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Weehawken Reporter So long, farewell
NINE WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS SERVING HUDSON COUNTY • STORIES UPDATED CONTINUOUSLY AT WWW.HUDSONREPORTER.COM • A PUBLICATION OF THE HUDSON REPORTER
VOLUME 26, NUMBER 47 • SUNDAY, June 17, 2012
Weehawken high school says goodbye to 77 graduates
HOUSEWIFE IN WEEHAWKEN – The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Kathy Wakile (center) attended a fundraiser held by Dining Out New Jersey and hosted by Weehawken’s Masina Trattoria to help raise awareness and money for The National Brain Tumor Society Friday night. Left to right: Weehawkenite Neil DeCosmis, Wakile, and co-star Rosie Pierri.
SHINING STARS – Weehawken High School saw 77 students graduate on Friday, 95 percent of which will go on to attend college. Left to right: Senior Class President April Fiorese, Principal Peter Olivieri, Salutatorian Hank Finnin, and Valedictorian Nicole Bautista.
By Gennarose Pope Reporter Staff Writer
f you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself,” Weehawken High School’s Senior Class President April Fiorese said a week before Friday’s graduation. Not only does this apply to her school life, but to her work life, her future college life, and to the lives of all 76 of the fellow seniors she’s overseen as class president for four years straight. “April is one of the hardest working young ladies we have in this building,” Principal Peter Olivieri said. “She and her fellow seniors were highly entertaining for us this year.” Entertaining and hard working, too, as 95 percent of them will go on to college, and that
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95 percent has earned nearly $7 million in scholarship money. “We were truly surprised this year,” Guidance Counselor Laurie Sieminski said. “The kids got more institutional aid than they have in past years, which indicates how hard they applied themselves and how smart they were about the choices they have made.” The seniors have distinguished themselves in other ways as well, Olivieri and Assistant Principal Steven Spinosa explained. The marching band – led by Michael Lichtenfeld, Nicole Hegarty, and Michele Giorgio with 16 senior student members – placed third in the state and went to Disney World in April to march down Main Street.
see GRADUATION page 6
‘Real Housewives,’ real lives
TV’s Kathy and Rosie get personal at brain tumor fundraiser in Weehawken
By Gennarose Pope Reporter Staff Writer
e were very fortunate,” said “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Kathy Wakile amidst the buzz of the crowd gathered at Masina Trattoria in Weehawken on June 8. “My daughter survived her brain tumor, it was benign, and we got a clean bill of health. But for a lot of people it doesn’t work out that way.” Wakile, her husband Rich, her sister Rosie Pierri, her son Joseph, and many others from the reality television show came to the waterfront restaurant to help raise money for the
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National Brain Tumor Society during a fundraiser hosted by Dining Out New Jersey. Wakile and her family were on the beach one day when her daughter Victoria, then only 10, passed out inexplicably. Doctors soon discovered the young girl had developed a benign brain tumor. “I was sitting at my desk at work the year after my father died when my mother called,” Pierri recalled beside the impromptu red carpet set up in view of the Manhattan skyline. “I didn’t know what to say when she told me the news, except, ‘Please give it to me, God. Help
see HOUSEWIVES page 10
‘Race every driver wants to win’
Formula One champions test WNY/Weehawken track for 2013 Grand Prix
By Gennarose Pope Reporter Staff Writer
ormula One champions Sebastian Vettel and David Coulthard spun local officials and members of the press across, up, down, and around Boulevard East and Port Imperial Boulevard Monday afternoon to preview the 2013 Grand Prix of America at Port Imperial course. The two Infiniti IPLs, sandwiched by West New York police vehicles, maxed out at 95 m.p.h. with the Manhattan skyline whizzing by as locals and visitors tried to catch a glimpse. “The circuit looks very quick,” Vettel said after completing the course several times. “There are a lot of corners, a lot of fast floating corners, which you need to have big balls to drive, so it should be good fun.”
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From his test-run he determined that race time speeds would max out at over 200 m.p.h. And given his apparent mastery of English colloquialisms, it was determined that the German-born Vettel would also master his appearance on the David Letterman show later that evening. Each lap culminated in a tire-squealing, smoke-covered series of figure eight spinouts performed by the Infinitis – not the police vehicles – at the stop light just before the left-hand turn that leads to Weehawken’s Port Imperial Ferry terminal. That site will also act as a pit stop, starting line, and finish line for the 3.2mile course in June of 2013. “This place is exceptional,” Vettel added. “Just as a civilian, look around:
see FORMULA
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CHECKING OUT THE SPECS – Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner (left), Formula One race promoter Leo Hindery (center), and West New York Mayor Felix Roque checked out Sebastian Vettel’s race car that sat on a stage set before the Manhattan skyline during a press conference.