January 30, 2017
Ridge Spring News
Harriet Householder
All of us had a
wonderful time seeing Joe Cal Watson at the Nut House and enjoying his
retirement drop in. The Yons were
gracious hosts for the event and the pecan pie was the best.
Hughes Aerial Imagery
LLC can
trace its beginning to a battery operated tiny remote-controlled helicopter.
Given one Christmas to Tom Hughes, he flew the helicopter until the battery
could no longer be charged. Even though this little helicopter basically only
went up and down, he was intrigued and began researching remote control
helicopters. Visiting established forums and sites, Tom decided to try his hand
at single rotor helicopters and purchased the Esky Honey Bee. After many, many
attempts to fly Tom was about to throw in the towel when his wife, Nanette
said: “I’ve never know you to give up on anything.” So, he didn’t give up and finally learned to
fly the “Bee”. This led to bigger and
more powerful helicopters and greatly improved flight skills.
After mastering the single rotors, Tom moved
on to multi rotors, both flying and building and repairing, because if you fly
a lot you will need to know how to repair. Tom enjoyed videoing and had a small
but faithful YouTube following
Then the word drone hit social media! Drones were everywhere and there was a
certain uneasiness regarding the use and guidelines. Tom decided to let the
dust settle and see what played out, especially when the FAA became involved.
After months of hearsay and speculation, specific
guidelines and requirements were published outlining how, where and who could
fly a drone. Tom then began to study for his drone pilot’s license, took the
test and passed. He purchased a Phantom IV drone and accessory equipment and
Hughes Aerial Imagery LLC became a reality.
With wife Nanette, they set up a web site,
Face Book page and did some pro bono work for a local real estate company and a
timber company in Georgia. Tom said: “There is no limit to what a drone can
video. You are only limited by your imagination.” He hopes to find his ‘niche’
in the drone business.
The Hughes are excited to become another
small business here on The Ridge and asked that you visit their web site:
hughesaerialimagery.com or visit them on Face Book. Tom says,”Be careful if you
receive a toy at Christmas that you can’t put down, it just might start another
entirely different chapter in your life”. His sure did.
RIDGE SPRING UNITED
METHODIST CHURCH: During the month of
January The Big Red Box collected non perishable food and drinks for the Back
Pack Ministry. These items will be used right here in our community. Thanks to
everyone who participated.
Souper (Super) Bowl is
coming! Whether you are a New England fan, Go Patriots, or an Atlanta fan, Go
Falcons, this is your chance to show off your Team pride. How you say? By
bringing soup and placing your donation in front of your Team’s sign. The soup will
make its way into the Big Red Box. The signs will be on the Family Life Center
Porch starting February 1st. Church members will collect, count and
maintain a running total of which Team is ahead. Even after the Big Game is
over, please continue to show your support throughout the month of February.
The collected soup will be distributed to food banks in our area. Results of
the soup, shoot out will be posted in this column. Let’s have some fun, help
our neighbors. What’s better than a warm bowl of soup on a cold winter’s day?
Thanks in advance. Church Services are at 11 a.m. every Sunday unless
other wised noted.
Nate Birt,Top Producer Managing Editor at AG/WEB powered By Farm
Journal: First-generation farmers Chalmers
and Lori Anne Carr of Titan Farms have
been named the winners of the 2017 Top Producer of the Year award. The couple’s
operation is one of the largest peach producers in the U.S. They also grow
peppers and broccoli and recently diversified with a frozen-fruit facility for
processing of peaches that are sold in bulk or pureed for use in yogurt, baby
food and other products.
“My husband and I are truly living a
dream,” Lori Anne Carr told attendees of Top Producer’s annual awards banquet
in Chicago before the winner was announced.
“On the farm, we truly have a motto
that nobody’s going to come up and pat you on the back, or nobody’s going to
say, ‘Great job,’” Chalmers added. “We get our achievements and our personal
goals set by going out and protecting the natural resources that we have,
cultivating those into crops and producing staples and food for other people to
eat. My personal joy comes from doing that day in and day out.”
Sponsored by Bayer and Case IH,
the Top Producer of the Year contest is in its 18th year and represents the
best in the business of farming. In addition to the Carrs, finalists for this
year’s award were John Pagel of Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy, a dairy and grain
operation in Kewaunee, Wis., and brothers Richard and Roderick Gumz of Gumz Farms, a row crop
and vegetable operation in Endeavor, Wis. Readers of AgWeb.com and Top Producer
will learn more about each of the finalists in future news articles.
Each of the finalists received a
trip for two to attend the seminar and will receive sessions with a CEO coach.
The winner will receive the opportunity to be enrolled for a year in the Top
Producer Executive Network™ peer group program, courtesy of Bayer.
