February 3, 2014
Ridge Spring News
Harriet Householder
The snow was beautiful and made
everything so clean. I enjoyed it for a couple of hours and was thankful. I am trying to include two pictures in my
column this week.
One by Danny O’Driscoll and the
gazebo by Joanne Crouch
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The Friends of Ridge Spring are
sponsoring an evetn at the Civic Center in Ridge Spring.Check it out.
Market on the Ridge
Antiques, Artisans
March 22 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Mark your calendars
Valentines is next
week. Juniper has a wonderful evening meal
for one to make reservations for. Check
them out on facebook. Beautiful flowers
from Harriet’s Garden can be ordered now or that day. There are lovely gifts to be purchased at our
many shops and Art Gallery. So check out
Ridge Spring and visit the facebook page “Visit Ridge Spring”.
Ridge Spring United
Methodist Church: On
Feb. 2nd, during Worship service, the wheel chair ramp located at
the Joe and Betty Watson Family Life Center was dedicated. Tom Quattlebaum
stated: he would like to dedicate the ramp in honor and memory of the parents
and teachers of the Ridge Spring Monetta High School Class of 1969. Mr.
Quattelbaum’s family donated all the materials and labor to have the ramp
built. After the Service, 30+ attendees enjoyed a Souper (super) lunch of
soups, desserts, drinks and other tasty treats. The members of RSUMC thank and
appreciate the effort made by the Quattlebaum family. The Big Red Box is empty
and ready for non perishable food items for the Johnston Food Bank. Leave your
donations on the porch of the Church or Family Life Center or with Jim
Campbell. Communion will be held on Feb. 16th during
the morning worship service. This is an open communion, all are welcome to
attend and participate.
Little
Peach League Baseball sign-ups will be held Feb. 8 and Feb. 15 from 10-1
at the ball field complex in Monetta. For questions, call 480-2290.
Josie Rodgers:
I believe most of us enjoyed the beautiful
snowfall last week! The ice and
hazards we could do without, but oh, what a glorious morning to wake up and see
a sparkling wonderland of white all around!
My children were so excited to see the first flakes fall the night before! The kids and dads enjoyed playing in the snow
and riding the sled behind the 4-wheeler.
I loved taking pictures of them and the diamond-studded landscape and
then retreating to my warm home and toasty fireplace to watch from our picture
window! I also enjoyed seeing everyone’s
pictures on Facebook, too! Now the
public schools have to make up the snow day(s).
Aiken County will have the make-up day on Presidents’ Day, Feb. 17.
RSM High News: A message from principal Warren Wintrode: As we head into February, we have been visited by
one last cold snap, postponing school for several days and providing an
opportunity to disrupt the educational process.
Fortunately, our students, faculty and staff rose to the challenge,
arriving at school ready to carry on, despite frost, snow and a disrupted
schedule. I was pleased, but not
surprised. In my experience, this
school, and this community, always rises to a challenge.
Next week, the last
vestiges of winter will disappear and we will begin our journey into
spring. This coming month, we will
celebrate Black History month. Spring
sports, Prom, Spring Break and exams are ahead of us. Seniors are finalizing their plans for next
year, be it college, trade school, military or the work force. The construction of the new middle school
wing remains on schedule. This will be a
6th - 12th grade school campus during the next school year. In the midst of all this activity, I
encourage everyone to stay focused on education. This is what we're here for. As always, stop by and see what's going on up
on the Ridge. You're always welcome.
RSM High welcomes new science teacher Mr. Earhart, a retired Marine and first-year teacher. Mr. Earhart graduated from USC Aiken with a
degree in chemistry and is currently teaching biology (Cristal Gonzalez).
