across from Centerville Elementary School, held a carnival on Aug. 17, on behalf of the greater Urbana Area food bank. According to Jo and larry ostby, food bank directors, the money raised will help provide prescription and over-the-counter medications, gasoline, groceries and household items to more than 140 local families in need. Pictured here are larry ostby, Jo ostby and Ada Morders, director of the Kids villa Center.
Photo | Submitted
raffle tickets are on sale through Sept. 30 for this autographed 2012-2013 Washington Capitals Away Jersey. Urbana resident, Mitch berger will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the leukemia and lymphoma Society.
the Sherwood family is ready for the first day of the school year. Eleven-year-old Jake Sherwood is starting sixth grade at Urbana Middle School, while his sister, Morgan, enters kindergarten and brother, Zach, moves to fourth grade, both at Urbana Elementary School.
Photo | Submitted
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 7
Photo | Submitted
Urbana High School principal, Jay berno, calls these women “Jay’s Angels.” Helping him during back to School night in August are (from left) parent volunteers nicole robertson and Angela Davis and PtSA president, Monique rubert.
aroundTown By Kristy Crawford
Mud RunMud runs and similar events have mul-
tiplied around the U.S. in the last decade. Inspired by the Tough Mudder, a gruel-ing 10-12 mile obstacle course designed by British Special Forces, the events vary in challenge levels and themes, including Tough Mudder races, in West Virginia in October; the still-challenging four-mile
Running Dirty with Navy Seal inspired obstacles, held in Frederick in August, to a little less challenging events full of mud, spray paint and sometimes even zombies.
Some events also raise money for chari-ties. LoziLu events donate a portion of reg-istration fees to LIFE, a non-profit chari-ty supporting children with leukemia and lymphoma through research and financial assistance.
Photo | Submitted
villages of Urbana resident, Elizabeth roche, prepares to climb a rope wall during the lozilu 5K Women’s Mud run in July at the frederick fairgrounds. “We had such an awesome time,” roche said, “and it’s so great to help such a worthy cause!”
Photo | Submitted
Urbana High School staff, parents and students staff the PtSA and boosters table during back to School night on Aug. 22.
Photo | Submitted
Urbana’s Dillon Papier and his parents Darrile and Mark pose with some of the many volunteers who helped at the national niemann-Pick Conference in July in baltimore.
Page 8 The Town Courier September 2013
Frederick’s Juice PlateBy Sarah Withers
T his month downtown Frederick can look forward to some “fresh squeezed comfort food” with the
opening of the new Juice Plate restaurant in the old Moxie location on the north end of Market Street.
What is fresh squeezed comfort food? According to the woman opening Juice Plate, Pattee Brown (co-founder of the Frederick Gorilla and host of “Freder-ick’s Forum,” Saturdays on WFMD-AM
radio) — “it’s all about balance.” She’s never going to tell you that the food she makes is healthy, but said it is certainly a lot healthier than many of the alternatives. Juice Plate will offer fresh squeezed juices, smoothies, wraps, leafwiches and sammees ( Juice Plate creations), chopped salads and soups. Brown describes the new eatery as somewhere you can bring friends and ev-eryone will find something they want to eat (or drink).
She also doesn’t intend to alienate the people who live close by. Brown said the
foods available at Juice Plate will be recog-nizable and affordable. She wants to give the folks living and working on that side of town a healthy alternative to a daily trip to Taco Bell or McDonalds.
Just like the location’s predecessor, this new restaurant will be a social enterprise. It is the offspring of a pact between Brown (of Rockwood Brown LLC) and organic farmer Michael Dickson, CEO of Seed of Life Nurseries, Inc., a local and organic farm. Seed of Life aims to empower at-risk youth in low income communities through active participation in a local food system, and help low income community members understand the links between farming, food, health and their local economy.
It is that mission that makes them a per-fect partner for Brown’s new endeavor. She had originally planned to open her juice bar in another section of town, but was ap-proached by Ryan Trout, special projects manager for Frederick City’s housing au-thority, and asked to consider the available site in the Bernard Brown Community Center. She had intended to open a juice bar with a focus on locally grown produce and Seed of Life is a local farm that also has programs to benefit kids in underserved communities. Brown jumped at the chal-lenge of moving her project into the non-profit world.
Her business plan is to make Juice Plate a self-sustaining enterprise within three years. At that three year mark, the restau-rant will revert to Seed of Life ownership. They will get the “keys to the castle” as Brown put it. In the interim, Brown will manage the project and cultivate the brand to ensure Juice Plate will continue to be a commercial and nonprofit concern. Dix-on said this partnership is a self-sustaining model that allows Seed of Life to profit from their efforts and allows them to put that money right back into their nonprofit programs.
In addition to being an eatery and so-cial enterprise, Juice Plate will also be a community art space. Brown has had sev-eral artists come in to help her cover the walls with murals. For those not interested in making the walk up to 629 N. Market Street, Brown said that the eatery will de-liver and will also have designated parking across the street. Juice Plate is scheduled to open some time this month, the exact date will be announced soon.
Editor’s Note: Sarah Withers is the owner of Taste Frederick Food Tours. She enjoys eating her way through Frederick County’s food scene and is eager to try wheat grass for the first time when Juice Plate opens. You can find her tweet-ing about all things food and Frederick at @TasteFrederick.
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loCalPalaTe By Sarah Withers
Photo | Sarah Withers
Pattee brown is the brains behind frederick’s new juice bar and healthy comfort food cafe.
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 9
Local EventsDog Day at the Pool
The Urbana Highlands pool will have a Dog Day on Saturday, Sept. 7 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. For more information, call 301.693.1107.
Fall Yard Sale
On Saturday, Sept. 14, the Urbana Highlands will host a fall yard sale from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. For more information, call 301.693.1107.
Community Book Sale
Friends of the Urbana Regional Library will hold its fall used book sale on Sept. 21 from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and on Sept. 22 from 1 – 5 p.m. The sale will be held in the community room on the lower level of the Urbana Regional Library at 9020 Amelung Street. More than 3,000 used books orga-nized by subject category will be available as well as CDs, DVDs, books on tape and children’s books. For information, call 301.600.7000.
Turning Point Real Estate Event
Turning Point Real Estate will host an event in Frederick on Thursday, Sept. 12 to inform people about the Giving Point project and how its agents will donate a portion of their commission to give back to the community. A wine and cheese re-ception will be held at 4 p.m., and a dona-tion presentation will held at 5 p.m. The event is located at 8923 Fingerboard Road in Frederick. For more information, call Melissa Kinna at 240.436.6036.
Dinner at Dutch’s Daughter
Greater Urbana Area Food Bank formed a new partnership with Dutch’s Daughter. The food bank invites the community to attend a buffet dinner upstairs at Dutch’s Daughter on Monday, Sept. 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. The buffet dinner costs $10. Do-nations are being accepted for the needy in the community to attend. People who want to attend the dinner should contact Jo Ostby at 240.529.4815 before Sept. 6.
Annual Golf Tournament
The PB Dye Golf Club will host the Annual Golf Tournament that benefits the Urbana youth football teams on Sept. 6 at noon. A BBQ lunch and two drink tickets will be provided. The golf game will start at 1 p.m. and a raffle will be held at 6 p.m. The event costs $125 per golfer or $480 for a group of four. For more information, please contact Tony Altuner at [email protected].
Arts, Concerts and Cultural EventsThe Great Frederick Fair
The Great Frederick Fair will be held from Sept. 13 – 21 from 9 a.m. – 10 p.m. at the Frederick Fairgrounds at 797 E. Patrick Street. On Friday, Sept. 13, the fair will be held from 5 – 10 p.m. The fair will feature carnival rides, agricultural events, food, live entertainment and more. For more in-formation, call 301.663.5895.
Festival of India
The Indian Association of Frederick will host the Festival of India on Saturday, Sept. 21 from 6 – 10 p.m. at the William R. Tal-ley Recreation Center in Frederick. The free event will feature Indian food, live classical and Bollywood dances, vendor and jewelry displays and a Bhangra dance workshop. For more information, please email Seema Sharma at [email protected].
Music on the Terrace
Enjoy a picnic listening to music at the Carroll Creek Amphitheater. The amphitheater, located directly behind C. Burr Artz Library, presents concerts from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 6, 13, 20 and 27. For more information, call 301.600.1629.
Saints Peter and Paul Greek Fall Festival
The Greek Fall Festival offers authentic Greek cuisine, live music and traditional dance performances from 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. on Sept. 6 – 8. For more information, call 301.663.0663.
TheatreGo Dog Go
The Maryland Ensemble Theatre pres-ents Go Dog Go, a musical with dogs from the children’s book who live life fully. They dance, sing, climb trees, snorkel and howl at the moon. The performance will be held on Sept. 14 – 19. All tickets cost $13.50. For more information, call 301.694.4744.
The Hungry Hungry Games
The Weinberg Center presents The Hungry Hungry Games, a comedy theatre performance based on The Hunger Games, on Friday, Sept. 27 at 8 p.m. The show is recommended for ages 13 and older. Tick-ets cost $39.50, $44.50, and $49.50. Doors open at 7 p.m. For more information, call 301.600.2828.
monThlyagenda Compiled by Sally Alt
44th Anniversary Sugarloaf Mountain Region/AACA Car Show, Activities Meet and Automobile Flea Market
On Sunday, Sept. 8, the Urbana Volunteer Fire Department will host the 44th Anniversary Sugarloaf Mountain Region/AACA Car Show, Activities Meet and Automobile Flea Market. The event is open to all motorized vehicles made in 1988 or older. All vehicles must be driven to the show. Registration for the event is from 9 – 11 a.m. The show will be held from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Pets and kids are welcome. Entertainment includes a Veteran’s Flag Tribute, DJ mu-sic and car rides for the kids. Breakfast, chicken dinners, snacks and drinks will be served. Prizes will be given out at 2:30 p.m. The pre-registration fee is $10 and the day of the event registration fee is $20. For more information, call Rob at 240.344.2922 or visit www.sugarloafmountainaaca.org.
Photo | Submitted
this month, the Urbana volunteer fire Department hosts the annual Sugarloaf Mountain region/AACA Car Show including fun for the entire family.
Page 10 The Town Courier September 2013
have environmental monitors that have been monitoring carbon dioxide levels for the last couple of years, and staff members also regularly monitor for mold growth, he said.
It hasn’t convinced everyone. “I do not like the idea of the portables,” said Anne Gallo, who has three sons who participat-ed in the UES magnet program. Gallo be-lieves that the ventilation in the portables is not adequate. “It’s just not a good envi-ronment.”
Two of Gallo’s sons spent two years in the portable units, and both complained of headaches during the year that they spent in Esko’s classroom. Her other son, who did not have classes in the portable units, did not suffer from headaches, she said.
Gallo said that although she feels frus-trated by the situation with the portable classrooms at UES, she is grateful for the teachers and staff at the school. “The staff is fantastic,” she said.
Beth Gura, whose daughter spent a year in one of the portables at UES, worries about the safety of the older portable units. “I think that the ventilation systems should be reviewed to ensure the quality of the air in the structure,” she said, adding that she is not satisfied with the methods used by staff to monitor carbon dioxide levels.
According to Barnes, staff members as-sess and evaluate all complaints about class-room conditions, then FCPS staff investi-gates issues and makes repairs if needed. “The research that we’ve done does not
indicate that the portable classrooms have poor ventilation,” said Barnes. “We feel confident we have safe and secure portable classrooms in Urbana Elementary School and at our other schools,” he said.
Dr. Grace Ziem, a local physician who specializes in occupational and environ-mental medicine, expressed concern about the health and safety of some of the porta-ble classrooms at UES. Ziem, who treated Jeff Esko, said that she believes Esko devel-oped frequent ocular migraines and per-manently lost half of his vision in both eyes as a direct consequence of his teaching in one of the portable units.
According to Ziem, Esko taught for a year in a classroom portable that was built by a company that used materials contain-ing toxic substances, such as formaldehyde, in the construction of the building. Be-cause of the harmful materials used in con-struction, more ventilation is needed, she said. If students or teachers experience eye or respiratory irritation, neurologic symp-toms or difficulty concentrating while in the portable classrooms, they should promptly reduce exposure and seek med-ical help from a doctor with training in treating environmental health issues, said Ziem.
n CLASSROOM SAFETY from page 1
Photo | Tracey McCabe
Urbana Elementary School currently has 14 portable units that are mainly used by fourth and fifth grade classes.
