Near West End

I was lucky to talk briefly with Julie Rechel, the Richmonder who won the Twenty-12 Talent Identification Triathlon in Tuscaloosa, AL,  last week.
 I asked her if she had any idea, going into this race,  that she might win it. “I had no idea!” she said. “I looked up all my competition — and I was going to be so excited if I was in the first half (of the finishers). It really took me by surprise.”

Rechel is a distance runner at UR who is described on the UR website as a three sport athlete.  The three sports?  Swimming, running, tennis.   Since this was a talent competition to scout for potential triathletes for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, you’d think that it would drastically change her plans. But it hasn’t. “Right now the only thing it changes is that I’ll now race U23 Elite.”  She says if the Olympics are in her future, it is far  in the future.

Rechel is both talented and humble. “I’m not particularly outstanding at any one (event) but I”m good at them all. I can can improve in each, but there is not one that stands out as my weakness.” In training she said she’s been focusing on the bike leg, biking mostly on Old Gun Road and Riverside Drive, and she’s glad she spent so much time on the bike because that is what ended up winning it for her.  It didn’t hurt that she had a personal best on the run either.
“I had a phenomenal run. I dropped 1 minute off the best run of my life.” Previously, at a 5K that was not part of a triathlon, her best time was 18.52 but in this race even after the swim and pushing herself on the bike, she came in at 18.39.

“I love this sport of triathlon. I love the training. I love the athletes” 

330 PM EDT MON APR 28 2008
THE NATL WEATHER SVC IN WAKEFIELD HAS ISSUED AN
* URBAN & SMALL STREAM FLOOD ADVISORY FOR.
SOUTHEASTERN CHESTERFIELD COUNTY IN CNTL VA.
THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF CHESTER.
CITY OF COLONIAL HEIGHTS IN CNTL VA.
SOUTHEASTERN HANOVER COUNTY IN CNTL VA.
SOUTHEASTERN HENRICO COUNTY IN CNTL VA.

Read more >

With recent news that another drive-thru Starbucks will come to Richmond, at Short Pump Town Center (behind the Chili’s), I wonder if it is only a matter of time before the Near West End gets the ever-so-indulgent drive-thru Starbucks. 

Thanks to a vigilant female student at University of Richmond, a suspected rapist is off the streets of Richmond.

A man awaiting trial on rape charges in Hanover County had his bond revoked after a University of Richmond student said he had been watching her and acting suspiciously.

Timothy Hargett, 29, of Henrico County faces felony charges of abduction, object sexual penetration, and two counts each of rape and forcible sodomy.

In that case, a woman told authorities that she was raped and forced to perform oral sex early the morning of Dec. 2 in a car in the Mechanicsville area.

Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities announces a call for entries in its 10th annual National Arts Program® at Richmond. More than $3,000 in prize money will be awarded through the program to artists of all ages and levels of experience. The program is free to enter, and all artwork submitted according to the rules will be exhibited in one of two shows that will hang from June 23 to July 18.

Youth ages 5-17 are invited to submit their works of art to compete for awards in the Youth and Teen Showcase, to be held at the Science Museum of Virginia, while adults may submit their work to compete in Creative Reflections, which will be held at Pine Camp Arts and Community Center.

The National Arts Program® is one of the most innovative grassroots arts projects in the country and has achieved widespread recognition for successfully nurturing creativity and fostering self-confidence among artists. It is sponsored by the National Arts Program Foundation of Malvern PA and here in Richmond by the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities’ art program. Additional sponsorship is provided by VSA Arts of Virginia, CVS Caremark/All Kids Can, the Science Museum of Virginia, and the James River Art League.

Registration brochures providing details on how to enter are available at Pine Camp, which is located at 4901 Old Brook Road, or by calling 804-646-3674.

Anyone who wants to enter their artwork, must register to enter by June 4. For more information, call Darlene Marschak
804-646-3674.