“January is School Board Recognition Month. Every year, each
school board member is presented with artwork created by select students from
around our district. This year the theme is School Boards: Locally Owned and Operated
Since Forever. This year, Josefina Lopez’s
artwork,
entitled Zentangle of the District Office,
was chosen to be presented to a lucky school board member! (Quameshia Gantt and
Cristal Gonzalez)
Quameshia Gantt reports that the Prom Club is getting ready for the annual event which will take
place April 19 from 8 pm until midnight at the
Aiken Electric Cooperative Community Room in Aiken. This year’s theme is a masquerade titled “Unmask the Night.” Tickets are $20 each until Feb. 28. In March, tickets will be $30 each.
Sasah Alekhin reports that Quameshia
Gantt competed in the 2nd round of Poetry Out Loud in Blythewood on
Jan. 25. Participants came from around
the Midlands to recite 2 poems from memory.
Even though she didn’t place, Quameshia represented RSM High very
well. She said, “Being there was amazing. Watching
others perform and seeing the dynamics with their tone and change in facial
expression really was a learning experience. Everyone was friendly, and it was
great seeing other’s personal connection with poetry. If I had a chance to go
back, I most definitely would!” We look
forward to more students competing at the school level next year!
Aiken County Public School District would like to invite
parents and members of the community to take part in a Stakeholder Input Meeting for the development of the District’s
Five-Year Strategic Plan. This plan includes goals and activities for improving
student achievement, teacher/leadership quality, and school climate. A meeting
will be held on March 6 at RS-M Elem/Med Media Center from 6 pm until 7:30
pm to obtain your input and feedback. Your attendance will be greatly
appreciated.
RSM Elem/Mid News
(Rene Miller):
Congratulations to all our students who
were able to participate in our school-wide "Trojan Pride
Celebration.” Any student without
suspensions in the 2nd quarter qualified. We are starting fresh with the next 9
weeks. Student who follow school rules and have no discipline issues will be
able to celebrate Trojan Pride Day in 9 more weeks! We had 4 hulahoop contests
throughout the day and our winners were Kearie Burton, 5K; Abi Moss, 3rd; Allie Hodson, 4th;
and Lacy Pou, 6th. These students won some terrific prizes - way to go!
John Kneece : Mission to Cuba, part 2:
Upon our arrival at John Wesley Church in Santiago de Cuba on day three in
Cuba, we discovered that our team’s construction effort would be to prepare
for, mix, and pour a portion of the roof on the fourth floor of the
building. We had come anticipating doing
finish work (tile and woodwork) in a church, with no clue we would be pouring a
reinforced concrete slab on what will eventually become the fifth floor of the
building.
That
evening before dark and again the next morning, we surveyed the site and
materials….there appeared to be about four yards of aggregate (crushed stone)
already on the fourth floor and about 4 yards or so of sand piled on the
sidewalk in front of the building. The
forms for the new section were already constructed and the rebar was tied in
ready for concrete. There was a standard
electrical power cement mixer and a cistern full of water also in place for the
work. As we toured the work site, I kept
looking for an elevator or pulley system that would be used to get the
materials from the ground up to the work site on the fourth floor. Finally, I asked, “how do we get the rest of
the materials up here?” The team leader
replied, “We will carry it up the stairwell.”
“Oh, my!” I thought. Before we
began to move sand, about 8 team members worked in shifts to shovel the four
yards or so of crushed stone to a different location on the fourth floor to
clear a place for the sand. Then, with
three people bagging sand in bags that weighed 8-10 pounds apiece, we formed a human
chain from the sidewalk in front of the church into the stairwell and up the
more than 55 steps to the fourth floor.
This would have been extremely difficult if our team of eleven had to go
it alone, but like magic, men and women who were members of the congregation of
John Wesley Church showed up until our chain reached from the ground floor to
the fourth floor with people standing side-by-side. Even then, just moving the gravel over to the
right place and then moving the sand by hand used up most of the first day
(just one yard of sand is a lot and we moved by my estimate about four yards of
stone and four yards of sand!).