Common Core, Early Start Date Mark School Changes
By Sally Alt
T his fall, local students and teachers begin the new school year a week early and with new standards for the
curriculum.The Common Core State Standards will
be fully implemented in Frederick Coun-ty public schools for kindergarten through 12th grade this year. The new standards apply primarily to language arts and math classes and focus on 21st century skills, helping students with problem solving, collaboration and creative thinking, ac-cording to Brett Stark, director of Curric-ulum for Frederick County Public Schools.
“The common core standards raise the bar for student achievement,” Gwendolyn Dorsey, assistant principal at Tuscarora High School, explained further. They are designed to ensure students learn the skills they need in order to be ready for college or the workforce after high school gradu-ation.
Members of the National Governors As-sociation and the Council of Chief State School Officers developed the Common Core State Standards with input from school administrators, teachers and parents throughout the U.S. To carry out the new
n CUrriCUlUM CHAngES Continued on page 14
By Kristy Crawford
N ow that virtually every student from pre-school to college has be-gun the new academic year, it may
be time to take a deep breath and move on to planning for the next child’s con-tinuing education and, of course, how it will be paid for.
As tuition rates, college expenses and competition rise, many local families can’t afford the traditional route to fi-nance their children’s education, espe-cially if they have big families.
Here’s a look at how four families in our area have found creative and flexible solutions to the challenge of high college costs.
Mixing it upMonrovia residents Rebecca and Tony
Chmelik met in college and agreed they wanted a large family. They are parents to 11 children ranging from 22 to 4 years old.
“We heard the comment a lot, ‘How are you ever going to pay for their cars and college?’” said Rebecca Chmelik. “We did not believe that it was our re-sponsibility to provide a car and college education to each child. If we could, great, and hopefully they would be ap-preciative, but it shouldn’t be a require-ment.”
n HigHEr EDUCAtion Continued on page 14
Diverse Paths to Higher Education
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 11
Enthusiastic School Year LaunchFrederick County Public Schools
(FCPS) opened all 66 schools countywide on schedule on Aug. 19, the first day of the 2013-14 school year. The first bus left the school bus depot at 5:10 a.m.
FCPS Chief Operating Officer Ann Bo-nitatibus was interviewed by ABC early that morning and welcomed families with cheerful enthusiasm to the new school year, reminding drivers that more than 40,000 children are on the road going to and from classes every school day in Fred-erick County. Her message: Red Means Stop — from both directions — when a school bus driver has activated the flashing red lights.
By 9 a.m., nearly 3,000 teachers had wel-comed their classes to the new school year. One teacher, bedecked in a feather boa, lit-erally rolled out a red carpet for her class, and featured an Oscar-like replica in the room. This was her message: Education is worth the red-carpet treatment.
Students and teachers focused on getting to know each other and their new class-rooms. “That’s the most important part of today,” said Deputy Superintendent Dr. Steve Lockard, “building relationships that help make the school year a success.”
Former Centerville Elementary School principal, now principal at Tuscarora Ele-mentary School, Steve Raff echoed prin-cipals across the county in attributing the orderly first day to teacher and staff preparation and parent cooperation. Many schools have held back-to-school nights prior to opening, helping to familiarize parents, staff and students with classroom locations and syllabi. Students were quick-ly engaged in a variety of lessons, many with hands-on assessments to measure their knowledge before progressing to the first units of study.
For Oakdale High School junior Heidi Closs, that means getting to work: “Most of my classes require a lot of reading, which I’m really excited about. I like to read!”
Perhaps the most notable first day was at the Frederick Classical Charter School, opening for its very first time with 280 stu-dents in grades kindergarten through sixth.
Frederick Classical isn’t the only school touting a classical education: FCPS has the highest advanced Latin enrollment in
Maryland, with Governor TJ High offer-ing Latin III and Linganore also offering high-level Latin courses.
Behind the scenes FCPS staff worked to keep students energized and on the move. Food and Nutrition Services offered some of students’ favorite lunch choices: mini corn dogs or chicken nuggets with a roll, carrot sticks, tossed salad, mashed potatoes, chilled pears and fresh plums, apples and oranges. Schools offered 1,400 pounds of produce countywide, according to senior manager Judith Gordon. Gordon visited Lincoln Elementary, where students love the choices of fruits and vegetables of-fered and learned that the plums and apples came from a local orchard.
The Transportation Department planned a well-orchestrated return to the road of the county’s more than 400 school buses. Director Fred Punturiero said that, as one might expect, there were some glitches this morning, and a few buses were late. Driv-ers, he said, are appreciating their new dig-ital radios and are excited to be back be-hind the wheel.
Gum and Mints AllowedThis year at Urbana Middle School, stu-
dents will be allowed to chew gum and eat mints during school hours. This privilege is being extended to our students as long as they are responsible enough to discard their trash in the receptacles and not on the floor and furniture.
New Law to Benefit FCPS StudentsFrederick County Public Schools is
working to ensure that students and fam-ilies are informed about the provisions of a new Maryland law aimed at improving college readiness and completion. Among other changes, the law requires public school systems to work jointly with public institutions of higher education including local community colleges on dual-enroll-ment programs that offer reduced tuition. FCPS is working with Frederick Commu-nity College to that end.
FCPS urges all students who are dually enrolled or want to pursue dual enrollment in the future to visit their high school’s counseling office for a College and Career Readiness Public Institution of Higher Ed-ucation (PIHE) Dual Enrollment Applica-tion Form that reflects changes in the law.
High school counselors have additional information.
Urbana Marching Band Preview Event
A preview show of the Urbana Mighty Hawks Marching Band will be held on Sept. 13 at 5 p.m. The show is dubbed, “The Greatest Generation,” and includes dinner that’s followed by a preview show at 6 p.m. A second preview is being held at 6:45 p.m. The event is held at the UHS football stadium. Proceeds go entirely towards capital fundraising, which will cover new uniforms among other things. The community is invited to attend this event. Purchase tickets by Sept. 10 by contacting Karen Woehrle at [email protected] or Michael Harrison at [email protected].
Opportunities to Support Area Schools
School budgets seem to be perpetually trimmed, so Parent Teacher Associations look for creative ways to join business-es to make it easier to help the schools. PTA members keep busy during the entire school year and beyond, holding events to entertain and teach students, show appre-ciation to school staff and help the schools provide the very best for the students.
Along with paying a small price for a PTA membership, buying spirit wear and joining booster and other support clubs,
there are many other ways to support area schools and maintain them as some of the best in the nation, and any community member can participate:
Giant, Food Lion and Target will donate a portion of sales to the school designat-ed by shoppers. Ask each store about the simple process of signing up to have your purchases count toward school improve-ments. Safeway and Giant Eagle programs are coming soon.
Box Tops for Education collects tags contributed by participants from the packaging on many cereals, soups and other products. The cardboard tags are turned into schools periodically and exchanged for donations from the food companies sponsoring the program. Details are available at www.boxtops4education.com. A similar program, Labels for Education, will be coming soon.
Urbana and Centerville elementary schools and Urbana Middle School hold fall fundraiser programs each year, selling various items such as gift wrap, holiday gifts, stationery and food. Materials are sent home with students, but most allow purchases online, to benefit your school of choice. Some fundraisers will end by mid-September, so check the school’s web-site at www.fcps.org. Book Fairs are usual-ly held twice a year, during fall and spring conference times.
Urbana High School athletes often sell coupon cards or books, with discounts available from many local retailers, for a small fee.
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Dr. terry Alban, superintendent of frederick County Public Schools, started the first day of the new school year visiting students at Catoctin High before moving on to the area’s middle and elementary schools.
Page 12 The Town Courier September 2013
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gories such as geography, history, candy and biblical figures, with the level of dif-ficulty increasing in the second round of questions. One of the answers to the daily doubles was the Indian Ocean, said Assasie.
Assasie, who watches Jeopardy! almost every night, said the game show adjusted questions for kids ages 10-12 on Jeopardy! Kids Week. She is convinced that know-ing how the game show works helped her performance.
But it wasn’t all about performance. “I got to talk with a lot of really cool people,”
during the taping of the show, said Assasie, adding that she enjoyed going out to lunch with other contestants and meeting the game show host Alex Trebek, who took time to talk with the contestants.
In order to appear on Jeopardy! Kids Week, Assasie completed an online test and participated in an audition in New York. Thousands of kids from the U.S. and Can-ada took the online test, said her mother, Freda Freeman.
Only 15 students out of about 500 kids who auditioned across the country were chosen to participate in Jeopardy! Kids Week. Assasie was one of the youngest kids on the game show, said Freeman.
Assasie, who loves reading and writing, is the sort of kid who likes to stay up late reading a book. Freeman said her daughter also has a passion for cooking and hopes to open a restaurant when she grows up. And, she’d like to be on the Jeopardy! show again in the future.
Assasie’s family members supported her in appearing on the game show. “My mom was one of my biggest cheerleaders,” As-sasie said. Freeman encouraged her daugh-ter to study in preparation for appearing on “Jeopardy” Kids Week.
In fact, Assasie was more relaxed than she was, said Freeman. “I was on her case” to study, she said. Before competing on the
game show, Assasie bought an almanac, studied trivia and watched old Jeopardy shows.
Freeman has watched Jeopardy! for more than 20 years, and watching the game show has been a family tradition. Seeing Assasie on television was “really exciting,” said Freeman, who traveled with the family to watch the filming of the show in Califor-nia, and was on the edge of her seat during the taping. Assasie’s aunt hosted a viewing party for family and friends the day show aired.
“It’s been an amazing experience for all of us,” said Assasie’s mother, adding, “We are so proud of her.”
n JEOPARDY! from page 1
world view of Disney theme parks as a perk of the program. (By some serendipity, she encountered another UHS alumnus, also an intern at Disney.)
Stephens has had the opportunity to im-merse herself in all things Disney during her time as an intern. During an intern ori-entation in the early summer, program or-ganizers quizzed students on Disney trivia.
“They asked us, ‘How many bricks are in Cinderella’s Castle?’ The answer? Zero.”
It’s not all fun and games, however — in addition to working at Disney during the day, Stephens takes three online classes
for Liberty University to fulfill her course requirements. For a student as driven as herself, a Disney workplace will prove in-strumental in launching a career in event planning and business management.
“I’d recommend the Disney College Program for anybody,” said Stephens. “It’s a great job opportunity. You’re able to work your way up from an intern to a manager.”
With a knowledge of the logistics behind one of the world’s largest theme parks, Ste-phens feels sure she is on the road to be-coming an event planner for her current employer. True to form, Disney World could really be a place where dreams come true.
n DREAM JOB from page 3
wove together as each referenced these distinct landmarks. Nellis helped the girls develop their creativity with exercises us-ing pictures and themes. For instance, Liu said, at one of the meetings the girls each drew four pictures, writing the themes and scenes of their short stories.
“The hardest part was starting to write,” Liu said.
To help them, Nellis taught the students how to outline their stories. Liu said out-lining helps her think through the story’s structure, even if the story is simple and short. She spent about three afternoons a week working on her story, including the once or twice weekly the Young Writers Club met. The girls did most of their work at home and would get together to give one another feedback.
“We gave each other suggestions on what we could change or add. We would edit each other’s stories at the meetings or our grammar or anything we thought we should change,” Liu said. “It was a good experience to have because writing a story and working with different people is a skill that everyone needs. It was good to expe-rience it and to know how a group works together.”
Hong Tian, Liu’s mother, said that writ-ing this book provided a meaningful and interesting activity to promote the girls’ creative thinking.
“I really, really like this idea,” she said enthusiastically. “In school they don’t get this type of experience. ... I think my daughter and all the other girls learned a lot of things from each other.”
Mindy Wan, Xylina’s mother, saw this group as preparation for the future. “In this role, I saw [the girls] challenging each other ... and being very friendly. This will get them ready for their future and for their big careers.” Wan said The Urbana Young Writers Club helped develop not only the girls’ writing skills but also their interper-sonal and leadership skills.
