WHS Boosters hosting fund-raiser
What: Corn-hole Tournament at Waynesboro High School sponsored by WHS Booster Club.
When: June 16th, 2012 starting at 11 a.m.
Cost: $25 a person/$50 a team.
Details
- Open to all age groups. Will be split into two age groups.
- Bring a team or come by yourself to be paired up.
- Please RSVP by June 1 to whsboosterclub@waynesboro.k12.va.us so registration form can be sent.
- Prizes awarded to first and second place.
- Concession stand will be open.
Fort Defiance volleyball raises money for breast cancer education
The girls on the Fort Defiance High School volleyball team organized and played a “pink game” against the girls from the Waynesboro High School volleyball team in October. The girls wore special pink jerseys that evening, and proceeds from the event were donated to the Augusta Health Cancer Center’s fund for breast cancer education. The girls raised a total of $500.
They presented the check to the Breast Navigator at Augusta Health, Meg Shrader, on Wednesday. Pictured, from left, are Meg Shrader, RN, CBCN, Breast Navigator at Augusta Health, and Lauren Mozingo and Janie Layne from the Fort Defiance High School volleyball team.
KCMS invites community to take part in Rachel’s Challenge
Kate Collins Middle School will lead a communitywide effort to take part in Rachel’s Challenge, a program inspired by Rachel Scott, the first person killed in the 1999 Columbine High School tragedy.
The community event is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m. in the Spilman Auditorium at Waynesboro High School.
Scott was the first person killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Her acts of kindness and compassion coupled with the contents of her six diaries have become the foundation for one of the most life-changing school programs in America.
Powerful video/audio footage of Rachel’s life and the Columbine tragedy holds students spell-bound during a one hour school presentation that motivates them to positive change in the way they treat others.
This is followed by a separate interactive 90-minute training session involving both adult and student leaders that shows how to sustain the momentum created by the assembly. The assembly creates the “want to” or desire for positive change. The training session teaches the “how to” and ensures that the positive impact will continue.
That evening the Rachel’s Challenge speaker conducts a powerful session with parents and community leaders. This session is similar to the assembly program and ends with a specific challenge to parents and community leaders, showing them how they can reinforce the decisions their youths are making.
DCCU recognizes local scholarship winners
DuPont Community Credit Union recently announced the 20 scholarship winners at the 52nd Annual Membership Meeting. Since beginning the scholarship program over $172,000 has been awarded to high school seniors, and 180 seniors applied this year.
“We are very pleased to provide scholarships to this year’s 20 recipients,” said Everett J. Campbell, chairman of the DCCU Board of Directors. “Each winner receives a $1,000 award, and the Credit Union strongly believes that by assisting in furthering these students education it is a winning combination for both them and our community.”
Among the 2011 winners are: Michael Strickler, Buffalo Gap High School; Annie Shreckhise, Fort Defiance High School; Hope Kelliher, Robert E. Lee High School; Dalton Campbell, Riverheads High School; McKenzie Kirschnick, Stuarts Draft High School; Jonathan Isaacs, Waynesboro High School, and Jacqueline Kania, Wilson Memorial High School.
Rachel Whetzel, Broadway High School; Taylor Pumphrey, Central High School; Megan Berry, East Rockingham; Savanah Cary, Harrisonburg High School; Mark Gordon, Spotswood High School; Catherine Daugharty, Stonewall Jackson High School; Jenna Swanson, Strasburg High School, and Erica Estes, Turner Ashby High School.
Shasta Riley, Bath County High; Hayley Billingsley, Highland High School; Ethan Floyd, Parry McClure High School; Katie Frazier, Rockbridge High School, and Allison Acord, Out of Area Member.
To qualify for DCCU’s scholarship, a high school senior must submit an application and essay to the Credit Union. This year’s essay topic was: “Why receiving free money for college is important to my family and me.” The students are not required to be a member of the Credit Union or have interest in a financial career path. The Credit Union has scholarships available again after the start of the next academic year in 2012.
Chris Graham: Let us now praise famous kids
Four state tournaments in five years. And that’s just the Waynesboro High School boys’ basketball team. The girls have had their runs in recent years, too, including an appearance in the 2008 Group AA state-title game led by the sublime Devon Brown.
I’ve had the fortune to be able to coach in the rec league at the Waynesboro YMCA on two different occasions now – for a run of four years ending in 2003 and then again this winter. I think the Y and the Waynesboro Basketball Club are due a pat or two on the back for teaching kids basketball fundamentals and team play and more importantly perhaps just providing an outlet for youngsters in need of something positive.
