Volume 20, Number 47
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
www.TownTimes.com
Friday, March 7, 2014
CRHS in national Ocean Sciences Bowl By Charles Kreutzkamp Town Times
A Coginchaug Regional High School team is hard at work preparing for the national Ocean Sciences Bowl, which will be held this year in Seattle, Wash. In nine years of competition, this is the first time Coginchaug has won the regional competition, the Quahog Bowl, and this will be the first time Coginchaug students have competed on the national level. According to the NOSB, its mission is to enrich science teaching and learning across the United States through a high-profile national competition that increases high
school students’ knowledge of the oceans and enhances public understanding and stewardship of the oceans. Nationals will pay for the team’s trip to Seattle, so fundraising will not be needed. Te a m C a p t a i n D e a n n a Puchalski said this was welcome news. “We don’t need another thing on top of studying to worry about,” she said. The questions at nationals will be at the collegiate — or even graduate — level, the team’s coach Lorrie Martin explained. The theme for this year’s national competition is ocean acidification. The team is still taken aback by its big victory at the regional competition. “It’s surreal,” team member
Tyler Bjarnason said. The Quahog Bowl was a day-long series of matches. The game’s questions includes toss-up multiple choice, which, if answered correctly, score the team the ability to answer a follow-up short answer question. There are also notoriously difficult challenge questions, where 20 points are possible, but a score of 10 is an excellent performance, and scoring even three or four points is respectable. “You have to listen to the toss-ups very carefully and eliminate multiple choice answers as you go —you can’t just cross things out, like on a See Bowl / Page 14
Members of the Coginchaug Regional High School Ocean Bowl Team met Feb. 20 to practice and prepare for their first national competition. During the practice, Team Captain Deanna Puchalski, center, successfully buzzed in to answer a question, causing her light to illuminate. |(Charles Kreutzkamp / Town Times)
Powder Ridge instructors share love of mountain
Durham native’s ‘Happy Camp’ featured film
By Keith Hagarty
Town Times
(This is the second in a sort. The recently re-opened Special to Town Times Town Times series of stories facility has attracted the inabout Powder Ridge ski re- terest of winter sports enthusiast throughout the state and region and put the spotlight on Middlefield-Durham.) When ski instructor Scott Douglas made the decision to join Powder Ridge Mountain Park & Resort for its inaugural 2013-2014 season, he envisioned a great ride. “When I first got here, the first thing I saw was potential—just look at the amazing potential of this mountain,” said Douglas, who came to Powder Ridge after working as an instructor at Thunder Ridge Ski Area in New York since 2008. He also serves as the facility’s video-grapher. “Even though, at the time, it Powder Ridge instructors from left, Ryan Wearne, Scott Douglas and Eddie Beaudry are proud to be part of the park’s inaugural season. | (Keith Hagarty / Special to Town Times)
See Instructors / Page 13
By Charles Kreutzkamp Starting on March 25, if you search direct Video On Demand for a thriller/ horror film, you just might come across a movie directed and starred in by Durham native Josh Anthony. Anthony graduated from Coginchaug in 1997, and has been in California since graduating from UConn 11 years ago. The film is about four friends who travel to Happy Camp, a town known for its mysterious disappearances – including the younger brother of the main character, who returns intending to make a documentary out of the experience.
“Happy Camp” is Anthony’s first professionally produced film. “They’re calling it a Josh found footAnthony age f ilm, but you might say it’s in the documentary format,” Anthony said. The film takes place in the real-world location of Happy Camp, Calif. The film was produced by Flower Films, a film production company founded in 1995 by Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen. The film’s success in being offered On Demand See Film / Page 10