The parents are supporting the club fi-nancially in hopes of getting the work of fiction published. Wan said she is dialogu-ing with PNC Bank to see if they might be interested in funding the publication.
“They are looking [for] good ideas to sponsor,” Wan said.
The Urbana Young Writers Club plans to continue, Wan said, and the hope is to draw in more members — but to keep the group not larger than 10.
For more information on The Urbana Young Writers Club, contact Tian at [email protected].
n YOUNG WRITERS from page 3
www.towncourier.com/urbana
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 13
damaged with permanent black marker. Then on Aug. 1, in the 4000 block of Bill Moxley Road in Mount Airy, two RALE signs were taken from a yard. The next day on Aug. 2, at the 3000 block of Kemptown Church Road in Monrovia, a RALE sign was damaged.
When property crimes occur, the sher-iff ’s office increases patrol checks, Bailey said. If a resident sees something suspicious, he or she should call authorities immedi-ately.
“These cases remain open and no arrests have been made,” said Bailey.
McKay estimates his group, which is funded through resident donations, has lost around $1,000 to stolen or destroyed signs. There have been two incidents in which banners were destroyed: Once around Mother’s Day and this recent episode, the first week of August. Signs have been tak-en infrequently since around February and March. Sometimes, the thefts occur in pockets, but at other times they have oc-curred over large canvassed areas.
Pam McKay, Steve McKay’s wife and group treasurer, said some residents mis-understand their group’s stance on the proposed Monrovia Town Center and Landsdale project. The group fears the new development would overcrowd schools and roads.
“We are not against development,” she
said. “We just feel what they want to put here is not appropriate.”
The group worked to get yard signs back up as soon as possible. McKay keeps a supply at his house. Banners take a cou-ple of days to repost because they must be reprinted.
The time the couple spend replacing signs could be spent doing other things for the group, but they remain undeterred. “I hope they [the thieves] are making money off of it,” he said. “It’s not going to stop us. If they take one sign, we will put up two more.”
Other areas of Urbana have not been touched.
“We have been very fortunate to not have any vandalism at Urbana High School over the past few months,” said Principal Jay Berno.
Anyone with information about these crimes should call the Frederick County Sheriff ’s Office Tip Line at 301.600.4131.
n VANDALISM from page 1
Photos | Submitted
residents Against landsdale Expansion (rAlE) banners illustrate how their signs looked before and after vandals cut and destroyed them.
We are not against development. We just feel what they want to put here is not appropriate.— Pam McKay, treasurer for Monrovia’s Residents Against Landsdale Expansion
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Page 14 The Town Courier September 2013
standards, teachers will create lesson plans that incorporate them, and also tailor their lessons to students’ needs.
Under the standards for English and language arts, students will read more complex fiction and nonfiction texts, said Stark. Students will also learn how to cre-ate written arguments using evidence from multiple texts. In math classes, students will focus on how and why math works in the real world, and learn how to explain in writing how they solve math problems.
Karl Kidd, a fifth grade teacher at Ur-bana Elementary School, said that as part of standards implementation, teachers will encourage students to ask good questions and participate more in classroom discus-sions.
The goal of the new standards is to help students succeed, said Kidd, who is the 2013 Frederick County Teacher of the Year, and teachers at his school believe the standards will really help students, according to school principal Jan Hollen-beck. Kidd and his fellow teachers received training to incorporate the new standards into their lessons, and Frederick County “has done a wonderful job” in providing professional development for teachers to implement them, he said.
The Common Core State Standards, which have been adopted in 45 states, also focus on preparing students for a “global society,” said Stark. “We’ve been teaching some of the concepts already,” he said.
In addition to adjusting to the Common Core, students and teachers are adapting to an early start date for school. Classes start a week earlier than in 2012. The students
will have the same number of days of in-struction, according to Christine Stone, assistant principal at Urbana High School (UHS), and a longer spring break, from April 14-21. Curriculum and amount of class instruction will remain unchanged.
Not everyone is in favor of the earlier starting date. Mindy Kurz, a parent and Ijamsville resident, said that it would be better if kids began school the week after Labor Day. Starting school on August 19 does not give students the full break that they deserve, she said.
“I have lots of activities planned in Au-gust,” said Kurz, who has two children at-tending public schools in the Urbana area. “I just enjoy the summertime with my family,” she said. Kurz plans educational trips for her kids during the summer and takes time to get them prepared for the new school year.
Kurz said that she wished that the school board had responded more to parents’ feedback, which included a petition against the early start date to school.
Kidd said that although starting school early has been a “mental shift” for him, the schedule change has not affected his prepa-ration for class. Because Kidd usually takes his vacation at the beginning of summer, the early start date did not alter his vacation schedule.
UHS assistant principal Christine Stone said she is looking forward to seeing stu-dents at the beginning of school. “I think the teachers are excited to get back.”
For more information about common core standards, please visit www.FCPS.org, www.corestandards.org or www.marylandpublicschools.org.
The Chmeliks do believe that a good ed-ucation is very important, though, and that parents should take on much of the respon-sibility, instead of expecting the schools to do everything. They have chosen to home school their children, and supplement that education with public and private institu-tions.
Jonathon Chmelik, 22, attended pre-school and kindergarten at a church school, went to public school for first grade, and was homeschooled beginning in second grade, when his mother began homes-chooling all her children. In high school, Jonathon attended Frederick Communi-ty College (FCC) during his senior year.
When he received his AS degree at FCC, he joined the Marine Corps Reserves and transferred to West Virginia University.
“We made a deal to pay our kids’ way through community college as long as they earn As and Bs,” Chmelik said.
AJ Chmelik, 20, was educated at home through 10th grade, then moved to a pri-vate school in Idaho. When he returned to Maryland, he discovered an interest in dance; during his 11th grade year, he was homeschooled and spent hours at the Ur-bana Dance Studio.
AJ spent his senior year at UHS, where he joined the dance team as well as the foot-ball team. “He would go to dance practice at 6 a.m., attend school, then football prac-
n HIGHER EDUCATION from page 10
n HigHEr EDUCAtion Continued on page 15
33 YearsExperience
n CURRICULUM CHANGES from page 10
born. Last fall, she started substitute teach-ing at Urbana Elementary School (UES) and Centerville Elementary School (CES).
“I pretty much worked every day last year,” at one of those two schools, she said. Her undergraduate degree is in secondary education, so Vetter herself is headed back to school this fall to earn her elementary education certification.
“High school is where my experience is,
but this year really gave me the experience that I could do elementary school too,” she said.
“I was so anxious when I resigned from teaching full time, [wondering] will I get my job back? I have really, really learned that things happen at different seasons in your life and you just have to go with it.”
Being a substitute teacher is something Vetter finds rewarding — helping the full-time teacher keep classroom plans on track, while at the same time, being around in the
afternoons for her own children.“I remember when I was a full-time
teacher,” she said. “It means a lot to have a sub that will follow your plans, will man-age the classroom the best they can, will keep everyone safe and be professional. And I thought, you know what, this is a good thing to do. … People are happy to have someone who will do those things and will try their best to stay as productive as possible, keep things moving.”
In the fall, Vetter’s oldest child will be
attending Urbana Middle School, while her younger kids attend UES. And if she’s substituting at CES, that could mean making stops at all three schools on a giv-en morning. (Vetter’s husband, Frank, is the principal at West Frederick Middle School.)
Vetter shrugs off the inevitable “how-do-you-do-it-all” question. “It’s just nor-mal,” she said. “It’s all relative. … I just feel like I’m doing a normal amount of stuff.”
from page 3
CommuniTysPoTlighT
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 15
tice,” Chmelik said. “He was at the dance studio late most nights, kicked for the foot-ball team on Friday evening, then went to weekend competitions.”
Commitment paid off: AJ was awarded a dance scholarship at Towson University, where he made the dean’s list both semes-ters last year.
The Chmeliks say they have impressed upon their children the great importance of graduating from college with no debt. “We are helping the first ones where we are able,” Chmelik said. “As they graduate and begin to work in their chosen profes-sion, they will give back to the family by helping the younger siblings. So far no one is incurring debt and they are working to keep it that way.”
Starting over, working hardNathan Price started school at St. John’s
Elementary in Frederick, then moved to France, where his father wanted to expose him and his five siblings to another culture. He returned to Urbana for 10th grade.
When he graduated, Price applied to one college, Belmont Abbey in North Caroli-na, and was accepted. He had plans to enroll in the U.S. Marine Corps’ Judge Advocate General Corps and pay for college with the GI bill and loan repayment plan available through the armed services. But he said he was denied entry due to some misdiagnos-es for allergies and sleep apnea. Meanwhile, he incurred more than $15,000 in debt in his first two years of school. Price returned to Maryland to earn money and come up with a new plan.
Price worked full time at the Urbana Subway for a year, and was accepted to Towson University last fall. By then he’d found a better-paying job at Capital One Bank – better paying in part because of the tuition reimbursement program there.
To cover his costs, Price plans to contin-ue to work at the bank as he completes his bachelor’s degree. Then he hopes to trans-fer to Capital One’s legal department while he studies law. He takes the LSAT law school entry exam in October and wants to apply to area law schools later in the year.
Each of these families has approached college differently, but one common thread emerges: each is focused on college completion. And each has found a creative way to get there.
Planning Ahead, Utilizing Scholarships
The Faulkner family started planning early. “My daughters were told as early as first grade that college came after gradua-tion,” said Stephany Faulkner. “It was nev-er if, but where.”
The girls, Abby and Aimee Faulk-ner, were active in community and vol-unteer events from a young age. Abby, a 2011 graduate from Urbana High School (UHS), worked with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Ai-mee, a 2013 graduate, helped with Angel Flight, which helps patients travel to med-ical appointments.
When the Faulkner girls entered high school, Stephany and their dad, Bob Faulk-
ner, helped them create schedules for all four years to help the girls to be well rounded. They both finished with excellent grades, AP credits and high SAT scores. The girls were accepted to a number of schools, most with some form of scholarship.
Those scholarships were important, but so was the family ethic of sharing. “Each child was required to take out loans for a portion so there is a buy in,” Faulkner said. “We made a promise that, if they did what they were supposed to do, we would do our part.” Abby now attends University of South Carolina, with the help of the McK-ismick Scholarship. Aimee just started her
first semester at Salisbury University and was awarded the Presidential Scholarship.
Urbana’s Mallow family also relied on scholarships. Stacy Mallow watched the youngest of her four children, twins Grace and Brett Lewis, graduate from UHS this spring. Brett is attending Hood College this fall, where he was also awarded the Presidential Scholarship, and because his older brother, Sam, graduated from Hood, Brett received an alumni scholarship. “Brett is also able to be a part of a work-study program” that will help offset the cost of tuition, room and board, Mallow said. “And, Grace also received a scholar-
ship to her school, Shepherd University, so we feel fortunate.”
For more information about colleges and the scholarships, grants and loans, refer-ence:
• www.uhsmd.org. Check the staff link, then the counseling page to find a wealth of information available;
• www.collegeboard.com;
• www.drhermdavis.com, Rockville-based Dr. Herm Davis is an expert in financial aid and scholarships for higher education who comes to UHS each fall for a workshop.
n HIGHER EDUCATION from page 14
Page 16 The Town Courier September 2013
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September 2013 The Town Courier Page 17
her song “Refuse to Hide” on the Tipping Point album.
Still, she hasn’t quit her day job. Leigh works full-time at Under Armour, and performs as a singer in the evening and on weekends.
“I don’t really get a chance to relax,” she said. But the hard work is worth it: asked about her country music career, she said, “I
love everything about it.”Leigh will sing at the Labor Day Fest at
Hard Rock Café in the Baltimore Inner Harbor on Monday, Sept. 2 at 7:30 p.m. On Sept. 8, she will perform at the Street Beat Festival in Federal Hill in Baltimore. Leigh will also be performing at the Mer-riweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., on Sept. 29. For more information about Jenny Leigh’s upcoming performances, please visit www.jennyleighmusic.com/, www.facebook.com/love4jennyleigh or www.twitter.com/jennyleighmusic.
n LEIGH from page 5
Shopping NotesConstruction is underway on Rte. 355,
across from FSK mall, for a new CarMax location. With more than 100 locations across the U.S., CarMax buys and sells used cars of all types, and is known for “no-hag-gle sale prices.” The Frederick location is scheduled to open in early 2014. For more information, visit the CarMax website at www.carmax.com, or the CarMax page on FaceBook.
