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Chugging into 2015
BRHS starts new year with new leadership By BrieLLe UrciUoLi
Cameron Porter, of Bordentown, works the controls of the Thomas the train display at the annual Old City Hall Train Display Dec. 13, 2014. For more photos, turn to Page 12. (Photo by Albert Rende.)
Columbus market back in business One month later, many tenants optimistic about moving forward By Lexie yearLy The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, John Carr was one of the shop owners still cleaning out his store as customers strolled through the Columbus Farmers Market. It was the first time the indoor market was open in nine days, after a four-alarm fire tore through Building No. 4 and destroyed the 10 businesses
located inside it on Nov. 18. Though a number of businesses still weren’t able to open their doors to the public Nov. 26, the market ownership made a big push to reopen in time for one of its busiest sales days of the year. “I didn’t understand [the owners’] motivation, their reasoning at first,” Carr said. “They were like, we have to open quick…But now I see they were right. Because if we would’ve gotten into this big repair mode, we would have never got this back up before Christmas.” The fire struck at possibly the worst time of year; from
Thanksgiving Day and leading up to Christmas is when many store owners there make the majority of their sales. So, the shop and market owners had their work cut out for them to be ready in time to recoup some of those sales. The market brought in a professional cleaning service to clean the undamaged buildings, said market manager Janice Ackerman, who spoke on behalf of the Columbus Market owners. Though Building 4 was the only one that caught on fire, smoke and water damage to neighboring buildings destroyed many of the items See FIRE, Page 6
As Robert Walder strolled the hallways of Bordentown Regional High School in mid December, he felt a sense of nostalgia and comfort. The school is his alma mater and he spent seven years of his career teaching history in the building. However, this time his role was different. Walder started as the new principal of BRHS on Dec. 17, after former principal Pat Lynch retired. “He’s a legacy here,” Walder said about Lynch. “I’ve got big shoes to fill.” Lynch, also a BRHS graduate, had been principal at the high school since 2006. Before then, he’d previously spent about a decade as a physical education teacher at the school, before before he became the assistant principal, despite the fact that he did not yet have his administrator’s degree. “They had faith in me to do the job to the best of my ability without a degree,” he said. It was after he got his administrator’s degree that he was finally about to ascend the role of school principal. “What I’d most want to be remembered for is keeping the spirit of Bordentown alive,” Lynch said. Lynch said that he would
this
year:
often tell students who were not doing too well that, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” Leading the way through many transitions during his tenure as principal, such as moving into the new school building, losing and gaining new supervisors, and cycling through three superintendents, Lynch was principal throughout a crucial time in BRHS history. However, one of his proudest contributions was being a supporter of the school’s PBSIS— Positive Behavior Support in Schools—program. The program, which was established by a team of teachers and guidance counselors, encourages good behavior by focusing on rewarding students for good behavior, rather than punishing them for negative acts. “I’m so glad to have supported it because it made such a great environment in the school,” he said. Now, as leadership changes hands, Walder said that he is looking forward to improving the programs like PBSIS that BRHS has to offer. “We’re looking to build on the great programs that are occurring,” he said, emphasizing that what goes on in the high school See BRHS, Page 8
See Page 11 for advice from the pros on how to stick with your New Year’s resolution.
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