THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2007
VOL. 12 NO. 35
50 cents
NEWS HEADLINES HOLIDAY HOURS - The offices of Morning Star Publications will be closed for the Christmas holiday from Monday, Dec. 24, at noon to Thursday, Dec. 27, at 8:30 a.m. The office will also be closed on New Year’s Day. BLADES BUDGET - The Blades Council approved a budget estimating $708,800 in income and $708,300 in expenses. Page 2 LION’S SHARE - Food Lion’s food sharing program has grown to include all 12 stores. Page 11 WAR VETERAN - He was expecting to die next, but was rescued. Who rescued him will surprise you. Page 8 VOLUNTEER - A chance meeting during a catastrophic weather event years ago changed his life significantly. Page 49 SANTA’S HELPERS - The home of the late Irv Aydelotte sure did seem a whole lot like Santa’s Workshop in early December. Page 62 K’YAN NETS 1,000 POINTS Woodbridge senior K’yan Andrews netted the 1,000th point of his career last Friday in Bridgeville. See game story on page 53 and the story on Andrews on page 54. Photo by Mike McClure
GALESTOWN - This scene at Galestown Pond was taken Tuesday afternoon. Repairs to the pond spillway and road have started. The road was washed away in the June 25, 2006 flood. See next week’s Star for an update on when the road will reopen. Photo by Cassie Richardson
Survey: What do you want in a high school? By Lynn R. Parks K’yan Andrews
$500
HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY See page 69 for winners
Five Shopping Days until Christmas
INSIDE THE STAR BUSINESS BULLETIN BOARD CHURCH CLASSIFIEDS EDUCATION FRANK CALIO GENE BLEILE GOURMET HEALTH LETTERS LYNN PARKS
6 46 24 42-45 66 14 57 38 30 40 13
MOVIES 7 OBITUARIES 26 PAT MURPHY 22 PEOPLE 33 POLICE JOURNAL 48 68 SNAPSHOTS SPORTS 53-60 TIDES/WEATHER 71 TODD CROFFORD 25 TONY WINDSOR 35 VETERANS OF WWII 8
The next step in the Seaford School District’s discussion about construction of a new high school is a community survey, said district spokeswoman Bonnie Johnson. The survey will ask members of the community, including parents and students, what they would like to see in a new high school. Johnson expects the survey questionnaires to go out around the end of this school year or the beginning of the next school year. “This discussion is just in the very beginning phases,” Johnson said. “We are talking about five- or 10-year plans.” School board president John Hanenfeld, who originally suggested that the district look into construction of a new high school, said that he would like to see his son, who is a fourth grader in the district, graduate from the new school. “We are trying to be proactive,” Hanenfeld said. “Education is a competitive business and we would like our high school to be the school of choice in this area.” The current Seaford High School was built in 1967 and is in very good condition, said the district’s chief of buildings and grounds, Roy Whitaker. It is the newest of the district’s six
schools. Hanenfeld said that the district’s four elementary schools are increasingly crowded. A new high school would allow the middle school to move into the current high school building and would free up the middle school for elementary classes, he said. In addition, Hanenfeld said, building a new high school with the capacity to offer additional vocational courses of study “seems a good course to take.” “Our current high school is not equipped to handle vocational classes we want to offer,” Johnson added. She said what those courses would be has not been decided. Seaford High currently offers 13 vocational courses, in business, health careers, computer technology, accounting, photography, construction and food processing. Principal Clarence Davis said that the school has one building technology teacher, who uses the school’s existing tech room to teach technology foundations and advanced technology. “We are losing kids to Sussex Tech,” Johnson said. The district loses about 30 ninth graders every year to the county’s vocational school, she said. Carolyn O’Neal, spokeswoman for Sussex Tech, said her school’s ninth-
grade class has 29 students in it from the Seaford School District. The Sussex Tech 10th-grade class has 36 Seaford students, its 11th-grade class has 20 Seaford students and its senior class, 19 Seaford students. Sussex Tech, which has a total enrollment of 1,239, does not enroll more than 20 percent of a home district’s students, O’Neal said. “We want to keep our kids here,” Johnson said. “We want to give them the vocational classes that they are leaving us for.” Hanenfeld said that Seaford High could offer vocational classes, like plumbing and cosmetology, for example, that Sussex Tech does not offer. The county’s technical school offers four core curriculums: automotive technology, communications and information technology, health and human service technology and industrial and engineering technology. Hanenfeld said that area employers have told him that they cannot find young people who have training in the trades. “There is a void that Seaford could fill,” he said. “We have a good core group of kids who are going to college after high school, and that is good. But we also have a good core group of kids who want to graduate from high school Continued on page five