Laurelgaz 011614 by The Gazette

COFFEE TALK

Laurel Mill Playhouse revives eclectic Neil Simon comedy ‘45 Seconds from Broadway.’ B-3

The Gazette SERVING NORTHERN AND CENTRAL PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY COMMUNITIES

DAILY UPDATES ONLINE www.gazette.net

Thursday, January 16, 2014

25 cents

Before-, after-care costs to rise in July School board also approves increase in fees for non-county residents

BY JAMIE

ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER

The cost of the before- and after-care program in Prince George’s County Public Schools will be going up beginning July 1. School system CEO Kevin Maxwell said the program, which provides care for about 2,900 students, was designed to be self-supporting, rather than relying on funds from the school system. “Costs do increase periodically, and in our estimate, we need to increase the rate to maintain its selfsufficient status,” said Thomas E. Sheeran, the school system’s acting chief financial officer. The school board approved the increases, as well as a tuition increase for out-of-county students, PHOTOS BY TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

HELPS COMFORT YOUNG PATIENTS

Members say rushed process through last cycle prompted proposal n

Classmate inspires second-graders to raise money for stuffed animals BY JAMIE

See TUITION, Page A-8

Hyattsville mulls stripping mayor of budget authority

Second-grade students at Hyattsville Elementary School,,such as Esmerelda Aleman and Antony Ramos (right), count money they collected in papier-mâché piggy banks (shown below). The money will be donated to Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

‘Pig project’

8-0 with three abstentions during its Jan. 9 afternoon meeting. The registration fee will increase from $10 to $25 per child, and tuition will increase from $145 to $155 biweekly, effective July 1. Maxwell said registration fees for the before- and after-school program have not been increased since the program’s inception in 1986, and tuition was last increased in 2010. The increases are expected to provide an additional $537,500 to the program’s budget, according to school system documents, which Maxwell said is needed to keep the program self sufﬁcient. The before- and after-school extended learning program operates out of 59 of the county’s 122 elementary schools. Board member Edward Burroughs (Dist. 8) asked if the school system could help fund the increase.

BY JAMIE

ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER

ANFENSON-COMEAU

To prevent a repeat of last budget cycle when the city was forced to dip into its reserve fund to fill a $1 million deficit, Hyattsville council members say they are considering amending their charter to strip the mayor of his budgetary oversight. Two charter amendments, which would redefine the role of the treasurer and city administrator, are to be voted on during the council’s Tuesday evening meeting. Last year, the council did not receive a budget until late May. Council members said they felt rushed

STAFF WRITER

Second-graders at Hyattsville Elementary broke into their piggy banks this month to help bring a little cheer to patients at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., thanks to a classmate. “I came up with the idea that we should use the money to buy stuffed animals for Children’s hospital because my brother, Nick — he’s been there four times to get surgery for his tonsils, and they gave him a stuffed animal, and it made him feel better,” said second-grader Ryan Kidwell.

See PIG, Page A-8

into making budget decisions that resulted in the city approving an unbalanced budget days before the deadline. “Last year’s budget process was horriﬁc,” said Councilman Patrick Paschall (Ward 3). “It lacked any level of process.” Council President Candace Hollingsworth (Ward 1) said under the current charter, the deadline for submitting the budget is 32 days before the beginning of the new ﬁscal year, which begins July 1. “That’s not enough time, especially when you have six new council members in an election year,” Hollingsworth said. “We want all council members to have an opportunity to review the budget document, engage with staff, and have

See HYATTSVILLE, Page A-8

Shelters face challenges in severe weather n

Some locations suffered from overcrowding BY

EMILIE EASTMAN STAFF WRITER

Record freezing temperatures in early January led to crowding at some Prince George’s County homeless shelters and compelled others to offer longer hours of service, ofﬁcials said. “We have had an expanded range of individuals calling into the hotline [this year] just in relation to the severe temperatures,“ said Laila Riazi, director of development for Community Crisis Services Inc., a nonproﬁt that handles

NEWS

A LITTLE EXTRA

Enrichment program classes set Buck Lodge Middle School apart.

A-4

Prince George’s County’s homeless shelter placements. She said her agency processed 40,000 calls through the county’s Homeless Hotline last year and directed around 230 individuals to shelters, but the numbers are running much higher this year based on week-by-week comparisons. The Warm Nights program was full after the ﬁrst week of operation in November and was operating at 40 percent over capacity the second week, Riazi said. The program increased capacity by opening two church locations per week, but is still slightly over capacity, she said. During busy nights, Community

Crisis calls on church congregations to organize extra meals and rearrange shelter rooms to accommodate additional guests, Riazi said, and Community Crisis managers help answer calls to the Homeless Hotline. “We never turn anyone away,” she said. “We work based upon what the situation is. It’s all about meeting the needs of our callers and our guests.” Winter Shelter, an overnight program for homeless people hosted by Laurel churches on a rotating basis, extended its hours during the coldest nights. “Normally the shelter opens at 7

GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE

Carmen Sare (left) and Terance Pett have dinner Monday at the Bethany Community Church in Laurel as part of the Winter Haven program for the homeless.

See SHELTERS, Page A-8

SPORTS

EVERYBODY IN THE POOL

Northwestern sees dramatic increase in swimmers; times start to fall.

A-9

Automotive

B-9

Calendar

A-2

Classiﬁed

B-7

Community News

A-3

Entertainment

B-1

Opinion

A-9

Sports

A-1 Please

RECYCLE

Check out our Services Directory ADVERTISING INSIDE B SECTION

1906227

THE GAZETTE

Page A-2

PEOPLE& PLACES More online at www.gazette.net

College Park Restaurant Week begins Monday

More than a dozen locallyowned restaurants in College Park will participate in the city’s second annual Restaurant Week from Monday through Jan. 26. Participating restaurants will include Aroy Thai, Azteca Restaurant and Cantina, Bagel Place, The Common, Cornerstone Grill and Loft, Fishnet, Hanami Japanese Restaurant, The Jerk Pit, Ledo Restaurant, Looney’s Pub, New York Deli, Pho D’Lite, Ratsie’s Terrapin Eatery, RJ Bentley’s, Slices Pizza Co. and Terrapin’s Turf. Michael Stiefvater, College Park’s economic development coordinator, said the city started Restaurant Week to bring more attention to local businesses during the slow seasons. “Our restaurants do really well during the spring and fall,” he said. “But during the summer and winter months, students are gone, things

are a little slower.” Participating restaurants will offer various deals and discounts this year, including drink specials, buy-one-get-one discounts and meal combinations. “Hopefully it gets people to go out and support local businesses,” Stiefvater said. “Hopefully it gets people to try a place they’ve never gone.” To learn more, visit www.shopcollegepark.org/cprw.

Northwestern High releases Principal’s Honor Roll Eighty-one students were named to the Principal’s Honor Roll list Northwestern High School in Hyattsville for the ﬁrst quarter. In order to be named to the Principal’s Honor Roll list, a student must earn at least a 4.0 GPA and have no grade lower than a 90. Ninth- and 10th-grade students named to the Principal’s Honor Roll list are as follows:

EVENTS Free Food Distribution, 1 to 3 p.m.,

Bladensburg Community Center, 4500 57th Ave., Bladensburg. First come, ﬁrst serve. Individuals need only to sign up for a bag of food regardless of the weather. Contact 301-277-3775 or Seniors5@mail.com. Vote for the Best Book, 4 p.m., New Carrollton Library, 7414 Riverdale Road, New Carrollton. Ages 6-9. Listen to books and vote for your favorite. Contact 301-459-6900. Family Game Night, 5 p.m., Bladensburg Branch Library, 4820 Annapolis Road, Bladensburg. Contact 301-927-4916. Mis Quince Años Open House & Expo, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Langley Park

Community Center, 1500 Merrimac Drive, Hyattsville. Contact 301-4084336; 301-445-4509 (Linea en Español); TTY 301-445-4512.

White House Student Film Festival, 9 p.m., Flowers High School Television

College Park freshman named to dean’s list Olivia Booth of College Park was named to the Bridgewater College dean’s list for the fall 2013 semester. Booth, a freshman at Bridgewater, is majoring in history and political science. Students on the Bridgewater dean’s list earned a grade point average of 3.4 and above, according to a news release. Bridgewater College is a private liberal arts college located in Bridgewater, Va.

Studio, 10001 Ardwick Ardmore Road, Springdale. President Barack Obama will be hosting the ﬁrst White House Student Film Festival highlighting the importance of technology in the classroom. Technical workshops will be offered to assist students and parents in video project submissions. Contact 301-277-1402 or rdallas@pgahc.org.

JAN. 17 “Despicable Me 2,” 7 p.m. Partnership Activity Hall, 811 5th St., Laurel. Free movie for the family. Contact 301725-7800.

JAN. 18 Free Groceries, 9 to 11 a.m., 8740-6 Cherry Lane, Laurel. Lydia’s Pantry gives free groceries to anyone in Maryland in need. Some eligibility guidelines apply. Call 410-777-0157. Read to Rover, 2 p.m., Greenbelt Library, 11 Crescent Road, Greenbelt.

THU

Mount Rainier author discusses latest book Author and photographer Krista Schlyer of Mount Rainier will give a

presentation and talk on her latest book, “Continental Divide: Wildlife, People and the Border Wall” at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 24 at Joe’s Movement Emporium, 3309 Bunker Hill Road in Mount Rainier. Schlyer, a wildlife photographer and writer, said she began the work while documenting the migratory pattern of water bison that cross the U.S.-Mexico border in 2006. “This was around the time people were talking about establishing a border wall, and that crystallized what it would mean to the bison to be cut off from their food or water, because their food source is primarily north of the border and their water is largely to the south,” Schlyer said. Schlyer’s book was released in October 2012 and in 2013, it was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award, the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award and was named one of the “Best of the Best from the University Presses” by the American Library Association.

A&E

Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe! The Renaissance Man, Chris Davis, pays tribute to the master at Greenbelt Arts Center.

SPORTS Check online for coverage of Saturday’s Winter Blitz wrestling tournament and the top boys and girls basketball games.

For more on your community, visit www.gazette.net

ConsumerWatch What are some tips to avoid getting burned when buying firewood?

JAN. 19

BestBet

Send items at least two weeks in advance of the paper in which you would like them to appear. Go to calendar.gazette.net and click on the submit button. Questions? Call 301-670-2070.

JAN. 16

Ninth grade: Blessing Ajayi, Joseph Bazemore, Luis CaceresEuceda, Briana Crawford, Martha Dominguz Luya, Marlan Edwards Jr., Michelle Egwim, Claudia Figueroa Arias, Javae Gee, Marlin Gutierrez Alvareng, Tatyana Hughes, Nandy Leveille, Damaris Machado, Grace Okafor, Nicolette Paul and Joy Uzomah. Tenth grade: Roderick Abbit Jr., Chukwudumaga Ahanotu, Samantha Harrison, Rhode HernandezLopez, Maria Mitiuriev, Brittney Ogbonna, Kinglsey Omenankiti, Jazmin Salmeron-Lopez, Roderick Smith Jr. and Karla Villatoro Santos.

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, 11:30 a.m. to

2:30 p.m., Bladensburg Municipal Building, 4229 Edmonston Road. Contact 301952-4729 or ocr@co.pg.md.us.

MORE INTERACTIVE CALENDAR ITEMS AT WWW.GAZETTE.NET Children build their reading conﬁdence by reading aloud to specially trained therapy dogs. Each child will read for 15 minutes. Registration required. Contact 301-345-5800.

Lesole’s Dance Project in Freedom of Expression, 8 p.m., Joe’s Movement

Emporium, 3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier. Performance features South African dance and music as well as works based in the American modern dance tradition. In observation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, a canned food drive will be held to beneﬁt the Coalition for the Homeless Family Shelters. Cost: $20. Contact 301-699-1819 or malori@joesmovement.org.

Quarter Auction, 2 p.m., American Legion Post 60, 2 Main St., Laurel. Doors open at noon and auction begins at 2 p.m. Paddles: $3 each or two for $5. Food and drinks on sale. Win products. Contact 301-725-2302.

LIZ CRENSHAW

WeekendWeather

JAN. 20 National Great Blacks In Wax Museum Excursion, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.,

Prince George’s Sports & Learning Complex, 8001 Sheriff Road, Landover. Join us for a visit to Baltimore and tour the Historic Blacks In Wax Museum. Register for SMARTlink #1330421. Fee includes transportation and museum admission fee. Cost: resident, $30; non-resident, $36. Contact 301-5832582; TTY 301-583-2483.

JAN. 22 Beltsville Garden Club January Program, 7:30 p.m., James E. Duck-

worth School, Evans Trail, Beltsville. A fascinating presentation on current scientiﬁc thinking that natural products should replace synthetic chemicals in pest management. Timely subject for gardeners. Contact www. beltsvillegardenclub.org.

1911713

1911958

Liz turns up the heat to dig out the truth.

1911661

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

Get complete, current weather information at

NBCWashington.com

GAZETTE CONTACTS The Gazette – 13501 Virginia Manor Road Laurel, MD 20707 Main phone: 240-473-7500 Fax: 240-473-7501

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Page A-3

Delegate: Statewide speed camera plan in the works n

New bill to take place of proposal that would have expanded hours in county BY JAMIE

ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER

Del. Dereck Davis (D-Dist. 25) of Mitchellville withdrew a bill to increase speed camera operation in Prince George’s County and said he is instead crafting statewide legislation regarding the devices. “I am putting in a statewide bill that does something entirely different but consistent with the original intent,” Davis said in an email to The

Gazette. Davis declined to comment on the statewide proposal until it is ﬁled. Davis’ initial proposal would have extended speed camera operation to 24 hours a day, seven days a week in school zones. The initial bill would have applied only to Prince George’s County. Davis withdrew the county-speciﬁc bill earlier this week. Current state law allows speed cameras to operate in school zones from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. janfenson-comeau@gazette.net

Greenbelt ﬁnds Pinterest-ing way to promote healthy living City is one of few in state to embrace social media site

EMILIE EASTMAN STAFF WRITER

Greenbelt residents with a desire to swap craft and ecofriendly ideas with city officials need look no further than their computer screens. In November, Greenbelt launched an official Pinterest page, making it one of the first municipalities in the state to do so, according to city officials. Pinterest, which was founded in 2010, is a collection of online bulletin boards where users can save and share information and ideas. It is commonly used by people to share crafts or do-it-yourself projects, recipes and health tips. Beverly Palau, Greenbelt’s public information officer, designed and manages the city’s new social media page. She said she created it to engage the community and promote the city’s push for green living and healthy lifestyle choices. Palau also manages the city’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, she said, using suggestions and input from various departments and officials. “I thought it was neat for us to have [Pinterest] boards that showed healthy foods or healthy activities,” she said. Palau said the idea started

“Greenbelt is known as being progressive in the issues it addresses.” Jim Peck, director of research, Maryland Municipal League with the city’s art department, which regularly uses recycled materials for projects. Some of Greenbelt’s online bulletin boards include “Repurposed Art,” “Energy Efﬁcient Home” and “Recyclable Christmas.” Palau said the page, which currently displays nearly 100 items, is starting to gain followers. “I think it will grow. With all our sites, it starts slow and then builds up,” she said. Susan Harris of Greenbelt, a blogger and garden writer, said she visits the city’s Pinterest site, but has not yet formally “followed” it. “I think a Pinterest account for the city of Greenbelt is a great idea,” she said. “I want to see Greenbelt have a livelier online presence as a whole.” Greenbelt has been active on social media for several years, Palau said, and last year won a $75,000 grant in a social media contest sponsored by American Express and the National Trust

for Historic Preservation. The grant was used to make repairs to the lobby of the historic Old Greenbelt Theatre. Jim Peck, director of research at the Maryland Municipal League, said more municipalities are using new technologies to communicate with the public, but it is unusual for them to be heavily involved with social media. “Greenbelt is known as being progressive in the issues it addresses. I’m not surprised to hear that they’re taking a leadership role in that,” he said. Some of Maryland’s larger cities, such as Annapolis, Bowie, Rockville and Gaithersburg, aren’t using Pinterest to reach residents, although some are considering it. Laurel is one, according to its public information ofﬁcer, Pete Piringer. Craig Terrill, Takoma Park’s media specialist, said he created a Pinterest page for the city about a year ago, but it didn’t generate a lot of activity. “I thought it might be a great collaborative tool, but it just turned out to be too time intensive,” he said. Palau said she has high hopes for the Pinterest page based on the success of the city’s other social media activity. “Even our animal shelter has a Facebook page,” she said. “I think the city of Greenbelt has jumped on that wagon quickly and has been successful.” eeastman@gazette.net

120 years of continuous operation

You are cordially invited to attend the St. Mary of the Mills Winter Open House. We educate students from Kindergarten through 8th Grade. We will be hosting our winter open houses on the following dates:

1884413

PHOTOS BY TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Fundraiser planned for Hyattsville Library n

Money to be used for summer reading programs and other special activities BY JAMIE

ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER

by The Friends of the Hyattsville Library will be holding a fundraiser Tuesday at Franklin’s Restaurant, Brewery and General Store at 5121 Baltimore Ave. in Hyattsville, said Friends member Bart Lawrence of Hyattsville. To participate, Lawrence said patrons should turn over their itemized receipt after purchases to a store attendant or host and mention the Friends of the Library fund raiser, Lawrence said. Franklin’s will donate 20 percent of the total to the Friends of the Hyattsville Library. The fundraiser lasts all day and includes

uel Metho n a d m Preschool

Providing an exceptional first-school experience for young children for over 34 years.