Extensive, but careful work is ongoing at the Landon House to stabilize the struc-ture, repair substantial damage and decay and to restore and maintain the integrity of the historic building, inside and out. According to Alan Clapp, of Architectural Design Concepts, many portions of siding, porches and windows that could not be salvaged are being carefully reconstructed
to match the original design. Site plans are near completion for the proposed office and medical space and ready to submit for planning commission review.
Plans are not finalized and discussions are ongoing after a conceptual plan for the former Cracked Claw property was sub-mitted to the Frederick County Planning Commission earlier this summer.
Conditional site plan approval was granted by the Frederick County Plan-ning Commission in mid August for the Urban Green, a mixed-use project of more than 300 multi-family dwellings and close to 15,000 square feet of commercial/re-tail space across from the former Cracked Claw property, and southeast of the Turn-ing Point Commercial Center, near Fannie Mae. Information on the plan can be found on the Frederick County Planning Com-mission page at www.frederickcountymd.gov.
from page 3
shoPTalk
Page 18 The Town Courier September 2013
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September 2013 The Town Courier Page 19
ning 50 entries, Jones writes, “If I leave the comforts of my modern home, sitting or walking outside for a time, I move back and forth between 2011 and 1861, from here to there, then to now, as if there was no difference, and possibly, there is none. Perhaps as philosophers and physicists have said, there is no past or future; there is only now, this very moment.”
Through October, visitors to the Urba-na Regional Library can experience the moments of the Civil War rendered inti-mate and immediate. They’ll also encoun-ter Isaac Jones’ thoughts, a reflection of the time: (“This winter, around the fireplaces, there is hot debate in the high houses and the lowlands about equality. Who shall have it; who is unworthy?”); on war; on daily troubles (“Colony collapse has finally hit the hive.”) and on love (for “Dearest
Marianna”). The exhibition takes its view-ers on a journey that is both personal and shared.
Sixteen deep-seated wood frames march along the wall like eclectic story boxes. Each piece ranges in size from 10 x 10 inches to 12 x 24 inches, and tells differ-ent facets of the same visual tale. After its debut at the Delaplaine in October 2011, the exhibition traveled to the Delaplaine’s satellite art gallery at the Thurmont Re-gional Library in December 2012. It was mounted at the Urbana Regional Library gallery in August, which is the largest and most accessible of the Delaplaine’s satellite galleries. The Delaplaine’s satellite galler-ies also include the Brunswick Regional Library.
Jones trained as a painter and specialized in trompe l’oeil painting before discovering mixed media 14 years ago. Since then, he has created several mixed media/journal exhibitions including Letters from an Expe-dition: In Search of the Missing Muse.
ters are with the independent ability to look at the community, identify needs and select what projects to take on. In addition, the local club will be free to select its own president and officers.
Towards this end, from Sept. 26 to 30, Johnson and a group of others will be meeting with influential people and busi-ness leaders in the Urbana community and looking into local needs. “We are trying
to engage leaders in the community and work with local businesses,” Johnson ex-plains.
On Oct. 1, a community meeting is scheduled at the Urbana Regional Library from 6 – 7:30 p.m. Anyone interested in joining Lions, finding out more and speak-ing with Johnson is invited to attend. The goal is to recruit 25 volunteer members or more, Johnson said, adding that 25 mem-bers must be reached in order to start the club.
For more information, contact Johnson at 301.606.5797 or [email protected].
n LIONS CLUB LAUNCH from page 5
n JONES from page 5
Page 20 The Town Courier September 2013
n PoliCE blottEr Continued on page 24
Attempted RobberyOn Aug. 7, there was an attempted
robbery at the BP station, located in the 4600 block of Lander Road. The Frederick County Bureau of Investigation is investi-gating.
So far, the investigation determined that at approximately 10:25 p.m. a suspect de-scribed as a white male wearing a green T-shirt and ball cap, approached a teller and asked for several packs of synthetic marijuana valued at $350. When the clerk told the suspect he would have to pay for the merchandise before receiving it, he be-gan yelling and lifted his shirt to display what appeared to be a handgun tucked in his waistband. The suspect ultimately fled the store without taking any merchandise.
The suspect was traveling with two oth-er men. Anyone with information about this crime or who can identify any of the men shown in the surveillance pho-tos should contact Det. Gary Mariotti at 301.600.2514.
Police Arrest Three for AssaultOn Aug. 16, officers from the Freder-
ick Police Department observed two peo-ple actively fighting in the unit block of North Market Street. During the struggle the two individuals engaged in the fight broke a store front window. Three officers were able to separate the fighters but while getting them into custody, a third male approached the scene and attempted to in-
terfere with the arrest. All three subjects were placed under arrest and transported to FMH for minor injuries prior to being taken to the Frederick County Adult De-tention Center. At the time of this release the subjects involved had not yet been seen by the District Court Commissioner.
Theft InvestigationThe Frederick County Sheriff ’s Office
is seeking citizen assistance identifying two individuals wanted for questioning in connection to a theft that occurred at approximately 2:30 a.m. on July 11 at the Wal-Mart located on Guilford Drive in Frederick. The male victim (age 53 and resident of Brunswick) reported he for-got his wallet at the checkout counter and when he returned to the store for his wallet it had been stolen.
The store’s surveillance shows a few minutes after the victim left the store, a man and woman checked out at the same register. The man picked up the victim’s wallet and used cash from the wallet to pay for their items. The man then pocketed the wallet and left the store. The couple was seen driving a black Ford Explorer.
The male suspect was described white, tall, with a black mustache, wearing a white t-shirt and a black hat with a red bill and Maryland flag. He had tattoo sleeves on both arms. The female was described as a white, with red hair, wearing a white
PoliCeBloTTer Compiled By Bethany E. Starin
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 21
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Page 22 The Town Courier September 2013
Back to School Means
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September 2013 The Town Courier Page 23
Wings of Wonder
J ust beyond my pa-tio garden there is an abelia bush that is
bursting with pale pink blossoms. This year it is especially eye catching because of a host of yel-low and black swallowtail butterflies that flutter, dip for a moment into the nectar, soar above it and return.
I’ve never seen so many bees and butter-flies cluster in ecstasy on and above this bush until this year. For me, it has been the Year of the Butterfly. I have seen them almost everywhere – above the tree tops, winging past parking lots, even flying down a high-way on their way to who knows where. Is there something special about this summer that has created this miracle? Were there this many last year and I just didn’t notice
them? I don’t know the scientific answer, if there is one, and it doesn’t matter. But the swallowtails have jarred memories I hav-en’t thought of for a long time.
Some years ago my family celebrated my birthday in Indianapolis. The city’s White River Gardens were featuring a butter-fly garden, a novelty that was brought to our attention by one of our visiting family members. As it turned out in a few months, this was to be our last visit with her. We were eager to take her anywhere that in-terested her. I remember her thin, fragile figure slowly strolling along the paths, looking up at those exquisite, fluttering butterflies. One alighted on her head and we held our breath. It seemed to be a bless-ing. Later, we were sure that it had been.
One of Chopin’s most beautiful etudes is referred to as the “Butterfly Etude.” To play it well a pianist must have excellent technique and a light touch to replicate
delicate wings undulating over the keys. When I was a teenager living in Spring-field, Mo., our next door neighbor was a piano teacher. Nellie Schellhardt was per-haps not gifted, but a good pianist. I can still remember her occasionally playing this particular Chopin etude. The music seemed to fly out her windows and immo-bilize us in delight for a few moments.
Once when I was a child, my mother and I were on the front porch of my family’s restaurant named Half-A-Hill. It was five miles from the city limits of Springfield.
Suddenly, a multicolored moth or butterfly flew to the porch ceiling and affixed itself there, motionless. My mother jumped up from the porch swing where we were sit-ting and said, “Wait here. Don’t move. I’m going to call someone in Drury College’s science department to see if they’ll come out here and identify that butterfly. I bet it’s a rare one.” She turned to me and cau-tioned,
“Don’t touch it. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Some Retailers More Controversial Than Others
M y wife and I have lived in the Villages of
Urbana for 10 years. The Villages shop-ping center was under construction when we moved in and residents were excited about the prospect of a food store being built nearby. But as best I know, residents had no voice in selecting which retail chain would come in. There was disappointment when news broke that the store opening would be delayed due to internal squab-bling between old Giant management and their new Dutch owner over store layout issues.
In Urbana, residents are welcoming plans for a new drugstore, and I haven’t heard any complaints over whether it will be a CVS versus a Walgreen, etc.
On the other hand, there has been considerable public controversy in Fred-erick City regarding the Walmart pro-posal to build on the vacant Frederick Towne Mall site located on the Golden Mile. The latest news was that the city had approved the proposal.
Frederick Towne Mall occupancy has experienced a downward spiral over sev-eral years. Walmart took it upon itself to develop a proposal to build a rather elab-orate complex including a large store, a park and even a bridge over a stream lo-cated north of the site.
Once the Walmart proposal became public, suggestions for alternate occu-pants began to flow. Residents suggested
inviting stores like Old Navy, Ikea and some upscale retailers and restaurants to the neighborhood — but there were no proposals from any of those businesses.
WFMD morning radio host, Bob Miller, suggests Walmart may be victim of the same negative assessment I once heard expressed toward McDonalds. A man I met used the term, “ABM” — Anything But McDonalds. Although I can understand that persons with strong loyalties to organized labor might fall into the anti-Walmart camp, I wonder if there is also, as Miller suggests, a certain snobbery driving the criticism. For pur-poses of full disclosure, I am a customer at both Walmart and McDonalds and I own stock in both.
Another situation involving Walmart and other large retailers is playing out in the District of Columbia. The D.C. Council passed a living wage law that would require retailers with large land footprints to pay a higher minimum wage than would be required of smaller businesses. Establishing a higher wage demand for large footprint retailers risks their cancelling plans to locate in the District. As I write this, the D.C. mayor has a chance to veto the proposal.
The shopping center in the Villag-es has two pads yet to be developed. I doubt the shopping center owner would be influenced by resident suggestions re-garding possible tenants unless residents judged the proposed tenants as being out of character for the area.
Editor’s Note: Rich Terselic is a member of the board of directors of the Villages of Urbana Homeowners’ Association.
By Rich Terselic
loCalvoiCes
n norA’S CornEr Continued on page 25
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Page 24 The Town Courier September 2013
T-shirt, black stretch pants and black shoes. She was carrying a black hand-bag.
Anyone with information about this crime or who can identify the individuals in the surveillance photos should contact Dfc. Chris Shriner at 301.600.2540.
Marijuana ArrestOn Aug. 13, Officer K. Donovan was
dispatched to a call for suspicious vehi-cle in the area of Monocacy Ford Road at Brook Valley Road. He checked the area and located two persons who were driving the suspicious vehicle in a nearby wooded area. While in contact with these suspects he smelled the odor of marijuana emanating from their person. Chadwick Handley was placed under arrest and searched. Officers lo-cated marijuana and synthetic marijua-na on his person. Handley was issued a criminal citation and was released from FPD headquarters. The second person was identified as Joel Rathod. Rathod was placed under arrest for possession of marijuana initially. A further search was conducted and officers located heroin and related paraphernalia. Ra-thod was transported to the Frederick County Adult Detention Center for an appearance before the District Court Commissioner.
September Notes
I t’s National Senior Center Month and the theme is Senior Cen-
ters: Experts at Living Well.
September is the perfect month to discover new ways to live your life well — and this includes eat-ing well. Did you know that one in seven seniors does not get enough food? In addition to on-going programs, this month Urbana Senior Center will ex-plore Hunger/Action/Awareness Month, National Preparedness Month (are you prepared for winter weather?), and Falls Prevention Awareness Week (is your home fall-proof?). You can also come explore all that the center offers, from exercise classes to social activities to educational opportu-nities to day trips.
Following are the September happen-ings at the Urbana Senior Center.
Computers/WiFiFree WiFi and computers, with high-
speed Internet access, are available for use any time the Urbana Senior Center is open.
