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No place for hate in I.P. school
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Vol. 56 No. 51
DECEMBER 16 - 22, 2021
Oceanside event provides trees for troops By toM CaRRozza tcarrozza@liherald.com
Tom Carrozza/Herald
JoE DIDoMINICa, CENtER, who owns the nursery with his father, Tom, with members of Dee’s staff in front of the trees for troops.
Dozens of Nassau County and NYPD police motorcycles lined Atlantic Avenue in Oceanside on Dec. 6, leading a motorcade from Dee’s Nursery to John F. Kennedy International Airport, where Christmas trees donated by the community business were loaded onto planes to be distributed to U.S. troops abroad. The event marked the 18th straight year that Dee’s and international courier service DHL sent trees to troops over-
seas as part of Operation Holiday Cheer. A wide variety of supporters turned out in the Dee’s parking lot, including Gold Star families the Zilinskis and Winchesters, the Chaminade varsity hockey team, the Girl Scouts of Nassau County, Hewlett Elementary School students and several American Legion groups as a few hundred trees were loaded into the back of a DHL truck before embarking for the airport. Students from the Oceanside School District also sent letters to accompany the trees overContinued on page 14
O’side High School senior is Football Player of the Year By KEPhERD DaNIEl kdaniel@liherald.com
Oceanside High School senior Charlie McKee, 17,the Sailors’ quarterback, was recently named the Gatorade New York Football Player of the Year. The accolade recognizes an athlete’s accomplishments on and off the field. McKee finished the season with 28 touchdowns, 2,183
yards passing,with a 74 percent completion rate, and 781 yards rushing. He finished his Oceanside football career with 94 touchdowns, 8,929 yards passing and 1,256 yards rushing. Seated with his coach, Robert Blount, McKee said, “I knew I was up for [the award], but to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to win, so to get the news was exciting, and a lot of emotions went
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around.” McKee said he has loved his time as the Sailors’ quarterback. “Being a fourth-year guy here, I’ve had a lot of guys in the past that I could lean on, but a lot of those guys graduated over the past four years. Coming up, I knew what I had to do leadership-wise. The leadership part was different this year for me, personally with being a little bit more vocal this year.”
Blount spoke of McKee’s goals going into the 2021 season. “Our goal here is to always win the county championship,” the coach said. “We’ve been in the championship game four of the last five seasons, so it’s something that that players expect. We fell short in the aspect of winning the county championship, but we did get everything we needed to do
through that process, and we bumped into a very good team. But that doesn’t take away from what we’re able to accomplish throughout the season.” The Oceanside Sailors finished the season 9-2 and won playoff games against East Meadow and tSyosset before being knocked off in the Nassau Conference I chamContinued on page 14