The USA Triathlon Duathlon National Championships come to Richmond this weekend. If you are not racing, consider volunteering or being a spectator. This is a huge two-day format featuring off-road events on Saturday and on-road events on Sunday. The National Duathlon Festival has attracted a broad range of athletes from far and wide plus the opportunity to watch the winner of national championships cross the finish line. Here is the official schedule and the all important road closures.

Official Schedule

Saturday, April 26, 2008

7:30 a.m. Off-Road Youth Age Group Races (7-8, 9-10, 11-12) –1k run, 4k bike, 1k run 8:30 a.m. Off-Road Junior Age Group Races (13-15, 16-19) — 5k run, 10k bike, 2.5k run
Sport Race (non-championship) — 5k run, 10k bike, 2.5k run 10:30 a.m. Off-Road Championships –10k run, 30k bike, 5k run

Sunday, April 27, 2008

7 a.m. Age Group Races — 10k run, 40k bike, 5k run 9:30 a.m. Elite Races –10k run, 40k bike, 5k run - Draft Legal 11:30 a.m. Youth Nationals (7-8, 9-10 and 11-12) — 1k run, 5k bike, 1k run 12 Noon Junior Nationals (13-15 and 16-19) — 5k run, 20k bike, 2.5k run - Draft Legal 1 p.m. Sport Race (non-championship) –5k run, 20k bike, 2.5k run

Road Closures for Friday, April 25th
2nd Street from Byrd Street to Lee Bridge closed – 7:00 p.m. Friday through 1:00 p.m. Sunday

Road Closures for Saturday, April 26th
2nd Street from Byrd Street to Lee Bridge closed – all day.
Byrd Street between 2nd Street and 3rd Streets closed – all day.

Road Closures for Sunday, April 27th
2nd Street from Byrd Street to Lee Bridge closed – Until 1:00 p.m.
Byrd Street between 2nd Street and 3rd Streets closed – Until 1:00 p.m.
The curb lane of the Lee Bridge closed in both directions — 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Riverside Drive closed from Lee Bridge access ramps to 42nd Street — 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
42nd Street from Riverside Drive to Springhill Avenue partially closed, police present to monitor and control — 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Parking on both sides of 42nd Street prohibited — 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

* Spring Playground Clean Up Day (and Pancake Breakfast!) are THIS SATURDAY at Mary Munford *

If you use the playground, why not stop by and help make it prettier?

Saturday, April 26 from 8am-noon. Volunteers are needed to help weed, prune and mulch both playgrounds. You do not need to stay the entire 4 hours. Any time that you can give would be appreciated. Feel free to bring any gardening tools that you may have. When you arrive, look for the sign up list of jobs by the doors to the cafeteria.

Also, the same morning, the Compass Club with Paula Katz is hosting a Pancake Breakfast in the cafeteria. Families can come for a great pancake breakfast, then work off all the calories helping with the playground work! The breakfast is $5 for adults and $3 for children. Proceeds will go towards the club’s charitable giving to the children of Southeast Asia.

The University of Richmond was among 48 universitiues to receive money from The Howard Hughes Medical Institute. UR will get $1.4 million towards its teaching computer science to introductory science course students.

A year ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute issued a challenge to 224 undergraduate colleges nationwide: identify creative new ways to engage your students in the biological sciences.

Now 48 of the nation’s best undergraduate institutions will receive $60 million to help them usher in a new era of science education.

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Computational Tie Binds Interdisciplinary Classes

If you want to see the big picture in science, you’ve got to learn to crunch the numbers. That’s a theme at the University of Richmond, where faculty funded by a $1.4 million HHMI grant are teaching computer science in their introductory science courses.

“We’ve found that students who don’t have at least a rudimentary background in programming are at a real disadvantage,” says HHMI grant director Kathy Hoke, a mathematician. “The ties that bind disciplines tend to be computational.”

