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Lathering up good feelings By Dan AUBrey
“I’m a professional barber. I make people feel good and look good. Mostly feel good,” says Joe Festa — affectionately known as the “Mayor of South Warren Street” in the heart of Trenton. The appellation comes from Festa’s longtime presence as the owner of State Barbershop — now celebrating its 60th anniversary. “It’s a man’s barbershop — that’s what this is,” says Festa, who also recently celebrated another milestone: his 85th birthday. Standing in a two barberchair shop that has seen hair fashions and hair lines come and go, Festa, fit and dressed
in black tight duds — runs down the shop’s services, “Shaves, facials, all haircuts. We make working people feel good.” The clientele runs the gamut from clerks and laborers to state governors, legislators, congressmen, monsignors, and Trenton mayors. There is also the occasional celebrity drop-in — like former Yankee right fielder Reggie Jackson. As Festa tells it, the unrecognized Jackson was in town for some unnamed reason, walked in the shop, and asked if he could get a cut. Festa — a longtime body builder with weights in the shop’s basement and a gym behind the building — says it
wasn’t until he sized-up Jackson’s shoulder muscles that he asked if he was an athlete and learned “Mr. October” was under his shop’s shears. Talking about his choice of career, Festa, a Ewing resident, says he started across the street in another shop for an unplanned reason: A judge told him to get a profession or go to jail. “I was arrested for bookmaking in my young 20s,” he says. “I worked for the mob. That was in North Trenton where all the big guys were, the kings.” It’s also where Festa grew up in a household of 13 children headed by a Bayer Aspirin black seal worker father from See FESTA, Page 12
TCNJ professor gets $1M grant By Bill Sanservino
Sophomore Kenny Romero helped lead the Ewing High School bowling team to a 6-1 record and the Burlington County Scholastic League championship. See story on Page 18.
Melkamu Woldemariam has the best of both worlds. His position as an assistant professor of biology at The College of New Jersey affords him the opportunity to do the two things he loves—teach and conduct research. Last month, Woldemariam was the recipient of a major boon that will allow him to step up his activities in both areas. The Plainsboro resident has been awarded a $1 million joint grant from the National Science Foundation and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The funding will be used
by Woldemariam, 41, a plant biologist who specializes in molecular and chemical ecology, to support his research program and to engage undergraduate research collaborators in his work. Woldemariam’s research involves comparing the chemical composition of corn varieties and how we can better prevent against insect attack, as well as revealing the genetic causes for the variability in plant chemical defenses. Each year, a sizable fraction of global agricultural productivity in crop plants is lost to insect and pathogen attack. “It’s an awesome feeling to know that the work we do here at TCNJ is viewed
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very favorably by talented researchers in the field,” Woldemariam said. “I am thrilled to be able to give my students the opportunity to participate in this project with potential national and international significance.” Woldemariam was born in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, and he grew up in a small town called Jimma, which is about 300 kilometers southwest the capital. After graduating from high school, he attended Addis Ababa University, where Woldemariam says he shaped his academic life. While there, he earned a degree in biology. After gradSee GRANT, Page 4
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