OPEN HOUSE

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Sunday, January 26, 2014 from 3pm to 5pm Tuesday, January 28, 2014 from 7pm to 9pm Wednesday, January 29, 2014 from 9am to 11am

Unique MSDE accredited program for ages 2 to 5 years.

2, 3, and 5 day classes (Half, Extended, and Full-day classes available) Conveniently located off Rt. 29 or I-95 in Howard County 1911969

We are committed to excellence and dedicated to Catholic Education. For more information visit our website www.stmaryofthemills.org or contact Laura Guenin at 301-498-1433 X 557 or lguenin@stmaryofthemills.org

Above, Jon and Anne Gardner of Greenbelt, also known as Transatlantic Crossing, play during a world music concert Sunday with other local artists performing at the Greenbelt Community Church in Greenbelt to raise money for Springhill Lake Elementary School after-school art classes. At right, Karan Temple True of Greenbelt (left), Marat Moore (center) of Greenbelt and Martha Folk of Lanham applaud.

t is

St. Mary of the Mills School

Raising money through music

10755 Scaggsville Road, Laurel, MD 20723 301.725.5178 • www.emmanuelpreschool.com

1911712

dining, carry-out and general store purchases, Lawrence said. “This is a fun and easy way to support the Friends of the Hyattsville Library, so they can continue to fund guest performers, children’s summer reading programs, and other public programs,” he said. The Friends support the Hyattsville Branch Library by raising funds for summer reading programs, purchasing materials for library programs, and paying for other library special events, Lawrence said. Friends of the Hyattsville Library also operate the Novel Endings Used Bookstore in the library’s lower level, which has now reopened. Funds go to assist library functions and events, Lawrence said. janfenson-comeau@gazette.net

THE GAZETTE

Page A-4

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

LOCAL

Historic building poses challenges for planned studio

Back by popular demand

Adelphi classes mix fun, learning BY

Nonproﬁt aims to work with commission, appeal Hyattsville site designation n

EMILIE EASTMAN STAFF WRITER

Juggling, scrapbooking and building 7-foot-long roller coasters out of K’Nex aren’t typical homework assignments, but they are just some of the skills Buck Lodge Middle School students are learning in their enrichment program classes this year. The special non-credit classes are how students at the Adelphi school decided to spend the 40-minute middle school day extension Prince George’s County mandated in 2012, said Stacey Gaines, co-director of Buck Lodge’s enrichment program. Now in its second year, the program separates Buck Lodge from other county middle schools, many of which designated the extra time as study hall, Gaines said. “It’s such a different model than what [the county] is used to seeing with this extra time,” she said. This year, Buck Lodge re-offered some of the most popular classes from the 20122013 school year, including model rocket building, yoga, soccer and engineering, Gaines said. Students select their favorite 10 classes from a list, and are placed into one of them for the entire semester. The classes are led by Buck Lodge’s classroom teachers, who select topics based on their own passions and the students’ interests, she said. Susan Creamer instructed a knitting class of about 20 students from August to December. She said many students learned additional stitches through online tutorials after learning the basic stitch in class, and one student taught herself and several of her peers how to crochet. Creamer, who instructed a journaling enrichment class last year, is the school’s technology teacher. “That’s one of the wonderful things about the enrichment program,” she said. “Teachers can select something that is very different and students are able to see us in a different light. You learn things about your colleagues too, which is fascinating.” Erica Ponce, 13, of Adelphi took a scrapbooking class last semester, and said she would like to be placed in the same class during this year’s second round of enrichment programming, which begins Jan. 21. “I like being creative,” she said. “We made pages and we also paint. You could duct tape your binders and journals and stuff.” The eighth-grader said she plans to use

BY JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER

A nonprofit art studio is continuing with plans to move into a long vacant building in Hyattsville, despite concerns raised due to the site’s historic designation. “We will be appearing before the [Historic Preservation] Commission on Jan. 21,” said Barbara Johnson, executive director and founder of Art Works Now. “The intention is to go over the design plan with the commissioners. Hopefully, we can come to an agreement on the design and move forward.” The building, located at 4800 Rhode Island Ave., was constructed in 1951 and housed Marche Florists until 1986. In 2008, the property was sold for use as a church, but zoning laws prohibited a church at the site, and the building has since remained vacant, according to a planning department report. Johnson said the building was in disrepair when Art Works Now purchased it last year, and the nonproﬁt had no knowledge that Prince George’s County had placed it on a list of historic resources. Certain design features, such as an extension of the sec-

Gardiner hired as assistant city manager, a position left vacant since 2004 BY

EMILIE EASTMAN STAFF WRITER

Former Hyattsville Mayor Bill Gardiner is returning from the beaches of Chile to once again take up a local government position — only this time with the city of College Park. Filling a position left vacant for a decade, Gardiner began his duties Monday after the College Park City Council unanimously approved his hire Jan. 7. Gardiner, 51, served eight years as Hyattsville’s mayor and had been temporarily living in Santiago, Chile, since 2011 while his wife, Anita Sanyal, taught at a university there. He applied for the College Park position last year after he and his wife decided to move back to Prince George’s County. This won’t be Gardiner’s first time working for College Park. In 1989, Gardiner interned for the city planning department while pursuing his master’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, he said. During the internship, he performed ﬁscal analyses under city planning director Terry Schum. In his new role, 25 years later, Gardiner said he will help make budget decisions,

1912289

janfenson-comeau@ gazette.net

BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE

Eighth-grader Edgar Sanchez demonstrates circus skills he is learning during an Jan. 9 open house highlighting enrichment classes at Buck Lodge Middle School. her new scrapbooking skills for fun outside of class. Eighth-graders Nelson Romero, 14, and Wayne Campbell, 13, of Beltsville spent four months building a mini carnival out of K’Nex in their mechanics class. Last school year, the boys took the same class and helped classmates build a ball factory. “Something I would say that was really great in this class to take away was just the way of your mindset working to work with other people and have the determination to

ﬁnish it all,” Nelson said. “It makes you feel great ﬁnishing it.” Gaines said the classes are a way for students and teachers to work side by side and learn more about each other. “It gives you an opportunity to interact with kids in a way you don’t interact with them during the normal school day,” she said. “It’s more about learning how to communicate with people — it’s learning how to collaborate.” eeastman@gazette.net

Former Hyattsville mayor heads to College Park n

ond floor to accommodate a less-steep staircase, might not be allowed if the site is recognized as historic, and the costs of renovating the building may be more than the nonproﬁt can afford, Johnson said. As a backup plan, Art Works Now is also appealing the commission’s Dec. 17 decision to keep the building on the historic register. “The most pragmatic thing we can do is to follow all avenues that are laid out,” Johnson said. The city of Hyattsville awarded Art Works Now a $90,000 grant for facade work, and council members have spoken in favor of the project. Hyattsville Councilwoman Shani Warner (Ward 2) said Art Works Now would be better for preserving the original structure than leaving it as a vacant historic site. “Right now, we have a long-empty commercial building which is rapidly falling apart,” Warner said. “Counterintuitively, the best chance of preserving the building’s architecturally distinctive features, such as the greenhouse and the stone facade, is to designate the building a normal property.” Gloria Thompson, Hyattsville Preservation Association president, said her organization is also in favor of the Art Works Now project moving forward with its design plans.

assist in updating the city’s strategic plan, and develop sustainability policies and practices. College Park City Manager Joseph Nagro, who was the last person to hold the assistant city manager position in 2004, said Gardiner’s experience will be a valuable asset to the city. “We looked at what he had brought into Hyattsville over the years,” he said. “He understands municipal government.” Gardiner said he was responsible for helping raise city revenue and staff salaries, encouraging economic growth and improving the city’s sustainability. “I think we raised Gardiner the level of expectations for what the city could deliver and what it could attract in terms of investment,” Gardiner said. “And that includes our own investment in our infrastructure.” While in ofﬁce, Gardiner also pushed for improvements to city parks and streets. Jim Chandler, Hyattsville acting city administrator, worked with Gardiner during the former mayor’s terms. Although Gardiner will now be employed by a neighboring municipality, Chandler said he is looking forward to working with Gardiner in his new role.

“On behalf of the city, we’d like to congratulate him,” Chandler said. “Bill’s long legacy of community service speaks for itself.” Nagro said he interviewed eight candidates from several states, including Nebraska, for the assistant city manager position. Councilman Fazlul Kabir (Dist. 1) said Gardiner’s pro-business approach and mayoral experience made him stand out. “We were looking for someone who could be working as a liaison between the city and the other agencies, especially in the state government and also the county government because we don’t really have that kind of interface,” Kabir said. “His experience will be very useful.” The City Council made special accommodations for Gardiner by waiving the requirement for him to live within College Park limits, since he already owned a home in neighboring Hyattsville. Gardiner said he will return to the Hyattsville home he owns and had been renting out, which is located about two miles from College Park. “I’m not opposed at all to living in College Park, but for right now as we transition back, it would be a bit more challenging to rent or buy a place in College Park,” he said. “I’m close enough to bike to work.” eeastman@gazette.net

JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU/THE GAZETTE

Barbara Johnson, executive director of Art Works Now, stands outside the old Marche Florists building, which was purchased by the nonproﬁt art studio last year.

Maxwell is ﬁnalist for superintendent honor Bladensburg High could receive $10,000 if schools CEO wins national award n

BY JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER

Prince George’s County’s CEO has been named one of four ﬁnalists for 2014 National Superintendent of the Year by AASA, the American Association of School Administrators. “I was very surprised, very proud and very humbled, but this is due to a lot of people’s efforts,” Maxwell said of the award. “It takes a whole team to get this work done. While I’m honored, it’s due to a huge body of work that isn’t just mine.” The National Superintendent of the Year will be

announced during AASA’s National Conference on Education, held Feb. 13-15 in Nashville, Tenn. AASA will present a $10,000 scholarship in the winner’s name to a student at the high school from which the winner graduated. Maxwell is a graduate of Bladensburg High School. Maxwell was named Maryland’s 2014 Superintendent of the Year by the Public School Superintendents’ Association of Maryland in October, based on his work as superintendent in Anne Arundel County from July 2006 to July 2013. Maxwell was named CEO of Prince George’s County Public Schools by County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) last July. janfenson-comeau@ gazette.net

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Page A-5

Town center developer creates $600K fund for county nonproﬁts n

Money to be distributed to groups focusing on education, children BY CHASE COOK STAFF WRITER

Prince George’s County nonprofits will have 600,000 more reasons to apply for grants in the coming spring thanks to Westphalia developer The Walton Group of Companies. The Community Foundation for Prince George’s County and Walton announced Tuesday a three-year fund totaling $600,000. The Walton Community Fund is targeted toward Prince George’s County nonprofits that focus on education and children’s programs, said Desiree Griffin-Moore, executive director of The Community Foundation for Prince George’s County. The Community Foundation is an organization that connects nonprofits to resources, such as grant money, to keep those organizations running effectively. Funding will come in three $200,000 installments and will be distributed through foundation, Griffin-Moore said. The foundation handles a similar type of fund with National Harbor, Griffin-Moore said. Griffin-Moore said the fund is a demonstration of Walton’s desire to improve the community. “I think it is important that a big company is committing to seeing Prince George’s County grow,” Griffin-Moore said. Walton, the developer of the $2 billion Westphalia project in Upper Marlboro, does this in every community it develops in, said Walton CEO Bill Doherty. “It is not just about receiving, it is about giving,” Doherty said. “We do this everywhere

GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE

Laurel Elementary School students Mustafa Ali, 10; Lesbin Monroy, 11; and Audrey Vasquez, 10, compete Tuesday in the Science Bowl at the Bonnie F. Johns Educational Media Center in Landover.

Laurel Elementary advances to Science Bowl semiﬁnals Cooper Lane, Port Towns and Perrywood fall out of tournament n

BY CHASE COOK STAFF WRITER

An energetic Laurel Elementary School Science Bowl team breathed a sigh of relief as they realized there weren’t enough points on the board for Cooper Lane Elementary to complete its late-game comeback. “I thought we were going to lose,” said ﬁfth-grader Lesbin Monroy, 11, of Laurel. But they didn’t. Laurel Elementary defeated Landover Hill’s Cooper Lane 185-160 to move on to the Science Bowl semifinals where they will compete against Glenarden’s Glenarden Woods Elementary on Feb. 25. Glenarden Woods won the 2012-2013 Science Bowl, but the Laurel Elementary students said they are up to the challenge. The Science Bowl is a local Prince George’s County

educational TV show in which elementary and middle school students compete in a game show format similar to Jeopardy! The students request a category with an assigned point value and host Dave Zahren reads them a question. Unlike Jeopardy!, students must give an answer rather than reciting a question. Laurel Elementary competed in the Science Bowl last year, losing to Riverdale’s Beacon Heights Elementary in the semifinals. Fourth-grader Mustafa Ali, 10, of Laurel said the team gained a lot of confidence after they defeated Bladensburg’s Port Towns Elementary 265185 earlier Tuesday. “I feel really confident because the team was doing really good,” Mustafa said. Zahren said he formulates questions not to stump the students, but to challenge them enough to warrant the point value. “Anybody can write a question that someone can’t answer,” Zahren said. “I want to

challenge them. I want this to be an instructional program.” Cooper Lane, which won its first game against Largo’s Perrywood Elementary School 165-130, kept the game close against Laurel, making a comeback before falling short near the end. But even in losing, Cooper Lane sixth-grader Feven Huruy, 12, of Hyattsville said the team’s effort was what mattered. “It was great,” Feven said. “We tried our best, and that’s what counts.” The Science Bowl competition Tuesday featured many students who had never competed in the show before. Ports Towns sixth-grader, Brooke Lipscomb, 11, of Bladensburg said the experience invigorated her interest in science and she planned to compete in Science Bowl when she got to middle school. “It was nerve-wracking at first, but after the first question, I wasn’t as nervous,” Brooke said. ccook@gazette.net

College Park Preschool Education Fair Saturday, January 25th • 12-3 pm Snow date: February 1st Representatives from Area Pre-Schools

College Park Community Center 5051 Pierce Avenue College Park, MD 20740 301-441-2647 Children Are Welcome

FREE EVENT Refreshments Available

1911955

1911708

it was “highly likely” that the fund will continue longer than the three years. “We are very excited to be working with Prince George’s County and to see which foundations request funds,” he said. Rob Howze, executive director of the nonproﬁt Mentoring to Manhood, said he plans to apply for some of the money from the Walton Fund. His Bowie-based nonproﬁt focuses on tutoring and mentoring Prince George’s County youths ages 12 to 18. The nonprofit wants to continue expanding its tutoring from group sessions to include individual checkups with students during the week that could be possible with money from the Walton Fund, Howze said. “We need it. It is imperative,” Howze said. “Without the support funds, we can’t bring in academic support.”

we do business. It is something instilled in me.” A grant review committee, compromised of seven community members ranging from county business leaders to a pastor, has been formed and it will meet and begin discussing more specific logistics on distributing the money, GriffinMoore said. Nonprofits seeking the money must meet a set of criteria of serving in Prince George’s County, having at least a threeyear track record and operating as a 501(c)(3) outfit, according to the grant requirements. Preference will be given to education projects and nonprofit organizations that operate in south county as Walton has a significant investment there and has a relationship with organizations in that area, said Rick Abbruzzese, a Walton spokesman. Doherty said the three-year plan gives Walton an opportunity to see how its money is used, Doherty said. He said

ccook@gazette.net

smile

A new is just an office

visit away NOW ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS! • Metal-free tooth-colored fillings • Implant tooth replacements • Affordable, effective tooth bleaching • Denture Replacements for difficult-fit patients • Veneers • Invisaline® 1911706

Dr. Leonard Bers Master in the Academy of General Dentistry

Melwood Professional Center

9650 Marlboro Pike Upper Marlboro

301-599-0303 Visit my website at www.DrBers.net

Page A-6

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

POLICE BLOTTER GREENBELT

Center City JAN. 1 Area of Greenbelt Road and Lakecrest Drive, DWI/DUI arrest,

2:58 a.m. Aaron Emmanuel Proctor, 22, of Washington, D.C., was arrested and charged with driving while impaired by alcohol and other trafﬁc-related charges as a result of a trafﬁc violation. The suspect was released on citations pending trial.

Area of Kenilworth Avenue and Greenbelt Road, DWI/DUI

arrest, 4:41 a.m. Christian Daniel Taylor, 21, of New Carrollton was arrested and charged with driving while impaired by alcohol and other trafﬁc-related charges as a result of a trafﬁc violation. The suspect was released on citations pending trial.

JAN. 4 Area of Greenbelt Road and Walker Drive, DWI/DUI arrest,

2:04 a.m. Heamonse Akil Washington, 31, of Washington, D.C., was arrested and charged with driving while impaired by alcohol and other trafﬁc-related charges as a result of a trafﬁc violation. The suspect was released on citations pending trial.

Franklin Park/Beltway Plaza/Greenbelt Metro/ Capitol Ofﬁce Park JAN. 2 6100 block of Breezewood Court, trespass arrest, 12:57 p.m.

Charles William Wilder, 31, of College Park was arrested and charged with trespass after he was found in a vacant apartment. The suspect was released on citation pending trial.

6200 block of Springhill Court, assault, 11:25 p.m. The vic-

tim advised that he was involved in a verbal dispute with the suspect when the suspect struck him in the head with a dinner plate, cutting him. The suspect then threatened the victim with a knife, before ﬂeeing the scene. The victim was transported by ambulance to Doctor’s Community Hospital for treatment. A warrant was obtained charging the following subject with ﬁrstdegree assault and second-degree assault: Camara Wellington, 29, of Lanham.