Additionally, the winner will get to choose either a Steiger Rowtrac or a
Magnum Rowtrac from Case IH for 150 hours of use, courtesy of Case IH
Josie Rodgers
Aiken County Public
Schools will
hold Town Hall meetings to hear the needs of the public concerning our
schools. Superintendent Dr. Alford will
also provide updates on the progress of the district as well as future
plans. Area Four’s meeting will take
place Tues., Feb. 21, at 6:30 pm at Calendonia Baptist Church at 1887 Old 96
Indian Trail in Batesburg.
RSM Elem (Rene
Miller): Congratulations to Alexander Fierros-Garcia who won 1stplace
in the K-2 category of the district MLK
Poster Contest. He won a Kindle Fire
Tablet! We are very proud of Alex
for this great accomplishment.
The
4thgrade would like to thank the PTO for purchasing the pizza and
drinks to celebrate our Math Masters!
Multiplication Masters: Lauriana Cabana, Alissa Cato, JaQuez Gantt, Parker
Holsomback, Peyton Holsomback, Natalie
Mitchum, Heather OsbunShirey, Ty'Trell Smith, Arianna Williams, Aubrianna Wise,
Landon Wooten, Multiplication and Division Masters: Logan Brightwell,
Cade Cockrell, Tikara Lewis, Taylor Long, Briston Matthews, Jemmell Morris,
Cassandra Oakman, Sebastian Ogden, Braylon Smith, Christian Smith, James Smith,
Maryann Sterling, Elihjah Thomas, and Kaytlin Tindal
TheWalk/Jog Clubhas made 9.8 more miles. That puts us at 247.65 miles for the year out
of the 516 miles that we need to get to Washington D.C. We are currently on I-95 in Smithfield, NC. We need to average 18 miles per week for the
rest of the year to make our goal.
Active Gamecocks activity logs were
due this week. Participating students
will receive a ticket to the USC Women’s basketball game on Feb. 9 and the USC
Men’s basketball game on Feb. 15. They
will also receive a voucher for a prize at one of the two games. Keep it up and stay healthy!
RSM Middle:ACPSD Spelling Bee will be @ AECOM at 7 pm Mon
night. Good luck to 7th grader Kayala Brown!
The Science
Fair will be held Feb. 16. All
students will complete a science project.
We are excited to see what amazing projects our students create!
RSM High: Senior Rocky
Isreal will be honored at the WJBF Football Friday Night All-CSRA Award
Show in Augusta Tuesday.
The
Black History program will be held
Fri., Feb. 17, in the gym. Based on last
year’s program, you don’t want to miss this!
English
teachers participated in the SCCTE
conference at Kiawah Island last
Thurs-Sat. Mrs. Bedenbaugh, Ms. Jones,
Ms. Jackson, and Mrs. Rodgers attended many different workshops and heard from
several renowned speakers. These
dedicated teachers gleaned much information, learned new strategies, and
gathered many new resources that will greatly benefit RSM students. They also networked with other English
teachers and professors from across SC and supported former RSM teachers Mrs.
Hostetler and Ms. Hannon at their session. Our teachers even had their picture
made with SC poet and teaching artist Glenis
Redmond, known worldwide for her praise poetry and innovative teaching
strategies.
The Renaissance Rally held last week
honored the many students who made honor roll.
The Step Team also performed for the student body, and students from
each class competed in a type of musical chairs game. The winner was junior Summer Cherry! Dalton Cockrell was also honored for
his creation of a logo for the new school theme concerning farm to table/health
science/agriculture/business. Later that
day, honor roll students enjoyed ice cream with the principal as a reward for
their hard work.
From
David Marshall James: Everything
old is new again, times four:
First, Broadway’s “Hamilton” continues to
grow on me, particularly via a PBS special on its conception. Before that, there was an NBC “Nightly News”
presentation on a special performance of “Hamilton” for junior-high-school
students, most of them inner-city, difficult-to-reach youths. All of them glowed with superlatives
following the show.
If “Hamilton” can turn them, and others,
on to American history and to the theater, I couldn’t cheer louder. The show’s largely hip-hop score may seem
unorthodox, but rhyme is the ultimate mnemonic device, dating back to the epics
of Homer and Virgil, when their poetry was transmitted orally. One whiff of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul
Revere,” and that bit of history is going to lodge in your brain. And it isn’t just the rhyme, it’s the beat
(the meter and its stresses). Just as
with hip-hop.
I learned to sing—yes, sing—The Preamble
to The Constitution via “School House Rock.”
I wonder how many of our presidential candidates could recite the
Preamble. Thank you, “School House
Rock,” and thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of “Hamilton.”
