Friday, August 17, 2012
At 99, Marianne Arden Cook—who plays the piano at the Friendship Heights Village Center every Tuesday afternoon—is self-releasing a CD of her own music.
Releasing a CD of one's own music isn't just for kids. Nonagenarians do it, too. Friendship Heights pianist Marianne Arden Cook, 99, has self-released a CD featuring 15 of the 130 songs she's written, along with five popular songs. The CD sells for $20, Cook told Patch. The songs are "from a long time ago," but Cook just decided to release the CD now. "[I thought I could] sell some CDs and get some money," she added. Cook is well-known to many of her neighbors in Friendship Heights, where she's lived for the last 25 years, Cook said. For the last 10 to 15 years, Cook has spent Tuesday afternoons performing at the Friendship Heights Village Center. There's a happy hour at the center from 3 to 4 p.m., with refreshments and Cook at the piano…
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Five new Eagle Scouts of Troop 52 in Chevy Chase designed and executed original and thoughtfully planned service projects.
Boy Scout Troop 52—one of the oldest in the nation—celebrated the achievements of five boy scouts earlier this summer. Tai Dinger, Patrick Holland, Skyler Hughes, Daniel Scheiner and Teddy Weisman received their Eagle Scout awards, which required organizing and performing a service projects for the community. Their projects included organizing a series of book drives, painting the living area of a homeless shelter, building a wheelchair ramp for an organization that serves the homeless and organizing a field trip to the National Mall for students attending a school in an underprivileged area. Teddy Weisman, a Bethesda resident and 2012 graduate of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, repainted the living area of St. Luke's Shelter, in …
Friday, July 13, 2012
Sculptor Barton Rubenstein, of the Town of Somerset, recently made the nine-hour drive to a sculpture park in Ohio to deliver his latest masterpiece.
Barton Rubenstein's Skybound sculpture has made it to its new destination—the 265-acre Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in southwestern Ohio. After a nine-hour trip in a rental truck, the 30-foot sculpture (which weighs about a ton) arrived at the park, where it will stay until 2014. Skybound is a sculpture made from a series of hollow, diamond-like shapes connected by an inner architecture that Rubenstein carefully concealed so that the diamonds appear to be floating above the ground, Patch reported last month. "Rubenstein said the piece came to life after he met with Harry T. Wilks, founder of Pyramid Hill, during a trip to Ohio last year. Rubenstein said while he was a finalist in a national competition at the University of Cincinnati, he …
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
A Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School student was among the 21 public school students in the county to be named a National Merit Scholar in the most recent announcement of winners, according to MCPS.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School student Catherina L. Leipold is one of 21 Montgomery County public high school students to win a National Merit Scholarship in the most recent round of National Merit Scholarship announcements, according to an MCPS announcement. Leipold, community service chair for the class of 2012 at B-CC, will study journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Leipold joins fellow B-CC class of 2012 graduates Dimitrios Halikias and Elizabeth W. Himwich in winning the prestigious award this year. The latest round of awards brings the total number of MCPS students honored with the scholarships this year to 81. The awards, sponsored by universities and colleges, honor winners with between $500 and $2,000 …
Monday, July 9, 2012
Stepien's time of 2:59:49 for 1.2 miles of swimming and 56 miles of biking won her first place in the event.
Think it's too hot for even walking to the bus stop...or starting up the car? Try swiming 1.2 miles and then biking 56 miles in 93 degrees and a humidity index of 88 percent—in just under three hours. Chevy Chase resident Kim Stepien did just that last month at the 2012 USA Triathlon Mid-Atlantic AquaBike Championship in Cambridge, MD. And, she won the event (her time was 2:59:49), beating the second-place finisher by 8 minutes, according to event publicity. Also known as the EagleMan Aqua Velo event, the June 10 race was a "true test of both ... physical and mental toughness. ... The conditions are both demanding and challenging [with] heat, winds, choppy river, and no shade," the race's entry form warned. Stepien, who has completed …
Chevy Chase Club golfers Jim Fitzgerald and Pleasant Hughes recently claimed the Middle Atlantic PGA Pro-Assistant Championship at Woodholme Country Club in Pikesville.