Do Something Grand Intergenerational Pizza DinnerTuesday, Sept. 3, 5:30 p.m.
Celebrate National Grandparents Day with us. Bring your children and/or grand-children (or a neighbor’s child) for a pizza
dinner. Sign up by noon, Sept. 3. Cost is $5 per person.
Are You Prepared?Thursday, Sept. 5, noon
Do you have the supplies on hand to weather a long-term power outage? Sep-tember is National Preparedness Month. During lunch we will learn about the county’s Plan 9 and what essential items you should have at home and in your car. Free for the program; lunch is $4.80 per person.
Tai ChiMondays, starting Sept. 9, 1:30 p.m.
Improve balance! Improve strength of body! Achieve clarity and focus of mind! Gain calmness and lightness of spirit! This eight-week session is taught by Claudia Olson. Cost is $24 per person.
Holiday CraftTuesday, Sept. 10, 2 p.m.
Each month from September to Decem-ber we’ll be making a different holiday craft. Stop in to see samples. Sign up by Monday, Sept. 9. Cost is $5 per person.
Go Orange ThursdaySept. 12, noon
Orange is the color of hunger awareness. During lunch we will talk about hunger issues in the United States and what we might do to help fight hunger. Statistics released by the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger show that 8.3 million adults
over the age of 60 aren’t getting enough to eat. Free for the program; lunch is $4.80 per person.
Breakfast for Lunch and Ask Nurse SteveThursday, Sept. 19 (new day), noon
Bring your friends and enjoy a delicious breakfast for lunch. A variety of breakfast foods will be offered. Nurse Steve’s talk will be “What is Diabetes? When Should I be Concerned About my Blood Sugar Lev-els?” Sign up by Monday, Sept. 16. Cost is $4.80 per person. (This event was formerly called The Omelet Bar.)
Falls Prevention BINGOMonday, Sept. 23, 1 p.m.
Every 15 seconds an older adult is treated for a fall-related injury. Every 29 minutes an older adult dies from an injury caused by a fall. Learn ways to minimize your chances of falling by joining us for Fall Prevention BINGO. Free.
Each month we publish a complete schedule of our programs. Copies of the monthly calendar are available at the Urbana Senior Center, located at 9020 Amelung Street (bottom floor of the library building), or on our website at www.frederickcountymd.gov/aging or by phone, 301.600.7020.
Editor’s Note: Susan Hofstra is coordinator of the Urbana Senior Center, Frederick County Department of the Aging.
seniormomenTs
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from page 20
PoliCeBloTTer
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 25
Back to School Safety Reminders
W ith public school starting, the Gaithersburg Police Department offers these reminders to students,
parents, motorists and bicyclists to ensure a safe and healthy school year:
Students• Discuss with your family the safest
route to school. Identify intersections with crossing guards and the route with the fewest street crossings. Avoid parks, vacant lots, fields and other places where there aren’t many people around.
• Walk to and from school with a friend, neighbor, brother or sister.
• Know your home phone number and address, your parent’s phone number at work and that of another trusted adult, and how to use 911 for emergencies.
• Never talk to strangers or accept rides or gifts from strangers. A stranger is anyone you or your parents don’t know well or don’t trust.
• Check in with a parent or neighbor as soon as you get home if you’ll be there alone after school. If you’re staying late after school or going to a friend’s house, get permission, and keep your parents informed about where you are.
• If you see anyone doing something that makes you uneasy or you think isn’t right — a stranger hanging around the school, a bigger kid bullying a young-er child, vandalism or graffiti — tell
your parents, a teacher or trusted adult immediately.
Pedestrians• Cross the street only at marked cross-
walks and intersections. Obey crossing guards.
• Before crossing, look left, right, then left again.
• Use pedestrian pushbuttons.• Wait for the “Walk” signal to begin
crossing the street.• Wear clothing that makes you as vis-
ible as possible, especially after dark and in inclement weather.
Motorists• Parents, don’t drop children off in
middle lanes. Pull over to a curb to allow your child to exit the car safely.
• Stop for pedestrians at crosswalks.• Slow down and obey the posted speed
limit.• Use caution when passing stopped ve-
hicles.• Look for pedestrians stepping out from
between parked cars.• Share the road with bicyclists. Allow
at least 3 feet clearance when passing a bicyclist on the road, look for cyclists before opening a car door or pulling out from a parking space, and yield to cyclists at intersections and as direct-ed by signs and signals. Be especial-
ly watchful for cyclists when making turns, either left or right.
Bicyclists• Wear a properly fitted bicycle helmet
every time you ride. It is the single most effective way to prevent head in-jury. This applies to all ages.
• You are considered a vehicle opera-tor and are required to obey the same rules of the road as other vehicle oper-ators, including obeying traffic signs, signals, and lane markings.
• Ride in the same direction as traffic when cycling in the street.
• If you are riding on a permitted shared side path such as a sidewalk, you are considered a pedestrian and should dismount and walk your bike at street crossings.
• Increase your visibility by wearing flu-orescent or brightly colored clothing during the day, dawn and dusk. When riding at night, use a front light and a red reflector or flashing rear light, and use retro-reflective tape or markings on equipment or clothing.
For more information, contact the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office at 301.600.1046. You can also like their Facebook page for updates.
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Juice, flip to page 8.Perhaps a glass of healthy juice or a
smoothie stop will help ease the transition of summer rolling to a close and the school year now running in full force. Our issue explores the launch of the school year with photos (see pages 6-7) as well as Sally Alt, staff writer, talking to a locals about their perspective on new Common Core curic-ulum (see page 10). In addition, staff took a look at how local families are balancing the tedious task of funding their children’s education. Flip to page 10 for her glimpse into how four families are taking on this challenge. Emily Feliz tackled the football field with a sports preview on page 32. In addition, we spoke with a doctor who has fresh information about the vital topic of student health in breathing the air in Ur-
bana Elementary School’s portable class-rooms. Flip to the front page for this full story.
As the school year continues, please let me know teachers to highlight in our Community Spotlight column, students interested in having their work published in our Show and Tell column (which will relaunch in the October issue), and any other education-related trends you are interested in hearing more about. In addition, we would love to run photos in our Around Town column of locals enjoying the fall weather, fall festivals and more. Contact me any time at [email protected] or 240.409.6734. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
from page 4
askThe ediTor
Her warning had the completely oppo-site effect on me. I had to touch that fas-cinating creature – to make it move and yet somehow remain on the ceiling. I don’t remember what I got to reach it – perhaps a broom. But before my mother returned, I had reached up and gently nudged a wing. Inevitably it flew away. Subcon-sciously I may have wanted it to escape. My
mother didn’t punish me when she joined me on the porch. I have a feeling her phone call to the college hadn’t been successful. But I’ve never forgotten the magic of those jewel-colored wings flat against the porch ceiling, outspread and glowing like an art nouveau pin.
All these memories are miles away and years ago. What a gift it is when something like a butterfly can conjure up scenes from one’s past.
from page 23
nora’sCorner
Page 26 The Town Courier September 2013
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By Sheilah Kaufman
kaufman’skiTChen
Cookie Time
I love cookies. I try and keep all different kinds in my freezer for com-
pany, but usually I just eat them myself.
August Alfajores (Spanish Sandwich Cookies)
This recipe is from my friend Linda Sendowski (www.theglobaljewishkitchen.com).
The word alfajor stems from the Arabic al-hasú, which means filled or stuffed. Alfajores (pronounced al-fa-ho-res) are a traditional sweet cookie that has been around for centuries, and can trace it roots to the Arab World, and they came to Spain when the Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula. As a result of almost 500 years of occupation in Spain, the alfajor migrated to Spain then to the New World. It was brought to South America by Spanish immigrants, and later when dulce de leche appeared on the scene, the modern alfajor took its shape using ingredients that were available, and was made as a sandwich with dulce de leche in the middle. The cookies can be hard or soft, depending on the recipe used. The Lebanese ma’amoul is a close cousin to the alfajor.
Alfajores can be found in Peru, Argen-tina, Chile, Ecuador, to Spain, Nicaragua, California, Mexico, Florida, and Cuba; and each country has a different version.
The original cookies were made of dried fruit preserves rolled in a special dough then rolled in an assortment of nuts and sugar. Eventually each region adapted the Spanish version and made it their own. No matter where you go in South America and Latin America you will find these delicate cookies, and now they are available in Lat-in markets, and various ethnic restaurants. If you love dulce de Leche these cookies are a must.
My friend Linda Sendowski tasted her first cookie on a trip to Florida with her sister. The local coffee shop they passed on their morning walks sold individually wrapped alfajores. Since Linda is a star baker and cook, she did some research, and came up with her version of these won-derful cookies, including making her own dulce de Leche.
This recipe is very workable and not hard to execute.
Argentinean Sandwich Cookies or Alfajores de Maizena
Alfajores are a most incredible short bread kind of cookie sandwich with dulce de Leche oozing from the center and co-
conut clinging to the sweet caramelized filling. The cookie crumbles into buttery shards as you bite in and dulce de leche coats your tongue in velvety goodness.
Yields 32 to 36 sandwich cookies. The reci-pe yields about 72 cookie halves, however since these are sandwich cookies you actually end up with half as many.
2 and 1/2 cups cornstarch (Maizena brand is preferred)1 and 2/3 cups unbleached flour1/2 teaspoon baking soda2 teaspoons baking powder1 cup unsalted butter, room tempera-ture3/4 cup sugar3 extra large egg yolks1 tablespoon vanilla1 tablespoon fresh orange juice2 teaspoons lemon zest2 cups shredded coconut3 (approximately) cups dulce de leche
Heat oven to 350°F. Measure corn-starch, flour, baking soda and baking powder into a medium bowl, stir to com-bine. Place butter and sugar in bowl of stand mixer or in a large bowl to use with a hand held beater. Beat butter and sugar until creamy and then, add egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition until fluffy. Next, add vanilla, orange juice and lemon zest. Add flour/cornstarch mix to creamed butter in three additions, start-ing with mixer on lowest speed and mix-ing until just combined. Prepare a floured work surface, either a granite countertop or I prefer a large silpat and a rolling pin. Roll dough out in a rectangle about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. using a one and one half inch diameter biscuit cutter cut out an even number of circles. Re-roll cuttings gently,
without working dough to much and cut out circles again.
Place cookies evenly spaced on a parch-ment or silpat lined baking sheet; 20 fit perfectly on a 12 by 18 inch half sheet. Place baking sheet in oven with rack in the middle. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cookies should be pale in color, barely starting to turn a little gold. Remove cookies from oven and cool on a rack.
When cookies are completely cool, place a small spoon full of dulce de leche on half of the cookie halves. Place a second cookie on top to create a sandwich and press down to spread dulce de leche out to the edge of the sandwich. Roll exposed dulce de leche in coconut placed on a flat plate and place cookie aside.
Each cookie may be individually wrapped and stored in the freezer or eaten very soon. Dulce de leche gets soft at room temperature, so store soon to be eaten, in-dividually wrapped, cookies in the refrig-erator.
Homemade Dulce De Leche
For homemade dulce de Leche, empty the contents of two 12 – 14 ounce cans of sweetened condensed milk into a glass pie plate. Cover pie plate tightly with heavy duty aluminum foil and set into a bain marie or roasting pan with hot wa-ter, coming half way up the side of the pie plate. Place milk in a preheated 400°F oven and bake for one to one and a quarter hours. Remove foil cover and stir dulce de leche with a wood spoon until velvety and smooth. Store refrigerated in a tight-ly covered container. Dulce de leche keeps for at least a month.
For more recipes or details about Sheilah Kaufman, visit www.cookingwithsheilah.com.
These delightful cookies are a vari-ation on the traditional Arab cookies called maamul. While maamul cookies are stuffed, these are rolled, which is even easier. Cook in Israel: Home Cooking inspiration with Orly Ziv, (www.cookinis-rael.com) brings Israeli home cooking into kitchens around the world. Filled with 100 kosher recipes, most vegetari-an, accompanied by beautiful color pho-tographs, and step-by-step illustrations, it shows that healthful and delicious home cooking doesn’t need to be time consuming or complicated.
