Around South County: Schools win big at sport stacking and chess

Mitchelle Stephenson — The Capital Joe Shenton, 10, begins the relay event in the 3-6-3 stack with Deale Elementary “Soaring Eagle” partners at the ready: Michael Hamlin, 10, Mina Work, 11, and Georgia Campbell, 10. The students hold the Maryland state record with a time of 0:19.25.

By Mitchelle Stephenson

Students at two south county elementary schools were recent winners in local and national competitions.

Students at Deale Elementary not only succeeded at the World Sport Stacking Championships in Denver, Colo., but also set records at regional competitions. Meanwhile, students at Davidsonville Elementary had a clean sweep at a county chess championship.

In Deale, Physical Education teacher Vern Brumfield mentors about two dozen second- through fifth-graders in sport stacking, also known as speed stacking or cup stacking. In the activity, students stack plastic cups into pyramids in a specific order, then break them down.

For example, the students will take 12 cups and stack a "Cycle," which is a 3-6-3, then a 6-6, then a 1-10-1. Some of the Deale competitors complete the Cycle stack in seven to eight seconds.

It is lightning fast.

Michael Hamlin, 10, just returned from the World Sport Stacking Championships on April 11, where 700 competitors from every continent competed.

"My best event is the 3-3-3," Michael said. This is where a competitor starts with nine cups and quickly makes and then breaks down three pyramids of three cups each.

Michael also competed in the Cycle, where he placed 11th in the world. The winning stacker, from Illinois, completed the Cycle in 6.08 seconds.

Michael competed in a team event with Joshua Brumfield, Vern's son and a student at Southern Middle. They made it to the finals, but were bested by a team from Germany.

The sport stacking season is now over, but other members of the Deale Elementary "Soaring Eagles" now hold records.

"We have one of the best teams east of the Mississippi," Vern said.

The four-person relay team of Michael, along with fifth-graders Georgia Campbell, 10, and Mina Work, 11, and fourth-grader Joe Shenton, 10, hold the Maryland record for the 3-6-3 stack with a time of 0:19.25.

Stacking came to the school about three years ago. Vern had purchased a set of cups and a timer to demonstrate the sport.

He was ready to show the kids how to do it when then-second-grade student Joe Shenton took the cups and gave a quick demonstration.

He'd been practicing at home.

"Joe was the fastest anyone had ever seen," Vern said.

Vern now credits Joe with bringing cup stacking to Deale.

After that, Vern started a club with about a dozen students. The team size has doubled since then.

Even Vern enjoys the sport and competition. He competed last weekend in Denver in the adult division.

Vern made it to the finals.

"But I choked. My cups were all over the floor. I was really nervous," Vern said.

Competition is open to anyone, four to 60 years old. Some competitors are affiliated with schools and teams, while some students compete on their own.

Vern said that he believes sport stacking helps children to develop in a variety of ways.

"Physically, it helps children to use both sides of the brain. Emotionally, it creates confidence because the students don't have to be athletic to succeed," Vern said.

"Getting them on a team helps them build self esteem, which is very important at this age," he said.

Vern noted that once children are on a team and begin to compete, they often practice at home because they take pride in improving not only for themselves, but also for their teammates.

"I want to show the kids that they can be successful," Vern said.

At Davidsonville Elementary, a small group of students who participate in a weekly chess club recently took trophies in a clean sweep at the "King of the Hill" county chess tournament, played earlier this month at the Severna Park Community Center.

The students played against teams from Hillsmere and Germantown Elementary schools.

Pamela Davis is the Davidsonville PTO coordinator of the club. The school had a club in the past, but this year, brought in chess coach Andrew Lubenski, who upped the level of play.

"Now the kids eat and sleep chess," Pamela said.

The students not only met once a week to practice play, but they also had chess homework.

They started in October. The club was open to any student in first through fifth grade.

They met before school with about 40 kids in all. It was so popular, they had to bring in a second coach - Chase Gwinn.