JAN. 3 6100 block of Breezewood Court, burglary arrests, 8:08 p.m.

Seven youths were arrested for burglary after they were found inside a vacant apartment. The youths, all from Greenbelt, with the exception of a 16-year-old from Beltsville, ranged in age from 15 to 17, were released to parents pending action by the Juvenile Justice System.

JAN. 4 In reference to a carjacking that occurred Dec. 27 in the 6000 block of Springhill Drive; the vehicle taken, a 2002 Lexus

ES300 four-door, was recovered by the Howard County Police Department at an undisclosed location. Two arrests were made. 10:54 p.m.

JAN. 5 9100 block of Edmonston Terrace, disorderly conduct arrest,

7:20 p.m. A 14-year-old Greenbelt youth was arrested for disorderly conduct as a result of an alleged attempt to ﬁght with another youth. The subject was released to a parent pending action by the Juvenile Justice System.

JAN. 8 5900 block of Cherrywood Terrace, burglary arrests, 1:40

p.m. A 17-year-old Silver Spring youth, a 14-year-old Greenbelt youth and a 17-year-old College Park youth were arrested for burglary and trespass after they were found in an unused laundry room. The 17-year-old Silver Spring youth was also arrested for possession of a false government document. All three were released pending action by the Juvenile Justice System. 6000 block of Springhill Drive, vandalism, 6:22 p.m. Un-

known person(s) vandalized an unused laundry room.

5900 block of Cherrywood Terrace, malicious burning,

4:45 p.m. Unknown person(s) attempted to burn paper in the hallway of an apartment building. Two possible suspects observed.

Greenbelt East/Greenway Shopping Center JAN. 6 6700 block of Lake Park Drive, burglary, 11:13 p.m. Un-

known person(s) used unknown means to enter the residence. Money was taken.

JAN. 8 7601 Hanover Parkway, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute arrest, 2 p.m. A 17-year-old Greenbelt youth was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in a school zone, possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia after he was found to be in possession of a quantity of suspected marijuana and paraphernalia commonly used to weigh and ingest marijuana. The youth was released to a parent pending action by the school board and the Juvenile Justice System.

Automotive crime citywide JAN. 1 9100 block of Edmonston Road, vandalism to auto. Un-

known person(s) broke out the rear window of a vehicle.

JAN. 2 Recovered stolen auto. A 2005 Jeep Cherokee, reported

stolen Dec. 31 from the 5900 block of Cherrywood Terrace, was recovered by the Metropolitan Police Department in the unit block of Gallatin Street N.E., Washington, D.C. No arrests.

JAN. 3 6100 block of Springhill Terrace, theft from auto. Rear tag,

Maryland 05987M3.

9000 block of Breezewood Terrace, attempt stolen auto. 9200 block of Springhill lane,

stolen auto. A green 1998 Dodge Dakota Pickup, Maryland tags 1BD0654.

JAN. 4 100 block of Westway, theft from auto. Four tires and rims were taken from a vehicle.

7600 block of Ora Glen Drive, theft from auto. Unknown

person(s) broke out the front passenger window and removed the victim’s purse and contents.

Recovered stolen auto. A 2000 Dodge Stratus four-door,

reported stolen Dec. 15 from the 6100 block of Breezewood Drive, was recovered this date by the Hagerstown Police Department in the 400 block of George Street. No arrests were made.

JAN. 6 6500 block of Capitol Drive, theft from auto. Unknown person(s) broke out a window and removed the center console storage unit. 9200 block of Springhill Lane, recovered stolen auto. A

1998 Nissan Maxima four-door, reported stolen to the Prince George’s County Police Department. No arrests. Recovered stolen auto. A 1998 Dodge Dakota pickup, re-

ported stolen Jan. 3 from the 5900 block of Cherrywood Terrace, was recovered by the Metropolitan Police Department in the 1400 block of Montana Avenue N.E., Washington, D.C. No arrests. 7400 block of Greenway Center Drive, theft from auto. A brief-

case and laptop computer were taken from an unlocked vehicle.

JAN. 7 7100 block of Lake Drive, stolen auto. A 2011 Acura MDX four-door. The vehicle was recovered the same day by the Anne Arundel County Police Department at an undisclosed location. No arrests made.

JAN. 8 Recovered stolen auto. A 2005 Cadillac Escalade, reported

stolen May 15 from the 7800 block of Mandan Road, was recovered by the Charles County Sheriff’s Department in the area of Henry Ford Circle in Waldorf. No arrests.

JAN. 9 7200 block of Morrison Drive, vandalism to auto. Unknown person(s) broke out the front passenger window.

POLICE BLOTTER HYATTSVILLE

DEC. 29 Vandalism to auto, 5700 block of 38th Avenue. Sometime during the night, someone broke out the passenger side window of a parked vehicle. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 1:30 p.m., someone stole the victim’s purse from her cart while she was shopping at a store in the mall. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 2:45 p.m., a suspect was arrested for shoplifting at a store in the mall.

DEC. 30

1884404

Vehicle theft, 4700 block of 44th Avenue. Sometime between Dec. 26 and 11 a.m. Dec. 30, someone stole a 2005 Honda Odyssey while it was at a shop for repairs. Vehicle theft, 3600 block of Gallatin Street. Sometime between Dec. 28 and 5 p.m. Dec. 30, someone stole a parked 2002 Dodge Ram van. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 3:30 p.m., a suspect was apprehended for shoplifting at a store in the mall. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 8 p.m., a suspect was arrested for shoplifting at a store in the mall.

DEC. 31 Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 7:30 p.m., someone stole the night deposit money from a store in the mall while the clerk was distracted by a customer. Theft from auto, 5700 block of 29th Avenue. Sometime during the night, someone stole property from a parked vehicle. Vandalism, 5900 block of 40th Avenue. Sometime during the night, someone painted grafﬁti on the outside of a business and damaged its awnings. Theft, 2800 block of Nicholson Street. Sometime between 3 a.m. and noon, someone stole property from an apartment.

JAN. 1 Vandalism, 5900 block of Ager Road. At approximately 12:30 a.m., it was found that someone had spray painted grafﬁti on the side of a box truck. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 2 p.m., a suspect was arrested for shoplifting at a store in the mall.

JAN. 2 Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 2:45 p.m., two unknown suspects stole

the victim’s wallet while she was at the mall then ﬂed toward the Metro station.

JAN. 3 Burglary, 3700 block of Hamilton Street. Sometime between Jan. 1 and 11 a.m. Jan. 3, someone broke into a vacant property and stole tools being used to renovate the building. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 2:30 p.m., a suspect was arrested for shoplifting at a store in the mall. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 3:15 p.m., a suspect was apprehended for shoplifting at a store in the mall. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 5:45 p.m., a suspect was arrested for shoplifting at a store in the mall.

JAN. 4 Disorderly conduct, 3300 block of East West Highway. At approximately 12:30 p.m., a suspect was arrested for disorderly conduct in the parking lot of a home improvement store. Theft, 3500 block of East West Highway. At approximately 2 p.m., a suspect was apprehended for shoplifting at a store in the mall.

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Driver hits ice patch, kills pedestrian n

Vehicle also crashed into store, police say BY

EMILIE EASTMAN STAFF WRITER

A pedestrian died of critical injuries Jan. 13 after being struck by a vehicle that hit a patch of ice on Rhode Island Avenue and crashed into a store, according to Prince George’s County police. Jose Martin Huaman, 24, of

Hyattsville was walking to the bus stop on his way to work at the Arundel Mills mall when the incident happened, his aunt, Nancy Ibarra Forcune, said. “He was a very hard worker. Very honest,” she said. “He was working very hard because he has a sister with lupus and he was trying to help.” The driver of the vehicle, a 44-year-old woman, lost control of her car near the 4800 block of Rhode Island Avenue and crashed into the front of an

upholstery store after striking Huaman, police spokeswoman Nicole Hubbard said. The incident is still under investigation, and charges have not yet been ﬁled, Hubbard said. Huaman, who was unmarried, leaves behind three sisters, Forcune said. “Everybody loved him. He had very good qualities,” she said. “We weren’t ready.” eeastman@gazette.net

POLICE BLOTTER LAUREL

JAN. 9

JAN. 6 1200 block of Sandy Spring Road, theft/vandal-

ism

14200 block of Baltimore Avenue, theft

14700 block of Baltimore Avenue, motor vehicle

theft

14100 block of Baltimore Avenue, theft from mo-

tor vehicle

JAN. 7 14200 block of Park Center Drive, theft from mo-

tor vehicle

200 block of Fort Meade Street, theft from motor

vehicle

JAN. 10 14800 block of Fourth Street, motor vehicle theft

— motorcycle

300 block of Washington Boulevard, theft

JAN. 11

JAN. 8

Unit block of Riverview Court, attempted burglary 15100 block of Baltimore Avenue, theft Unit block of Riverview Court, burglary — forced

200 block of Fort Meade Road, theft from motor

vehicle/vandalism

14600 block of Laurel Bowie Road, theft 15100 block of Baltimore Avenue, theft — shop-

lifting

8100 block of Fenwick Court, theft — motor ve-

hicle part/accessories

entry/theft

JAN. 12 14600 block of Shiloh Court, theft — motor ve-

hicle part/accessories

1911993

POLICE BLOTTER This activity report is provided by the Prince George’s County Police Department as a public service to the community and is not a complete listing of all events and crime reported.

District 1 Headquarters, Hyattsville, 301-699-2630, covering Adelphi, Beltsville, Berwyn Heights, Bladensburg, Brentwood, Calverton, Cheverly, Chillum, College Park, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, Edmonston, Greenbelt, Hyattsville, Landover, Landover Hills, Langley

ONLINE For additional police blotters, visit www.gazette.net Park, Mount Rainier, New Carrollton, North Brentwood, Riverdale, Riverdale Park, University Park and West Lanham Hills.

JAN. 6 Residential break-in, 5300 block 85th Ave, 12:31 a.m. Theft from vehicle, 7900 block

Riggs Road, 9:23 a.m.

Commercial property break-in,

5300 block 85th Ave, 10:12 a.m. Theft, 6800 block Riverdale Road, 11:51 a.m. Residential break-in, 1000 block East West Highway, 1:30 p.m. Vehicle stolen, 8200 block Baltimore Ave, 1:55 p.m. Theft, 5000 block Windom Road, 2:16 p.m. Theft from vehicle, 6400 block Lamont Drive, 4:44 p.m. Theft from vehicle, 2000 block Ravenswood St., 5:47 p.m.

Still can’t find the car you were looking for?

Knee Pain?

Want to Avoid Knee Replacement? Come Learn about a New, Safe, FDA-Approved, Non-Surgical Treatment

RSVP for one of these free seminar dates: Wednesday, 1/22 and 1/29 at Noon at Sakura Buffet, 9031 Baltimore Ave., College Park, MD. Attend one of our FREE lunch educational seminars to learn: • Causes of knee pain • How to avoid surgery • Why many treatments don’t work • What you can do!

Imagine walking, climbing stairs, or running without knee pain! Over 2,500 physicians and 36 medical institutions nationwide including the Cleveland Clinic and Columbia University - are successfully using this innovative procedure to alleviate knee pain in thousands of knee pain sufferers.

For more info, visit

www.terrapincarecenter.com

CALL NOW: 240.821.6664

1911957

Page A-7

THE GAZETTE

Page A-8

TUITION

Continued from Page A-1 “I would just hate to see parents, especially those with two, three or four kids at one site, to have to experience an increase and struggle to the point where you have students sitting at home watching TV because they can’t afford it,” Burroughs said. Sheeran said the costs are approximately half that found for equivalent child care in the private sector. “If this is a self-supporting program, which it was set up to be, then we don’t have a lot

HYATTSVILLE

Continued from Page A-1 the time to ask those critical questions and get the answers to those questions before they make any decisions.” Under the proposed amendments, the treasurer will prepare a budget under the direction of the city administrator and City Council and, rather than the mayor, the city administrator will present a budget to the council, no later than 60 days before the beginning of the new ﬁscal year. Currently, the treasurer prepares the budget under the mayor’s direction.

of choice but to raise tuition when costs go up,” Maxwell said. “Unless the board wants to start paying for people’s child care.” Brenda Neal, county school system program supervisor, said state and county agencies offer vouchers and subsidies for low-income families. Tuition rates for nonresident students increases by approximately $100 per year for elementary and secondary students, and approximately $1,000 for special education students. Tuition rates differ depend-

“Having the mayor, who after all is only a part-time mayor, burdened with putting together the city budget does not ﬁt well with our form of government in Hyattsville,” Paschall said. Mayor Marc Tartaro said he knew the workload when he chose to run for ofﬁce, having served nine years on the council and as mayor since 2011. “At the end of the day, with the system we have now, the mayor is responsible for putting together the budget,” Tartaro said. “If we want to change that, I think the residents should decide that, through a referendum or other means, not the council deciding it behind closed doors.”

ing on whether the student is coming from another Maryland county, Washington, D.C., Virginia, or some other state or country. If the student is attending school for less than one 180day school year, the fees are prorated accordingly, according to school system documents. The fees are calculated yearly and are the total cost of educating a student based on the current year’s estimated enrollment and estimated expenditures for the year.

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

‘Jewels or Junk’ Russell Schatz (right) of Hyattsville talks about the antique clock he brought in to be evaluated by appraiser and auctioneer Thomas Weschler of Washington, D.C., on Saturday during the “Jewels or Junk” event at the Hyattsville Municipal Center. Residents attended to ﬁnd out the history and value of family heirlooms and other prized possessions.

janfenson-comeau@ gazette.net

Hyattsville resident Jim Groves, moderator for the Hyattsville Organization for a Positive Environment community listserv, said the council tries to improve the budget process annually. Groves said any changes that give groups longer to examine the budget before it is approved would be an improvement. “Whatever they can do to streamline the process is ﬁne by me,” Groves said. “If this is how they think the budget will best work, and they have the votes, then they should do it. That’s democracy in action.” janfenson-comeau@ gazette.net

GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE

PIG

Continued from Page A-1 This year, second-graders at the school took part in a fundraising effort by saving money in papier-mâché piggy banks they made and selecting where the funds should be placed. After hearing about Ryan’s brother, the students decided to help the hospital. Last week, the students broke open their banks and discovered

they had raised $947.30 to purchase stuffed animals for children at the hospital, according to second-grade teacher Cicili Harrison. Harrison said Principal June Burton donated an additional $52.70 to raise the total to $1,000. “I hope it will make them feel better,” Ryan said of the stuffed animals the patients will get. The second-grade teachers said they were casting about for a cause the students could raise money for when they were approached by Ryan and his

mother, Stephanie Kidwell. Ryan’s younger brother Nick underwent surgery in October to remove polyps from his vocal chords. Nick was scared, but was helped through the surgery by a stuffed puppy, his mother said. “It was a huge comfort,” she said. Stephanie Kidwell was trying to raise donations to provide stuffed animals to comfort other children at Children’s when she learned of the piggy bank project from Ryan and suggested that the project beneﬁt young patients. “The social side of this is having a goal, a cause for collecting money,” said Cheryl Ramsey, a second-grade teacher. “So we talked with the students about what we could use the money for.” Ramsey said students were particularly moved to choose Children’s hospital, knowing the Kidwells’ story. “For the students, they had a vested interest, because it was one of their classmates, their teammates; that really brought it home,” Ramsey said. “So they were very vested in the pig project.” Second-grade teacher Cicili Harrison said students raised money in a number of ways. “Some did chores. Some included their allowances. Some parents took the pigs to work with them,” she said. Ramsey said the school named it the Kid Well Campaign, in honor of Nick Kidwell and the Kidwell family. Stephanie Kidwell said she was excited when she found out the school had chosen her family’s project. “I cried when they told me,” Kidwell said. janfenson-comeau@ gazette.net

SHELTERS

Continued from Page A-1 p.m., but during these cold frigid days ... we let [the guests] stay until 9 p.m. a couple days,” said Pam Brown, the Winter Shelter coordinator at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Laurel. “Some people were coming in that were not registered. We had a couple cases where people were like, ‘It’s so cold. We can’t stay outside.’” At St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Laurel, which hosted the Winter Shelter program for the week of Jan. 5., crowding was not an issue, although the church came close to reaching its maximum of 30 guests, coordinator Tom Arnold said. Arnold said the program extended its hours on the mornings of Jan. 7 and Jan. 8 because of severely low temperatures that dropped to the single digits overnight in Laurel. “Other than the 1996 storm when we stayed open all the time, to my knowledge that’s the only time we’ve done that,”Arnold said. Mary Anne Montague has been coordinating the Warm Nights program at Sacred Heart Church in Bowie for 14 years and said the church was prepared for the cold front with soup, sloppy joes and a homemade bingo game that guests played to win gift cards. Montague said her shelter hosted 30 guests, which was more than last year, but that the Sacred Heart congregation stepped up to offer additional support. “The parish comes out like gangbusters for it,” she said. “You just go with the ﬂow.” 135638G

eeastman@gazette.net

The Gazette OUROPINION

Forum

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Page A-9

JAMIE ANFENSON-COMEAU/THE GAZETTE

A speed camera monitors drivers’ speeds on Contee Road in Laurel. A state delegate recently proposed extending the hours cameras operate in Prince George’s County school zones but has since withdrawn the bill.

