BOOK WARS Middle-schoolers compete in a trivia contest. A-3
The Gazette
NEWS: Untended historical Germantown cemetery needs new life. A-4
GERMANTOWN | CLARKSBURG DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Student’s scholarship video raises awareness
25 cents
SolarCity opens operations center in Clarksburg
Playing for a good cause
Clarksburg senior learns the importance of organ donation in process
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Business grows as residents warm up to solar power n
PEGGY MCEWAN
BY
STAFF WRITER
PEGGY MCEWAN STAFF WRITER
Molly McClellan’s grandmother died from kidney failure in 1981, years before Molly was born. But over the years, as McClellan learned more about organ donation, she wondered if her grandmother could have lived longer. “She died at age 65,” McClellan said. “I wondered if the technology [of today] would have helped her.” McClellan, 17, is a senior at McClellan Clarksburg High School and, while looking at college scholarship opportunities, was struck by one offered by the Washington Regional Transplant Community called Legacy of Life Essay and Video Scholarships. Students were given a choice of writing a 1,000-word essay or making a two minute video convincing a specific community of people to sign up to become organ donors. “Almost 75 percent of Americans believe organ donation is the right thing to do, but fewer than 50 percent have signed up on a state registry,” according to the Washington Regional Transplant Community website. McClellan decided to make a video and direct it toward minority communities. “My father is African American,” McClellan said. “There are not as many minority donors.” In 2014, she said, only three out of 10 minorities were registered donors. McClellan said she was intrigued by the idea of making a video, though she had never made one before. Her older brother helped her learn to use Adobe Premiere Elements 7, a video editing program. She said keeping the video under two minutes was a challenge. “First I did a lot of research,“ McClellan said. “But realized I couldn’t use it all because of the two minute limit.” She said she was shocked to learn how many people were waiting for an organ. So, she said she concentrated on dispelling some myths that are believed to keep people from becoming organ donors.
See VIDEO, Page A-12
INDEX A&E Automotive Business Calendar Classified Obituaries Opinion Sports
SPORTS: Northwest junior softball pitcher leads the Jaguars into the playoffs. B-1
PHOTOS BY TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Rocky Hill Middle School parent Angelo Hernandez (center) has a laugh with school staff members Harold Willis (left) and Paul Heinemann as they play basketball during a charity fundraiser for cancer research on Friday in Clarksburg. The 14th annual Will Power Game raised money for cancer research in honor of students, staff and parents who were lost to the disease. Tom Marvel, Rocky Hill Middle School counselor, rides a bicycle to be raffled off during the fundraiser.
Leon “Lee” Keshishian installed his first solar system when he was only 8 years old. That was when he helped his grandfather put a solar array on his Arizona roof. Today Keshishian, 45, is east coast regional vice president of SolarCity, America’s largest solar array installer based in San Mateo, California. “We do a system every three minutes somewhere in America,” Keshishian said. Keshishian, a Montgomery County native who now lives in Bethesda, did not just jump off his grandfather’s roof into the world of solar energy. He was only eight, but it could be that the idea of clean, less expensive
energy he learned about from his grandfather brought him to SolarCity. As he walked around the company’s new operations center in Clarksburg Wednesday he shared his excitement about SolarCity and how he joined the company in 2011. “SolarCity started about seven years ago by two brothers, Lyndon Rive and Peter Rive to answer the question, ‘What about alternative energy for the future,’” Keshishian said. “Within one year they became the largest solar company in California.” Meanwhile, Keshishian, along with two partners began Clean Currents in 2005, a company designed to provide wind power as a sustainable power alternative to area residents. Because of so many requests for solar power by Clean Currents subscribers, Keshishian and former Bullis School,
See SOLAR, Page A-10
Annual book festival tells stories with twists n
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Authors attending from near, far
SAMANTHA SCHMIEDER STAFF WRITER
On Saturday, the sixth annual Gaithersburg Book Festival will host authors from around the world as well as those who have strong ties to Montgomery County. Lariann Oberlin, who writes fiction under the pen name Lauren Monroe, will be exhibiting and selling books at the festival with the Eastern Shore Writers Association. Oberlin, a licensed
clinical counselor, has a private practice in the Kentlands where she and her family lived until 2012 when they moved to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. After spending years writing nonfiction books related to her field, she took the plunge into fiction and her first book, “Letting Go: Book One of The Maryland Shores,” was released last spring. “Second Chances: Book Two of The Maryland Shores” came out this year. “I had always wanted to try fiction. I tried it in the ’90s, but I can see now that I didn’t have
See BOOK, Page A-10
Two students find their way to National Geographic Bee After preliminary round, Germantown student qualifies as one of top 10 n
BY
PEGGY MCEWAN STAFF WRITER
What does Kanye West — the rapper — have in common with world geography? “In [Botswana] there is a [town] called Kanye and there is an east and a west,” said Abhinav Karthikeyan of Clarksburg, a three year National Geo-
Karthikeyan
Wall
graphic Bee competitor. Abhinav is one of two sixth-grade boys from Montgomery County among the 54 students who qualified to represent their states at the 27th Annual National Geographic Bee in Washington,
D.C. this week. Abhinav, a student at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown, is the representative from Maryland. Jacob Wall of Bethesda, who attends The British School of Washington, represented Washington D.C. Results after Monday’s preliminary rounds showed Abhinav still in the competition, placing among the top ten who will compete for the first place in the country on Wednesday. Jacob went out during the preliminary rounds on Monday. He said he enjoyed competing is geography bees.
“I enjoyed hearing the others’ questions,” he said. Abhinav first competed in the national bee when he was in fourth-grade at Clearspring Elementary School in Damascus. Students can compete in grades four through eight. Abhinav said Friday he has moved up each year: in 2013, he placed 21st and last year, 15th. “I’m hoping for a better result, to crack the top ten this year,” he said. It was mission accomplished for him. On Wednesday he and the other top
See BEE, Page A-12
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HARMONIOUS LILIES
Volume 28, No. 17, Two sections, 28 Pages Copyright © 2015 The Gazette
Boxcar Lilies return to BlackRock with new music, old favorites.
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