Pamela said that one of her goals was to have students play in a tournament, and Andrew found the one in Severna Park so they decided to sign up. Nobody was sure how they'd fare.

At King of the Hill, the Davidsonville students played 22 games in all, winning every one.

Andrew said that results like these are unheard of.

"With so many games played, there should be a few draws or some losses," Andrew said. "Shutouts are virtually unheard of in team chess."

The students who participated and won trophies were: third-graders Josh Gallatin and Noah Burckman; fourth-graders Connor Morris, Alex Rozner and Dylan Cyphers; and fifth-grader Enzo Cicchinelli.

The club is finished for the school year, but Pamela is hopeful that the success the team found this year will lure new chess enthusiasts when school starts again in the fall.

Around South County: Check out the upgrades at library

Ruth Hazen checks out a book from circulation assistant Dawn Haddon at the new and improved South County branch of the public library. After a$1 million renovation, the library will host a ribbon cutting on Monday.

By MITCHELLE STEPHENSON, For The Capital

Published 02/11/10

The South County Library in Deale at 5940 Deale-Churchton Road has undergone a $1 million face-lift in recent months. In addition to doubling the meeting space, the facility also received additional parking space, security upgrades, new restrooms and upgrades to the interior lighting.

Pat Guyton, branch manager, is excited about the changes taking place, stating that a few years back the county upgraded the counter and office space, giving librarians an expanded area for their work.

"Now we have new lighting in the central area and behind the counter, and the stacks have brighter lighting," Pat said.

No new materials have been added to the branch, but the expansion has allowed librarians to expand the formerly crowded stacks into where the old meeting space was located. They also are starting a drive to raise money to buy new materials.

On Monday the new space will be officially introduced to the public with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and daylong series of activities and performances.

At 1:30 p.m. County Councilwoman Tricia Johnson will present storytime in the children's area followed by the ribbon-cutting at 2 p.m. with other county officials and library personnel.

In addition, the new meeting room will be put to good use throughout the day: the South County Showstoppers will give a dance performance at 2:45 p.m. At 4:30 p.m., "Ground," winners of the 2010 Battle of the Bands, will perform. An hour later, Southern Middle School students will perform under the direction of Richard Albright, and from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m., the Jim Ballard Jazz Quartet will play.

In February, 1968, the south county branch became the third library in the county system to be dedicated. The 6,100 square foot space was built for $164,080.

The building upgrade was approved in 2005 and funded in 2008. In September of last year, construction began. The library did not close to patrons during the construction phase. Although it was slated for completion in February, the project actually wrapped up last month - a month ahead of schedule.

The branch serves approximately 6,000 people each month. In the old meeting room, 79 people could be accommodated. Now, the room can hold 149 people.

Even before this Monday's dedication, the meeting space is getting use.Last Thursday the Deale Area Historical Society resumed holding their monthly meetings at the library.

Ruth Hazen, a member of the historical society said that they were looking forward to being back at the library. "I'm very excited to be able to meet in the new space. I think it is bigger and more appropriate for shows and inviting people in," Ruth said.

Ruth noted that the old meeting room was long and narrow, which made it difficult to host large groups. Now the room is square, so presentations can be visible from all parts of the room.

There is no cost to attend the library dedication party.

And - now that they've gone from 28 parking spaces to 66 - library visitors should be able to find a place to park.

Fourth-grader Caterina Grandi from Shady Side Elementary School was recently honored with an assembly and a visit from Louie, the mascot of the Bowie Baysox minor league baseball team.

Each year the Baysox host a program, "Read and Hit a Home Run." The program is sponsored by Educational Systems Federal Credit Union. Students from area schools are encouraged to read four books outside of their school curriculum. Students who do are rewarded with a free ticket to a Baysox game.

To launch this year's program, the Baysox asked local schoolchildren to submit drawings for the program's poster. They received more than 2,000 submissions.

Caterina joined Corrine Fisher from James Rider Randall Elementary in Clinton, as semi-finalist. The finalist will be selected later this month.