Chevy Chase Club golfers Jim Fitzgerald and Pleasant Hughes recently claimed the Middle Atlantic Professional Golfers’ Association Pro-Assistant Championship at Woodholme Country Club in Pikesville. The June 11 tournament ended with a "sudden death playoff" between three teams: Charlie Briggs and Alex Beach of the Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Bob Dolan and Carla Wasienko of the Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, and Fitzgerald and Hughes, who won the playoff after two holes. The news release continued: All shooting a 7-under par score of 66 (par 73), the three teams started the sudden death playoff on hole #10, a 370 yard par 4. Briggs/Beach and Fitzgerald/Hughes stayed in the running for first place with birdies on the first playoff…
Monday, June 25, 2012
Chevy Chase native and baseball pitcher Matt Bowman, who recently signed with the New York Mets, is starting out with the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor-league team affiliated with the Mets.
Chevy Chase native Matt Bowman, who recently signed a contract to play baseball with the New York Mets, has started his professional career with the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets' short-season, single-A minor league affiliate team. Bowman—a 2009 graduate of the St. Albans School in Northwest Washington, DC—signed with the Mets after impressing the team’s scouts during a workout this past spring. He was drafted in the 13th round of the Major League Baseball draft earlier this month, Patch reported. Bowman was pleased to be drafted by the Mets, in part because it means that he will not be playing too far away from his hometown. “I’m also very excited that they’re on the East Coast so I can stay relatively close to home,” he told The Daily …
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Rock Creek Forest Elementary School Principal David Chia will become the principal of a Rockville elementary school in the fall.
Rock Creek Forest Elementary School Principal David Chia will be heading to a new school next fall. Starting in August, he will be the principal of Wheaton Woods Elementary School. "I am looking forward to a new challenge in serving a Title I school as principal," he wrote in an email to Patch. "I was an assistant principal in the Wheaton cluster a few years ago [at Weller Road Elementary School,] so returning to the Wheaton cluster where I began my service as an administrator will be exciting," Chia continued. "I am confident the next principal at Rock Creek Forest will continue with the strong traditions and focus on high expectations for student success," Chia added. Chia's new appointment was unanimously approved by the Montgomery …
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Students and teachers recognized for hard work and contributions to the community.
Our local students and teachers just can't be kept down. It's summer vacation, and they're still making headlines. *** Two graduating seniors from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School were named 2012 Merit Scholars, The Gazette reported: Of the 8,300 finalists nationwide, 28 were graduating seniors from Montgomery County. Each finalist received a $2,500 scholarship, The Gazette reported. *** Montgomery County's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Parents' Council recently honored more than 30 staff members of Montgomery County Public Schools as part of a "Best and Brightest" awards program. Included were three Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School staff members: The NAACP Parents' Council also honored Westland Middle School …
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Barton Rubenstein, who designed the stainless-steel sculpture outside Somerset Elementary School, will be taking a 30-foot-high sculpture to a sculpture park in Ohio next month.
When Somerset residents Barton Rubenstein and his daughter head to Ohio next month, they'll be taking more than just a little luggage with them. In the U-Haul that Rubenstein is renting for the trip will be the giant, gleaming pieces of a 30-foot-high sculpture weighing 2,000 to 2,500 pounds. It's Rubenstein's latest artwork, and it's headed to the 265-acre Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in southwestern Ohio. Rubenstein is a sculptor nationally known for his stainless-steel pieces, which he designs and fabricates in his home studio in the Town of Somerset, in Chevy Chase. Many of his most well-known pieces are water sculptures, although he is also known for kinetic sculptures (with parts that move in the wind or in conjunction with a water …
