| E-Notice |
THIS
IS SURRATTS FOUNDATION E-NOTICE 2014-3 OF MARCH 1, 2014
Hello Hornets:
Here are some items that might be of
interest:
1.
SURRATTSVILLE COMMUNITY LOSES BELOVED LONG-TIME MEMBER.
Vivian Bounds Edelen, a beloved
Surrattsville teacher from the first half of the last century and a
great supporter of the Foundation, died on February 19 at the age of
96.
Some of our readers had a chance
to reminisce with Vivian about their days at Surrattsville at the
All Classes/Faculty/Staff reunions.
[One of your editor’s favorite memories of
Vivian was watching her at the Y2K Reunion enjoying reminiscing with
Paul Gwynn (49) about her experiences as his elementary school
teacher at Surrattsville!]
Vivian was born July 28, 1917 in Princess Anne,
MD to Floyd Solon Bounds and LuLu Folsom German. She was among the
members of the first class to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in
teaching from Salisbury State Teachers College.
She taught from 1938-1942 at
Surrattsville, teaching all of the fourth grade and half of the
fifth grade, with 46 students in each year’s class! She also worked
at Hughesville Tobacco Warehouse for many years as a cashier.
Her main hobby was genealogical
research, and she authored a number of books on that subject and was
honored with, among other things, the Key to the City of New Orleans
for her work in that area. She was a member of the DAR, Colonial
Dames of the 17th Century, and many historical societies.
Vivian married Edward Benjamin Edelen on
December 6, 1941 in Washington, D.C.
They had two girls and one boy.
They were married for 54 years
before her husband’s death.
She was predeceased by her older
brother, Floyd Bounds, and she is survived by her brother, Lee
Bounds.
She also had one half-sister and
two half-brothers.
She is survived by her daughters,
Anne Boone and her husband Charles D. Boone and Nancy Bryans and her
husband Dr. William A. Bryans IV, and her son, Ned Edelen. She had
five grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and many
step-grandchildren and step-great-grandchildren.
All who knew Vivian remarked that she was the
epitome of graciousness and friendliness, greeting everyone she met
with a warm and smile.
Vivian was especially noted for
the eloquent letters she wrote to 100s of correspondents (including
to the Foundation).
Donations in Vivian’s memory may be made to the Hospice of Charles County,
2505 Davis Road, Waldorf, MD 20603 or to the Rebekah C. Boone and
Vivian B. Edelen Memorial Fund, CSM Foundation, College of Southern
Maryland, PO Box 910, La Plata, MD 20646.
2.
ACHIEVEMENT AWARD NOMINATIONS
SOUGHT.
This is the time of year when we
ask our readers to submit nominations for the Foundation's Annual
Achievement Awards.
These annual awards recognize
members of the Surrattsville community for their outstanding
achievements in community service, the arts, their careers, and the
like.
Please submit nominations by email
to
hsmith@smithdowney.com.
(Photos and bios of the truly extraordinary
previous Achievement Award recipients can be found at
surrattsville.org.)
3.
FOUNDATION FUNDS SAT SNACKS.
Once again this year, the
Foundation was proud to fund the two snack breaks for students who
recently took the SAT test at Surrattsville.
Best of luck to these outstanding
young scholars!
4.
SCHOOL'S ACHIEVEMENT NOTED BY
NBC 4.
Some of our readers may have seen
this very nice article by Bridgett Lynn on NBCWashington.com
featuring an outstanding recent achievement by the students and
staff at Surrattsville:
"Prince George's Graduation Rates Up."
By Bridgett Lynn,
NBCWashington.com, 2/7/14.
New numbers show Prince
George's County high school graduation rates are up and the dropout
rate is down.
According to the Maryland State
Department of Education, the county's four-year graduation rate
increased 1.25 percent in 2013 from 2012. Now, 74 percent of its
seniors are graduating. During the same year, graduation for limited
English students saw an increase of 5.5 percent. Hispanic and Latino
students rose by 3.5 percent.
News4's Prince George's County Bureau
Chief Tracee Wilkins reported Surrattsville High School has seen
tremendous gains and had a nine percent increase in its graduation
class. The school's administrators use an early warning system to
determine which ninth-graders have specific issues that are keeping
them from graduating.
Administrators look at their
attendance and find out why they aren't going to school. Once the
students are at school, they look at what's going on in their
individual classes.