South county hauntings continue through Saturday

Sean Peterson and Kate Handler scare up some fun on Heidi’s Haunted Hill in Edgewater. With an improvement in the forecast, south county should be host to both the haunted hill and the Deale fire station’s Morgue Manor — for those possessed of visiting.

By MITCHELLE STEPENSON For The Capital

Published 10/29/09

The weather this fall hasn't been kind to the folks who run the haunted venues in south county. Weather has forced both Heidi's Haunted Hill in Edgewater, and the Deale Fire Department's Morgue Manor haunted house to be closed all but two nights.

But the organizers of both are hoping for a drier forecast since their scary sites will be open tonight through Saturday.

At Heidi's Haunted Hill, off of Solomons Island Road near Birdsville, organizers Holly Jensen and Greta Morris worked for months creating a scary trail for kids ages 12 and up.

"We both have high school and middle school students. So Holly and I thought it would be a fun way for the family to be involved together with the kids," Morris said.

It is a family affair. Morris and Jensen are sisters, and the two women roped in not only their husbands, but kids, boyfriends and their kids' friends.

They got the idea after touring haunted houses and haunted trails in the area over the years.

"We knew what we liked, and we thought we could do something good," Morris said.

Around Labor Day they started putting the pieces together. They installed fencing in the steep areas and added mulch to make the trail less slippery.

Then they really got to work making the attraction scary. The women stumbled across a truckload of decorations from a Howard County archery group that had previously run a haunted trail. Then parents and kids worked together to build simple wooden structures and mazes. They hung up gruesome mannequins, severed plastic body parts, plus stuffed rats, fake spiders and rubber snakes.

Next, they hired a handful of their children's high school and college classmates to provide the chilling drama. The 30 or so teens dress up each night as apes that swing across the trail, as clowns who jump out at people and, of course, as zombies, ghosts and ghouls. They operate chainsaws, they moan, they pound on things.

Each visitor is asked to pay $14 or $12 if they bring a nonperishable item to donate to the food bank. Each night a bonfire is set, so that patrons can warm up, roast marshmallows or make s'mores.

A tour guide leads groups, usually of no more than six at a time, into the forest with a lantern.

The haunted walk gets its name for Heidi Jensen, Holly's 14-year-old daughter, but both Jensen and Morris' children participate.

Walking the trail takes about 20 minutes, and is steep in some places. But the hilly terrain probably isn't what will get your heart going the most - that will be left to the phantoms along the way.

A little farther south, in Deale, the volunteers at the Deale Fire Station are running Morgue Manor, a haunted house that has been a south county tradition since the 1980s.

Paul Loiacono and Shannon Rohr, two volunteer firefighters at the station, are co-chairing the event this year.

Loiacono has been a firefighter for eight years, and he's been involved with the haunted house the entire time.

He said that a few of the hauntings are the return engagements, like an "appearance" by Freddy Krueger. But other things have changed. Last year visitors started their journey through the house on the outside steps, entering through the second floor and then making their way downstairs.

This year, visitors will start in a foyer, where there is seemingly no exit. Family portraits hang from the wall, but guests will have the feeling that they are being watched. Truth is, they are.

From there, guests go through the kitchen, a gruesome scene that is a hallmark of the yearly haunted house is played out for all to shriek, rather, to see.

Ghosts, ghouls, sickly doctors and nurses, a Jack in the Box, a demented chef, and others characters are brought to "life" by the volunteer firefighters.

One of the unique things about the Deale haunted house is that it is not a commercial haunted house set in a portable building in a parking lot. It takes place in a real house, a 100-year old south county farmhouse that for years was someone's home. The last resident died in 1986.

The journey for visitors begins by parking at the Deale fire station on Drum Point Road. The volunteers at the station sell refreshments and the $12 tickets for the haunted adventure. Guests then board a bus for the ride to the house. After a short walk down a driveway, the boarded up house awaits.