Pump the brakes on speed camera changes

The use of speed cameras in Prince George’s County has largely remained under the radar. By the time the speed-monitoring devices were approved for the county in 2009, they had already yielded positive results in Montgomery County. Many Prince Georgians were sold on the millions that would be generated for public safety programs and the focus on protecting children. The speed-monitoring devices DELEGATE’S only be used from 6 a.m. INITIAL PROPOSAL can to 8 p.m. weekdays in school TO EXPAND and highway work zones, per HOURS OF USE state law. However, state Del. IS REVVING UP Dereck E. Davis (D-Dist. 25) CONCERNS of Mitchellville was seeking to change the rules, and still may be. Davis drafted legislation that would allow the cameras to operate around the clock, to include weekends, in Prince George’s school zones. After The Gazette published a story Jan. 9 about the legislation, Davis stated in an email that he had planned to withdraw the proposal and would soon introduce a statewide bill “that does something entirely different but consistent with the original intent.” He declined to provide details until he introduced the new proposal. Understandably, there are many valid reasons for such expanded legislation. The most obvious rationalization: Speeding is not limited to school zones or business hours. There are many roadways that suffer from speeding, but are not near educational facilities, and the later hours could aid safety for weekend and evening activities at schools. In addition, putting cameras in pedestrian-heavy areas may encourage drivers to operate vehicles in a safer manner. Also — and this is the reason deserving of criticism — speed camera revenue is beginning to sputter. Drivers have learned where cameras are located, which is reflected in declining revenue from the program. The county’s 72 speed cameras yielded $7.35 million in fiscal 2013, down about $1 million from the previous fiscal year, according to Maj. Robert Liberati, commander of the county police department’s automated enforcement division. The loss of revenue could hinder government budgets that have come to rely on the aid generated from the citations. For example, Morningside used about $642,000 in speed camera revenue to make up for lagging tax revenue in its fiscal 2013 budget. Allowing cameras to be placed anywhere at any time could prove to be a gold mine — fueling critics’ claims that the program is simply a revenue generator disguised as a public safety initiative. Davis likely had good intentions with his initial proposal; after all, breaking the law is wrong where ever it occurs. However, gradual changes in speed camera rules raises questions about whether the county is careening toward around-the-clock camera use statewide — and that’s where leaders may be going off track. Government officials need to stop pretending revenue isn’t a factor and acknowledge that while speed cameras are a public safety measure, municipal and county budgets have come to depend on the income from them. The public understands the benefits of the devices, but the continuing denial that revenue is a driving factor in their use adds to community distrust. Expansion of the program would also raise questions about whether the government is counting on taxpayer violations to bring money instead of seeking other revenue generators. There could be sound logic behind Davis’ proposal (the first one, anyway), but any suggested speed camera changes should start with an open and honest discussion. And residents should make a concerted effort to share concerns regarding speed cameras with Davis before any further legislation gets the green light.

The Gazette Douglas S. Hayes, Associate Publisher

LETTERS TOT HE EDITOR

‘True equity has yet to be achieved in the schoolhouse’ Our nation is six decades removed from Brown vs. The Topeka Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that ordered school desegregation to proceed with “all deliberate speed.” Nearly a decade later in his “I Have A Dream” speech, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged us to contemplate the “fierce urgency of now” and to avoid succumbing to the status quo of “gradualism.” Those phrases suggest concern that those implementing the desegregation order had chosen the third alternative definition of the adjective “deliberate,” as in: done or acting in a careful and unhurried way. In Washington last summer, at the COMMENTARY commemoration of the 50th anniversary KENNETH HAINES of that great oration, an elderly gentleman carried a sign that said, “50 years later and I’m still protesting this s*#t!” Half a century later and de facto geographic and economic segregation still exists. True equity has yet to be achieved in the schoolhouse. We are forced to wonder where Dr. King would fall in today’s debates about education, but he left us some hints. On March 14, 1964, Dr. King accepted the John Dewey Award from the United Federation of Teachers and declared, “The richest nation on Earth has never allocated enough resources to build sufficient schools, to compensate adequately its teachers, and to surround them with the prestige our work justifies. We squander funds on highways, on the frenetic pursuit of recreation, on the overabundance of overkill armament, but we pauperize education.” Let’s get back to that “fierce urgency of now!” Kenneth B. Haines is the president of the Prince George’s County Educators’ Association.

Send us your letters Letters must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. The phone number will not be published; it is for veriﬁcation purposes only. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Letters selected may be shortened for space reasons. Send letters to: Editor, Gazette Newspapers, 13501 Virginia Manor Road, Laurel, MD 20707. E-mail them to princegeorges@gazette.net.

Honoring King through community service Jan. 15 is Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and Jan. 20 will mark the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. Congress designated the holiday in 1994 as a day of service, asking Americans to observe it as a “day on — not a day off” in honor of King’s words, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” Turning the day into one of service honors King’s legacy in a special way with numerous community projects taking place across the country, including weatherizing homes, beautifying schools, serving meals, and supporting veterans and military families. By turning the observance into a day of service, we advance King’s dream of economic opportunity, equality and social justice for all. By serving others, we empower each other and ourselves. We strengthen our communities by building bridges and creating solutions to social problems that allow us to work together toward King’s idealistic vision for the kind of society we are capable of building. King would have turned 85 years old on Jan. 15, a milestone year. Though his time with us was too brief, the wisdom of the messages he brought forth as a young man still hold today. He believed freedom was the one thing worth dying for and, ultimately, this freedom is what our veterans and our soldiers have served to protect. He believed that love could overcome hate, that justice required sacrifice and that faith is the equalizer that surmounts all controversy. Now more than ever, amid the worst recession since the Great Depression, we must take to heart King’s teachings to work together to achieve this dream. Duty to country knows only three colors — red, white and blue — and those who have worn the uniform of the United States Armed Forces have truly served us all and earned the honored title of “veteran.” King never served in the military, but he commanded an army of Americans dedicated to fulfilling our country’s highest ideal — that all men and all women are created equal; an ideal forged in the heat of battle here at home in the struggle for civil rights and around the world in wars against tyranny and oppression. And he died for his commitment to this ideal. “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live,” King said, understanding — as every veteran understands — that freedom is not free. His strength and purpose are matched by those of the veterans we serve, representing Americans of all ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. The key to our success is our diverse workforce with Americans from every racial and ethnic group finding increasing opportunities to serve veterans in rewarding and fulfilling careers throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs. King’s highest goal was to make all of us better than we are, and to help us realize our highest possibilities as individuals and as a people. He fought so hard and died to improve our nation — and may we soon share the radiant vision of unity he so wanted us to see. Dennis H. Smith is director of the VA Maryland Health Care System.

Legislature should seal nonviolent records The decriminalization and even the legalization of marijuana are important cogs in the wheel of comprehensive criminal justice reform in Maryland. Along with enforcing our newly passed gun-safety laws, fighting for safe and sick leave, expanding access to protective orders in cases of dating violence and sexual assault, full funding for the criminal injuries compensation board, and effective prisoner re-entry; the marijuana issue offers our state officials the chance to make a significant difference in how we handle our criminal

justice inequities. Notwithstanding the eventual legalization of marijuana, the Maryland State Legislature should move quickly to implement new laws that seal or shield criminal records of individuals who have been convicted of marijuana possession where violence was not a factor. According to a recent ACLU report, Maryland currently has the fourth-highest arrest rate for marijuana possession in the country. In Maryland, police arrest one out of every 250 people for mari-

juana possession, and marijuana-related arrests make up roughly 50 percent of all drug arrests in our state. Even more alarming is the fact that African-Americans make up only 30 percent Maryland’s population, but make up 58 percent of arrests for marijuana possession despite having equal marijuana usage rates as their white counterparts. Sealing or shielding these conviction records is a critical step toward mitigating the long-term debilitating disparities of our criminal justice system. Without such a law,

13501 Virginia Manor Road, Laurel, MD 20707 | Phone: 240-473-7500 | Fax: 240-473-7501 | Email: princegeorges@gazette.net More letters appear online at www.gazette.net/opinion

Vanessa Harrington, Editor Glen C. Cullen, Senior Editor Copy/Design Meredith Hooker,Managing Editor Internet Nathan Oravec, A&E Editor

Ken Sain, Sports Editor Dan Gross, Photo Editor Jessica Loder, Web Editor

Dennis Wilston, Corporate Advertising Director Doug Baum, Corporate Classiﬁeds Director Mona Bass, Inside Classiﬁeds Director

Jean Casey, Director of Marketing and Circulation Anna Joyce, Creative Director, Special Pubs/Internet Ellen Pankake, Director of Creative Services

thousands of Marylanders who have been convicted of non-violent marijuana possession will continue to be cut off from the societal on ramps (e.g. grants, loans, jobs, school admission) to the highway of upward mobility. If lawmakers in Maryland are serious about comprehensive reform, they’ll pass a shield and seal law in the upcoming legislative session.

Will Smith, Silver Spring The writer is a Democratic candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 20.

POST COMMUNITY MEDIA Karen Acton, Chief Executive Ofﬁcer Michael T. McIntyre, Controller Donna Johnson, Vice President of Human Resources Maxine Minar, President, Comprint Military Shane Butcher, Director of Technology/Internet

COUNTY YOUTH FOOTBALL TEAM WINS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, A-11

HOW THEY RANK BOYS The 10 best boys’ basketball teams in Prince George’s County as ranked by The Gazette’s sports staff:

Rank 1.

School

Record Pts

Riverdale Baptist 17-2 60

DeMatha

13-1 54

Largo

9-1 48

Clinton Christian 9-2 41

Henry A. Wise

Eleanor Roosevelt 8-2 29

Bowie

Charles H. Flowers 8-3 16

Potomac

10.

Capitol Christian 14-5 5

7-2 37

9-2 24 8-3 15

Others receiving votes:

NUMBERS INCREASE,

Central 1.

BEST BET

Suitland at Parkdale, 7:15 p.m. Tuesday: One team will take a

step forward in seeking County 4A League relevancy. Panthers (5-8, 4-4) coming off an overtime upset of Bowie. Suitland (5-4, 3-3) looking for a signature upset victory. They did beat DuVal on Dec. 17.

TOP SCORERS

Name, school M. Reed, Capitol Christian A. Bundu, Largo D. Taylor, Central D. Stockman, Pallotti J. Grimsley, Capitol Christian E. Hill, Surrattsville A. Fox, Eleanor Roosevelt G. Gray, Suitland R. Broddie, Potomac J. Gray, Bowie D. Wiley, Potomac J. Davis, Clinton Christian J. Harrington, Heritage Christ. F. Williams, Laurel M. Till, Henry A. Wise M. West, Friendly B. Better, Crossland

PPG 30.7 27.7 23.8 21.6 21.4 21.2 20.0 19.1 18.9 18.7 18.3 17.8 17.3 17.3 17.2 17.2 17.0

times drop n

irst-year Northwestern High School swimming coach Marcus Fitts only ended up in the sport as a matter of circumstance during his junior year at Bishop McNamara in 200506. Surgery to repair a torn medial collateral ligament during his sophomore season ended his football tenure so, at his physical therapist’s recommendation, he took to training in the water. “I took to [swimming] like a ﬁsh,” Fitts said. “I didn’t know if I would like it but there some-

The 10 best girls’ basketball teams in Prince George’s County as ranked by The Gazette’s sports staff:

Rank 1.

School

Riverdale Baptist 10-2 60

Eleanor Roosevelt 11-0 54

Elizabeth Seton 13-3 48

Charles H. Flowers 7-1 39

Capitol Christian

8-5 35

Bowie

9-4 32

Gwynn Park

10-2 26

DuVal

8-1 16

Largo

8-5 10

10.

McNamara

7-8 6

GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE

Northwestern’s swim program has grown from six athletes to 22 in one season BY JENNIFER BEEKMAN STAFF WRITER

GIRLS

Danny Bernal-Fuentes of Northwestern High School swims in the 50-yard freestyle Saturday.

thing about it that just felt good and I really grew to love it.” For all the reasons Fitts became so passionate about swimming himself — an outlet to feed his competitiveness, the life skills such as dedication and patience it enforces, the opportunities it presents for college — he has made it his mission to spread awareness to the Northwestern community about all the beneﬁts student-athletes can reap from giving the sport a try. “I think swimmers in general are a very special group of people, it’s a team sport but it’s also an individual sport so that factor of things like self-improvement,” Fitts said. “A lot of kids get excited just to see themselves and their

friends [drop time]. ... A lot of kids didn’t know we even had a swim team. I want to make it exciting, kids can work toward scholarships and other opportunities.” As an assistant coach largely in charge of recruitment the past two years, Fitts has helped the team grow from six athletes between both boys’ and girls’ sides a year ago to 22 participants this winter. After a winless 2012-13 season, the Northwestern boys have notched victories over Oxon Hill and Parkdale this winter. Though numbers prevent them from truly competing against most teams — each swim

See NUMBERS, Page A-11

Record Pts

Others receiving votes: St. Vin-

cent Pallotti 3; Crossland 1.

BEST BET

Good Counsel at Seton 7 p.m., Tuesday: Seton defeated Good

Counsel 62-57 when the WCAC teams met in December.

TOP SCORERS

Name, school M. Fletcher, Potomac D. Boykin, Charles H. Flowers C. Jackson, Riverdale Baptist I. Yates, Potomac C. Lee, Henry A. Wise K. Charles, Eleanor Roosevelt C. Tyler, Suitland K. Conteh, Parkdale C. Musgrave, Elizabeth Seton Tak. Ellis, Gwynn Park A. Long, Largo C. Ray, Riverdale Baptist Tas. Ellis, Gwynn Park L. Jing, Laurel M. Sisco, Friendly J. Harris, Crossland B. Hughey, Capitol Christian D. McQueen, DuVal

PPG 23.6 22.3 21.2 19.0 18.8 18.6 18.3 17.7 17.4 17.2 17.0 17.0 16.9 16.6 16.4 16.1 16.0 15.8

Oxon Hill grad becomes ‘the guy’ at Bowie State Gatling leads the Bulldogs in points per game this winter n

KENT ZAKOUR STAFF WRITER

BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE

Central High School’s Davon Taylor, one of the county’s leading scorers, scores against Gwynn Park on Tuesday.

Big changes in scoring Lack of quality post players, new hand-check rules take their toll on the scoreboard n

TRAVIS MEWHIRTER STAFF WRITER

One hand. That’s all Cedric Holbrook claims it takes to be able to count the amount of “quality, quality big men” in the Prince George’s County public school boys’ basketball ranks this season or any in recent memory. The private schools scoop them up, leaving the publics with an abundance of fast guards. A butterfly effect has ensued, and tangible evidence can be found in one place in gyms

across the county most Tuesdays and Fridays: the scoreboard. Scoring has always been relatively high in Prince George’s County, given the amount of talent and athleticism that routinely feeds into the system. This year has been exceptionally so, due in part to a variety of factors, but two in particular that several coaches pointed to — the guards, and offensive systems now being catered to them. The collective mindset, with a few exceptions, goes something like this: Guards are built to run, running leads to quick shots or layups, quick shots or layups lead to an increase in possessions, an increase in possessions leads to more op

See SCORING, Page A-11

Ray Gatling knew he wasn’t going to miss. Just moments after he dribbled left, drove towards the basket and was fouled, the Bowie State University senior guard stepped to the free throw line with a chance to win the game. The Bulldogs trailed by one point with 1.7 seconds and Gatling took a deep breath before proceeding to convert the ensuing two free throws to send his team to a thrilling comeback victory. “At the end of game it’s going to be in his hands to create,” Bowie State coach Darrell Brooks said. “He’s our guy. I almost messed up everything by calling a timeout when he was going to the rim, but he was able to execute.” A possession earlier, Gatling missed a critical free throw that would have tied Saturday’s game against Shaw University. “I knew I was going to make them after letting my teammates down,” Gatling said. “So I looked to drive to the basket again and draw contact. We work on free throws at least 30 minutes a day in practice to be prepared for situations like that.” Gatling, the Bulldogs’ leading scorer (18.0 points per game), transferred from Palm Beach State College before last season and has re-tooled his game this winter. In high school at Oxon Hill, Gatling was a pure scorer, averaging 25.2 points per game during his senior year en route to earning 2010 All-Gazette ﬁrst team honors. But in college last winter, Brooks asked Gatling to become more of a distributing, pass-ﬁrst guard and he obliged,

TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE

Bowie State University’s Ray Gatling goes up for a layup against Shaw University on Saturday.

averaging just nine points per game and 3.5 assists. Now, this winter, his scoring is up and his assists (2.6) are slightly down, and Brooks is adamant that his pupil is a better all-around basketball player. Gatling also leads the Bull

See BOWIE, Page A-11

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Page A-11

Prince George’s County youth football team wins national title The Storm completes 14-0 season with dominant performance in Orlando n

NICK CAMMAROTA STAFF WRITER

Talk to Ronald Gray for a few minutes about football and, well, he doesn’t really talk much about football at all. Gray, the founder and president of the Prince George’s Storm Youth Association as well as the coach of the Junior Pee Wee team that won a Division I American Youth Football national championship in December, is a man of many passions. Namely, helping to turn children throughout Prince George’s County in young men and women. The P.G. Storm, founded in 2002 after Gray spent time working with a youth football program in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8, is aimed not only at producing the highest-possible quality football team but stressing the importance of academics and life skills above all else. “Most coaches will ask about football whenever they see a kid,” said Kimberly Cherry, president of the Met-

SCORING

Continued from Page A-8 portunities to score, and more opportunities to score has led to more basketballs going through the hoop. “It’s been this way for years but now all of us are playing this way,” said Holbrook, Bowie High School’s coach. “With our kids, you got to play to your strengths. There is a lack of big men, which means most of the talent is in the guards. They’re faster, who can get out and run. You want to put them in a system where they can get up and run.”

