WESTERN HILLS PRESS
Your Community Press newspaper serving Addyston, Bridgetown, Cheviot, Cleves, Covedale, Dent, Green Township, 50¢ Mack, Miami Township, North Bend, Westwood
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012
SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR B1 Oak Hills High School’s Maggie Bischoff is this year’s Western Hills Press Sportswoman of the Year.
BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS
WestFest makes its annual return Harrison Ave. closed this weekend By Kurt Backscheider kbackscheider@communitypress.com
Ron and Betty Bollinger in their Monfort Heights back yard. Their garden is on the 14th Annual Monfort Heights-White Oak Community Association Garden Tour on June 23. JENNIE KEY/THE COMMUNITY PRESS
Gardens are ready Annual tour set for Monfort Heights/White Oak area
By Jennie Key jkey@communitypress.com
This annual event is a perennial favorite. See the beauty gardens add to life on the 14th annual Monfort Heights/White Oak Community Association Summer Garden Tour. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 23, five residents of the community open their gardens to the tour. The community association also conducts a plant sale as part of the event. Garden tour chairwoman Jackie Golay says the tour is the group’s main fundraiser. “Actually, it’s our only fundraiser,” she said. The proceeds from the tickets and plant sales provide nearly all the funding for the association’s programs including its beautification project at the community gateway at Interstate 74. The tour also pays for the group’s education programs and other projects. The only other sources of funding are membership dues and donations. This year’s tour features five gardens and includes a plant sale and offerings of yard and garden art from local artisans at the garden at 2967 Timberview Drive. There also will be bottled water and cookies available at selected locations.
Your ticket allows you to visit all the gardens and receive bottled water, refreshments, and a price-off coupon at the White Oak Garden Center. When you present your pre-sale ticket at any of the gardens, you will receive a pass and a map to the gardens and the plant sale. You can start the tour at any one of the five gardens and the event is rain or shine. There are five gardens on the tour:
6039 Rambling Ridge
This garden, off Jessup Road, off Cheviot Road, features a waterfall tumbling down a hillside leading to a paverlock terrace with a panoramic view of the surrounding gardens. Well-designed flower beds featuring specimens are nestled throughout the yard.
5524 Pine Brook Circle
This garden in Eckert Woods, off West Fork Road, includes a display of roses and perennials. The garden features both sunloving flowers and shade perennials nestled into the woods with mature trees. Refreshments will be served at this house and raffle tickets will be sold here.
5518 Seville Court
This garden, off Race Road, flourishes with more than 240 named varieties of daylilies and 60 named varieties of hostas, including many tagged specimens. Walkways lead to raised garden beds with yard art.
5757 Whistling Elk Run
Take Race Road to Boomer Road to Breckenridge Drive to Whistling Elk Run to get to this garden, with manicured gardens and large stone steps leading to a Secret Garden with a magical atmosphere.
2951 Timberview Drive
This garden, of Diehl Road, features a stream bed, crossed by a foot bridge, and a waterfall into a pond surrounded by ferns, hostas and shade-loving perennials. A Williamsburg-style picket fence encloses a raised bed vegetable and herb garden. Betty and Ron Bollinger, who have the garden on Pinebrook Circle, said the biggest impediment to getting ready for the tour this year has been deer. “We had one come up yesterday and eat the plants right out of that container,” Betty said. She credits her husband with having done most of the work in the garden. “We have been here
ROSARY RALLY
LIFE SAVERS
West Siders turned out for the seventh annual Family Rosary Rally at Elder High School. See photos, B1
A crew from the Green Township Department of Fire & EMS were presented the EMS Star of Life Award. See story, A7
See GARDENS, Page A2
The beginning of summer on the West Side can only mean one thing. It’s time to take to the streets of Cheviot for the annual WestFest celebration. The Cheviot Westwood Community Association’s 11th annual WestFest takes place 1 p.m. to midnight Saturday, June 23, and 1-10 p.m. Sunday, June 24, along Harrison Avenue in the heart of Cheviot. “It’s a party in the streets where we try to get everyone together to have fun and taste all the great food we have on the West Side,” said Bonnie Perrino, an association member who has been involved in organizing the event from the very beginning. “It just keeps getting bigger and better every year.” Money the association raises from the two-day festival helps fund the association’s neighborhood service projects and scholarship program. “We take the proceeds and funnel them back into the com-
Sisters, from left, Katey, Kimberly and Kelsey Hill, of Cheviot, check out the merchandise at one of the jewelry booths at last summer's WestFest. The two-day festival returns Saturday, June 23, and Sunday, June 24, in the heart of Cheviot. FILE PHOTO munity in a variety of ways,” said Ray Kroner, president of the community association. “This year alone the Cheviot Westwood Community Association donated more than $33,200 back to the community.” Benefactors this year have included the Cheviot branch library, the Cheviot Municipal Pool, renovations at the Cheviot Memorial Fieldhouse and eight elementary school libraries, he said. The association’s partnership with the Thomas J. Rebold See WESTFEST, Page A2
West Side music shop gives back PITCHes schools used instruments By Kurt Backscheider kbackscheider@communitypress.com
Gordon Brown wants to make sure children who are interested in playing a musical instrument have the ability to do so. Brown and his staff at Western Hills Music in Green Township have created a music outreach program called PITCH – Putting Instruments in The Children’s Hands. “We’ll take any loved, but unused instruments, and we’ll get them in playing condition and donate them to area schools,” Brown said. Elizabeth Milano, who serves as the lessons director at the music shop, said unfortunately more and more schools are forced to cut music and art programs due to budget constraints, and many parents also can’t afford to buy
Contact The Press
News .........................923-3111 Retail advertising ............768-8196 Classified advertising ........242-4000 Delivery ......................853-6263
their children instruments. She said the goal of the donation program is to allow students interested in music an opportunity to learn, explore and develop their talents. “I think once the word gets out about this program more schools will come forward to take part,” Milano said. So far, she said the music shop has donated instruments to Midway School, C.O. Harrison Elementary School and St. Aloysius Gonzaga. The shop also works closely with the DePaul Cristo Rey High School, where Brown teaches a free guitar class during the school year. Brown and his staff already run an instrument rental program and band instrument repair service for area schools, so he said he would like as many people as possible to drop off their unwanted instruments this summer See MUSIC, Page A2 Vol. 84 No. 31 © 2012 The Community Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
See page A2 for additional information
NOW AVAILABLE! 1701 Llanfair Ave. Cincinnati, OH 45224 www.llanfairohio.org
Independent Living One-Bedroom Apartment Homes with Patio or Balcony Meals, Housekeeping, Laundry, Transportation and more!
Call Kim at 513.591.4567 today
to schedule a complimentary brunch and personalized visit.
Live healthier and happier