There are no refunds if you are too scared to go in.

Mitchelle Stephenson is a freelance writer living in Edgewater.

Around South County: Missionaries pay a visit, lay a new roof for Deale church

The Workman family, missionaries from North Carolina, put the finishing touches on the new roof at First Baptist Church in Deale. From left, Sara, Ray Sr., Keisha and Ray Jr. Photo by Mitchelle Stephenson

By MITCHELLE STEPHENSON, For The Capital

Published 09/03/09

The First Baptist Church on Deale Churchton Road recently celebrated 50 years as a congregation.

Weeks before their official celebration, they got a call from the Workman family in Kings Mountain, N.C. The family was visiting independent Baptist churches in the southeastern United States in an effort to gain support for their fledgling parish outside of Charlotte, N.C. Ray Workman and his family wanted to know if they could come and meet the parishioners at Deale's First Baptist.

The Rev. Robert Mayes of First Baptist, talked to Ray about their efforts to start a church that Ray would head up as pastor. He also learned that the family was very musical, performing with French horn, clarinet, flute, piccolo, saxophone, piano and vocals.

First Baptist was in need of music accompaniment for their anniversary celebration, and so the minister invited Ray, his wife and six children to come to Deale.

Next, Rev. Mayes put out word that he'd need to find a place for the family of eight to sleep.

Ann Brown, a First Baptist parishioner, who lives a few blocks from the church, offered to host the family in her home on Rockhold Creek. And so it came to be that a family of missionaries from North Carolina came to Deale to help celebrate the local church's half-century in the community.

All eight members of Workman family came to the parish to celebrate in June - Ray, wife Wanda, and their six children: Sara, Christina, Allison, Keisha, Valerie and Ray Jr.

When the family arrived, they found a church that had more needs than musical accompaniment. The church needed help with a major construction project - replacement of the roof on the sanctuary.

As Rev. Mayes and Ray got to know one other, the Deale pastor learned that Ray wasn't only a fellow clergyman, but also in the construction business with all of his family, working alongside him. The two men talked about the church's need for a new roof and made a tentative plan for the Workman family to return to Deale to help with the roofing project.

The Workmans celebrated with the parish, then left for travels to other churches to drum up support for their new place of worship.

Rev. Mayes and the family kept in contact, and by the last week in August, the Workman family was back in Deale to do the roofing job.

Once again, Ann opened her house to the family of eight.

"She even stocked the refrigerator," Ray said.

The Deale church had a building fund for the materials, which cost about $2,500. The roof is typical stock - asphalt shingle. They had it delivered and ready to go when the Workman family returned to Deale last week.

Despite the heat, the family got right to work with Ray and his son on the roof along with Ray's daughters, who ranged in age from 15 to 31. All of the women wore full-length skirts with work boots. It was quite the sight, seeing them go up and down the ladder, their long dresses adorned only by their tool belts.

Each evening, they returned to Ann's house, where they got a real feel for Maryland life. Ray Jr., in particular, became fond of catching crabs off the dock behind Ann's house..

"I got a half a bushel using chicken necks on Rockhold Creek," he said with a wide smile.

"Where we're from, they call that a river," Ray Sr. said. "A creek is something real small, that you could walk across," he said, describing one of the regional differences.

"Pastor Mayes then teased, "isn't a creek down there pronounced crik?"

"No, a crik is what you get in your neck," Ray Sr. joked.

The exchange gave everyone on the job site a laugh, and showed how thecamaraderie of the weeks' work had sown a great friendship.

By Saturday morning, the entire roof was completed.

The family spent Sunday morning with the parish, then headed back to North Carolina. They will continue on their rounds to garner support for their church. They've already visited over 100 churches from the Everglades to Pennsylvania.

But they left Deale with the backing of another parish.

First Baptist Church of Deale voted as a congregation last Wednesday to send the family support for their new undertaking.

"They're good people - we'd have done it without their help," Rev. Mayes said.