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Gazette-Star SERVING SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY COMMUNITIES
DAILY UPDATES ONLINE www.gazette.net
Thursday, April 10, 2014
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Dog attack prompts community concerns
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County Animal Management Division doesn’t track neighborhoods with recurring loose animal problems
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BY CHASE COOK STAFF WRITER
Debbie Slack’s mother was outside of her Bowie home Sunday when her neighbor’s American bulldog, Buddy, attacked her so viciously she had to have several surgeries and spent time in intensive care. “It looked like she had been scalped,” Slack said. “She had cuts on her head, her neck. The only thing the dog missed was her face and chest be-
ALICE POPOVICI/THE GAZETTE
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Mitchellville school holds 20th annual Challenge Day ALICE POPOVICI STAFF WRITER
When John Barrows worked as an adaptive aquatics instructor at C. Elizabeth Rieg Regional School in Mitchellville, he helped start the Special Olympics Challenge Day to give students with severe disabilities an opportunity to participate in a team-building event and showcase their abilities. Twenty years later, the event is still going strong at the school, and Barrows, who has since retired, comes back every year to help students and staff prepare. “It’s just a celebration of the kids’
personal best,” said Barrows of Bowie, as he watched a group of students compete in a kickball event during the Challenge Day on Friday. “It’s where they start and how they can improve.” About 100 students ages 5 through 21 participated in the three-hour event as music played in the school’s gym and parents took pictures of their children completing challenges such as football, water polo, water safety and hockey. “It is an event for parents to reflect on their student’s abilities, strengths, just how far they’ve come,” said Patrice Watson, the school’s principal. “We’re looking for that moment of inspiration.
Homeowners to showcase restoration efforts, unique features BY
ALICE POPOVICI STAFF WRITER
Brian Callicott was trying to fix a loose floorboard in the bedroom of the historic Upper Marlboro home he shares with his girlfriend, Patti Skews, when he started digging underneath and found a trove of artifacts including buttons, pins, a buckle and a lead stopper from a doctor’s vial. Outside the house, the couple found more old pieces including rusted keys and rings, old glass bottles and a sleigh bell from a horse, Callicott said.
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SPREADING THE WRITTEN WORD Bowie reading program expands drop-off locations.
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Some of these items will be on display April 26, when the couple will open Content — as the house is known in historical documents — to participants in the Prince George’s County portion of the 77th annual Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage. The self-guided tour, which features Upper Marlboro properties, follows the route British soldiers took in 1814, when they marched through the county on their way to capture Washington, D.C., said Jack Thompson Jr., the organizer of the event. Designed to coincide with the statewide commemoration of the War of 1812 bicentennial, the county’s portion of the tour will include
See TOUR, Page A-6
For many area residents, National Harbor is a popular destination for dinner, shopping and live entertainment, but Joyce Thorpe and other nearby Fort Washington community members say the development has been a nuisance to their once-peaceful neighborhood and expect the problem to get worse once another major attraction is installed by this summer.
See ATTACK, Page A-6
Thorpe, a retired lawyer and neighborhood activist who has been fighting the development for years, said residents have dealt with noise from a hotel laundromat, waterfront music festivals, the odor from portable toilets, crowds and the traffic. Now, as National Harbor gears up for spring and summer, Virginiabased developer Peterson Cos. is preparing to open a 176-foot tall Ferris wheel it describes as a “world-class icon” similar to those in Paris and London. But Thorpe and some of her neighbors see it as one more nuisance from the developer they say has been
See NOISE, Page A-6
Accident led to career advancement in county fire/ EMS department n
BY CHASE COOK STAFF WRITER
Some people find their life’s calling through college courses or following in a family member’s footsteps. For Alicia Francis, it took a head-on collision. “It was Christmas of 1990. ... An inattentive driver took a left turn and hit me head on,” said Francis, 48, of Bowie. “I was knocked unconscious and my right leg was nearly severed. It took me two years to learn how to walk again.” Now the woman who wasn’t sure if she would walk again is the first female director of the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department’s Training Academy. She is responsible for overseeing the county’s firefighter recruit training, she said. “I love the everlasting education of the job,” Francis said. “If I don’t know something, I’m going to look it up.”
ALICE POPOVICI/THE GAZETTE
Patti Skews (right) and her boyfriend, Brian Callicott, of Upper Marlboro will open their 1787 home to visitors during the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage on April 26.
Eleanor Roosevelt grad helps UConn win the men’s basketball national title.
cause she went face down.” The attack has frightened area residents, who said they have seen loose dogs running around from time to time and are concerned that another attack could happen to them when they go outside. Virginia Clemons, who lives on
Bowie woman makes history
See CHALLENGE, Page A-7
CHAMPS!
ALICE POPOVICI STAFF WRITER
Being able to display what we do on a daily basis.” Maria Gumanoy of Hyattsville watched her son, James, 10, complete water safety exercises during Challenge Day and said he had been practicing three times a week to prepare. “He’s so happy,” she said. The school’s special education staff — including adaptive aquatics specialists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and paraprofessionals — were present to help students along the way. In the school’s indoor
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Official says company is working with residents BY
Upper Marlboro sites featured in tour n
Debbie Slack, daughter of victim
Neighbors upset about National Harbor noise
Tracy Babicka (right), the adaptive aquatics teacher at C. Elizabeth Rieg Regional School, coaches Donovan Hemans, 9, of Bowie through a water safety event Friday morning during the Mitchellville school’s Special Olympics Challenge Day. In the background, paraprofessional Lois Chambers instructs James Gumanoy, 10, of Hyattsville.
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“It looked like she had been scalped.”
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BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Assistant Fire Chief Alicia Francis, director of the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Academy, is first woman in the post.
Recruits said Francis has a handson approach that has helped them work on their grades. “It makes you want to be the top
See FRANCIS, Page A-6
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