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Educa t io n
VOLUME 27
New Leaders Emerge During Leesburg’s Transition then Leesburg police Capts. Clagett H. Moxley and Jeffrey C. VanGilder—with a combined 67 years of experience—retired in December. “There were a lot of people who had been here a long time who left, and they took a lot of knowledge with them,” said Clark Case, who took over as director of Finance and Administrative Services in September. “The challenge has been to acquire the knowledge that they walked out the door with.” The transition period began in January 2014 when Town Council identified Dentler, Wells’ right-hand man for seven years, as Leesburg’s next town manager. He joined the town staff in 1996 as the director of the Parks and Recreation
Department. Wells and Dentler worked together on the shift in leadership over the next several months. “I think [the transition] has gone very well. I think the reason for it is that John and Kaj worked very closely for almost a full year before John left,” Umstattd said. “It was John’s goal to make sure that if Kaj was selected, he would know the ropes before he took over. And they succeeded in that effort... Kaj does have his own ideas on how departments should be organized and the key missions of those departments.” Continued on Page 28
Cla ssifi e d
he October 2013 announcement by Leesburg Town Manager John Wells that he would retire the following fall kicked off a chain of events that has resulted in a significant restructuring of town government. “There’s been a lot of changes over the last year or so in the town staff, but they have been encouraging changes,” Leesburg Mayor Kristen Umstattd said. Umstattd, who has held her post since 2002, is one of the longest-serving town leaders, first
elected to the Town Council in 1992. This has been one of the municipality’s bigger transitions in terms of staff, she said in an interview. Wells retired in October after 10 years leading the town government and moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to family. Deputy Town Manager Kaj Dentler was quickly tapped to step into the post, a move designed to promote continuity. Then the town’s finance director and assistant director left last summer to take jobs elsewhere. In September, Town Attorney Jeanette Irby, who had served in her role for six-and-a-half years, was appointed by the General Assembly to replace retired Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne. And
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Loudoun Country Day Student Wins Bee With A ‘ gama’ Danielle Nadler
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Loudoun Country Day School eighth-grade student Shiv Lamba takes a moment to think before correctly spelling the word agama to win the 33rd annual Loudoun County Regional Spelling Bee. View a slideshow from the event at LeesburgToday.com.
ou get this, and you’re our winner.” Fourteen-year-old Shiv Lamba heard the words of the Loudoun County Regional Spelling Bee’s pronouncer just before 10 o’clock Monday night. He made the sign of a cross over his heart and stepped to the microphone. The word that stood between him and the championship: agama. He asked the usual series of questions: the word’s origin (Latin), its definition (a genus of old world terrestrial lizards including many that are of bright and changeable colors), and any alternate pronunciations (yes, two). Then he asked the pronouncer, Smart’s Mill Middle School Principal Will Waldman, to repeat the word two more times, before taking a deep breath and quickly rattling off five
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