NUMBERS

Continued from Page A-8 mer can only swim four events, only two individuals — the Wildcats are winning. Jordan Prince, who has won races in the 100-yard backstroke, 200yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle, Daniel Bernal-Fuentes (50-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke), Emily Young (50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle) and Ashley Aguilera (100-yard freestyle, 100-yard backstroke) provide Northwestern with a solid core to build around. Fitts has already made a concerted effort to reach out to Northwestern’s feeder schools to ensure more awareness among future students, something that should positively impact the program within the next couple of years. “We’re actually coming in ﬁrst and second in races,” Fitts said. “Whether we win or lose any of these meets, it’s most important that the kids know they’re winning. We’re having winning swimmers. We’re win-

BOWIE

Continued from Page A-8 dogs in minutes played (29.9). “He didn’t have to score last year, but everyone knew he could,” Brooks said. “Ray did a great job adapting and now he has the green light to be the guy. I knew without a doubt he would be able to do that, but I didn’t know about the intangible leadership-type stuff. He’s done a fantastic job developing into an all-around leader on and off the court.” Added Gatling: “I just got to do what’s best for the team — scorer, facilitator, passer, defender — I’ll do whatever I need to do to win.” Aside from Gatling’s heroics, Bowie State (7-10 overall,

PHOTO RONALD GRAY

The Prince George’s Storm Junior Pee Wee football team became the ﬁrst county Division I team to win an American Youth Football National Championship in December. ropolitan American Youth Football & Cheerleading Conference, “But every time he sees someone, Ron will say, ‘How’s your grades?’ “He’ll honor the kids who, when it comes to awards time at the end of the year, the kids with the best grades will be the ones with the biggest trophies walking out of the room.”

When he founded the P.G. Storm, Gray had four players. Now the organization has anywhere from 280 to 320 participants in football, basketball and cheerleading. This year, his team not only became the ﬁrst in the county to win a Division I American Youth Football national title, but it did so by carrying a 3.45 team grade-point average,

a 14-0 record and by outscoring its opponents by a total of 548-7. Not to mention that essentially the same team made it to the finals in Orlando, Fla., in 2012, but lost in the championship game, 8-7. “This national championship, it proves a lot,” P.G. Storm flag football director Robert Hunter said. “All the kids made the commitment that they were going to come back and win it after finishing in second last year.” Gray evaluates all of his coaches every offseason to ensure they’re not only doing things correctly in their methods of teaching football — he said he could “pull anyone off the street” to coach a winning team — but doing things correctly in their overall approach. Everything from teaching the kids how to properly dress and apply deodorant daily to the recitation of a Bible verse after every practice and game. “You have to study while you’re down there,” Gray said of this year’s trip to Orlando. “You’re sending the kids emails about homework and scheduling sessions at the library, making sure things flow and go the way they should if they’re going to miss school. “The goal is that we want them to be sold, responsible, respectable young men who can walk with integrity.”

The Storm, based in Landover, recently partnered with the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Greenbelt Space Chapter to provide the opportunity for members to participate in an annual robotics competition. And all of what the Storm does is funded through registration fees and fundraising, not through the county. “If you’re not tied to a boys’ and girls’ club or recreational club, it’s hard to sustain growth and be stable. It’s hard to grow your program,” Gray said. “But we’ve tried, from the start, to make it a family atmosphere. We’ve started working hard every day with a spirit of excellence with everything we do.” This year, that culminated in the best way possible — with a 33-0 victory against Highland Park (Arizona) — in the title game. But for Gray and his staff, the championship represented so much more. “This is a pure team. And a lot of times these teams are all-star teams that pull players from all over,” Hunter said. “The group of kids that won this national championship are all kids that live in this community. That’s what makes this so much more special.” ncammarota@gazette.net

In turn, the backcourts have dominated the scoring this year, which has been a harbinger of shootouts. Central’s Davon Taylor is second in scoring among county public school players with 24.9 points per game, Surrattsville’s Evonte Hill third with 21.2, Andre Fox of Eleanor Roosevelt fourth with 20 and Bowie’s Jared Gray and Potomac’s Randall Broddie check in at sixth and seventh with 19.1 and 18.8, respectively. Coincidentally, two of the big men — Abdulai Bundu and Gerard Gray — whom Holbrook could have selected on his one hand of quality frontcourt pres-

ences, are combining to average 46 because there’s not much resistance left in the post to contain them and they also happen to be highly mobile and have ﬁt seamlessly into the run-and-gun fad. “I deﬁnitely believe the absence of the bigs have been the reason for it,” Parkdale coach Tremaine Price said. “That’s the biggest thing. A lot of teams are taking on that North Point, which averaged over 90 points per game last year, style of basketball. You got to adjust to the style, adjust to the kids you got.” Roosevelt coach Brendan O’Connell has established a reputation around the area as some-

thing of a defensive savant, which makes it all the more convincing that he attributed the uptick in points not to an apathetic attitude on the defensive side of the ball, rather to this North Pointstyle of play. “Iknowwe’remakinganeffort to play faster than in the past couple of years,” O’Connell said. “You look at a lot of the college teams that are hot right now and they’re running and they’re scoring more. There’s just more possessions in a game. We’re scoring more but I don’t think that’s because we’re being more efﬁcient but because we have the ball more.” Stricter enforcement of

hand-checking has also led to more freedom for ball handlers. Any contact to the chest or forearms doesn’t go without whistle anymore, and defenders have had to respond by either sending their man to the foul line more or backing off, thereby granting the opposing player more room to operate. O’Connell has seen both happen, and neither situation favors the defense. “There’s not a lot of wasted time,” Holbrook said. “You could end up in the bonus and doublebonus very quickly.” When taking into account the boost in number of possessions, the hand-check rules, more free

throws, and then add in the most obvious source of points — the hotbed that is Prince George’s County basketball — the only direction for scoring to go is up, no matter how stingy a team may be on defense. “I don’t think that defense is being put to the wayside,” Laurel coach Torrence Oxendine said. “We have a lot of scorers in this county, a lot of volume scorers and each team has a guy who can explode night in and night out and a lot of teams have two or three guys who can really ﬁll it up.”

ning in talent and actual skill and technique, with beginning swimmers.” These beginning swimmers are learning from a guy who knows what he is talking about. While in high school, Fitts competed in two Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming and Diving championships, swam for the Savannah College of Art and Design and continues to train and compete. Fitts said he has also emphasized the basics of some of the specialty strokes among his athletes, which he said could give them an advantage in Prince George’s County moving forward. Prince said Fitts’ swimming experience and the small difference in age between the Wildcats and their coach, who recently graduated college, has helped cultivate prosperous swimmer-coach relationships. Aside from the size of the team, one thing separating Northwestern from the county’s top programs is the lack of yearround swimmers and accessibility to facilities and programs

plays a part in that. Fitts said he plans to get the Wildcats involved in fundraising in order to alleviate some of the costs that come along with pursuing the

sport at the club level, something that could also pay off in college scholarships. “Swimming is a very disciplined sport, there’s a lot of

advantages in swimming compared to a lot of other sports,” Fitts said. “It takes a lot more dedication and patience and those really help build the char-

acter of the student-athlete. I know it did a lot of justice for me growing up.”

1-5 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association) has struggled against CIAA competition. The Bulldogs, who won the conference tournament last season and advanced to the Division II NCAA Tournament, were picked by the CIAA coaches’ preseason poll to ﬁnish atop the Northern Division. “We needed the [Shaw] victory like we needed air,” Brooks said. “The kids want to win, but we just aren’t ﬁnishing games and playing consistent defense, getting stops and rebounding. “We have seven seniors, but in basketball years we aren’t that old. Guys are still getting comfortable in their [expanded] roles.” kzakour@gazette.net

1912383

tmewhirter@gazette.net

jbeekman@gazette.net

THE GAZETTE

Page A-12

Senior ﬁnds the time to improve Parkdale’s Conteh increases her scoring each season n

Crossland girls moving up 3A/2A/1A League BY GAZETTE STAFF

STAFF WRITER

135281G

KEEPING IT BRIEF

The Crossland High School girls’ basketball team’s offense is led by three seniors in Janee Harris (16.1 points per game), Uniqek Miller (11.9) and Alexis Welch (10.8). Harris has averaged 18.4 points in her last ﬁve games, including a 31-point outing in Monday’s 84-23 victory over Fairmont Heights. Crossland (7-4, 6-2) is in third place in 3A/2A/1A League behind Largo (8-5, 7-0) and Gwynn Park (10-2, 8-0), who are scheduled to play each other tonight. The Cavaliers lost to Gwynn Park (57-53) and Largo (72-52) when they met earlier this season.

ERIC GOLDWEIN

Parkdale High School senior Kareema Conteh stays busy. She’s a four-year varsity basketball player, a volleyball player and a top student, taking three Advanced Placement courses and recording a 4.125 gradepoint average in the first quarter. “I manage my time well,” said Conteh, who went straight from volleyball practices to basketball workouts during the fall, getting her school work done as soon as she returned home. “I’m very good with time management.” The hard work is paying off for Conteh and the Panthers’ girls’ basketball team. The 5-foot-6 guard is having her best season with Parkdale (4-5), leading the team in scoring with 17.7 points per game, ranking fifth among all Prince George’s County 4A League players. Panthers coach Lawrence Watson said Conteh is the type of well-rounded athlete that fits with Parkdale’s basketball team, which has placed all of its seniors in college the last three years. “She’s very smart and she plays intelligently and hard,” Watson said. “ ... She’s a true competitor.” Conteh, who put in extra hours at the gym last summer, has improved her scoring each season with Parkdale; she averaged about six as a freshman, 12 as a sophomore, 13 as a junior and is putting up her best numbers as a senior. Conteh has scored at least nine points in all nine Parkdale games this winter. “She’s dependable. You can always depend on her to put points on the board,” teammate Samantha Spencer said. Why is her scoring up? She’s playing more aggressively, Spencer said. Conteh is 46-of-75 (61.3 percent) from the foul line, getting there more than eight times

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

— ERIC GOLDWEIN

Sirico wins fencing bronze at juniors

Parkdale High School’s Kareema Conteh practices on Jan. 9. per game. In a Jan. 6 loss to Laurel, Watson said she started the game 1-of-14 from the ﬁeld but ﬁnished 11-of-14 from the freethrow line and scored a teamhigh 19 points. “She’s way more aggressive than she used to be. She knows it’s her last year and wants to do well,” Spencer said. Watson said one of Conteh’s strengths is her footwork, an attribute she may have picked up from playing volleyball. “I just wanted to try something new. It was just something to have fun with,” she said. “ ... It helps with the footwork, to get the ball faster.” Conteh isn’t just the team’s top scorer; she’s also a captain — someone who her teammates look to for advice, Spencer said. “She’s the person on the team, if you need to talk, you can always come to her,” Spencer said. Conteh is embracing the leadership role.

BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE

“My teammates have put a lot of trust in me and a lot of faith in me,” Conteh said. Parkdale started 4-1 but has since dropped to 4-5 after losing to four top 4A teams, including Laurel, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry A. Wise and Bowie. Still, Conteh said she believes this year’s team can improve on last year’s 13-14 record and ﬁnish in the top-half of the County 4A League. “Compared to last year, I think we’ve gotten better,” she said. Conteh has 790 points on varsity according to Watson. Surpassing 1,000 points would be difﬁcult with only eight regular season games remaining, but the senior guard is hopeful she can hit that mark. “That’s something I’m pushing for. That’s one of my goals before the season ends,” Conteh said. egoldwein@gazette.net

Bowie teenager Amanda Sirico added another fencing medal to her rapidly growing collection by winning bronze at the Women’s Epee Junior World Cup in Dijon, France on Jan. 5. The second-ranked

junior women’s epee fencer in the United States, Sirico is now ranked 19th internationally. Epee is one of three weapons used in fencing and unlike the other two, foil and saber, features a full-body target. Sirico, who has her sights set on competing in the 2016 Olympics, is scheduled to compete at this week’s Senior World Cup in Doha, Qatar. She finished 14th, the highest of any American, in her debut in the event last May. — JENNIFER BEEKMAN

Bowie girls going for fourth straight track title Prince George’s County athletes are scheduled to compete in today’s indoor track and field county championships, a competition that could come down to the ﬁnal events on both the boys’ and girls’ sides. “I believe it’s very wide open,” Henry A. Wise coach Fardan Carter said. “It should be very exciting.” Eleanor Roosevelt’s boys won last season’s indoor county championship, beating Oxon Hill by a small margin.

Bowie’s girls (1,322) won their third straight indoor county title in dominating fashion, more than doubling secondplace Largo (563). Bowie, Largo, Oxon Hill and Wise are among the schools that could win the county championships, hosted at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex in Landover. Teams from across the state participated in the Prince George’s County Indoor Invitational Jan. 9 in what was a sneak preview for this afternoon’s event. Bowie junior Lexus Ramsey took first in the 200 meters and junior Taylor Williams finished first in the 500 meters. Oxon Hill’s Elizabeth Shodiya took first in both the triple jump and the long jump. “This was better than most of the meets I have done before,” Shodiya said. “I didn’t feel like I did too well, because I have done better in practice and all of that, but I’m getting a better feel for it and next time I will do better.” — ERIC GOLDWEIN Kyle Russell contributed.

Underdogs close to having their day n

Friday’s games saw four near-upsets

It’s only a matter of time, Tremaine Price says. The singledigit losses — all ﬁve of them —

BOYS BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK BY TRAVIS MEWHIRTER have to stop somewhere, as do the disappointing overtime results in which his Parkdale High School boys’ basketball team is now 5-8 after Friday’s 64-59 loss to Henry A. Wise. Parkdale was 0-3 in overtime games before Tuesday. “We had it,” he said of the

near-upset of the Pumas. “We missed a layup with six seconds left. It’s deﬁnitely been frustrating. I’m just waiting for that turnaround and hopefully we don’t wait too long.” Parkdale upset Bowie in overtime on Tuesday. The bottom half of the Prince George’s 4A League has been sticking it to the “favorites” all year — they just haven’t quite been able to complete the upset. Friday’s crop of games was parity personiﬁed. Laurel and Bladensburg was decided by one point (60-59 in Laurel’s favor), a 2-6 Northwestern team played a 9-2 Bowie team to two points (62-60) and Eleanor Roosevelt hung on, 72-71, to beat Charles H. Flowers. Down in the

2A, a heavily-favored Potomac squeaked by Frederick Douglass, 57-51. “It’s balanced,” Price said. “I think, at this point, it’s all about the matchups.” Bowie coach Cedric Holbrook knows all about how the 4A League tends to cannibalize itself. “My ﬁrst year in 4A, every game was nerve-wracking,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you and I attributed it to the strength of the league itself. I just think there’s a lot of parity. “There really is a ton of parity. You can sit there and look at your schedule if you want to and start counting things out but it’s not going to work out like that.”

MOVIE REVIEW

The Gazette’s Guide to

Arts & Entertainment

A TOUGH, TRUE TALE

SEAL team tragedy the focus of brutal, but honorable action ﬁlm. Page B-4 www.gazette.net

Father of the detective story and master of the short story, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on Jan. 19, 1809, and died in Baltimore on Oct. 7, 1849. FROM CHRISTOPHER DAVIS

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Page B-1

Master of macabre Actor brings comic, interactive take on Poe stories to arts center n

VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER

No doubt many people have read the macabre tales of Edgar Allan Poe, but how many readers get a chance to act them out and have a good laugh, too? Actor Christopher Davis

plans to afford his audiences that opportunity this weekend at the Greenbelt Arts Center. Father of the detective story and a master storyteller, Poe was born Jan. 19, 1809, in Boston and died in Baltimore on Oct. 7, 1849. An entertainer who specializes in historical and literary subjects, Davis is marking Poe’s birthday with interactive shows about his stories on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the center. For the last three years, Davis has also brought his brand of

improvisation to Dickens’ tale, “A Christmas Carol,” at the center. “I’d like to make this a yearly thing,” he said about the Poe show. Known as the Renaissance Man, Davis has presented characters from Shakespeare and has also performed a standup comedy routine for 12 years at the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville in Anne Arundel County.

See MASTER, Page B-5

POE’S BIRTHDAY BASH n When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday n Where: Greenbelt Arts Center, 123 Centerway, Greenbelt n Tickets: $17 for general; $14 for students, seniors, military; $12 for children n For information: 301-441-8770, greenbeltartscenter.org

HARRIS’ “THE COMMENTARY” DEALS WITH RACISM, SEXISM

Far Left: “The Royalty of Sojourner’s Truth,” mixed media on canvas and wood. “Girls, Gangsters, and Guns — America’s Obsession,” mixed media on canvas and wood. BILL HARRIS

THE COMMENTARY BY WILL C. FRANKLIN STAFF WRITER

ashington, D.C., native Bill Harris, who has a new exhibit at the Brentwood Arts Exchange in Riverdale, started his career as a teacher, but enjoyed art his entire life. “My parents were the ﬁrst to give me lessons at a young age,” Harris said. “From there, I went to high school and there was a tracking system

in D.C.” Harris said he was smart enough to get into the second track, which was for college-bound students. “After many years of academics, I went over to the art department at Howard University and I liked it ever since,” Harris said. “I moved to the art department after a year of academic courses. They loaded me down with academics, you know? I was having none of that. It was too tough. I had always enjoyed art, so I decided to move to the art department and that was that.” After teaching for several years and spending

time learning the art of woodworking, Harris went back to Howard to get his master’s degree in ﬁne arts with an emphasis in printmaking and drawing. For 15 years, Harris was a member of the Washington Printmakers Gallery, but he started merging his love of printmaking and woodworking into mixedmedia art. “I’ve always wanted to do woodworking,”

n When: To March 8 n Where: Brentwood Arts Exchange, 3901 Rhode Island Ave., Brentwood n For information: 301-277-2863; arts.pgparks.com

See WOOD, Page B-5

Small print n

Laurel author makes science fun with children’s books BY

CARA HEDGEPETH STAFF WRITER

MARK E. TOMASSONI

Author Mark Tomassoni works with a co-writer and two illustrators to produce his series of nanotechnology books for children.

