2O
Shepherdstown
Becky Shaffer
876-0600
Park Playground Equipment
The Shepherdstown Men's
Club, in cooperation with Jef-
ferson County Parks and Rec-
reation Commission, has for
many years maintained
Morgan's Grove Park as an out-
standing and well-used com-
munity facility.
Approximately 2,000 people
use the park during any one
soccer league competition.
Some 100 folks use the walking
path daily. The summer day
camp program had an enroll-
ment of 70 youngsters during
the summer of 2003. Various
families and groups utilize the
pavilion and facilities daily.
Most of the playground
equipment, which was in-
stalled more than 20 years ago,
no longer meets federal safety
standards. The Men's Club has
received a matching grant for
$9,000 from United Way to cre-
ate a new, improved children's
play area. However, the grant
and matching funds will not
cover the estimated cost of
$50,000, which includes re-
moval and/or repair of existing
play equipment and installa-
tion of new equipment. Ttm
Men's Club Park Committee is
appealing to the community for
financial help with this worthy
endeavor.
Major donations will be am
knowledged at the playground
site with an appropriate per-
manent marker. Contributions
will insure the park's contin-
ued operation for generations
to come.
Members of the Shepherd-
stown Men's Club Park Commit-
tee are Etts Elliott, chairperson,
Lily and Phil Hill, Joyce
Lewandowski, Mildred Smith,
Louis Tiano, Peter and Lynn Wil-
son, and Martha and Jack
Young. Please contact any of
these folks if you have questions
about the equipment project.
Contribution checks should be
made payable to the Shepherd-
stown Men's Club and mailed to
P.O. Box 463, Shepherdstown,
WV 25443. For information,
phone 876-3323.
This correspondent would
just like to say that, through
the years, the Men's Club has
done a wonderful job maintain-
ing the park for our use. It is
such a beautiful facility with
lots of space for your young-
stets to enjoy play and just be-
ing outdoors. I just know that
you will want to support them
as they upgrade the equipment
for these youngsters. And, who
of us doesn't from time-to-time
enjoy a turn on the swing un-
der those stately trees.
We Hear That...
We have been informed that
our governor enjoyed a Thanks-
giving dinner which offered,
among other foods, a bit of ham
which was purchased ti'om one
of our Shepherdstown Farmers
Market vendors, Danny
Rohrer. I don't know all of the
details, but Danny tells me that
two prepared hams are on their
way to the mansion in Charles-
ton, the governor was so
pleased.
And, speaking of Danny
Rohrer, it seems that he offers a
weekly newsletter, via email,
which features goings-on on his
farm in Shepherdstown, at the
market, and in agriculture in
general. You might want to "log
on" for this. Lots of folks
throughout the tri-state area
do check in with him weekly
and many tell me that they en-
joy his offerings.
I understand that two of our
local shopkeepers are horse-
women, also. Seems that
Debbie and Meredith of
Dickinson and Wait...the gal-
lery on German Street, were
seen astride their steeds on the
roads west of NCTC enjoying
last Sunday's cold, blustery
weather. And we understand
that Meredith is very near be-
coming a master at John Deere
manipulating.
The Holiday Marketplace,
inside the Men's Club during
the Saturdays before Christ-
mas, drew a steady stream of
browsers and buyers at the
first of the season.
German Street was a bee-
hive of activity this past week-
end for "Musical Christmas in
Shepherdstown" activities.
Diners reported that the chili
and cornbread dinners were
delicious with lots of variety for
everyone. Mr. Santa arrived in
a flurry of rain and wind. Music
was in abundance with perfor-
mances in the Men's Club and
throughout the town. Popcorn
and chestnuts were consumed.
And there will be lots more
next week, including the al-
ways-popular parade.
The Tree Tradition
Trees have figured promi-
nently during the Christmas
season. The kind of tree that is
a part of your Yuletide celebra-
tion depends upon your knowl-
edge of evergreens.
A generation or so ago,
spruces were widely used as
Christmas trees. In more re-
cent years, long-needled trees
have become popular. Gener-
ally, these are Scotch or Scott's
pine. Scotch pine has needles
that are about two to three
inches long, and, if you look
closely, there are two needles
tied together in a bundle or
cluster. And these needles are
slightly twisted.
If the needles are two in a
bundle and are very long, five
or more inches, you will have a
red or Norway pine.
If there are five needles in a
bundle with a white or silvery
cast, you are looking at a white
pine tree.
One of the prize Christmas
trees is the balsam fir. The
needles for this evergreen are
about one inch long and at-
tached singly to the twigs.
These twigs are speckled with
tiny smooth round dots. These
dots are the scars where the
older needles, now fallen, once
grew. The balsam has a fra-
grant odor associated with the
perfume of the north woods.