The faculty at this Richmond, Va., institution aim to expose students to computer science and more in a new, two-semester course that replaces standard introductory classes in computer science, biology, chemistry, physics, and math. Instead of learning these subjects in isolation, students will approach them in an interdisciplinary way. Students will use their programming skills to investigate pertinent science questions, such as modeling key HIV proteins and analyzing their ability to bind to inhibitory drugs. That class will prepare students for upper-level courses in each field, which they can pursue from their sophomore years onward.

“We want our students to think algorithmically,” Hoke explains, saying it will better prepare the students for a career in science. “And we’ll structure the class so they learn to answer questions like this by drawing from different perspectives, such as molecular biology, thermodynamic analysis, and mathematical modeling.”

The emphasis on computation is also reflected in newly-offered courses in bioinformatics, biophysics, computational science, neuropharmacology, and systems biology. Hoke says these subjects all combine elements from multiple fields; progress in each one is dependent on the use of databases and quantitative methods. Systems biology, for instance, draws heavily on genomics and molecular biology, which are data-intensive fields.

The same can be said for epidemiology, which looks for medical trends in human populations. Using its HHMI grant, Richmond is adding a new faculty member in epidemiology this year. “Epidemiology draws on multiple disciplines, and it’s an area that we currently don’t have expertise in,” Hoke says. “And we’ve found that questions about disease really engage students from a variety of different majors.”

Come see “The Firehouse Theatre Cabaret” the night before opening… for free!
“The Firehouse Theatre Cabaret” - IDR
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: The Firehouse Theatre Project
Street: 1609 West Broad Street
RSVP: at Facebook

Julie Rechel, age 20, of the University of Richmond, finished as the first place female at the Twenty-12 Talent Identification Triathlon in Tuscaloosa, Alabama this weekend. She won the race with at time of 1:06:57.
Sunday’s race was a chance for USA Triathlon or USAT officials to scout and develop talent for the Olympic Games in 2012 or 2016.

Rechel, a student at the University of Richmond, said she didn’t expect to be out front on the bike in the women’s race. “I just held on and brought it home on the run,” she said.

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WTVR reported earlier this week on a stabbing at the corner of Westmoreland and Fitzhugh. According to the police report, it happend at 2:32 a.m. on Monday.

Westmoreland St. Stabbing

Richmond police are trying to find the attacker who stabbed a man in this area of the city’s near west end… It happened at the corner of Westmoreland Street and Fitzhugh Avenue this morning.

A man in his 40s was stabbed in the chest and the wrist. Investigators still don’t know who attacked the man or why.

If you have any information… Call Crime Stoppers at 780-1000

I went to college with BJ Kocen, and he is one charismatic guy. Which is why you should pay attention to this really cool event that he’s planned! It even features, my old boss Jim Wark of Inside Business and Style Weekly fame. Yet another charismatic and talented guy, who currently is a student teacher at Mary Munford. Here’s the scoop:

Stretchin’ at Barksdale: All Star Jam
Stretchin’ is an evening of spontaneity. National and local talent take the Cabaret lobby stage at Barksdale at Willow Lawn and try out new material or jam with folks they don’t typically play with. It’s always fun and the perfect way to end the weekend. Questions, contact BJ Kocen at bjkocen@gmail.com.

This Month: ALL STAR JAM
Cost: $10 (Tickets available at the door. No advance sales.)

The Big Dance will include as many local heroes as we can fit on the stage! You can count on Jim Wark, BJ Kocen, Jackie Frost and Stephen Lecky just to name a few. I’ll confirm the complete list as we get closer to it, but get ready to rock and party as we blow out the last Stretchin’ gig of the season!!

The Shops at Willow Lawn
1601 Willow Lawn Drive, Suite 301-E
Richmond, Virginia 23230
Sunday, May 11, 2008
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Contact: 804-282-2620

Fred S. Morton IV, superintendent of Henrico County Public Schools, has been elected to serve a three-year term on the Executive Committee of the American Association of School Administrators, starting July 1. AASA is the professional organization for school superintendents and other school system leaders nationwide.

