Volume 17, Number 44
Berlin’s Only Hometown Newspaper
www.berlincitizen.com
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Volleyball team gets behind classmate Berlin High School student Shelby Luddy is flanked by senior volleyball players Alicia Maule, Olivia Dellaquila, Tess Repaci and Amanda Patterson.
Shelby Luddy suffered stroke in 2012 By Nate Brown The Berlin Citizen
| (Photo by Paul G. Salina)
They had all known Shelbs, very well, for years. So when the four seniors on the 2013 Berlin High School volleyball team – Alicia Maule, Olivia Dellaquila, Tess Repaci and Amanda Patterson – heard that their classmate, Shelby Luddy, had suffered a stroke, they were taken aback to say the least. “I was in shock. I had just seen her a few weeks before,
and she was absolutely fine,” said Repaci, who has known Luddy -- Shelbs -- since kindergarten. “And then I heard
she was in a coma, and I just didn’t know what was going on. Nobody really knew what had happened.”
the Luddy’s lives changed forever. “It was a Saturday, and around 11 o’clock in the morning, Shelby told me she had a headache,” said Nancy Luddy, who, along with her husband, Mike, were readyLuddy had in fact suffered ing themselves for a party a stroke, due to a rare disease later that day. “When Mike known as Moyamoya. It was July 21, 2012 when
See Volleyball / Page 25
Preschool on the cutting edge of education By Daniel Jackson The Berlin Citizen
Bubbles the elephant cuts the ribbon at The Learning Experience. | (Dan Jackson/The Berlin Citizen)
The Learning Experience Academy of Early Education is so far north, driving by, some people may not know they are still in Berlin. The preschool sits at 9 High Rd., just above Route 571. “People don’t realize this is still Berlin,” said James Mahoney, the town’s economic development director. About three years ago, the old office building on the land was demolished and the developer began work on the
preschool, creating a better asset for the families in town, according to Mahoney. On Oct. 25, the preschool teachers bundled their students, gathered them outside, and town leaders came to officially cut the purple ribbon on the school. While the school sits on the edge of Berlin (its northern property line is the New Britain city line), educators say they are on the cut-
ting edge of early childhood education. Esther Faraci, co-owner of the franchise with her husband and son, said in the past, fathers went off to work while the mothers stayed home. It was unusual for children to attend nursery school. “Today, if they don’t go, it’s not ordinary,” she said. The Learning Experience, See Preschool / Page 24
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