That
evening, we attended a worship service in the sanctuary (first two floors of
the building). I was struck by the
singular beauty of the tilework and the lighting in the sanctuary along with
the enthusiasm and attentiveness of the congregation. The music was loud, lively, and plentiful (as
you know, that suited me just fine even though I did not understand the words). I had been named by the team leader as the person
to preach that evening and had incorporated some baseball examples into my
sermon for the evening since baseball is the national sport of Cuba. As the interpreter translated the words, it
was a real relief to see people were nodding their heads in understanding and
agreement. It probably helped that the
translator was a young woman who was a member of the congregation. With God’s help, I survived the evening and
seemed to successfully share my message.
Near
the end of the first day, a truck delivered two pallets of bricks to be used
for finish work on the fourth floor. You
guessed it; our project for the next morning was to form the human chain again
and move the bricks to the work site on the fourth floor. These bricks were
about 5”X8”X2” and just one was a handful.
About lunch time, a large, stake-bed truck pulled up in front of the
church and a team of about six robust men unloaded a large stack of cement in
bags that weighed about 110 pounds each.
I had visions of trying to “chain” those bags up the stairwell. I told the team leader, “I will have to lay
out of carrying those bags up the stairs; sorry.” He said something to the effect that we might
have to break them into smaller bags.
Then the pastor came out and told us to take a break because “help is on
the way.” As we finished lunch, the
younger men from our work on the first day along with just about every able
bodied man in the neighborhood showed up
and shouldered a bag of concrete and lugged it up the stairs to the top. There were enough of them that each one only
had to make a couple trips and they were through! What a blessing and an answer to prayer!
From David
Marshall James: Last night, Turner
Classic Movies aired the ten Best Picture nominees from 1939, including “The Wizard
of Oz” and “Gone With the Wind” (which won the Oscar). Both films were directed by Victor Fleming;
indeed, he left “Oz” in February 1939 to direct “GWTW,” for which he, too, won
an Oscar. Before that, director George
Cukor had worked on both films! Although
he spent only about a week on “Oz,” it was a critical time, at which MGM was
about to abandon the expensive project.
He took Judy
Garland out of an overwrought costume and a blond wig (in the “Oz” books,
Dorothy is a blond) and gave her a tutorial about acting the part. Forever appreciative, Garland chose Cukor to
direct her in “A Star Is Born” (1954 version, for which both were nominated for
Oscars). Vivien Leigh and Olivia de
Havilland (still living, incidentally) were incensed when Cukor was replaced by
Fleming on “GWTW”; however, Fleming was good friends with Clark Gable, and the
busy director steered both incredibly difficult productions to phenomenal
success.Cukor went on to direct Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell,
and an incredible cast in another classic, “The Women,” which opened in
September 1939. “Oz” opened in August;
“GWTW” would open in December—at the Loew’s Grand Theatre, Atlanta. Cukor finally won his Oscar, 25 years after
“Oz” and “GWTW,” for directing “My Fair Lady.” You can read
more about “Oz” and “GWTW” in two new books:
“ ‘The Wizard of Oz’: The
Official 75th Anniversary Companion” (by Jay Scarfone and William
Stillman) and “Vivien Leigh: An Intimate
Portrait” (by Kendra Bean). Leigh would
have been 100 this past October. Olivia
de Havilland turns 98 this July. Among
the delights of the “Oz” volume: A photo
of the Palmetto Theatre on Main Street, Columbia, all decked out for its
showing of “Oz” in September 1939.
20th Year
Anniversary Smorgasbord – “A Taste of Edgefield County”
It’s time for “The Taste of Edgefield County”
sponsored by the Edgefield County Chamber of Commerce; Thursday, February 6th,
2014 at the American Legion Hut, Edisto Street, Johnston, SC. 6:00 to 6:30 is social time; 6:45 until – is
food, presentations and entertainment. There is no cost to members or guests of
the Chamber and dress is casual. Come find out want the Edgefield County
Chamber of Commerce is all about!! Please RSVP 803-275-0010, Monday thru
Friday, 8:30 Am to 12:30 PM or email: info@edgefieldcountychamber.org.
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