As a member of the AASA Executive Committee, Morton will review and approve the association’s strategic plan and budget. The Executive Committee meets four times each year and conducts the ongoing business of the organization. The Executive Committee works with AASA’s Governing Board, which sets the policy agenda for the association.
AASA, founded in 1865, is the professional organization for more than 13,000 educational leaders across America and in many other countries. AASA’s mission is to support and develop effective school system leaders who are dedicated to the highest quality public education for all children.

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Sunday, April 20, St. James Armenian Church is hosting Guest Speaker, Karine Birazian, following Badarak (approximately 1 p.m.)

Light lunch provided by the Armenian Relief Society, Richmond Hooys
Chapter. Event co-sponsored by the ANC Richmond.
Karine Birazian currently serves as the Eastern Region Director for the Armenian National Committee of America.
Ms. Birazian was born and raised in Illinois and holds a degree in
nursing. She has maintained a strong focus on genocide education and
broader human rights issues.
As an activist, Ms. Birazian has educated students in Illinois
schools about genocide awareness. She has also exhibited and given
presentations on the topic of genocide curricula at the National
Council for the Social Studies.
On Capitol Hill, Ms. Birazian has lobbied for genocide and human
rights issues. She is an effective community-events organizer and
public speaker who continues to build coalitions with various human
rights organizations. Ms. Birazian co-founded the Genocide Education
Network of Illinois in 2006 and, in the last year, has worked to
advance the Armenian cause through the works of the ANCA. She also
works with various organizations to stop the ongoing genocide in
Darfur.

The location of the April 10 symposium kicking off the inauguration of Edward L. Ayers as president of the University of Richmond has been changed to accommodate high demand for tickets.

“New Perspectives on the American Civil War” will be held on campus at the Robins Center at 4:30 p.m. April 10. A book-signing by the three panelists — Ayers, Harvard University president and history professor Drew Gilpin Faust, and University of Virginia professor of the Civil War Gary W. Gallagher — will follow.

Ticket requests have significantly exceeded the capacity of the originally scheduled location, 600-seat Camp Concert Hall, and continue to come in. Admission is free and open to the public, but advance online registration is required at inauguration.richmond.edu. For more information, call 804-287-1800.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak at the University of Richmond tomorrow. Let’s hope he has something good to say about the economy! As for me, my entire tax refund and economic stimulus check, and vacation allowance will be going towards a new $3,000 transmission in husband’s car. Wonder how much that will do for the local economy.

The national spotlight will be on Richmond tomorrow when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak to the World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond.

About 235 business representatives are expected to attend the sold-out luncheon at the University of Richmond. An overflow room for students and others also will be filled, said council President Randolph Bell, former U.S. ambassador at large.

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As a recipient of the Mary Munford PTA emails, I received this message from our school board rep, Kim Bridges. Sounds like she’s taking things in the right direction. What do you think?

Message From Kim Bridges, 1st District Representative to the RPS School Board
Dear 1st District community and other RPS stakeholders,

As you know, the long-awaited results of the city auditor’s review of RPS Purchasing and Accounts Payable came out last week. As you also know, it wasn’t pretty. After a preliminary review, it’s been my weekend study, and with the turn of nearly every page my heart sank. Now, the only bright side of this audit is that the school board and superintendent had requested this audit last April and began the revamping of Finance & Operations six months ago. Lots of change has taken place since then and I highlighted some of that in my last update. For the audit, we knew that the findings would be very similar to the audit of the city’s procurement services, so the superintendent and interim chief of Finance and Operations started work on many recommendations well before the audit was done. As a result, 21 of the 102 recommendations have already been addressed and a plan is in place for over half of the recommendations to be implemented by summer.

If you’ve read any of my previous updates, you know I am a huge supporter of public education and of RPS in particular. I have two children in the school system because I truly believe that they can get a wonderful education here and have opportunities equal to or greater than their peers in surrounding systems or private schools. I know many other families like my own who have chosen to be a part of this school system for the same reason.

