Faces of Falls Church

Larry Mendenhall, whose two now grown-up children are both FCKLL alums, credits the league for helping his children find a passion in baseball. “The team gave our sons the opportunity to discover a talent they carried with them for many years, from tee ball all the way through college,” Mendenhall claims. His wife Kathryn, meanwhile, describes Little League as a “tradition” in Falls Church – “The values and spirit of FCKLL exemplify our community… when spring registration opens up, I still feel the excitement.”

Day, a member of the Eastern American Little League championship-winning team in 1972, still holds special memories in his heart for his time with FCKLL. The program was much smaller in his day, with only about a dozen children in his age group, and Day claims that they would frequently spend time together off the field and that he still keeps in touch with several of the connections he made. “It brought people together that didn’t know each other,” Day said via a phone interview last week.

“It made Falls Church a more shared community.”

As part of the anniversary festivities, the league will be creating a “digital memory book” in which members and their families of past and present can contribute by posting photos of their experiences. “We want it to be a time capsule, from the beginning until now, where everyone can share their memories together,” says Erika Toman, FCKLL’s Communications and PR leader.

Congratulations to the Falls Church Kiwanis Little League program on 75 years of excellence as one of our community’s most storied pastimes, and here’s to many more.

On February 24 — 25, Meridian High School junior Isabella Villano and their father Peter raced in the annual Memphremagog Winter Swimming Festival, held in Newport, Vermont. Swimmers raced without wetsuits in two 25m lanes and participated in various events up to a 200m distance. Water temperatures this year hovered around 30 degrees F, with a windchill of -10F. This was Peter’s third time completing the race and Isabella’s first. They trained through winter off the Delaware coast and their backyard ice tub.

Photo: Peter Villano)

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To nominate someone for Faces please email us at Ktoland@fcnp.com. To be considered for Faces someone must be a member of the community and have done something you feel they should be recoginozed for. Falls Church News-Press reserves the right to use it’s discretion when it comes to who will be featured.

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