Dough:2 1/2 cups self-rising flour1/4 cup semolina1/2 cup orange juice or milk2 large eggs6 1/2 ounces butter, softened1/4 cup sugar1 teaspoon vanilla1 teaspoon rose water
Filling:6 1/2 ounces date spread (jam is fine)
1 teaspoon cinnamon1/4 teaspoon ground cloves1 teaspoon rose water1 cup chopped walnutsConfectioners’ sugar
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Combine all dough ingredients into a smooth flexible dough.
Press or roll dough into a rectangu-lar shape in between 2 floured pieces or parchment paper to prevent sticking; wrap in plastic wrap and let rest for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Pre-pare filling: melt the date spread with 3 tablespoons boiling water. Add the cin-namon, cloves, and rose water; mix well.
Spread the date mixture on the flat dough and sprinkle with nuts. Roll dough into a tight log, or logs, and place in a baking pan. Cut about half way through but not all the way, into slices. Bake until golden brown, about 35 min-utes. Remove from oven, cool slightly, slice, and sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar. Makes about 40 cookies.
Date and Walnut Pinwheel Cookies
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 27
mikeaT The movies
By Mike Cuthbert
“The Way, Way Back” (PG-13) *****This is a perfect mov-
ie in many ways, and certainly perfect for this season because it’s about summer — a summer when character emerges from cliché, when adult-hood emerges from child-hood and where grown-ups are forced to realize that they are jerks or worse.
The film starts with 14-year-old Dun-can sitting in the way, way back of a cher-ry station wagon owned by his mother’s boyfriend, Trent (played by Steve Carell). Duncan (Liam James) and his mother, Pam (Toni Collette) are on their way to a sum-mer on the Cape along with the boyfriend and his daughter, Steph (Zoe Levin). They move into a cottage surrounded by Trent’s friends from his first marriage. They in-clude a hopelessly inadequate and some-what alcoholic Betty (Allison Janney); her daughter, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb); and younger brother, Peter (River Alex-ander).
Also among Trent’s closest friends are Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Aman-da Peet). Joan and Trent have a dalliance that is one of the crucial turning points in the film. While the rest can merely wit-ness the destruction of a relationship, Pam comes apart, recognizing a pattern she has
lived through before. As she says sadly to a furious Duncan, “We do things to protect ourselves because we’re scared.”
But the central relationships in this mar-velous film are Duncan’s. First, his pain-fully shy attempts at a relationship with the “older woman,” Susanna, are absolutely winning. She is willing to be his friend but nothing beyond that. Duncan is so naïve that he doesn’t even see the rejection com-ing, but we are not surprised even though our hearts ache for Duncan.
The transcendent relationship in the story is between Owen (Sam Rockwell) and Duncan. Owen is an older guy, a hap-py-go-lucky assistant manager of a water park. Wisecracking, fibbing, kidding and relentless in his attempts to loosen up the tense Duncan, Owen never even threat-ens to become a molesting pervert as some might have made him. His friend Roddy (Ned Faxon) aids and abets the two by being another nice guy. The whole Water Wizz staff, including Lewis ( Jim Rash) and Caitlin (Maya Rudolph) as a complex pool manager with a past with Owen, is ster-ling and funny and kind and welcoming to Duncan, who begins to climb out of the way, way back to join society.
Trent’s friends leave much to be desired — it is the Water Wizz staff and customers who allow Duncan, dubbed “Pop ‘n Lock” when he becomes a staff member, to find adulthood with kindness while his mother
and friends do their best to impress upon him by example how awful adult life is. The script is masterful, the acting impec-cable and every chance this movie has to turn into a big “coming of age” banality is skillfully avoided. The heartbreak is well-earned, and the triumphs are as well, as the film moves to a satisfactory and honest ending with Duncan still in the way, way back but with a different and elevated sense of self and his place in the world.
Rewarding, charming, loving and emo-tionally vibrant, this is a film not to miss. If you need any more bona fides for it, con-sider the fact that it was written by Fax-on and Rash who, with Alexander Payne, won an Oscar for “The Descendants” in 2012. Don’t miss this one if you like film at all.
“Blue Jasmine” (PG-13) *****Another sterling success, this film is
written by Woody Allen, who also directs.Let’s be up front: Cate Blanchett should
sew up an Oscar for her riveting perfor-mance of the slow deterioration of the ti-tle character, who may actually be named Jeanette. Jasmine, you see, is living in a narrowing world of lies, deceit, shock, drugs (“My Xanax didn’t kick in”) and self-deceit. Whether all her problems were of long standing or were the result of the trauma of her husband Hal’s (Alec Bald-win) infidelities, perfidy, dirty dealing and
eventual suicide is not clear, but that is one of the prime reasons that Blanchett’s per-formance is so stunning.
For the most part she hides secrets very well. From the pinnacle of New York high society and the Hamptons, a relatively des-titute Jasmine has come to San Francisco to live with her estranged and lower class sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Ginger has a boyfriend, Chili (Bobby Cannavale), who is, if anything, even lower class than Ginger. Appalled at how they live, Jasmine lobbies for Ginger to dump Chili and find somebody more elevated. At a party Jas-mine meets a wannabe-senator, Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), who hustles her pretty heavily, and a rosy ending is assured, es-pecially since Ginger has found the man of her dreams in a sound engineer named Al (Louis C.K.).
Needless to say, the road to paradise is not a smooth one, and Blanchett gets bet-ter and better as her character completely comes apart. The story is a study of class and wealth, unwinding in a series of short flashbacks that reveal, among other things, Jasmine’s clear choice to have nothing to do with Ginger and her once-husband Augie (Andrew Dice-Clay), and Hal’s bad invest-ment that resulted in the loss of $200,000 of lottery winnings that belonged to Gin-ger and Auguie.
So there is bad feeling all around, and it
n MiKE At tHE MoviES Continued on page 29
Page 28 The Town Courier September 2013
‘The Burgess Boys’Written by Elizabeth Strout
A thought crept into my mind as I read Elizabeth Strout’s
newest novel, “The Bur-gess Boys” (2013) — “Do they ever award a Pu-litzer Prize to someone twice?” This is Strout’s first novel since winning the esteemed award for her fictional “Olive Kit-teredge” in 2009 for its “emotional wallop and polished prose,” and it is outstanding. “The Burgess Boys” offers the same qual-ities and even more — an unbiased look at one of the sensitive issues of our time: the assimilation of a beleaguered group of Af-rican refugees resettled into a small Amer-ican town.
That contemporary issue is but a back-drop though for a lively story involving an old Maine family that has splintered but is slowly yet dramatically brought together when a young family member does a hid-eous thing to the community of Somalis in their hometown of Shirley Falls. The Burgess family has a history. According to the family legend, when the Burgess boys were young and waiting unattended in the family car, one of them accidently re-leased the brake, killing their father. To the townspeople of Shirley Falls, Bob became “the boy who killed his father.” Teachers pitied him, schoolmates teased him, his mother coddled him and his older broth-er Jim, who had already been anointed the clever, competent one, took on the role of
belittling and bullying the big-hearted but damaged Bob.
When the story opens we meet the Bur-gess siblings, Jim, Bob and Bob’s twin, Susan, in their fifties. Jim has become a hotshot New York lawyer, widely known as the defense attorney who got off a pop-ular soul-singer. Also living in New York but alone in a dingy apartment is Bob, a lawyer who could not handle the stress of the courtroom so works in a legal aid of-fice. The crisis is set in motion when Jim receives a frantic call from Susan who has remained in their small Maine town: Zach, the son she has raised alone since her di-vorce, has inexplicably desecrated a Mus-lim mosque. Susan needs her brothers to come immediately and help contain the situation.
The situation, however, is not easily contained, so for many months Jim and Bob are called upon to respond to compli-cations caused by the vagaries of national agendas and local politics. The three sib-lings and their loved ones operate in crisis mode, and that shaky foundation exposes surprising behaviors.
The brilliance of Strout’s writing is her ability to allow us to feel what her char-acters are feeling as she moves the point of view from one to another. It is hard to put down a book where you care so much about the people. One Amazon reviewer felt so connected to this family she asked, “Does anyone know Bob Burgess’ phone number?” I know just what she meant.
reader’sChoiCe
By Betty Hafner
offThe shelfMaryland AskUsNow! Celebrates 10 Years
By Beth Cartier
M aryland AskUsNow! is celebrating its 10th anniversary — a decade of providing 24/7 live online refer-
ence service and research assistance from trained librarians. Frederick County Pub-lic Libraries is one of 44 public, academic and special libraries in the state that par-ticipate in this online service. Currently, FCPL has 13 librarians who participate.
In order to provide 24/7 service, Mary-land AskUsNow! is a partnering mem-ber of an international consortium called QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Coopera-tive. There are more than 1,000 libraries
that participate in the cooperative, either individually or as part of a larger group such as a statewide service like Maryland AskUsNow!
“I love that I am able to help patrons from any location through AskUsNow!” said FCPL librarian Liz Bowen. “Whether they are at home, in the office or travelling overseas, they can reach a librarian online 24 hours a day! That’s pretty neat.” Being part of the consortium not only allows pa-trons to have 24/7 research assistance but also gives participating librarians the op-portunity to provide reference services to patrons from around the world.
As of July 2013, Maryland AskUsNow!
librarians have answered 494,585 questions through chat or by email. When asked what has been the most challenging or in-teresting question they have answered on AskUsNow! FCPL librarian Emily Dolly said, “I received a query from someone who wanted real reference resources for the age-old question, ‘Which came first-the chicken or the egg?’ I didn’t know this before I started researching for this patron, but there are actually several scientific ar-ticles dedicated to answering this question. (Spoiler alert: it’s the egg.)” Further, she continued, “I love helping library users from ‘across the pond.’ I’ve learned about everything from British driving exam re-quirements to which buildings once stood at World War I bombing sites in an English patron’s neighborhood.”
With the new school year beginning, parents and students should keep AskUs-Now! in mind. It is a great resource for help answering those tough homework questions. Students and parents can log on any time, day or night, to get assistance, and when the chat session ends they can opt to have a full transcript emailed to them, including any links to resources that were used to answer their original ques-
tion. Since AskUsNow! is a 24/7 service, patrons may not always get a librarian from FCPL or from Maryland. However, there is no need to worry. All librarians who participate, whether through AskUsNow! or through the cooperative, go through training in virtual communication strate-gies. This includes instruction on how to conduct a proper virtual reference inter-view, how to find reliable online resources and how to provide instruction to patrons in a virtual setting. The goal of AskUs-Now! is to connect patrons to librarians, resources and information using today’s advanced technologies.
AskUsNow! is accessible from www.askusnow.info or through a direct link on the Frederick County Public Libraries website, www.fcpl.org. You can also reach AskUsNow! through www.twitter.com/askusnow and www.facebook.com/askus-now. Maryland AskUsNow! is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Ser-vices, LSTA grant funds, through the Divi-sion of Library Development and Services, Maryland State Department of Education.
Editor’s Note: Beth Cartier is a Frederick County Public Library associate at Urbana Re-gional Library and an AskUsNow! librarian.
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does not get better. Is this a story of vanity and class snobbery? Or is it the story of a woman so self-deluded that she creates for herself a persona she can never live up to? Maybe a healthy bit of both, and totally ab-sorbing as Jasmine deteriorates before our eyes.
I wish most adolescents could see and understand this film and its themes, but it might be a reach. Younger ones will be entirely confused. This is a film of great physical beauty and minds and souls bru-tally portrayed with lots of humor. The mix makes the underlying themes even more poignant. Another “don’t miss” film for the summer.
“We Are the Millers” (R) ***Yes, Jennifer Aniston is very hot as the
stripper-“wife,” Rose, of small-time drug dealer David Clark ( Jason Sudeikis). And yes, the script is as madcap as you can imag-ine from the trailers you’ve seen. What you probably don’t know is that Nick Offer-man and Anna Gastoyer are hysterical as the traveling Fitzgeralds, and Will Poulter is a smash as the “son,” Kenny, of the er-satz family traveling to Mexico to pick up a “smidge-and-a-half” of marijuana from an infamous gang. Emma Roberts as the “daughter,” Casey, is adequate in a part that is simply not as funny as that of Poulter or the rest of the cast.