In the ongoing effort to encourage young people to choose a career in a STEM ﬁeld — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — Laurel-based author Mark E. Tomassoni is doing his part through a series of illustrated children’s books and ebooks. “[The goal] is to have young people become more aware of the elements of science and maybe become interested,” Tomassoni said. “How do we get more young folks involved in

Laurel resident Mark Tomassoni.

n Tomassoni’s entire series is available on amazon. com. For more information about the author or his books, visit nanobots forkids.com

the sciences and show all the potential there?” Tomassoni’s books — a series of 11 released in 2013 and available on Amazon — focus speciﬁcally on nanotechnology, still a relatively new scien-

tific field. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology defines the science as the “engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale.” “There’s a tremendous effort to really become much more intelligent about things that are happening inside the atoms and molecules that make up the world,” Tomassoni said. “We’re learning more and more about what’s going on inside cells and atoms … in the not-too-distant future, there will be actual computers that will be running at the molecular level … science is happening very fast … right in front of our eyes.” Tomassoni, who has a bachelor’s

See AUTHOR, Page B-5

Page B-2

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY’S ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR

Complete calendar online at www.gazette.net For a free listing, please submit complete information to noravec@gazette.net at least 10 days in advance of desired publication date. High-resolution color images (500KB minimum) in jpeg format should be submitted when available.

A CLOSER LOOK MONKEY BUSINESS

THEATER & STAGE Bowie Community Theatre, “Dark Passages,” coming in February, Bowie Playhouse, 16500 White Marsh Park Drive, Bowie, 301-8050219, www.bctheatre.com. Bowie State University, Adventure Theatre MTC presents “Five Little Monkeys,” 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Jan. 16-17, Fine and Performing Arts Center, Bowie State University, 14000 Jericho Park Road, Bowie, 301-860-3717, www. bowiestate.edu. Busboys & Poets, Hyattsville, TBA, 5331 Baltimore Avenue, Hyattsville, 301-779-2787 (ARTS), www.busboysandpoets.com.

Adventure Theatre MTC of Glen Echo will present “Five Little Monkeys” on Jan. 16-17 at Bowie State University before starting a 30-city tour in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The show, about ﬁve mischievous sibling monkeys, is for children four years old and older. It is Adventure’s ﬁrst touring production. For more information, visit www.bowiestate.edu.

BRUCE DOUGLAS

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, 23rd Annual Tribute to Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., 2 p.m. Jan. 18; 31st Annual Choreographer’s Showcase, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Jan. 25, University of Maryland, College Park, claricesmithcenter.umd.edu.

Harmony Hall Regional Center, TBA, call for prices, 10701 Livingston Road, Fort Washington, 301203-6070, arts.pgparks.com. Greenbelt Arts Center, “Poe’s Birthday Bash,” 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, Jan. 1719, call for prices, Greenbelt Arts Center, 123 Centerway, Greenbelt, 301-441-8770, www.greenbeltartscenter.org. Hard Bargain Players, TBA, 2001 Bryan Point Road, Accokeek, www.hbplayers.org. Joe’s Movement Emporium, Lesole’s Dance Project Workshop, 7 p.m. Jan. 16; Lesole’s Dance Project in “Freedom of Expression,” 8 p.m. Jan. 18, 4 p.m. Jan. 19; Bumper Jacksons, 8 p.m. Jan. 25, 3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier, 301-699-1819, www.joesmovement.org. Laurel Mill Playhouse, Neil Simon’s “45 Seconds from Broadway,” Jan. 17 to Feb. 8; auditions for “You Can’t Take it With You,” Jan. 23-24, call for ticket prices, times, Laurel Mill Playhouse, 508 Main St., Laurel, 301-452-2557, www.laurelmillplayhouse.org. Montpelier Arts Center, Movies at Montpelier: Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry, 1 p.m. Jan. 19, 9652 Muirkirk Road, Laurel, 301-377-7800, arts. pgparks.com. Prince George’s Little Theatre, “Over the River and Through the Woods,” To Jan. 25, call for tickets and show times, Bowie Playhouse, 16500 White Marsh Park Drive, Bowie, 301-957-7458, www.pglt. org. Publick Playhouse, Global Beat: Tambourine Workshop, 11 a.m. Jan. 23; Archimedes & The Power of Math, 10:15 a.m. and noon, Jan. 28, 5445 Landover Road, Cheverly, 301-277-1710, arts.pgparks.com. 2nd Star Productions, “Funny Money,” Jan. 31 to Feb. 15, Bowie Playhouse, 16500 White Marsh Park Drive, Bowie, call for prices, times, 410-757-5700, 301-832-4819, www.2ndstarproductions.com. Tantallon Community Players, August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars,” coming in February, Harmony Hall Regional Center, 10701 Livingston Road, Fort Washington, 301-262-5201, www.tantallonstage.com.

VISUAL ARTS Brentwood Arts Exchange, Bill Harris, to March 8, opening reception on Jan. 18, 3901 Rhode Island Ave., Brentwood, 301-277-2863, arts.pgparks.com. Harmony Hall Regional Center, TBA, gallery hours from 8:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10701 Livingston Road, Fort Washington, 301-203-6070. arts. pgparks.com. David C. Driskell Center, “Charles White - Heroes: Gone But Not Forgotten,” opens Jan. 30, University of Maryland, College Park. www.driskellcenter.umd. edu. Montpelier Arts Center, “Direct Current: A Multimedia Exploration of Black Life Within Prince George’s County,” to Feb. 24, gallery open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, 9652 Muirkirk Road, Laurel, 301377-7800, arts.pgparks.com. University of Maryland University College, Joseph Sheppard

- “The Art of Portraiture,” opens April 1, 3501 University Blvd., Adelphi, 301-985-7937, www. umuc.edu/art.

NIGHTLIFE Hand Dancing with D.C. Hand Dance Club, free lesson from 4 to

5 p.m., dancing from 5 to 9 p.m. Sundays at the Coco Cabana, 2031-A University Blvd. E., Hyattsville, $10 cover, www.dchanddanceclub.com. New Deal Café, Mid-day Melodies with Amy C. Kraft, noon, Jan. 16; Open Mic with Joe Harris, 7 p.m. Jan. 16; John Guernsey, 6:30 p.m. Jan. 17-18; The Badger Band, 8 p.m. Jan. 17; Bruce Kritt, 4 p.m. Jan. 18; Saskia and the Truly Unruly Band, 8 p.m. Jan. 18; Not2Cool Jazz Trio, 11 a.m. Jan. 19; Fez Tones Haﬂa, 6 p.m. Jan. 19; Reel & Meal at the New Deal: “In Transition 2.0,” 7 p.m. Jan. 20; Poetry Night Open Mic, 7 p.m. Jan. 21; Cajun Music Jam, 7 p.m. Jan. 22, 113 Centerway Road, 301-474-5642, www.newdealcafe.com. Old Bowie Town Grill, Wednesday Night Classic Jam, 8 p.m. every Wednesday, sign-ups start at 7:30 p.m., 8604 Chestnut Ave., Bowie, 301-464-8800, www.oldbowietowngrille.com.

OUTDOORS Dinosaur Park, Dinosaur Park programs, noon-4 p.m. ﬁrst and third Saturdays, join paleontologists and volunteers in interpreting fossil deposits, 13200 block Mid-Atlantic Blvd., Laurel, 301-627-7755. Mount Rainier Nature Center, Toddler Time: hands-on treasures, crafts, stories and soft play, 10:30 a.m.-noon Thursdays, age 5 and younger free, 4701 31st Place, Mount Rainier, 301-927-2163. Prince George’s Audubon Society, Bird Walks, 7:30 a.m. ﬁrst Sat-

urdays, Fran Uhler Natural Area, meets at end of Lemon Bridge Road, north of Bowie State University, option to bird nearby WB&A Trail afterward; 7:30 a.m. third Saturdays, Governor Bridge Natural Area, Governor Bridge Road, Bowie, meet in parking lot; for migrating and resident woodland and ﬁeld birds, and waterfowl. For beginners and experts. Waterproof footwear and binoculars suggested. Free. 410-765-6482.

REC CENTERS Prince George’s Sports & Learning Complex, Senior Days at

the Sportsplex, 8 a.m.-noon Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, seniors allowed free use of the ﬁtness center and pool, age 60 and up, 8001 Sheriff Road, Landover, 301-583-2400.

Seat Pleasant Activity Center, Line Dancing, 6:30-8 p.m.

Wednesdays, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays, $40 series, $6 drop-ins, age 18 and up, 5720 Addison Road, Seat Pleasant, 301-773-6685.

ET CETERA College Park Aviation Museum, Peter Pan Club, 10:30-11:30 a.m. second and fourth Thursdays of every month, activities for preschoolers, $4, $3 seniors, $2 ages 2-18; Afternoon Aviators, 2-4:30 p.m. Fridays, hands-on aviationthemed activities for age 5 and up, $4, $3 seniors, $2 ages 2-18, events free with admission, 1985 Cpl. Frank Scott Drive, College Park, 301-864-6029, www.collegeparkaviationmuseum.com. Women’s Chamber Choir Auditions, by appointment for the con-

135474G

cert season of women’s chamber choir Voix de Femmes, 7:45-9:30 p.m. Thursdays, 402 Compton Ave., Laurel, 301-520-8921, annickkanter@gmail.com.

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Page B-3

Give my regards to Broadway Actors develop strong bond in preparation for latest production n

45 SECONDS FROM BROADWAY

CARA HEDGEPETH

n When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Jan. 17 to Feb. 8; 2 p.m. Sundays, Jan. 26 and Feb. 2

STAFF WRITER

In Neil Simon’s “45 Seconds from Broadway,” South African playwright Solomon is one of an eclectic cast of characters gathered at a Manhattan coffee shop. “He meets the people in the coffee shop and develops a relationship with them,” said actor Henri Green, who plays Solomon in the Laurel Mill production of “45 Seconds from Broadway,” opening Friday. “He takes to them and they take to him … they make him part of the family.” According to Green, the characters’ familial dynamic is similar to the one the Laurel Mill actors have developed rehearsing together over the past several weeks. “Kind of like in the play, we work well together,” Green said. “You … meet them and you ﬁnd out about their backgrounds and you get to meet their families.” Green, who lives in Bowie, has been involved with Laurel Mill for a year and a half. He co-produced “Annie” at the theater last year and has appeared in productions of “The Brides of March” and “Miracle on 34th Street.” His community theater career began in 2003 at the Publick Playhouse in Prince George’s County. “45 Seconds from Broadway” is one of Simon’s newer plays. It premiered on Broadway in 2001. The title refers to the amount of time it takes to walk to Broadway from the coffee shop where the action takes place. The shop is inspired by the one in the lobby of New York City’s Edison Hotel. In addition to Solomon, protagonist Mickey Fox (Larry Simmons), a Jewish comedian, meets a diverse cast of characters including the shop’s owner and his wife, a Broadway actor and a highsociety dame. Though Laurel Mill has produced Simon’s work in the past, “45 Seconds from Broadway” was new for the actors as well as producer Maureen Rogers. It wasn’t until Laurel Mill actor Doug Silverman mentioned the play that Rogers even knew it existed.

n Where: Laurel Mill Playhouse, 508 Main St., Laurel n Tickets: $15 for general admission, $12 for students 18 and younger, seniors 65 and older and active-duty military n For information: 301-617-9906; www.laurelmillplayhouse.org

“I like to talk to different actors and different people and get ideas about what they’ve seen and what they like,” Rogers said. “We had done some of [Simon’s] other plays and I had not heard of this one and it intrigued me. … There are 12 different characters and they all are so different and you can relate to them.” “Most of the time with Neil Simon, his characters feel real to you,” Simmons added. “You can understand what the characters are going through … His shows are always funny and there’s always a little human emotion in there that makes you nod your head and say, I know what you’re saying there.” Another draw for Rogers was “45 Seconds from Broadway’s” intended audience. “The audience that I think would really love this is those 50 and over,” she said. “Those who go to New York, who go to see plays.” The play also offered an opportunity to another demographic of Laurel Mill actors. “We have young people and we have shows for them; teen theater, we have musicals,” Rogers said. “There’s a set of mature people who maybe don’t sing or dance; we want something for them, too.” As opening night draws closer, rehearsals intensify and tech week means long nights spent at the theater. But for the “45 Seconds from Broadway” actors, who have grown to see each other not only as coworkers, but family, the hours are not a chore. “You develop a bond and you really need that,” Green said. “Everybody has become a family.”

PHOTOS BY LARRY SIMMONS

Actor Paul Plein as Bernie and producer/actor Maureen Rogers as Zelda in the Laurel Mill Playhouse production of “45 Seconds from Broadway.”

Lynette Franklin as Besie James and Becka Korn as Megan Woods in the Laurel Mill Playhouse production of “45 Seconds from Broadway.”

chedgepeth@gazette.net

Your Complete Prince George’s County

Guide Private Schools to

This special section will feature information on: 4 D Detailed etailed directory d irectory on private priv ate schools. 4 The overall ov erall mission of Private P rivate Priv ate Schools. S chools. 4 H How ow to apply to private priv ate schools, plus much more!

Publishes: Thursday, January 30, 2014

Space Deadline: January 14, 2014 Ad OK Deadline: January 21, 2014

240-473-7532

135324G

Actors Larry Simmons as Mickey Fox and David McCrary as Harry Fox. One of Neil Simon’s more recent works, the comedy premiered on Broadway in 2001.

THE GAZETTE

Page B-4

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

AT THE MOVIES

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell in “Lone Survivor,” the incredible story of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative who are ambushed by enemy forces in the mountains of Afghanistan. The ﬁlm is based on The New York Times bestselling tale of heroism, courage and survival.

Berg, Wahlberg honor the story of a SEAL team tragedy BY

MICHAEL PHILLIPS CHICAGO TRIBUNE

135584G

Roughly half of “Lone Survivor” is a standard-issue Hollywood treatment of a recent, bloody and, in human terms, tragic 2005 Navy SEAL mission to eliminate an al-Qaida operative in the Afghanistan mountain region of Hindu Kush. But the other half — the hour or so of writer-director Peter Berg’s ﬁlm dealing speciﬁcally with what happens when four men are cut off in Taliban country, scrambling under fire — is strong, gripping stuff, free of polemics, nerve-wracking in the extreme. This is a straight, hard, do-or-die scenario, vividly recreated by Berg. He adapts the best-seller “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10,” written by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson. Mark Wahlberg plays Lut-

LONE SURVIVOR n 3 stars n Rated R; 121 minutes n Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Eric Bana, Ali Suliman n Directed by Peter Berg

trell. His fellow SEALs are portrayed by Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch, with Eric Bana as their commander back at Bagram Air Field, monitoring what becomes a terrible ambush. Berg’s movie gets through its introductions efﬁciently, though without much in the way of character detail. We know from the start who lives and who dies; Wahlberg’s Luttrell provides the voice-over at the outset, while we see him being saved by a rescue team. The heart of the ﬁlm is pure crisis and response. Kitsch plays

Mike Murphy, the special ops team leader; Foster, the communications specialist Matthew “Axe” Axelson. Hirsch’s Danny Dietz, gunner’s mate, completes the quartet, dispatched by helicopter to a remote mountainside perch near the village where their target has been spotted. And then it goes wrong. They’re ambushed, and for the better part of “Lone Survivor” we see them shot, thrown down boulder-strewn inclines, fight back, attempt to regain a foothold. The actors know what’s required of them. You wouldn’t call an actor such as Foster an underplayer, but Berg manages to get all his actors in the same movie and keep conventional histrionics to a minimum. The situations that make up “Lone Survivor” are harrowing to begin with; they don’t need goosing. Berg shot the film in the mountains and sound stages of New Mexico, and the size of the picture feels right for the scope of

this true-life story. The adaptation doesn’t make room for much beyond the kinetic horror of the ambush. When Luttrell meets a local villager (Ali Suliman) who harbors the American from the Taliban, the movie takes a couple of shortcuts back into Hollywood territory. Sometimes, things that really happened have a way of seeming slightly phony on screen. At its best, though, “Lone Survivor” accomplishes its mission, whichistorespectthesemen,dramatize what they went through and let the more troubling matters of moral consequence trickle in where, and how, they may. (In one tense sequence the men debate the fate of goat herders they encounter.) Wahlberg remains one of our most reliable and least actorly of movie stars, innately macho but vulnerable enough to seem like a human being caught in an inhuman situation. Berg’s ﬁlm pays attention to every setback, every moment lost or won on that mountain.