Two of the very short-
needled trees are the spruce
and the hemlock. The spruce
has sharply-pointed needles
about a half-inch long and an-
gular in cross section. The
spruce dries rapidly and loses
its needles just as fast.
The other short-needled tree
is the hemlock. Its needles are
about two-thirds of an inch
long, flat, with rounded or
blunt tips and have fine dots
that look like lines on the back.
They are attached to the twigs
on a tiny hair-like stem.
West Virginia has 13 kinds
of native evergreen trees with
needle-like leaves. There are
six kinds of pines, hemlock, red
spruce, balsam fir, arborvitae
(white cedar), red cedar, tama-
rack (larch), plus the yew
which bears beautiful red, poi-
sonous berries.
When selecting your Christ-
mas tree, be sure that it is
fresh...tap it on the ground to
test for a barrage of falling
needles which would indicate
its uselessness to you...keep it
well-watered after you bring it
inside, do not place open flames
near it, and check it occasion-
ally to determine if it has been
inside long enough...a shed-
ding of needles will disclose
this fact.
Father's Garden
Although snow is cold, below
the freezing point, it is the best
blanket your garden could ask
for. As the inches of those tiny
snow crystals pile up, they trap
air molecules among them.
Like the feathers of a bird or
the down comforter on your
bed, the trapped air helps hold
in heat and keep out cold. A
blanket of snow protects the
plants and roots below from the
frigid blasts above the drifts.
Damage in winter to your
plants is caused by desiccating
wind, pure cold that freezes the
branches or the crown of the
plant, and/or roots heaved from
the soil as the ground freezes,
thaws, and refreezes. A layer of
snow insulates against Old
Man Winter and maintains a
steady temperature at soil
level.
Although snow is most often
a garden's ally, it can also be its
enemy. Heavy snow can cause
problems for evergreens, espe-
dally those of columnar shape.
Evergreens can collect amounts
that are too heavy to bear, thus
snapping branches or forcing
open the branches of evergreen
shrubs. If you don't discover the
damaged plants until spring,
the victims will appear un-
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sightly, become vulnerable to
early spring insect dmnage, and
experience a setback in yearly
gq'owth.
Incidentally, most of us
probably learned the 10:1
theory for inches of snow ver-
sus inches of rain. 1 was always
told that ten inches of snow
were equivalent to one inch of
rain. But that is not true in all
cases. Only the very wet snow,
the one that causes major ach-
ing muscles, fits the 10:1 ra-
tion. The fluffier tbe snow, the
more air it contains. That
means less water.
Snow equivalencies are
highly variable. Wet snow, the
kind that makes an instant
snowball when you scoop up a
handful, measures at 10:1. The
moderately powdery stuff is in
the 20:1 to 30:1 range. And the
dry powder that is wonderful
for sledding but horrible for
snowball and snowmen con-
struction may need 40-50
inches to equal one inch of rain.
A Glimpse Into History
This week we conclude the
information about Joseph
McMurran, the first president
of Shepherd College, as pre-
pared by Dr. Charles Ghiselin,
pastor of the Shepherdstown
Presbyterian Church, 1883-
1927, and published in the
"Magazine of the Jefferson
County Historical Society:"
"For fifty-four years he (Jo-
seph McMurran) was a member
of the Presbyterian Church. He
was honored with various of-
rices at different times. As a
member of the church, as
teacher in the Sunday school
and superintendent for twenty-
five years, as deacon and trea-
surer of the church, as ruling
elder for twenty-nine years,
and clerk of the session, he did
what he believed to be his duty
and did it well. Deeply inter-
ested in the welfare of the
church, wise in council for her
good, conscientious and upright
in characten blameless in con-
duct, kind and considerate in
disposition, he was looked up to
by all, old and young alike, with
reverence and Ive as a true
rules in God's house.
"A multitude of men and
women and little children are
,'eadv to rise up and
blessed. And
lives
blessed 'he being
speaketh,' And
McMurran would be:
say in his humilit};
Apostle Paul, "By
God I am what I am.
"Death does
life as that. Freed
tations and irn
earth, freed from
drances of evil and
character and life
grace has
on more
beyond.
"He passed
heaven the
ary, 1902."
CDS STUDENTS
WIN SCHOOL LEVEL
WORD CHALLENGE
Carlyn Pate (4th grade),
Aaron Neely (5th grade),
Jonathan Shakesprere (6th
grade), Corey Guempel (7th
gradeL and Joshua Hawkins
(8th grade) recently won the
school-level competition of the
Reader's Digest National Word
Power Challenge, sponsored by
Campbell Soup Company.
The school-level challenge,
at which students answered
oral and written questions on
vocabulary, was the first round
in the second annual Word
Power Challenge. The school
winners will now take a writ-
ten test with up to 100 of the
top scorers in each
eligible in the state
lenge on February
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