David gets a huge RV that looks like it was made for the Greyhound compa-ny, and the Mexicans pack every available nook and cranny with bricks of pot. Need-less to say, there are troubles getting it over the border into the United States, and in preventing the drug lords from reclaim-ing it once they realize there is a double cross going on. That double cross is engi-neered by Ed Helms as the cocky, greasy Brad Gurdlinger, waiting for his supply to come in.
There are a couple of classic scenes in the film, including one in which David is going to try to get the keys back to his RV from Don Fitzgerald. The Fitzgeralds wake up, and Mrs. F admits that she would like to mess around a little, having never “swung.” Don is all for that, as is Sudeikis. What ensues is a great scene in many ways. Another, for totally different reasons, is Rose’s strip for the Mexicans in a ware-house, where the lighting is clever and the choreography steaming.
Yet another funny scene involves teach-ing virginal Kenny how to kiss using his “sister” and “mother” as teachers. Poulter, a Brit, is making his major film debut and has a great future as a physical comic. The only real fault with the film is in its over-emphasis on matters sexual. The “F” word is entirely overused by everybody and the constant attention to things genital gets tedious, though funny in one case in which Kenny gets bitten on the scrotum by a spider.
The film does a nice job of allowing the four “family” members to bond in various ways. A bit more emphasis on that element and less on the scatological could have helped the overall effect of the film, but it will still make you laugh.
“Elysium” (R) ***In this film Matt Damon as Max is
stabbed, shot, poisoned, irradiated, tased and seems at times to be caught in an epi-sode of “Dexter.” His only hope of surviv-al from the radiation is to get to Elysium, a satellite world built to house the rich and privileged while the rest of the world de-scends into anarchic ghettos. That Elysium looks vaguely like Malibu is no accident. He faces staunch odds because a ruthless Jody Foster, the Elysium head of Home-land Security; Kruger (Sharito Copley), one of the coldest villains ever; and Car-lyle, a bureaucrat with no heart and lots of artificial wiring, stand in his way.
A lot of folks are talking about “what it means,” but most of the audience for this film is going to care more about the cool weaponry that is unleashed in long fight scenes. There is a love interest between nice kids who grew up together (Damon and Alice Braga as Frey), but that mere-ly serves as a breather for the fight scenes. Frey also has a daughter with leukemia, and she could use one of those machines on Elysium that heal any wound or sickness at the start of an app. Could she be Damon’s secret daughter?
In a bit of clever writing, Max (Damon) is guaranteed a certain period of immor-tality since in his brain is software that will reverse the control of Earth and allow all its citizens access to the glory of Elysium. He just has to be downloaded to make it happen. Actually, Elysium, as a metaphor for heaven reserved for rich people, sounds very dull and a bit cliché, but everybody seems to want to live forever just the same.
One serious quibble about the technical aspects of the film: subtitles for the lengthy scenes in Spanish (this is LA in 2054, you might remember) are done in white letters often against a white background. The result is often impossible to decipher, and much of the exposition of the film is in those subtitles. Mistake. The other is leav-ing Max exposed to the public eye after his transformation into something more or less than a human. It sort of draws attention to him when you see all his tubing and read-out screens in the open air.
Hip teens have seen it all before and will love the weapons and snooze through the hints at romance. Adults may fool them-selves into believing there is something heavily philosophical going on. Concen-trate on the weapons.
“Planes” (PG) ***Yes, it is unfortunately largely “Cars 2”
with wings. Dusty the crop-duster has dreams of winning the “Wings Around the Globe” air race and has a professional field to beat, including the villain, Rips-linger. Dusty has one problem: He’s afraid of heights. No problem when you’re flying 50 feet or less off the deck to dust crops but a distinct disadvantage when trying to fly over the Himalayas! The second hurdle to overcome is heckling from the city types because Dusty is from Propwash Junction.
But what is victory without challenge? With the help of his loyal entourage and an old Corsair from WWII, Dusty does con-
quer all as adults will figure out he must when the credits start.
This is fine for kids except possibly a rather grim crash at sea that may spook some of the younger set. Comic relief is provided by El Chupacabra, the Mexican entry, and Rochelle, a pink entry from Quebec. His serenade to her, “I’m Just a Love Machine,” is quite clever.
The only jarring note, given the audi-ence, is the heavy metal score. It doesn’t fit the film, its themes or its young audience. Order a large popcorn, keep track of which row your little one is in and relax as much as possible.
Enjoy more of Mike’s movie reviews at www.towncourier.com.
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mikeaT The movies
Photos | Submitted
the buchanan clan pictured here on their Urbana farm (back row from left) includes oldest daughter, nellie genva, next to Mary frances, William Jacob, Jr., nancy Marie, Dottie Mae, betty lou, violet virginia, Susie Albina, their mother Mary; and (front row from left) their father William, lillie leona and Clara Alice.
Remembering an Urbana NativeOn Aug. 2, 2013, Dottie Mae Ramsel passed away, leaving a legacy of a childhood
and school years lived in Urbana, followed by a 55-year marriage to Herman Ramsel, Jr. Ramsel, whose maiden name is Buchanan, grew up on the Buchanan Farm in the middle of Urbana, the spot where Centerville Elementary School (CES) is currently located. Daughter of William Buchanan and Mary Buchanan, Ramsel was one of 10 children and had seven children of her own with Herman. Six of Ramsel's 10 siblings still live in the Urbana area. Ramsel not only grew up the farm but returned regularly to help with the farm and property. Ramsel's father worked for Knott & Geisbert of Urbana for 28 years and her mother worked for several years for the historic Peter Pan Inn of Urbana, most recently turned into The Cracked Claw, which recently closed.
Ramsel’s sister, Clara Alice Buchanan Crutchley -- who goes by Alice, said of Ram-sel’s passing: “I am not just saying this because she is my sister -- but I do not know a more giving or kind person. She will truly be missed.”
Urbana native Dottie ramsel met and married the love of her life, Herman ramsel, during nursing school in balti-more and the duo got married on Aug. 22, 1958, only separated by her death this summer.
Page 30 The Town Courier September 2013
A Heavy Burden
I t’s that time of year again, when kids of all ages are donning their
backpacks and returning to the classroom. There are a lot of challenges facing students includ-ing new classes, teachers, homework and quizzes.
Some kids, however, are facing a different kind of challenge: back pain because of back-packs that are too heavy. Wearing a heavy backpack can cause both postural changes and compressive forces through the spine that put students at risk for back injuries.
In a 2004 study, researchers at the Uni-versity of California at Riverside looked at 3,500 students ages 11 to 15 who used backpacks. Most of kids who participated in the study (64 percent) reported some back pain. Of those that did report some back pain from their backpacks only about 12 percent rated their pain as “not bad,” but about 88 percent reported their pain as be-ing “bad” or “very bad.” Twenty-one per-cent reported pain that lasted longer than six months and 16 percent missed school, gym class or extracurricular activities be-cause of the pain. Seventeen percent sought medical attention for their symptoms. Most of the kids studied reported recurrent epi-sodes of pain. Girls were more likely than
boys to have backpack-related back pain. Pain was also greater in students who car-ried a backpack that weighed greater than 20 percent of the student’s weight. For example, a 100-pound student carrying a backpack that weighs more than 20 pounds would be at greater risk for back pain.
Here are some warning signs that you or your child’s backpack may be causing problems:
• Back pain is present when the back pack is on.
• There is a change in the wearer’s pos-ture while the backpack is on (bending forward to counter balance the heavy weight in the back).
• The student struggles to put the back-pack on or take it off.
• The student experiences numbness or tingling in the arms or hands while wearing the backpack.
• The straps leave red marks or indenta-tions on the wearer’s skin.
There are several steps that can be taken to decrease the risk of back pain if you or someone you love uses a backpack:
• When allowed, use a rolling pack.• The bottom of the backpack should hit
above the waist.• The pack should have padded straps
and belt(s).
• The backpack should be worn on both shoulders.
• All straps on the back should be snug.• Place the heavier books in the back of
the pack so they are closer to the body.• Use proper body mechanics when lift-
ing the pack or putting it on/taking it off.
• Carry only what’s necessary. Remove items that are not needed each day.
• If time allows, pick up and drop off books at your locker in between class-es.
• In some cases it is best to purchase a second set of books to keep at home.
Taking good care of your back in gen-eral will help prevent injuries of all types. Drink enough water, exercise, use good body mechanics and posture, and don’t smoke. Your physical therapist can show you exercises to prevent or decrease back-pack back pain.
Source: Siambanes, D. Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics, March/April 2004; vol 24: pp 211-271. News release, University of Cali-fornia, Riverside.
Editor’s Note: Stephanie Dunker co-owns Urbana’s Sage Orthopedic Physical Therapy with her husband Dr. Jeremy Dunker. The Dunkers write Vital Signs on a bi-monthly basis for The Town Courier.
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September 2013 The Town Courier Page 31
On Seniority (or Lack Thereof)
T he first day of school didn’t come easily to me — on
August 19, I dragged myself out of bed to the bleats of my alarm clock and stood, swaying, be-fore I went about the rest of my groggy pre-school day routine.
Luckily, I’d regained some energy by the time I’d entered Urba-na High School’s (UHS) doors to embark upon the last of my First Days of School. With a long line of first days behind me (those half-remembered kindergarten days, elementary school, middle school), I’d finally come to what felt like the begin-ning of an end.
As fatalistic as that previous statement might’ve sounded, senior year is hardly an end. It’d be more accurate to say that it’s the gatekeeper from one world to the next.
Moving forward from senior year, I’ll have the gathered experiences of life and the classroom to bring to my college life. And college, even, could be likened to a hold-ing tank for the inevitable outside world.
Hence the quip that “change is the only constant.” It’s a turn of phrase that bor-ders on the cliché, if only for its realism and relevance. Sitting in each of my four classes on the first day of school, I felt the change more acutely than I ever had before — shifts in responsibility, expectation and ability. On a more literal level, there were even minute alterations in my classmates’ appearances. The previous graduating class, a constant presence during my first three years of high school, had been scat-tered to a collegiate wind. “I can’t believe we’re seniors,” I heard other students say throughout the day. I could only nod in dazed agreement.
I’ll have been in school for several weeks by the time you read this, and I’ll still be coming to grips with seniority. New faces
in UHS’s hallways, however, remind me again and again that senior year is blazing-ly real.
So, because I’ve got the space and my in-tentions are good, I hope you won’t think it presumptuous of me to offer the incom-ing class (UHS ’17!) a few words of advice:
• Challenge yourself. Take AP classes. Take IB classes, if at all possible. Make sure you like what you’re learning. Then — pursue it with a vengeance.
• Similarly, with extracurricular class-es, use your freshman year to explore your interests. Join any club whose name sparks so much as a passing in-terest. Attend a few meetings. If the interest persists, grows stronger and flourishes, you’ve got a keeper.
• Maintain this interest through all four years of high school. The time will pay itself back in full (and then some).
• Do it for the sake of the thing — I’ve seen underclassmen bent on re-
sume-padding to the extent that they’re dogging through meetings and struggling under the weight of their own obligations. You’ll thank yourself later if you invest your energies in the clubs, activities and extracurriculars you know you’ll truly enjoy.
• Talk to your teachers. They’re your best friends. Buttonhole them after class if you’ve got a point to make or a question to ask. Pick their brains. They’ll be happy to help the eager stu-dent, the standout willing to make a stand for his/her stance on a topic. In short: communicate, and communi-cate well.
And that’s all I’ve got at the moment, though, should you ever catch me in the hallways during the school year, I’m sure that I’d be able to spout off another hand-ful. So here’s to a successful year at UHS: for some, it’ll be the last. Whatever the case, make it one worth remembering.
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Page 32 The Town Courier September 2013
Unparalleled Distinction
By Timothy Mellott
U rbana High School was found-ed in 1995 and its football team quickly made a name for itself.
Last month, it received regional dis-tinction.
Three years after its inception in 1998, the team started what was to be an incredible four-year run. In 2001 Urbana hung on to defeat Patuxent 7-6 for a Maryland 3A state title. The victory marked the football program’s 50th consecutive win and fourth straight state title under Coach Dave Carruthers.
