Nine Solanco area girls will compete for the title of Miss Solanco 2014 in the scholarship pageant to be held next month. The pageant, to be held in the Solanco High School auditorium on Saturday night, November 30, is sponsored by the Quarryville Teenage Club. For the first time this year, each contestant will be accompanied by a young princess. The organizers chose to have the young princesses participate because the next pageant level includes young girls. After rising slightly last year, the number of students attending Solanco's public schools has dropped a little. On October 1, 2012, Solanco had 3,775 students. A year later, 3,701 were enrolled at Solanco.
The Solanco Fair Association will be putting up a new building early next year.
The association will erect a 60-foot by 180-foot all weather building north of the group's newest commercial exhibit barn. Longtime fair supporter Jim Kreider and his family will contribute $100,000 toward the cost. Members of the Middle Octorara Presbyterian Women are preparing for one of their major fundraisers of the year. The church women will be serving their annual turkey supper on Saturday, October 12. They started the fundraiser six years ago and it now draws more than 300 people a year, said organizer Shirley Miller. The meal includes turkey breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, peas, roll and butter, pepper cabbage, and cranberry sauce. There will be a selection of pies for dessert; coffee, tea, or water will be available. Solanco High School students are getting ready for their annual homecoming celebration. Activities will begin Tuesday, October 15. The homecoming queen will be crowned at 7:15 p.m. on Friday, October 18, before the start of the Solanco-Elizabethtown football game. The king will be crowned at the homecoming dance on Saturday, October 19. If it rains Friday night, the homecoming queen will also be crowned during the dance.
For the third time in as many years, the Southern End Community Association is looking for a new director.
Glenn Koehler, SECA's executive director since November, 2011, left in August. The parting was amicable, said April Pierson, president of SECA's board of directors. Five days a week, Solanco's elementary schools make sure their students have enough to eat. The Solanco Food Bank handles the weekends with its SWEEP program. The food bank began the school year providing weekend meals for 231 students from Solanco's four elementary schools. The food bank also packs 19 meals for pupils who attend Martic Elementary School in the Penn Manor School District. Thousands of exhibits, ranging from show cattle and goats to canned beans, antique tractors, and new farm equipment, will be spread across dozens of acres when the Solanco Fair opens on Wednesday, September 18. Just getting around to the displays can be tiring, or even impossible, for spectators who are disabled or elderly. The Wakefield Lions Club has come up with a way to help the mobility-challenged tour the fair. The Lions are bringing walkers, wheelchairs, crutches, and canes to the fair and making them available to anyone who needs help getting around. Two people were charged with assault following an incident in the 1100 block of Slate Hill Rd., Drumore Township, at 11:45 p.m. on August 22, Trooper Aaron Davis reported.
According to the trooper, A 19-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy, both from Quarryville, tried to smash a mailbox. The property owner retrieved the bat and followed the teens, damaging their vehicle with the ball bat, the trooper said. Spectators are accustomed to people handing out bags of chips, bottles of water, and other items from floats and commercial entries in the annual Solanco Fair parade. This year, Solanco Neighborhood Ministries wants to reverse the process. "We're asking for people to pay it forward," said board member Marlin Nafziger. "We're asking them to give, not to get." Members of the ministry want spectators to bring canned and other nonperishable food items to donate to the Solanco Food Bank, one of the nonprofit's outreach programs. Ken Work won't be wearing a police uniform and a pistol this week. Instead, he'll be dressed in a new uniform - a dark shirt and khaki pants. That will mark his transition to the position of borough manager. He will still be the police chief, a position he has held for a dozen years, but he will not be going on patrol. Work was appointed borough manager last month. He replaces Alfred Drayovitch Jr., who retired August 30. For the past month, Drayovitch has been helping Work make the transition. Buoyed by an impressive showing during scrimmages Saturday, Solanco boys soccer coach Ron Miller has high hopes for his squad. The Mules were 3-0-1 on the day. "It was awesome," Miller said. "It was a good day for us. We've improved big time and I see a nice season in store for us."