135565G

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

WOOD

Continued from Page B-1 Harris said. “I was a craftsman in the beginning, made bowls out of wood. Then I turned into a printmaker. My studio is so small … I have many woodworking tools in there and a printmaking press. It’s so small that I sought to combine the two techniques after many years. I got tired of doing one or the other.” The opening reception for “The Commentary” is slated for

Saturday at the Brentwood Arts Exchange. Harris’ exhibit features mixed-media pieces and expresses the artist’s views on the ups and downs of the social struggle. “I can speak my mind through my creations and not be blamed for it,” Harris laughed. “As long as I do it well.” The Brentwood Arts Exchange has opened its doors to Harris completely, giving him the entire gallery to display his exhibit. The exhibit will run through March 8. Harris said he truly hopes

Page B-5

“I can speak my mind through my creations and not be blamed for it. As long as I do it well.” Bill Harris people who come to see the exhibit take time to reﬂect and take the work seriously. “I speak on things that bother me, like racism, sexism,

all of those things,” Harris said. “Whimsical things, too. Things that have happened all my life.” wfranklin@gazette.net

FROM CHRISTOPHER DAVIS

Actor Christopher Davis involves the audience in comic re-enactments of classic Edgar Allan Poe stories on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Greenbelt Arts Center in Greenbelt, where he also does an interactive show about Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”

Continued from Page B-1 He also takes his shows based on literature and history to schools and libraries. The Poe shows are comedic takes on some of the master’s most famous stories, with audience members assuming the central (and sometimes fatal!) roles while Davis acts as narrator. On the weekend program are three of Poe’s classic tales, written to feed into the 19thcentury fascination with Gothic stories about murders and dastardly deeds. In Poe’s stories some of the perpetrators are found out, while others elude capture after they’ve sealed up their victims behind newly plastered walls and beneath replanked ﬂoorboards. In the “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator slowly and methodically plots to do in an old man because he’s spooked by the man’s pale blue eye. The perpetrator in “The Black Cat” is intent on killing a hated feline with an ax but accidentally dispatches his wife instead. “I like the sense of justice in most of his stories, because usually [the murderer] didn’t get away with it,” Davis said. But not always, it seems. In the “The Cask of Amontil-

AUTHOR

Continued from Page B-1 degree, two master’s and an uncompleted doctorate in engineering from Johns Hopkins University, is a government consultant by day. He said he first became interested in nanotechnology about five or six years ago. “The concept of nanotechnology was gaining a tremendous amount of momentum in scientific communities but I sensed there were still a number of people who didn’t even know how to pronounce nanotechnology,” Tomassoni said. “I thought maybe there was a market for it.” Though he’s never written a book before, Tomassoni teaches religious studies to fifth-graders at his church, St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Laurel, and has an idea about how to reach younger generations. Nano and Nana are the hero and heroine of Tomassoni’s series, which includes books such as “Bots to the Rescue,” “Red, White and Bots” and “Nano Goes Golfing.” Nano and Nana use nanotechnology to make the world a better place — whether it be by cleaning up the environment or saving a group of scientists from a black hole. One of the ebooks even features the protagonists using the technology for the future of hairstyling. Tomassoni works with cowriter Rama Ramesh and illustrators Yoko Matsuoka of Japan and Sheehan Demetillo of the Philippines to produce the books. Though the nano series is aimed at children, Tomassoni said the books also can help simplify the topic for older audiences as well. The author even hopes to expand the series with some longer books for adults. “I’ve thought about trying to become more serious-minded and create more serious charac-

lado,” a wine connoisseur lures a man whom he believes insulted him into his wine cellar in the catacombs beneath an Italian city during Carnavale. Also part of the show is Poe’s famous poem “The Raven,” in which the narrator hears a rapping and a tapping at his chamber door. A jet-black raven enters and perches above the door with no intent of leaving. Filled with dread, the narrator asks if he will see his lost love, Lenore, in the afterlife. “He captured people’s imaginations,” said Davis, who appreciates his work. In fact, Davis and his ﬁancé decided to marry in Westminster Hall, a former church in downtown Baltimore, where Poe is buried. A lot of the comedy in the show comes out of the everchanging cast of audience volunteers, and no show is the same, said Davis, adding that the scenes are accompanied by some “creepy and comical” music. “We go at it with a playful attitude,” said Davis, who recommended the show for sixth graders and older. “It’s very improvisational,” he said. “The stories are the skeleton of it .. and it’s about what the audience brings to it.” vterhune@gazette.net

ters,” Tomassoni said. “Working on taking these nanobot characters and turning them into serious-minded characters and getting a 50- to 100-page story out of it.” chedgepeth@gazette.net

1912386

1905974

MASTER

THE GAZETTE

Page B-6

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

RELIGION CALENDAR To submit a calendar item online, go to calendar.gazette. net and click on the submit button in the lower left-hand corner. To ﬁnd an item, go to The Gazette’s home page at www. gazette.net. You can mail them to The Gazette, 13501 Virginia Manor Road, Laurel, MD 20707; fax, 240-473-7501. Items must be received by Wednesday to appear the following week.

JAN. 18 H.E.A.L. Workshop: Take Charge of Your Health, 4:30 to 6

p.m., Capitol Free Mission, 8201 Cryden Way, Forestville. An eightsession lifestyle workshop for those who want to improve their health. To register, call 301-4945550 or visit www.capitolcitymission.org. Limited seating. Contact helpdesk@mygospelworkers.org.

ONGOING

tian exercise group meeting at 10:30 a.m. Saturdays at the church, 4001 33rd St., Mount Rainier. The exercise group will have exercise education about nutrition and more. Professional instruction from University of Maryland, College Park, kinesiology students and the program. Open to people of all ages and ﬁtness levels. Free. Call 301-864-3869 or visit www. facebook.com/groups/praisercise/ or email brianpadamusus @ yahoo.com.

Largo Community Church is revising its ﬁtness program, Mon-

days and Wednesdays, to include Latin-infused dance. Classes start at 7 p.m. and the fee is $5. The church is at 1701 Enterprise Road in Mitchellville. E-mail justﬁt4life @yahoo.com.

Body and Soul Fitness presents “I’m All In,” Bethany Community

Church, 15720 Riding Stable Road in Laurel. Sessions start with cardio/strength classes from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday, with a co-ed session from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. For more information, call Abby Dixson at 301-549-

1877, email abbyﬁtness@aol.com or visit www.bodyandsoul.org. Touch of Love Bible Church, conducts weekly support group meetings for people who are separated or divorced, 11 a.m. every Saturday at the church, 13503 Baltimore Ave. in Laurel. Call 301210-3170. Ladies Bible Study Class on the book of Esther, Maryland City

Baptist Church, 1:45 p.m. Tuesday afternoons at the church, 326 Brock Bridge Road in Laurel. Free nursery. Call Tammie Marshall at 301-498-3224 or visit mdcitybaptist @yahoo.com.

Free First Place 4 Health series, 7 p.m. Tuesdays at Berwyn

Baptist Church, 4720 Cherokee St. in College Park. Call 240-601-1640.

Anti-domestic violence and stalking support group meetings,

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Saturday. Abigail Ministries offers the meetings in Hyattsville. Call 301277-3775 for exact location. Maryland Family Christian Center’s Praise Dance Ministry, 7

p.m. Tuesdays at North Forestville

Elementary School, 2311 Ritchie Road in Forestville. Ministry teaches people to dance. Call 240392-2633. New Creation Church Bible study meetings, 7 p.m. Wednes-

days at the Bladensburg High School auditorium, 4200 57th Ave. in Bladensburg. Sunday services are at 10 and 11 a.m.

New Broken Vessels Ministry Women’s Bible Study and Discussions, 9 a.m. every Friday at It’s

God’s Choice Christian Bookstore, 1454 Addison Road South in Capitol Heights. Call 301-499-5799 for information.

Vocalists/singers needed to harmonize “Inspirational Music,”

every Saturday at 8221 Cryden Way in Forestville. Call 301-5990932 or 301-219-4350.

Baha’i devotions, 10 to 11:30 a.m., ﬁrst and third Sunday of every month. Breakfast served at 10 a.m. All are welcome. The devotions are at 14200 Livingston Road in Clinton. Call 703-380-7267.

through Friday. Christian Outreach International Center calls for prayer warriors in intercessory prayer with Bishop Janie Carr at the church, 3709 Hamilton St. in Hyattsville. Call 301-927-1684.

A.D. Headen Chapel, Refreshing Spring Church, 6200 Riverdale Road in Riverdale. For registration information, call 301-333-0499.

Hidden Strengths Support Ministry Inc. Phone Line Prayer Ministry, 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. every

Wednesday. Email requests to hssministryinc@aol.com. Call 202372-7716.

Victory Church International prayer services, 6 to 8 a.m. daily at

the church, 9308 Allentown Road in Fort Washington. Call 301-4497706.

Heavens Best Healing and Deliverance Baptist Church revival services, 8 p.m. Monday through

Friday and at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sundays at the church, 8311 Old Branch Ave. in Clinton. Call 301877-7702.

Church on the Hill “School of Healing,” 3 to 5 p.m. the ﬁrst and

third Sunday of each month at the

Urgent call for 50 prayer warriors, noon to 1 p.m. Monday

1912333

Women’s Bible Study, 9 to 11 a.m. every Thursday, Berwyn Baptist Church, 4720 Cherokee St., College Park. Study the book of Romans. Women of all ages are invited. Cost of $6.50 for textbook. Contact 301-474-7117 or secretary@berwynbaptist.org.

Mount Rainier Christian Church will conduct Praisercise, a Chris-

1912331

1905851

Professional Services

SALE

Surplus Real Estate Prince George’s County

Call 301-670-7106

Prince George’s County, Maryland, is offering 50 (fifty) surplus properties/land for sale. Please refer to our website below for details and a complete list of properties. All properties have been appraised and are being offered at fair market value. This offer shall remain open through close of business January 23, 2014. Requests for further information, expressions of interest in the purchase of a property, or any objection to the sale of a property should be directed to: The Office of Central Services, 1400 McCormick Drive, Room 336, Largo, Maryland 20774, attn: Land Acquisition and Real Property Division (telephone: 301-883-6444) and must be received before the close of business January 23, 2014. Note: All land with the exception of numbers 1, 2, 3 and 25 have no structures or improvements and is sold as is.

1912334

***Please see our website below for detailed information*** www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/sites/CentralServices/Services/LARP/ SaleSurplusProperty/Pages/Surplus-Property-Ad.aspx 1890807

1912332

GD26809

THE BANKRUPTCY CENTER The Law Offices Of Erik G. Soderberg, Esq.

STOP Foreclosure, Garnishment, Repossession, Lawsuits & Creditor Harassment

FREE CONSULTATION * PAYMENT PLANS We are a debt relief agency.We help people file for bankruptcy relief.

GD27117

301-279-0303 ext. 368 Also representing clients in Personal Injury and DUI cases.

BANKRUPTCY THE LAW OFFICES OF

RICHARD B. ROSENBLATT, PG CHAIRMAN OF THE MD BANKRUPTCY BAR ASSOCIATION 1998-1999

LOAN MODIFICATION

GD27116

• Chapter 7, 11 & 13 • General Litigation • Tax Debt • Divorce • Traffic/DUI-MVA • Criminal FREE CONSULTATION • PAYMENT PLANS SE HABLA ESPAÑOL www.rosenblattlaw.com

301-838-0098

1912502

EDDY’S

HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING

GD27099

TIP

NEW CUSTOMER

DISCOUNTS Open 24/7

49.99 System Check & Clean

301-598-8643 . 202-361-0245

Licensed/Insured/ Bonded

GD27181

• Heating • Cooling • Roto Brush Air Duct Cleaning • Plumbing & Gas Fitter • Sheet Metal & Part Replacement

Drastically cutting back a shrub is called coppicing.

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Classifieds

Page B-7

Call 301-670-7100 or email class@gazette.net

B E T H : FOR SALE BY OWNER 5 min walk to NIH/Suburban Hosp. Desirable neighborhd, great sch dists & so much more. A must see! $879000. interiormakeovers@ho tmail.com

BURTONSVILLE:

3BR, 2.5BA TH, Fireplace, Finish Bsmt, $1800 + utils, No Pets. 202-236-4197

DAMASCUS: 3BR

$1400/ 2BR $1150 +util NS/NP, W/D New Carpet, Paint, Deck & Patio, 301-250-8385

GERMAN: HOC

Welcome 3 lvl TH, 3br, 2.5ba nr 270/shops $1699/mo avail now Call: 301-906-0870

GE RMA NT OWN :

Townhome: 3 bed/1.5 bath $1400+utilities, deck, fenced yard, W/D, parking, Avail 2-1-14 Pls Contact 301 424-6759

MV/GAITH: Huge 4lvl

3Br 2.5Ba TH w/FP. Newly renov. 2100 sf, NS, NP. $1750 + utils. 301-990-9294

UPPER BORO:

Unfurnished or furnished In-Law Apt Private entrance, off street parking, 1BD 1BA w/kitchen $850 incl all utilities. 410703-3366

BOWIE: 1Br, priv Ba, shrd kit, W/D, parking, nr PG College NS/NP $750 inc utils, Please call: 301-390-7747 FORT WASH Furnished Room for $700 util’s includ. Beautiful view into VA. NR bus & shops 202-286-5578 GAITHERSBURG:

Male, master BR w BA $399. Nr Metro/Shops NP/NS. Avail Now. Call 301-219-1066

GAITH: rm everthing

in-cluded for one person only $500 (301) 760-4900

G A I T H : Room

for rent for prof female, Cls to 270, Shady Grove Metro. $550 incl utils. Email: anportega @yahoo.com

BELTSVILLE: TH,

LANDOVER: 4 BD/1

HYATTSVIL: 1Rm in bsmt w/rec rm area refrid,male ns/np $550 uti inc + SD, Sen Wel! Call: 240-535-3081

SILVER SPRING : Dwntwn Flower Ave. Unfurn 2br 1ba Apt. HOC Welcome $1250 202-246-1977

SS: NEW 1BR Apt 1st floor private ENT, KIT, BA, PARKING. $1100 quiet and Sunny! call 301-879-2868 TAKOMA

LANHAM: 1Br, shrd

Ba & kit, female pref $600 unf, $650 fur, + SD, util inc, nr 450, metro 301-459-5709

SILVER

Adams Robinson Enterprises is seeking bid proposals and quotes from Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSCC) certified MBE/SLBE subcontractors and suppliers for the Piscataway WWTP Storage and Headworks Improvement Contract No. CD4231D05 Repost 2 which bids on Thursday January 23, 2014 at 2:15 P.M.

Get Connected!

AV experience required, email resume to careers@total-av.com

Plan information may be obtained at Adams Robinson Enterprises, Inc., 2735 Needmore Rd., Dayton, OH by contacting Kevin O’Brien at 937-274-5318 or a security clearance is required by obtaining an application for security clearance by contacting WSSC’s Procurement Office by phone (301) 206-8288. Requests for plans and drawings can only be fulfilled by completing the security investigation.

Dental/ Medical Assistant Trainees Needed Now

PARK: Items of work to be subcontracted include, but are not limited to

Dental/Medical Offices now hiring. No experience? Job Training & Placement Assistance Available 1-877-234-7706

W A S H I N G T O N Submit written proposals until 1:00 P.M. Thursday, January 23, DC: Brentwood NE, 2014 to Adams Robinson Enterprises, 2735 Needmore Rd., Lrg furn Br, priv Ba, shrd kit & W/D, 1 blk Dayton, OH 45414, Phone (937) 274-5318; Fax: (937) 274-0836 frm bus & 5 blks from or email to arco@adamsrobinson.com. (1-16-14) Red/Metro $850/util

CTO SCHEV

inc 202-361-8087

Saturday, February 1 at 9:00 a.m.

WHEATON:

On Georgia Ave. 1 MBR w/prvt ba. $650 util incl Nr Metro & Shops. Npets 240-441-1638

an Apt dining room or larger kitchen. display your collectible in these "COLLECTABLES". Call ot text 240-876-0268 $250

HOPING ADOPT:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM M M M M Global Executives, Hiking, Skiing, M Playful Pets. Theatre, Music, M M Lovingly Awaits 1st Baby M M M M M Expenses Paid. M M M 1-800-933-1975 M M GP2363 MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

TO M

Loving married couple longs to adopt newborn We promise a lifetime of unconditional love, opportunities and security. Expenses Paid. Please call Tricia & Don anytime at 1-800-348-1748

Presentation begins at 9:20 a.m.

MADOPTION:M

Pharmacy/ Phlebotomy Tech Trainees Needed Now Pharmacies/ hospitals now hiring. No experience? Job Training & Placement Assistance Available 1-877-240-4524 CTO SCHEV

GC3179

Clinical Systems Integration & Implementation Specialist IT

AVON: $10 Starts Your AVON Business. Contact Cynthia Proctor, Avon Ind. Sls. Rep. at 301-218-2515.

It’s

FREE!

Buy It, Sell It, Find It GazetteBuyandSell.com

SPRING:

Room avail now $465 shared kitchen, bathroom & util cable TV W/D 301-404-2681

AV Technicians & AV Managers

Recruiting is now Simple!

2 Rooms starting at the following: carpentry, hauling, HVAC, landscaper/landscaping, $750 shared bath util materials/supplier/fuel, paving, plumber/plumbing and sediment incl. All furn! Near metro. 240-421-6689 control.

