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Ten players inducted into Hall of Fame...4A
Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 153, No. 4
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Lincoln University president urges strength through diversity at MLK CommUNITY breakfast By Chris Barber Correspondent Lincoln University President Brenda Allen told a packed house at the Kennett Fire Company’s Red Clay room that diversity and dialogue add to the strength of the community, the nation and the educational system. “We need to talk about how our presence in the classroom has improved the educational enterprise,” she said. Allen was the keynote speaker at the 18th annual Martin Luther King Jr. CommUNITY breakfast on Monday. Despite sub-zero wind chill temperatures outside, there were very few empty seats at the more than 300 place settings prepared in the room. Allen, who was inaugurated as Lincoln University’s president in 2017, is the first person in that post who was a graduate of the university.
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Oxford School Board approves opt-out resolution By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
Photo by Chris Barber
Lincoln University president Brenda Allen tells guests at the breakfast how she came to embrace diversity and understanding among races.
She said that, as a child who grew up in New Jersey, she was attracted to Lincoln not so much because it was an historically black college, but because “The people looked like me.” When she was young, she said, she was aware that there were segregated communities and she was living
in one, but life was not bad. “We didn’t define ourselves by our circumstances. We had dreams. We had aspirations. We weren’t mired in self-loathing and despair,” she said. When she arrived at Lincoln she learned to fear hatred outside the walls of Continued on Page 2A
The Oxford School Board approved a budget optout resolution at its Jan. 15 meeting, a procedural measure that establishes the school district’s intention to remain within the Act 1 Index limit when the budget for 2019-2020 is adopted. School board member Robert Tenga explained that 3.2 percent is Oxford’s Act 1 Index limit for the 20192020 school year. By approving the budget opt-out resolution, the district can now proceed with a normal budgeting process. If a school district in Pennsylvania wants to exceed the Act 1 Index, it would need to seek approval for the tax increase through a referendum during the primary election. That would require the school district to adopt its preliminary budget
earlier in the year than what would be typical. A final budget must be approved by June 30. In his Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) report, school board member Howard Robinson noted that Dr. Joseph O’Brien, the executive director of the CCIU, is retiring after 12 years in the that position. His retirement is planned for June 30. Dr. Margaret BillingsJones, the district’s assistant superintendent, reviewed some of the School Performance Profile data that was recently released by the state’s Department of Education. Billings-Jones explained that school districts share the data with building principals and teachers in order to make decisions about classroom instruction moving forward. The school district has Continued on Page 3A
A day of service for the community and the world By John Chambless Staff Writer
From helping neighbors in Chester County to serving people around the world, students from the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District stepped up on Jan. 21 to help live out the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as part of the National Day of Service. There’s a long tradition of schools in the district turning the day of remembrance Reflecting the soul of a for Dr. King into a day city at the Oxford Arts of activities to help others. Alliance...1B Beginning at 9 a.m., students of all ages excitedly began working in various
service projects across the region. At Hillendale Elementary School, Unionville High School students and children from Hillendale helped sort and package meal kits for Blessings in a Backpack, an organization that provides food for the weekend for elementary-aged children who might otherwise go hungry. Principal Michael Audevard said the goal was to pack 213 backpacks on Monday that will be given to the 71 children served by the Kennett Square branch of the organization. The focus was on breakfast, with packaged oatmeal, cereal
bars, milk and more put into sealed bags for distribution. With the bags quickly getting packed and completed, younger students were hard at work drawing bookmarks to be given out with the food. At Chadds Ford Elementary School, students and parents will be collecting food all week for their sister school, Mitchell Elementary. The Mitchell’s Kids’ Choice Pantry allows students who wouldn’t otherwise have access to food on weekends to bring home Photo by John Chambless pre-packaged essentials. Breakfast foods are lined up at Hillendale Elementary Patton Middle School had School, ready to be packed into kits for students in Continued on Page 6A
need.
Pastor Daniel J. Nicewonger of First Baptist Church of Kennett Square pens new book that documents his life after being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer
His continuing journey By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer Daniel J. Nicewonger, who has been the Pastor of First Baptist Church in Unionville falls to East in Kennett Square for the past overtime...5B four years, has defined himself as a planner, a dreamer and a visionary, so soon after he was diagnosed with
stage IV colon cancer on May 4, 2016, he began planning his memorial service. “I had some thoughts about what should be done and who should speak,” Nicewonger wrote on Oct. 23, 2016 in his blog. “I wanted it done right. [Wife] Nancy would tell you I wanted to be in control one
INDEX
last time. She is probably right. I finally decided to spend a few hours to put the service together.” Nicewonger began asking the most special people in his life to speak at the ser-
Continued on Page 3A Photo by Richard L. Gaw
The Journey Continues: Finding Joy Amidst Life’s Struggles documents Nicewonger’s three-year diagnosis and continuing treatment for stage IV colon cancer.
The champion
Opinion.......................7A
Oxford teen Cornelio ‘Chada’ Phipps is building an impressive boxing résumé that already includes five national championships and a long list of accomplishments. His ultimate goal is to represent the U.S. in the 2024 Olympics
Obituaries...................2B Calendar of Events.....4B Classifieds.................6B
By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer © 2007 The Chester County Press
vice. He chose the music that would be heard. Once he completed the outline of the service, he tucked it into the top drawer of his office desk. He then made
After continuing his streak of strong performances at USA Boxing’s National Junior and Prep Open in Salt Lake City, Utah in Photo by Steven Hoffman Cornelio knows that his father, Dwayne, is always in early December, Cornelio “Chada” Phipps is looking his corner.
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forward to another big year. Cornelio, 13, is building an extremely impressive boxing résumé. He’s already a five-time national champion, and he has traveled extensively all across the U.S. to take part in boxing competitions. Up to this point, no challenge has
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been too big and no spotlight has been too bright for the Penn’s Grove School seventh-grader. “I like the stage,” Cornelio said during an interview at the Straight 2-3 Boxing Club in Kennett Square, where he trains five or six
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Continued on Page 8A
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