_____________ ROCKVILLE CENTRE ____________
Sit back and relax.
Vol. 34 No. 37
Village ‘lights it up gold’ for Mary
Molloy students are dorm ready
Page 22
Page 25 SEPTEMBER 7 - 13, 2023
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RVC dancers headed for Hollywood petition in October. Kristen Pearson and Jamie Cook of Rockville Centre have Looking forward to a trip been dancing at Magnolia since from Long Island to Hollywood, they were toddlers. Now co-captwo Rockville Centre dancers t a i n s o f t h e g ro u p, t h e y along with eight others from described the 10-person dance the Magnolia Dance Academy team as a family. Pearson, 17, said the nominahave advanced to the final tion was a testaround of one of the ment to all the hard most prestigious work and dedicadance competitions tion the team has in the country — put in over the past the Industry Dance 15 years at MagnoAwards. lia. Dancers from “We’re all very the academy, which s u p p o r t ive, a n d is located in Lynwe’re always there brook, triumphed for each other on over other dance KRISTEN PEARSoN t h e h a rd d ay s, ” t e a m s f r o m a l l student, Pearson said. “I across the area to Magnolia dance love to dance, and I ear n the People’s academy love to be around Choice Award nomthe people I was ination in the regional dance competition, with. I grew up with everybody Tur n It Up. In April, they in my group.” Pearson said that even when wowed judges with a hypnotizing contemporary routine per- competing against one another, formed by 10 teenagers who the group would always come have been dancing together at together and celebrate when Magnolia since they were small. one member succeeds. “Every day I’d walk in and Team members earned the everyone would be there with nomination after a series of rounds during the regional open arms and such a positive competition, and are now pre- energy,” she said. “It’s a family. paring to compete in the nation- It’s a team. It’s being able to al Industry Dance Awards comContinued on page 24
By NIColE FoRMISANo
nformisano@liherald.com
Tim Baker/Herald
Students head back to school Crossing guard Gail Pattay joining students at William S. Covert Elementary School in Rockville Centre as they returned to school on Tuesday. Story, more photos, Pages 8 -10.
Ken Dyer celebrates a milestone Choirmaster dedicates 25 years to the local church By DANIEl oFFNER doffner@liherald.com
It’s impossible to imagine where contemporary music would be if it weren’t for church choirs. Their melodic and harmonic sounds as they chant and sing together essentially laid the foundation for everything we listen to today. “There is something very beautiful about it,” Ken Dyer, choirmaster at the Church of the Ascension in Rockville Centre, said. “If you think about it, music history is all bound up in church music.” Dyer, 61, has led the Episcopal church choir for the past 25 years, and has established a repertoire ranging from classical works by composers such as Bach to the hymns, spirituals and choral compositions of the 20th century. Dyer grew up in West Islip, and at 13 he began taking piano lessons. Then, one day while he was sitting in Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church
following Mass, he decided to get up and start playing. “The next thing I knew, there was someone standing next to me,” he recalled. “That’s when the organist offered me a job.” Dyer was 16 when he was hired to play one Mass a week at the West Islip church. Although he left the parish to study theology at St. John’s University in Queens, the passion he felt for music never waned. While at St. John’s he worked as an organist at Our Lady of Grace in West Babylon, performing seven Masses on the weekends. “That was a lot,” Dyer said, “but it provided me with good experience and helped put me through college.” He had a number of other jobs along the way, and in the 1980s he had his first experience with an Episcopalian congregation in Kew Gardens. Dyer had initially set out to become a priest, and joined a seminary, but quickly realized that Continued on page 20
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e were all in complete shock.