Over the past fifteen months, I have found and worked for progress in RPS. I believed (and still do) that this system is at the tipping point of a much brighter future. Yet, being proud of this system is a difficult prospect when the community’s predominant mental picture is one of corruption, incompetence, fraud, or waste.

I don’t often use the first person in school board meetings because every decision we make must be a collaborative one. Taking personal credit doesn’t do too much to advance our work, but taking personal responsibility does. I want you to know that I am responsible as a leader of an environment where corruption, incompetence, fraud or waste can pervade such a major function of the system. I am responsible for having the internal controls in place to catch errors before they become regular practice. And to the thousands of kids, parents, mentors, teachers, principals, and support staff who show up everyday to do their best to build something worthy of pride, I am sorry.

I assure you that I will work hard, with my colleagues, to fix this mess. In the near term:

Today at 1:30, the newly-formed Internal Audit committee, to which I was appointed chair, will identify what we need to do to have a “systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the system’s risk management, control, and governance processes” (decription from the Institute of Internal Auditors.)

Tonight (Monday) at 6:00 p.m., the board will produce its audit response plan.

Thursday at 2:30 p.m., the administration will update the board and public about its improvement steps at a special meeting of the Facilities and Operations committee.

Many more changes are ahead for RPS. I vow to do my best to ensure that change means progress—not just change for appearance sake—and that the stability and confidence our staff and students need will accompany the necessary improvements.

I value your feedback; your suggestions and assistance are more crucial than ever to help replace negative images with positive reality–Kim Bridges, 1st District School Board representative

I got this email from VCU School of Mass Communications professor Jeff South. It took me a while to realize that our readers might be interested in the results. Especially, considering that you are just as cutting edge as we are!
Here’s the email:

Greetings from LA, where I am at “Media Re:Public,” a conference convened by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The focus here is on participatory media — especially citizen journalism. And guess which city ranked No. 1 for citizen journalism Web sites? Richmond, by far and away. In fact, I’m at a session right now about a report that the Project for Excellence in Journalism has just completed on such sites. It says:

Richmond, Virginia, was the most developed community of citizen journalism sites in the sample. Richmond has 16 citizen journalism sites, 10 of which were citizen neighborhood news sites, two were neighborhood blog sites, two were blog sites that addressed the Richmond area, one was a news aggregator for Richmond, and one was a blog aggregation site. Of particular interest are the neighborhood sites that have very similar “About Us” statements and that link to each other. According to a statement on the Greater Fulton News (http://greaterfultonnews.org/about-this-site/), the neighborhood sites can be traced to John Murden, who set up the Church Hill People’s News (http://chpn.net/news/ in August 2004.

And, A big thank you to John Murden, who with my partner Kory, got this site up and ready to go back in August.

John Sarvay over at Buttermilk & Molasses covers the report in more detail.

This is the main one for us West Enders….but If you are going downtown, beware of traffic closures….and be sure to use 195 or 95/64.

* Monument Avenue / Franklin Street will be closed between Staples
Mill Road and Stuart Circle (Lombardy Street) from 8 AM to 1 PM. The
recommended detour for eastbound traffic is left on Staples Mill Road, right
on Broad Street, left on Allen Avenue, right on Leigh Street, right on
Belvidere Street. The recommended detour for westbound traffic is right on
Belvidere Street, left on Leigh Street, left on Allen Avenue, right on Broad
Street.

Henrico County Public Schools kindergarten registration will be held April 29 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at every elementary school in the county.

Children who will be 5 years old on or before Sept. 30 are eligible to attend kindergarten in the 2008-09 school year.

Parents must bring their child’s official state birth certificate and proof of residence to registration. To show proof of residence, parents must bring three items — a current utility bill, a picture identification and one of the following: a house contract, lease agreement, rent receipt, mortgage statement or tax assessment.

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