Local News Updates
- Waynesboro: JROTC at Fishburne mark inspection success
- Waynesboro: Wildlife Center schedules open houses
- Augusta County: Hay Drive for Horses
- Staunton: American Shakespeare Center announces 2010-2011 season
Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Waynesboro: JROTC at Fishburne mark inspection success The Corps of Cadets at Fishburne Military School cheered loudly at their newly announced privileges on Wednesday afternoon for all their hard work. The cadets would be able to sleep in on Sunday and have a short reprieve from daily room inspections and study halls. For several months the cadets at Fishburne worked diligently under the guidance of the school’s JROTC staff to prepare for the Regional Formal Inspection or RFI. The program passed with an impressive final score of 98.7 percent.
Every three years the school’s JROTC program is measured against rigorous and specific standards in order to decide whether the school would maintain its Gold Star – Honor Unit with Distinction Status. Maintaining the Gold Star status means that Fishburne Military School can nominate qualified candidates directly to the nation’s four service academies, and pre-qualify students for many JROTC scholarships.
When Buck Jenkins, 4th Brigade JROTC Inspector from Fort Bragg, N.C., announced the final score, he noted that the Corps was the best prepared group inspected in his 20-plus years on the job, and certainly the best of the 109 other JROTC programs he and his team evaluated this year. An especially high scoring aspect of the inspection was the Officer’s Briefing whereby the Cadet Officers discuss their responsibilities to the JROTC program.
Also assisting in the RFI were members of the VMI Cadet Corps who helped inspect appearances, uniforms, formations, and JROTC specific knowledge. Fishburne’s JROTC program was established in 1926, just seven years after the Army created the organization.
Aside from the JROTC program, one of Fishburne’s most notable strengths is its highly individualized environment; the student/faculty ratio is 6:1, while the average class size is just 10 students. Fishburne also offers a rich and diverse extracurricular program, including athletics, service organizations, color guard, drill team, publications, National Honor Society, and Key Club. The school’s strong academic program, coupled with its vast extracurricular opportunities and structured environment, is distinguished by the individualized attention it affords cadets in a challenging, family-oriented environment – and has contributed to its 100% college acceptance rate.
Fishburne is offering rolling admission for grades 7-12 and Post-Graduate. Space remains available in Fishburne’s ‘Spring Forward’ and Summer School 2010 programs. For more information on Fishburne or rolling admission, contact Mr. Brock Selkow, Director of Admissions, at 800.946.7773 or bselkow@fishburne.org.
Waynesboro: Wildlife Center schedules open houses The Wildlife Center of Virginia, the nation’s leading teaching and research hospital for native wildlife, has scheduled five open houses for Spring 2010. These are rare opportunities to see the inner workings of the nation’s premier wildlife hospital, as well as meet some of the wildlife that serve as the Center’s education ambassadors.
The open houses will be held on:
· Sunday, March 7;
· Sunday, March 21;
· Sunday, March 28;
· Sunday, April 11; and
· Sunday, April 25.
The Center will have three separate sessions each day – at 12:30 p.m., 2:00 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. Each session lasts about an hour.
As a wildlife emergency room and hospital, the Wildlife Center is not usually open to the public. The seasonal open houses are the times during the year when visitors may tour the Waynesboro facility.
There is no charge to participate in an open house; however, reservations are required [540.942.9453 or wildlife@wildlifecenter.org]. A limited number of spaces are available for each session. Reservations may be made for up to five individuals; children must be accompanied by parents or guardians. Larger groups [school groups, scout troops, etc.] are encouraged to contact the Center’s Education Department to make alternate arrangements.
During the open house, visitors will tour the Center’s building, including the medical clinic [examination room, operating room, etc.] In addition, visitors will get to “meet” the Center’s education animals – some of the 20 non-releasable animals that the Center’s education staff uses in school assemblies and classroom presentations. Included in the Center’s education “faculty” are a Golden Eagle, owls [Great Horned, Screech, and Barred], Red-Tailed Hawks, several different species of snakes, and Virginia Opossums. As most of these animals live in outdoor homes, these tours are offered weather permitting.
Every year, about 2,500 animals – ranging from Bald Eagles to opossums to chipmunks – are brought to the Wildlife Center for care. “The goal of the Center is to restore our patients to health and return as many as possible to the wild,” Wildlife Center President Ed Clark said. “At the Wildlife Center, we treat to release.”