At the same time, the county's
dropout rate is down one percent. Eighteen percent of its students
aren't finishing school.
'When they come in here, they're
my kids. I'm the parent now, so now we need to figure out what we
need to do to get there,'
Principal Kristi Holden of
Surrattsville High School said of the dropout rate."
Congratulations to Principal Holden and the entire School community
on this very nice press!
5.
ANNUAL BLUE CRABS EVENT NOW A
FOUNDATION FUND RAISER.
We're delighted to announce that
the annual 2014 Blue Crabs All Classes Game and Picnic event – to be
held on Saturday June 21 -- will be a Foundation fund raiser!
Specifically, funds raised that
evening will increase the funds available for the Foundation's
annual Charlie Waddell Memorial Scholarship.
In addition to the features of the
very successful Blue Crabs nights of the past few years, this year's
5th
annual event will feature a dedicated-to-Surrattsville picnic area
(if 200 or more tickets are sold) and a fund raising raffle
featuring items like three pairs of tickets to future Blue Crabs
games.
If you have any items you or your
business would like to donate to the raffle, or have any questions,
please contact Evan Vutsinas (76) at
evtiger@comcast.net.
(Please keep your eyes open for
more specific details of the event and a web site sign-up link that
will be published here and on the Surrattsville Alumni Facebook
Group over the next several months.)
Many thanks to Evan for organizing these
great annual events for the Surrattsville community!
6.
NEED FOR GENTLY USED (OR NEW)
STRING INSTRUMENTS.
As reported in the last few
e-Notices, the School is in need of "gently used" – or new -- string
instruments for the recently-revived student orchestra.
The Foundation thanks Steve
Profilet (71) for the first two donations to this cause – a
virtually new violin that was recently received with much gratitude
by instrumental music department chair Valerie Dent and an expertly
restored viola.
Please send me an email at
hsmith@smithdowney.com if you
have a violin, viola, cello or double bass collecting dust in a
closet that you'd like to donate to this very worthy musical cause.
[There's a great photo at
www.surrattsville.org of
Valerie and two outstanding Hornet musicians celebrating the arrival
of the violin and viola donated by Steve.
And this new initiative is
featured, along with three other Foundation initiatives, in a new
youtube program at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7IGI69kOo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUJBiUH49oYAmsczyuPCTI3Q]
7.
NEW PHOTOS CONTINUE TO BE ADDED
TO FOUNDATION'S FACEBOOK GROUP.
Thanks to the on-going work of a
number of members of the Surrattsville community, the large
collection of wonderful historical photos with Surrattsville themes
on the Foundation's Facebook Group, "Surrattsville Alumni,"
continues to grow.
(Naturally, the Foundation would
love to have any Surrattsville- or Clinton-themed historical photos
or videos you might wish to share.)
8.
FOUNDATION'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL
CONTINUES TO ADD CONTENT.
The Foundation's rapidly expanding
youtube channel is always looking for additional content to add.
(There's a rumor that there might
be some digital copies of drama productions at Surrattsville that
might be suitable to include.
Naturally, we'd love to have those
treasures!)
Please become a subscriber to the channel,
take a moment to view the programs on the channel at
9.
DIGITIZATION OF FOUNDATION
ARCHIVES.
As many of our readers know – and
as all recent visitors to the Foundation's "Surrattsville Alumni"
Facebook Group have seen – the Foundation's Historian and Archivist,
Shelby Lee Oppermann (79), has largely single-handedly saved from
destruction, collected and made presentable a virtual treasure trove
of Surrattsville-related historical items.
Shelby now hopes to digitize those
priceless artifacts to ensure their survival into perpetuity.
Here's a message from Shelby that
we shared in the last e-Notice:
"We're hoping to find someone with the
capabilities to professionally digitize all our Foundation
memorabilia.
I will get as much up on Facebook
as the material will allow, but a professional job would be really
nice.
I also want to see if anyone in
our Surrattsville community would be able to take the Foundation's
oral history interviews off of the digital tape recorder and the
cassette recorder, enhance them, and take out background noises
(though the live episode of "Hornetman" recorded in the background
of some interviews from the Y2K reunion was pretty funny!).
I did have the digital tape
recorder downloaded onto a CD last year.
I am having fun uploading and
describing the pictures, and reading all the comments.
