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Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 153, No. 36
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
$1.00
The 34th annual Mushroom Festival Avon Grove sets A weekend of food and Sept. 12 as date fun in the Mushroom for Act 34 Hearing Capital of the World for new high school project By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
The Avon Grove School District has set a date, time, and location for the Act 34 Hearing for the high school construction project that has been in the planning stages for the last two years. Act 34 Hearings are a requirement of the state’s School Code, and they offer all stakeholders the opportunity to share their input or get information about the planning, designing, or constructing of the school project. Avon Grove officials scheduled the Act 34 Hearing for Thursday, Sept. 12 at the Avon Grove High School auditorium, 257 State Road in West Grove. The Hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. There will be a presentation on the new high school, including facts about the educational, physical, administrative, budgetary Tradition of Chadds Ford and fiscal matters related to Days returns...1B
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the project. The Avon Grove School Board has previously adopted resolutions establishing the maximum project cost of $114,568,737 and a maximum building construction cost of $81,001,789. School board member Bill Wood emphasized that the Act 34 Hearing relates to the PlanCon process that allows school districts in Pennsylvania to seek partial reimbursement from the state for school construction and renovation projects. School district officials will lead a presentation outlining the scope of the project, but the board itself will not be voting on anything that the hearing. “It’s simply an opportunity for public input,” Wood explained. In other business at the meeting, the school board approved a change order in the amount of $137,885 for additional work by Beynon Sports Surfaces to complete Continued on Page 2A
Photo by Chris Barber
Foodies will love the cooking demonstrations.
By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer The first weekend after Labor Day is always special in Kennett Square. That’s when the Mushroom Capital of the World hosts a two-day celebration of everyone’s favorite fungi that ranks among the best food festivals in the entire country. The 34th annual
Oxford car show this Friday
Mushroom Festival takes place this weekend, and visitors will find plenty of family-friendly events and activities, starting with the Street Fair that stretches for almost a mile. For Kennett Square residents such as Doug Doerfler, the festival has become a tradition. Doerfler, who serves as the president of Kennett Square Borough Council,
The Kennett Flash marks 10 years with new subscription plan...1B
Courtesy photo
INDEX Opinion.......................7A Obituaries...................2B
The sixth annual downtown Oxford First Friday Car Show will take place this Friday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The car show will feature plenty of gleaming vintage cars, modern muscle cars, sleek motorcycles, and impressive trucks—enough to please any car enthusiast. There will also be plenty of family-friendly fun, including live music, vendors, lots of food, and a raffle. For complete information about the event, visit the Oxford Mainstreet, Inc. Facebook page or website at www.downtownoxfordpa.org.
© 2007 The Chester County Press
A crowd of more than 20 residents turned out at a meeting on Aug. 28 to see what PennDOT plans for Route 896 through Franklin Township. The focus of the improvements will be a stretch of about five miles of Route 896, from Elbow Lane in London Britain Township to Shepherd Lane in New London Township. While there are many smaller measures proposed to deal with drainage issues along the roadway and other concerns, the two major improvements will be a roundabout at the inter-
section of routes 896 and 841, as well as a threeway stop in the village of Kemblesville. PennDOT representative Bruce Masi, as well as Elwood Kimmel and his associate from KCI Technologies, fielded questions from the public and the Board of Supervisors for an hour and a half. A large aerial map was displayed at the meeting, showing the extent of the proposed work. Residents voiced concerns about speeding along Route 896, as well as concerns for children getting on and off school buses along the route. Continued on Page 3A
Wine educator hitting all the notes at Chaddsford Winery By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
Classifieds..................4B Calendar of Events......6B
Continued on Page 2A
Public has a chance to ask about Route 896 improvements in Franklin Township By John Chambless Staff Writer
West Chester East tops Unionville, 27-23...3B
called the festival a staple of the Kennett community. “I love the music, the educational information in the mushroom tent, watching the celebrity chef demonstrations, and seeing the creativity come out in the mushroom-decorating contest,” he explained. “With that said, taking into consideration all there is to do at the Mushroom Festival,
The rapid rise of Rachel Brown at Chaddsford Winery is the result of what happens when Accident meets Aspiration meets Need. Before she was hired at the winery three years ago, and before she was named the winery’s wine educator last October, Brown, 28,
worked for several years at a bookstore near West Chester University, where she had received a degree in creative writing. Three years ago, the bookstore closed. On a chance visit with her friend Amanda Massey to the Chaddsford Winery soon after, she met Amanda’s mother Sandy, a retail manager at the winery. On the advice of mother
CABINET FACTORY
3460 Naamans Rd, Wilmington, DE 19810
and daughter, Brown filled out an application for parttime work. “Amanda and Sandy said that I should work at Chaddsford, and that I had the perfect personality for it,” Brown said. “I told them, ‘I don’t like wine. I don’t even drink it. I know nothing about it.’ Photo by Ed Williams Sandy told me, ‘We’ll teach Rachel Brown, the wine educator at Chaddsford you.’ I took this job literally Winery, attended the prestigious SommCon educaContinued on Page 5A
tional conference in Washington, D.C., this summer.
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