The Wildlife Center of Virginia is an internationally acclaimed teaching and research hospital for wildlife and conservation medicine. During its history, the nonprofit Center has cared for more than 54,000 wild animals, representing 200 species of native birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. The Center’s public education programs share insights gained through the care of injured and orphaned wildlife, in hopes of reducing human damage to wildlife. The Center trains veterinary and conservation professionals from all over the world and is actively involved in comprehensive wildlife health studies and the surveillance of emerging diseases. Additional information about the Wildlife Center is available at www.wildlifecenter.org.
Augusta County: Hay Drive for Horses The current economy and the horse market topped by extremes of cold and snow this winter have left many horse owners unable to provide adequate nutrition for their horses and unable sell or even give away those horses. In an effort to help owners help their horses make it through the winter, the Augusta County “4 the Love of Horses 4-H Club” and the 4-H Light Horse and Pony Club”, with the support of the Augusta County 4-H Office and the Augusta County Board of Supervisors, is coordinating a hay drive for horses.
The 4-H Clubs are seeking donations of small square bales of hay (any type). Hay that is donated needs to be delivered to the Augusta County Government Center by Friday, March 19th. Please call to get a specific time and location for delivery. We are also taking applications from Augusta County, Staunton, and Waynesboro horse owners who may qualify to receive a portion of this donated hay. Hay applications will be evaluated based on need. Applications are available at the Virginia Cooperative Extension office and on our VCE website at http://offices.ext.vt.edu/augusta/index.html. Applications will also be available at many large animal veterinary offices, and local feed and farm supply stores. Applications are due by Friday, March 19, 2010.
Those who receive hay will be notified and will be responsible for pick up and transportation of the hay they receive. Failure to pick up hay during the assigned time may result in forfeiture of hay.
For questions or more information on donating or receiving hay, contact Jennifer Mercer, Extension Agent, 4-H at 540/245-5750.
Staunton: American Shakespeare Center announces 2010-2011 season The American Shakespeare Center has announced its 2010-2011 seasons, a program of 16 productions presented over 52 weeks in fie separate repertory seasons, offering the largest number of plays per year by Shakespeare and Early Modern playwrights of any theatre in the world.
The lineup features eight plays by Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew; Othello; Henry IV, Part 2; As You Like It; Macbeth; Measure for Measure; The Comedy of Errors; and Henry VI, Part 3. Also included are four plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare: The Fair Maid of the West by Thomas Heywood; The Malcontent by John Marston; Look About You by Anonymous; and A Trick to Catch the Old One by Thomas Middleton; and one post-Restoration comedy: Wild Oats by John O’Keeffe Three modern holiday plays cap off the year: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris, and The Twelve Dates of Christmas by ASC actor Ginna Hoben.
“Our patrons can see more Shakespeare and Early Modern plays right here in Virginia than anywhere else on the planet,” said ASC Artistic Director Jim Warren. “In the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, we perform 52 weeks a year in true repertory using Shakespeare’s staging conditions that bring out the fun, excitement, and humanity of some of the greatest plays in the English language.”
All ASC productions will be presented in the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Va., the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre and “one of the most historically important theatres in the world,” according to British scholar Andrew Gurr.
Believing that Shakespeare’s stagecraft is as important as his wordcraft, the American Shakespeare Center has developed its own modern performance style based on how Shakespeare’s company performed plays at the original Globe and Blackfriars Playhouses in Renaissance London, an approach that the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout calls “first rate theatre.”
Dubbed “shamelessly entertaining” by the Washington Post, ASC style includes having the audience and performers share the same light, seating the audience all around the stage and even on the stage itself, and having actors interact with audience members during the performance.
The ASC is one of the few theatres in the world to mount productions like Shakespeare’s company did: in true repertory, with about 15 or fewer actors sometimes covering over 40 different roles in a single play. “Real repertory with a small troupe of actors was part of the genius of Renaissance theatre that Shakespeare milked to write his great plays,” said Warren.
The 2010-11 ASC calendar continues The Histories: The Rise and Fall of Kings, a 5-year series that will present all 10 of Shakespeare’s history plays. The series began in 2008 and will continue this year with Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3.
This year’s schedule also adds the world-premiere of a new play, The Twelve Dates of Christmas. “To meet our patrons’ demand for more edgy holiday shows for grown-ups, we’ve added to our wildly successful holiday lineup The Twelve Dates of Christmas, an original one-woman show written and performed by ASC veteran actor Ginna Hoben,” said Warren.
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