In addition to the Surrattsville
Alumni Facebook Group, I have been uploading onto various Facebook
groups like "If you grew up in Clinton you remember," "Clinton
Volunteer Fire Department," and the various elementary school pages.
Shelby"
(If you might be able to assist in
this important conservation effort, please send me an email at
hsmith@smithdowney.com.)
10.
CLASSES OF 83/84/85 REUNION.
We received this
notice from the Classes of 83, 84 and 85:
"Mark your calendar for Saturday,
October 11, 2014 for our Classes of 83/84/85 Reunion.
Please email Debbie O’Clair
MacKenzie at
Debbiemackenzie45@yahoo.com
to be placed on the mailing list (if you have not already received
the “save the date” email).
If you have questions about the
event, contact your Class representative.
1983—Becky delVillar Levin:
bdellevin@gmail.com
1984—Gary Stallings:
gstallings@yahoo.com
1985—MaryBeth Klick:
mbklick@aol.com"
11.
NAME SELECTED FOR FALLEN HEROES
PLAQUE FOR LEGACY HALL.
Bob Jeter (64) has been working
hard to collect the names and service information for the
Foundation’s new Fallen Heroes Plaque that will hang in the
Foundation’s Legacy Hall at the School.
Recently, Bob asked for our
readers help in selecting a title for the plaque, and he reports
that a title suggested by Kenny Flynn has been chosen.
Bob shared this email he received
from Kenny:
“Bob: Thanks for your generosity in
putting forth the effort to collect the information needed to
recognize the (far too many) Hornet Heroes you have identified.
Please consider “Hornet Heroes –
Fallen for Our Freedom But Never Forgotten” as an appropriate name
for the plaque. As a retired Marine, I sincerely appreciate
the sacrifices made by those members of our school who paid the
ultimate price for our freedom. Semper Fi, Kenny Flynn”
Thanks to Bob and Kenny for their
contributions to this great effort, and please contact Bob at
bobjeter@verizon.net if you
know of any Hornets who should be honored in this way
[Ed note:
Photos of the Legacy Wall can be
found on the Foundation's web site at
www.surrattsville.org.]
12.
CLASS OF 79 PLANS REUNION.
The Class of 79 is planning a
reunion for
Saturday, August 23, 2014 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Waldorf, and
all other classes are more than welcome to join in the fun.
Please email Marilynda
Orange Macquade at
mmacquade@verizon.net
to be placed on the mailing list. A notice will go out with
details via Facebook groups and email.
13.
CLASS OF 64 50 YEAR REUNION.
We
received this announcement about the Class of 64's upcoming golden
event:
"The Class of 1964 is
planning a 50th reunion in Ocean City for late September 2014.
It might seem a long way off, but we all know how fast time goes by.
We need to firm up a place, reserve a block of rooms to set aside,
and determine how much space we will need. Please email
Ginger Trapanotto,
gingersnap699@gmail.com
or Phil Foster,
fosterphilip6@gmail.com
if you (alone or with a guest) are interested in attending.
Also, if you know the whereabouts of any former classmate, please
ask him/her to email one of us or you can forward the information to
us. We appreciate any help you can provide and the "committee"
is looking forward to re-visiting the 60s with everyone."
14.
FOUNDATION FACEBOOK PRESENCE
CONTINUES TO GROW.
The Foundation's
Facebook Group – called "Surrattsville Alumni" – continues to grow,
and is now at over 1750 members.
This is a great, and free, way for
folks to stay in touch.
Similarly, the Class-specific
Facebook Groups – that have names like "Surrattsville 1969,"
"Surrattsville 1973," "Surrattsville 1971," and the like -- continue
to grow.
These Facebook Groups are becoming
an increasingly active way for folks to share memories and news
updates of interest to the Surrattsville community.
Please consider joining the
Surrattsville Alumni Group, and your own Class-specific Group.
Here's hoping you're seeing (or at least
imagining) some hints of Spring!
All the best, Henry Smith (71)
MANY THANKS
TO THESE EARLY DONORS TO THE 2014 CAMPAIGN!
- Steve Profilet (71)
- Nancy Miller (67)
- Pat Becker Oles (71)
- Debbie Cox Marr (72)
- Bob Marr (71)
- Joe Capone (79)
- Vicky Simontacchi Young (57), In Honor of the Classes of 57 and 84
- Kurt Aktug (88)
- Linda Dorsey Blum (66)