THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503240230
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Town Talk
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Beverly Reinke of Deep Creek can't believe what was stolen from her front lawn last week.
And she wants it back.
Apparently a thief or thieves stole a lawn ornament - popularly called a gazing ball - right out of her front lawn.
Reinke said the purloined item in question is a big, round globe made of mirrored glass about 14 inches in diameter which rested on a 30-inch-high concrete pedestal.
``There's now just a hole in the ground where it once was,'' she said. ``I came home from work one night and when I looked at my front lawn I noticed that something wasn't right. The next morning I finally noticed it, someone stole my gazing ball.''
Reinke said the object is valued at about $150 and was purchased from a local nursery by her daughter Debbie Speer. It was bought for her birthday, that's why it's so special.
``I just couldn't believe someone would want to take something like that,'' she said. ``Debbie had one and I really liked it. I thought it was beautiful. So she said to me, `Maybe I'll get you one for your birthday.' She finally did and it means a lot to me.''
After receiving the gazing ball from her daughter, Reinke dug a hole in the front of her yard and placed it on its pedestal in a flower garden.
``It's so strange that someone would take it; it's so weird,'' she reiterated. ``We just don't have that sort of thing happen in our neighborhood, it's usually so peaceful and safe. But when it does, it happens to me.
``Everyone here keeps an eye out for everybody else. We have a nice, friendly community.''
Naturally Reinke contacted the police as soon as she realized the ornament had been stolen. But she said there was nothing much the they could do except keep an eye out on her Westonia Road neighborhood.
She's now offering a reward. Call her at 487-6971 and leave a message on her answering machine. No questions asked.
``If I get it back,'' she said, ``I plan to embed in in concrete.'' White House Calling
Dennis McCurdy, program director and broadcast instructor at WFOS-FM 88.7, the radio station of Chesapeake public schools, recently got a phone call from a Richard Strauss.
No, not the Richard Strauss of music and conducting fame. That certainly would have been ideal in light of the station's classical musical programming. But this Richard Strauss called from the White House in Washington.
Strauss, the White House radio services coordinator, called the station, McCurdy said, to offer thanks to WFOS for regularly carrying the president's weekly six-minute radio address from the Oval Office, broadcast every Saturday at 10:06 a.m.
``Many stations around the country and in our area don't bother to carry the president's weekly address anymore,'' McCurdy explained. ``They were concerned with that fact. He was just glad we broadcast it every Saturday.''
And before you start pointing fingers at the student-run station, accusing it of partisan politics and being a mouthpiece for Democrats, keep in mind that WFOS has always carried the president's radio speeches, whether Republican or Democrat.
``It makes no difference who the president is, whether it's Bush or Reagan or Clinton, we carry all the major presidential addresses,'' McCurdy said. ``We do it as a public service. That's what we're all about. Now, if the speech is purely political, we may then elect not to carry it.''
McCurdy said the station always carries the opposition's response, in this instance the Republican stance, to the president's weekly address. It's broadcast every Saturday at 11:06 a.m.
And, yes, people do listen.
``One Saturday after we carried the president's address our transmitter went down during the Republican response,'' McCurdy said. ``We got calls right away. Several people accused us of a plot.''
A letter Strauss faxed to WFOS read, ``Each day, we receive calls from listeners around the country who have read about the president's address in their local papers and who have seen it on network newscasts and want to know which stations in their city carry the address.''
``Well, we certainly do,'' McCurdy said.
- Eric Feber by CNB