ADORABLE ANTITH Share bath & QUE HUTCH & kitchen $450 ut inc Nr BUFFET Perfect for MARC/Buses, Ref’s GREENBLT: M shr n/s/p Sfh,$465+$475+ $495+quiet,conv, Maid Serv, Sec Dep, walk to NASA 301-983-3210

BA hard wood fl, off strt parking, section 8 OK, near metro $1295 +util 240-475-9969

Room-Plus For Rent. Lrge rm in 4-BR+ Westerly house. Includes Dish Premium & DVR, wireless internet. Garage, shed, large yard, parking, Ride-On. Gotta like dogs, horses a plus. $600 + 1/3 elect. & water. W: 202-6546753

GERM: Male 1Br in

Req. 240-370-2301

3Br, 3Ba, deck, nice kit, W/D, $1300 + util SD 202-270-1500 or 410-834-0122

BID NOTICE ADVERTISEMENT

MARL- P O O L E S V I L L E :

WE’RE BACK HOME! Worship With Us! The Ark Of Safety Christian Church

9402 Marlboro Pike, Upper Marlboro, Maryland 20772 Beginning Sunday January 19th 2014 Join Us: Sundays, 8:45am & 11am and Tuesdays, 7:15pm For info call: 301-599-5780 Like us on Facebook/Ark of Safety Christian Church and follow us on Twitter @AOSCC. We thank you for your patience during our ongoing renovation! Bishop C. Anthony Muse & Lady Pat Lawson Muse Senior Pastor & First Lady

To Advertise Call 301.670.2641

FREE FOOD GIVEAWAY BYGRACE Anyone LIFE.

needing help will be eli-gible, no questions asked. Sat. Jan. 25. 2pm - 4pm. Venue: 8730 Cherry Lane, Lau-rel, MD 20707. FMI please call Ijeh on 301.219.7174 or astor@gracelifecenter.com.

Health Prime International is seeking a Clinical Systems Integration & Implementation Specialist. Must have a Bachelor’s Degree or foreign equiv. in Computer/Information Science or any Engineering Field, and 5 years of progressive, post bachelor work experience as a Clinical Systems Analyst or Network Systems Administrator in Healthcare. Must have prior experience using C/C++, JAVA, VB, SQL, .NET, Crystal Reports, HTML, IIS, XML, MATLAB, HL7/X12 & DICOM interface engines, HIE, EDI, SDM & SDLC, load balancing and remote access solutions, SOA, E/PHR, LIS, LOINC, PACS, CDA, SNOMED, NCPDP, CCR, CCD, MU, understanding/knowledge of Healthcare policies, procedures, protocols & HIPAA law. Location: National Harbor, MD (Prince Georges County) and may be required to travel periodically to other sites. If interested, mail resume to: Parag M. Shah, President, Health Prime International, LLC, 174 Waterfront Street, Suite 330, National Harbor, MD 20745.

Opticians, Fashion Eye Glass Fitters & Med Techs 2 yrs college min/retail exp, will train. Must own car, F/T including Sat. Salary $12-$26/hr & ben. Apply in person

for location call Doctors On Sight, 301-809-0000 or 301-540-1200

Part-Time

Work From Home

National Children’s Center Making calls. For more info please call Weekdays between 9a-4p No selling! Sal + bonus + benes. Call 301-333-1900

Career Training Full Term Employment Part Time Employment

See more listings online

Call us today 301-670-7100

Email class@gazette.net

Page B-8

THE GAZETTE

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Automotive

Page B-9

Call 301-670-7100 or email class@gazette.net

JJANUARY ANUARY INVENTORY INVENTORY R E D U C T I O N SALE SALE REDUCTION 03NewBeetle #377605A, 1 Owner, $ $ GL Coupe, Cyber Green

5,500

04 Honda Element EX #362045B, 4 Speed $ $ Auto, 1-Owner, 4WD

5,800

05 Bmw X3 $$ #363412A, Auto, 2.5i, 4WD

8,700

YOU ALWAYS GET YOUR WAY AT OURISMAN EVERYDAY

Owner, 44k Miles

8,800

10 Toyota Corolla LE #470348A, $$ 4 Speed Auto, 40k Miles

11,500

2013 CLEARANCE SALE

11,800

# 7373771, Power Windows, Power Locks, Keyless Entry

4-DR, Silver Metallic

12,800

4 Door

12,800

14,999

12 Nissan Altima S #470192A, CVT $ $ Trans, 2.5. Low Miles

14,800

2013 NEW BEETLE

#1679497, Power Windows/Locks, Sunroof, Auto, Loaded

11 Toyota Camry LE $$

#P8864, 1 Owner, 6 Speed Auto, 38k Miles

14,800

13 Hyundai Velostar #467009A, $ 6 Speed Auto,1 Owner,$ 10k Miles, Coupe

17,800

2014 PASSAT S 2.5L

MSRP $24,490 - $5,000 OFF

08 Mercedes-Benz C-Class 3.0L #457003B, 7 Speed Auto,, Mars Red

19,700

2006 Toyota Camry LE........... $8,800 $8,800 2010 Toyota Prius II............ $16,800 $16,800 #462007A, 5 SpeedAuto, Indigo Ink Pearl #P8874, CVT Trans, 1 Owner, 25k Miles, Barcelona Red

BUY FOR

#3096306, Automatic, Power Windows/Power Locks, Keyless Entry, Heated Seats, Bluetooth, Cruise Control

#9009449, Automatic, Power Windows/Power Locks, Keyless Entry, Cruise Control

MSRP $20,860

BUY FOR

11 Toyota Camry LE #472182A, $$ 6 Speed Auto,

2013 GOLF 2 DOOR

09HyundaiVeracruzLTD #364523A, 6 Speed $ $ Auto, 1-Owner, Sport

MSRP $17,810

12 Ford Focus SEL #351136A, $ 6 Speed Auto, $

13 Ne Beetles & Bewet Convertibles le 19 Available In Stock Units On ly

OURISMAN VW 2014 JETTA S

07 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS #364333A, $$ 5 Speed Manual, 1

$5,000 OFF 20

19,490

OR 0% for 60 MONTHS

2013 JETTA GLI

BUY FOR

16,999

OR 0% for 60 MONTHS

MSRP $22,765

18,999

BUY FOR

2013 JETTA TDI

2013 GTI 2 DOOR

#7234651, Automatic Power Windows, Power Locks, Bluetooth

#4125692, Automatic, Power Windows/ Power Locks, Keyless Entry

MSRP $25,155

19,995 2014 TIGUAN S BUY FOR

MSRP $26,095 BUY FOR

21,938

OR 0% for 60 MONTHS

2014 PASSAT TDI SE

$9,800 2007 Lexus IS 250.............. $18,800 $18,800 2006 Toyota Corolla S........... $9,800 #450075B, 4 SpeedAuto, 1 Owner, Indigo Ink Pearl #4377591A, 6 SpeedAuto, 1 Owner, Obsidian 2010 Jeep Liberty Sport....... $15,500 $15,500 2011 Toyota Avalon............ $19,800 $19,800 #467042A, 4 WD, 4 SpeedAuto, 1 Owner, Silver Metallic #478001A, 6 SpeedAuto, 1 Owner, 4 Door 2007 Honda Odyssey EX-L. ... $15,800 $15,800 2009 Nissan Murano SL....... $20,800 $20,800 #460070A, 5 SpeedAuto, 1 Owner #P8851A, CVT Trans, 4WD, Sport Utility 2011 Honda Accord LX-P...... $16,800 $16,800 2014 Toyota Camry LE.......... $21,800 $21,800 #472112A, 1 Owner, 5 SpeedAuto, 39k Miles, Metal Metallic #378075A, 6 SpeedAuto, 1-Owner, 307 Miles, Clearwater Blue Metallic

355 3 5 5 TOYOTA TOYOTA PRE-OWNED P R E - OW N E D G558471

DARCARS

See what it’s like to love car buying

1-888-831-9671 1-888-831-9671 15625 Frederick Rd (Rte 355) • Rockville, MD | OPEN SUNDAY

V VISIT ISIT U US S O ON N T THE HE W WEB EB A AT T w www.355.com ww.355.com

#7301806, Power Windows, Power Locks

MSRP $26,110 BUY FOR

21,999

OR 0.9% for 60 MONTHS

#13525611, Automatic, Power Windows, Power Locks, Keyless Entry

MSRP $25,235

BUY FOR

23,399

#9060756, Automatic, Power Windows, Power Locks, Sunroof

MSRP $27,385 BUY FOR

23,399

OR 0.9% for 60 MONTHS

OURISMAN VW WORLD AUTO CERTIFIED PRE OWNED 23 Available...Rates Starting at 2.64% up to 72 months

1999 SAAB 9-5..............#V674887A, Green, 83,144 miles..............$5,991 2011 Jetta Sedan..........#V0019A, Silver, 47,603 miles.................$12,995 2010 Routan...................#VP0021,White, 53,686 miles.................$13,999 2012 Mazda 6................#VPR0023, Black, 44,340 miles...............$14,995 2011 Toyota Corolla......#VP0020, Black, 30,992 miles.................$15,491 2012 Nissan Altima......#VPR0024, Gray, 42,366 miles................$15,995 2012 Honda CR-Z..........#V448990A, Black, 24,198 miles.............$15,995 2012 Jetta SE................#VPR61113, Silver, 34,537 miles.............$16,495 2012 Beetle....................#V20016, Silver, 10,890 miles.................$16,495

2012 Passat S................#VPR0016, Gray, 37,800 miles................$16,995 2013 Jetta SE................#V693295A, Red, 3,179 miles..................$18,995 2013 Jetta SE................#VPR0012, Silver, 3,693 miles..................$18,999 2013 Jetta SE................#VPR0011, Silver, 4,491 miles..................$18,999 2011 CC..........................#VP0022, Black, 30,272 miles..................$18,999 2011 Honda CRV...........#V003776A, Gray, 37,086 miles...............$19,995 2011 Tiguan S................#VPR0017,White, 32,529 miles...............$20,995 2012 CC..........................#V502916A, Silver, 35,715 miles..............$21,995

All prices exclude tax, tags, title, freight and $200 processing fee. Cannot be combined with any previous advertised or internet special. Pictures are for illustrative purposes only. See dealer for details. 0% APR Up To 60 Months on all models. See dealer for details. Ourisman VW World Auto Certified Pre Owned financing for 60 months based on credit approval thru VW. Excludes Title, Tax, Options & Dealer Fees. Special APR financing cannot be combined with sale prices. Ends 01/31/14.

Ourisman VW of Laurel 3371 Fort Meade Road, Laurel

1.855.881.9197 • www.ourismanvw.com Online Chat Available...24 Hour Website • Hours Mon-Fri 9 am-9 pm • Sat 9 am-8 pm

Looking for a new ride? Log on to Gazette.Net/Autos to search for your next vehicle!

G558474

2011 Mazda Mazda3 Touring. . $14,800 $14,800 2013 Scion TC................... $19,800 $19,800 #472137A, 5 SpeedAuto, 19k Miles, 1-Owner, Graphite Mica #351079A, 1-Owner, Release Series 8.0,Absolutely Red

Page B-10

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Page B-11

DARCARS NISSAN

Deals and Wheels 1996 FORD F150:

Brown & white well take care off, $2000 Sold as is. 240-3920655

to advertise call 301.670.7100 or email class@gazette.net

DARCARS

2003 Nissan Altima S

See what it’s like to love car buying.

6,977

2012 Nissan Versa S

11,977

#446067A, 4 Speed Auto, 1 Owner, 4 Door Compact

2014 NISSAN VERSA SEDAN S M/T

CA H

MSRP: Sale Price:

10,995

$12,970 $10,995

FOR CAR ! ANY CAR ANY CONDITION

WE PAY TOP DOLLAR-FAST FREE PICKUP! SELL YOUR CAR TODAY! CALL NOW FOR AN

Looking for a new ride?

(301) 288-6009

Log on to Gazette.Net/Autos to search for your next vehicle!

INSTANT CASH OFFER

Sale Price: NMAC Bonus Cash:

2014 NISSAN ALTIMA 2.5 S MSRP: $23,470

16,995

Place Your Vehicle for Sale online

14,495

#341201A, Auto, 2WD, 1 Owner

12,977

2011 Kia Forte SX

$18,995 -$1,000 -$1,000

12,977

13,977

2007 BMW 3 Series 328Xi #445067A, AWD, Automatic

14,977

With Bluetooth #13114 2 At This Price: VINS: 204558, 263232

With Bluetooth, Rear View Monitor #22113 2 At This Price: VINS: 555572, 042248

2014 NISSAN PATHFINDER S AWD MSRP: $31,345

24,495

2012 Nissan Altima 2.5s

$18,995 -$500 -$500

#E0293, Auto, 1 Owner, 4 Door

17,995

$26,495 -$1,000 -$1,000

$ G558473

2006 Honda CR-V LX

#447501A, Black Leather, Low Miles, 5-Door, 1-0wner

Sale Price: Nissan Rebate: NMAC Bonus Cash:

2007 VW EOS 2.0T #448309A, Auto, 1 Owner, 2 Door

$14,995 -$500

2013MSRP: NISSAN ROGUE S$22,695 FWD

24/7 at Gazette.net

With Bluetooth #12013 2 At This Price: VINS: 797244, 791798

Sale Price: Nissan Rebate: NMAC Bonus Cash:

#11154 2 At This Price: VINS:830165, 845638

2013 NISSAN SENTRA S MSRP: $17,675

G558459

#446030A, Auto, 4 Door, 1-Owner

14,977

2013 Nissan Frontier S #347529A, Auto, 2WD, 1 Owner, Pick Up

#25014 2 At This Price: VINS: 607679, 602755

DARCARS NISSAN of of ROCKVILLE ROCKVILLE 15911 Drive • • Rockville, Rockville, MD MD (at (at Rt. Rt. 355 355 across across from fromKing KingFarm) Farm) 15911 Indianola Indianola Drive www.DARCARSNISSAN.com 888.824.9166 •• www.DARCARSNISSAN.com

Prices include all rebates and incentives. NMAC Bonus Cash requires financing through NMAC with approved credit. Prices Pricestax, include rebates incentives. NMAC Bonusand Cash requires financing through NMAC with approved credit.with exclude tags, all freight (carsand $780, trucks $725-$995), $200 processing charge. *Lease payments are calculated Prices exclude tax,$200 tags,processing freight (cars $810,and trucks $200 processing charge. valid only onthrough listed tax, tags, freight, charge first$845-$995), payment dueand at signing, and are valid withPrices tier one approval VINS. See dealer for details. Offer expires 01/21/2014. NMAC. Prices valid only on listed VINS. See dealer for details. Offer expires 10/22/2012.

18,977

2010 Nissan Murano SL #P8816, AWD, 1 Owner, Sport Utility

17,977

2013 Nissan Juke SL #N0292, Auto, AWD, Navigation, Leather, Sunroof

20,977

www.DARCARSnissan.com DARCARS NISSAN of ROCKVILLE 15911 Indianola Drive • Rockville, MD (at Rt. 355 across from King Farm)

888.805.8235 • www.DARCARSNISSAN.com

BAD CREDIT - NO CREDIT - CALL TODAY!

30 Days

in print and online

2014 NEW COROLLA LE

36 $

NEW 2014 COROLLA LE 3 AVAILABLE: #470297, 470197, 470321

3 AVAILABLE: #470335, 470363, 470156

COLD DAYS... HOT DEALS!

139/mo.**

4 DR., 4 CYL., AUTO

NEW 2014 VENZA 4X2 2 AVAILABLE: #474506, 474502

24,590

15,790

4 DR., AUTO, 4 CYL., INCL.

NEW 2014 SCION XD 2 AVAILABLE: #453002, 453012

4 CYL., AUTO

AFTER $1,000 REBATE

169/mo.**

4 CYL., 4 DR., AUTO

NEW 2013 RAV4 LE 4X4 BASE 2 AVAILABLE: #364575, 364497

NEW 2014 CAMRY LE 2 AVAILABLE: #472121, 472144

36 Month Lease $

169/mo.**

4 DR., 4 CYL., AUTO

NEW 2014 CAMRY LE

2 AVAILABLE: #377730, 377729

16,890

2 AVAILABLE: #472090, 472191

0% FOR

4 DR., AUTO, 4 CYL.,

AFTER $1,000 REBATE

4 CYL., AUTOMATIC

AFTER $500 REBATE

NEW 2013 PRIUS C II

21,790

DARCARS

MONTHS+

On 10 Toyota Models

See what it’s like to love car buying

18,790

AUTO, 4 CYL., 4 DR

AFTER TOYOTA $1,750 REBATE

G557425

1-888-831-9671

15625 Frederick Rd (Rte 355) • Rockville, MD n OPEN SUNDAY n VISIT US ON THE WEB AT www.355Toyota.com

G558472

PRICES AND PAYMENTS INCLUDE ANY APPLICABLE MANUFACTURE’S REBATES AND EXCLUDE MILITARY ($500) AND COLLEGE GRAD ($500) REBATES, TAX, TAGS, DEALER PROCESSING CHARGE ($200) AND FREIGHT: CARS $795 OR $810, TRUCKS, SPORT UTILITY AND SIENNAS $810, $845 AND $995. *0.9% APR & 0% APR FINANCING UP TO 60 MONTHS TO QUALIFIED BUYERS THRU TOYOTA FINANCIAL SERVICES. TOTAL FINANCED CANNOT EXCEED MSRP PLUS OPTIONS, TAX, AND LICENSE FEES. 0% APR 60 MONTHLY PAYMENTS OF $16.67 FOR EACH $1000 BORROWED. 0.9% APR 60 MONTHLY PAYMENTS OF $17.05 FOR EACH $1000 BORROWED. APR OFFERS ARE NOT VALID WITH ANY OTHER CASH BACK OR LEASE OFFER. NOT ALL BUYERS WILL QUALIFY.**LEASE PAYMENTS BASED ON 36 MONTHS, 12,000 MILES PER YEAR WITH $995 DOWN PLUS $650 ACQUISITION FEE, NO SECURITY DEPOSIT REQUIRED. SEE DEALER FOR COMPLETE DETAILS. OFFERS EXPIRES 01/31/2014.

Page B-12

Thursday, January 16, 2014 lr

Advertorial

G558469