HOLIDAY MAGIC
__________________ Merrick _________________
Dining Gi f t and
guide
Ideas to INSPIRE
HERALD Holiday Magic Dining and Gift Guide
Inside
Vol. 25 No. 48
Honoring a hero of 50 years
Why is lunch so important?
Page 3
Page 12 $1.00 $1.00
NoVEMBER 24 - 30, 2022
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Calhoun wins state volleyball championship By ToNY BEllISSIMo and BRIaN KaCHaRaBa sports@liherald.com
Liss Phillips/Herald
CalHouN HIGH SCHool’S girls’ volleyball team made history last Sunday by winning the New York State Class A championship with a sweep of Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake in Glens Falls.
Calhoun left little doubt as to which high school girls’ volleyball team is the best in New York state. After dominating Saturday’s four-team pool play, the Colts completed an extraordinary run to their first-ever state title by dethroning two-time defending Class A-champion Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, 25-11, 25-19, 25-19 in Sunday’s final in Glens Falls. Backed by the inspiring play
of senior co-captains Julia Lawrence, Ella Maldonado and Victoria Zovich and key contributions from other players in the rotation, the Colts made good on their preseason mantra of “Road to States,” which coach Christina Strezenec said was put on the team’s whiteboard after last season’s Nassau County finals loss to Wantagh. “We knew it was a dream of ours and we knew we could get it, but it was a matter of how far we were going to get,” Strezenec said after the title Continued on page 10
OBITUARy
Paul Laursen, former editor of Merrick Life, dies at 67 By JoRDaN ValloNE jvallone@liherald.com
B
y all accounts, Paul Laursen had an infectious laugh that everyone around town knew. Whether you saw him at a civic association, historical society, Chamber of Commerce or Kiwanis meeting, he was always smiling, laughing, and sitting front and center in the audience. A community fixture and a longtime reporter and photographer, Laursen was the editor of
the Merrick and Bellmore Life newspapers, which were purchased by Richner Communications, the parent company of the Herald Community Newspapers, in 2013. Laursen died on Nov. 15, in his North Bellmore home, of ongoing medical problems. He was 67. Laursen’s family has long been known around Merrick and Bellmore. His parents, Faith and Johannes Laursen, purchased the Merrick Life in 1958, 20 years after the paper was founded. They started the Bellmore Life
H
e was a true journalist.
RICHaRD KESSEl
Chairman, Nassau County IDA in the 1960s, at the request of the community, and owned the Wantagh-Seaford Citizen and Freeport Baldwin Leader newspapers as well, which were also bought by Richner in 2013. The Laursens passed the newspapers down to Paul and
his sister, Linda Toscano, who served as their publisher. Their brother, John Laursen, is a professor at the University of California, Riverside, and lives there with his family. Born on Dec. 5, 1954, Paul Laursen grew up in Rockville Centre and was a proud graduate
of South Side High School. Much of his childhood was spent in the Life’s office, where he developed a love for news writing and photography, which led him to study journalism at American University in Washington, D.C. He graduated in 1977. Continued on page 4