THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510130209
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Elizabeth Thiel and Eric Feber
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
As Chesapeake Mayor William E. Ward gets the City Council meeting under way, he pays special recognition to a group of boys in crisp uniforms, sitting in a neat row in the council chambers. They are, they tell Ward, the kids of Boy Scout Troop 462 from Deep Creek United Methodist Church.
Their mission: To earn a merit badge for citizenship in the community by seeing exactly what it is that council does three Tuesday nights a month.
And they watch council intently for a while.
6:45 p.m. - As council members listen to citizens who have come to express their views on a School Board appropriation and a legislative packet, one Scout bends his wrist so he can stare at his watch. Another scopes his hands and gnaws off a hangnail. Two others bounce their legs.
7 p.m. - The knee of a Boy Scout joins the two that were twitching. Two boys have their faces cupped in their hands.
7:05 p.m. - A yawn swallows a young face.
7:10 p.m. - A boy traces the outline of his hiking boot with a finger.
7:15 p.m. - Under some long, blond bangs, closed eyelids are barely visible.
7:30 p.m. - The once-still row of boys has become a collective fidget.
7:45 p.m. - Free at last, the boys and their scoutmaster, Henry C. Cahoon Jr., file out of the council chambers as the meeting continues.
The wheels of government grind on. A flowery goodbye
During a recent school assembly at Oscar F. Smith High School, one teacher was pleasantly surprised.
So surprised, in fact, that it caused a few tears to well up in her eyes.
The assembly included a visit by an Air Force Thunderbirds pilot and his ground crew chief, a former student sworn into the Air Force and a dozen students honored for their school work or attendance.
What wasn't scheduled was a huge bouquet of flowers presented to teacher Cindy Salemi, who was at the school theater to help with the program.
The assembly date, Oct. 6, was Salemi's last day as a math teacher at the school. She was leaving the state and her teaching position to be with her husband whose job took him to Florida.
``She's leaving us, and she's leaving behind a lot of friends,'' said the school's career guidance counselor Malia Piper. ``And she's a darn good teacher, too.''
Piper's words rang true enough as Salemi received her flowers and a huge ovation from the assembled students.
Cradling the flowers, Salemi held back her tears and said, ``This is home. I will be back.'' WFOS is back
Last week's ``Town Talk'' posed the question ``Where's McCurdy?,'' reporting on the weeklong absence of the station's chief programmer, broadcast teacher and on-the-air personality due to a case of the flu.
This week, Town Talk will answer the question, ``What the heck happened to the station last Monday and Tuesday?''
In two words: bad rheostat. Or to quote chief engineer David Desler, ``it was due to a malfunction on the voltage control in the high power portion of the station's transmitter.''
To put that in plain English: a thingamajig went blooey and caused the station to go bye-bye from early Monday until about 5 p.m. Tuesday.
The part in question had to be ordered special and shipped from the Harris Allied Co. in Quincy, Ill. Desler finally got the part by late morning Tuesday and got the station back on the air.
So, what did they do on Monday and Tuesday when they weren't broadcasting?
``Well, we still did a lot of production work,'' Desler said, ``and we still had to teach our students. So it was almost business as usual.'' Sunday Blues
WFOS-FM 88.7 really has the Sunday blues.
For a special feature on ``Who's Got the Blues,'' which airs the third Sunday of each month on ``The Music Goes Round and Round,'' blues host Richie Babb was all set to broadcast live today from the second annual Blues at the Beach Festival. Babb's regular studio program offers blues fans a fine sampling of new and classic blues, from Robert Johnson to Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials. But when he found out about this festival featuring the likes of Roomful of Blues and other regional and national blues acts, he moved quickly.
He jumped on the phone to receive permission to broadcast the Sunday bands live and huddled with WFOS engineer David Desler to see if it could be done.
Babb received permission from all of the Sunday acts - The Rhythm Kings, The R&B Allstars and the nationally popular Roomful - to air each group live on the air.
And Desler thought the broadcast from the station's remote broadcast van/studio could be done. That was until they ran some tests on Friday.
``I think it was just too much of a distance to broadcast from the Oceanfront back to our studio in Chesapeake,'' Desler said.
So today, you'll have to be content with Babb's studio blues program. But you can't blame Desler and Babb for trying. They vow to succeed in the future. by CNB