Waynesboro is still figuring itself in a lot of ways. The economy has grown a good bit in the past decade, overtaking Staunton as the region’s commercial center, but that’s coincided with the steady loss of manufacturing jobs that had formed the anchor of the local economy. Those jobs have largely been replaced by jobs in the retail and service sectors, or not at all – Waynesboro’s unemployment rate consistently outpaces the state average by a percentage point or two.
Meanwhile, more than 60 percent of our kids in public schools in the city qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.
In the face of all this, we have basketball, something we’ve always been good at in Waynesboro, which has produced an NBA star (Cory Alexander), a successful Division I college-basketball coach (James Madison women’s coach Kenny Brooks), and an awful lot of good kids, productive citizens, mothers and fathers, valuable employees.
That’s what it’s really all about. The success in the postseason is just icing on the cake. It gives us a chance to swell our chests when our kids make the state-news headlines, gives them memories to last a lifetime, and a building block to go on from here.
But that’s all in the future. Right now it’s about making another run to Richmond. Go, Little Giants!
More columns by Chris at TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
It’s showtime! AWE primed, ready for debut
The minutes are counting down.
“I’m pumped. Let’s get it on!” said Marvin Ward, the president of Awesome Wrestling Entertainment, a Virginia-based professional-wrestling promotion with aspirations toward the big time.
AWE will mark its launch Saturday night with its first live event at Waynesboro High School. The main event pits former WWE superstar Jimmy Wang Yang with AWE newcomer Vasaga for the inaugural Awesome Wrestling Entertainment world heavyweight championship. The AWE United States title will also be filled in a match between another former WWE superstar, Carlito, and the rising star Micah Fletcher. Midget star Short Sleeve Sampson and women’s star Traci Brooks are among the other headliners.
The event begins with an autograph session at 6 p.m. Belltime is 8 p.m.
Tickets are $10 and are available at Crossroads music stores in Waynesboro and Staunton and at Eavers BP and Liberty BP/Liberty in Stuarts Draft – and at the door.
The AWE crew was at the WHS gym late Friday night – after the big Waynesboro-R.E. Lee basketball game that came down to the wire, with the undefeated Leemen escaping with a narrow 53-51 win over their Southern Valley District rivals.
“We need to get the ring set up tonight,” said Mike Meadows, a member of the crew helping get the gym ready for the pro-wrestling action.
Another AWE newcomer, Johnny Knockout, offered a helping hand. Knockout will be facing former TNA star Sonjay Dutt in a match to determine the #1 contender to the U.S. title.
Cutting a video promo for the match, Knockout used his time on the ring crew as his hook.
“You see this ring right here. Every rope, every nook, every cranny, I put it together myself, so I know this inside and out,” Knockout said. “And Sonjay Dutt – you have got one heckuva fight on your hands. This is my world. Welcome to it. And welcome to the Johnny Knockout Reality. I will see you on the other side. You’re going down, buddy. You’re going down.”
Earlier Friday evening, Knockout joined midget star Short Sleeve Sampson and Robotron at a pep rally at the Waynesboro YMCA. The wrestlers were a big hit with the teens out for Friday Night Basketball.
“We’ve been out there breakdancing with them, signing autographs, shooting hoops. You can’t be in a better place than this,” Sampson said after the pep rally and a quick tour of the Y with executive director Jeff Fife.
“I am so fortunate that we can be able to come out here the night before our big show at the high school – to be able to hang out with these guys. If I was going to have free time, there is no other place that I’d much rather be than where I am right here, right now, tonight, in the Waynesboro YMCA,” Sampson said.
More information on the AWE Live event is available here.
Video
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Superstars of Pro Wrestling meet and greet at Staunton Mall
Awesome Wrestling Entertainment superstars Carlito, Jimmy Wang Yang, Luke Gallows, Short Sleeve Sampson, Sonjay Dutt, Traci Brooks and Robo-Tron will take part in a meet-and-greet with fans at the Staunton Mall on Saturday, Feb. 5, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The event will take place in advance of the big AWE Superstars of Pro Wrestling show being held at Waynesboro High School the night of Feb. 5. A 6 p.m. autograph session is followed by an 8 p.m. bell time. Yang will take on newcomer Vasaga for the AWE World Heavyweight title in the main event, with Carlito matching up with Micah Fletcher for the United States title headlining the undercard.
The Mall meet-and-greet is sponsored by Battlefield Ford, Eavers Tire Pros and Domino’s Pizza.