Every August, the Thursday before school opens, the drivers who pilot school buses throughout the Solanco School district gather for orientation and training. Every year, the training is different.
"We try to give them practical training for everyday stuff they do on the bus," said Jason McClune, the district's transportation coordinator. This year, the emphasis was on safety. The bridge connecting Little Britain Township’s Sleepy Hollow Rd. with Lees Bridge Rd. in West Nottingham Township won’t reopen until mid-September. The $1.2 million project was supposed to be completed last month, PennDOT said last spring.
The bridge, built in 1947, closed in early March. The superstructure of the span was in bad condition and had to be replaced, PennDOT spokesman Gregory Penny said at the time. The project’s completion date was later extended into August. Last week, PennDOT spokesman Mike Crochinus said the project has been delayed again. The new opening date is the middle of next month, he said. Crochinus did not say why the contractor, Alan A. Myers of Worcester, did not complete the work on time. There must be some recessive gene in the Girvin family tree. That's one way to explain how three generations of the family have become public school teachers, Barry Girvin said last week. Barry is a native of Bart Township who graduated from Solanco High School and went on to teach social studies in the Conestoga Valley School District for 34 years before retiring. His son, John, graduated from CV and Millersville University and is well into his third decade at Solanco High School, where he teaches chemistry. John's daughter, Alyssa Girvin, is a graduate of Penn Manor High School and Elon University. She is beginning her first year as a science teacher at Solanco High, where she will teach biology. "I like biology because its a very hands-on subject," Alyssa said last week. "It's the study of life." Many of the toughest tasks have already been completed, but the custodial staff at Quarryville Elementary School is still busy prepping for the start of the school year. "The last week is better than a month ago," custodian Carl Cross said. "We're just pulling everything together." A month ago, Cross and his co-workers cleaned a majority of the rooms in just 11 days. The job was more challenging this year because Quarryville Elementary hosted summer school classes. During summer school, they were able to clean the rooms in the D wing, which houses specialty classes such as ESOL and speech. Solanco High School's marching band will field a balanced group of musicians this year. The band's composition led director Gary Doll to choose a challenging program for 2013. That show, Star Trek Through the Years, uses music from several generations of the science fiction icon. The Solanco Fair changes every year. New exhibits, new buildings, and new events, all designed to do one thing - maintain the fair's original purpose as a celebration of the region's agriculture and rural life. No matter what changes, the fair association has made sure the original goal hasn't changed. For more than half a century, they have successfully resisted attempts to include rides or games of chance. "It's a good environment," longtime volunteer Scott Kreider said last week. "The whole Southern End works for it." Funding from a grant could pay for a bridge that would carry Low Grade rail trail walkers over Rt. 222. The bridge
would replace a stone arch over Rt. 222 that was demolished in 2009. It would be another link joining sections of the trail that were separated when century-old bridges were demolished as the former rail line was turned over to local municipalities. The proposed grant would come through the Smart Growth initiative's Transportation Alternative Program. The $1.9 million grant would fund projects in Conestoga, Martic, Providence, Eden, and Bart townships. Andy Jackson likes to sit in a chair, under a tree, between his brick home and a white machine shed, and look out over the family farm. It's a familiar scene - he's been on that farm for a century. Jackson, who turned 100 on Monday, July 15, was born on the farm he operated until recently. "I farmed all my life," he said. The farm has been in his family since it was deeded to Ulrick Runner by the Penn family in 1752. He was born in the frame house just up the drive from the brick home he shares with Eva, his wife of 79 years. He began attending Little Britain Presbyterian Church when he was six weeks old. The world has been coming to Quarryville Elementary School this summer. Guest readers have been sharing their experiences, and their stories, from Cambodia to Alaska and India to Ethiopia as part of Solanco School District's summer reading program. The guests come to the school at 11:20 every morning to share stories about their travels
and read a story from the country they visited. That's just part of the Read Around the World program, said coordinator Robin Ball. |
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