THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 d
Page A-3
LOCAL
County students, teacher honored with awards in memory of King Strathmore event celebrates service with performances, artwork n
BY
SARAH SCULLY STAFF WRITER
In honor of the civil rights leader’s birthday, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Committee of Montgomery County highlighted the service work of several students and one teacher on Monday. The committee presented Humanitarian Awards, Children of the Dream Awards and Literary Arts Awards in line with this year’s theme, “Honoring the Legacy: Celebrate, Serve, Remember,” in its 20th annual tribute held at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. The free event also featured 11 performances and more than 100 pieces of artwork by students. “This year we want to really push the concept of service,” said Jim Stowe, the county’s human rights director. Each year the committee chooses a theme to emphasize, he said. The committee comprises volunteers, among whom five judged this year’s nominees. County Executive Isiah Leggett and Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney Katz, among other officials, presented some of the awards. The Humanitarian Award went to one teacher, Michael Williams, a social studies teacher at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, and a student, Anhar Karim, a senior at Northwest High School in Germantown. Williams, a social studies teacher at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, is a volunteer coordinator for the Minority Scholars Program. The program works to help black and Latino students improve their academic performance and raise minority enrollment in honors and Advanced Placement courses. Williams spread the program to other schools throughout the county five years ago and has added a focus on leadership.
PHOTOS BY GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE
Sixth-grader Lilah Katz of Pyle Middle School in Bethesda receives a Literary Arts Award on Monday during a birthday tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda.
Fifth-grader Kyle Dalrymple of Rosemont Elementary School in Gaithersburg is congratulated by Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney Katz after receiving a Literary Arts Award during the awards presentation. His winning essay focused on this year’s theme, which was service. He and two other students won the Literary Arts Award. Karim, president of the Montgomery County Muslim Student Association, has been a student advocacy leader for making the Muslim holiday Eid an official school holiday.
He has worked to help build a community of Muslim and nonMuslim students in the county. The Children of the Dream Awards aim to highlight students and a school group that shows
character, community and school involvement. Ekiomoado Olumese, a senior at Poolesville High School, was selected for her conscientiousness and commitment to school and extracurricular studies in global ecology and science. She tutors with the G.B. Thomas Learning Academy, a county mentoring program, and works with the Distance Learning Program. Olumese also is involved in the Physician Scientist Training program and plans to pursue studies in biochemistry and medicine. Malachi Stoll, a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, also was honored with this award, for his academic achievements despite having dyslexia. The committee noted his involvement in the Emerging Leaders Program and that Stoll started a nonprofit, Goals for Justice, which aims to engage teens in social justice by connecting them with local charities and encouraging them to get involved in social action projects. The Children of the Dream Award for a group went to the Dance Marathon program at Clarksburg High School, which raised nearly $25,000 for the Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation. The group was inspired to help the foundation following the death of a friend and classmate, Sam Moore, in August 2012. Three students — Kyle Dalrymple, a fifth-grader at Rosemont School in Gaithersburg; Starr Howard, an eighth-grader at Bullis School in Potomac; and Lilah Katz, a sixth-grader at Pyle Middle School in Bethesda — were winners of the literary arts contest and read their written pieces at the event. The essays focused on this year’s theme: service. The essays were judged on their understanding and appreciation of King’s teachings. The three students received a monetary prize from The Gazette and a plaque from Leggett. Schools throughout the county submitted applications for consideration for the awards. The students’ artwork will be displayed through February in the lobby of the Executive Office Building in Rockville. sscully@gazette.net
Utility upgrades for growth in Clarksburg and Germantown n
Capacity expanded in Milestone area
BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
Potomac Edison spent $50 million last year for equipment upgrades, which included money to serve the growing Milestone Center, a mixed-use residential and commercial development in Germantown, according to the company. The upgrades involved a substation near Interstate 270 and Father Hurley Boulevard, said company spokesman Todd Meyers. “You take an underground line [distribution circuit] and split it, so you can get customers on an additional circuit” before it gets overloaded by growth, he said. Similar work to divide large distribution circuits also took place in Urbana along I-270 in southern Frederick County and Martinsburg, W. Va., to prepare for load expansion and to help reduce outage frequency, he wrote in a press release. Similar upgrades are also planned in 2014 for the Clarksburg-Boyds area, which has about 4,000 housing units in the pipeline, including the new housing under construction in the Cabin Branch area west of I-270. The County Council is also considering whether to support plans for 1,000 new housing units proposed for Boyds west of I-270 and a mixed-use outlet center proposed for Clarksburg east of I-270. Also included in the $50 million spent by Potomac Edison on infrastructure last year was: • $2.5 million to replace underground distribution cables in Damascus, Mt. Airy, Hagerstown, Frederick and Wardensville, W. Va. • $5.3 million to reconstruct a transmission line to maintain service for more than 65,000 customers in Montgomery, Carroll and Frederick
counties. • $1.5 million to upgrade 90 distribution circuits to enhance the electrical system and reliability for 65,000 customers in Maryland and West Virginia.
“You take an underground line [distribution circuit] and split it, so you can get customers on an additional circuit.” Todd Meyers, Potomac Edison spokesman Systemwide, the company also spent the following: • $23 million to trim and remove vegetation along nearly 2,900 miles of distribution and transmission lines. • $2 million to inspect 37,000 utility poles and replace 250 poles. “We do this work year in and out ... it’s not just for storms,” Meyers said. Potomac Edison (formerly Allegheny Power), based in Williamsport, near Hagerstown, is a subsidiary of First Energy Corp. of Akron, Ohio. Potomac Edison serves nearly 260,000 customers in western Maryland, including 30,500 customers in a strip along the northwest border of Montgomery County. The Montgomery communities include Barnesville, Beallsville, Boyds, Browningsville, Cedar Grove, Clarksburg, Damascus, Dickerson, Hyattstown, Poolesville, Purdum and Sellman, or Barnesville Station. Potomac Edison also serves 132,000 customers in eastern West Virginia.
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