Second,
upcoming Broadway: This March,
Bette Midler joins an impressive group of leading ladies who have portrayed
Dolly Gallagher Levi in Jerry Herman’s “Hello, Dolly!” on the Great White Way
since its 1964 opening, from Carol Channing to Ginger Rogers to Betty Grable to
Ethel Merman, for whom Herman wrote the music and lyrics. Nevertheless, Merman turned down Herman, as
she was hoping to land a TV series off of which she could retire. The Merm guest-starred on every variety show
imaginable, and on quiz shows such as “Match Game,” but the series eluded her.
The first day of ticket sales for the 2017
premier of the “Hello, Dolly!” revival netted $9 million, so it looks as if
“Miss M” has found her retirement account.
David Hyde Pierce, of “Frasier” TV fame, will be portraying “that
well-known half-a-millionaire,” Yonkers, New York, merchant Horace
Vandergelder.
For those who cannot score a ticket,
there’s always 20th Century-Fox’s wildly overproduced 1968 film
version starring a too-young-for-the-part Barbra Streisand, who does sing the
heck out of every song and looks swell in the period costumes. Besides which, I’m a fan of overproduced
musicals. No one’s making them anymore,
although “La La Land” is offering a smidge of promise.
La
Streisand has been holding the rights to
Herman’s other big Broadway musical, “Mame,” for decades, with a view toward a
TV production. The 1974 Warner Bros.
film version with Lucille Ball was unjustly slammed by the critics—as was
Streisand’s “Hello, Dolly!”—but I hold firm that Lucy made the perfect “Mame,”
madcap and glamorous. She, too, looks
great in all her glad rags and colorful wigs.
After all, Lucy started off as a Hattie Carnegie model.
Indeed, who could portray Mame Dennis
Burnside today? Kristin Chenoweth,
maybe? She’s got the pipes, the comedic
talent, and the glamour, which lead us to:
Third, Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle in the
recent live TV production of the 2002 Broadway musical “Hairspray,” which was
base on the 1988 movie of the same title, starring Ricki Lake, Jerry Stiller,
and Sonny Bono. There’s a 2007 film
version of the Broadway musical, but I think the TV production topped it,
thanks in part to Chenoweth and all-around good casting, including Jennifer
Hudson, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Derek Hough, and Garrett Clayton as
heartthrob Link Larkin.
Plus-size Divine set the stage for all
future Edna Turnblad’s to be portrayed by gentlemen in drag, from Harvey
Fierstein onstage and in the TV special, to the dough-faced John Travolta in
the movie. Who’d have thunk that Tony
Manero would one day be Edna Turnblad?
Divine delivers one of my favorite movie quotes in the original film
version, to husband Jerry Stiller: “It’s
the times: they are a-changin’. Something’s blowin’ in the wind. Fetch me my diet pills, will you?” Who would have thunk that Divine was
paraphrasing (except for the diet-pill bit) a future Nobel Prize for Literature
winner? That would be Bob Dylan.
The songs from “Hairspray” comprise a
super score—my favorites are “Good Morning, Baltimore,” “I Can Hear the Bells,”
“Welcome to the Sixties,” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat”—and the show made me
feel like dancing, leaving a glow reminiscent of those students’ who saw
“Hamilton.”
Fourth:
Was listening to TV one recent Sunday morn, when what to my wondering
ears should appear a familiar voice.
That’s … that’s Jane Pauley! Yes,
she has returned to TV as host of “CBS Sunday Morning.” Back when I was a junior in high school,
Pauley was a co-host of the “Today” show, along with Tom Brokaw. There was quite the scandal seven years
later, when Pauley was pushed aside by “Today” news reader and “younger model”
Deborah Norville, prompting “All About Eve” references, including a sketch on
“Saturday Night Live.” Norville later moved
on to “Inside Edition,” where she has remained for years.
Maybe it’s difficult to describe how young
Pauley’s re-emergence makes me feel: A
teensy bit like being back in high school.
Like co-opting a Jerry Herman lyric:
“Well, well, hello, Jane! / Hello, Jane! / It’s so good to have you back
where you belong!” I’m so happy I could
even sing The Preamble to The Constitution.
REMINDERS
Ridge Spring Library
hours:
Mon/Tues 8:30 am - 12 pm; Wed., 8:30 – 4:30; Thurs 8:30 am - 12:30 pm; Fri 8:30
pm -4:30 pm
Ridge Spring Post Office hours: Mon-Fri. 7:30 am – 11:30 am; Sat 9 – 10 am
Saluda County Library Hours:
Mon/Wed
8:30 am-5 pm; Tues/Thurs 8:30 am – 6 pm; Fri 8:30 am – 5 pm; Sat closed
Recycling Center Hours: Mon/Wed/Fri 1-7; Sat 7-7; Sun 3-7; Tues/Thurs closed
First Thursday of the Month:
AARS meets at 6:30, 685-5783
Third Thursday of the
Month: FORS at
Library at 5:00
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