In mid-July of this year, USA Today along with WUSA9 set out to deter-mine the ALL-Time DMV Football Champion. They scoured the record books, talked to local coaches and cre-ated a list of the top 16 championship teams from D.C., Virginia and Mary-land. The 2001 Urbana Team was named one of four number one seeds in the 16-team bracket. Each week an online vote was held on the WUSA9 website to determine who advanced. The finals were announced on Friday, Aug. 9, slating UHS’ 2001 hometown Hawks against a 2005 team from Dunbar. The Dunbar team included two players that went on to play in the NFL.
The final voting doors closed on Friday, Aug. 16 at 5 p.m. with the 2001 Urbana Hawks football team being named the ALL-Time DMV Football Champion, a distinction for the best high school football team ever in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia.
“It’s incredible we had such an im-pact on the history of Maryland high school football,” said Sergeant Patrick Harper, the starting nose guard for the 2000 and 2001 teams.
The team has had an impact off the field as well. Harper, who joined the U.S. Army in 2003 as an infan-tryman, fought for nine years, trav-eling all around the world, including to Iraq and Afghanistan, to serve his country. He summed it up this way: “What I learned about having a nev-er-quit attitude and always wanting to be champion, I learned on those football teams at Urbana. Those years prepped me in pursuing my life goals, taught me how to become a leader and helped me keep my wits in combat.”
Andrew Taylor, a local trainer at Dynamic Fitness with a Master’s de-gree in exercise science, played strong
Launching of the HawksBy Emily Feliz
U rbana High School’s football team is looking to make another run for the state playoffs this season, hoping to
better its 9 – 4 record from 2012.Coach Ryan Hines, who’s entering his
fourth season as head coach of the Hawks, said this year’s team has achieved more in the offseason than in previous years, and he’s hoping that dedication and hard work pay off on the field.
“These guys are extremely hard work-ers,” Hines said, adding that he’s seen the best offseason attendance in the weight room. That bodes well for the season.
The hard work and dedication will be needed for the team that lost 15 starters to graduation last year. Hines said he thinks there’s a lot of opportunity for younger players to potentially fill those open posi-tions. The key is finding the right chemis-try of players.
“There’s a lot of competition in prac-tice,” he said. That depth is a “good prob-lem to have … in the end it makes every-one step up and work and little harder.”
Last year’s team got off to a slow begin-ning, starting the season 3-3. But after that, the team went on a tear in October and November, topping previously undefeated Damascus and Seneca Valley to reach the 3A state semifinals, where the Hawks were defeated by eventual state champions Riv-er Hill.
Pat Coffey, senior receiver and free safe-ty, said the players have big hopes for this year’s team, setting their sights on making it as far or farther in the playoffs than the
team did last year.The Urbana Hawks kick off their sea-
son at home on Sept. 6 vs. Dover (Del.) High School, a new team on the Hawk’s schedule.
“The first game really sets the tone for the rest of the season,” Hines said.
The Dover team, he said, is a bit of an unknown at this point, but he knows they are a very athletic team and will be a good test for the Hawks. For the rest of the sea-son, the North Hagerstown, Middletown and Lake Linganore games are going to be challenges for the team as well.
This year, Hines said he sees the team’s strengths as its running game, its ability to run the ball on offense, and its strong de-fense.
“The running game is going to be big for us on offense this year,” Coffey agreed.
There are seven returning starters from last year’s 9-4 team — four on offense and three on the defensive side. Also, Hines said the addition of new kickers will mean “marked improvement” on special teams as well.
“The key this season will be staying healthy,” he said. “If we can do that, we’ll be able to do good things.”
Ultimately, Hines said the team would like to make another run at the state play-offs.
“Every year we tell our guys we want to practice on Thanksgiving and play in De-cember,” he said.
Coffey echoed those sentiments saying he wants to see the team make anoth-er strong playoff run. He said he doesn’t have any personal goals for the season, but
is hoping this young team will be able to coalesce into a strong force.
“I just want to give it my all for the team ... If I have a bad game, but the team still wins, I’ll be happy,” said Coffey.
n CHAMPion Continued on page 34
urbanasPorTs
Photo | Shannon Wagner
Urbana High School football coach, ryan Hines, looks on as his team practices to launch its fall season.
Urbana Hawks Football Schedule
Fri., Sept. 6Home vs. Dover High School
Thu., Sept. 12Away at North Hagerstown High
School
Fri., Sept. 27Away at Oakdale High School
Fri., Oct. 4Away at Walkersville High School
Fri., Oct. 11Home vs. Tuscarora High School
Fri., Oct. 18Home vs. Middletown High School
Fri., Oct. 25Away at Frederick High School
Fri., Nov. 1Home vs. Governor Thomas Johnson
High School
Sat., Nov. 9Away at Linganore High School
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 33
Dillon’s Army Continues to FightBy Kristy Crawford
O n Aug. 25, Urbana’s Dillon Papi-er celebrated his 11th birthday in a big way — by throwing out the first
pitch at the Baltimore Orioles game. Doz-ens of friends and family members joined the party and enjoyed the game and silent auction in honor of Dillon’s big day. The event was thrilling and memorable for Dil-lon, who is a huge baseball fan.
The Papier family, including Dillon’s parents, Darrile and Mark Papier, have be-come good friends throughout the years with the Orioles, because of Dillon’s love of baseball and the commitment the team shares with his family and friends to fight the devastating and incur-able disease Dillon is fight-ing. Dillon suffers from Niemann-Pick Disease Type C (NPC), a very rare degenerative disease that causes excess cholesterol to build up in the brain, spleen and liver. NPC al-most exclusively affects young children, who suf-fer a progressive neurolog-ical decline and often die before they reach age 10. Only 500 cases have been diagnosed worldwide, al-though researchers believe there are more, so funds for research have been scarce.
Since Dillon was diagnosed at age 3, Darrile and Mark have become strong ad-vocates to support other families affected by the disease, and to help improve aware-ness and research toward treatment and a future cure. The Papiers were always de-voted to their son, and they realize their work may have little benefit in Dillon’s lifetime, but they are determined to fight NPC with all they’ve got.
“We want to do all that we can,” Darrile said, “to make sure other families don’t go through this in the future,”
Every fall, the army of family and friends supporting the Papiers, which they have
n Dillon’S ArMy Continued on page 34
Photo | Submitted
Dillon Papier enjoys time with his long-time friend, brian roberts, second base-man for the baltimore orioles, before the game on Sunday, August 25.
Page 34 The Town Courier September 2013
safety on the 2001 team. “I can truly say what we were part of was greater and big-ger than any of us. We were a family on and off the field, our one vision and focus made us an unstoppable force. We are all better men for being part of that run from 1998 to 2001,” Taylor said.
“2001 was a dream season with all the right ingredients to have a championship year,” said Dave Carruthers, their now-re-tired UHS head coach. “Those ingredi-ents were dedicated players, committed coaches, good administration, enthusiastic parents and fan support. I think this was a dream team blessed by God.”
Interestingly, current UHS head football coach, Ryan Hines, played for Coach Car-ruthers from 1991-1993 at Linganore High School.
The five-time state champion Hawks football team begins its quest to climb the Maryland High School Mountain once again at home on Friday night, Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. vs. Dover, Del. Come root on the Hawks!
Editor’s Note: Timothy Mellott is an active Urbana community member who founded the Southern Frederick County Youth Athletic Fa-cilities, coaches Predators Wrestling, serves as the UHS Athletic Boosters president and is an FCA Character Coach at Urbana. Mellott lives in Ijamsville with his wife, Beth Ann, and son Parker.
The Art of Balance
A nalogies can be great teaching tools: They can make a previously unfa-miliar subject or principle easier to
understand by referencing something that is universally understood. To this end, I’d like to draw an analogy between getting in shape and our approach to developing athletes, through all levels of competition.
The first thing most people do when they make the decision to improve their person-al fitness is join a gym. Once they’ve taken that initial step, they hop on a treadmill or find a series of machines and go to town. By sticking with this approach, you’ll po-
tentially see results and could eventually improve your fitness level. However, when you train using machines, only specific muscles are activated in a specific range of motion.
This is fine when machines are integrat-ed into a balanced training plan, but when used exclusively this can predispose an individual to injury by creating muscular imbalances (over-developing some areas while under-developing others). At best this approach produces short term results. At worst it could leave the individual in-jured for an extended period of time. Ei-
ther way the outcome is short term and all but guarantees the individual will not meet or maintain any long term goals.
An unbalanced approach to developing athletes can have similar results. It can cre-ate athletes that inexplicably “crack” un-der pressure, make poor decisions off the field, or burn out playing a game that they used to love, never reaching their poten-tial. Well-intentioned coaches and parents, who initially wanted their athletes and children to have fun and learn the positive aspects of sports, like teamwork, hard work and perseverance, can inadvertently begin to focus on results over development. Suc-cess begins to be measured by results and performance-based statistics. Soon results become our primary reason for competing and the determining factor of a successful performance. Getting the desired result begins to justify the means by which they are achieved. In short, winning and losing becomes the only dimension.
I’ve presented a very truncated version of this evolution. As a coach in this commu-nity, I know firsthand that many parents and coaches go to great lengths to avoid this unbalanced approach. I also know that slipping into this way of thinking is very easy; in fact I feel society generally encour-ages this approach to athletics. I personally have fallen into it more times than I care
to admit.But when we as coaches, parents and
community members actively value quali-ties such as effort, sacrifice and accountabil-ity, it becomes easier to avoid the one-di-mensional trap. When we take purposeful steps to invest in relationships initiated on the practice and game field outside of those confines, we begin to balance our approach. Make no mistake, performance-based sta-tistics have their place and winning and losing are necessary for true competition. However, a balanced approach to raising our athletes is only achieved when effort, sacrifice, accountability and relationships are weighted equally, if not more than, winning and losing.
Sports mirror life. As coaches, parents and community members, I believe we have an obligation to the athletes under our care to emphasize a balanced approach to the sport, or sports, to which they are committed. By doing so I firmly believe we will be properly preparing them to meet challenges between the lines and, most importantly, in life as well.
Editor’s Note: Scott Schartner, native of Fred-erick County, has taught at Urbana Elementary School since 2001 and has coached varsity boys soccer at Urbana High School since 2004. He lives in New Market with wife, Kelly, and two children, Jimmy and Olivia.
CoaCh’sCorner By Scott Schartner
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dubbed “Dillon’s Army” holds a charity golf tournament to benefit the National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation Inc. (NNPDF). The 2013 tournament will be on Friday, Oct. 4, at Hollow Creek Golf Club in Middletown. Both the Frederick Keys and the Bowie Baysox minor league baseball teams hold benefits each year in honor of Dillon and his army.
This is the fifth year that the Orioles have worked with Dillon’s Army, and second baseman, Brian Roberts and Dillon have forged a special friendship. The Urbana Dunkin Donuts, Dream Dinners and now Subway are all helping in Dillon’s Fight at
various events as well.In July, Darrile Papier took on the mon-
umental task of organizing and running the National Niemann-Pick Disease Con-ference in Baltimore, where families, doc-tors and medical research personnel came from across the U.S. and Europe. Families heard about new and continuing research, and doctors and researchers from NIH and other institutions heard from families about their experiences to further their research. “The FDA representatives were very in-terested in our family stories,” Papier said. “They said they were eager to share with their colleagues reviewing clinical trials.
For more information, go to www.dillonsfight.org.
September 2013 The Town Courier Page 35
Page 36 The Town Courier September 2013
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Short Sale
Sold
9822 Nottinghill DriveVILLAGES OF URBANA • $679,900
Sold
3994 Braidwood DriveURBANA HIGHLANDS • $350,000
Sold
9501 Burgee PlaceVILLAGES OF URBANA • $419,000
Sold
4005 Wyndham WayVILLAGES OF URBANA • $499,900
Sold
Sold in 6 Days! 9061 Clendenin Way
VILLAGES OF URBANA • $427,500
Short Sale
3847 Triton LaneVILLAGES OF URBANA • $514,900
3630 Singleton TerraceVILLAGES OF URBANA • $289,000
Sold
Sold
Sold
Elaine Koch #2 Remax Agent
KENTLANDS OFFICE345 Main Street
North Potomac, MD 20878301-947-6500
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